31. A. W. Knowlton, “The Race Problem in the South,” Assembly Herald 3 (November 1900): 883-84.


Opinion piece promoting education as one means of reducing racial discord in the South. The author defines “the Race Problem” in the opening paragraph. “The events of the last year have clearly shown that the race problem, as it is called, is more and more demanding the serious consideration of all Christian people as well as of all patriotic citizens. Ten millions of negroes are here in our land. They cannot be removed to other lands. They are rapidly multiplying. As is true of all other races of men, some of them have brutal instincts and perpetrate shocking crimes, with results such as we have recently been witnessed in New Orleans, New York and in Akron. But is there any essential difference between the deep depravity evinced by the brutal crime of a black man, and that which crops out in the ungovernable rage of white men who wreak their vengeance by the indiscriminate slaughter or abuse of innocent people, simply because they have negro blood in their views, or by the wanton destruction of public and private property, just because they have failed to find a negro who is the direct object of their wrath?”