Atlanta Daily World

Two Atrocities

SHOOTING of a mother with her baby nestled in her arms in Atlanta and the family slaying of a woman in Sylvester, in Worth county, are two of the most atrocious crimes ever committed in Georgia, a land of violence.

It is nothing new for men to stage pitched battles with guns within the city limits. That happens each week.

The individual who knows his Atlanta is prone to yawn when news of some fresh duel is made public. But the shooting in the back of a mother with her child adds a greater shame to an already disgusting condition.

And when a woman's blood relatives plot to kill her for considerable time in order to obtain her money and the estate she administers, the depths of depravity and degeneracy have been reached.

The fact still remains that there is not enough vigorous public sentiment in existence to prevent such happenings. It will take considerable time before the courts, ever slow to change, can see the wisdom in meting the same punishment to those Negroes who kill or injure other Negroes that they would to those who slay or hurt whites.

But the churches are still the Negro's most powerful organizations. The preachers wield tremendous power.

It seems that in our temples would be the best way possible to fight this racial weakness, for its eradication would be of at least as much benefit to the Negro as a whole as the knowledge that Moses led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage.

As long as we read and pass by, just so long will mothers be unsafe in Atlanta and women unsafe in Georgia.