My opposition to injustice, imposition, discrimination and prejudice, which have for many years existed against the colored people of the South, has led to this little book. In many parts of America the press has been furnished with “matter” for defending the colored people, through the medium of “Coleman’s Illustrated Lectures.” By request of my many auditors, some of whom being leading elements of the Northern States and Canada, this volume is published. Many persons interested in the welfare of the negro, have sought a more elaborate book on the Southern horrors. Therefore, the manner in which the colored people are treated, and the laws devised against them from time to time, are the chief subjects." (Rev. J.C. Coleman) Quoting extensively from Henry McNeal Turner and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, as well as his own experiences traveling in the South and on segregated American railroad lines, the Reverend John Clay Coleman published this book on the state of the Jim Crow era in the American South, examining the US Supreme Court decision declaring the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, the horrors of lynching (and his own experience raising a guard of black citizens of Decatur, IL, to protect the life of a man jailed there), and the degradation of segregation. (TheodenHumphrey)