0.3 Negro and white exclusion towns in indian territory and oklahoma  (Page 10/2)

Affairs relating to the question of race are apparently rapidly passing from a stage of quietude to one of considerable activity since the recent troubles in army and political circles, occasioned by the misunderstandings that have grown up between the white men and the Negro in the United States. The question has been provoked on all sides by the discussions of men prominent in politics and in the world of thought. Of late even the ranks of the conservatives have been stirred and patent facts of growing significance are challenging the attention of those who have never before given to the public their opinions on the subject. The occurrences that have stimulated public interest in the race question are comparatively recent ones, and in truth they seem to be of the most important nature. But despite the fact that serious clashes between the opposed interests are apparently recent, there has existed for some time back, say ten or twelve years, a threatening state of affairs in the southwestern part of the country. This state of affairs is probably destined to exercise considerable influence on the settlement of the race question, if such a settlement takes place, and it has been gradually assuming vigor and strength, particularly in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma.

It is remarkable that social observers as a rule are generally unacquainted with the conditions referred to. The social intermingling of the three races, white, Indian, and Negro, in the former territories, and their peculiar relations with each other have been accountable for the development of a hostile spirit between the whites and Negroes which has led them to exclude each other from certain towns where either party has strength enough to do so. The towns where white men have forbidden the residence of any Negro whatsoever, and those of the other class wherein Negroes have in their turn assumed the prerogative of expelling white men who may desire to do business or reside there, are fairly numerous. It would not be a difficult matter today to make out a list of the first class, but owing to the inconspicuous nature and remoteness of some of the Negro settlements of this sort, it would require considerable horseback travel to arrange a list of the latter.

During several seasons in Indian Territory, however, in 1904 and 1905, the importance of the above mentioned racial antagonism was brought to my attention, at first very casually. While waiting at the railroad station at Chandler, Oklahoma, for a late train, a Negro, his belongings wrapped in a bandanna, inquired of me whether Stroud, a large town some distance to the east, was open to Negros. I replied with some surprise that I did not know, but asked him some questions, and in a short time I learned of the hostile feeling in many parts of the then territories which has given birth to the high-handed expulsive acts committed by both parties. As it proved, Stroud was a newly converted exclusion town and when the train arrived there Sam, who was of a determined nature, decided to learn for himself whether or not he could take the job of waiting in the hotel which had been offered to him. A large crowd of white men filled the station platform and Sam was immediately lost to view in a surrounding mass of inquirers, who were enforcing upon him in various ways the fact that it would not be “healthy” to stay over night there. I noticed, nevertheless, that he stayed. Stroud, as it was later rumored, had only recently turned anti-Negro and I learned that within two weeks the only family of resident Negroes, who persisted in their intention of braving the opposition, had been blown up with dynamite. “No lives lost, but the house demolished and Negroes ousted,” was the gist of the newspaper accounts.