Down Mobile way, darkies croon to the night on soft spring evenings, grin,
tip hats, as they shuffle past white “gemmen,” still their noble lords
if not their masters. Fortnight ago, Clarence Darrow, keen-witted,
sharp-tongued Northern lawyer, stopped in Mobile, Ala., made speeches
to wide-mouthed black men attacking Negro
lynchings. On street corners hot-blooded white men gathered, muttered
curses on Mr. Darrow, “damned Yankee” agitator. At Negro schools, able
Lawyer Darrow repeated his speeches to the “new Negro.” Klan circulars
said he said: “Resist your white masters. … I see you pray, but to
what good? . . . Your God must be white considering the way he treats
you. No doubt there will be a 'Jim Crow' law in your heaven. I heard
you sing 'Sweet Land of Liberty' but I don't see how you do it. … But
. . . you have some friends not afraid to sit at the table with you. I
have done so, and I've drunk bootleg liquor with you, and in what
better way can friendship be manifested?” Old Mobile seethed in righteous wrath. In homes, in clubs, on streets,
audible threats of tar-barrels, feathers, the noose rose out of
mutterings and fist-shakings. One evening last week warnings from
county officials came to Mr. Darrow, plain-clothes men grouped
themselves about his door; on the next morning he fled on the noon
train to Chattanooga throwing a parting word of denial of what the Klan
said he said, planned to return North.
