"SOCIAL EQUALITY"
By KELLY MILLER
HOWARD UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.
A STRANGER to American institu¬
tions would be curiously impressed
by the separate and distinct social areas
which the two races occupy. Here are
two peoples, domiciled in the same
territory, invested with equal civil and
political rights, speaking the same lan¬
guage, loyal to the same institutions,
worshipping God after the same ritual,
and linked together in a common des¬
tiny j and yet in all purely personal and
pleasurable intercourse, they are as far
apart as if separated by interstellar
space. "Social equality," is the shib¬
boleth which divides the races asunder.
This slogan, like a savage warwhoop,
arouses the deepest venom of race,
which slumbers only skin deep beneath
a thin veneer of civilization. This ex¬
pression cannot be defined according to
the ordinary import and weight of words.
Whoever coined it possessed a genius
for summoning the evil spirit. The term
has no exact lexical status, but it is sur¬
charged with idiomatic meaning. We
can no more determine its potency and
power from the component words than
we can judge the emblematic signifi¬
cance of "Old Glory" by the fabric and
dye stuff that enter into its composition.
As the sight of the flag evokes the
patriotic zeal of the loyal beholder, or
as the soldier makes frantic response to
the alarum "to arms," so the tocsin,
"social equality," arouses the pride of
class and wrath of race. "Social" and
"equality" are two excellent, elegant
words; but "social equality" must not
be pronounced in good society, like two
harmless chemical elements uniting to
make a dangerous compound. This
phrase has unbounded potency over the
passion of the white man of the South.
He religiously obeys its behest, at
whatever sacrifice or cost of conscience.
He bows down and worships before a
verbal idol with fear and trembling, as
a heathen before his graven God. The
sanction of its decree is more binding
than that of legal code, religious creed,
or the claims of humanity. Pope has
given a poetic setting to the moral con¬
viction of mankind that conscience is
the rightful arbiter of conduct:
"What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do ;
This teach me more than hell to shun,
That more than heaven pursue."
If in this elegant quatrain we substi¬
tute "social equality" for conscience,
although we mar the meter, it adapts
the meaning to the social creed of the
South. The interpretation which that
section places upon "social equality"
constitutes the crux of the race problem,
and conditions all modes of rights, privi¬
leges and opportunity, whether they be
political, civil, educational or industrial.
By reason of its exactions, the negro is
not desired by the white man to vote for
the same candidate, work at the same
handicraft, enjoy the same public and
civic privileges, to worship at the same
shrine, or to be buried in the same
graveyard. It is indeed the ruling pas¬
sion strong in death. Race prejudice
which this phrase evokes is not amenable
to the formulas of logic; it is impatient
of fact, and intolerant of argument and
demonstration. It does not reason, it
asserts and asservates. Its traditional
method is a word and a blow.
At one time it was the avowed policy
of the dominant South to furnish the
negro equal public opportunity with the
whites, while insisting on the separation
of the races in all purely social features.
This was the gospel according to the
late Henry W. Grady, who, before his
untimely death, bid fair to become not
" SOCIAL EQUALITY"
only the mouth-piece but the oracle of
the New South. Senator D. M. Mc-
Enery of Louisiana, in a notable speech
in the United States senate several years
ago, said: "There never has been any
disposition on the part of the people of
Louisiana to deprive the negro of his
political and civil rights. There has
been and will continue to be a deter¬
mination, fixed and unalterable, to deny
him social privilege on equality with the
whites, and to prohibit him from aspir¬
ing to any equality in social life, which
nature forbids." Passing by the gra¬
cious proffer to assist nature in carrying
out her inexorable decree, this deliver¬
ance shows plainly that the social policy
of the South is regarded as the primary
factor, and political and civil regulations
are but corollaries of the leading propo¬
sition. In society as in science, the
greater includes the less.
