>< =< SS fe a i i Atal a Seats ES Se SS == = Sat rr is sorassuaest ii iW at = RY OF PRINg se “79 SEP 29 1981 Section » Ol. e = [ie & é : i ‘ ay hy - Ne 7 7 . iat ‘ Ray, aa) my ,: a : 0 = : i= 2 Dae Fe ee ‘I 8 x Digitized by the Internet Bchivall : in 2022 with ‘una al https://archive.org/details/negroinamericanl00do THE NEGRO -IN AMERICAN LIFE wi¢ t mse 4 in Aaa iw! i : ers a) AOE i b ine P) iti sis ie y NO) Sih Vs a ap if spel ‘ a Se ea ty | - AM ‘ Amal ea moat i { \ is i i a, a e j baled DET sy Ne i ‘tae i / : / i Y ‘ ue 4 WT ri , INGE 7 4 THE NEGRO aah Y, eS <2 ogicaL SENS IN AMERICAN LIF BY JEROME DOWD, M.A. PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA AUTHOR OF “THE NEGRO RACES (IN AFRICA),” “DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA,” ETC., ETC. PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK LONDON Copyright, 1926, by Tue Century Co. Printed in U. S. A. PREFACE The question of race relationships is one of the greatest of social questions. Throughout history there have been no influences more determinative of the character and direction of human societies than those of racial contact and conflict, of racial fusion, and of interchange of racial cultures. Not only the greatest exaltations, but also the great- est downward plunges of human societies, have come from racial con- tacts. The amazing fact is the almost universal ignorance prevailing among the American people in reference to this matter of race relationships. In a few of our universities one may observe very small groups pursuing courses in anthropology, and therein acquiring some fundamental facts in regard to race relations, but the mass of students who pass through our institutions learn scarcely anything of this important subject. Gen- erally they emerge from our institutions, as they entered them, with much race misinformation and race prejudice. Moreover, strange to say, our institutions of learning contain much more of information about the character and different breeds of cattle, swine, and poultry than of human beings. In our sociological literature and teachings we unwit- tingly cultivate a prejudice against all alien races by vivid pictures of the poverty, vice and crime which these races often exhibit, under slum conditions, and we do not take the trouble to inform the student what these races have done, and are doing, for the enrichment of our culture. In knowledge of the races of the world, and of the problems of racial contact, it is doubtful if Americans have made any progress in the past century. At any rate, we blunder along with the heterogeneous races under our flag, and are least prepared of any civilized people to play a leading role in the matter of international relationships. The ardor of American patriotism has had a tendency to impress our people with the idea of the inferiority of other races than that to which we claim kinship, and, if our attitude toward them has not been that of contempt, it certainly has not been that of admiration or enlightened sympathy. The first step in the direction of good will and codperation among the races of the world is that they come to know each other. In the high schools and universities of our country there should be courses v vi PREFACE offered dealing with the culture and contributions to civilization of the several great races of the world, especially of the races living under our flag. The study of races and race cultures is one of the most broadening and elevating branches of human inquiry, if we are able to lay aside prejudices and seek in each race its genius and its service in the forward march of civilization. It seems to me that in the study of race relations the American people should begin with the American Negro; first, because of his numerical importance, and second, because he offers a greater contrast than any other race to the Caucasians who founded our government. The Negro problem is typical of all other race problems. The same fundamental principles, which apply to the contact of the Negro and the Caucasian, apply to all problems of racial contact; so that we should endeavor to discover what these principles are and to make them the basis of our relations with all the races of mankind. JEROME Down. Norman, Oklahoma. CONTENTS Part One RESUME OF THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO CHAPTER I BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA . Native Races and Culture of Africa—The Slave Trade and the Transplanting of the Negro into the New World— History of Negro Slavery in Central and South America, and in the Colonies of North America—Economic and Climatic Factors Influencing the Distribution of Slavery in the United States—Service of the Negro to the North and South in the Civil War—The Beginning of Negro Edu- cation in the Southern States Part Two THE NEGRO IN THE NORTHERN STATES SINCE THE, CIVIL WAR 2 Economic STATUS OF THE NORTHERN NEGROES . Opportunities in the Skilled and Unskilled Trades—In Do- mestic Service—Enlarging Field for Negro Labor in the Big Industries—Relation of the Negro to Union Labor— Negroes in the Mercantile Business and in the Professions 3. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW YorK The Housing Problem—Negro Quarters in New vee Harlem, the Great Negro Capital—Social Activities and Social Stratification—Human Nature As Seen at the Bot- tom and at the Top 4 DoMEsTIC AND SocIAL LIFE IN CHICAGO . The Black Belt of Chicago—Character of the ee: Opposition to Selling or Renting Houses to Negroes in White Districts—Methods Employed to Keep the Negroes Out—Claim That Negro Invasions Depreciate Property— Negro Quarters in Philadelphia and Other Cities Vii PAGE 17 24 31 Vili CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE § RACIAL SEPARATION . 39 Negro Churches, Clubs, petatnet one iptotels: Thea- ters, Dance Halls, and So Forth—Refusal or Discourage- ment of Negro Patronage by Public Resorts and Private Businesses Primarily for Whites—Avoidance of Embar- rassment through Exercise of Good Sense by Both Races 6 Tue Necro Asa CITIZEN .. 46 His Part in Politics—Bad jAduedee se the esas Vote in Some Cities—Share of the Negro in the Spoils of Office 7 CRIMINALITY OF THE NEGRO IN THE NoRTH. . . « «© 49 Reason for Greater Criminality in the North Than in the South—Reason for Greatest Criminality in the West—Rea- son for Existence of Great Crime Center in Chicago—Para- mount Importance of Bad Environment As a Cause of Negro Crime 8 Fricrion BETWEEN THE RACES. . . rays - Oboe Frequent Occurrence of Clashes and Riots nee to Re Friction—The Springfield Riot of 1908—The Waukegan Riot of 1917—The St. Louis Riots of 1917—The Chicago Riot of 1919 g EpucaTIonAL Status OF NoRTHERN NEGROES . . 66 Problems of Avoiding Race Friction in the Hienenmees Schools—Social Separation of the Races in the High Schools—Lack of Elementary Education Adapted to the Negro’s Needs—Negroes in Northern and Western Uni- versities ~ ii 10\ Reticious Aspects oF NoRTHERN NEGROES. . . 72 i \ | \\/ The Northern Negro Preacher in Politics—Negro Chimie and Negro Membership in White Churches—Tribulations of the Negro Pastor—Character of Negro Preachers— Example of a Heroic Ministry Part Three THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTHERN STATES SINCE DPHEsCTVika WAR Ir Tse Necro in Economic Lire. . . . Pate. Negro Landowners, Tenants, and Wage Workers in the Field of Agriculture—Description of Rural Negro Homes CONTENTS CHAPTER I2 13 14 T5 16 17 18 —Decline in Number of Negroes in Domestic Service— Increasing Opportunities for the Negro in Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries DoMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEGRO Negro Quarters in Cities—Looseness of Family Ties— Handicap of Negro Mothers in Having to Work Away from Home and Support the Family—Short Period of In- fancy—Progress in the Development of Chastity in Spite of Adverse Conditions—Rich and Varied Social Life Tue NEGRO AS A POLITICAL FACTOR Strength of the Negro Vote and Possibilities ot meas Domination —F ranchise Laws Limiting the Negro Vote— Reasons for the Grandfather Clause—Result of Removal of the Negro Menace in Bringing a Better Class of White Men into Politics REGULATION OF Non-POLITICAL RIGHTS . Separation of the Races on Railway Trains ae Bu Cel Cars—Impracticability of Street-car Separation in Large Cities—The Problem of the Sleeping Car—Negroes Have Their Own Hotels, Restaurants, Theaters, and So Forth THe NEGRO AS A VIOLATOR OF THE LAW . Greater Frequency of Negro Crime in the City Than j in ge Country—Greater Frequency of Crime Against the Person Than Against Property—Erroneous Notions as to the Ex- tent of Negro Theft and Rape—Paramount Importance of Bad Environment as a Factor in Negro Crime THE LYNCHING PRACTICE IN THE SOUTH . ; Its Origin and Present T’endency—The Kinds if ce Which Provoke Lynchings—Decline in Cases of Rape and in Number of Lynchings—Effort to Repress Lynchings by Educating Public Sentiment and by Raising the Cultural Status of Both Races OTHER OUTRAGES UPON NEGROES . Assaults on Negroes by White Mots sbetiriciin of Bioh: etty—Expulsion from the Country—Influence of the Ku Klux—Race Riots THE PEONAGE OF NEGROES . Its Origin—Character and Extent of arene eee Which ae: courage Peonage—The Remedy—General Extent of Out- PAGE g6 103 IIo I15 I2I 128 132 x CONTENTS CHAPTER 19 20 21 22 23 24 rages upon the Negro—What the White People Are Doing and Should Do to Give the Negro a Square Deal Tue Necro BEFORE SOUTHERN CourtTs . How the Negro Fares When He Commits Crime Pe the Whites and When the Whites Commit Crime against Him—White Friends of the Negro in Court—Frequent Renderings of Signal Justice to the Negro by White Juries THE NEGRO AS A CONVICT Various Systems of Employing a fo aeign ate or Contract System—The State Farm System—The Chain- gang—Advantages and Drawbacks of the Several Systems —Progress of the South in Solving the Problem of Convict Labor Pusiic SCHOOL EDUCATION . Negro Common Schools in the South—Percentage of Negro Children Enrolled—Progress in Diminishing Lllit- eracy—Increase in Length of the School Term—Higher Qualifications and Salaries for Teachers—Comparative Cost of Negro and White Schools—Development of High Schools, State Normals, and Local Training-schools— Movement for Model School-houses INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING Institutions of Higher Learning and for Technical Instruc- tion Supported by the States and the Federal Government —lInstitutions of Higher Learning Supported by White Re- ligious Organizations—Endowments of White Philan- thropists to Aid Negro Education—Donations of the Ne- groes Themselves for the Education of Their Race INSTITUTIONS OF HiGHER LEARNING (CONT.) Institutions of Higher Learning Supported by the Negroes Themselves—Endowed and Variously Supported Profes- sional and Industrial Schools—The Work of Hampton and Tuskegee—Public Libraries for Negroes THE SITUATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION . General Estimate of Institutions of Higher Learning for Negroes—Too Many of Such Institutions—Few of Them Doing Work of College Grade—Many of Them Badly Lo- cated—Need of Elimination and Cooperation in the Inter- ests of Efficiency PAGE 137 143 149 162 176 CONTENTS CHAPTER 25 26 27 28 29 30 st! RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO . Church Affiliations—Emotional Outbursts at Revival Meet- ings—Character of Negro Preachers—Their Former Ten- dency to Become Leaders in Politics—Social Aspects of the Negro Church—Great Value of Religion for the Colored People Part Four THE NEGRO IN THE WORLD WAR TRAINING CAMPS AND RACE TROUBLES First Employment of Negro Troops—Negro a in the Training Camps—Race Troubles in Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Elsewhere SERVICE OF A'MERICAN TROOPS AS A WHOLE . Service of the American Troops in Stopping the German Drive in 1918, and in Forcing the Germans Back—The St. Mihiel Offensive and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive SERVICE OF THE 309TH INFANTRY . Employment in Building Terminals at St. Nazaire, Jan- uary, 1918—Experience of the Third Battalion in Guarding German Prisoners in Brittany—The Taking Over of a Section in the Champagne District—Transference to the Line below Minancourt in June—The Last German Drive, July 15—Participation in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of September 26 SERVICE OF THE 370TH INFANTRY . Occupation of a St. Mihiel Sector June 21—Transference to Argonne Forest July 4—To the Soissons Sector in August—And to the Oise-Aisne Canal in September—Par- ticipation in the Allied Offensive of September and October Which Drove the Germans across the Belgian Border SERVICE OF THE 371ST REGIMENT erro Activities Near Verdun—In the Meuse-Argonne Drive— Spotlessness of Record SERVICE OF THE 372ND REGIMENT . Occupation of Line in Argonne Forest—Trouble with Colored Officers—Discharge or Transference of Many Col- xi PAGO 178 193 199 205 208 215 isi CONTENTS CHAPTER ored Officers—Occupation of Line in the Champagne Sec- tor—Good Account of Themselves Given in the September 26th Offensive 32 SERVICE OF THE 92ND DIVISION . Taking Over of the St. Die Sector August 25—Trans- ference to the Argonne September 21—Two Flights from the Front—Court-martial of Leaders for Cowardice— Transference to the Marbache Sector October 5—FPartici- pation in the Final Allied Drive of November to and 11 33 WortTH oF THE NEGRO TROOPS . Summary of the Services of the Colored Units—Recipients of the Croix de Guerre—Citations for Distinguished Serv- ice—General Bullard’s Criticisms of the 92nd Division— General Estimate of the Negro as a Soldier—Enlivening Effect of Negro Regimental Bands in the Camps—Intro- duction of the French People to Jazz Music Part Five NEGRO MIGRATION 34 MIGRATION PREVIOUS TO IQI4 . Movement of the Negro During the Days of Slavery— Escape of Runaways to Free Soil—Attraction of Free Ne- groes to the West and to the Industrial Centers in the South—Trend of Negro Migration after the Civil War— Exodus to the West in 1879—Movement from the Farms to the Towns—Concurrent Migration of Negroes and Whites to the North and West 35 Recent MIGRATION . Extent of Migration North and South—Northern-born Negroes More Migrant Than Southern-born—Southern Negro Migration between States—Excess of Volume of White Migration over That of Negro Migration—Causes Which Have Influenced the Migrants—Advantages and Disadvantages of the Migration to Both Races—Gains of the South in Both Negro and White Population 222 231 245 249 CONTENTS Part Six THE NEGRO IN LITERATURE AND ART CHAPTER 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 WRITINGS oF NORTHERN WHITES . References to the Negro by Washington line ou James Fenimore Cooper—The Anti-slavery Poetry of Whittier, Lowell, and Whitman—Mrs. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s agate —Olmsted’s Journeys through the South—Sociological Studies of the Negro Mark Twain’s DELINEATION . Pudd’nhead Wilson, Dealing with the Tee of ies nie latto—Tom Sawyer Abroad—General Attitude of Mark Twain Toward the Negro WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES . Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus and ete fh oii Thomas Nelson Page, the Interpreter of the Virginia Slave —Dhialect Stories of Ambrose Gonzales—Novels of Tom Dixon—James Lane Allen—Other Authors Dealing with the Negro Necro Poets . Paul Laurence Dee ih cient Me ne Weldon Johnson—Means, Hawkins, Corrothers, and Fenton John- son—Recent Tendencies in Negro Poetry —The Tragedy of the Mulattoes Revealed in Poetry Necro NOVELISTS AND HISTORIANS . Novels of Chesnutt and Bane pee a se R Williams, Brawley, Scott, Grimké, and Others Tue NEGRO ON THE RACE PROBLEM Personality and Points of View of Booker r. W it ot W. E. B. DuBois, and James D. Corrothers—Discus- sions of the Problem by Thomas, Holtzclaw, Kelly Miller, and Others Necro FoLtk Soncs . Their African Busine Sciimials of the Southern Sa tions—Funeral Songs—Work Songs—Satirical and Hu- morous Songs—lInfluence of Negro Folk Songs on the Music of the Whites Xili PAGE 263 275 283 397 325 328 335 XIV CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 43 Mopern Necro Music; Necro DANCES. . . . eee Negro Music Since the Civil War—Negro Composers and Vocal Artists—The Jubilee Singers—The Famous “Blind Tom” and Other Instrumentalists—Ragtime and Jazz— The African Dance and Its Modification in America— Blending of the Dance with Religious Exercises 44 Necro DRAMA, PAINTING, AND SCULPTURE . . ; 345 Ira Oldridge and Charles Gilpin As Te catice Cree GC), Tanner, E. W. Scott, and Albert Smith As Painters—Ed- monia Lewis and Meta Warrick As Sculptors 45) DHE SN EGRO PRESS 304°.) 4 een ie OR i Ca a Representative Newspapers and Magazines—Contrast be- tween Northern and Southern Papers—Overemphasis of Negro’s Grievances by the Negro Press—Obligations of Both the Negro and the White Press to Bring About Better Race Relations Part Seven PROPOSED SOLUTIONS OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM 46 THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM. . . Fables Lote Approach from the Standpoint of Fito Biology, ree thropology, and Psychology—The Author’s Personal Ob- servations of the Negro in the United States—Definition of Race—The Problem of Harmonizing the Interests of Two Unlike Races in the Same Territory and under the Same Government 47 A'MALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY . . Bite | Ate Argument That Races Are Equal—Standards for eset ing the Superiority of One Race over Another in Physical Appearance—Difference in Ideals of Aesthetic Values— Question of the Mental Equality of Races—Humanitarians and Men of Science Who Uphold the Doctrine of Race Equality 48 A'MALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF INEQUALITY. . . Yt Re Authors Who Hold That Races Are Endowed with Un. equal Capacities — Darwin — Romanes—Galton—Tylor— Keane—Marett—Gobineau—Taine— Huntington — Dixon —Osborn—Angell—East—Grant—Wissler and Others CHAPTER CONTENTS 49 WRriTERS ON NEGRO INFERIORITY Sitpich ele TS Gie eee THA eee oe Ny Lae Sereda Mca ler—Hart—Evans—Bryant and Others—Question of the Superiority of the Mulatto 50 DIFFERENCE OF RACES Relation of the Size of the Brain to Intelligence—Infer- ences from the Smaller Brain of the Negro—Non-signifi- cance of Size of the Brain in Determining the Mental Capacity—Inferiority of the Negro As Shown by Psycho- logical Tests Applied to Negroes and Whites—Lack of Standard for Determining the Superiority of One Race over Another—The Indisputable Fact of Race Difference 51 NEGRO-CAUCASIAN PHYSICAL CONTRASTS . Anatomy and Physiology of the Negro—Resistance to Dis- ease—Muscular Strength—Acuteness of the Senses—Wide Difference among the Negroes Themselves 52 THe PsycHeE or THE NEGRO. Cheerfulness — Impulsiveness — Vanity — Improvidence Frankness—Truthfulness—Sympathetic Response—Emo- tionalism—Intolerance of Discipline—Restlessness—Irra- tional Thinking—Reminiscent Imagination—Feeble Inhib- iting Power, etcetera 53 BroLocicAL Aspects OF AMALGAMATION . The Function of Crossing among Plants and Animals— Consequences of Crossing Near and Distantly Related Types—Importance as a Factor in Crossings of the Quality of the Characters Inhertted—Biological Considerations Weighing Against Amalgamation 54 PsycHoLtocicaL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION . The Cause of Racial Affinities and in ti patieeMe NEPAL Impulses Which Develop Consciousness of Kind—Con- trol of Consciousness of Kind over the Social and Sexual Relations between Animal Groups—lllicit Sex Relations between Different Races—Operation of Psychological Laws to Prevent Too Intimate Inbreeding and Too Dis- tant Outbreeding 55 SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS Question of Importance of Amalgamation He a Factor in the Evolution of Culture—Light on the Question from XV PAGE 381 389 397 401 AIO 417 Xvi CHAPTER CONTENTS History—Social Conditions Favorable to Cultural Ad- vanice 56 SocrotocicaL Aspects (ConrT.) Dependence of the Value of Amalgamation upon rie Cul- ture Level of the Races Forming the Amalgam—The Effect of Contact of Races on Different Levels and on the Same Level of Culture—Beneficial Effects of Amalgamation of Races on High Levels of Culture and on Nearly the Same Levels 57 EXTENT OF AMALGAMATION . Decline of Lawful Marriage Shown by Salita! on In- termarriage—l[*xcess of Number of Marriages between White Women and Negro Men over Number between Ne- gro Women and White Men—lInferior Character of the Whites and Blacks Who Intermarry—Marked Diminution of Illicit Intercourse between the Races 58 OPpposiITION TO AMALGAMATION Sentiment of the Whites and Negroes against Amalgama- tion—KRepresentative Opinions of Men of Both Races— Unity of Spokesmen for the Negroes of the South Against Amalgamation—The Futility of Advocating Amalgama- tion As a Solution of the Race Problem 59 COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION Efforts to Colonize the Negro in Africa—Lincoln’s Plan of Colonizing the Negro in the West Indies—Archer’s Idea of Colonizing the Negro in Lower California—Views of Henry M. Stanley and Others on Colonization—The Mar- cus Garvey Scheme—Question of the Negro’s Aptitude for Colonization ‘60 RAcE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION . 61 A Natural Tendency of Races to Keep Au Nt hore gua gation in America—Opposition of the Negroes to Enforced Segregation—Advantages and Disadvantages of Segrega- tion—Views of James Bryce on the Subject FREE STATE IN THE BLAcK BELT Proposal to Create a Colored Free State out ig the eth, ern Black Belt—Possibility That Immigration of Dark Whites from Southern Europe or Mexico May Lead to a Hybrid Race Similar to That of Tropical South America PAGE 430 453 458 470 481 CONTENTS CHAPTER —Supposition That the Political Power of This Hybrid Race Would Be Intolerable to the Northern and Western States, and Lead to the Erection of a Colored Free State _ 62 Civit EQUALITY AS A SOLUTION . Practical Difficulties of Enforcing Civil Equality is ina Na. tion of Racial Diversity—Failure to Enforce Civil Equal- ity in the South During the Reconstruction Period—Result of Effort to Eliminate Color Discrimination in the Fran- chise—Theory of John Stuart Mill That Only One Race Can Govern in One Territory—Theory of Charles Francis Adams That the Principle of Equality Applied to the Negro and Caucasian Works Only Chaos 63 WHITE SUPREMACY AS A SOLUTION Unwillingness of the Caucasian to Divide Responsibility with Another Race in the Same Territory—The Cauca- sian’s Strong Sense of Consciousness of Kind and Strong Sense of Property Rights—Theory of Carlyle That the Right to Hold and Control Any Territory Belongs to the Race Best Fitted to Use It—Superior Claims of the Cauca- sian to Territory in America 64. EDUCATION AS THE SOLUTION Argument That It Is Unjust to ee the ae if Edu- cating the Negro upon the South and That the National Government Should Help—Views of Ex-President Taft, Raymond Patterson, William H. H. Hart, and Others 65 DIFFERENT Necro Pornts oF VIEW Interest in Social Equality and in Political Measures among Northern Negroes—Ideas of DuBois and Booker Wash- ington Contrasted—Denunciation of Roosevelt and Hard- ing by Northern Negroes for Their Remarks on the Race Proble Because of Their Radical Leadership Part Eight Ae PU REO E Be oo UN Ee GrRG) 66 BIoLoGIcAL CHANCES OF SURVIVAL . Absence of a Solution of the Negro Problem in Social Science—Relinquishment of the Problem to the Biological XVil PAGE 486 493 498 502 925 XVIll CONTENTS Principle of the Survival of the Fittest—Probability of the Survival of the Negro from the Standpoint of History and Vital Statistics 67 Economic CHANCES OF SURVIVAL . Probability of the Survival of the Negro from the Stand- point of His Economic Status—His Apparent Failure to Advance Up to 1895—Gloomy Predictions for His Fu- ture at That Time—Wonderful Strides After 1895 under the Leadership of Booker Washington—Rise of a Pros- perous Negro Middle Class—Problem of the Ability of the Negro to Keep Pace with the Ever-Increasing Specializa- tion and Intensification of Industry Part Nine PALHS*O RE ORE 68 RAcIAL COOPERATION Grounds for an Encouraging Outlook—Lines of Endeavor Favoring Survival—Need of the Races for More Knowl- edge of Each Other and More Friendly Cooperation— Recent Efforts toward Inter-racial Understanding and Up- lift—Work of the Y. M. C. A., University Professors, the Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation and Other Organ- izations—Part Played in Uplift by Southern White Women 69 ARACIAL Socraps ADJUSTMENT, “Siete ane tee Necessity for Effective Cooperation of Inter-racial Under- standing on the Social Question—Variations of the Color Line under Different Conditions of Race Contact—The Natural Tendency of Unlike Races to Live Apart—Con- trast Between the Northern and Southern Negroes on the Social Question—Tighter Drawing of the Color Line Re- sulting from Agitation against It—Hope of Mutual Under- standing on the Social Question and of Increasing Inter- racial Codperation 70 SUGGESTED SPHERES OF Necro AcTIVITY . Propitiousness for the Survival of the Negro of Condi- tions Which Minimize Competition with the Whites—Ad- vantages of the Natural Tendency of the Negro to Keep Apart—Need of Training More Negroes for Skilled Labor and for Professional Careers—Need of Education Adapted to the Negro’s Cultural Status and Spheres of Activity PAGE 532 547 566 577 CONTENTS Goop Homes, Less Poritics, More VISION . Paths of Hope in the Direction of Better Dwelling-houses and Better Protection of the Negro’s Home—The Suppres- sion of Mobs—-Less Concentration upon Politics—Better Understanding Between the North and South on the Political Question—Removal of Incentives for the White Demagogue—Golden Opportunities Now Beckoning to the Negro of Thrift 72 FAITH IN ACHIEVEMENT. Paths of Hope in the Direction of Renae of the A gro’s Religion—The Development of His Natural Aesthetic Aptitudes—The Complexity and Multiplicity of the Dif- ficulties of the Negro Problem—Likelihood of Compensat- ing Advantages to Both Races If Each Faces the Problem with Soldierly Courage and Faith in Human Destiny List OF THE PRINCIPAL SOURCES USED IN THE PREPARA- TIONLOR THE: text. INDEX X1X PAGE 581 999 593 t : , ) SW i . elvis}: 3 te ae ea. be Ui SOR Hie an Pits i tt 4 ids iy +: abe hole ee Hed val ‘4th Haste i i ey TG bie aby one Loa Pape ng, Deptt SNR ET UA Shi, } ya he “ianlate nae yh ia ani at o uit Ni Silt Rae be kaed, sgt i. it ayy Teal sihing Ly lt 3 aK avintoolt ;, dye at Via snd Bp hablar, | Vokes a PART ONE RESUME OF THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO oa: 4 ral > C4 WAl | aM ) 1 3 4: th i ¥ . 1 A Wee LUE eee ae Pre i>) | Mi Ue ‘fe CHAP Like: BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA Native Races and Culture of Africa—The Slave Trade and the Transplanting of the Negro into the New World—History of Negro Slavery in Central and South America, and in the Colonies of North America—Economic and Climatic Factors Influencing the Distribution of Slavery in the United States —Service of the Negro to the North and South in the Civil War—The Beginning of Negro Education in the Southern States T is generally agreed,” says Ellsworth Huntington, “that early man originated somewhere in Asia. Formerly it was supposed that he came from the warm, tropical parts of the continent. Little by little this view has given place to the idea that man’s early home was in what are now the central deserts and plateaux, the vast region between Meso- potamia and the Caspian Sea on the west, and eastern Tibet and Mon- golia on the east. There is abundant evidence in archeology and history that the greatest of all human movements have been from the central parts of Asia outward. One great stream of migrants presumably went by devious routes southwest into Africa.” ? The Negro probably acquired his dark skin in the tropical regions of the Old World, where the intensity of the heat and glare made it nec- essary for him to protect himself by developing a thick pigmentation of the skin.? The Negro of the Old World is found in Africa, and in several tropi- cal and subtropical regions east of that continent. Starting from Africa and going eastward, in geographical order, we find small groups of Negro people in the following countries: Madagascar, the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Malay Peninsula, Luzon of the Phil- ippine Islands, and the Black Islands, the latter comprising a long string of islands stretching from New Guinea to Fiji. In Africa the various types of Negroes may be classified in five divisions, as follows: The Negritos, a pygmy people, found in small, scattered settlements *The Character of Races, p. 20. *Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. 2, Ch, XXIII, S 4 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE in the equatorial forest, in the Kalahari Desert (Bushmen), and in Cape Colony (the Hottentots). The Nigritians, comprising the dwellers in the Sudan region cen- tering on the lower Niger River. This type is the most primitive, and is the darkest and most negroid in features. The Fellatah, a lighter and less negroid race, scattered over the west- ern Soudan who, prior to European intervention, ruled over the darker people of that region. The Bantu, comprising all of the Negroes of Africa south of the Soudan, excepting the Bushmen and Hottentots. This type is very dark and negroid where it joins the Nigritians on the west, but be- comes lighter and meliorated in features as it circles around to the east. The Galla, comprising the natives of the eastern mountains and pla- teaux. This type is of dark copper color, with often Egyptian or Cau- casian features, due to intermixture with the ancient Egyptian and Semitic races. The occupations of the Negroes in Africa are determined by the climate and distribution of animal and plant life. In a broad zone lying under the equator, there is an immense and almost impenetrable forest and jungle, and the people here live chiefly on the banana and the plan- tain, which grow wild and in great luxuriance. In this zone the people exercise very little foresight, since nature furnishes them with their daily needs throughout the year. In the broad zone lying north of the equatorial belt there is less rainfall, and not so much forest, with a dry season which permits the ripening of grain. Here the people practice agriculture, of which mil- let is the chief product. Survival in this region requires the exercise of foresight, since during the winter season the people have to subsist upon stored-up grain. Slave labor has been universal among these people, and one of the chief sources of supply has come from the sale of children by parents who failed to lay up a sufficient supply of grain. In this region there are cities of 20,000 or more inhabitants, where a considerable amount of trade and manufacturing is carried on. Cotton is gathered from the wild plant and spun and woven into cloth, sandals are made from cowhides, and hoes, knives, and other cutlery are made by the numerous smiths. South of the equatorial forest there is an agricultural zone corre- sponding to that of the north, and here the chief crop is manioc (tapioca). North of the millet zone the country is still more open, and dryer. BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA 5 The forest dwindles toward the north and gives place to prairie. This is the great cattle region of the Sudan, and the Fellatahs, who rule over the darker Negroes of this and the millet region, here have the seat of their great empire. South of the manioc zone there is an open, prairie-like country cor- responding to that of the north, but of less extent because of the nar- rowness of the continent toward the south. Until the invasion of South Africa by the Dutch, this zone, which embraces most of Cape Colony, was occupied by the pastoral Hottentots, now nearing extinc- tion. The economic zones of Africa all extend laterally and uniformly across the continent except the cattle region, which embraces a narrow strip of plateau, extending from Nubia on the east to the Zambesi river, and almost connecting the cattle zone of the north with that of the south. The Negroes of Africa generally have the matrilineal form of the family, i. e., the children take the name of the mother, and inheritance is in the female line. In the equatorial zone, and partly in the agricul- tural zones, the support of the family, including the husband, devolves upon the wife. In these zones marriage is by gifts to parents, or by purchase. Chastity of women is little valued, chiefly because illegiti- mate offspring fare as well as the legitimate children, both being sup- ported by the mother. Polygamy is common, but it is by no means universal. | Generally, a higher stage of domestic life may be observed as one goes north or south from the equatorial forest. One meets with in- stances of romance between the sexes, marked affection between the parents and children, more value on chastity, more assistance from the father in the support of the family, better homes, better clothing, and some appreciation of zsthetic surroundings. The religion of the Negroes varies very widely in the different zones. In the equatorial belt it is animism or fetishism, involving much witch- ery, hocus-pocus, and human sacrifices. In the agricultural zones the religion is rather polytheistic, but retains much of the grosser super- stition of animism. In the cattle zone of the north, where the Fellatahs dominate, and in the cattle zone of the eastern plateau, the religion is largely Moham- medan, due to contact with the Arabs. Nowhere in Africa have the Negroes evolved a civilization, but they have shown capacity to assimilate it. In the region of the Fellatah Em- pire, before the arrival of the European, the natives had learned to read 6 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE and write in Arabic, and had established several notable educational centers. It is no reproach to the natives of Africa that they did not evolve a civilization, for no other race has ever evolved a civilization in a hot and humid climate. The earliest civilizations, in both the Old and the New World, were developed in very dry regions. Ellsworth Huntington is inclined to think that the climate of Africa has tended to favor the survival of an inactive type of man. “In the first great migrations,” he says, “those who went to the tropical re- gions subjected themselves unknowingly to conditions which presumably tended toward stagnation or even toward retrogression, for moderate activity was often more profitable than great activity, while the abun- dance of resources and lack of the exigencies of the seasons tended to give the stupid almost as good a chance of survival as the intelligent.” ° From the earliest historic time, slaves have been carried from Cen- tral Africa by way of the Nile river, the Red Sea, and the Desert of Sahara, into Egypt and Arabia. After the rise of Mohammedanism, Negro slaves were imported into all of the Mohammedan States. The explorer Barth says that one could almost find his way across the Desert of Sahara by the skeletons of slaves strewn along the caravan routes. The beginning of European activity in the slave trade dates back to the fifteenth century, when explorers, under the inspiration of Prince Henry of Portugal, went forth to find an ocean passage to the East. In 1441 one of the Portuguese ships anchored off the Sahara coast and brought back five black captives, who were not Negroes, but Moors. Soon thereafter a ship advanced as far south as the Senegal river, and captured and brought back to Portugal a number of Negroes. In 1444 the Portuguese began systematic exploration along the African coast for the purpose of capturing and trading in Negro slaves. After the discovery of the New World and its colonization by white people, Negro slaves began to be imported to supply the demand for labor. Then the slave trade was taken up by the Spanish, the English, the French, and the Dutch. