“I know just how you feel about it. It makes me mad as blue blazes, too, but what can you do about it? If it had been you or me that conductor would have used physical violence and he’d have been helped by every white man on the car. About the only thing that saved your wife and daughter was that they’re women—they can get away with lots more than we can because they are women. No, Daquin, you might as well let the matter drop and forget it. Protest will do no good and you haven’t a chance in the courts.” …
On another occasion one of Jean’s associates whose skin was brown but whose wife’s was fair, assisted his own wife in boarding a car. A crowd of whites jumped down from the vehicle and pummeled him viciously before his wife could explain that she too was a Negro. …
Jean bought for their use a horse and surrey and thereafter they never rode in the cars. He was conscious that this was an ineffective compromise with principle but he was happy in that compromise in that it gave him greater peace of mind.
With such exceptions their lot was not a very difficult one. In the stores Mrs. Daquin was not allowed to try on hats or shoes or dresses before purchasing them and they frequently were forced to wait until whites who had entered after they had were served. But with time they became accustomed to these slights and particularly when they found that with but few exceptions these were accepted by their friends as the expected thing, unpleasant but inevitable. “You can get used to being hung if you’re only hung often enough,” seemed to be current philosophy, except in the cases of the younger ones. …
Beside their regular lives of work and play they found an additional outlet in various affairs at the colleges which were situated in Atlanta. There were occasional musical evenings, now and then some speaker of note came and lectured. There were baseball and football games between