But of late we have heard a new voice
from the South. It is louder and less
considerate of the claims of humanity
than the milder tones of the more dig¬
nified and decorous leadership which it
seeks to supplant. This is the voice of
Tillman and Vardaman and Baringer
and Thomas Dixon. These new oracles
tell us that the negro must be denied
political, civil, educational and even in¬
dustrial opportunity, lest "social equal¬
ity" should be the consummation of it
all. The Ten Commandments, the%
Golden Rule, the Sermon on the
Mount, the Declaration of Indepen¬
dence, the Constitution of the United
States, and the genius and tradition of
American institutions are held in open
defiance by a narrow and provincial
spirit. The ethical and political founda¬
tions of social order are ruthlessly over¬
borne by the fiat of a silly phrase. The
question is of vital concern to every
lo>_;il American citizen. For if this
spirit is allowed to prevail, and the
negro is, of set policy, suppressed
below the level of American manhood,
in deference to an absurd social theory,
then his statue will inevitably settle into
a servile caste as rigid and inexorable as
that which blights oriental civilization
The enlightened patriotism that rose up
in righteous wrath against human slavery
cannot view with composure the estab¬
lishment on American soil of an iniqui¬
tous caste, which is even more repug¬
nant to the genius of free institutions.
The silent South, the survivors and de¬
scendants of the better type of the slave-
holding class, the men and women in
whose breasts even the blighting influ¬
ence of slavery could not sour the milk
of human kindness, are now held, as in
a vise, by this narrow and intolerant
spirit. They have no frantic dread o.
the social affiliation of the races. In¬
deed, according to their traditional
social code, intimate personal associa¬
tion with the uncouth and uncultivated
whites is almost as distasteful a contem¬
plation. And yet the cry of social
equality has been so persistently and
boisterously dinned in their ears, that
an imaginary evil has assumed the sem¬
blance of a real danger. This voice has
been hushed; they have become tongue-
tied, and are as completely divested of
freedom, either of action or utterance,
as the poor negro who bears the brunt of
it all. If liberal-minded southern white
men, like George W. Cable, or John
Spencer Bassett, or Andrew Sledd,
though still yielding allegiance to the
prevailing social dogma, dare lift their
voice, even in faintest whisper, in pro¬
test against the evil perpetrated in its
name, they are forthwith lashed into
silence by popular fury and scorn. Race
hatred is the most malignant poison that
can afflict the mind. It chills the higher
faculties of the soul. The restiveness
of the high-souled sons of the South
under restriction imposed by the less
enlightened of their own race is the
only hopeful rift that we can see in the
dark and lowering cloud.
Every system of oppression seeks to
justify itself. The institutions of slavery
NATIONAL MAGAZINE for FEBRUARY, 1905
ransacked science, history, literature and
religion in quest of fact and argument
to uphold the iniquitous system. There
is almost an exact parallel between the
methods employed in support of human
slavery and those that are now being
resorted to in justification of the decrees
of "social equality."
We are told that the separation of the
races is ordained of God, just as slavery
used to be called a "divine institution."
It is strange indeed that those who
breath out hatred and slaughter against
their fellow men are ever prone to claim
divine prerogative in carrying out their
iniquitous scheme. The alliance of
Providence with the type of men who
are now leading the propaganda of race
hatred would reverse all of our received
notions of the divine attributes.
Physical dissimilarity is siezed upon
as a badge of distinction, and a hasty
judgment easily confuses the index with
the indicated potency. But, as is well
known, difference of race and color has
never prevented the closest intimacy of
personal association. The gentleman
who drives to the station "cheek by
jowl" with his black coachman, but who
becomes furious on being made joint
occupant with a black seat-fellow in
a railway coach, is actuated by an im¬
pulse other than purely physical repug¬
nance. If race friction rested solely
upon physical basis, we should expect its
rigor to be uniform wherever such dis¬
tinctions prevail. But, as a matter of
fact, we find that it is subject to the
widest latitude of variability, and is
almost indefinitely modifiable by cir¬
cumstances and conditions. It presents
little of the fixity and inflexible character
of natural law. The Teuton manifests it
in a different degree from the Latin
races, with whom ethnic peculiarities
count for little or nothing against moral
and spiritual homogeneity. Rio de
Janeiro and Richmond, Virginia, are
typical illustrations of the two spirits as
respects the entente of dissimilar races.