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Slave ships fairly swarmed at the mouth of every river from the Senegal to the Congo. At first the slave ships obtained their cargo by captures made by night-surprises and the burning of coastal villages. Later the trading companies of each nation came to have permanent settlements on the coast, and to buy the slaves from native dealers. The rum, firearms, "Op. cit., p. 46. BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA i calico, beads, and so forth offered in exchange for slaves inflamed the avarice of the native kings, and they set out with organized armies to raid their neighbors and make captives. When a sufficient number of captives had been procured, they would be shackled and carried down to the coast in boats or overland in “coffles.” Upon their arrival at the coast, an agent of the slave-trading company would make purchases, brand the slaves, and place them in a stockade to await the arrival of a slave ship. In the eighteenth century, ships from the colonies of North Amer- ica began to engage in African slave trade. From the ports of Boston and Newport, ships laden with rum would set sail for Africa, where the rum would be exchanged for slaves. Then the slaves would be car- ried to the West Indies and exchanged for molasses to make more rum. Later, ships from New York, Charleston, and other Atlantic ports also took part in the trade. And, in spite of the action of the United States government in prohibiting the foreign slave trade after 1808, clandes- tine trips from the Atlantic ports continued to bring in slaves from the West Indies and from Africa until the Civil War. Beginning about 1510, Negro slaves were successively introduced into the Spanish, British, French, and Danish West Indies, and into Portuguese Brazil, their chief labor being the raising of sugar-cane for the manufacture of molasses and rum. The black codes, intended for the regulation of slavery in each colony, were formulated in the respec- tive mother countries and varied in details, but the actual treatment of the slaves depended upon local sentiment and custom, and was substan- tially the same under any of the codes. Because of the preponderance of male slaves and the hardships and incessant labor incident to the cul- tivation of sugar-cane, the Negro slaves died faster than they were born. The shortage of labor gave a continuous impetus to the slave trade. The most interesting and important history of the Negro in the West Indies is that connected with the island of Haiti, where to-day there exist two Negro republics, Santo Domingo on the eastern end of the island, and Haiti on the western end. In 1540, when the gold yield of the island of Haiti, then called His- paniola, fell off, the Spaniards in the west end of the island rushed off en masse to the newly discovered mines of Mexico and Peru. Into the vacated territory, French buccaneers, and later French immigrants, entered and in a short time, by cultivating sugar-cane with slave labor, developed the most prosperous colony of the West Indies. In the 8 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE course of several generations a large mulatto class developed, and many of this class were emancipated and educated, but were not permitted to exercise the civil rights of free white men. In Paris, where mulattoes were generally sent for an education, there was organized in 1788 the “Société des Anus des Notrs,’ composed of such celebrated men as Robespierre, Condorcet, Lafayette, Brissot, and Grégoire, who were interested in the emancipation of slaves, and who believed that emancipated slaves in the colonies should have the same civil rights as the freemen of France. When the French Assembly formulated the famous Bill of Rights of August 20, 1789, the friends of the blacks in Paris wished to apply the principles of this Bill to the colonies. The planters in the French colony of Saint Domingue, aware of their numerical inferiority to the blacks, foresaw that such pro- nouncements from the mother country threatened the overthrow of the white man’s rule in the island, and they were therefore much alarmed. They sent delegations to Paris and, with the aid of the commercial class in France, influenced the French Assembly to declare against any in- tention of applying the Bill of Rights to the colonies. But the French policy in reference to Saint Domingue was vacillat- ing, and irritated both the free mulattoes and the white planters. Early in 1791 the mulattoes of the island, led by James Ogé, who had resided in Paris and had been incited by friends of the blacks in that city, launched a rebellion, but it was promptly suppressed by the militia. Ogé was broken on the wheel. The hostility of the mulattoes to the whites gradually permeated the slave class, and on the 22nd of August, 1791, with complete surprise to the whites, the slaves on the northern plantations arose in one great mass and began to burn property and massacre the whites. Ina few weeks 2,000 white people had been put to death, and 180 sugar planta- tions destroyed by fire. The French Assembly, alarmed at the news of the wholesale mas- sacre of the white people of Saint Domingue, hastened to declare against any further effort to interfere with the white man’s control of the col- ony. However, the new French Assembly, which met in October, 1791, was dominated by the Red Republicans, who promptly reversed the ac- tion of the prior assembly, declaring against any color discrimination in the colonies and dispatching 6,000 troops and several civil commis- sioners to Saint Domingue to enforce the Assembly’s decree. The com- missioners sent to the island were generally ardent champions of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and they took sides with the blacks. With the BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA 9 support of French and Negro troops, they succeeded in driving out the whites and placing the blacks in complete control of the island. The intermediary of the transfer of authority in the colony from the whites to the blacks was Toussaint Louverture, the greatest military and diplomatic genius in the history of the Negro race. He was one of the leaders of the Black Rebellion of 1791, but soon thereafter he and some of his followers were induced to cross the line and take com- missions in the Spanish army. In the meantime the French Commis- sioners in Saint Domingue, being solidly opposed by the remnant of the white planters, and being menaced by the landing of British troops from Jamaica, decreed the emancipation of all slaves. In the spring of 1794 Toussaint, influenced by the action of the Commissioners of Saint Domingue in decreeing the emancipation of the slaves, transferred his allegiance back to the French, and when he re- turned from the Spanish colony he brought with him 4,000 well-trained Negro troops. With this force, supplemented by other regiments, he was able to compel the retirement of the British from the island, and later to invade and conquer the Spanish end of the island, thus making himself the master of the whole country. In 1802 Napoleon sent to the island 20,000 troops under the com- mand of his brother-in-law, Leclerc, with the purpose of restoring French authority. Toussaint’s armies were defeated and he was cap- tured and deported to a French prison in the Alps, where he died. In the meantime the French troops in Saint Domingue were deci- mated by an epidemic of tropical fever, General Leclerc himself died in December, 1802, and the British navy, because of the war between Eng- land and France, blockaded the coast and prevented relief to the french forces. Finally this remnant of French troops surrendered to the Brit- ish Admiral, leaving the way open for a return of Negro domination in the colony. General Dessalines, a former lieutenant of Toussaint Louverture, now (1804) proclaimed himself emperor. In the year following, how- ever, an insurrection broke out among the disaffected blacks, and Des- salines was shot from ambush. Following the death of Emperor Des- salines, a constitution was adopted defining the colony as a republic, and General Henri Christophe was chosen as the first president. Thereafter the name of the country and government came to be desig- nated as Haiti instead of Saint Domingue. The history of the Republic of Haiti has been characterized by al- most ceaseless revolution, and punctuated by frequent assassinations. 10 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Life and property have been insecure, and the public revenues and pro- ceeds from foreign loans have been stolen or wasted by public officials. The republican features of the constitution have never been observed, and, with the exception of one or two administrations, the path to power has been by way of military usurpation. Roads, bridges, and schools have been neglected, and, from an industrial or moral point of view, scarcely any progress has been made in the past century. In 1916, owing to the inability of the Haitian government to meet its foreign obligations and to the disorders following a revolution, a treaty was made between Haiti and the United States, to be effective for at least ten years, giving the latter authority to collect and super- vise the customs revenue and to create a constabulary, composed of native Haitians, to preserve order, etcetera. The administration of Haiti by the United States during the past ten years has resulted in the restoration of order; an increase of rev- enue; a reduction of the public debt; the improvement of roads, public schools, and public sanitation; and in the inauguration of scientific methods of agriculture and husbandry. On the other hand, the adminis- tration has irritated the natives and has had to put down several insur- rections by force of arms and the proclamation of martial law. The Negroes of Haiti and of the United States, and also many members of the United States Congress and editors of newspapers and magazines in our country, have severely criticized our Haitian policy and urged our immediate withdrawal from the island. In 1844 the people of the eastern part of Haiti, who are Spanish- speaking Negroes, mostly of the mulatto type, rebelled against the mis- rule of Haiti and set up an independent republic, which, however, has run about the same course as that of Haiti. Its history has been largely that of revolution and reckless issue of bonds, and of official pecula- tion. In 1gor the government found itself in such a bad plight that the United States was invited to take charge of the custom-house as the only escape from bankruptcy. Negro slavery existed for more than a century in the West Indies before the first Negro set foot on the North American continent. In the fall of 1619 a Negro woman by the name of Angela was disem- barked on the Virginia coast from the ship Treasurer, of which the Earl of Warwick was the chief owner. Soon thereafter Negro slaves came in quantity from the West Indies, and later from Africa. In 1630 the Dutch slave traders began to bring Negroes into New Amsterdam, and in 1634, from an unknown source, Negroes were coming into BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA II Massachusetts. About 1657, Negro slaves began to be employed by the Dutch and Swedes who had settlements along the Delaware river. By the close of the seventeenth century, Negro slavery had become an es- tablished institution in all of the original thirteen colonies except Georgia. In Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Negro servants were as common as in Charleston. Among the aristocratic people of Boston, the slaveholding families included such names as Hopkins, Williams, Stiles, Edwards, Winthrop, Mather, and even Faneuil. In New York, the slaveholding families included the Murrays, the Chamberses, the Roosevelts, the Bayards, the Duanes, the Courtlandts, the Livingstons, the Nichollses, the Jays, and others whose names are still perpetuated in the designation of the streets of that great city. Economic and climatic factors determined the quantity and distri- bution of slaves in each of the colonies. In the Northern colonies, ex- cept during the pioneer period of forest-felling and extensive agricul- ture, slave labor was uneconomic because of the diversity and intensity of industry and because of the high cost of living. It was not profitable to raise slaves, and hence the frequency with which slave children were advertised for sale. Slave labor early disappeared from the farms and from commerce, and was retained only in domestic service, as a luxury for the rich. In the Tidewater region of the South, the extensive methods of agri- culture, the concentration on a single crop, and the low cost of living made slave labor profitable, and the Negro slaves found their chief market in this region. In the Piedmont region of the South, where the soil was poor and subject to washes, the farms smaller, and the cost of living higher, slave labor was less profitable, and the number of slaves was always far less than the number of free whites. In the Mountain region, where the soil was still less bountiful and no surplus could be produced, slavery scarcely existed. The introduction of slavery into the colonies was everywhere due to the same cause, to wit: the impossibility of securing free labor. Ina new country, where land is free, no one will voluntarily work for another, and the only means of obtaining a labor supply is some form of coercion. The indenture of white servants, the binding out of orphans, and the drafting of freemen for assistance in harvesting crops were some of the forms of compulsory labor commonly practiced in the colonies. On account of differences of climate, slaves were more in demand 12 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE in the South than in the North. In the West Indies the idea prevailed that the heat and humidity of the climate would not permit white people to do manual labor, and the same idea came to dominate the white people of the Tidewater region of the South Atlantic colonies. Hence, the labor of the white people of these regions was mainly that of super- vision, In the Piedmont region of the Southern colonies it was a com- mon practice for masters and slaves to work together in the fields, and this practice continued after the Revolution and down to the Civil War. In the Mountain regions of the Southern states, where climatic condi- tions are much like those of New England, the white people were accus- tomed to manual labor, and generally looked with disfavor upon slavery. In all of the colonies, special laws, known as Black Codes, were made for the regulation of slave labor, and, while these laws differed somewhat, the actual treatment of the slaves was everywhere substanti- ally the same. Generally the slaveholders in all the colonies were the most enterprising class of people, and as a rule treated their slaves hu- manely ; but there were many slaveholders of a low order of intelligence, and of irritable and vicious tempers, who treated their slaves with great brutality. In proportion to the Negro population, there were about as many burnings of Negroes, and other barbaric ill-usages of them, in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, as in Virginia, South Caro- lina, or Georgia. Slave labor in the North gradually disappeared because of its dimin- ishing profitableness and, by the time of the adoption of our Constitu- tion, it had been legally terminated in all of the Northern states except Delaware. The sentiment against slave labor which had developed in the North spread into the Upper South, and led to many private emancipations. In 1832 in Virginia, where slavery was becoming uneconomic, an effort was made to enact a law for gradual emancipation. After 1832, due to the increasing profitableness of cotton culture and the radical anti-slavery agitation in the North, the sentiment against slavery in the South is supposed by most historians to have died out, and the South to have become solidified in favor of an indefinite perpetua- tion of slavery. But this supposition is erroneous. What happened was that political leadership was transferred to the Lower South, which had become the center of the cotton culture and of the Negro population. The planters of the Tidewater region, here as in Virginia, had never looked with favor on the proposition to emancipate the slaves. On the other hand, the planters of the Piedmont and Mountain regions were BACKGROUND IN AFRICA AND AMERICA 13 the leaders of the opposition to slavery in Virginia in 1832, and, after expanding into Tennessee and Kentucky, they continued their opposi- tion down to the Civil War, although they were rendered helpless and their voices repressed by the political domination of the Tidewater South. During the Civil War, the slaves to a remarkable extent remained on the plantations of their masters. A great many of them, however, were used for noncombatant military service, as teamsters, laborers on roads and fortifications, and in ordnance factories, salt mines, and so forth. Among the Confederate troops it was a common practice for the sol- dier of a well-to-do family to take with him to the front a Negro serv- ant, who performed the rough tasks that fell to the soldier, such as splitting wood and digging ditches, and who remained close at hand to aid his master when he was sick or wounded. The free Negroes, under act of the Confederate government, were liable to service in the army as laborers. On the side of the Union, Negro troops were enlisted from several of the Northern states, and from among the camp-followers of the Union armies in the Southern states, the total number enlisted being 178,975. Negro troops rendered valuable service to the Union forces in several important battles. Before the close of the Civil War, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and sev- eral religious and philanthropic organizations, took up the task of estab- lishing schools for the education of the Negro. During the Recon- struction period, many of these schools were merged into state public- school systems, while others remained under private control. Most of the present-day colleges and universities for the Negroes in the South were inaugurated by Northern religious and philanthropic organizations during the period of Reconstruction. At the close of the Civil War not more than ten percent of the Negroes could read and write, and, with this small foundation, the work has gone forward of enlightening the Negro masses of the South and preparing them for the duties and privileges of freemen. Le Pan a SS eee “i = Oe — i ar i ‘REE COR ete ah ek ae al: eens i at) Nid " ne is aru fj tat esi at} Bae 1g Hea TEE Hie ‘th oo “pep “hei! et IEE slate HN ie OMA yan Bey’ cei wrt ‘aida reer ‘Ni ate spleen uN a Cae a esa ‘ia reaNERA ESS brim: aiigunttoy’ a RG Mebaay OR Reel orate tose. 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PAL GA Pr aaa we ii ae, Vi i ap ye He Pe ' f* i (yv,' ut VIL ; ated ws ys Nt / Ai . J ig) i] t! ee, ai F) m th rey ; esha tes f vA'd ‘ U sf ) F (aay i ‘ : as vi ies, ; av pe ae byw sie PAY i ih { ya ii r ve Bite MT | nm ry F 7¢% 7a >? i Ne tb) w, : Vay nia), Wie ae My, ] ait x any ; 4 ») bod i ‘eit ied Ue ah Ayu ‘ A i Dar it Oe Fone f : — YA tf - Lt») is, i Ae ae : af h ‘ An ie Be nie Hake Pal ih iG i ‘ ye lt 4 ; We ; ak ay 4 Run | PAK 4 | me mt) ifs | vik Hi i as Wl So By Sa ey ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NORTHERN NEGROES Opportunities in the Skilled and Unskilled Trades—In Domestic Service—En- larging Field for Negro Labor in the Big Industries—Relation of the Negro to Union Labor—Negroes in the Mercantile Business and in the Professions N the Northern cities, for some decades after the Civil War, the Negroes found ready employment in domestic and personal service. Nearly all cooks, porters, waiters, and caterers in hotels and private homes were Negroes. I recall seeing in New York, in 1882, a great many Negro waiters in hotels and restaurants, and also many Negro coachmen, bootblacks, barbers, and janitors. In all of these occupations the Negroes have lost ground, for three chief reasons: First, the Negro population has not been large enough to supply the increasing demand for labor, and the shortage has had to be made up from white immigrants ; second, the rise in the standard of living of the whites has called for an increased efficiency in service and the Negro has not qualified himself; third, there have developed white trade-unions which excluded the Negroes from membership. The Negroes first lost ground in the business of bootblacking. The Italians, as chimney-sweeps in France, had perfected the art of polish- ing shoes by mixing the soot of the chimney with fat or oil, and, having driven the native Frenchman out of the business in Paris, they came to America and ousted the Negro. Then it was the turn of the coachmen. Having reference to Boston, Archibald H. Grimké says, “The coloured coachman got a black eye when people began to travel abroad, and to discover in England, for instance, how much more an English coach- man knows about horses and their care than a coloured one in Bos- ton.” 4 Then came white barbers, butlers, cooks, caterers, and waiters in hotels. A Boston Negro, who could not find employment as a butler, exclaimed, “These Boston people beat me. They will have mass-meet- ings, and raise money to help Mr. Washington educate the ‘nig- gers’ down South, but they will let a decent Northerner starve before *Quoted by Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 167. 17 18 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE they will give him a chance to earn an honest living.” 7 Commenting on the loss of ground in New York, a Negro waiter remarks: “Think of our city’s most famous caterers of forty or fifty years ago. They were the Downings, Mars, Watson, Vandyke, Ten Eyck, Day, Green, and others, all coloured. Their names were as familiar and as representa- tive in high-class work as are Delmonico and Sherry to-day. Who have succeeded to the business that these coloured caterers had in those days? With one exception, Italians. Not one has left a child in an enlarged business of the same line. With all of us the business dies with the fathers. Is this showing a capacity to build?’ * Referring to Philadelphia, DuBois comments upon the general decline of industrial opportunity for the Negro, due to competition and race prejudice.‘ Writing in the New York Age, June 15, 1885, of the Negro in Chi- cago, Mrs. Fannie B. Williams declares: “It is quite safe to say that in the last fifteen years, the coloured people have lost about every occupation that was regarded as peculiarly their own. Among the occupations that seem to be permanently lost are barbering, bootblacking, janitors in office buildings, elevator service, and calcimining. White men wanted these places and were strong enough to displace the unorganized, thoughtless and easy-going occupants of them. When the hordes of Greeks, Italians, Swedes, and other foreign folks began to pour into Chicago, the demand for the Negro’s places began. One occupation after another that the coloured people thought was theirs forever, by a sort of divine right, fell into the hands of these foreign invaders. This loss was not so much due to prejudice against color, as to the ability of these foreigners to increase the importance of the places sought and captured. The Swedes have captured the jani- tor business by organizing and training the men for this work in such a way as to increase the efficiency and reliability of the service. White men have made more of the barber business than did the coloured men, and by organization have driven every Negro barber from the business district. The ‘shoe polisher’ has supplanted the Negro bootblack, and does business in finely appointed parlours, with mahogany finish and electric lights. Thus a menial occupation has become a well organized and genteel business with capital and system behind it.” The colored people have been supplanted also in some of their other traditional callings. Many Negroes who had come up from the South * Washington, The Future of the Negro, p. 161. * Quoted by Stone, op. cit., p. 155. *The Philadelphia Negro, pp. 120, 145. ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NORTHERN NEGROES ig were expert carpenters. They had planned and built private houses for the white people, and also in some cases, important public buildings. In the North they found it difficult to get a job. Dr. William N. D. Berry, pastor of a colored congregation in Springfield, Massachusetts, said : “Eighty per cent of the coloured labor of our city is confined to servile employment by pure race prejudice which has closed the door of industrial employment against them. The situation in Springfield is fairly typical of the condition in this respect of the black man throughout the North.’ ® The exclusion of the Negro from the skilled trades used to be so general as to give rise to the assertion that there was more prejudice against the Negro in the North than in the South. General Armstrong once said: “There is a great deal more of antagonism between the two races here at the North than at the South. . . . I find much more mu- tual repulsion between the whites and blacks here in Massachusetts than down in Old Virginia.” ° In 1899, Booker Washington stated: “that with some exceptional cases, the Negro is at his best in the Southern States. While he enjoys certain privileges in the North that he does not have in the South, when it comes to the matter of securing property, enjoying business advan- tages and employment, the South presents a far better opportunity than the North. Few colored men from the South are as yet able to stand up against the severe and increasing competition that exists in the North, to say nothing of the unfriendly influence of labor organiza- tions, which in some way prevents black men in the North, as a rule, from securing occupation in the line of skilled labor." In his Up. from Slavery he again said, “Whatever other sins the South may be called upon to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world.” ® President Eliot of Harvard observed, “The uneducated Northern white is less tolerant of the Negro than the Southern whites. More trades and occupations are actually open to Negroes in Southern than in Northern States.” ® *Quoted by Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 214. *Quoted by Field, Glimpses of New England Town Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, p. 150. " Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1899. PP ard. * Quoted by Evans, op. cit., p. 214. 20 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE I do not at all share in the view that race prejudice is stronger in the North than in the South, but I agree with General Armstrong when he says, “Northern competition is harder on the Negro than Southern prejudice.” What appears to be Northern prejudice against the Negro is, for the most part, only the businesslike requirement of industrialism which demands high efficiency. In the traditional skilled trades in the North, the Negro has found the field preempted by the whites, but in recent years, skilled labor of a new and more varied kind has been open to him in some of the large manufacturing plants, although ninety per- cent of the Negroes employed in these plants are as yet unskilled workers. In Chicago about 10,000 Negroes work in the stockyards and packing plants. Other Negroes are in foundries, steel mills, and car- building shops. Negro women are employed in tobacco, canning, gar- ment, and novelty factories, and in laundries. Thousands of Negroes in Chicago are Pullman porters, and many work about freight houses and in railway construction. In Detroit about 3,000 Negroes are em- ployed in the automobile industries. In the Pittsburgh foundries and steel mills about 10,000 Negroes are employed. The Westinghouse Electric Company employs about 1,000. In Philadelphia the Negroes find work in the steel plants and other large industries. In New York the Negroes dominate in the industry of asphalt paving, and have a practical monopoly of the elevator service in residential districts. In many of the large cities of the North and West, Negro men or women are extensively employed to run elevators in hotels, office buildings, and department stores. The largest group of Negro workers in New York is the longshoremen. In 1920 there were 5,387 of these, fourteen percent of all the longshoremen of the city, and nine percent of all the Negro men at work. Sixty percent of all the Negro women working in New York are either laundresses or servants. The Negroes of New York have made less advances in the skilled trades than the Negroes of any other large Northern city, for the reason chiefly that New York has not, as have, for instance, Chicago and Detroit, a large number of great in- dustrial plants. In recent years, the restriction on foreign immigration has greatly increased the demand for unskilled labor, and the more liberal policy of labor unions has opened the door for an increasing number of Negroes to do skilled work. The former exclusion of Negroes from trade- unions was due to several causes. In the first place, all of the unions were organized by white workers, and custom rather than race feeling excluded men of color. In the next place, few Negroes have been quali- ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NORTHERN NEGROES - a1 fied for skilled work, and trade-unions have been very little concerned with unskilled labor. It has been very difficult for Negroes to get em- ployment in the skilled trades except when and where there has been a shortage of white labor. Both the employers of labor and the labor leaders prefer the employment of white labor. The labor leaders often give as a reason for preferring the white workers that the Negroes tend to keep down wages by their lower standard of living. The manager of a wholesale millinery house says, “I couldn’t overcome the prejudice enough to bring the (colored) people in the same building, and had to engage outside quarters for the blacks.” 7° During the World War, when there was an acute shortage of white labor, thousands of Negroes found employment in ship-building, meat- packing, and iron and steel industries. Wherever Negroes have come to be employed in skilled labor, it has been to the interest of the unions to admit them, or at least to encourage them to organize unions of their own. The American Federation of Labor has consistently followed a policy of racial non-discrimination, but of the 110 national and interna- tional unions affiliated with the Federation, eight expressly bar the Negro by their constitutions or rituals. These are the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America, The International Association of Mecha- nists, the American Association of Masters, Mates and Pilots, The Rail- way Mail Association, the Order of Railroad Telegraphers Union of America, ‘The American Wire Weavers Association, and The Brother- hood of Railway Mail Clerks. About twenty-eight national unions which do not bar the Negro report that they have no Negro members. Some of the unions which exclude Negroes do so because by tradition the trade belongs to the whites, and no Negroes have tried to enter it. In some unions open to Negroes, there are no Negro members because of the technical character of the trade and the long period of appren- ticeship. Generally speaking, there is no great opposition to Negro member- ship in unions whose members carry on a trade in which the Negroes are employed or are likely to be employed. About 104 national and in- ternational unions admit the Negro. Some unions admit Negroes ta any local branch, while others provide separate locals for Negro mem- bers. In a number of cases Negroes are excluded from locals even when the policy of the national organization favors their admittance. In such * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 390. 22 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE cases, admission requires a majority or two-thirds vote of the local group, and the whites vote against a Negro applicant. Negroes often get employment in large industries as strike breakers, and, after the strike, hold their jobs. This happened, for instance, in the Pullman strike of 1916, and the steel strike of 1919. Because the Negroes are very meagerly represented in the skilled trades they have had very limited opportunities for displaying their in- ventive genius. Nevertheless, several Negroes have distinguished themselves by the variety and importance of their inventions. For ex- ample, Granville T. Woods of Ohio has taken out nearly sixty patents. “Among his inventions,’ says Brawley, “may be found valuable im- provements in telegraphy, including a system for telegraphing from moving trains, also an electric railway and phonograph. Some of his work has been sold to the Bell Telephone Company. Elijah McCoy, of Detroit, Michigan, has been granted about thirty patents, relating particularly to lubricating appliances for engines. Many of his inven- tions have long been in use on the locomotives of the Canadian and Northwestern railroads, and on the steamships of the Great Lakes. Mr. McCoy began work as early as 1872 and has succeeded in reaping large rewards in royalties for the use of many of his inventions. W. B. Purvis, of Philadelphia, has been granted several patents having to do with paper bag machinery. F. J. Ferrell, of New York, deserves men- tion for his valves; and J. EK. Matzeliger, of Massachusetts, is credited with being the pioneer in the art of attaching soles to shoes by machin- ery. An invention that attracted considerable attention a few years ago was that of a rapid-fire gun by Eugene Burkins, of Chicago.” ™ In mercantile enterprises the Negroes do not show aptitude. A handicap in this line is that a Negro merchant has to depend almost en- tirely upon his own race for patronage, while his white competitor can draw patronage from both races. His chief drawbacks, however, are a lack of foresight in buying, lack of taste in display, lack of neatness, and the general unreliability of Negro clerks. In the large Negro col- onies of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Cincinnati, or Detroit, there are trading opportunities of a petty character open to the Negroes. But even in the largest of these colonies the stranger seldom sees a prosperous or attractive-looking Negro store. In the midst of these colonies, or on the outskirts, are found enterprising Italians, Jews, and Greeks, who flaunt their wares before the Negro, and capture a large share of his patronage. “ History of the American Negro, p. 231. ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE NORTHERN NEGROES 23 Among the enterprises conducted by Negroes, the most successful seem to be insurance companies and undertaking establishments. In the professions, there are Negro preachers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, and editors, but with rare exceptions they serve only their own race. In Boston several lawyers and physicians of respectable standing are patronized by white people.’* The Negroes generally get their professional education at Howard University, Washington, D, C. There are not many professional schools which open their doors to Negroes. ‘The white medical schools are difficult for the Negro to enter for the reason that as internes they would have to treat white patients. “It is a curious fact,’ says Baker, “that not only the white patients but some Negro patients object to colored doctors.’’ 1% Never- theless, at this writing, for the first time in the history of Bellevue Hos- pital, New York City, a Negro doctor is serving a year’s interneship. This doctor chances to be a woman, Agnes O. Griffin, a native of North Carolina. She was graduated from the Washington Irving High School, New York, in 1915, received the A.B. degree from Hunter Col- lege in 1919 and that of M.D. from Columbia University in June, 1923. Her appointment as an interne was due to her merit as a student of medicine. After her general service Dr. Griffin hopes to specialize in children’s diseases. About half a dozen other Negro women have qualified for the prac- tice of medicine. In many cities of the North and West, Negro women are employed as teachers in the public schools. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, a col- ored woman, Maria Baldwin, is principal of the Agassiz school, which is attended by 600 white children. In the public schools of Columbus, Ohio, there are about a dozen colored teachers. In New York, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and most other big cities, the Negro is represented on the police force, and in several cities he is employed in the fire department. “Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 124. ™ Ibid., p. 123. CHAPTER 3 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW YORK The Housing Problem—Negro Quarters in New York—Harlem, the Great Negro Capital—Social Activities and Social Stratification—Human Nature As Seen at the Bottom and at the Top 1 Oa of their natural gregarious tendencies and the difficulty of renting or buying homes among the whites, the Negroes of the Northern cities generally live in segregated districts. “The color line,” says Jacob Riis, “must be drawn through the tenements to give the picture its proper shading. The landlord does the drawing, does it with an absence of pretence, a frankness of despotism, that is nothing if not brutal. The Czar of all the Russias is not more absolute upon his own soil than the New York landlord in his deal- ings with colored tenants. Where he permits them to live, they go; where he shuts the door, they stay out. By his grace they exist at all in certain localities ; his ukase banishes them from others.” 4 The Negro quarters generally comprise the old residences aban- doned by the whites, into which the Negroes are packed like sardines. “In most northern cities,’ says George Haynes, “the housing condi- tion shows a majority of the Negro families coming North are griev- ously overcrowded and in practically all of the cities the rents for them have been far in excess of those for residents who are residing at the same time in similar localities. A survey made by the Federation of Churches of Buffalo in 1922 disclosed the fact that about 75 percent of the colored families occupied a section of that city which contained the poorest houses, some of which had formerly been condemned as not habitable. A similar survey made by the Federated Churches of Cleveland showed that while a substantial part of the colored people have secured good houses, inadequate and unsanitary conditions still exist in one of the principal Negro communities of the city. “In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Housing Association found in a recent survey that only 10.5 percent of the houses occupied by Negro * How the Other Half Lives, p. 148. 24 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW YORK 25 families were equipped for sanitation, convenience and comfort, while 28.6 of the houses occupied by whites were so equipped.” ? In New York City the earliest Negro quarter consisted of some old barracks on the edge of the town once occupied by soldiers and later used as a poor-house. In the middle of the last century, when Washington Square and lower Fifth Avenue were the center of aristocratic life, the colored people, whose chief occupation was domestic service in the homes of the rich, lived in scattered nests to the south, east, and west of the square. Negro churches were then located on Church, Leonard, Mott, and Anthony Streets. From the middle of the last century to about 1875 the Negro residences centered on Thompson Street. From 1875 to about 1890 the Negro quarter consisted of old resi- dences and store buildings on Seventh Avenue and the cross streets from 25th to 42nd, and adjacent to this quarter was the worst red light district in the city, the successor to the celebrated “Five Points” of lower New York. Jacob Riis says of the Negro of this district: “His home surroundings, except when he is utterly depraved, reflect his blithesome temper. The poorest negro housekeeper’s room in New York is bright with gaily-colored prints of his beloved ‘Abe Linkum,’ General Grant, President Garfield, Mrs. Cleveland, and other national celebrities, and cheery with flowers and singing birds. In the art of putting the best foot foremost, of disguising his poverty by making a little go a long way, our negro has no equal. When a fair share of prosperity is his, he knows how to make life and home very pleasant to those about him. Pianos and parlor furniture abound in the uptown homes of colored tenants and give them a very prosperous air. But even where the wolf howls at the door, he makes a bold and gorgeous front. The amount of ‘style’ displayed on fine Sundays on Sixth and Seventh Avenues by colored holiday-makers would turn a pessimist black with wrath. Poverty, abuse, and injustice alike the negro accepts with imperturbable cheerfulness. His philosophy 1s of the kind that has no room for repining.” * About 1890 the Negroes began to occupy 53rd Street from Sixth Avenue to Ninth Avenue, which had become undesirable for the whites because of the elevated railway’s traversing this narrow street, filling it with intolerable noise and smoke, and darkening the first and sec- ond stories of the residences. From this street the Negro quarter *“Negro Migration,” Opportunity, Oct., 1924, p. 304. MOD. CD. 153. 