But the great mass of Negro agricultural labor is exploited and plundered by the white employer class, and kept poor, because being poor they are esteemed less capable of giving the South trouble.
Grimké argues that the exploitation of Black agricultural labor is a deliberate strategy to maintain control.
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It is true examples of disinterested benevolence and individual sacrifices are numerous, particularly in the Southern States; but no systematic, vigorous, and successful measures have been made to overthrow this fabric of oppression.
Is it any wonder that crime emerges out of such cruel and unequal conditions?
It is a gangrene preying upon our vitals--an earthquake rumbling under our feet--a mine accumulating material for a national catastrophe.
It would reappear as Negro serfdom unless placed in the way of utter extinction.