A Question of Rebellion

The Planet is “woefully disappointed” with the government and claims that it is becoming an oligarchy of men who fail to terminate disfranchisement in the South.

The declaration of President Roosevelt that no responsible man in the Republican Party has any serious idea in reducing the congressional representation of the South, so long as the disfranchisement of voters is not based upon race or color seem to us to be within the strict lines of the truth. We would like to have shown us though one single difranchising constitutional enactment in the southern states, where this disenfranchising business was not made on account of race and color. In fact this was the avowed purpose of all such legislation. If it was made with the intention of disfranchising the illiterate white man as well as the illiterate Negro, then the electorate of the South has been badly deceived by their supposed friends. So far as the colored folks are concerned they are woefully disappointed over the outlook and many today hope to see the time come again when they shall be permitted to cast that ballot that they had come to regard as the heritage of every American citizen. This country is drifting to that condition of oligarchy, where only the favored few can rule and it is a deaf, dumb and blind man who fails to see it and to realize its disadvantages. The whole theory upon which this government was founded is being reversed.

“A Question of Rebellion,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 17, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/750.