26 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE spread to a dozen or more adjoining blocks, and housed a population of about 50,000. “The West Fifty-third Street settlement,” says the Negro poet, James Weldon Johnson, ‘‘deserves some special mention because it ushered in a new phase of life among colored New Yorkers. Three rather well appointed hotels were opened in the street and they quickly became the centers of a sort of fashionable life that hitherto had not existed. On Sunday evenings these hotels served dinner to and at- tracted crowds of well-dressed diners. One of these hotels, The Mar- shall, became famous as the headquarters of Negro talent. There gath- ered the actors, the musicians, the composers, the writers, the singers, dancers and vaudevillians. There one went to get a close-up of Wil- liams and Walker, Cole and Johnson, Ernest Hogan, Will Marion Cook, Jim Europe, Aida Overton, and of others equally and less known. Paul Laurence Dunbar was frequently there whenever he was in New York. Numbers of those who love to shine by the light reflected from celebrities were always to be found. The first modern jazz band ever heard in New York, or, perhaps anywhere, was organized at The Mar- shall. It was a playing-singing-dancing orchestra, making the first dom- inant use of banjos, saxophones, clarinets and trap drums in combina- tion, and was called ‘The Memphis Students.’ Jim Europe was a member of that band, and out of it grew the famous Clef Club, of which he was the noted leader, and which for a long time monopolized the business of ‘entertaining’ private parties and furnishing music for the new dance craze.” 4 About 1900, because of the encroachments of business in the Fifty-third Street quarter, the Negroes began to form a settlement in Harlem. “Harlem,” says Johnson, ‘‘had been overbuilt with large, new-law apartment houses, but rapid transportation to that section was very inadequate—the Lenox Avenue Subway had not yet been built—and landlords were finding difficulty in keeping houses on the east side of the section filled. Residents along and near Seventh Avenue were fairly well served by the Eighth Avenue Elevated. A colored man, in the real estate business at this time, Philip A. Payton, approached several of these landlords with the proposition that he would fill their empty or partially empty houses with steady colored tenants. The suggestion was accepted, and one or two houses on One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street east of Lenox Avenue were taken over. Gradu- ally other houses were filled.’’ > ‘Johnson, “The Making of Harlem,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. ° Thid. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW YORK a7 Now the Negro quarter extends from Eighth Avenue to the Har- lem river and from 130th Street to 150th Street. It contains a popula- tion of nearly 200,000, and is the great Negro capital of the world. “Here in Manhattan,” says the Survey Graphic, “is not merely the largest Negro community in the world, but the first concentration in history of so many diverse elements of Negro life. It has attracted the African, the West Indian, the Negro American; has brought to- gether the Negro of the North and the Negro of the South; the man from the city and the man from the town and village; the peasant, the student, the business man, the professional man, artist, poet, musician, adventurer and worker, preacher and criminal, exploiter and social outcast.”’ Harlem is a miniature Negro world. A stranger walking through Lenox Avenue or Seventh Avenue would see only Negro faces. He would see Negro churches, theaters, schools, banks, undertakers, pawn- shops, mercantile establishments, barber shops, beauty parlors, hotels, restaurants, cabarets, pool-rooms, drug stores, news stands, fruit ven- dors, and even Negro cab drivers, and Negro policemen. “Harlem,” as viewed by Johnson, “is in many respects typically Negro. It has many unique characteristics. It has movement, color, gaiety, singing, dancing, boisterous laughter and loud talk. One of its outstanding features is brass band parades. Hardly a Sunday passes but that there are several of these parades of which many are gorgeous with regalia and insignia. Almost any excuse will do—the death of an humble member of the Elks, the laying of a corner stone, the ‘turning out’ of the order of this or that.’ ® A noticeable feature of Harlem is its great number of fakirs. In reference to this, Winthrop D. Lane says: “Black art flourishes in Har- lem—and elsewhere in New York. Egyptian seers uncover hidden knowledge, Indian fortune-tellers reveal the future, sorcerers perform their mysteries. Feats of witchcraft are done daily. A towel for turban and a smart manner are enough to transform any Harlem colored man into a dispenser of magic to his profit. “Come with me into any little stationery store on Lenox or Sev- enth Avenue—the two main business thoroughfares of the district— and peep into the dream and mystery books there offered for sale. Some of these can be bought, as said, for fifteen or twenty cents, others cost a dollar. Here is one called Albertus Magnus. It is described as the ‘approved, verified, sympathetic and natural Egyptian secrets, or ¢“The Making of Harlem,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. 28 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE SU eA RTS NUN RETA Ste White and Black Art for Man and Beast, revealing the Forbidden Knowledge and Mysteries of Ancient Philosophers.’ Another is Na- poleon’s own Oraculum and Book of Fate, containing the explanations of dreams and other mysteries consulted on every occasion by Napo- leon himself.” 7 A singular fact about the Negro population of Harlem is that its foreign-born element seems to take the leadership. The famous Negro poet, Claude McKay, and the great organizer of the movement to re- claim Africa for the blacks, Marcus Garvey, are natives of Jamaica. “It is safe to say,” remarks W. A. Domingo, “that West Indian rep- resettation in the skilled trades is relatively large; this is also true of the professions, especially medicine and dentistry. Like the Jew, they are forever launching out in business, and such retail businesses as are in the hands of Negroes in Harlem are largely in the control of the foreign-born. While American Negroes predominate in forms of busi- ness like barber shops and pool-rooms in which there is no competition from white men, West Indians turn their efforts almost invariably to fields like grocery stores, tailor shops, jewelry stores and fruit vending in which they meet the fiercest kind of competition. In some of these fields they are the pioneers or the only surviving competitors of white business concerns. In more ambitious business enterprises like real estate and insurance they are relatively numerous. The only Casino and moving picture theater operated by Negroes in Harlem is in the hands of a native of one of the small islands. On Seventh Avenue a West Indian woman conducts a millinery store that would be a credit to Fifth Avenue.” ® “There is a diametrical difference between American and West In- dian Negroes in their worship. While large sections of the former are inclined to indulge in displays of emotionalism that border on hysteria, the latter, in their Wesleyan Methodist and Baptist churches maintain, in the face of the assumption that people from the tropics are necessa- rily emotional, all the punctilious emotional restraint characteristic of their English background. In religious radicalism the foreign-born are again pioneers and propagandists. The only modernist church among the thousands of Negroes in New York (and perhaps the country) is led by a West Indian, Rev. E. Ethelred Brown, an ordained Unitarian minister, and is largely supported by his fellow-islanders.” ® “Lane, “Ambushed in the City,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. *“The Tropics in New York,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. *Domingo, “The Tropics in New York,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW YORK 29 The Englishman, Maurice Evans, referring to Harlem, says: “I visited possibly over a hundred negro homes in New York, some of them independent houses or villas; others flats, two-roomed or one- roomed apartments. As regards the houses of the well-to-do negroes or mulattoes, everything was in good taste. The houses were clean. The furniture was solid, well-designed, and tasteful. The appointments of the dining table were such as the most fastidious English man or woman could not object to. There were well furnished libraries, and all the new appliances of civilization at their highest perfection—such as telephones, bathrooms, dinner-lifts, electric fans, heating apparatus— in regard to which New York is so much in advance of London. The poorest part that I visited, in what was declared by the police to be the worst existing tenements in the negro quarter, was clean, wholesome, and attractive as compared to the dwellings of many respectable, hard- working Londoners. “The staircases, for example, were always clean and well lit; there was none of that horrible odour of the imditscretions du chat (as the French delicately phrase it) which is so characteristic of the frowsy, early-nineteenth-century houses of respectable lower-middle-class Lon- don; there were no disagreeable smells of bad cooking; the sanitary arrangements appeared to be quite up-to-date and devoid of offence. The people I visited of the poorer class were cooks (of both sexes), longshoremen, railway porters and car attendants; train-conductors, seamstresses, washerwomen, and so forth. Their rooms seemed to be comfortably furnished, and were superior in every way to the worst slums of London.” ?° Harlem has a rich social life which expresses itself through its numerous church societies, its lodges, and its women’s clubs, and, on the lower levels, through its dance halls, cabarets, pool-rooms, and gambling dens. “In Harlem,” says Winthrop D. Lane, “‘there are cab- arets to which both white and colored people are admitted. There are cabarets where white and colored sit at the same table, dance together, talk together, drink together, leave together. Many flashy young people of both colors come to these and get riotously or near riotously merry ; some less flashy people come; and some sober and sedate folk sit at the tables. All told there are about fifteen cabarets in Harlem. A few cater only to the well-behaved, others to the less well-behaved, and some to roughnecks.” 1 * Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 474. *“Ambushed in the City,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. 30 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE It is a far cry from the katydids and crickets of the rural South to the nocturnal jazz of Harlem. A wag once remarked that, “The Jews own New York, the Irish run it, and the Negroes enjoy it.” As in the outside world, so in Harlem there is social stratification and a color line. Among the élite, who are quite distinctly a mulatto element, the dances, dinners, marriages, and other social functions are carried on with all the decorum and formality characteristic of the rich whites. “Unfortunately,” says Walter F. White, “color prejudice creates certain attitudes of mind on the part of some colored people which form color lines within the color line. Living in an atmosphere where swarthiness of skin brings, almost automatically, denial of opportunity, it is as inevitable as it is regrettable that there should grow up among Negroes themselves distinctions based on skin color and hair texture. There are many places where this pernicious custom is more powerful than in New York—for example, there are cities where only mulattoes attend certain churches while those whose skins are dark brown or black attend others. Marriages between colored men and women whose skins differ markedly in color, and indeed, less intimate relations are frowned upon. Since those of lighter color could more often secure the better jobs, an even wider chasm has come between them, as those with economic and cultural opportunity have progressed more rapidly than those whose skin denied them opportunity. “Thus, even among intelligent Negroes there has come into being the fallacious belief that black Negroes are less able to achieve success. Naturally such a condition has led to jealousy and suspicion on the part of darker Negroes, chafing at their bonds and resentful of the patron- izing attitude of those of lighter color.’ ” If in Harlem Negro humanity is found in its lowest depths, it is alsa found in its highest intellectual and spiritual flights. Here one finds Negro scholars, novelists, poets, painters, sculptors, and musicians, who sense the longings of the mass, and catch glimpses of a new horizon, “White, “Color Lines,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. CHAPTER 4 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN CHICAGO The Black Belt of Chicago—Character of the Houses—Opposition to Selling or Renting Houses to Negroes in White Districts—Methods Employed to Keep the Negroes Out—Claim That Negro Invasions Depreciate Prop- erty—Negro Quarters in Philadelphia and Other Cities N Chicago the chief Negro quarter embraces the area from Twelfth Street to Thirty-first Street, and from Wentworth Avenue on the west to Wabash Avenue on the east, and is known as the “Old South Side” or “Black Belt.” About ninety percent of the Negroes live in this quarter, although there are half a dozen other Negro quarters scattered over the city. The houses in the Black Belt are generally abandoned residences of the whites, or tenements of an old type, in varying stages of dilapidation. ‘The ordinary conveniences, considered necessities by the average white citizen, are often lacking, Bathrooms are often miss- ing. Gas lighting is common, and electric lighting is a rarity. Heating is done by wood or coal stoves, and furnaces are rather exceptional ; when furnaces are present, they are sometimes out of repair.” + The prevailing type of dwelling in the Black Belt is described as “frail, flimsy, tottering, unkempt, and some of them literally falling apart. Little repairing is done from year to year. ... The surround- ings in these localities were in a condition of extreme neglect, with little apparent effort to observe the laws of sanitation. Streets, alleys, and vacant lots contained garbage, rubbish, and litter of all kinds. ... From thirty-five to forty percent of the Negro houses of the West side, and many in the North Side, are of the type above described.” ? Negroes have to live next door to a low class “dive,” where “dis- orderly white women meet colored men”; where “an automatic piano thumps through the night until closing hours. On the mirrors are pasted chromos of ‘September Morn’ and other poses of nude women.” The loud profanity is blended with “the midnight honking of automo- biles.” ° One of the reasons for the dilapidated character of the Negro *Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 152. *Ibid., p. 192. *Tbid., p. 202. 31 32 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE houses is that the landlord, knowing the difficulty of the Negro’s finding a house elsewhere, does not feel compelled to keep up repairs. An- other reason is that, when a Negro purchases a house on the instal- ment plan, the periodic payments often leave nothing for maintenance. In order to help meet the payments he takes in lodgers who hasten the deterioration of the property.* Only about three to five percent of the Negroes of Chicago own their homes, as compared to fifteen per- cent of the whites. A handicap to the Negro’s buying a home “is the low security rating given by real estate loan concerns to property ten- anted by Negroes. Because of this, Negroes are charged more than white people for loans, find it more difficult to secure them, and thus are greatly handicapped in efforts to buy or improve property.” ° If a Negro has the means, and attempts to buy a home outside of the Black Belt, he has two difficulties to overcome. One is the opposi- tion of property owners or real estate agents to selling property to a Negro. The other is the hostile attitude of his white neighbors, which sometimes manifests itself merely in scornful looks or taunts and some- times in acts of violence. If the Negroes attempt to form a new settlement of their own in an outlying district, “there is the biggest hubbub raised. People ex- claim: ‘You will ruin this whole neighborhood. You will ruin the street car line!’ Everything out in that neighborhood will be ruined all along the street, because if you build up a colored neighborhood in any one particular location nobody else will want to go out that way.” ® A real estate dealer of Chicago says that “when a Negro moves into a block, the value of the properties on both sides of the street is depre- ciated all the way from $100,000 to $500,000, depending upon the value of the property in the block. . . . It is a condition that is inherent in the human race . . . a man will not buy a piece of property or put his money in or invest in it where he knows that he is liable to be confronted the next day or the next year or even five years hence with the problem of having colored people living alongside of his investment. This depreciation runs all the way from 30 to 60 percent. Some time ago a survey was made as a result of which it was estimated that the influx of Negroes into white neighborhoods during the last two years had depreciated property on the South Side about $100,000,000.” 7 *Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 201. "Ibid., p. 215. *Statement of a real estate dealer. Ibid., p. 225. "Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 205. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN CHICAGO 33 “When a Negro family moves into a block in which all other fam- ilies are white, the neighbors object. This objection may express itself in studied aloofness, in taunts, warnings, slurs, threats, or even the bombing of their homes. White neighbors who can do so are likely to move away at the first opportunity. Assessors and appraisers in deter- mining the value of the property take account of this general dislike of the presence or proximity of Negroes. It matters little what type of citizens the Negro family may represent, what their wealth or stand- ing in the community is, or that their motive in moving into a predom- inant white neighborhood is to secure better living conditions—their appearance is a signal of depreciation.” ® Some white women of Chicago seem to have a greater fear of the Negro than the white women of any section of the South. For instance, a white woman, testifying before the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, said, in reference to her Negro neighbors: “TI tell you the white people on this street have to be afraid of their lives.” ® Another white woman, living next door to a Negro family, said: “You'll be surprised when [ tell you that I haven't been able to open my bedroom window on that side to air that room for three years. I couldn’t think of unlocking the windows because their window is so near somebody could easily step across into this house. It’s awful to have to live in such fear of your life... . Why, I couldn't sit on my porch on the hottest day because I’d be afraid they would come out any minute. And what white person will sit on a porch next door to a porch with black ones on it? Not me, anyhow, nor you either I hope.” ?° During the World War, when the rapidly increasing Negro popu- lation of Chicago forced the Negroes to find housing accommodations outside of the Black Belt, there was an intensified opposition to the in- vasion of Negroes into white districts. The most pronounced opposi- tion to Negro invasion was developed in the Kenwood and Hyde Park district, which lies between State Street and Lake Michigan, and between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-ninth Streets. In 1916 the Negroes of the Black Belt began to overflow into this white residential district. Property values in certain streets of this district had been already de- preciated by the erection of apartment houses and the incoming of a rooming and boarding population of whites. The difficulty of finding *Tbid., p. 195. *Tbid., p. 440. “ Tbid.; p. 453. 34 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE white tenants and buyers led to the renting and sale of houses to the Negroes." In 1918 a movement was begun to ‘make Hyde Park white,” and took the form of “The Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners Association.” The Property Owners Journal of December 13, 1919, said: “Property conservatively valued at $50,000,000 by some 10,000 individuals is menaced by a possible Negro invasion of Hyde Park. The thing is simply impossible and must not occur.” 1? In the issue of February 15, 1920, is the statement: “Certain classes of Negroes such as the Pullman porters, political leaders and hairdressers are clamor- ing for equality. They are not content with remaining with the creditable members of their race, they seem to want to mingle with the whites. . . . Keep the Negro in his place amongst his people and he is healthy and loyal. Remove him, or allow his newly discovered importance to remove him from his proper environment and the Negro becomes a nuisance. He develops into an overbearing, inflated, iras- cible individual, overburdening his brain to such an extent about so- cial equality that he becomes dangerous to all with whom he comes in contact, he constitutes a nuisance, of which the neighborhood is anx- ious to rid itself.” ?° The Kenwood and Hyde Park Association professed to use only lawful means of ousting Negro residents. Its method was to arouse public sentiment and get the cooperation of all real estate dealers. In case a Negro purchased property in the district, the association used persuasion to induce him to sell, and offered him what it considered a fair price for his property. For example, a Negro bought a house in the district for $9,000. An agent of the association called on him and pleaded with him to sell. The Negro refused. Then the agent offered to give the Negro $9,500 for his property. The Negro refused this offer also and declared that he would not take less than $11,500 for his house.*4 The feeling of opposition to the Negro invasion spread to the “rowdy” whites who sought to oust the Negroes by violence. They began to bomb houses owned or occupied by Negroes. “From July 1, 1917, to March 1, 1921, the Negro housing problem was marked by fifty-eight bomb explosions. Two persons, both Negroes, were killed, a * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 117. i Dias (Dec E2T. OI D122; "Ibid... p.) 127: DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN CHICAGO 35 number of white and colored persons were injured, and the damage to property amounted to more than $100,000.” 1° The usual method of bombing was to drive an automobile by the house at midnight and place the bomb under the steps or throw it through the glass door. The police were powerless to apprehend the culprits. The Kenwood and Hyde Park Association disclaimed any connection or sympathy with the bombing, and the better white people of the district, through the pulpit and press, denounced these acts of lawlessness. The Negroes organized the ‘‘Protective Circle of Chicago” to combat the lawlessness and to bring pressure to bear upon the city authorities to apprehend the bomb-throwers.'® Sometimes the Negro property holder would yield to persuasion or to intimidation and sell, but in most cases he would not. Many of the Negroes who moved out were forced to do so through the cancella- tion of leases and the foreclosure of mortgages. By such means, the Association stated, sixty-eight Negro families had been moved by the summer of 1920."7 The housing problem in Chicago is not half as serious as the ra- cial troubles of 1916-2c led the citizens to believe. In Chicago, as in other cities, the Negroes gravitate by preference toward one or several Negro neighborhoods. The Negroes are very little inclined to invade choice residential districts because of the high cost of the property and their disinclination to live in uncongenial surroundings. Those of them who have the means and desire to move out of an undesirable Negro quarter generally buy or rent in a more select Negro settlement, or in a white neighborhood where they become the nucleus of a new Negro settlement. In either event they generally move into a district where property values are low, and where white people of moderate means have been likewise attracted because of the low values. Since the Negroes and whites are on the same economic level, they live side by side without animosity, though without intermingling. The idea, prevalent among real estate agents and other people gen- erally, that the presence of Negroes in any district depreciates property, is often founded upon a misapprehension of the facts. It is often the case that the fall in property values precedes the incoming of Negroes, and is due to the invasion of a white residence district by apartment houses, theaters, garages, and a boarding population, causing the gen- ** Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 122. BT bid Dak 313 " Thid., p. 134. 30 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE eral flight of the home-owners to a new residence center. This was cer- tainly the cause of the fall in values in a section of the Hyde Park dis- trict invaded by the Negroes in 1g19.*® Among themselves the Negroes have a social life full of variety and richness—dances, banquets, picnics, women’s clubs, mah-jong parties, bridge parties and the like. The Negro press devotes a great amount of space to social functions. A Chicago paper, reporting the anniver- sary dance of the Bon-Vivant Club, says: “The spacious grand ball room of the Vincennes Hotel never was more resplendent with glowing radiant young women magnificence; and gallant young gentlemen, scions of the rising tide of wealth and esthetic culture of our race. “The lofty ceiling of the ball room, by a novel arrangement of a myriad of multicolored electric lights reflected a soft mystic illumina- tion of entrancing beauty. At close intervals, great clusters of vari- colored balloons of all sizes and shapes floated high above the dancers’ heads, with billowy cloudlike effect—in appearance—kissed by the light of a June sunset. “The orchestra, in a decorated triangular enclosure in the northeast corner, rendered a melange of inspiring music. “Until as late as 11 o’clock, dozens of people braved the inclement weather, and stood at advantageous points near the canopied and car- peted entrance to the hotel, and watched and admired the lovely be- gowned ladies and their faultlessly dressed escorts as they debarked from the autos which arrived in almost endless procession, from nine until eleven o’clock. “Gorgeous liveried footmen, and pages and also most polite and at- tentive maids was a feature of the perfect committee in charge of ar- rangements.” In Chicago, as in New York, the Negroes are stratified socially. The prosperous and educated class of Negroes live mostly in scattered nests outside of the Black Belt. In Philadelphia the chief Negro quarter is in Ward Seven, where there are a number of alley-streets hardly wide enough for a cart to pass through. The houses are tenements of two or three stories. They abut directly on the sidewalk, and the occupants on opposite sides of the street can sit in their respective front windows and ex- change gossip. This is the only district in Philadelphia which is no- toriously slummy. * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, pp. 195-200. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN CHICAGO 37 In Boston the Negro quarter is in the South End, where the houses are partly abandoned residences of the whites and partly new tene- ments.*® In Cleveland, Ohio, the Negro quarter is centered on Central Ave- nue, Cedar Street and Dove Street, where the housing conditions are much the same as in the Black Belt of Chicago. In Indianapolis the Negroes are segregated in various back streets and alleys, and occupy cheap one-story frame tenements of two or three rooms.”° On the fringes of the Negro quarters in nearly all cities there are white residents, and in some streets the whites and blacks are inter- spersed. Outside of the Negro quarters also, in scattered neighbor- hoods there are found groups of white and black people living side by side. In some of these neighborhoods the races seem to be adjusted to each other and get along harmoniously, while in others they live like cats and dogs. One of the worst phases of the home life in the Negro quarters is the large number of lodgers per house. The reason for this is chiefly that the Negro tenant feels compelled to take in lodgers to meet the high rents. In any of the cities of the North (or South, for that matter) the conditions are very unfavorable for a wholesome family life. Married Negro women, to a greater extent than the married women of any other group in the United States, carry on some kind of gain- ful occupation and work away from home. In most Northern cities the Negro women outnumber the men. “The city,” says Charles Johnson, “actually attracts more women than men. But surplus women bring on other problems, as the social agencies will testify. “Where women preponderate in large numbers there is proportionate increase in immorality because women are cheap.’ . . . The situation does not permit normal relations. What is most likely to happen, and does happen, is that women soon find it an added personal attraction to contribute to the support of a man. De- moralization may follow this—and does. Moreover, the proportion of Negro women at work in Manhattan (60.6) is twice that of any corresponding group, and one of the highest proportions registered any- where. 7 Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 120. * Baker, op. cit., p. 112. =“Black Workers in the City,” Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925. 38 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The family life of the city Negroes is also greatly handicapped by the employment away from home of young boys and girls. Over three times as many Negro boys as native whites between the ages of ten and fifteen are at work, five times as many girls. It is encouraging to note, however, that the proportion of Negro women workers, as also of Negro children workers, was less in 1920 than in Igto. CHAPTER 5 RACIAL SEPARATION Negro Churches, Clubs, Fraternal Orders, Hotels, Theaters, Dance Halls, and So Forth—Refusal or Discouragement of Negro Patronage by Public Resorts and Private Businesses Primarily for Whites—Avoidance of Em- barrassment through Exercise of Good Sense by Both Races Ne only in respect to their place of residence, but in nearly every other respect, the Negroes in the North tend to live apart from the whites. The degree of segregation generally varies with the mass of the Negro population. In cities where the number of Negroes is large the segregation is sharply limited, while in cities where Negroes are few there is much freer commingling with the whites. Further- more, in cities where the Negro population is large the degree of social separation varies in each locality with the number of Negroes who are thrown in contact with whites. In the Negro quarters everywhere one notices exclusive Negro churches, Y. M. C. A.’s, fraternal orders, theaters, restaurants, and so on. Wherever the Negro, outside of his segregated quarter, comes in contact with the whites, whether he is on a business mission or is merely seeking recreation, there is apt to be friction between the races, especially in cases where the Negro attempts to enter resorts patron- ized exclusively by the whites. Very frequently embarrassment, lawsuits, and even acts of vio- lence grow out of the unadjusted contacts of the Negro and Caucasian in the Northern states. In Boston, says Baker, “several hotels, restaurants, and especially confectionery stores will not serve Negroes, even the best of them. The discrimination is not made openly, but a Negro who goes to such places is informed that there are no accommodations, or he is overlooked and otherwise slighted, so that he does not come again.’* Even Booker Washington was turned away from hotels in Boston and Springfield. Similarly there are numerous hotels in Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus,” *Following the Color Line, p. 120. *Quillin, The Color Line in Olio, p. 146. 39 40 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Dayton,* and other cities which refuse to admit Negroes. Some years ago there was much newspaper comment over the refusal of a white maid in an Indiana hotel to make up a bed occupied by Booker Washington. Also, a few years ago, much ado was made over the refusal of hotels to receive Negro delegates at a Methodist General Con- ference held in Los Angeles. When I was living in Madison, Wis- consin, a Negro glee club visiting the city had to be provided for privately because no hotel would lodge them. Restaurants adopt a variety of ruses to avoid Negro patrons. The Chicago Tribune, referring to a famous restaurant in that city, says: “When a negro entered and askéd to be served he was seated in the usual way at a table on which were no menu or price cards. Presently a price card was laid before him. And in that price card lay all the effectiveness of the strictest Southern ‘Jim Crow’ law. It read some- thing like this: Coffee, per Cup We ities PUM ER SS Me, Cottee, with creamitvenuie sete 75 Bread sand i Dutretaeei ei ees 1.00 Bork CHOpS sien ae ea ate 8.00, etcetera. One glance at that card and its awful prices was usually enough to send the colored man hurrying out of the place.” One summer evening at an open air restaurant in Chicago I saw a group of Negroes seat themselves at a table. After they had been tardily served, one of them arose and spoke to the proprietor in a complaining manner of the prices charged. The proprietor refunded the overcharge upon the understand- ing that the Negroes would not return. Referring to the situation in New York, the Sun says: “In restaurants the waiters keep within the law. They do not say ‘We will give you no dinner,’ but ‘We are busy now.’ And the Negro may look at his empty plate, if he will, from 6 o’clock until midnight, and the excuse will be the same.” Helen Foil, writing to the Charlotte Observer from Boston, relates this story: “A negro entered a barber shop here and asked for a shave. The barber at first refused, but the law is on the negro’s side. He told the Negro he would have to wait, and, after about an hour’s time, he re-appeared with a razor which he had fixed for the purpose. He had taken an old one and had hammered on it with something heavy until it was dented and the edge broken in several places. He said to the Negro: ‘The law compels me te give you a shave, but by George, *Quillin, The Color Line in Ohio, p. 136. fe RACIAL SEPARATION 4I this is what I am going to do it with. The Negro gave one look at the razor and fled.” Several years ago a white man in the Harvard Square barber shop refused to shave a Negro, and had to pay a fine of $20 for the dis- crimination. In many Northern theaters Negro patrons find it difficult to secure seats except in the “nigger heaven.” They are informed at the box office that all the parquet seats are sold. Negroes, however, very fre- quently get good seats by sending a white person to buy them.‘ Many stores, especially clothing stores, shun Negro patronage as much as possible.® In transportation there is no discrimination against the Negro in any Northern city except that some cab companies will not serve Negroes. On railway trains the Negros may ride unmolested in a Pullman car or parlor car. Friction between the races, however, often occurs on trans- portation lines through rudeness or ill manners on the part of one or the other or both. I was once riding on a crowded Pennsylvania Railroad train between Philadelphia and New York, and two Negro men were occupying separate seats in the same coach. The conductor politely asked if they would kindly sit together. They both flatly refused. In many cases the Negro is not only disposed to take all that the law al- lows but a good deal more. Speaking of Columbus, Ohio, Quillin says: “When a negro boards the street car he proceeds to get a seat whether there is one vacant or not.” A colored photographer “was on a street car one evening when a negro, fresh from his work in the steel mill, with his filthy working clothes on, boarded the car and, although there was no room, crowded into a seat by the side of a white woman, elegantly dressed. When the colored photographer remonstrated with him for his action, he turned and said, ‘I’m no d—d white man’s nigger like you. I have a right here, and I am going to take it.’ The conduc- tor came along and put him off the car, the colored photographer giving the conductor his name as a witness if needed.” © Riding in a crowded street car with Negroes is often very unpleas- ant for the white people. When Professor B. H. Meyer of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin returned from a trip to Washington, where for the first time he came in contact with any considerable quantity of Negroes, he said in a talk to the student body he had made the discovery “that a *Quillin, op. cit., p. 136. *Ibid., p. 136. Pa Rid De Tie 42 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Negro in Georgia is a very different thing from one on a seat ahead of you in the street car.” Negroes are generally admitted to the municipal hospitals, though in some cases, as in Cincinnati, they occupy a segregated ward.” Some- times the white people rebel against the intermingling of the races in the same ward. For example, Miss Minerva Teague of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, expressed great indignation and humiliation because her niece, ill with pneumonia, was put in a room in the city hospital with a Negress. There was a column story about it in the Sentinel of De- cember II, 1904. The use of the Chicago parks -by Negroes is regulated by custom and varies with the degree of antagonism to Negroes in the park neigh- borhood. Negroes are not inclined to intrude where a park is predomi- nantly patronized by the whites, and in a few localities white hood- lums prevent Negroes from using the parks. Negroes have been kept out of the public golf tournament at Jackson Park by the requirement that participants be members of a golf club affiliated with the Western Golf Association.