The message was clear to those whose lives depended on staying in their place, or appearing to. “If a Negro rises, he will be careful not to become conspicuous, lest he be accused of putting on airs and thus arouse resentment,” wrote the ethnographer Bertram Schrieke. “Experience or example has taught him that competition and jealousy from the lower classes of whites often form an almost unsurpassable obstacle to his progress.”