Prejudice is more pronounced, or at
least assumes a different aspect, in the
southern than in the northern state,
being stimulated by the relative number
and erstwhile status of the two elements.
It becomes mild or virulent, according
to incentive or occasion. In individual
instances, it almost or wholly disappears,
and can be aroused only by playing upon
his class interests, prejudice and pride.
Grant Allen tells us somewhere that the
same Englishman who seems to ignore
race differences at home, becomes the
most intolerant of men when he takes
residence in the colonies. If the sepa¬
ration of the races is a decree of provi¬
dence working through nature, what
need of human help in carrying out that
decree? The reenactment of the laws of
the Almighty leads naturally to the con¬
viction that those who so eagerly proffer
this assistance are actuated by a wish
rather than a conviction. The negro is
not credited with natural repugnance
against associating with white men.
The charge that they must be restricted
in their eagerness for such association
is the highest possible unwitting proof
that the aversion between the races can¬
not be wholly accounted for by natural
antipathy. The lion and the lamb do
not enjoy a common bed, because such
social intimacy is doubtless as distaste¬
ful to the lamb as to the lion. Natural
antipathy is a reciprocal feeling.
The attempt to base the separation of
the races upon psychological grounds is
equally void of substantiation. There
is no clearly discernible pyschological
difference. No reputable authority has
yet pointed out any sharply defined
psychic discriminant. The mind of the
negro is of the same nature as that of
the white man, and responds to the same
nurture. There is not a single intel¬
lectual, moral or spiritual excellence
achieved by the white race to which the
negro mind does not yield an apprecia¬
tive response. If it could be shown that
the negro was incapable of mastering
" SOCIAL EQUALITY "
the intricacies of Aryan speech, that he
could not possibly comprehend the intel¬
lectual basis of modern culture, that he
could not be made amenable to the white
man's ethical standards or feel his spiri¬
tual motive, there would be need of no
further proof. But the line of psychic
demarcation cannot be made to coincide
with race cleavage in a single phase of
intellectual, moral or spiritual aptitude.
The difference of attainment is readily
accounted for by what Benjamin Kidd
calls social efficiency, or the discipline
of civilization. We cannot predicate
superiority or inferiority except as a
transient phase of human development.
There is little room to doubt that the
feeling against the negro is of the
nature of inspirited animosity rather
than natural antipathy, and can be
accounted for, in large part, by the erst¬
while status which he has occupied in
the social scheme. A people who have
yet made no considerable contribution
to the general culture of the human
spirit, and whose traditional relation
with European civilization has been of
a servile sort, are naturally enough not
deemed eligible to the ennobling circle
of Aryan fellowship. The violent sever¬
ance of servile bonds, and the humilia¬
tion of the southern man's tough Teu¬
tonic spirit by outside compulsion, en¬
gendered deep and long-abiding ani¬
mosities.
But the chief cause of race estrange¬
ment is of a political nature, if we be
allowed to use that term, not merely in
the technical sense of statecraft, but as
comprehending the calculated policy of
the ruling class toward the despised ele¬
ment. The cultivation of class con¬
sciousness is one of the most familiar
phenomena of history. The line of de¬
marcation is drawn at any easily dis¬
cernible difference, whether it be geo¬
graphical, racial, natural, political, reli¬
gious, or minor distinctions of a physi¬
cal or psychical nature. History is
largely concerned with the conflict of
antithetic classes. The struggle between
Greek and Barbarian, Jew and Gentile,
Christian and Mohammedan, Catholic
and Protestant, Norman and Saxon,
is but prototype of the conflict which
now wages about the color line. Evil
disposition combined with shrewdly cal¬
culated design can always stir up class
friction. Two friendly baseball teams
can easily be wrought up to a pitch
of murderous fury against each other.
