Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/161

This page needs to be proofread.

trace that has been found: "Whereas, the national league of American wheelmen, at their convention held in Louisville, Kentucky, on the twentieth day of February, in the present year, voted to exclude colored persons from membership in said organization, which exclusion affects the members of the organization resident in Massachusetts; Resolved, That the General Court deprecates the action of the organization above referred to, and regards the enforcement of discriminations of this character as a revival of baseless and obsolete prejudices."


CHURCHES

Colorado is the only State that has undertaken by legislation to guarantee to Negroes full and equal accommodations in churches. The rest have left it to the churches themselves to decide the matter.

It is generally known that during slavery the Negroes, for the most part, attended the white churches, where galleries were set apart for them, were members thereof, and were served by white ministers. After Emancipation, the Negroes withdrew from the white churches and built places of worship of their own. To-day, in all parts of the country, where Negroes live in considerable numbers, they have their own churches. In such cities as Boston, where the doors of all churches are in theory open to every race, Negro churches are found in the Negro districts.

Although there is practically race separation in the churches of the whole country, all the difficulties have not been solved. In 1903, the Freedman's Aid and Southern Educational Society, an organization of the bishops of the