® ‘Separate racial grouping is the rule at the beaches, though it is not always voluntary.” 7° In Indianapolis, where Douglass Park has been provided as a spe- cial resort for Negroes, many good results, it is claimed, have followed, such as “‘the elimination of friction and dangers that have heretofore ex- isted between the races; a decrease in police supervision and costs of trials; a fifty-per-cent increase in property valuation in this part of the city; and a higher rating of the value of Negro citizenship.” 7 “Association in such places as hotels, restaurants, barber shops, dance halls, and theaters is often limited by tradition and custom in the North as strictly as by regulation in the South.” ?” There is one town in the North where the Negro is not allowed to live, and there are several such towns in the West. One of these is the town of Syracuse, Ohio, on the Ohio river, four miles above Pomeroy. The population is mixed, including many Welsh and Germans. Most of the people are day laborers working in the mines and factories. Anti-Negro towns in Indiana are Lawrenceburg, Ellwood, and Sa- lemme *Quillin, op. cit., p. 146. “Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, pp. 294-6. * lbtd., Dp. 277. ® Tbid., p. 286. “W. P. Todd, “Douglass Park,” Southern Workman, Aug., 1923. “Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 231. * Baker, op. cit., p. 126, RACIAL SEPARATION 43 In some Northern cities there are educated and refined mulattoes whose unobtrusive manners give them the freedom of all public places. They are welcomed as members of white churches, fraternal orders, and clubs. For example, William Stanley Braithwaite of Boston is a member of the Authors Club. And Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt of Cleve- land, Ohio, is a member of a white church and resides in a street among white residents. It is needless to add that, except in public places, there is little or no social intermingling of the whites and Negroes anywhere in the North or West. Speaking of the situation in Cleveland, Ohio, Quillin remarks that the race relations are there exceptionally harmonious but says: “There is no social equality between the two races and at the same time there is no bitterness over it. ... “Men of the two races meet as friends on the streets or in a busi- ness way, but their relation is never extended to the home life. The white man will not think of such a thing as introducing a colored per- son to his wife, nor will he have them meet on the same social plane.” As a consequence of the social separateness of the races there are only rare instances of intermarriage and these, in most cases, occur only in the lower strata of both races. The Negro author, W. H. Thomas, declares that where the Negroes and whites intermingle, the whites are generally on a lower plane than the Negroes.® The social aloofness of the whites and Negroes from each other is not a matter of hostile prejudice, but merely a matter of conscious- ness of kind which inclines each race to prefer its own in all intimate re- lationships. It is quite consistent with mutual respect and sympathy. The racial problem in the North seems to be this: How to pre- serve separateness in all intimate relationships, and, at the same time, intermingle in all public places with due regard to mutual rights and feelings. In the North the racial pique growing out of the social contacts is due mainly to the failure of each race to recognize one fundamental element of justice—good manners. In any city, or section of a city, in the North where the Negro popu- lation is relatively small it is not possible for the Negro to find accom- modations furnished by his own race, and it is a hardship for him to be denied accommodations primarily designed for white people. For hu- manitarian reasons, therefore, the Northern people have made it un- “Op. cit., pp. 156-7. % The American Negro, p. 406. 44 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE lawful to discriminate against the Negro in any public resort, and in most instances, especially where the number of Negroes is small, the whites welcome Negro patrons or at least serve them and treat them courteously. But there are some white proprietors of establishments who seek to debar Negroes even where the number of Negro patrons would be insignificant and where the refusal to serve them would be a hardship to them. In cases of this kind the whites are much at fault, doing injustice to the Negro and displaying very bad manners. On the other hand, the Negro is often at fault in seeking accommo- dations where he does not need them and where his patronage would be disagreeable to the white people and injurious to their business. In all Northern cities having Negro inhabitants, there are many places of resort where Negro patronage is understood to be desired, and others where it is not. Certain hotels in predominantly white dis- tricts, certain fashionable restaurants, barber shops, beauty parlors, ice cream parlors, and clothing stores, do not want Negro patrons. In many cases Negro patronage is turned away, not because of prejudice on the part of the proprietor, but because of pure business considera- tions. White proprietors of certain classes of establishments know that the presence of Negroes in any considerable number would drive away their more desirable white patrons. The Negroes generally know where they are welcome and where they are not, and their good sense keeps them away from places where their presence might involve em- barrassment to both races. However, there is a small class of Negroes of obtuse sensibilities who, obsessed with their legal rights, delight in intruding where they are not wanted, thereby offending the white people and intensifying race prejudice. For any citizen to go where his presence is unwelcome or injurious to the business of a white proprietor, provided other ac- commodations are available, is neither fair nor good manners. No statutory decree can give one the moral right to offend or injure an- other when he might avoid doing either without harm to himself. No self-respecting white man wishes to intrude himself where he is not wanted. Most of the race friction could be avoided by the exercise on the part of both the whites and blacks of common sense and good manners. The mass of colored people in the North as in the South have both common sense and good manners, and are no more inclined than white people to go where they are not wanted. Says Frank Quillin in an ar- ticle in the Independent on “The Negro in Cleveland’: RACIAL SEPARATION 45 “Ordinarily the colored people of Cleveland are very thoughtful about intruding themselves upon the white people in any way that would be disagreeable for either race. This is shown in their attitude toward frequenting the white man’s eating place or restaurant. When I asked any of the white people about this, the usual reply was, ‘Well, since I come to think about it, I never see a colored man in any restau- rant where I eat. I suppose they would feed him if he should come in, but as he knows that there is generally some feeling about that question, I suppose he has the good sense to stay away or patronize his own res- taurant.’ And that he does, for his own self-respect.” Eee GO THE NEGRO. AS A CITIZEN His Part in Politics—Bad Influence of the Negro Vote in Some Cities—Share of the Negro in the Spoils of Office N the Northern and Western states there are no franchise laws which prevent any considerable number of Negroes from voting. All of the Negroes are Republicans, partly because they credit their emancipation to the Republican party, partly because they are a gregari- ous people, and would probably vote according to color even if they had been emancipated by the free will of their masters. If the Negtroes would divide on the basis of convictions and vote independently, each political party would be attentive to Negro public opinion and eager to pick out properly qualified Negroes for office. At present the Negro vote is large enough to hold the balance of power in Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and could turn the scale of the presidential vote in any of these states. But the Negroes always vote one way and no party ever concerns itself seriously about such a group. The Negro voters need not be considered in the formulation of policies or the nom- ination of candidates. All that is necessary to keep them in line is to throw them a few political plums and not entirely overlook them in the distribution of campaign funds. A considerable element of the Negro citizens expect substantial rewards for their votes, and if they fail to get them they make loud complaints, threatening to vote against their party or not to vote at all. The clamor of the Negroes for compensa- tion for their franchises gives to their patriotism a sordid aspect which often excites the contempt of party leaders and the party press. In some cities the Negro vote is decidedly venal, especially in municipal elections. “In Springfield,” says Baker, “there were about 1,500 Negro voters, many of whom were bought at every election. The Democrats and Republicans were so evenly divided that the city administration was Democratic and the county administration Republican. The venal Negro vote went to the highest bidder, carried the elections, and, with the whiskey influence, governed the town... . 46 THE NEGRO AS A CITIZEN 47 “In the South the Negro has been disfranchised by law or by intimi- dation; in the North by cash. Which is worse?” ? The Cincinnati Post, speaking of the Negro as a political factor in that city, says: “In one ward 2,793 between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one are registered, exceeding the number in the next most thickly populated ward by more than 600. These men will be voted en bloc, and so determine the city’s mayor, its judges and other officials.” ? The Negroes have made a poor showing in the political conventions. Here they often decide the contest between rival aspirants, and the temp- tation is very great for the white boss to influence the Negro vote with cash. Norman P. Andrews in an article entitled ‘““The Negro in Poli- tics,’ published in the Journal of Negro History, October, 1920, says: “Early in the winter of the year when the president is to be nomi- nated, persons supporting the administration usually visit the South lay- ing plans for lining up these prospective delegates. Politicians inter- ested in other candidates make similar tours through the South some- times lavishly handling funds to the extent of buying up delegates.” The Negro author, Thomas, says that the colored man is regarded as a “political commodity, to be bought and sold to the highest bidder ; and he has been, and is, bought and sold in state and national conven- tions by men who pose as examples of integrity and champions of the rights of man.” * There is no more disgusting sight than to witness the coddling, fawning, and general effacement of self-respect among the white dele- gates at any convention where the Negro vote is a factor. One of the chief reasons why the white Republicans in the South favor a “lily white” party is that the methods which have to be employed at political conventions to influence the Negro vote are repellent to white men of moral stamina. In states and counties where Negroes are a considerable element of the population, they have to be appeased occasionally by the election or appointment of one of their number to an office. In most cases quali- fications are ignored, the choice of the Negro to be rewarded being gen- erally left to the Negroes themselves. In Massachusetts there is generally one Negro member of the lower house of the legislature. In Ohio there is usually one in the lower *Following the Color Line, pp. 202-3. *Quoted by the Public, June 15, 1917. ®The American Negro, p. 311. 48 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE house, and occasionally two members of the house and one of the senate. When the Republicans place a Negro on their ticket the Demo- crats sometimes also put a Negro on their ticket for the same office with a view of dividing the Negro vote. Negroes often sit as members of a city council or board of aldermen. The Negroes, however, are generally placated by the gift of some appointive office of minor importance. There are many Negro janitors about the state capitols, county courthouses, city halls, and other public buildings. In Ohio a Negro sometimes gets the job of deputy sheriff, assistant county clerk, court reporter, or policeman. In speaking frankly about the Negro’s part in politics in the North, it would be well to keep in mind the fact that the Negro of that section is concentrated in the big cities, and that the white politicians of those cities have been generally men of a low type of citizenship, often very corrupt, and have not set the Negro a good example of civic righteous- ness. CHAPTER 7 CRIMINALITY OF THE NEGRO IN THE NORTH Reason for Greater Criminality in the North Than in the South—Reasons for Greatest Criminality in the West—Reason for Existence of Great Crime Center in Chicago—Paramount Importance of Bad Environment As a Cause of Negro Crime HE criminality of the Negro is much greater in the North than in the South, for the reason that in the North the Negro generally lives in cities where the temptations to and opportunities for crime are many, whereas, in the South, the Negro generally lives in the country where the temptations and opportunities are fewer. Some overzealous friends of the Negro have denied this,1 but in so doing have closed their eyes to both statistics and reason. Crime is everywhere more common in cities than in rural districts, and the Negro race is no exception to this rule. That the Negro com- mits more crime in the North discredits neither the North nor the Negro. It merely illustrates the truth that black and white alike are influenced unfavorably by the city environment. The criminal tendency of the Negro can be measured only by com- paring the quantity and kind of crime committed by him and by white people in the same or similar environments. In Chicago the Negroes constitute only 4.5 percent of the popula- tion, but are responsible for 13.1 percent of all convictions for felonies, and 17.1 percent of the indictments for murder.? In r1g1o, the police records show, nearly three times as many Negroes as whites were ar- rested in proportion to their respective numbers in the population, the Negro percent of arrests being 11.5.8 For the six-year period ending January I, 1920, Negro arrests for misdemeanors, according to police records, averaged 8.20 percent and for felonies, 11.13 percent.” * Of the total convictions for misdemeanors, the Negroes average 8.5 per- *Haynes, The Negro at Work in New York City, New York, 1912. Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 330. e1Did., PD. 335: *Tbid., p. 336. 49 50 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE cent and of felonies 13 percent.© The records of the juvenile court show that Negro boy offenders constitute over twice the proportion of Negroes to the total population, and that Negro girl offenders consti- tute three and one-half times the proportion of Negroes to the total population.® The kind of offenses committed by Negro boys does not seem to differ notably from the kind committed by white boys, except that the Negro boys take the lead in larceny.’ The records of the criminal court of Chicago for 1917-18 show that the Negroes are responsible for 12.6 percent of the sex crimes. “The sex offenses of the Negroes were committed for the most part only against Negroes, and the specific charges were rape, attempted rape, accessory to rape, crimes against children, indecent liberties, contribut- ing to delinquency, incest, adultery, murder by abortion, bigamy, crimes against nature, seduction and bastardy.” § The figures above quoted, however, can be taken only as throwing some light on the sex criminality of the Negro and not as accurate sta- tistics, for the reason that they include only cases passing through the social service department of the criminal court. In the state prisons of Illinois the Negroes constitute twenty-three percent of the inmates. The high percentage of Negroes in these prisons, as compared to their percentage of convictions as indicated by the police records of Chicago, may be accounted for by the longer terms of sentence and the fewer paroles of Negroes, as compared to white prisoners. As to the behavior of Negroes in prison, the records indi- cate “that Negroes are less amenable to discipline than the whites, but that their violations of rules are not so grave. The percentage of Negro inmates whose conduct was marked satisfactory was smaller in all in- stitutions than the percentage of whites.” 1° In the Chicago House of Correction for adult misdemeanants, the Negroes constitute twenty per- cent of the total inmates.t. In the state school for delinquent boys (St. Charles), the Negro boys constitute 12.5 percent of the inmates,” In the state school for delinquent girls, the Negro girls constitute 18.5 percent of the inmates. * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 336. © bid. bp 1333: * Tbid., p. 334. *Thid., p. 332. *Tbid., p. 338. * Thid., p. 338. “Tbid., p. 340. * [bid., p. 339. CRIMINALITY OF THE NEGRO IN THE NORTH 51 The criminality of the Negro, and also of the whites, in Chicago, is much greater than the records indicate for the reason that the police records are very incomplete.’ In the report of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations there is evidence of a general effort to attribute the excessive crime and vice of the Negroes of that city to the recent migrants from the South,’* but this effort seems to be supported only by sectional prejudices. The statistics show that whereas the Negro population doubled from 1914 to 1919, the Negro crime rate for the period increased only fifty per- cent.° If the migrants from the South were more criminal than the Chicago-born Negroes the increase of crime would at least have kept pace with the increase of the Negro population. While the imputation of high criminality to the migrant Negroes is indefensible, there is rea- son to believe that the criminality of Negroes in Chicago, as also of the whites, at all periods, is swollen by the constant incoming of vicious classes from every direction. However it is very unfair to judge of the criminal tendencies of the Negro by looking only at the statistical data. If we go behind the statistics we shall find much to lessen their significance and much to mitigate the offenses which the statistics record. In the first place, Chicago is the most criminal city in the civilized world. It harbors 10,000 professional criminals,'® and has more mur- ders per annum than England and Wales with their 38,000,000 popula- tion. It has 2,146 more burglaries than London, and twenty-two rob- beries for one in London.*7 As to what extent the criminality of Chicago may be due to incompetence and corruption in the administra- tion of justice, I am unable to form an opinion, but a residence of one year in that city led me to think that the citizens generally were a su- perior type physically and morally, and that they had a reputation for crime which they did not wholly merit, because of the exceptional facili- ties for entrance and exit which the city offers to the criminal class. In any other large city, for instance New York City, the places of ingress and egress are limited, so that it is difficult for a criminal to enter or depart without apprehension by the police, But Chicago is the greatest railway center in the world, and its railways radiate in all directions, % Tbid., p. 327. “Ibid., pp 333, 349, 339, 350. * Ibid., pp 331-3. * Tbid., p. 327 "Thid, p. 328. 52 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE and each of them has from half a dozen to twenty stations where pas- sengers may get off and on a train within the city limits. Hence, a criminal has thousands of means of entering or leaving the city by rail. The same relative facility exists for entering and departing by automo- bile, for the reason that the number of highways radiating from Chicago exceeds the number of any other city. When we add to these railway and highway entrances and exits those afforded by water transporta- tion, we can see why looking for a criminal in Chicago is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and why the worst criminals for a thousand miles around flock to Chicago to commit crime. As Chicago tends to attract white criminals from the regions round about, so also it attracts Negro criminals. Thus a considerable amount of crime committed by both whites and Negroes in Chicago is due to the criminal drainage from other sections. Other facts which need to be taken into account in explanation of the criminal statistics of Negroes is that Negroes are more easily arrested, identified, and convicted than white people. But to whatever extent the Negro is criminal, the most important cause, and the one which ranks ahead of any racial trait, is the bad en- vironment in which he lives. In Chicago, as in other cities, because of the residential segregation, crowds of the Negroes, good and bad, are obliged to live in the same district, and often in the same tenement. Hence the better element of the Negroes is always being contaminated and dragged down by the worse. Then, too, in Chicago the Negro quar- ter and the vice quarter have always been close together, and in spots interblended.1* The Vice Commission report of 1911 said: “The history of the social evil in Chicago is intimately connected with the colored population. Invariably the large vice districts have been created within or near the settlements of colored people. In the past history of the city every time a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side, colored families were in the district moving in just ahead of the prostitutes. The situation along State Street from Sixteenth Street south is an illustration.” +9 In 1912 the vice district designated by the police contained the largest group of Negroes in the city, with most of their churches, Sunday schools, and societies. The Vice Commission report further said “that practically all of the male and female servants, connected with houses of prostitution in vice dis- tricts and in disorderly flats in residence sections, are colored.’ *° * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 342. ™ Ibid., p. 343. ” Ibid., p. 343. CRIMINALITY OF THE NEGRO IN THE NORTH = 53 The vice resorts of white people tend to gravitate toward the Black Belt “because in this district there is less likelihood of effective inter- ference either from citizens or public authorities.” ?* On the other hand, the Negroes gravitate toward the vice centers because of the low rentals resulting from the undesirableness of the neighborhood.” The high percentage of vice among the Negro women of Chicago is in keeping with the extraordinarily bad surroundings in which they have to live and the precariousness of their employment. The manager of a big concern in Chicago told a member of the Commission on Race Re- lations “that his plant had dismissed more than 500 Negro girls for business reasons. ‘These girls, it was stated, could not easily find re- employment, and were therefore probably exposed to certain necessi- ties and temptations from which white girls of comparable status are exempt. 7° A difference between Negro and white criminals is that the former more generally act on impulse and act alone; the latter act more gener- ally upon premeditation and in partnership with others. Leroy Steward, Chief of Police of Chicago, says “that the Negro criminals work as in- dividuals. I only recall one instance where there was a gang of colored men that came to my attention but I know of many white gangs.” 4 * Tbid., p. 344. ™ Ibid., p. 344. L0t0.,D.) 332. * Ibid., p. 346. CHAPTER 8 FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES Frequent Occurrence of Clashes and Riots Due to Race Friction—The Springfield Riot of 1908—The Waukegan Riot of 1917—The St. Louis Riots of 1917— The Chicago Riot of 1919 N the large cities, racial clashes are very common. They take the form of individual fights, of fights between groups of Negroes and whites, or of gang attacks upon a single individual. Of course, the provocation comes sometimes from the whites and sometimes from the Negroes, but I believe that race clashes in all sections of the country are more often provoked by the whites. In the Negro quarters there are generally certain streets or neigh- borhoods which harbor the worst class of Negro criminals, and, in proximity to these Negro quarters, there are generally corresponding centers for the worst type of white criminals. The chief racial dis- turbances arise from the contact of these two criminal groups, and from individuals of either group stealing, holding up, and otherwise molest- ing people not belonging to the criminal class. Referring to the San Juan Hill in New York City, a police- man said, in 1900, “plain-going, honest Negro longshoremen, on their way home from work have been beaten for a month past by hoodlums along Tenth Avenue and have been left in the gutter for dead.’ ! Following a number of white hoodlum attacks upon Negroes, Magistrate Brann remarked: “It’s getting so the colored people have no right in this city. But they’ll get justice while I am sitting in this court.” ? In Chicago in February, 1917, a crowd of white boys assembled in front of a tenement house, on Forty-sixth Street, into which a Negro family had moved, and stoned the building, breaking out every window in the upper floors. The police rescued the Negroes, who moved to other quarters.°® In the same city, May 27, 1917, a group of ten white men entered a *New York Times. > New York Sun, quoted in Charlotte Observer, Sept. 23, 1900. * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 53. 54 FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES 55 saloon on South State Street and, when a Negro came in and called for a drink, one of the white men knocked him down and kicked him out of the door. The Negro picked up some brickbats and the whites followed him and beat him over the head with their revolvers.* On the night of June 21, 1917, “there were two wanton murders of Negroes by gangs of white hoodlums.” ® Among the racial clashes on a larger scale which rise to the dignity of riots, the following are of the more recent and outstanding: THE SPRINGFIELD RIOT, AUGUST, 10908 The tension of racial feeling which prepared the atmosphere for the outbreak at Springfield, Illinois, August 14-15, 1908, was occasioned by the murder, several weeks earlier, of C. A. Ballard, a white man, by Joe James, a Negro tramp. One night the Negro James entered the room of Mr. Ballard’s daughter. Ballard attacked the Negro and in the struggle received a mortal wound. The Negro fled, but was found next day asleep in a nearby park under the influence of a drug. He was tried and hanged. The feeling over the James affair had hardly abated when the people were aroused by a second report of a Negro outrage upon a white woman. The wife of a street-car conductor de- clared that on Friday night, August 14, a Negro entered her room, dragged her from her bed to the back yard, and there assaulted her. She said she had attempted to scream but was choked by her assailant, who left her lying unconscious in the garden. Next morning she ac- cused as her assailant a Negro, George Richardson, who had been at work on a neighboring yard the day before the assault. In the after- noon, crowds of 300 or 400 gathered at the jail where Richardson had been incarcerated, and where the Negro James, who had killed Ballard, also occupied a cell. About five o’clock Richardson and James were clandestinely transferred to Bloomington. After dark the crowd began to demand the two Negroes. After being informed of their removal, some one started the rumor that Harry Loper, a restaurant keeper, had provided the automobile for the Negroes’ escape. The crowd rushed to the restaurant. In response to the mob’s hootings, Loper appeared at the door with a firearm in his hand. Brickbats began to fly at the plate-glass window, and in a few minutes the restaurant was a complete wreck, as was Loper’s automo- bile, which had been standing in front of it. *Tbid., p. 54. * Ibid., p. 55. 50 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “When the mob began to surge through the town, the Fire Depart- ment was called to disperse it, but the mob cut the hose. Control having been lost by the sheriff and police, Governor Deneen called out the militia. The mob, by this time very much excited, started for the Negro district through Washington Street, along which a large num- ber of Negroes lived on upper floors. Raiding second-hand stores which belonged to white men, the mob secured guns, axes, and other weapons with which it destroyed places of business operated by Negroes and drove out all of the Negro residents from Washington Street. Then it turned north into Ninth Street. “At the northeast corner of “Ninth and Jefferson Streets was the frame barber shop of Scott Burton, a Negro. The mob set fire to this building,’ and lynched the proprietor, in the yard back of his shop. “The mob tied a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets. An effort was then made to burn the body, which had been hung up to a tree.” The mob next turned north to Madison Street and began firing all the shacks in which Negroes and whites lived in that street. About two o’clock in the morning a company of militia arrived from Decatur, and, by firing into the mob and wounding two of the men, dis- persed it for the time being. The next night, however, in spite of the arrival of more militia, the mob gathered at the Court House Square, and proceeded to parade the streets. At the corner of Spring and Edwards Streets, a Negro named Denegan, 84 years old, whose offense was that he had been living with a white wife for thirty years, was strung up to a tree across the street. The Negroes became frightened, and began to leave the town, scores being severely beaten before making their escape. Three thousand of them were concentrated at Camp Lincoln. Before the rioting ended, 5,000 militiamen were patrolling the streets. The fatalities of the riot were two Negroes lynched and four white men shot, and seventy-nine persons injured. When the grand jury took up the question of the assault of the Negro Richardson upon the wife of the street-car conductor, the fact was brought out that on the night of the alleged assault the white woman had been brutally beaten by a white man, and that, wishing to keep the name of the assailant a secret, she made up the story of as- sault by the Negro Richardson. Confronted with the facts, the woman signed an affidavit exonerating Richardson, who was a man of a fam- ily and property, with no criminal record.® ° Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, pp. 67-71. FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES 57 THE WAUKEGAN RIOT, MAY, 1917 May 31, 1917, at Waukegan, Illinois, thirty-six miles north of Chi- cago, a small riot grew out of the act of a Negro boy ten years old, and his sister, in throwing stones at passing automobiles. One of these missiles broke the windshield of an automobile driven by Lieutenant Blazier of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. Later in the day a mob of recruits from the station assembled in front of the house where the offending Negro boy lived, threw stones at it, and broke nearly all the windows. The provost guards rounded up the recruits and sent them back to the station. Two nights later, 150 boys on leave from the station renewed the attack, colliding with the police, who shot and wounded two of them and made several arrests. The crowd of boys followed to the police station and demanded the release of their com- rades. The commander of the station arrived in time to prevent further trouble.’ THE ST. LOUIS RIOTS, MAY-JULY, 1917 The race riots in East St. Louis, May 28 and July 2, 1917, had a common origin in the competition between Negro and white labor in the industries of that city. The general shortage of labor during the World War caused the industries of East St. Louis to employ a large number of Negro immigrants from the South. During the two years prior to July, 1917, the Negro population of East St. Louis was in- creased by about 18,000. In the summer of 1916 there was a strike of 4,000 white men in the packing plants of the city, and the current opinion was that Negroes were used in these plants as strike breakers. About the same time a strike occurred at the Aluminum Ore Company during which the com- pany brought hundreds of Negroes to the city as strike breakers in order to defeat organized labor. This aroused intense hatred of the Negro. “White men walked the streets in idleness and their families suffered for food and warmth and clothes, while their places as laborers were taken by strange Negroes who were compelled to live in hovels and who were used to keep down wages.’ ® The secretary of the Cen- tral Trades Labor Union sent out a notice, May 2, calling for a meet- ing to present to the mayor and council a demand for action to “retard their growing menace (Negro immigrants) and also devise a way to ‘ [bid., p. 57. ®Tbid., p. 74. 58 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE get rid of a certain portion of those who are already here,” declaring that the immigration of the Southern Negro had reached a point where “drastic action must be taken if we intend to work and live peaceably in this community,” and that the Negroes were being used “to the detri- ment of our white citizens by some of the capitalists and a few real estate owners.” ® The meeting was held May 28, in the City Hall, and a low-type law- yer made an inflammatory speech. That night, following the meeting, a white mob gathered at the police station and clamored for Negro prisoners. “A rumor circulated through the crowd that a white man had just been killed by Negroes, and parts of the crowd left, forming a mob which severely beat a number of Negroes whom it met. The situa- tion was so serious that the mayor called for troops.’ *° A second riot of larger proportions began on the night of July 1, 1917. The hoodlums of both races had been menacing and attacking each other since the riot of May 28. In order to understand how favor- able to an explosion the atmosphere was, it is necessary to bear in mind that East St. Louis was a plague spot harboring within its borders “every offense in the calendar of crime.” *! The centers of vice were in two settlements; one known as “Black Valley” and the other “Brooklyn,” in both of which were the lowest dens of iniquity fre- quented by both whites and blacks. On the night above mentioned, a crowd of white roughs drove in an automobile through the “Black Val- ley,” firing indiscriminately into Negro homes. “This aroused fierce resentment among the Negroes, who organized for defense and armed themselves with guns. The ringing of the church bell, a prearranged signal for assembling, drew a crowd of them, and they marched through the streets ready to avenge the attack. A second automobile filled with white men crossed their path. The Negroes cursed them, commanded them to drive on, and fired a volley into the machine. The occupants, however, were not the rioters but policemen and reporters. One policeman was killed and another was so seriously wounded that he died later. “Thousands viewed the riddled car standing before police headquar- ters. The next morning, July 2, the crowds of whites and Negroes re- solved themselves into mobs and began a pitched battle. Negro mobs shot white men, and white men and boys, girls and women, began to ® Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 75. ® [bid., p. 75. " Tbhid., p. 76. FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES 59 attack every Negro in sight. News spread rapidly and, as excitement increased, unimaginable depredations and horrible tortures were com- mitted and viewed with ‘placid unconcern’ by hundreds. Negro men were stabbed and hanged from telephone poles. Their homes were burned.” 7? In the Negro area there were 312 houses totally or partially destroyed.4* “Women and children were not spared. An instance is given of a Negro child two years old which was shot and thrown into the doorway of a burning building.”’ 4 About thirty-nine Negroes and eight white people were killed +> and hundreds of both races more or less seriously injured, and the property loss was about $393,600."° Five companies of militia were sent to the scene of the riot, some of them arriving on the morning of July 2, but both the militia and local police seemed to sympathize with the white mob and made no serious effort to restrain them.’ About 200 people were arrested for participation in the riot and of these, eleven Negroes and ten white men were convicted and sent to state prisons, fourteen white men were given jail sentences, and twenty- seven white men pleaded guilty to rioting and were fined.*® THEVABYSSINIAN RIOT OF CHICAGO) JUNE 1920 In Chicago, June 10, 1920, there occurred what was called the Abys- sinian Riot. “Dr. R. D. Jonas, a white man, and Grover C. Ridding, a Negro claiming to be a native of Abyssinia, had drawn a number of Negroes into an organization having for its purpose the renunciation of the title Negro and the return of black people to their ‘motherland of Ethiopia.’ Promises of attractive jobs in Abyssinia were held out to those who would join the organization. Sunday afternoon the mem- bers of this order paraded the streets, and, stopping in front of a café on East Fifty-fifth street, and by way of symbolizing their renuncia- tion of the United States, began to burn the national flag. They bran- dished revolvers and made threats at two policemen who tried to inter- fere. A third policeman who came to the rescue was shot and wounded. A sailor from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, who also pro- aulbid) pii77: * Ibid., p. 73. * Thid., p. 77. i. . Dowv72. * Ibid., p. 73. Shido pi77. PDUn DAT es 60 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE tested against the burning of the flag, was also shot and staggered into a cigar store. Some of the parade leaders got rifles from a nearby automobile and fired into the cigar store, killing one of the clerks. Sev- eral other persons were injured. The ring leaders of the shooting were arrested.?