The yellow press of this country can,
within a few months, involve the United
States in war with a nation with whom
we are now on the closest terms of inter¬
national friendship. A heterogeneous
population, where the elements are, on
any account, easily distinguishable, fur¬
nishes an easy prey for the promoter of
strife. The fuse is already prepared for
the spark. The peace and tranquility of
such a community depends upon the
highest enlightenment and moral re¬
straint in the leadership of the separable
elements.
That the dominant South is deter¬
mined to foster artificial barriers be¬
tween the races is clearly seen in the
utterances and action of its leaders. It
was Henry W. Grady who laid down the
platform: "We believe that there is an
instinct ineradicable and positive which
keeps the races apart. We add in per¬
fect frankness, however, that if the South
had any reasonable doubt of its existence
it would, by every means in its power,
so strengthen the race prejudice that it
would do the work and hold the stub¬
bornness and strength of instinct." The
more recent leadership of the South,
without the clear discernment and con¬
scientious restraint of the brilliant Geor¬
gian, has siezed upon this suggestion for
sinister and selfish ends, They have
harped upon the chord of race preju¬
dice as a musician upon his favorite
instrument. Seemingly dubious of the
sufficiency of natural antipathy, they
have sought to give it the requisite
strength and stubbornness. The fire of
NATIONAL MAGAZINE for FEBRUARY, 1905
race hatred has been fanned until it has
become an uncontrollable flame. Soci¬
ologists tell us that the collective soul
is less sensitive than the conscience of
the individual. It responds to the shib¬
boleths and slogans whose refrain is
malice and strife. The soul of the mob
is stirred by the suggestion of hatred
and slaughter, as a famished beast at
the smell of blood. Hatred is a great
social dynamic, the ever handy instru¬
ment of the unscrupulous demagogue.
The rabble responds so much more
easily to an appeal to passion than to
reason. To wantonly stir up the fires
of race antipathy is as execrable a deed
as flaunting a red rag in the face of
a bull at a Summer's picnic, or of
raising a false cry of "fire" in a
crowded house. And yet this is just
what the politician is doing in order to
carry his crafty ends. He has raised
the cry of "negro domination" when all
the world knows that the negro is no
more able to dominate the South than
iliC babies in the cradle. But it serves
its purpose by raising race animosity,
which easily overrides all arguments
based on tax, tariff or the relative value
of silver and gold.
The cry of "negro rapist" has been
skillfully and wilfully proclaimed. The
most dastardly deeds of the most das¬
tardly members of the human race,
though perhaps not exceeding in num¬
ber or heinousness like offences through¬
out the civilized world, have been exag¬
gerated and advertised as the negro's
peculiar trait. Every negro who has
suffered violence at the hands of a
bloodthirsty mob has been held up to
the world as being lynched for a name¬
less crime, when the plain facts of
record show that not one such lynching
in four can plead even the allegement
of rape in extenuation. But of what
avail is fact or statistics against the cry
of "negro brute?" When the cry of
"mad dog" is raised, no induction of
fact can arouse sympathy for the cruel
usage heaped upon the canine thus
branded. The end is served when the
cry is raised.
But when all other devices have failed,
"social equality" is relied on as the last
appeal to give stubbornness and strength
to race prejudice. But it is a dangerous
thing to evoke the evil spirit. It will
turn again and rend him who called it
forth. The South, itself, and indeed
the whole American people must be the
eventual sufferers by the carnival of
cruelty and crime evoked by these cun¬
ningly contrived epithets.
