The Trouble In Georgia

Mitchell talks about the importance of desegregation in schools, and adds "the destiny of America will be finally determined by the character and teaching of the public school."

The proposed race-caste high school at Atlanta, Ga., from which colored pupils are to be excluded, raises the race question in all its aspects on a fundamental American liberty issue which will stir the hearts of the people from Texas to Maine. The race caste educational disenfranchisement of the children of the Negro-serf of the south side by side with the capitalistic educational disenfranchisement of the children of the white-wage slave of the north (the crowning infamy of American capitalism) will of itself, unless checked by the toilers of both sections with a strong hand (and the toilers alone will have to apply the “check”) end in the complete subversion of American liberty.
What the public school is, the Nation will be. For weal or for woe, the destiny of America will be finally determined by the character and teaching of the public school.

“The Trouble In Georgia,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 25, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1745.