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Equal Rights Union, was held in Montgomery in January, 1874. The resolutions adopted demanded that the blacks have first choice of the nominations in black counties and a proportional share in all other counties. They expressed themselves as opposed to the efforts of the carpet-baggers to organize new secret political societies,
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[2120] If the negroes should be able to obtain these demands, nothing would be left for the white members of the party. The rank and file of the blacks had lost much of their faith in their white leaders and were disposed to listen to candidates of their own color. Closely connected with the negroes' demands for office were their demands for social rights. The state supreme court had decided that whites and blacks might lawfully intermarry, and there had been several instances of such marriages between low persons of each race.[2121] Noisy negro speakers were demanding the passage of the Civil Rights Bill then pending in Congress. A Mobile negro declared that he wanted to drink in white men's saloons, ride in cars with whites, and go to the same balls. The white Radicals in convention and legislature were disposed to avoid the subject when the blacks brought up the question of
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The negroes constantly reminded the white Radicals that the latter were very willing to associate with them in the legislature and in political meetings. The speeches of Boutwell of Massachusetts and Morton of Indiana in favor of mixed schools were quoted by the negro speakers, who now became impatient of the constant request of their leaders not to offend north Alabama and drive out of the party the whites of that region. Lewis, a negro member of the legislature, declared that they were weary of waiting for their rights; that the state would not grant them, but the United States would; and then they would take their proper places alongside the whites, and
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[2122] An
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Equal Rights Convention, from which white Radicals were excluded, met in Montgomery in June, 1874. The various speakers demanded that colored youths be admitted to the State University, to the Agricultural and Mechanical College, and to all other schools on an equal footing with the whites,
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Several delegates expressed themselves as in favor of mixed schools, but advised delay in order not to drive out the white members of the party. A negro preacher from Jackson County said that he wanted to hold on to the north Alabama whites