them two days and nights through fields and swamps. Thirteen captives were taken from jail and shot, and a pile of 25 dead bodies was found buried in the woods.²³

Much of this evidence is from politically partisan investigators who were seeking political capital and trying to make a case.²⁴ But allowing even a generous discount the record is black. The so-called exodus of Negroes to certain Northern States in 1876–1878 showed the force driving the Negro from his home. A Congressional committee learned that a committee of 500 Negroes had secured the names of 98,000 possible emigres. This investigating committee declared:

Nearly all the witnesses gave as the causes of the exodus: the feeling of insecurity for life and property; the denial of political rights as citizens; long continued persecution for political reasons; the system of cheating; the inadequacy of the school system; and the fear of being reduced to peonage.²⁵

To sum up the Reconstruction record the fact is perfectly clear that with the passions of war still running strong with political blunders on both sides, with race prejudice and economic re-adjustment, the Negro in the South had no liberty.

NEGRO LIBERTY IN OUR DAY

The period between 1883 and 1920 is one in which the Negro has achieved a greater measure of civil rights. But in spite of a constant struggle and help of his friends, his status is still far from the level of personal and constitutional liberty enjoyed by the most disadvantaged whites. The struggle may be described under three heads: first, for bodily safety against illegal violence; second, for civil and political rights with equality before the law; third, for such social and economic rights as free education and a free race press. Violence constitutes the larger field of attack on the Negro, with its long and shameful record of lynching and mob outrages.