Our criminal classes do many things which the law forbids to be done not because they are of one race or color or of another race or color, but mainly because they are poor and ignorant.
In this statement, Grimké argues that crime is primarily a result of socioeconomic factors rather than race, advocating for a broader understanding of criminality.
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And politics is business, is the big business is it not, or ought it not to be the big business of all self governing peoples, who would maintain justice and freedom for themselves and transmit them unimpaired to their posterity?
That the founder of the new political party, as a practical man, should discriminate between colored men with a vote and colored men without a vote seems to me to be altogether natural, to grow, in fact, out of the necessities of every…
That colored men with the ballot should be rated in terms of the political game higher than other colored men who have it not, violates no rule of business ethics.
But to do this, to realize on their party promises and pledges to the people, they must have votes, not mere good will which can not translate itself into effective support on election day.