"America must be all white or all
mulatto" is the motto and motive of
"The Leopard's Spots," the most evilly
potential book of this generation. The
large question of race amalgamation is
too complex for parenthetical treatment
in this discussion. But it is sufficient
to say that blending of the races is less
likely to take place, if the dignity, self-
respect, and manly opportunity of the
negro are encouraged and respected,
than if he is forever crushed beneath the
level of his faculties for fancied dread
of "social equality." The only way to
foster race pride which in turn leads to
the preservation of race type and race
integrity, is to open up vista and scope
to the black man's aspiration. How can
one be expected to be proud to be
a negro, if the American people, of set
policy, fix the status of the race on par
with that of the beast of burden? The
inexorable decree of "social equality"
is every day defeating its own purpose.
Hundreds of mixed bloods are daily
crossing the color line, and carrying
with them so much of the despised
blood as an albicant skin can conceal
without betrayal. The man or woman
who denies, ignores, or affects to scorn
the class with which he previously affili¬
ated is generally deemed deficient in
the nobler qualities of human nature.
It is not conceivable that any of this
class would undergo the degradation of
character and humiliation of soul neces-
"SOCIAL EQUALITY"
sary to cross the great social "divide,"
unless it be in order to escape for them¬
selves and for their descendants an
odious and despised status. Intermarri¬
ages usually take place among the lower
stratum of both races. The refined and
cultivated class among the colored peo¬
ple show as much distaste for such alli¬
ances as the whites themselves. Fred¬
erick Douglass materially affected his
hold upon the affection of the colored
race, especially the cultivated woman¬
hood, by his second marriage. Degra¬
dation of the negro would lead soonest
to the destruction of type and final
blending of race through illicitness.
Had slavery continued for another cen¬
tury, without fresh African importation,
there would scarcely have remained an
unbleached negro in America. The best
possible illustration that a cultivated
sense of self-respect does not lead to in¬
termarriage is furnished by Oberlin col¬
lege in Ohio, and Berea college in Ken¬
tucky. These institutions have had
thousands of students of both races,
males and females, associating on terms
of personal respect and good will; and
yet, in all these years, there has not
occurred a single case of miscegenation.
Contrast this record with the concubin¬
age of the southern plantation or the
illicit relations of the city slums, and it
becomes at once apparent where the real
danger of race mixture lies.
The observation of Mr. Dixon is
a little late in the making. Whence
comes this white blood that flows, with
greater or less spissitude, in the veins
of some six out of eight millions of
negroes? Is it due to the bleaching
breath of Saxon civilization? Who
brought about the present approach-
ment between the races? The strenu¬
ous advocacy of race purity in face
of proved proneness for miscegenation
affords a striking reminder of the lines of
Hudibras: "The self-same thing they do
abhor, one way, and long another for."
The charge that the educated negro is
in quest of social affiliation with the
whites is absurdly untrue. His sense of
self-respect effectively forbids forcing
himself upon any unwelcome association.
Household intercourse and domestic
familiarity are essentially questions of
personal privilege. The choice of one's
friends and intimate associates is the
most delicate phase of the pursuit of
happiness. Such matters are regulated
wholly by personal preference and affin¬
ity of taste. The social integrity of the
white race is within its own keeping.
The social citadel is not subject to
assault and battery. The aphorism of
Emerson is as true of races as of indi¬
viduals: "No man can come near me
except through my own act.''
The negro is building up his own
society based upon character, culture
and the nice amenities of life, and can
find ample social satisfaction within the
limits of his own race. President Eliot
of Harvard university has told us in
a recent utterance that the white man of
the North is not less averse than his
southern brother to the social mingling
of the races. The negro, too, has social
sensibilities. He will never complain
against any white man, North or South,
because he is not invited to dine at his
table, sit in his pew or dance with his
daughter. But the negro ought not to
be expected to accept that interpretation
of "social equality" which would rob him
of political and civil rights, as well as of
educational and industrial opportunity.
For the negro to supinely surrender
his status of political and civic equality
would be as unmanly as a silly insistence
upon unwelcome social relations would
be unmannerly. The negro and the white
man in this country must live together
for all time which we can foresee.
They must mingle in business and in
public life. All their relations should
be characterized by mutual respect,
courtesy and good will. In all purely
personal and social matters let each,
if he will, go unto his own company.