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He laughed and put away the book he’d been reading

“Are you a journalist, too?” Henley McNeill asked

“No”

“Well, I only ask on account of I saw you reading all those newspapers”

I decided to see where the trutha little research… on the history of lynching”

He blinked, but otherwise betrayed no reaction “Lynching,” he said “In that case, newspapers ht not be your best source of information”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, sir, in my view, the newspapers don’t always tell the truth

“Let ive you a point of observation,” McNeill continued “Now, this is just the opinion of one ht here in Mississippi Andat Stones River”

Henley McNeill seemed like a sensible fellow This was the very type of man Roosevelt had in mind when he sent me down here to speak with the locals

“The white man doesn’t hate the colored man,” he said “The white man is just afraid of the colored man”

“Afraid?”

“Not afraid in the way you think He’s not afraid the colored h, let’s be honest, if you turned a colored ainst it, there’s no telling what ht happen”

He leaned forward in his seat, speaking intensely “What genuinely scares the whiteto suck up all the jobs froot out of Me cities—Nashville, New Orleans, Atlanta You got thousands and thousands of Negroes running around looking for jobs And every one of ’e to work cheaper than the white man, be they a field hand, a factory hand, or what have you”

I told McNeill that I understood what he was saying In fact, it was not the first time I’d heard that theory