® THE BARRETT RIOT, CHICAGO, SEPTEMBER, 1920 On September 20, 1920, a riot grew out of the murder of a white man, Thomas J. Barrett, by a Negro at the corner of Halsted and Forty-seventh Streets. Barrett met three Negroes at a news stand. An altercation led to a fracas in which Barrett was fatally stabbed, his head being almost severed from his body. A crowd of whites pursued the Negroes, who took refuge in a Catholic church, just off Lowe Avenue. Soon the crowd in front of the church had grown to 3,000 or 4,000. The three Negroes were taken in hand by the police and led through a back door to a patrol wagon in which they were whisked to the Hyde Park station.?° THE |GREAT (CHIGAGO RIODIOL itot9 “Tt was four o’clock Sunday afternoon, July 27, when Eugene Wil- liams, seventeen-year-old Negro boy, was swimming offshore at the foot of Twenty-ninth Street. This beach was not one of those pub- licly maintained and supervised for bathing, but it was much used. AI- though it flanks an area thickly inhabited by Negroes, it was used by both races, access being had by crossing the railway tracks which skirt the lake shore. The part near Twenty-seventh Street had by tacit un- derstanding come to be considered as reserved for Negroes, while the whites used the part near Twenty-ninth Street. Walking is not easy along the shore, and each race had kept pretty much to its own part, observing, moreover, an imaginary boundary extending into the water. ‘Williams, who had entered the water at the part used by Negroes, swam and drifted south into the part used by the whites. Immedi- ately before his appearance there, white men, women, and children had been bathing in the vicinity and were on the beach in considerable num- bers. Four Negroes walked through the group and into the water. White men summarily ordered them off. The Negroes left, and the white people resumed their sport. But it was not long before the Negroes were back, coming from the north with others of their own * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 59. ™ Ibid., p. 65. FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES 61 race. Then began a series of attacks and retreats, counterattacks, and stone-throwing. Women and children who could not escape hid be- hind debris and rocks. The stone-throwing continued, first one side gaining the advantage, then the other. “Williams, who had remained in the water during the fracas, found a railroad tie and clung to it, stones meanwhile frequently striking the water near him. A white boy of about the same age swam toward him. As the white boy neared, Williams let go of the tie, took a few strokes, and went down. The coroner’s jury rendered a verdict that he had drowned because fear of stone-throwing kept him from shore. His body showed no stone bruises, but rumor had it that he had actually been hit by one of the stones and drowned as a result. “On shore guilt was immediately placed upon a certain white man by several Negro witnesses who demanded that he be arrested by a white policeman who was on the spot. No arrest was made. “The tragedy was sensed by the battling crowd and, awed by it, they gathered on the beach. For an hour both whites and Negroes dived for the boy without results. Awe gave way to excited whispers. ‘They’ said he was stoned to death. The report circulated through the crowd that the police officer had refused to arrest the murderer. The Negroes in the crowd began to mass dangerously. At this crucial point the accused policeman arrested a Negro on a white man’s complaint. Negroes mobbed the white officer and the riot was under way. - “One version of the quarrel which resulted in the drowning of Wil- liams was given by the state’s attorney, who declared that it arose among white and Negro gamblers over a craps game on the shore, ‘vir- tually under the protection of the police officer on the beat.’ Eye wit- nesses to the stone-throwing clash, appearing before the coroner’s jury, saw no gambling, but said it might have been going on, but if so, was not visible from the water’s edge. The crowd undoubtedly included, as the grand jury declared, ‘hoodlums, gamblers, and thugs,’ but it also included law-abiding citizens, white and Negro. “This charge, that the first riot clash started among gamblers who were under the protection of the police officer, and also the charge that the policeman refused to arrest the stone-thrower were vigorously denied by the police. The policeman’s star was taken from him, but, after a hearing before the Civil Service Commission, it was returned, thus officially vindicating him. “The two facts, the drowning and the refusal to arrest, or widely 62 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE circulated reports of such refusal, must be considered together as mark- ing the inception of the riot. Testimony of a captain of police shows that first reports from the lake after the drowning indicated that the situation was calming down. White men had shown a not altogether hostile feeling for the Negroes by assisting in diving for the body of the boy. Furthermore a clash started on this isolated spot could not be augmented by outsiders rushing in. There was every possibility that the clash, without the further stimulus of reports of the policeman’s conduct, would have quieted down. “Chronological Story of the Riot—After the drowning of Williams, it was two hours before any further~fatalities occurred. Reports of the drowning and of the alleged conduct of the policeman spread out into the neighborhood. The Negro crowd from the beach gathered at the foot of Twenty-ninth Street. As it became more and more excited, a group of officers was called by the policeman who had been at the beach. James Crawford, a Negro, fired into the group of officers and was himself shot and killed by a Negro policeman who had been sent to help restore order. “During the remainder of the afternoon of July 27, many distorted rumors circulated swiftly throughout the South Side. The Negro crowd from Twenty-ninth Street got into action, and white men who came in contact with it were beaten. In all, four white men were beaten, five were stabbed, and one was shot. As the rumors spread, new crowds gathered, mobs sprang into activity spontaneously, and gangs began to take part in the lawlessness. “Farther to the west, as darkness came on, white gangsters became active. Negroes in white districts suffered severely at their hands. From 9:00 p. m. until 3:00 a. m. twenty-seven Negroes were beaten, seven were stabbed, and four were shot. “Few clashes occurred on Monday morning. People of both races went to work and even continued to work side by side, as customary, without signs of violence. but as the afternoon wore on, white men and boys living between the Stock Yards and the “Black Belt’ sought malicious amusement in directing mob violence against Negro workers returning home. “Street-car routes, especially transfer points, were thronged with white people of all ages. Trolleys were pulled from wires and the cars brought under the control of mob leaders. Negro passengers were dragged to the street, beaten, and kicked. The police were apparently powerless to cope with these numerous assaults. Four Negro men and FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES 63 one white assailant were killed, and thirty Negro men were severely beaten in the street-car clashes. “The ‘Black Belt’ contributed its share of violence to the record of Monday afternoon and night. Rumors of white depredations and kill- ings were current among the Negroes and led to acts of retaliation. An aged Italian peddler, one Lazzeroni, was set upon by young Negro boys and stabbed to death. Eugene Temple, white laundryman, was stabbed to death and robbed by three Negroes. “A Negro mob made a demonstration outside Provident Hospital, an institution conducted by Negroes, because two injured whites who had been shooting right and left from a hurrying automobile on State Street were taken there. Other mobs stabbed six white men, shot five others, severely beat nine more, and killed two in addition to those named above. “Rumor had it that a white occupant of the Angelus apartment house had shot a Negro boy from a fourth-story window. Negroes be- sieged the building. The white tenants sought police protection, and about 100 policemen, including some mounted men, responded. The mob of about 1,500 Negroes demanded the ‘culprit,’ but the police failed to find him after a search of the building. A flying brick hit a police- man. There was a quick massing of the police, and a volley was fired into the Negro mob. Four Negroes were killed and many were injured. It is believed that had the Negroes not lost faith in the white police force it is hardly likely that the Angelus riot would have occurred. “At this point, Monday night, both whites and Negroes showed signs of panic. Each race grouped by itself. Small mobs began sys- tematically in various neighborhoods to terrorize and kill. Gangs in the white districts grew bolder, finally taking the offensive in raids through territory ‘invaded’ by Negro home seekers. Boys between six- teen and twenty-two banded together to enjoy the excitement of the chase. “Automobile raids were added to the rioting Monday night. Cars from which rifle and revolver shots were fired were driven at great speed through sections inhabited by Negroes. Negroes defended themselves by ‘sniping’ and volley-firing from ambush and barricade. So great was the fear of these raiding parties that the Negroes distrusted all motor vehicles and frequently opened fire on them without waiting to learn the intent of the occupants. This type of warfare was kept up spasmodically all Tuesday and was resumed with vigor Tuesday night. 64 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “At midnight, Monday, street-car clashes ended by reason of a gen- eral strike on the surface and elevated lines. The street-railway tie-up was complete for the remainder of the week. But on Tuesday morn- ing this was a new source of terror for those who tried to walk to their places of employment. Men were killed en route to their work through hostile territory. Idle men congregated on the streets and gang-rioting increased. A white gang of soldiers and sailors in uniform, augmented by civilians, raided the ‘Loop,’ or downtown section of Chicago, early Tuesday, killing two Negroes and beating and robbing several others. In the course of these activities they wantonly destroyed property of white business men. f “Gangs sprang up as far south as Sixty-third Street in Englewood and in the section west of Wentworth Avenue near Forty-seventh Street. Premeditated depredations were the order of the night. Many Negro homes in mixed districts were attacked, and several of them were burned. Furniture was stolen or destroyed. When raiders were driven off they would return again and again until their designs were accomplished. “The contagion of the race war broke over the boundaries of the South Side and spread to the Italians on the West Side. This com- munity became excited over a rumor, and an Italian crowd killed a Negro, Joseph Lovings. “Wednesday saw a material lessening of crime and violence. The ‘Black Belt’ and the district immediately west of it were still storm cen- ters. But the peak of the rioting had apparently passed, although the danger of fresh outbreaks of magnitude was still imminent. Although companies of the militia had been mobilized in nearby armories as early as Monday night, July 28, it was not until Wednesday evening at 10:30 that the Mayor yielded to pressure and asked for their help. “Rain on Wednesday night and Thursday drove idle people of both races into their homes. The temperature fell, and with it the white heat of the riot. From this time on the violence was sporadic, scattered, and meager. The riot seemed well under control, if not actually ended. “Friday witnessed only a single reported injury. At 3:35 a. m. Saturday, incendiary fires burned forty-nine houses in the immigrant neighborhood west of the Stock Yards. Nine hundred and forty-eight people, mostly Lithuanians, were made homeless, and the property loss was about $250,000. Responsibility for these fires was never fixed. The riot virtually ceased on Saturday. For the next few days injured individuals were reported occasionally, and by August 8 the riot zone FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES 65 had settled down to normal and the militia was withdrawn.” ** The casualty list of the riot included thirty-eight persons killed, 537 in- jured, and about 1,000 rendered homeless and destitute. Nine people were indicted for participating in the riot, and of these five were con- victed, three Negroes and two whites.?? * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, pp. 4-7. ™TIbid., p. 48. CHAPTER 9 EDUCATIONAL STATUS OF NORTHERN NEGROES Problem of Avoiding Race Friction in the Elementary Schools—Social Separation of the Races in the High Schools—Lack of Elementary Education Adapted to the Negro’s Needs—Negroes in Northern and Western Universities LL the states of the North, and also those of the West except as to a few localities, have abolished separate primary schools for the Negroes. In some cities of the West the Negroes have favored a re- turn to the separate schools,’ and in two cities, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana, separate schools have been established. One of the arguments for the separate schools was that a larger number of positions would be open to Negro teachers. The Negro press, however, bitterly denounces separate schools as an odious form of “jim-crowism.” The dual system of schools, which prevailed in the North and West before the Civil War, was found to be impracticable in view of the small Negro population and the difficulty of maintaining the Negro schools on an efficient basis. The mixed schools at first created indig- nation among some white parents. In Ohio, for example, in order to keep Negro children out of the schools, the farmers drove away the Negro tenants.? At the present time one rarely hears of opposition to the mixed schools, and no serious evil consequences seem to have fol- lowed their introduction. The schools have proved to be unobjection- able chiefly because the number of them which have Negro pupils is very small and because in schools attended by Negroes there is no en- forced or necessary social intermingling of the races. At the recess periods white and colored children play together or in separate groups as they may choose.* In a number of mixed schools in Chicago the children of both races play together during school hours, but in the afternoons and evenings the ground is occupied exclusively by one race or the other.t In the kindergartens of Chicago white children * Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 228. *Quillin, The Color Line in Ohio, p. 94. * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 249. *Tbid., p. 274. 66 EDUCATIONAL STATUS OF NORTHERN NEGROES 67 sometimes object to holding the hands of Negro children,’ and in the grade schools white mothers sometimes object to their children marching in the graduation exercises with Negro children.® The city schools are generally located with reference to diminishing as far as possible the contact of the two races, and, as a means of avoiding friction, the whites and blacks are sometimes transferred from one school to another. In Lincoln district, Chicago, which is a Negro center, white children are transferred to other schools, and the Negro children residing outside but nearby are urged to attend the Lincoln School.’ In cities with a large Negro population there are Negro teachers, and, while they are usually assigned to schools in the Negro quarter, they also in some instances teach in schools in which the pupils are predominantly white. In the Negro quarter of Harlem, New York, two of the schools have all colored teachers; one other of the schools has fourteen colored teachers out of a total of sixty-one. The admission of Negroes to the elementary schools in the North and West represents a rational adjustment to existing conditions, and, if the same conditions as to number and distribution of the Negro pre- vailed in the South, mixed schools would exist in the South to the same extent that they now exist in the North and West. Among the high schools of the North, as among the elementary schools, there are relatively few which have any Negro pupils, and, where both races attend them, the proportion of Negro pupils is much less than in the mixed elementary schools. The degree of harmony be- tween the races in the high schools depends largely upon the relative proportion of Negro pupils. Where the Negro pupils are few in num- ber there appears to be very slight friction, but where they nearly equal the whites the friction sometimes kindles into violence. In regard to social contact of the pupils, the Chicago Commission on Race Relations says: “In high schools, with their older pupils, there is an increased race consciousness, and in the purely social activities such as clubs and dances, which are part of high-school life, there is none of the general mingling often found in semi-social relations such as singing and lit- erary societies.” ® *Tbid., p. 246. * Tbid., p. 250. "Thid., p. 235. *Tbid., p. 254. 68 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The white principals and teachers generally try to allay race preju- dice and make the Negro and white children work together harmoni- ously. In some cases the principals are ardent believers in social equal- ity and hope to bring it about through the influence of the school.° In regard to the value of elementary and high school education for the Negroes, there are reasons for doubting whether the curriculum de- signed primarily for the whites is meeting the needs of the colored people. The vocational instruction which is the main function of the high school relates to occupations not often entered by the Negroes. In mixed schools where Negroes are few, there will always be diffi- culty in offering occupational instruction of a kind which will fit the Negro for the work open to him. Even where there are separate schools for Negroes the difficulty of giving suitable vocational training is very great. As yet the Negro finds the door of opportunity open to him chiefly in the field of un- skilled labor, and special training for this field cannot be given in the schools; and if it could be given, the Negroes would not want it, for their pride leads them everywhere to prefer the kind of instruction given to the whites. A mere literary education may indeed be a source of satisfaction to the Negro, but, unless accompanied by something more practical, it is apt to leave him where it found him so far as making a living is concerned. In some cases the instruction imparted to Negroes is of no value because of the vicious environment in which the school is located. For example, in the Brooklyn High School of East St. Louis in 1917, “twenty-four out of twenty-five girls who were in the graduating class went to the bad in the saloons and dance halls and failed to receive their diplomas.” ?° In regard to the practical value of the Negro schools in Washington, D. C., William Archer says that the educational facilities “have been excellent for many years, on the whole as good as they were for whites, yet it does not seem to have had the effect of bettering their worldly positions ; few attained positions of trust and responsibility. It is true they were handicapped by their color in competition with whites, but there was a wide field for personal advancement and social useful- ness among their numerous kinsfolk. Professor Kelly Miller says on this point: ‘There is perhaps no place on earth where so much culture * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 255. * [bid., p. 76. EDUCATIONAL STATUS OF NORTHERN NEGROES — 69 runs to seed, and so much intelligence goes to waste, as among the Negro element in our large cities.’ ”’ 1? Before the Civil War Northern Negroes rarely found admittance to any college except those founded especially for them. Lincoln Uni- versity in Pennsylvania, founded in 1854, and Wilberforce College in Ohio, founded in 1856, were the only Negro colleges north of the Mason and Dixon Line. At this time, in the Western states, there was considerable opposition to Negro colleges, not because the white people objected to Negro education, but because Negro immigration was not desired, and any kind of school for Negroes was thought to be a drawing card for Negro immigrants. Wilberforce College was ob- jected to for this reason, and in 1865 a mob gathered and burnt it to the ground. Oberlin College in Ohio took the lead among the Northern white colleges in opening its doors to Negro students. In 1865 about one-third of its students were of the Negro race, and it still has a larger number of Negro students than any other Northern college. As a considerable number of Negroes began to pass through the high schools, it became very evident that unless they were generally admitted to the state universities and endowed coileges, they would be denied the privilege of higher education. One by one other colleges opened their doors to Negro men and women, and now there is no Northern or Western institution of higher learning which openly debars them. Some Negroes are found in nearly every university in the North or West. They come up in numbers from the South where Negro col- leges are numerous but of low standards. Generally students from Atlanta University, Georgia, go to Harvard, those from the Atlanta Baptist College go to Chicago, and those from Talladega, to Yale. The number of Negro students in Northern and Western universities is about 500. The total number of Negro graduates in the United States is about 6,000. One almost never hears of trouble growing out of the intermin- gling of the races in the higher institutions of learning. On account of the very large student body in these institutions, no single student, outside of the classroom, can come into contact with more than a small number of his fellow students, and he is free to select his own circle. The Negroes and whites sit together, and if necessary work together in classrooms and laboratories, but in all social relationships they fol- low their natural bent in joining opposite circles. I have sat beside "Through Afro-America, p. 128. 70 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Negroes in the University of Chicago, and have had them as my pupils in the University of Colorado, and in both instances my feeling to- wards them has been one of sympathy and admiration. The color question sometimes arises over the admission of Negroes in universities which have dormitories. For instance, several years ago a Negress from Texas engaged a room in Chapin Hall at North- western University, and upon her arrival a storm of protests arose from the girl students, and from the Women’s Educational Associ- ation, which has supervision of the several halls in which the girls live. The outcome was a decision by the authorities not to admit Negro women to any of the dormitories of the institution. In January, 1923, the color question came up in a similar way in connection with the application of Professor R. C. Bruce, a Negro, for accommodation for his son in the freshmen dormitories at Harvard University. In reply to the application, President Lowell wrote as follows: “T am sorry that you do not feel the reasonableness of our position about the freshmen dormitories. It is not a departure from the past to refuse to compel white and colored men to room in the same build- ing. We owe to the colored man the same opportunities for educa- tion that we do to the white man, but we do not owe to him to force him and the white into social relations that are not or may not be mutually congenial. “We would give him freely opportunities for room and board wherever it is voluntary; but it seems to me that for the colored man to claim that he is entitled to have the white man compelled to live with him is a very unfortunate innovation, which, far from doing him good, would increase a prejudice that, as you and I will thoroughly agree, is most unfortunate and probably growing. “On the other hand, to maintain that compulsory residence in the freshmen dormitories—which has proved a great benefit in breaking up the social cliques that did such injury to the college—should not be established for 99% per cent of the students because the remaining one-half of one per cent could not properly be included seems to me an untenable position.” The stand taken by President Lowell was severely criticized by the Negro press; also by a section of the white press, and by some of the Harvard alumni. The governing board then took up the matter, and, after deliberation, decided that, since Harvard up to this time had recognized no racial distinctions, it should abide by its traditional pol- EDUCATIONAL STATUS OF NORTHERN NEGROES — 71 icy. President Lowell acquiesced. The announcement was made that the dormitories would be open to all freshmen alike. Some years before this incident, President Eliot of Harvard in- dicated his sympathy with the general policy of separate education in the South by remarking that if Negro students were in the majority at Harvard, or formed a large proportion of the total number, some separation of the races might follow.?? Whatever one may think of the advisability of admitting Negroes to the dormitories of Northern universities, every white citizen of the North should feel a pride in the fact that the door of opportunity is open to the Negro in all of the higher institutions of learning. There will never be a large enough proportion of Negroes at Harvard or any other Northern university to constitute a serious color problem. * Quoted by Baker, op. cit., p. 123. CHAPTER Io RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF NORTHERN NEGROES The Northern Negro Preacher in Politics—Negro Churches and Negro Member- ship in White Churches—Tribulations of the Negro Pastor—Character of Negro Preachers—Example of a Heroic Ministry NE of the most notable trends in the religious life of the Negroes following the Civil War was the entrance of the Negro preachers into politics. The enfranchisement of the Negroes in the North and West, as also in the South, made it necessary that the newly enfran- chised people have leaders who could organize and direct their political activities. The Negro preachers, being the only learned class and the nat- ural leaders of their race, were irresistibly drawn into the political arena. In all sections of the country they began to act as campaign managers, to make political speeches, to attend party conventions, and to hold public offices, both elective and appointive. Many Negro preachers from the North were tempted to migrate to the South in order to share in the opportunity for political leader- ship which was offered by the great mass of untutored and recently emancipated colored people. Among those who took advantage of this opportunity may be men- tioned, first, Dr. J. T. White, a Baptist minister from Indiana. In 1865 he came to Arkansas, took charge of a Baptist church at Helena, and became a prominent political leader. He was a member of the Reconstitution convention of 1868, and afterward was twice elected a member of the lower house of the legisla- ture and once a member of the senate. He stumped the state in the interest of the Radical party, and was rewarded by appointment to several public offices... Another preacher, Jesse F. Boulder, left his Baptist charge in Brooklyn, Ilinois, in 1864, and, fol- lowing the wake of the Union army, settled in Natchez, Mississippi, and plunged into the political caldron. He campaigned over the state, attended conventions, and was elected a member of the lower house * Woodson, The History of the Negro Church, p. 225. rhe RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF NORTHERN NEGROES 73 of the legislature. He was very influential in the election to the United States Senate of two Negroes, Hiram Revells and B. K. Bruce.’ Richard H. Cain, a minister of the African Methodist Church, came from New York to South Carolina, and, during the Reconstruction era in the latter state, edited a Radical paper, was a member of the constitutional convention, and later was a member of the state senate. After the Reconstruction period, he was twice elected to the United States Congress, first in 1879, and again in 1881.° Bishop James W. Hood, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, hailing from Connecticut, came to North Carolina as a mis- sionary during the Civil War, and, during the Reconstruction period, was the most aggressive and prominent leader of the Negro citizens. He was a member of the convention of 1867, and later was appointed justice of the peace, deputy collector of internal revenue, and assistant superintendent of public instruction. He served also in various ca- pacities under the Freedmen’s Bureau. As bureau agent he rendered valuable service in the establishment of Negro schools. He believed in social as well as civil equality, and opposed separate schools for his race. Bishop B. W. Arnett, of the African Methodist Church in Ohio, was active in the politics of his state, and in 1885 was elected to the Ohio legislature, in which he played a part in the repeal of the odious “Black Laws.” # In Northern cities, wherever there is a large Negro population, the Negroes by preference have their own churches. In towns where there are no Negro churches, the colored people are admitted to membership in the white churches. Even in the cities well supplied with Negro churches, there are some Negro members of white churches. A few Negro members are found in the Catholic churches, and more in the Episcopal. In the latter denomination there are seldom enough Negro adherents to justify a separate church, but sometimes the number is large enough to be a source of embarrassment to the whites. A prominent leader in an Episcopal church in Boston is quoted as saying : “What shall we do with these Negroes! I for one would like to have them stay. I believe it is in accordance with the doctrine of Christ, but the proportion is growing so large that white people are drifting away from us. Strangers avoid us. Our organization is ex- * Woodson, op. cit., p. 228. *Tbid., p. 234. “Tbid., p. 236. 74 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE pensive to keep up, and the Negroes are able to contribute very little in proportion to their numbers.” ° In the city of Boston, with the increase of the Negro population and the growth of community of interest, there has been a tendency for the Negroes to form churches of their own. At the present time, only five or six churches in the city have a Negro attendance of consider- able proportions. The churches which have the largest Negro mem- bership are the Roman Catholic and the Episcopal. The former claim a Negro membership of about 1,000. “In 1903, at the request of the Negroes themselves, the experiment was begun of holding at the Cathe- dral some separate masses.”’* In 1907 another departure was under- taken, which has proved more successful and which consisted in hold- ing certain separate masses in a church set aside for the use of the Negroes. This departure, however, does not exclude the Negroes from attending the general services elsewhere.® The Episcopal churches of Boston have altogether about 1,500 Negro members, of whom about half belong to the Mission of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, located on Lenox Street in the heart of the Negro district. The mission is under the control of the English church. In some of the Episcopal churches the Negro attendance has been large enough to give rise to serious friction. Trouble over the effort to form separate classes for the Negro and white children in St. Peter’s Church, Cambridge, in 1908, led to a request of the Negro members that they have a church by themselves. “No objection being made by the whites, St. Bartholomew’s Church, previously a mission, was turned over to them. .. . Only a few Negroes still continue to be members of the parent body.” ° “Because of this prevailingly inhospitable attitude towards the Ne- groes, on the one hand, and . . . that the independent Negro churches are gradually getting a stronger hold on the race, the general tendency at present is toward a distinct decrease in Negro attendance at white churches.” ?° There are practical difficulties in the way of any large number of Negroes and whites occupying the same building, as illustrated in the * Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 121. * Daniels, In Freedom’s Birthplace, p. 226. " Ibid., p. 220. ® Tbid,, p. 220. niDId.. Ds7235. ” Ibid., p. 237. RELIGIOUS ‘ASPECTS OF. NORTHERN NEGROES 75 case of a Philadelphia minister who called at a social settlement in the Negro slums, and volunteered to organize a Sunday school for the colored youth. He asked the woman superintendent of the settlement. where he could hold the school. “Why not in your church in the afternoon?” she replied. “Why, we couldn’t do that!” he exclaimed. “We would have to air all the cushions afterward.” ™ The Negro churches in the North are not social centers to the same extent as Negro churches in the South, for the reason that, in the North, there are many places other than the church which compete for the Negro’s leisure time. Nevertheless, some Negro churches make an effort to provide social and recreational activities for their members. For example, the Olivet Baptist Church of Chicago, with a member- ship of 9,069, maintains a kindergarten, day nursery, athletic teams, literary societies, and also an employment department.’? The Negro Congregational Church of Springfield, Massachusetts, maintains an employment bureau, a woman’s welfare league, night schools for do- mestic training, handicrafts, and music. The pastorate of a Negro church is often full of trials and tribula- tions. The Rev. James D. Corrothers, writing of his experience as pastor of a Negro church in Hackensack, New Jersey, says: “In those days it was the ‘jumping-off place’ for coloured Meth- odist ministers. For years none had been able to succeed there. A number had given up, and had quit the denomination and the ministry after having been appointed there. The church and parsonage were dilapidated ; and the congregation, numbering less than thirty, was al- most at its last extremity, after having staggered for years under the burden of a $1200.00 debt, upon which it was paying compound in- terest. In addition to this principal debt, there were a number of troublesome, though smaller, ‘floating debts.’ The pastor who had preceded me in that field died as I stood by his bedside, soon after I took up the work. The church’s credit was not good for a pound of nails. Its roof leaked; its windows were out; and the parsonage was almost an uninhabitable ruin. Boards, barrel-staves and the bottoms of old tin boilers had been used to patch the roof. During a rain storm, the water ran in rivulets down the inside of its walls, and stood in puddles about the floor. “During the year which I spent as pastor in Hackensack, the par- ™ Baker, op. cit., p. 122. ™ Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 143. 76 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE sonage was thoroughly overhauled and repaired; all outstanding ‘float- ing debts’ were cancelled; and the interest on the main debt was paid up, and the time extended. The church was repaired and beautified ; gas lights were installed, and the church’s credit redeemed. And the congregation had so increased that a gallery had to be built for its accommodation. The people seemed to have imbibed a new life. Every improvement was promptly paid for. I exchanged pulpits, at times, with the white ministers of the town; and the local daily paper did me the honour to mentign my work several times on its editorial page. At this time I kept house with my little son, Willard, in the parsonage. I was contributing frequently to* the magazines; and it was during this busy period that my book, ‘The Black Cat Club,’ was published by a New York firm. “To make possible the work which was accomplished for the par- ish in Hackensack, I did not press the struggling church for my salary. They had promised me $350.00 a year. Only a little more than half of this amount was ever received. I was obliged to fall back upon the money which I had saved up toward my trip abroad, together with my small earnings as a magazine writer. I contributed as much cash as any one member toward the improvements and upkeep of the church, and had to dress and live in a manner in keeping with the dignity of my calling. It was not long before my bank account stood pretty close to zero. But the church had received a permanent impetus for good; and I felt satisfied in the thought of reasonable certainty that something worth while awaited me, after resurrecting such a corpse as the Hackensack church had been. Other and better parishes were calling for me. But it was at that time that the black tragedy of my life fell upon me; and I staggered and groaned, like a bludgeoned traveller in the dark. I was bewildered, dazed, and well-nigh helpless. I was a stranger and far from home, and nearly penniless. I had sacrificed all to do good, when, suddenly, I was accused of plotting to ruin my bishop’s good name—a thing of which I was as innocent as Heaven itself! I had far other and more profitable things to think about. I should have had nothing to gain, but everything to lose by such a course. Besides, I had no such wicked thing in my heart. I had never dreamed of hurting any man in that way. I had helped many men up, but had never torn one down. The whole record of my life cried out against such an accusation. But I had not lived long in the East, and the trend of my life was not known. “Legal proceedings were taken against me by my bishop, and the RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF NORTHERN NEGROES 77 matter was speedily brought into court. I had now no money with which to fight for my name or liberty; but I told the simple truth, and was quickly acquitted in open court. But ecclesiastical prosecution followed; a prosecution which meant that the machinery and influence of a great Negro church organisation, numbering hundreds of thousands of communicants, was to be set in motion against one man. It meant for me that the most merciless and undeserved ill fortune of my life was at hand; it meant that there would be marshaled against me an overwhelming cavalcade to teach me sorrow and suffering; and that no man of my race who was in any sense connected with, or influenced by, a great church, might safely give me bread or sympathy, lest he incur the displeasure of ‘bigger’ Negro men, and perhaps lose a part of his own bread. It meant that all doors of hope would be closed to me. “Can you, O Friend unseen, Friend of the untrammelled way who know not the withering hell through which I have come, can you imag- ine the black meaning of my situation? Ah, how can you understand? —you who could demand justice! You do not know the perfidy, the black tragedies which sometimes befall worthy men in the Negro race— butchered because they ‘know too much,’ or will not be brow-beaten, discredited and done to death, as it were, by their own, with impunity, while the dark mass about them looks on in frightened, stupefied si- lence. And the white man, hearing only one side of the matter, yawns! He has been deceived into believing that righteousness has been done! “Few Negroes in America are beyond the influence of the church. No other Negro institution is one half so influential; so powerful. All Negro life in America centres about the church. Coloured profes- sional and business men, as a class, find it wise and profitable to remain in the good graces of the church. Even successful race leaders, like Dunbar, Douglass and Booker T. Washington have not disdained a hearing through the Negro Church. To a Negro minister the church means his bread; and the loss of his caste means perpetual disgrace. To be excommunicated from his church is, to him, like being given a sentence of slow death—of ignominiously crushing and bitter slow death. He becomes a living dead man among his people—a thing lep- rous, accursed and unforgivable! All this I was now to be—I who had worked for the glory of the church; and sacrificed! I was to be made a thing to be shunned !