facts as they exist. They will serve at the same time as a defense for the
Afro-Americans Sampsons who suffer themselves to be betrayed by white
Delilahs.

The whites of Montgomery, Ala., knew J.C. Duke sounded the keynote of the
situation--which they would gladly hide from the world, when he said in
his paper, the _Herald_, five years ago: "Why is it that white women
attract negro men now more than in former days? There was a time when such
a thing was unheard of. There is a secret to this thing, and we greatly
suspect it is the growing appreciation of white Juliets for colored
Romeos." Mr. Duke, like the _Free Speech_ proprietors, was forced to leave
the city for reflecting on the "honah" of white women and his paper
suppressed; but the truth remains that Afro-American men do not always
rape(?) white women without their consent.

Mr. Duke, before leaving Montgomery, signed a card disclaiming any
intention of slandering Southern white women. The editor of the _Free
Speech_ has no disclaimer to enter, but asserts instead that there are
many white women in the South who would marry colored men if such an act
would not place them at once beyond the pale of society and within the
clutches of the law. The miscegnation laws of the South only operate
against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free
to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man
who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white
women. White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a
despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women.