Neither is there
any provision whatsoever in the State for the care of feeble-minded
colored children. And there is one thing even worse to be said. Shameful
as are Georgia's frequent lynchings, shameful as is the State's
indifference to negro welfare, blacker yet is the law upon her statute
books making the "age of consent" _ten years_! Various women's
organizations, and individual women, have, for decades, worked to change
this law, but without success. The term "southern chivalry" must ring
mocking and derisive in the ears of Georgia legislators until this
disgrace is wiped out. Standing as it does, it means but one thing: that
in order to protect some white males in their depravity, the voters of
Georgia are satisfied to leave little girls, ten, eleven, twelve years
of age, and upward, white as well as colored, utterly unprotected by the
law in this regard.
I have heard more than one woman in Georgia intimate that she would be
well pleased with a little less exterior "chivalry" and a little more
plain justice. Aside from their efforts to change the "age of consent"
law, leading women in the State have been working for compulsory
education, for the opening of the State University to women, for factory
inspection and decent child-labor laws. The question of child labor has
now been taken in hand by the National Government--as, of course, the
"age of consent" should also be--but in other respects but little
progress has been made in Georgia.
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