—a social and ecclesiastical outlaw! “The shadows moved on. All life seemed blackened. I was almost crazed with grief. My hair was turning white. The shadows over- 78 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE whelmed me. I seemed suddenly to be moving in a topsy-turvy world where all things went awry. I knew I was hurt; but did not realise how much. Like a dazed man, I groped among pitchy rocks and shad- ows, and shuddered beside murmurous rivers of pitch, mocked darkly, as by some sudden, guffawing bacchanalia from hell. No strength of my own arm could save me now! I thought of the Victim-Conqueror of Calvary whose gospel I had preached, whom I had so imperfectly served. And I cried for help unto Him who had said: ‘Ye believe in God; believe also in Me. Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid. J will not leave you comfortless. . .. When thou goest through the deep waters, I’ will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. . . . My presence shall go with thee, and I shall give thee rest.’ “The shadows grew black. I was soon without a parish, without money or a home; and every pleasant prospect was blasted. Even my literary work paled. I had to begin life all over again. Many unkind things were done to me, and many false and hurtful stories printed or told. Having no money, it was well-nigh impossible for me to get these matters corrected. Colored newspapers, as a rule, are in the business for money; and, in the absence of personal motives, will print nothing either good or bad about one, unless the editor’s palm is crossed. My inability to do this compelled me to suffer under much misrepresentation which hindered me at every turn. “But, I was resolved upon these things: 1. I would not slander the bishop. I felt that, perhaps, to some extent, he had been misled by designing, jealous men. 2. I would not strike back. That would be a waste of the energy needed to fight my own way up again. 3. I could still do good. The riches, the unspeakable pleasure of doing kind deeds would be vouchsafed to me still, I knew, as long as being was granted unto me. 4. I should not degenerate into bad habits. However dark the present or sad the future, there was no help nor solace, I knew, in evil ways. 5. JI should keep trying. ‘No man,’ I thought, ‘is “dead” until he is dead. J will try! “T had health and liberty left; no more. But these were enough. I took my little, motherless boy by the hand, one sunset, and passed out into the night, away from the scene of our sorrow and sacrifice. RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF NORTHERN NEGROES 7 \O | God’s stars were over us; but we had no other house nor home. We were wanderers now. The roof which I had built on the little manse sheltered others who had not toiled for it; and who, without cause, would have laughed at beholding us. Tears blinded me. My heart, my whole body ached. But I could not believe that God had thrown me away. In my clasp was a little hand; and, under the stars, a little, upturned face; and up to my heart fluttered a little voice: ‘My papa; my o-w-n, dear papa!’ it said.” 1° The Rev. Mr. Corrothers remarks of his church members in Bos- ton: “I was glad to resign, and get away from among them, where pastoring among coloured Baptists, at least, is one long nightmare of fuss-dodging.”’ 4 Among the ministers of the 147 Negro churches of Chicago, there are only twenty-two who have had special training. Six of these are graduates of recognized Northern institutions, while fourteen are grad- uates of Negro institutions, such as Lincoln University, Howard Uni- versity, Virginia Union University, and others. Some of them have not had a grammar-school education.*® Many Negro clergymen seem to be of a low moral type. The Rev. Mr. Corrothers gives the following account of his dealings with some of them: “T was not given an appointment by the Methodist conference, but was ordered to transfer to their New York Conference, where I would be given a church. This would take me nearly a thousand miles from home, and place me among strangers, at the mercy of the bishop and conference. I was expected to make the trip, of course, entirely at my own expense, and risk getting something worth while, giving up my newspaper work and whatever prospects I had, and becoming plastic dough in their hands. But I had seen so much of the inner workings of things that I was heartily sick of it all. I had seen ministers who were suspected of intimacy with a brother minister’s wife sit upon the wronged husband’s case, and expel him because he would not con- sent to live with the woman; I had seen them draw up resolutions of sympathy and protest in behalf of a Negro preacher who was in the penitentiary for manslaughter; I had seen them expel a poor minister who had built them a fine church, for the alleged reason that he ‘had afterward burned the church down,’ though there was no legal proof * Corrothers, In Spite of the Handicap, p. 191. SHOPS CH, 0233: * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 146. 80 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Py ee EONS) GTS A a against the man, who vehemently protested his innocence of the charge. After he was expelled, I was requested to ‘publish his degradation broadcast in all the daily papers.’ I flatly refused to add to the poor man’s burden of sorrow, not knowing anything personally about the case. I could not see wherein these ministers were much superior to the Negro boat hands among whom I had once worked, and I did not particularly relish the thought of close association with them. To be sure there were good ministers among them—men of sterling qualities —hbut these were in the minority, and were paid little attention to. The majority of the ministers were sadly lacking in education, quite often far more so than some of the gambling Negro ruffans whom I had known on the boat. When I added their mental unpreparedness to their unlovely personal traits, I could not see in them enough of those better qualifications which fit men for a holy calling or for leader- ship. 47 If there are bad Negro ministers, so also are there good ones, and not a few whose struggles in behalf of their race place them in the rank of heroes and true prophets. A notable example of heroic min- istry was that of the clergyman above quoted. He continues: ‘‘As there was no coloured church within twenty- five miles of South Haven, I organized the Union Baptist church there ; and, with a membership of but fourteen, bought a plot of ground 100 feet square; and, in eighteen months, had erected a neat church edifice valued at $3500.00. It was to me a labour of love for the place where I was reared, and for my people there. There were seventy-two col- oured people then living in or near South Haven. Only two or three of these ever attended the white churches. The rest went their way, absolutely without religious opportunity or training. Upon learning that I was a minister, they earnestly besought me to establish a church for them. I realised that no church could live out of the small num- ber of coloured people there; but I believed that the establishment of a church would bring in others, especially in the summer season, when the city, which had become a popular mid-Western summer resort, was filled with its gay crowds of resorters. I believed that the white com- munity would also help. And so I proceeded. “I worked upon every part of the building; and, with the exception of $1000.00 which we borrowed, solicited every dollar that went into the church, canvassing among the business men of the city; trudging up muddy country roads, and travelling, by boat and rail, in various * Corrothers, op. cit., pp. 167-8. RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF NORTHERN NEGROES 81 directions, as far as Chicago, Kalamazoo, Hartford, Dowagiac, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, Michigan. I also gave two Sabbaths in each month to the pastorate of a small coloured Baptist church in Dowagiac, Michigan, forty miles away. I put nearly all of my $225.00 into the South Haven church. To support my family, I pitched hay, cut corn, canvassed for magazine subscriptions and helped farmers with their threshing. I also gave lectures and readings, and preached occa- sionally in white churches. I now tried literary work again: I sold a few poems to the Criterion; to the Voice of the Negro (then the leading coloured magazine), and to the Associated Sunday Magazines. My wife also taught music, having about thirty pupils, all of whom but two were white. There were no moments of discouragement; but, try as we might, there were times when cash was out, and the larder ran perilously low. I received no salary whatever from the South Haven church, and but $8.00 a month from my Dowagiac congregation. And out of that my travelling expenses to and from Dowagiac had to be defrayed. And there were times when we had to share our own small store of food with our parishioners. “We lived continually by prayer. “One winter morning when the snow lay three feet deep upon the ground, and our last scanty morsel had been put aside for our children; when the rent was unpaid, and the last bit of fuel was in the stove, and there was no work to obtain, we knelt in prayer together, and asked God to help us, #2 His own way, for our children’s sake. While we were yet upon our knees, the postman pounded upon the door, and a white letter fluttered in. It was from New York, and contained a check for $20.00 and a letter from Wm. A. Taylor, then the editor of the Associated Sunday Magazines, saying: ‘We are rather overcrowded at present with material, and particu- larly with poetry, but I am retaining this poem for the special reason that I want you to have representation in the Magazine.’ “Strange! It was five years before that poem was used; and then I was pastoring a church in New England at the largest salary I have Ever received. itt * Corrothers, op. cit., pp. 212-14. . et ay td ia) , ‘aa ti ‘shite wih t ana hie i ARENT If ‘ aca es ie Cy: aay Sh i etary ee siclaeah aa a atv Banas is ni ye Te a aah Hisar Bi HON! WANS RB aang ae yl ‘ e e 4) ein Url cident sities mo Ves eae ic NG yb aa Ns AAT a Malin Avot cn EAA thie ye ‘iti | a CY. ei aeaie CEU Re ASOD | ee | “(ae Hie ee Ht 3), ¢ Ay Neen Peaches ine ‘ le tree en dae ian Ste 3 Yip Ga i i" atte A Ne: Ratibayt Bint eA " it tee biieadiibn, NE ioe en hs wi Beale ny fi. 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RS a hl : ba athe Hn hee hie Ne (he co ih aie pail merit Hye o Windy ae Ot i wy. i) Hie st Hay bet; satdy 45 naan ny Histo REN pg Et rath ik. 44a : ait fi) rh iy ‘ih ull et Maly et Ae 1K ke ‘tena Pic sl tage: “ban Sn \ | | mee ath sil a we ‘inlet Rs Mca | iene a (awe a ith me tye sit mRARG: Sue ‘heat ig ae Beano? ie ame savataihic Hee ty "sale & ‘ vhs ead re Hes A eh ai 4 fi NS Hikes oe a aa hah ey wl “an f iy rs ; bh : ale aioe uta : ‘ ; rides THEN sf a | PRA 1 ein oa *iiokad Lip Dory bis VR aaa tyrieian Sok hale heed ae > sn ie cy Wis Fetch Deiat: A G whet ikl F “ps mat Cri bi eae jouer: Watt of Psat Pash bein yh rena “ate : . iy tha ye é ates ‘eth I } We) Paty Vist WeRe ty eran Se tens ay ie ey eee! ake in ARs Ae im ive Rosi ig fen hin ae lve we Hey ont é Ve ~* a usd et, ath Kio ot | 7 tag ea ‘cant anal ae sie Wha wit CWA “cit aie a ae Lg hh ie vith ona hy hae i. Heh oO Ra ele aaa \ Pane AG oi an See YSU anna dis cst i Ae | “ty ays hit Ros cies hah Ase iff er Ek Coa if ethan’ Nd thre aa acai Taney ua pierre rey Stee Ca haokuh ith a ) yy‘: vA. Dy ey A wr { | j na 4 5 ’ : ’ i vA i 5 sey ig ‘ i 4 « : y y! A ‘“ } ee hove } ih AAT ; 4 i ; idl 4 Mey AV it | y vw : : Ww as i \ } Py \ ( é | | Say : \\ we, ’ ; My nie i : 1 \n ' \ \ i > \ i i REN ‘f nf ‘ .' 1 4) ay, ; ih j ‘ : sh) | Teen’ } : .. Pet j by 4 5 ' , 4 |) Sears Seay | | vy on Oana AP i : y il ' Wy f any ARR! pa . . mh AL } uy, 1A AH i") Dt aR ein i 1 i eon eg © < volt aet ita Ny RRA Ae, aN iO, aaer a4 a Renee Th Wk hE ; Hh eae i | } GYAN yy he ; \ : i" { i " ‘ : CHAPTER 11 THE NEGRO IN ECONOMIC LIFE Negro Landowners, Tenants, and Wage Workers in the Field of Agriculture— Rural Negro Homes—Decline in Number of Negroes in Domestic Service— Increasing Opportunities for the Negro in Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries NY one traveling by rail from a Northern or Western state into the South will, if he is at all observant, notice an increasing number of loafing Negroes from station to station as he approaches the Black Belt, and he will probably get the impression that the Negroes are a lazy and idle people. And, if he sojourn in the Black Belt for several days, he will find much evidence tending to confirm his first impres- sion. In the Negro quarters of a town he will observe groups of idle Negroes in barber shops and pool-rooms and on street corners, and he will probably hear some white man remark, in the phraseology for- merly applied to free Negroes from Massachusetts to Georgia, that the Negroes are “idle and slothful” or “improvident and indolent.” + Furthermore, he may even hear the Negroes themselves expressing opinions to the same effect, for it is not uncommon for Negro leaders to speak frankly of the weaknesses of their race. William E. Holmes, president of the colored college at Macon, Georgia, said, at one of the Workers’ Conferences at Tuskegee, that ‘‘at the present time we furnish a Jarger number of loafers than any race of people on this continent.” ? If this evidence were not sufficient to convince one of the Negro’s propensity to loaf, additional inquiry would disclose the fact that charity work throughout the South is mostly a matter of relief to peo- ple of color and that an amazing number of them are buried at public expense. However, when all of the facts are taken into consideration, it will not be at all manifest that the Negroes are as lazy and thriftless as a superficial view would lead one to believe. There are a number of * Belknap Papers, p. 206; Northrup, The Negro in New York, p. 270. * Quoted by Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 60, 85 86 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE facts which would strongly support the theory that the Negroes are constitutionally no more lazy than any other people. As longshoremen they are unsurpassed for energy and speed, and as workers in fer- tilizer and tobacco factories or for construction companies they set a pace which men of any other race find it difficult to keep up with. It is a common observation that Negro women as cooks, and Negro men as waiters in private homes, in hotels, and on dining cars, work with astonishing snap and dexterity. And, when it comes to cake-walks and dances, no other race can even equal them for spirited action and endurance. 7 While the Negroes, upon the whole, spend a lot of their time in idleness and vagabondage, they do so from lack of proper stimulus and not from innate lassitude. They may not respond as sensitively to stimulation, nor to the same kind of stimulation, as the white man, but, wherever the conditions are favorable, they display both energy and thrift. On Saturday evenings in the cities throughout the South, one may see Negroes lined up at the windows of savings banks and building and loan associations, awaiting their turn to deposit. If now we glance at statistics for light on the industrial status of the Negroes, we observe, as the most outstanding fact, that the Negroes are engaged chiefly in the cultivation of the soil. In 1924, 74.7 percent of them lived in the country, which is ten percent less than the proportion living in the country in 1890. Of the Negroes employed in agriculture 76.6 percent are tenants; 23.2 percent, owners; and 0.2 percent, managers. In twenty years the percentage of Negro tenants has increased 1.3 percent and the per- centage of owners has decreased to the same extent. During the same period there has been a similar decrease in percentage of white owners and increase of white tenants. The value of the land and buildings owned by the Negro farmers of the South in 1920 was $522,178,137, an increase in ten years of $248,676,472 or ninety-one percent.* The Negroes raise 39.0 percent of the cotton crop of the United States; 3.5 of the corn; g percent of the rice; 21 percent of the sweet potatoes; and 10 percent of the tobacco.* Agriculture in the South is congenial to the Negro because the work is seasonal and irregular, and it furnishes an easy means of making a living. The Negro landowners are scattered over the South upon * Negro Year Book, 1921-22, p. 321. a Es) Se THE NEGRO IN ECONOMIC LIFE 87 tracts varying in size from a quarter of an acre to 1,000 acres. The predominance of mulattoes as landowners is very noticeable.® A tour through the rural South will bring one to many districts in which the Negroes seem to be living in comfort and prosperity. Referring to a Negro rural community in Alabama, Sir Harry H. Johnston says: “The log-huts on the borders of the beautiful pine forests were picturesque, and not at all slovenly. Affixed to each dwell- ing house would be a chimney of clay to serve the kitchen hearth. Oc- casionally the interior of the house was rather rough. But the beds were ample, comfortable, and seemed to be spotlessly clean, with most artistic patchwork quilts. These large log cabins were surrounded by outbuildings, also of logs, erected for live-stock, cows, horses, mules, donkeys, poultry, and pigs. “In the better class of negro homesteads the dwelling-house was neatly built of grey planks, the roof of grey shingles, with glass win- dows, green shutters, and green veranda rails... . The front garden of these negro houses was always fenced off from the road by a plantation, and nearly always divided into flower-beds. These at the time of my visit (November) were still gay with chrysanthemums, and bordered by violet plants in full bloom, scenting the air deliciously. The garden might also contain a rough pergola of pea-vine and orna- mental clumps of tall pampas grass, or of the indigenous Erianthus reed ; there would almost certainly be wooden beehives, and beyond the flower beds a kitchen garden containing cabbages, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, gourds, and the vegetables. In the back premises there was an abundantly furnished poultry yard of fowls, guinea-fowls, turkeys, and geese—the latter being licensed wanderers, requiring no supervi- sion. There was sure to be a pigsty, for the pig is as necessary to the Negro farmer as to the Irish peasant. Then there would be stables for mules and horses, cowsheds, barns, and stacks of hay. A planta- tion of cotton might extend for ten to a hundred acres around the homestead. “The interior of these houses was almost always neat and clean, and divided into at least two bedrooms, a hall, a kitchen, and a parlour. The big wooden bedsteads not only had clean linen, but were spread with handsome quilts of gay colours worked by the mistress of the house. Some of these patchwork quilts—as in Liberia—exhibited real artistic talent. ... There are usually many pictures on the walls: chiefly coloured prints from newspapers. It was almost invariable to *Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 113. 88 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE see in these negro homes (all over America) portraits of Booker Washington, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. DuBois, of Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt, and even of the late King Edward VII and Queen Victoria. . . . In several farmhouses the housewife would show me with pride her china cabinet. ... Besides a large family Bible there might be a number of other books, some of which were manuals dealing with the cultivation of cotton and maize, or the fertilization of the soils. . . . Most of the farmers I visited had a substantial sum in the local bank... .® “Truly, there is beauty in the South: the sleepy South. A sense of well being, a quiet satisfaction with the climate, the food, the tempera- ture, the lonely surroundings, the absence of all external worry which should go far not only to appease race quarrels, but to make the natives of Alabama, Southern Georgia and Northern Louisiana sensible to their privileges in being the citizens of such a delightful region. Here there is just enough of winter, just a sufficient touch of frost in the air be- tween January and March to keep the resident vigorous and to check the excessive growth of vegetation. Then comes the spring with a riot of loveliness in wild flowers, which must surely touch the heart even of the stolid negro. The summer may be very hot, but it is dry and there is always the shade of the ineffably beautiful wood, with mag- nolias two hundred feet in height, starred with their huge creamy-white flowers, while the aromatic scent of the pines pervades the whole state with a wholesome and pungent perfume... .? “How often I have contrasted in my mind the life of those Negroes in the Southern States with that of our English poor: how often I felt it to be greatly superior in comfort, happiness, and even in intellectu- ality, for many of these peasant proprietors of Alabama had a greater range of reading, or were better supplied with newspapers, than is the case with the English peasantry, except in the home counties. . . .8 “Some of the ‘old time’ colonial mansions of the ante-bellum period are now owned by negroes or mulattoes, in one or two instances actual descendants of the slaves on the estate which the ‘great house’ dom- inated. In one instance pointed out to me the handsome old dwelling with its avenue of liveoaks had been purchased from his former white master by the slave boy grown up to be a prosperous farmer.’ ® *Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 426. "Tbid., p. 427. *Tbid., p. 429. LB OL AST. ————— THE NEGRO IN ECONOMIC LIFE 89 A very peculiar and picturesque class of Negro landowners is found in the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina. Some of the dwellers in these islands were born in Africa, and landed in America as slave children in the ’forties and ’fifties. “Many of the Sea Islanders,” says Sir Harry H. Johnston, “retain a remembrance of their original African language (which in the few words I have seen in print ap- pears to be of the Yoruba stock, or from the Niger delta). They re- tain their belief, or their parent’s belief, in witchcraft and fetishes, they maintain their medicine-men—‘guffer doctors’—and their fetish temples, called ‘Praise Houses. It is here that their religious dances—called very appropriately ‘shouts——take place. In the less visited islands the ‘English’ of these negro squatters and fishermen is scarcely recogniz- able as English, and contains many African words and a few Portu- guese expressions current once on the West Coast of Africa. ... They are also pure negroes, entirely without any infusion of white blood. ... They are almost all peasant proprietors, many having bought their holdings from the State out of confiscated and abandoned white plantations.” 7° The chief product of these islands is the famous Sea Island cotton. In many communities in the South one will find colonies of pros- perous Negro landowners. For example, in Alabama, centering around the Calhoun Colored School, there are ninety Negro families living on small farms which they have purchased and paid for under the direc- tion of the Calhoun School. “The farming is diversified,” says Charles Dickinson, an officer of the school, “and conducted by methods con- spicuously in advance of those used on the neighboring plantations. Vegetable gardens are on all the farms and improve from year to year, as do the fencing, the ownership of live stock, and the farm buildings. Flowers and flowering shrubs are in the door-yards. A large majority of the houses have been built since the purchase. All but two of these have been fully paid for, and these will be soon. Some have five, six, seven, or eight rooms. “More significant than the material advance is the moral trans- formation. There is no crime. What vice there is, is confined mainly to the few tenants of the most prosperous farmers, and the ill-behaved are soon sent away. Among the landowners—land being held by hus- band and wife together—every woman is virtuous, and only two or three of the men are reputed to be otherwise. There is not one thief. The boys and girls are like their parents. It would be difficult to find IGS DAT 2: go THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE a more moral farming community, white or colored, South or North.” 14 These home-owning colonies illustrate the wonderful transforma- tion which may be wrought in the life of the Negro through wise lead- ership. Unfortunately, however, such leadership as the Negro has had has been mostly directed with might and main to pulling him away from these splendid, but rapidly passing, opportunities. The Negro tenants and share workers are mostly found in the Mis- sissippi Delta where the landholdings are very large. In this region there are two systems of utilizing Negro labor. The first is the métayer or cropper system. “The cropper,” says Stone, “furnishes his labour in planting, cul- tivating, and gathering the crop; the landowner furnishes the land, the team and the implements; and the crop is divided equally between them. The planter advances to the cropper such supplies as are needed dur- ing the year, to be paid for out of the latter’s half of the crop.” ?? The second is the fixed rent system, under which the land is rented for a fixed sum per acre, varying, with cotton prices and the charac- ter of the soil, from five to seven dollars. Where a lint rent is taken it varies from eighty to 100 pounds. Often the planter furnishes a mule to the renter, charging twenty-five dollars. The landlord is pro- tected from loss by a law giving him a lien on the renter’s crop for the rent and supplies. The renter, by the exercise of common thrift and economy, can become independent in two or three years. The successful Negro farmers are those who own their land, or who rent land and furnish their own supplies. The class of Negro tenants who have to be furnished with supplies rarely rise into the rank of the proprietors or independent renters. They are generally thriftless and migratory, and need close supervision, They are prone to spend every Saturday at the nearest town, to drive their mules to death on Sunday, to abandon their crops at a critical stage, to go off on an excursion, or to attend religious revivals. Their traditional Christmas holiday begins several days before December 25th, and ends several days after January 1st. They are careless with tools, wasteful of supplies, and inclined to use the fences for firewood.'* With this class there is no connection between their earnings and their stability. Whether they come out at the end of the year behind or ahead, they are equally apt ™ Southern Workman, Oct., 1923, p. 484. i At, ; Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 90. TED.) Dy THO. THE NEGRO IN ECONOMIC LIFE QI to move to another plantation or to town. The well-being of this class is in proportion to the intelligence and strictness of the paternal control. In the fall of the year there is a great demand for extra labor in picking the cotton. The supply comes from the surrounding towns, which empty themselves of their Negro population. A good picker can average 200 pounds a day, and he receives for this more money per day than he or she could earn as a cook, washwoman, or nurse in any town. Hence, during certain months in the fall, the white people of the towns find it difficult to keep any kind of Negro servant. In the cotton belt the gin crews and engineers are practically all Negroes, and there are Negro foremen, agents, and sub-managers. The housing conditions of the renter class are generally inferior to those of the proprietor class, but are undergoing rapid improvement and are not half so bad as they are represented to be by critics hostile to the South. “On the plantation,” says Stone, “the one-room cabin, that béte notre of social scientists, is not in evidence. They disappeared many years ago. Where one still stands it is deserted or temporarily occu- pied by cotton pickers or day hands.” ** In Louisiana, the Negroes play an important part in the sugar-cane industry. Many of them, to this day, remain on the same plantations upon which they were born. “The field work in the vast plantations of sugar-cane,” says Sir Harry Johnston, “is also mainly in the hands of the negro men, women and children, who toil for good wages under the supervision of negro and white overseers. A few Italians or Sicilians work alongside the black people, without quarreling, but without social intermixture. By negro labor the cane is attended through the year. In November- December it is cut, stripped of leaves, and carefully laid on the ground in parallel rows, ready to be picked up mechanically by machinery— huge arms and fingers cleverly directed by negroes or mules (working in a merry accord which seems unattainable between mules and white men)—and deposited in large waggons. When the cane is first laid low with great knives, it lies—with its unnecessarily luxuriant leaves— in many acres of hopeless confusion about the sturdy limbs and bulky petticoats of the negro women. But—as if by magic—it is deftly looped, pruned, and laid in absolutely straight rows while you stand and watch. The colour of the cane being mainly light purple these lanes “ Op. cit., p. 98. g2 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of canestalks constitute, with the alternate intervals of rejected foliage (up and down which the mule teams and machinery are driven), rib- bons of mauve between bands of yellow-green. Thus the flat plains of Louisiana at this season resemble vast silken skirts in two gay col- ours, slashed and trimmed, here and there, by white roads and dykes of pale blue water, and fringed along the distant outer-edge with grey- green forest. Trains or trucks or miniature railways, mule waggons, and even ox-carts convey the cut cane to the crushing mills. It is only between November and February that the great factories where the sugar is made and refined are working with all the hands at high pres- sure, and perhaps in November and December only that an unremitting seven-days-a-week, night-and-day labour of black men and white men is carried on. This is the critical period. The cane must be cut and carried before any frost can cause deterioration; and as soon as it is cut it must be crushed. Machinery working with a furlong of ‘end- less’ chain transfers the cane from the carts and railway trucks up an ascending trough into the grinding-mills on the upper story of the factory. Here the cane is passed through three sets of steel mills until its refuse fibre comes out absolutely flat and dry, and is carried automatically into the giant furnaces which create the steam power of the establishment.” 1° All along the Atlantic coast from Maryland to Florida, Negroes are engaged in the fishing industry. Some of them own their craft while others work for white proprietors. In the canneries the Negroes are the chief laborers. Next to agriculture the largest number of Negroes find employment in domestic and personal service. According to the census of 1920 there are 1,064,590 Negroes employed in this field. This is less by 35,125 than the total in 1910. The Negroes show the same tendency as the whites to abandon domestic service in favor of industry which offers shorter hours and more pay. 'The Negro servant problem in the South is the same as the white servant problem in the North and West. The more ambitious and more intelligent men and women of both races can always find better Opportunities in other fields. Hence, the servant problem is becoming acute all over the country. Not only is the supply of servants be- coming less proportionately every year, but a lower type of men and women every year occupy the ranks of domestic service. The scarcity * Johnston, op. cit., p. 453. THE NEGRO IN ECONOMIC LIFE 93 of servants is such that the feeble-minded, the morons, and the un- trained can find ready employment. The inferiority of Negro ser- vants in the South now, as compared to two or three decades ago, is a matter of universal observation. In high-class hotels and restaurants, where wages equal those of the factory, white waiters are displacing the Negro waiters. The only remedy lies in the direction of elevating domestic service to the rank of a profession which would furnish trained help by the hour instead of by the day and raise the wages above the level of the unskilled workers in industry. Negro washwomen, who numbered 283,557 in 1920, are rapidly giving way to the steam laundry. But, notwithstanding the tendency of the Negroes to leave domestic service, over 1,000,000 of them still remain in this field, and for a long time to come it will be a chief means of their livelihood. And, while upon the whole domestic service is falling to an inferior class of Ne- groes, a large proportion of the workers in this field are not only competent, but are unequaled by any similar class of workers of any race. Southern white people, and also Northern people visiting the South, come into contact mostly with the serving class of Negroes and get their impressions of the Negro race from this class. For the most part this impression is a pleasing one. No one can fail to notice the peculiar animation and genuine delight which the average Negro ser- vant on the Pullman car, in any dining room, or about any hotel dis- plays in rendering service. The Negro’s childish good nature, his eager- ness to please, and his evident feeling of pride and satisfaction when he perceives that his service is appreciated, leave pleasant impressions upon every patron and make him feel that life is the more worth while for such cheerful and kindly service. The Negroes who are leaving the farms, and also those leaving the domestic service in towns, are going most largely into the manufactur- ing and mechanical industries. The number of Negroes in these fields increased 156 percent from 1900 to 1910. Of the total number em- ployed in these industries there are 115,874 employed in the lumber and furniture industries; 22,349, in the glass, clay, and stone industries; 24,734, in textile industries; 19,739, in the fertilizer and chemical industries. Trade and transportation ranks fourth of the industries in point of number of Negroes gainfully employed in the South. In the line of transportation many Negroes find employment as longshoremen, rail- way porters, firemen, section-hand workers, and so forth. 94 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Probably ninety percent of the Negroes employed in manufacturing and mechanical occupations and in trade and transportation, are doing unskilled work. The upward strides of the Negro are shown most clearly in his rise as a proprietor. From the standpoint of the capital involved his greatest success is the organization and management of insurance com- panies. The total assets of Negro insurance companies are estimated at $6,500,000. These companies cover the field of life, fire, and sick- benefit insurance, and they are all located in the South except two companies in Pennsylvania, one in Ohio, and two in Illinois. There are seventy-two Negro banks in the United States, with a to- tal capital of $2,500,000. All are located in the South except two in Massachusetts and two in I[lIlinois. Negro proprietors of smaller enterprises are as follows: Restaurant and café keepers, 6,369; grocers, 5,550; hucksters and peddlers, 3,434; builders and contractors, 3,107; butchers and meat dealers, 2,957; coal and wood dealers, 1,155; hotel keepers, 973; undertakers, 953; billiard and pool-room keepers, 875; real-estate dealers, 762; proprietors of general stores, 7360; proprietors of drug stores, 695; proprietors of dry- goods stores, 280. There are a number of Negroes engaged in manufacturing. In Durham, North Carolina, there is a textile mill which manufactures hosiery, the product being sold by white salesmen in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and New York. “So far as I have heard,” said Booker Washington, “there has been no man to raise the color question when he put on a pair of these hose made by Negroes.” 