Gammon Theological Seminary is, I am informed, the one
adequately endowed educational establishment for negroes in Atlanta. It
would, of course, be a splendid thing if the best of these schools and
colleges could be combined.
Citizens of Atlanta do not, generally, take the interest they ought to
take in these or other institutions for the benefit of negroes. To be
sure, most Southerners do not believe in higher education for negroes;
but, even allowing for that viewpoint, it is manifestly unfair that
white children should have public high schools and that negro children
should have none, but should be obliged to pay for their education above
the grammar grades. Perhaps there are people in Atlanta who believe that
even a high-school education is undesirable for the negro. That,
however, seems to me a pretty serious thing for one race to attempt to
decide for another--especially when the deciding race is not deeply and
sincerely interested in the uplift of the race over which it holds the
whip hand. Certainly intelligent people in the South believe in
industrial training for the negro, and equally certainly a negro high
school could give industrial training.
Negroes are not admitted to Atlanta parks, nor are there any parks
exclusively for them. Until recently there was no contagious-disease
hospital to which negroes could be taken, and there is not now a
reformatory for colored girls in the State of Georgia.
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