A Judge’s Advice

White judge advocates that African American defend themselves in the wake of injustice, saying “to the colored men, defend your race.

A mob of white men attacked a number of colored people at Emid, Oklahoma, March 14th, 1901, while they were innocently enjoying a cake-walk. The colored people were badly injured. Several white men and one colored man were arrested. The white jury discharged all the white men and was no doubt ready to punish the colored man. The outrage was so palpable and the injustice so scandalous that Federal Judge John L. McAteter discharged the colored man and administered the following stinging rebuke to the white jury: “I say to the colored men defend your race. If the laws are not sufficient, the God of nature has placed in your hearts the conscious right to protect yourselves, and while I sit on the bench, if white juries cannot reach white offenders, black men shall not be punished by me, if they defend themselves.” This language has the right ring to it, and is in keeping with the declarations which we have made in these columns from time to time. There are white men in the country who favor fair play and will back colored men in all legitimate efforts to protect themselves against the murderous elements, who now infest certain sections of this republic. A man who will not protect his own life and that of his family from outrage and murder is generally regarded as being himself unworthy of protection. Yes, we reiterate it: Ever colored man in the Southland should have a repeating rifle or a shot-gun in his cabin for hunting purposes, and he should possess the nerve to use it when lawless mobs infest the neighborhood and without the shadow of right seek to invade the sanctity of his home or violate the sacredness of his person upon the high-ways. Whether by his own efforts or those of his white neighbors, lynch law must go!

“A Judge’s Advice,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed September 14, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/252.