1° There are in Durham also two brick factories, and an iron foundry turning out plows, laundry heaters, and so forth. Elsewhere in the South one may come upon Negro proprietors of saw mills and clothing factories, but as yet Negro ventures in the line of manufacturing have been few and of a petty character. Altogether about 60,000 businesses of one kind or another are con- ducted by Negroes. These have organized a National Business League with the object of stimulating the development of Negro enterprises. This league has branches in all of the Southern states and also in New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois, Colorado, and California. Annual meetings are held in various parts of the country. Negroes who show any enterprise or thrift, and conduct themselves well, find plenty of encouragement from the whites. For example, John Mer- * Independent, Vol. 70, p. 624. THE NEGRO IN ECONOMIC LIFE 95 rick, the leading Negro of Durham, North Carolina, started on his ca- reer with money loaned to him by General Julian S. Carr. He is now the largest Negro owner of real estate in the city. He has been in- terested in insurance and banking, in the establishment of a Negro hos- pital, and in the upbuilding of the Negro church to which he belongs. The esteem in which he is held by the white people is attested by the fact that when his daughter was married “more than three hundred of the best white people were present, bringing with them costly pres- ents for the bride.” 7 Another rich Negro in the same town, R. B. Fitzgerald, owes his success almost entirely to Southern white men. Mr. Blackwell, the great tobacco manufacturer, once said to him, “Fitzgerald, get all the Negroes and mules you can and make brick. I will take all you can make.” Fitzgerald followed the instruction and to-day he not only turns out 30,000 bricks a day from his $17,000 plant, but he owns be- sides 100 acres of land within the city limits, and has $50,000 worth of real estate.*® White people will purchase without hesitation a Negro-manufac- tured product and will often patronize Negro retail stores. Referring again to Durham, North Carolina, Booker T. Washington says, “Each groceryman, each textile manufacturer, each tailor, in fact, all the Negro tradesmen and business men numbered many white customers among their most substantial purchasers.” 7% The author of this book used to know a Negro, Paul Barringer, who owned 100 houses in Concord, North Carolina, also a grocery store, which he personally conducted. Practically all of his customers were white. Scott Bond, an ex-slave and negro merchant in Madison, Ar- kansas, said in his address to the American Negro Business League, “Both black and white patronize us, and I want to say, to the credit of the Southern white man, the chance for a negro to succeed in the South, in a business way, is as good as it can possibly be anywhere.” ”° * Washington, “Durham, North Carolina, a City of Negro Enterprise,” Independent, Vol. 70, p. 624. * Washington, op. cit. lid. Dp. 043. *” Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 52. CHAR DE Rigi DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEGRO Negro Quarters in Cities—Looseness of Family Ties—Handicap of Negro Mothers in Having to Work Away from Home and Support the Family—Short Period of Infancy—Progress in the Development of Chastity in Spite of Adverse Conditions—Rich and Varied Social Life HE domestic life of the Negroes, like that of the white people, is seen at its best in the rural districts. The members of the family, being dependent upon each other, develop strong family ties. The children, being constantly under parental oversight, are better grounded in habits of industry and better disciplined than children in the cities, whose parents live generally in overcrowded houses and often work away from home. For the Negroes, as for the whites, one drawback to rural life is that the educational opportunities are not so good as in the cities, but this drawback does not counterbalance the many advantages which rural life offers. It would be better for our people if more white people, as. well as more Negroes, lived in the country. The social life of the Negroes in the country consists mainly of the Saturday visits to the nearest town and the Sunday visits to the nearest Negro church. In some districts, however, the rural people have social clubs, and attend lodge meetings in the towns. The tenant and wage class of Negroes change residence too often to form any valuable connection with the rural church, social club, or town lodge. In the cities of the South, the Negroes generally reside in segregated quarters. In Baltimore there are several such quarters, some of them comparing favorably with respectable residential districts of the whites. In Richmond, Virginia, the Negro quarter embraces a large area of two-story brick residences formerly occupied by whites. From the general appearance of the streets and houses, one would take the quarter to be that of the middle class of whites. In every large Southern city there are very respectable Negro residential neighborhoods. In most of the cities the several Negro quarters represent different classes of the Negro population. In one quarter you see substantial 96 DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEGRO 97 and attractive houses owned and occupied by the more prosperous and educated class of Negroes. In another quarter you see dilapidated houses occupied by the thriftless class and the vicious class. The former quarter is predominantly mulatto. The latter quarter is more strictly black, and is usually designated by some such derisive name as the Bowery, Sheriff’s Hill, Snow Hill, Haiti, Buzzard’s Roost, etcetera. The mulattoes form a sort of aristocratie de couleur, and stand aloof from the blacks. In many towns there is something of the same kind of antipathy between the mulattoes and the blacks that one finds in the Republic of Haiti. Mulattoes generally intermarry among themselves, and the increasing proportion of mulattoes in our population is due mainly to the illicit relationship between the mulattoes and blacks, and between the whites and blacks. Upon the whole more Negroes than whites marry, and widows and widowers more often remarry. A bachelor or spinster is rare among the Negroes. However, the marriage bond is more often broken among the Negroes than among the whites. The reasons for this are that husbands and wives are often unfaithful and both are extremely jealous, that the wives are not dependent on their husbands, and are therefore free to leave them for any good reason, and that the work of the husbands and wives often forces them to live apart, thus favor- ing intrigue with chance acquaintances. According to an investigation made of Io1 families in a low-class Negro quarter in Durham, North Carolina, forty of the women represented themselves as widows. The fact was that for various reasons these women had left their husbands or had been abandoned by them. A survey of a Negro neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, showed that “of 649 families, 209, or more than 32 per cent are separated.” ? Under the matrilineal form of the family in Africa, the children take the name of the mother, who by custom supports them and also her husband. This African custom seems to have survived to a con- siderable extent among a type of Negroes of to-day, and is often the subject of comment.? The Negro author Thomas says that “in all of our cities, North and South, there is a large class of freedwomen who, by their unaided efforts, pay their house rent, and feed and clothe their children, while their dissolute husbands roam about in wanton idle- * Martin, Our Negro Population, p. 124. 7 Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 141; Odum, Social and Mental Traits of the Negro, p. 156. 98 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ness.” ® A survey of a Negro quarter in Kansas City, Missouri, brought out the fact that ““The mother spends much less on her clothing than the father.” * The practice of Negro cooks in carrying home the customary basket of left-overs is partly due to the disposition of Negro husbands to throw the support of the family upon their wives. A Negro cook who has been in the service of my family for thirty years, and has kept up the basket habit, says that her husband has rarely contributed anything to pay house rent or buy clothing or provisions for the family. Among the more prosperous and educated class of Negroes, the husbands support their families after the manner of white husbands. Negro children in cities have little opportunity to grow up strong physically or morally. In many cases the mother works away from home. The percentage of Negro females in the South who work for a living is about four times as great as that of white females (41.3 per- cent for Negro females and 11.8 percent for white females). The mother who works away from home has neither the time nor the disposition to be a home-maker. Infants, being left alone, learn to crawl and walk much earlier than white infants, and learn to talk much later. Children from four to ten years old often have the daily care of the younger ones. The mother rushes off to work and often leaves nothing for the children’s breakfast except left-overs from the last meal. Often the only regular meal is at night when the mother brings home her basket or hurriedly buys something at the market. At times the children have not enough and, as often, too much to eat, and they seldom have food of the right sort. Milk is rare in the average Negro home; hence the frequency of rickets. Children and adults often sleep three or four in a bed; they have no night robes and go many days without a change of underwear. There is a general absence of privacy in the home, and when the parents are away the children take to the streets, where they come in contact with moral degenerates and acquire familiarity with all the vices and vulgarities. The period of infancy of the Negro child is short. Among urban Negroes, parental care hardly extends to the age of fifteen. Before that time the boys usually leave home, tired of parental restraints and longing for independence and for wages to spend on themselves. The girls also leave home at an early age, lured away by the love of flashy *The American Negro, p. 180. * Martin, op. cit., p. 72. _ DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEGRO — 99 dress, the dance, and travel. They secure employment which takes them away from home, or they marry, or they fall victims to the glare of the red lights. Under these untoward conditions, the ties that bind the members of a family together will be weak. Professor Odum declares: “The Negro has little home conscience or love of home, no local attachment of the better sort. He does not know in many cases for months or years the whereabouts of his brother and sister or even parents, nor does he concern himself about their welfare.” ° “The statement is a common one—and there is much to substantiate it—that the members of the negro families are more separated now than in the time of slavery.” ° These statements by Prof. Odum, being based chiefly on his study of urban Negroes, do not apply generally to Negroes in the country. Negro families in the same neighborhood live very much aloof from each other, and rarely form those intimacies with frequent interchange of favors which characterize most neighborhoods of white people. Pro- fessor Shaler says, “I have never known an instance of lasting sacri- ficial friendship between two blacks.” ? Among the Negroes who occupy the more crowded quarters of our cities the conditions of life are such as to render very difficult the development or preservation of any human virtue. In Southern as in Northern cities, the Negro quarter is often adjacent to the worst red- light district of the whites. The examples that environ the young people are mostly those of evil, and Negro girls are early initiated into a life of sensuality. A physician in a Southern town remarks, “Many girls under twelve years of age seen by me cohabit with men and are frequently found with venereal troubles.” ® The prevalence of sexual diseases among both Negro men and women is a large factor in their high death-rate and declining birth-rate. Because of the low moral state of the Negro’s family life, Thomas, a Negro author, believed that it would be a good thing to separate all Negro children from their parents and raise them up in orphanages.® The rate of illegitimacy among Negro women is from ten to fifteen ° Op. cit., p. 39. ‘Odum, op. cit., p. 162. "The Neighbor, p. 141. ®Odum, op. cit., p. 172. ° Op. cit., p. 386. 100 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE times as great as that among white women,’® and Professor Mecklin thinks that it is probably greater than it was in the days of slavery.** The white people are generally skeptical in regard to the virtue of any Negro woman, and the remark is often made that there is no such thing as a chaste Negro woman. This disparaging estimate of Negro women is the outcome of the general tendency of the white people everywhere to attribute to all Negroes the characteristics of the worst type of Negro. The fact is that, among the Negroes as among the whites, there are good and bad people, and that in rural districts and in every city in the South, there are many virtuous Negro women. In rural communities, especially among the property-owning class, there are thousands of married Negro women whose fidelity is above sus- picion, and in all the cities, especially among the home-owning class who are able to separate themselves from the slum influences, there are young Negro girls and mothers whose chastity is untainted. One of the reasons why the white people have such a skeptical attitude toward the virtue of Negro women is that they come in contact with only the lowest class of them, i.e., the poor and uneducated, whose oc- cupation is that of domestic service. They see and know very little of the educated Negro women who enter the better-paid occupations, such as that of teaching, or who are the wives of educated and pros- perous Negro men. A teacher who has had fourteen years’ experience in the Black Belt of Mississippi says: “The number of homes where the pure ideal of family life exists has increased constantly since I have been in the South. There are some pure homes among the poor and illiterate. Among those who are educated the dishonored homes are few.” 1? The greatest progress that the Negro has made since his emancipation has been the elevating of the moral status of the Negro girl and that of the Negro mother. His credit for this is all the greater because sexual incontinence is a race heritage, and, during the slave régime and since, the environmental conditions have all been unfavorable to his overcoming this predisposi- tion. The Negroes generally are more social in disposition and more ab- sorbed in social life than the white people. They are great talkers, delighting to be in a crowd; consequently their social life is so or- * Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, p. 60; Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 237. “Op. cit., p. 64. “Quoted by Mecklin, op. cit., p. 216. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NEGRO tor ganized as to furnish many and varied occasions for coming together. The Negroes take a great interest in their churches, not only because the services are times of social intermingling, but also because in connection with the churches there are numerous societies which frequently draw the people together. Outside the church, the Negro finds an outlet for his social cravings in a great variety of secret societies. Many of these have insurance features providing sick benefits, burial expenses and the erection of tombstones, and so forth; others are primarily fraternal with incidental benevolent provisions. All of them have rituals and furnish occasions for their members to parade the streets in rich regalia and with gilded and many-colored banners. The names of some of these societies are as follows: Grand Accepted Order of Brothers and Sisters of Love and Charity; Knights of Peter Claver; Grand Toe Touch at Mt. Sinai, connected with the Baptist Church, Mobile; American Woodmen; Independent Order of Sons and Daughters of Jacob; Knights of Canaan; Mosaic Templars of America. The following are the names of some of the Knights of Pythias lodges in Mississippi: The Bell of Delta, New Moon, Queen Esther, Lily of Valley, Rose of Sharon, Weeping Willow, Bear Garden, Hickory Tree, Gloomy Rose, Gold Eagle, and Sweet Pink. In a town of only 500 Negro population there may be fifteen or twenty societies or lodges. Many Negroes of the town belong to from three to five of these societies, and a majority of the members belong to more than one society.*? Most of the societies meet fort- nightly, their programs frequently including box suppers, musicals, and dances, and they hold forth often until midnight. These societies, beside furnishing an innocent means of recreation, have a tendency to promote thrift and high ideals. Most of them limit their membership to persons who are “moral and upright, dealing in no illegal business and of good reputation.” *# Beside the secret societies, the Negro women have their clubs and federation of clubs. In the homes of the well-to-do Negroes there is much hospitality and much formal entertaining. The Negro newspapers devote a large part of their space to the doings of the colored social world. Since an elevated family life is fundamental to the progress of any people, the most important task of the Southern Negro has been *% Odum, op. cit., p. 100. “ Tbid., p. 143. 102 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the bringing together and binding together of those blood relations which constitute the human family. The task has been difficult because neither the family traditions handed down from Africa, nor the family conditions imposed upon him as a slave to the white man, have been favorable to the development of family virtues or family stability ; and further because of the demoralizing environment in which generally he has been compelled to live. In view of his handicaps we can but admire what he has accom- plished in the elevation of his home life within the short period of his emancipation. Nor can we fail to view with charity the faults which his family life still retains and extend to him a helping hand (by pro- viding better housing conditions, and better protection to his home), in his effort to overcome those faults. — CHAPTER 13 THE NEGRO AS A POLITICAL FACTOR Strength of the Negro Vote and Possibilities of Negro Domination—Franchise Laws Limiting the Negro Vote—Reasons for the Grandfather Clause—Re- sult of Removal of the Negro Menace in Bringing a Better Class of White Men into Politics HE political aspect of the Negro problem in the South can be un- derstood only by taking into account the number and distribution of the Negroes in that section. According to the 1920 census, there were nearly 9,000,000 Negroes in the Southern states, 27 percent of the total population. In the South Atlantic States the Negroes are 30.9 percent of the total; in the East South Central, 28.4 percent ; and in the West South Central, 20.2 percent. The Negroes constitute nearly a third of the total population in Vir- ginia, North Carolina, and Arkansas and more than a third in Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida. There are 264 counties in the South in which Negroes preponderate. These counties lie in the eastern section of Virginia and North Carolina, the Tidewater and Piedmont section of South Carolina, central Georgia and Alabama, the delta region of Mis- sissippi and Louisiana, northern Florida, and a small coastal region of Texas. In two states, Mississippi and South Carolina, the blacks out- number the whites. There are six counties in Mississippi in each of which the whites form less than ten percent of the population. There are thirty-two counties in the South which have no Negro population, of which twenty-eight are in Texas, two in Oklahoma, one in Arkansas, and one in North Carolina. “There are more Negroes in Mississippi,” says Stone, “than in Cape Colony, or Natal, even with the great territory of Zululand an- nexed to the latter; more than in the Transvaal, and not far from as many as in both the Boer colonies combined ; more than in Jamaica and Barbadoes combined; more than in Trinidad and all the remaining English islands combined (excluding those just named); more than in Cuba and Porto Rico combined; more than in either Haiti or San Domingo.” + Mississippi contains more Negroes than all the states * Studies in the American Race, Problem, p. 471. 103 104 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE outside of the South. If New England had 8,000,000 Negroes her Negro population would be the same in proportion to the whites as that of Mississippi. Everywhere the attitude toward the Negro reflects the proportion of Negroes in the population. In all the South the Negro population is large enough to be a disturbing factor in politics. Even in states where the Negroes constitute only one-fourth of the population, they out- number the whites in some districts and counties and their aggregate vote would enable them to dominate those states if the white people should divide politically. The white people of the South correctly understand Negro domination to mean the control of any state by a party whose predominant strength is in the solid Negro vote. Of course, in such a case the Negroes would not hold all of the offices. The white politicians who manipulate the Negro vote would see to it that the Negroes got only the crumbs which fell from the political “pie counter,” but the men in office would be merely the agents of the Negro, and that condition, as the experience of Reconstruction has demonstrated, would be vastly more dangerous to good government than the control of a state by a purely Negro party. To argue that there can be no Negro domination unless the Negroes hold the offices is to trifle with the facts of history, and such argument has not a feather’s weight with the Southern whites. The so-called “Lily White’ movement among the white Republicans in the South is a commendable effort of the party to eliminate Negro domination. They know that, if the Negroes dominate the party, respectable white people will shun it, and they hope by preventing control of the party by the Negro, to win over a considerable number of the best white people whose sympathies would naturally be with the Republicans. In the Upper South, where the Negro population is relatively small, the Republican party has among its leaders men who in intellect and character rank with the best men of the South, and their number will increase as the Negro domination of the party decreases. The white Republicans realize as fully as the Democrats the danger of Negro domination of a state or of a political party. The methods employed by the white people of the South to over- throw the Negro-carpet-bag régime, and to maintain control thereafter were such as to shock the moral sensibilities of the best class of white people, in spite of their conviction that such methods were the only means of preserving civilization. In order to dispense with these irreg- THANE GROVAS MAM POLIRIGATY FACTOR 105 ular and precarious methods, the leading men of the South began to advocate the enactment of franchise laws, comformable to the Federal and State Constitutions, which would remove the Negro menace. The best lawyers in the several states gave oral and written opinions to the effect that suffrage qualifications could be enacted which would stand the test of the courts and have the effect of eliminating a large proportion of Negro voters. Influenced by these legal opinions and the general desire of the best people to remove the racial disorders accompanying every election, the legislators in several of the states set to work to frame restrictive franchise laws, or to provide for such laws by amendments to the state constitutions. The new laws restricting the suffrage were enacted in the following order: Mississippi, 1890; South Carolina, 1895; Louisiana, 1898; North Carolina, 1900; Alabama and Virginia, 1901; Georgia, 1908; and Oklahoma, I9gIo. The suffrage was restricted by the following requirements for voting: 1. The payment of taxes, ie., a poll tax or other tax must have been paid. This is required in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. 2. The ownership of property. In Alabama a citizen must own forty acres of land, or personal property to the value of $300. In Georgia a citizen must own forty acres of land or other property to the value of $500. In Louisiana and South Carolina the citizen must own property to the value of $300. Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia have no property requirements. 3. Ability to read and understand. In Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi the citizen must be able to read and understand the Constitution of the United States. In Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Oklahoma the citizen must give proof of his ability to read and write. In commenting upon these requirements the Outlook says: “No one of them makes color and race, per se, a disqualification for suffrage. No one of them, in terms, violates the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In all of them alike the negro as well as the white man who complies with the conditions is entitled to be registered. This is the first and evident fact which ought to be under- stood and recognized by all. Whatever may be the effect of these pro- 106 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE visions, whatever may have been the object with which they have been framed, they do not, in words, exclude the negro from the ballot be- cause he is a negro... . “There are two provisions in the Southern Constitutions to which there are serious objections, which, it is only just to say, were vigorously opposed by leading and influential citizens in the Southern States. One of these is the ‘grandfather clause,’ the other the ‘understanding clause.’ ” The practical difficulty in the enactment of these restrictions was that the illiterat: whites were unwilling to vote to disfranchise them- selves, and the restrictive provisions could not pass without the vote of these white illiterates. In order to win them for the restrictions, a pro- vision was added in North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Ala- bama, Virginia, and Georgia to the effect that these restrictions should not apply to citizens who could vote in 1867 or to descendants of such voters. Such provisions were called collectively the “grandfather clause.” It was generally specified that the grandfather clause was to be inoperative after a certain date, when the requirements for voting would be the same for all citizens without exception. The Supreme Court of the United States on June 21, 1915, declared the grandfather clause to be unconstitutional; but the decision has had no effect except in Georgia and Oklahoma. In the other states the grandfather clause had expired by limitation, i.e., the class exempted from the restrictions ceased to have the right to register. The grandfather clause served the purpose for which it was intended, i.e., it induced the illiterate whites to vote for the restrictions. The Southern white people generally believe that the practical effect of the understanding and literacy requirements is to discriminate fairly between those who are fit and those who are unfit to exercise the fran- chise. Owing mainly to the widely scattered and isolated habitats of the white people of the South, not a few of them have lacked the opportunity of an education, but they have formed a large part of the most thrifty and intelligent citizens who have acquired by tradition and ex- perience the aptitude for self-government. Many of these illiterate whites, by reason of their frequent service as jurymen, and as witnesses, have acquired a knowledge of Constitutional principles and statute laws. The illiterate whites as well as the literate have had their long and arduous apprenticeship in the exercise of self-government. The grandfather clause having been eliminated by the decision of the Supreme Court, the only remaining franchise provision which may be THE NEGRO’ AS: AY POLITICAL: FACTOR 107 objected to is the one requiring the voter to understand the Constitu- tion. The Outlook does not, however, object to this provision as unrea- sonable, but merely raises the question as to whether in its application it is not used to discriminate against the Negro. As to the reasonable- ness of this provision, Thomas, a Negro lawyer of Ohio, who played a part in the Reconstruction régime in the South and had a first-hand knowledge of the Negro’s fitness to exercise the franchise, said, in his book on the American Negro, written before the restrictive meas- ures were adopted in the South: “A people but one generation removed from personal chattelism are neither fit for self-government nor capable custodians of the rights of others... .2 They are not a self-govern- ing people, and are as incapable of rational self-direction as children. “ No citizen, therefore, of this republic should be permitted to exercise the privilege of the franchise who cannot read and fairly un- derstand the Constitution of the State wherein he resides and the Con- stitution of the United States.” * It is to be noted that the understanding clause is found in the fran- chise requirements of only Mississippi and South Carolina, where the Negro population exceeds the white; and in Alabama, where the Negro population nearly equals the white. As a matter of fact, this clause is applied in those states in such a way as to exclude the nonunderstanding Negro and not the nonunderstanding white man. In Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama, the clauses requiring ability to read and write are so applied as to exclude the illiterate Negro and not the illiterate white man. In North Carolina and Virginia, the literacy test is applied to both races, but the registers are more attentive to the literacy of the Negro than to that of the white man. The liter- acy and understanding tests are made to exclude a certain class of Negroes, not because of their color, but because experience has shown that it is not safe to invest them with the power of the ballot. The literacy and understanding tests may not be ideal means of accomplish- ing the purpose, but they are the only means which at present seem to be practicable. To come down to the real core of the matter, in South Carolina and Mississippi the Negroes outnumber the whites. Experience has shown that both races cannot govern jointly in those states. The white people believe that they are better able to govern than the Negro, and *The American Negro, p. 355. * Tbid., p. 364. *Tbid., p. 429. 108 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE are determined to do it. They propose to do it by some lawful means and have adopted lawful means of doing it. If every Negro in South Carolina and Mississippi could read and write and understand all of the Constitutions in the world, the white people would not allow them to control their governments, and, in this respect, they are not different from the white people of any other state. If a majority of the people of California were Japanese, the fact that they could read and under- stand would not have a feather’s weight against the determination of the white people to govern that state at all hazards. Or, if a majority of the people of Massachusetts were Negroes, the whites of that state would no more submit to Negro rule than the people of South Carolina or Mississippi. They would prefer to retain white supremacy by some lawful expedient, but if that did not work they would control it by any expedient that would work. Save by force of arms, no colored race is ever going to govern any state in this Republic. This fact is fundamental to any discussion of the Negro problem. | Before the new franchise laws were enacted, the chief issue in every campaign was the menace of the Negro, and the continued harping upon this and the methods necessary to win at the polls were distasteful to the better class of white men and had a tendency to drive them into other careers than politics. It was during this period of unrestricted franchise that the brightest and most aspiring men of the South began to seek distinction in more promising fields, such as industry, journalism, and education. Examples of such men are Walter H. Page, P. P. Clax- ton, Edwin A. Alderman, D. F. Houston, Charles D. McIver, Edwin Mims, Bruce Payne, George Stevens, James B. Duke, William A, Blair, W. P. Bynum, Plato Durham, and W. D. Weatherford. The men of high standing in the legal profession began to shun politics, and the men who generally rose to leadership were of a ranting and old-fogy type who lacked the vision to grasp any other issue than that of Negro domination. Industry, education, public health, public roads, and adequate and enlightened provision of asylums for the de- fective class and of correctional institutes for the criminal class were always overshadowed by national issues or forgotten in the frantic effort to maintain white supremacy. As long as white supremacy was the only issue there could never be much of an issue as to the kind of white men who sought office. The passage of the new franchise laws has made politics more at- tractive to the better class of white people. For example, note the im- provement in the quality of Mississippi's governors. “Demagogism,” Hey NEGRO AS: Ag PORURICAL FACTOR 109 says Lester A. Walton, “is on the wane in Mississippi. Blatancy has given way to temperate expression. Intolerance is being supplanted by tolerance. Vardamanism, symbolical of racial unrest, is on its last legs and has lost potency. “When Henry L. Whitfield became Governor of Mississippi in January, the event marked the dawn of a new era in race relationships in a commonwealth where the blacks outnumber the whites. Whit- fieldism is the antithesis of Vardamanism. Instead of fomenting racial friction by making rabid anti-Negro speeches, Governor Whitfield and his followers are bending their efforts toward unifying the two races for their common good. “Mississippi's new chief executive clearly defined his attitude on race relations in his inaugural address when he said: “The Negroes still make up slightly more than one-half of Mississippi’s population. Any plans for a new era, any change in our economic life, any reorgani- zation of our agriculture or industry which leaves them out, is doomed to failure. There is a definite relation between their happiness and prosperity and that of the State as a whole. ““If we would hold these laborers in the South, we must compete with the Northern employer on his own terms. We must improve working and living conditions, look after the Negro’s health, foster manual training and modern agricultural methods, and see to it that at all times the less-favored black man shall get a square deal in busi- ness relations and in the courts. Our own self-interest prompts it; humanitarian considerations demand it; our Christian duty as a more favored people enjoins this upon us.’”’ ® The recent great industrial rebound in the South, the rapid strides she has recently made in education, sanitation, good roads, and other internal matters, have been due to the new type of leader. In several Southern states the Negro vote is still so large that any great division among the white people would result in political disaster such as happened to North Carolina in 1897 when the Negro vote elected Governor Russell and a populist legislature. But in spite of this danger, the white people are able to vote rather independently on national issues, and the fear of Negro control is sufficiently removed to allow the attention of the white people to be concentrated on local conditions and to induce a higher type of white people to take the lead in politics. 5 Outlook, Apr. 9, 1924. CHAPTER 14 REGULATION OF NON-POLITICAL RIGHTS Separation of the Races on Railway Trains and Street Cars—Impracticability of Street Car Separation in Large Cities—The Problem of the Sleeping Car— Negroes Have Their Own Hotels, Restaurants, Theaters, and So Forth HE laws of the several Southern states require separation of the races in public schools. Excepting Missouri, they also require separation in railroad cars, and excepting Missouri, Maryland, and Kentucky, they require separation in street cars. The general policy in the South is to separate the Negroes from the whites in all public places where their commingling might give rise to disorder or prove a source of embarrassment to either race, and custom often sanctions separation in cases where the law is silent. The Negroes raise no objection to the separate schools, and do not altogether object to separation in other respects, provided they are furnished accommodations equal to those for the whites. In the matter of railway transportation the Negroes complain very loudly because they are obliged to submit to inferior accommodations. In most cases, however, their complaint is more a matter of habit and of infection from the Negro press of the North, which characterizes all racial separation as “jim-crowism,” than from actual inconveniences suffered. Any in- telligent observer who has traveled extensively through the South is obliged to notice that in most instances, so far as the day coaches are concerned, the Negroes ride in more comfort than the whites. They occupy a part of the same coach and generally have much more room. In traveling over the main lines of the South, I have made it a point to observe the apartments occupied by the colored people, and I have rarely seen them as much crowded as those of the whites. The accom- modations for colored people are, however, often very inferior on branch lines where the day coaches for both white and colored passengers are old and dilapidated. The trains on these lines are generally made up of two coaches, the forward one being inferior and divided into a smoking apartment for the whites and an apartment for the colored people. While the apartment for the colored people is rarely over- 110 REGULATION OF NON-POLITICAL RIGHTS It crowded, it is difficult to keep clean on account of the miscellaneous classes of colored people who occupy it, and respectable Negroes, es- pecially educated and self-respecting Negro women, often feel outraged to have to endure the disagreeable surroundings. The railroads ought to be required to furnish on these lines as good coaches for the Negroes as for the whites. The practical difficulty from the standpoint of the railroad company is that the company can find no economic disposi- tion of old coaches except to use them on the branch lines. I have often thought that the railway policy in vogue prior to the era of the legal separation of the races on trains was a better one than that of the pres- ent. Then the railroads sold first and second-class tickets, and the result was a practical separation of the races. The white people bought first-class tickets and the colored people the second-class tickets. I recall very distinctly that very few colored people ever rode in the first- class coaches, and these few were generally well-behaved mulattoes whose presence was hardly noticed by the whites. I also recall that white men who desired to smoke rode in the second-class coach with the Negroes. In those days, however, race prejudice was not so strong as it is now. When the main railway lines began to put on fast and high-class trains, stopping only at large cities, it was not to the interest of the railroads to attach second-class coaches. The slower trains then car- ried a larger proportion of Negroes and the white people began to com- plain of their presence. Often the rowdyism of the Negroes in the second-class coaches was unbearable to the whites. The state railway commissioners in the South should either require as good cars for Negroes as for the whites or compel the roads to sell tickets to the Negroes at a second-class rate. In spite of all the discomfort endured by the Negroes in the railway coaches, Maurice Evans, as a result of his travels in the South, says, “Take it all through, I found that the whites were more frequently in- commoded by the distinction than the colored.” ? The Negro author James D. Corrothers, in relating his experience on railways in the South, says: “Some separate cars, especially those on the Norfolk & Western road, are as clean and commodious as the coaches reserved for white people. Even a smoking room is provided. But too frequently the separate Negro compartments are without water, poorly ventilated, small and dirty. Coloured men and women are often required to use * Black and White in the Southern States, p. 143. 