Note (return) — Chapter VII · Efforts to Check the Movement

After a conference of three days at Waycross, Georgia, the negroes came to a decision as to the best manner in which to present their cause to the white people with a view to securing their cooperation towards the improvement of conditions in the South to make that section more habitable. "There are four things of which our people complain," they said, "and this conference urges our white friends to secure for us these things with all possible speed. First, more protection at the hands of the law. We ask that the law of the State, made and enforced by white men, should be made to apply with exact justice to both races. We have no sympathy for criminals, but we ask that the innocent shall be protected to the fullest extent of the law. Second, that more liberal provisions be made for the education of our people." They commended Governor Dorsey for his courageous recommendation in his inaugural address that an agricultural school should be established for negroes in some center in southern Georgia, and asked their friends everywhere to urge the members of the legislature from the various counties to put Governor Dorsey's noble sentiments into law. These memorialists felt, too, that as far as possible, wages should be in keeping with the cost of living, and that the white people generally should take an interest in the general welfare of the negroes.91