Coleman L. Blease Quotes

... a lynching of the Constitution.

Southern attempts to deny blacks equal rights were turning the Constitution into a sublime and beautiful scripture—into a horrid charter of wrong.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

... rich white leaders of the American South defeated populism in the late 19th century, by persuading poor Whites to hate poor Blacks.

In the combat between the emerging Negroes of the South and the ruling white trash, I sympathize greatly with the Negro.

In the South the white men used to call all Black men “boy” until they got to be old enough to call them “uncle.” It was sex-the feat of sexual competition. When they used to get liquored up and talk they would always say, “The schoolroom leads to the bedroom” to justify school segregation.

These barbarities [American lynchings] have found many apologists, on the ground that the negroes are licentious and dishonest--as, indeed, many of them are. But who set them the example, and educated them in these vices? In too many cases the white population, and even their legal authorities.

Lynchings were public events attended by the town’s leading citizens. They were almost a sport ….Between 1882 and 1968, an estimated 4,742 blacks met their deaths at the hands of lynch mobs.

There are many, very many blacks who… begin to feel themselves consequential, …. will not be satisfied unless they get white women for wives, and are likewise exceedingly impertinent to white people in low circumstances…. I solemnly swear, I have seen more white women married to, and deluded through the arts of seduction by negroes in one year in Philadelphia, than for eight years I was visiting (West Indies and the Southern States)…. There are perhaps hundreds of white women thus fascinated by black men in this city, and there are thousands of black children by them at present

The Negro people, most exploited of the toilers, suffering from lynching and Jim Crowism, robbed of their constitutional rights, are being prepared to fight another war for 'democracy' in order to further enslave them.

In eighteen states in this white man's country and also in the District of Columbia, where the Nation's Capitol is located, intermarriage of the races is permitted by law. This fact is a national shame, or should I say crime, against the white race of America, and I pray God that these states and the Congress of the United States … will do something about this situation before it is too late

White society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White society created it; white institutions maintain it; and white society condones it.

One often-cited abuse of the [jury] nullification power is the acquittal by bigoted juries of whites who commit crimes (lynching, for example) against blacks. That repellent practice cannot be directly arrested without jeopardizing important constitutional protections.

When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it.

I know my destiny. I was born into animosity, bigotry and hatred. We had water for white folks, and water for coloured folks. White lines, black lines. I came from Beaufort in South Carolina, and it was tougher than Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

Their prejudice allowed white Southerners to look the other way when blacks were denied their most basic human rights, and it encouraged the worst of them to engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence.

The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.

We are letting the Mexicans and blacks wreck our country today not because the blacks or the Mexicans are able to brainwash us but because the Jews are. Mexicans are not a menace to us because they breed fast and carry switchblades. Blacks are not a menace because there are a lot of them and they have a tendency toward violence. We know how to deal with people who breed fast and carry switchblades. We know how to deal with violent blacks, no matter how many of them there are. Cleaning up America might be a bit messy, but there's absolutely no question about our ability to do it, if we had the will to do it.

I beg that some shadow of a colour bar, some little inequality between white and black before the law be retained.

The general interest both of the white man and of the negroes requires that he should be kept as near to the condition of slavery as possible’

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

Gentlemen, you are trampling on the sovereignty of this great state.... You are destroying the Constitution of this great nation.... May God have mercy on your souls.

I would not use the influence of my office to deter citizens from punishing that nigger brute. I would have gladly resigned as governor and gone to Honea Path and led the mob myself.

If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.

I thought that we would wake up this morning and have the same rights as our husbands, grandsons and garbage men—but we are still begging to be let into our country's Constitution.