112 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the same toilet-rooms; and white men, passing through the Negro car, frequently light their cigars and smoke in the presence of coloured women. Usually only half a baggage car is partitioned off for the use of coloured passengers; and over two or three seats of that the train’s newsboy will audaciously spread his magazines, papers, and candy, and then sit down on half a seat himself, though coloured passengers are compelled to stand. The conductor will coolly occupy two or three additional seats, checking up his accounts, unperturbed by the discom- fort of his passengers. More than once I have stood up while conduc- tors sat, and more than once I have ridden weary miles without one drop of water. There was plenty of drinking water on the train, but none in the Negro compartment. Once a kind conductor allowed me to go into the white people’s car to get a drink. “White people, however, are not entirely to blame for the bringing about of these conditions in the South. Rowdy Negroes often board the trains, full of bad liquor, and bent upon a fight. They sit down and drink more whiskey, lurch through the car, insult respectable coloured women and men, and make themselves not only nuisances but positively dangerous, lurching and obscenely cursing, with pistol or knife in hand. It is no wonder that white Southern legislators have sought by pro- hibitive laws to protect their own men and women from such disgusting and dangerous displays of black savagery as this. Nevertheless, it is manifestly unfair to compel decent and intelligent coloured people to be herded in a car with such creatures, unprotected, without human ac- commodations, and insulted by every ruffian on the train, whether white or black, simply because their faces are dark.” ? The most difficult problem in connection with racial separation in transportation is that of providing Pullman accommodations fairly for each race. Negroes are not allowed to ride in a Pullman car occupied by white people, and so few Negroes would ride in such a car, were it provided, that no railroad feels justified in putting one on for the Negroes. The result is that Negroes making long journeys, even if able to afford a berth in a Pullman car, have to sit up all night and nod in a day coach. Booker Washington used to solve the problem for himself by reserving the drawing room of a Pullman car. He would thus separate himself from the white people, but would pay dearly for his night’s lodging. There are a number of well-to-do and educated Negro men and women who would gladly pay for a berth in a Pullman car and their *Corrothers, In Spite of the Handicap, p. 121. REGULATION OF NON-POLITICAL RIGHTS 113 number will increase from year to year; and while it may be a long time before their number would justify the railroads in hauling on any train a Pullman car for colored people, the time has already arrived when something should be attempted in the direction of more comfort- able night travel for the colored people. It seems to me that on some trains between large cities, on which there is considerable Negro travel, a coach or compartment of a coach might be fitted up with berths some- what like the tourist sleepers on Western roads, so that any Negro who was willing to pay the price could have a comfortable night’s rest. The separation of the races in transportation is hard to bring about with absolute justice to the Negro, but it seems to be nevertheless a necessary policy. This is the view taken of it by a Northern man, Ray Stannard Baker. He says: “As for the Jim Crow Laws in the South, many of them, at least, are at present necessary to avoid the danger of clashes between the ignorant of both races. They are the inevitable scaffolding of progress.” * The same view of the matter is taken by an Englishman, William Archer. In his Through Afro-America is this statement: “Well, that day in the black belt of Mississippi brought home to me the necessity of the Jim Crow car. The name—the contemptuous, in- sulting name—is an outrage. The thing on the other hand, I regard as inevitable. There are some negroes (so-called) with whom I should esteem it a privilege to travel and many others whose companionship would be in no way unwelcome to me, but, frankly, I do not want to spend a whole summer day in the Mississippi Valley cheek by jowl with a miscellaneous multitude of the negro race.’ * The separation of the races on street cars is impracticable in large cities. While the space allowed to each race is designated by a sign which can be moved from one seat to another, the number of seats re- quired by the Negroes on some cars varies from none to all on a single run, so that all of the time of the conductor is taken up in adjusting the sign. For instance, in the city of Memphis I have taken a car at the Union Station which was full of white people; when the car passed beyond the business district two-thirds of the passengers were Negroes, because the car passed through a Negro section; a mile or two farther on the passengers were again only white people. In that city, as also in St. Louis, Baltimore, and Louisville, there are cars on which a Negro is rarely seen and others on which their number varies greatly * Following the Color Line, p. 305. we pinta} 114 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE in each section traversed and at various hours of the day. Hence, in those cities there are no jim-crow cars. In cities not so large, while there is a pretense of separating the races on the cars, the practical diff- culties are such that the Negroes and white pile in and take seats where they can find them without regard to the jim-crow sign. Custom and mutual consideration, however, incline both races to sit apart when there is no crowding. However, in cities which have separation on cars, as also in those which have not, there are frequent clashes between the races due to the bad manners and impudence of members of one race or the other. : The Negroes generally have their own hotels, restaurants, theaters, and picture shows, and it is rarely that any Negro manifests a desire to enter a public place patronized by the whites. In cities having public parks and public libraries the Negroes have often justly complained be- cause similar provisions were not made for them. Progress is being made, however, in establishing parks and libraries for the colored people. The problem of race separation in public places seems to be grad- ually working itself out to the satisfaction of both races, except in a few particulars. The Negroes as well as the white people prefer the society of their own race whenever circumstances do not interfere with their legitimate business or pleasure. As the Negroes advance in wealth and culture, their social institutions become more numerous and more satisfying to refined tastes, and therefore there is less occasion or inclination for them to come in social contact with white people. If the white people will offer to the Negroes adequate transportation accom- modations and adequate libraries and parks, the prospect of an increas- ing harmony in civic relationships will be hopeful. CHAPTER 1s THE NEGRO AS A VIOLATOR OF THE LAW Greater Frequency of Negro Crime in the City Than in the Country—Greater Frequency of Crime Against the Person Than Against Property—Erroneous Notions as to the Extent of Negro Theft and Rape—Paramount Importance of Bad Environment as a Factor in Negro Crime HE institution of slavery in the South set limits to the Negro’s rise and also to the depths to which he could fall. Emancipation released him in both directions: it permitted the strong to climb up and the weak to sink lower. With the shackles of bondage broken, a large class of Negroes naturally gravitated toward their ancestral Afri- can level. The Negro, like the Italian and other races of southern latitudes, has the extrovert mental temperament which inclines him to commit crimes against the person, or against decency and public order, rather than against property. The Negro has a reputation far beyond his deserts for petty theft and other crimes against property. The fact is that the white man is most distinguished for crime of this sort. The bulk of Negroes who come before the courts in the South are charged with disorders growing out of the vices, quarrels, and brawls among themselves. The crime of stealing is relatively insignificant. In Southern cities there is always some slummy Negro quarter which is a den of vice. Here the low class of Negro men and women congregate to gamble, dance, and revel in sensuality. ‘In every town and village,’ says Stone, “from one to a half dozen Negro crap dives are run. Around these tables, especially on Saturday nights and Sun- days, gather crowds of men and boys of all ages, scarcely one in five without a knife or pistol.’”’1 These people get drunk, and in fits of anger and jealousy stab and slash and shoot. During the days of slavery the Negroes employed in domestic work lived on the premises of their master and mistress, and the intimacy of contact between them enabled the Negroes to acquire by imitation the habits, standards, and moral sentiment of the whites. After emancipa- * Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 107. II5 116 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE tion the domestic servants continued for a while to live on the master’s premises, occupying one of the old slave cabins, but gradually they took up their abode in the Negro quarter of the town where Negro children grew up entirely removed from the paternal oversight of white people. In these Negro quarters, as pointed out in a previous chapter, the con- ditions are very unfavorable to the proper up-bringing of children, hence the youthfulness of the criminal class of Negroes.? The chief causes of Negro crime are defective family life, lack of morale and tradition, bad environment, lack of industrial equipment, increasing solidarity among the Negroes, and increasing alienation from the whites. . Says Odum: “Although the Negro population of the communities studied (fifty towns in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee) averages only a little more than forty per cent of the total, the negroes commit, nevertheless, eighty per cent of the total number of offences recorded on the criminal dockets. The offence most commonly recorded, regardless of sex, is disorderly conduct, by which is meant misconduct in public places; drunkenness is the second most common offence, and fighting is the third in numerical proportion. If the of- fences of the males be considered alone, disorderly conduct is most fre- quent ; if the offences of the females be taken alone, fighting is the most COMMON iin “The list of crimes most commonly committed by negro women in- cludes drunkenness, lewdness, profanity, promiscuity, quarreling and fighting, disorderly conduct, assault, the keeping of bad houses, gaming, retailing whiskey, and vagrancy, especially at night.” * Sexual vice, among the Negroes as among the whites, has much to do with the state of health of the race. Comparing the slaves and free Negroes in this respect, Hoffman says: “While it is not possible to prove by statistics that the moral condition of the slaves was exceptionally good, all the data at my com- mand show that physically the race was superior to the present genera- tion, and no physical health is possible without a fair degree of sexual morality. It is true that the sexual relations were as lax as they are now, but they were lax in the nature of concubinage and irregular sexual intercourse, in which affection played at least a small if not an important part. In the irregular sexual relations of the present day, prostitution ? Willcox, Part Two of Stone, op. cit., p. 448. * Ibid., p. 474. * Social and Mental Traits of the Negro, p. 189. THE NEGRO AS A VIOLATOR OF THE LAW 117 for gain is the prevailing rule, and one of the determining causes of the inordinate mortality and high degree of criminality.” ® The white people in the South not only believe that the Negro is much given to theft, but the more ignorant whites have a notion that Negro theft is inborn. As a matter of fact, neither the Negro nor any other race has an inherited tendency to crime. The only way in which the crime of the Negro is related to his inheritance is that his extrovert temperament, i. e., his pronounced emotionalism, predisposes him more to crime against the person than against property, to whatever extent he may be tempted to commit either. The crime of the Negro, like that of other races, is due mainly to bad traditions and bad en- vironment, In all cities it seems that Negroes are about twice as criminal as the whites.° This is what any one would naturally expect in view of the more unfavorable environment in which the Negroes live. In rural districts, however, the Negroes are not greatly more criminal than the whites, especially in communities where the number of Negroes owning land approximates the number of whites owning land. In the rural districts the gun and the dog protect property, and the Negroes, being scattered, do not have the chance to quarrel and fight among them- selves. In regard to the crime of rape, the available statistics are very scant, but enough is known to justify the statement that this crime is not more common among the Negro than among other races of the extrovert type. The percentage of Negroes who commit rape in the United States is less than the percentage for the Italians, Hungarians, Austri- ans, French, Russians, Poles, or Mexicans.’?’ While the percentage is small in any race, the crime itself is so heinous that it fastens the stigma of criminality upon any race in which it is at all outstanding. It is commonly supposed that the crime of rape among the Negroes in the United States was unknown during the days of slavery and that the effect of emancipation was to unchain the Negro man’s passions and to turn him into a sort of sex demon. In 1903 the Nation published letters showing only four specific cases of rape up to 1864.8 However, I have found a surprising number of instances of rape by Negroes prior to the Civil War, and I am inclined to think that the supposed ® Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 236. *Odum, op. cit., pp. 196-7. "Negro Year Book, 1922, p. 353. * Avary, Dixie After the War, p. 385. 118 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE rarity of the crime in former times has been due to the absence of the daily press to inform us of the cases which happened. The number of cases of rape has probably increased since the Civil War for reasons easily understood. During the days of slavery the master was interested in the rapid reproduction of his slaves, and neither male nor female slaves were required to exercise sex continence; whereas now illicit sex relations are largely governed by commercial considerations and many Negro men are without wives or money to satisfy their passions. Some years ago, following the press reports of a lynching for rape in the South, the indignant editor of an afternoon paper in Madison, Wisconsin, said that the rape of’ white women in the South was an expression of the Negro’s revenge for what he had suffered as a slave. The editor did not happen to know that Negro rape was as common in Wisconsin as in Mississippi. In fact, the Negro crime of rape, like his other crimes against the person, is an act of impulse generally committed without the least premeditation. In nine cases out of ten the Negro rapist is influenced merely by the accidental conjunction of passion and favorable situation. The rape of white women by Negroes is more com- mon in localities where there are relatively few Negroes. In the Mis- sissippi Delta, Negro assaults upon white women are much more rare than their assaults upon the women of their own race.® in reference to the crime of rape Shaler says: “It is not yet evident that the Negro is more apt to be guilty of such outrages than the Aryan of the same low social position. More- over, in judging the quality of the African in this regard we have to bear in mind the fact that in our own race for many centuries the men known to have been guilty of this offense have been summarily dealt with, so that their evil blood has been removed from the stock. We may criticize our ancestors as brutal, but their condign punishment of such malefactors doubtless helped to elevate the race by a very effective process of selection. Considering that the Negro race has not passed through this process of purification, and that he is now in a most un- happy position, with his ancient external supports withdrawn and with no inheritances strong enough to take their place, he has not done so badly. A fair assessment of the situation leads to the conviction that morally he is hopeful material for use in our society.” 1° In reference to Negro crime generally the same author says: *Stone, op. cit., pp. 94, 97. * The Neighbor, p. 149. DEE NEGRO UASTARVIOUATORIOE PH LAW 119 “It is my conviction, based on much study of the black people, that a considerable part of them will be found very well fitted for the more serious duties of citizenship, and that, with fit help in education and in- centive, somewhere near half of them can be uplifted to a plane where they will contribute to the quality of the state. Of the remainder, the most that can be hoped is that they will make useful laborers. In this lower group there is a remnant, probably not five per cent of the whole black population, which retains so much of the primitive brute that it cannot be turned to account. It is from this very small part of the folk that comes the class of outrages which constitute the real menace of the situation. It is doubtful if the proportion of this primitively brutal element of the Negro population exceeds much, if at all, the correspond- ing degenerate and otherwise base material in the whites, but it seems probable that it is more inclined to crimes against the person, particu- larly to assaults on women. Naturally these atrocities excite rage, but this is often visited unreasonably on the unoffending body of the blacks, who, if in close social contact with the whites, are, as is well proved by the history of the people in slavery, no more given to such offenses than those of our own race. It would be quite as reasonable to condemn the English stock for the offenses of its criminals as to condemn the Negroes as a whole for such crimes, which probably do not occur in one in ten thousand of that people, and in only the lowest part of the very mixed stock. Here, as in our own race, this class of malefactors should be weeded out. There is good reason why assailants of women should receive the highest punishment of the law,—that they may not propagate their kind ; but there is no reason whatever for allowing these miscreants to prejudice our conduct towards a valuable body of folk who are akin to them only in the color of their skins.” ™ Better training of the Negro’s head and hand will go far to reduce his volume of crime. A Virginia lawyer said before a Hampton Negro Conference: “During my nine years’ practice at the bar, I cannot recall one case where any Negro of fair intelligence committed a crime. Of 176 pris- oners in the city jail of Richmond, not one has had a thorough education. Nearly all have had a smattering of learning. None are carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, or masters of any particular trade or calling. The possession of some useful trade or calling is a preventive of crime among Negroes. * Shaler, op. cit., pp. 334-6. 120 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “Of the 2091 prisoners in the Virginia State Penitentiary on May I, 1909, 1736 were colored. Comparatively few possess any useful trade or occupation. Indeed only 384 of the whole number could read and write.” 1? "Southern Workman, Sept., 1909, p. 475. CHAPTER 16 MAY NCHIING PRACT Ir TN@ Trot) Ue Its Origin and Present Tendency—The Kinds of Crime Which Provoke Lynch- ings—Decline in Cases of Rape and in Number of Lynchings—Effort to Repress Lynchings by Educating Public Sentiment and by Raising the Cultural Status of Both Races | Ea the punishment of serious crimes such as rape or homicide, the white mob in the South has frequently resorted to lynching. The habit of lynching in the South, as in the West, has grown out of the scattered nature of the population, and the remoteness of the average citizen from the arm of the law. In a big city one’s first thought, upon witnessing or hearing of a serious crime, is to call for the police. In the scattered population of rural regions where there is no police, and the nearest sheriff is perhaps fifty miles off, one’s first impulse is to grab his gun and go after the criminal. The people of the South still live mostly scattered over vast areas or in small towns, and that is the chief reason why some of the people keep up the lynching habit. When the South comes to be made up of densely populated cities, an act of lynching will be as rare in the South as in any other section of the country. Not only is the practice of lynching favored by a sparsely settled country without effective police, but such a country is apt to have the kind of people who commit the kind of crime which provokes the lynchings. In regions where population is scattered and unpoliced there are exceptional opportunities and temptations for people criminally disposed, and the crimes which they commit arouse the passions of the good people to an extent that would be impossible in a dense population where the stimulation to the passions is more frequent and diversi- fied. The American lynching habit, we should remember, did not originate in the South, but rather in the West. As population pushed westward, it was always a little ahead of the arm of the law, and the settlers who had life and property to protect often found it expedient to deal with criminals in an extra-legal fashion. Lynching for man- slaughter or for horse or cattle stealing came to be very common. Ac- cording to Bancroft, “Out of 535 homicides which occurred in Cali- i2t 122 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE fornia during the year 1855, there were but seven legal executions and forty-nine informal ones.” 1+ During the period when lynchings were common in the West they were very rare in the South. Under the régime of slavery in the South the Negroes were so strictly disciplined that they had little opportunity to commit serious crimes. Among the white people scattered through the Piedmont and Mountain regions there was much fighting and shooting, but revenge was a matter for the in- dividual and rarely for the mob. From 1839 to 1840 the Liberator mentions only one Negro who was put to death by a mob.” From 1855 to 1856 there were only six lynchings in the South—two for rape and four for murder. Two of those lynched were white men—one in Texas for stealing Negroes and one in Missouri for poisoning a spring.® Collins was able to find record of only two cases of lynching in the South during the Civil War, and in neither case was the victim charged with rape.* | Lynchings came to be common in the South soon after the Civil War. They were provoked by the crimes committed by the Negro and by the failure of the state governments to protect the persons and prop- erty of the white people. During the Reconstruction period, the best white people being disfranchised, the government of the states fell into the hands of Negroes, carpet-baggers, and scalawags, and, while the white people were subjected to every kind of outrage, including the wholesale burning of their homes and barns, they had no redress through the law. A Negro jury would not convict Negro criminals for an offense against a white man. So bad was the situation in Edgefield, South Carolina, that the citizens passed resolutions stating that there was “no security for persons or property, for the Negroes and poor whites who act with them had a majority on every jury so that it was impossible to convict one of their number no matter how plain the evidence. And even if convicted he was promptly pardoned by the infamous executive, Moses. To such an extent was this carried that Carpenter, the Republican Judge of the circuit, announced that he would not permit the State to be put to the expense of trying criminals who were pardoned as soon as convicted.” 5 * Quoted by Collins, The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South, p. 24. * Collins, op. cit., p. 22, *Thid., p. 24. *Thid., p. 31. * Editorial, St. Louis Republic, Jan. 1, 1875. THE LYNCHING PRACTICE IN. THE SOUTH 123 According to statistics compiled from the New York Times for the three years 1871-73, there were seventy-five lynchings in that time. The Negro Year Book, 1912, gives the number of lynchings in 1882 as I14, in 1883 as 134, in 1884 as 211. The following is the record of lynchings in the United States since 1884, according to the Chicago Tribune: Year Whites Negroes Total 1885 106 78 184 1886 67 re 138 1887 42 80 122 1888 47 95 142 1889 81 95 176 1890 37 go 127 1891 71 121 192 1892 100 155 255 1893 46 154 200 1894 50 134 190 1895 59 112 TAI 1896 51 80 131 1897 A4 122 166 1898 25 102 127 1899 28 84 107 1900 8 107 115 IgOl 28 107 135 1902 10 86 96 1903 18 86 104 1904 4 83 87 1905 5 61 66 1906 8 64 72 1907 3 60 63 1908 a 93 100 1909 14 73 87 1910 9 65 74 IQII 8 63 ay IQI2 4 60 64 1913 I 51 52 IQI4 3 49 52 1915 13 54 67 1916 4 50 54 124 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Year Whites Negroes Total IQI7 2 36 38 1918 4 60 64 1919 7 76 83 1920 8 53 61 elk 5 59 64 1922 6 51 57 1923 4 29 33 1924 O 16 16 Total L038 Wiles, TO5iiW Ceo The figures show that while the number of lynchings has steadily declined the proportion of Negro victims has steadily increased. Of these 4,203 lynchings only sixty white victims and only 802 Negro victims were charged with rape or attempted rape. Four-fifths of the lynchings were for causes other than rape. The states ranking highest in total lynchings for the period 1889- 1924 are as follows: Georgia 431 Mississippi 400 Louisiana 286 Texas 279 Alabama 266 Florida 207 The falling off in the number of rapes and also in the number of lynchings speaks well for the moral progress of both the Negroes and the whites. Frank Tannenbaum thinks that lynching is the outcome of the monotonous and dull life of the people of the rural districts and small towns. In Northern and Western towns the people have more varied and satisfying interests. They are more literate, have more libraries, and read more; they have better roads and have more opportunities for getting together. In the South the people of the towns are more isolated, more illiterate, read less, and see less of the world. ‘It is this dead monotony which makes occasional lynching possible... . The white people are as much the victim of the lynching—morally, probably more so, as is the poor negro who is burned. They are starved emotionally. They desperately crave some excitement, some THE LYNCHING* PRACTICHAING THE SOUTH 125 interest, some passionate outburst. People who live a full and varied life do not need such sudden and passionate compensations; but those whose daily round never varies, whose most constant state is boredom, - must find some outlet or emotional distortion. “Something happens; a rumor is spread about town that a crime has been committed. The emotions seize upon this, other people are in.a state of frenzy before they know what has taken possession of them. Their thwarted impulses become the master of the situation. The emotional grip is unrelenting. Men and women are transported from a state of comparative peace into one of intense excitement. The lynching takes place not because the people enjoy it, but because the passions, the shouting, the running, the yelling, all conspire to give the starved emotions a full day of play. What happens is that in- stead of planning a lynching for the sake of the excitement the ex- citement determines the lynching, and the people who commit it are the victims. . . . The outburst victimizes the population, and is only a cruel compensation for many months of starved existence.” ° The Tennessee Law and Order League, under the leadership of Dr. Edwin Mims of Vanderbilt University, and the Mississippi Welfare League, directed by Mr. J. C. Wilson, Mr. Alfred Stone, and Senator Percy, have done much in the way of arousing interest in behalf of suppressing mobs and bringing about a better administration of law. Several Southern states have passed laws especially designed to suppress lynching. In 1920 Alabama passed a law empowering the Governor to employ a special force of not over thirty men as state law enforcement officers, vested with the authority of sheriffs, whose duty is to suppress mobs and bring members of mobs to justice. A Kentucky law of 1920 makes the penalty for lynching death or life imprisonment, and authorizes the Governor to remove from office any officer who permits a prisoner to be taken from his custody by a mob. An act of the North Carolina Legislature of I92I1 empowers a judge before whom a criminal is indicted to transfer the trial to an- other county. In 1921 West Virginia passed a law making participation in a mob equivalent to murder and imposing a fine of $5,000 on any county in which a lynching occurs. The anti-lynch law of South Carolina makes liable to damages any county in which any citizen is injured in life or property by a mob. * Tannenbaum, Darker Phases of the South, p. 26. 126 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE SSG AO, NA ee A RII Oe ORR As an evidence that the South is moving in the direction of better law-enforcement, the following facts should be noted. According to the records compiled by the Department of Research of Tuskegee Institute there were sixty-four instances in 1921 in which officers of the law prevented lynchings in the Southern states. In six instances armed forces were used to repel mobs. In Kentucky, in 1920, the state troops fired into a lynching mob and killed several white par- ticipants. It is also to be noted that persons guilty of mob action are being more frequently convicted and punished. In 1921, four men in Wayne County, North Carolina, were convicted of mob action and sentenced to four years in prison. At Jonesboro, Tennessee, fourteen men were indicted for storming a jail and three were convicted and sentenced to prison for three years. At Houston, Virginia, four men were in- dicted for attempting to take a prisoner from jail. One of them was sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of $5,000. In South Carolina, the widow of a Negro whe had been lynched brought suit against the county in which the lynching occurred and was awarded a verdict of $2,000 damages. The fact that lynching is on the decline, and that more effective laws are being enacted to curb the mob is, of course, gratifying, but this fact should not lead us to view the problem of lynching with complacency. The number and character of the lynchings which con- tinue to take place constitute the greatest blot on the character of the American people, and especially on the character of the people of the Southern states where lynching is most prevalent. To a great extent lynching destroys the influence of the United States among the other nations of the world, especially in reference to moral ques- tions in which our nation aspires to lead. When Turkish fanaticism starves, exiles, or massacres Christian people in Armenia, or when rubber exploiters practice abominable cruelties upon the natives of the Congo or the Putomayo, or when Russian pogroms result in the whole- sale slaughter of Jews, what does our admonition or protest amount to, when the authorities responsible for these atrocities are able, and invariably do, fling back at us our barbarous record of lynching? Lynching is an advertisement to the world that the people of the United States are incapable of self-government, for no people can be said to have the capacity for self-government who are unable to pro- vide a legal redress for every wrong, or to defend the laws of their own making. THEO LYNCHING PRAGTICEVIN THE, SOUTH 127 Lynching deters neither the Negro nor the white man from crime, but, by the spirit of lawlessness which it disseminates, incites more crime among both races. If there are some signs that public sentiment in our nation, or in any state, is awakening to the enormity of the lynching practice, the considerable extent to which that practice still goes on, is suf- ficient evidence that public sentiment is not half enough awake. In the Southern states the press generally speaks out strongly against lynching after an instance of it has occurred, and various organiza- tions of good people occasionally express profound indignation against the evil, but there is a general lack of organized propaganda directed to building up a public sentiment strong enough to be felt as a re- straining influence in every community. For illustration, I have been a pretty regular attendant at some Sunday service of a Southern church for many years, and, while I have heard denunciations of nearly every sin to which human nature is susceptible, I have never heard from the pulpit one utterance against lynching. To judge Southern clergymen by the themes for their sermons, one would sup- pose that they did not regard lynching as comparable to the sin of dancing, playing cards, or going to a theater. It may be that some clergymen have thundered against lynching, and I have no doubt that clergymen generally, like other good people in the South, condemn the practice and desire to see it stamped out, but my observation con- vinces me that they have not yet visualized lynching as a vital problem. There ought to be a civic organization in every Southern city, and this, in cooperation with the churches, schools, and clubs, should launch periodic propaganda in behalf of law and order. CHAPTER 17 OTHER OUTRAGES UPON NEGROES Assaults on Negroes by White Mobs—Destruction of Property—Expulsion from the Country—Influence of the Ku Klux—Race Riots HE white mobs, when not engaged in lynching, frequently com- mit outrages upon the Negro of a less drastic but equally cruel and unjust character. They inflict bodily injury upon him, destroy his property, deprive him of the opportunity to work, and in some cases drive him out of the country. The class of white people who do these wrongs to the Negro are the class who lead the lynchings. They are generally small landholders, tenants in rural districts and, in the towns, small proprietors and casual wage workers. Because of their low economic status they closely approximate the Negro in' illiteracy and standard of living, and they often find the Negro a competitor. The prosperity of the Negro excites their envy, and having to compete with him arouses their resentment. They pride themselves on their antipathy to the Negro, vie with each other in the number of grievances they have against him, and are ever ready to settle matters by the methods of the bully. To mention a few illustrations: In a certain county in Georgia the white people, who did not want a Negro neighbor, wrote a letter to the white owner of the tenant house saying, “You had better keep negroes out of this house of yours; if you don’t everything you have got will be burned down to the ground.” + In another county a white mob sent a note to the foreman of a gang of Negro railway workers, stating: “that if they (the Negroes) continued to work, while white men wanted jobs, they (the foreman and Negroes) would be mobbed.” ? In many of the Mountain counties of the South, where slavery has never existed, the white people have tried to keep the Negroes out entirely. In several instances where Negroes have invaded these counties the white mob has burnt their churches, schools, and homes.? *Dorsey’s pamphlet, sec. C. * Idem. * Idem. 128 OTHER OUTRAGES UPON NEGROES 129 The usual procedure of the whites is to notify the Negroes to leave the county in ten days, and if they do not heed the notice the mob gathers and runs them out.* The white people of the class above mentioned do not always wait to organize a mob, but as individuals commit outrages upon the Negroes with and without provocation. For example, in a Georgia county an envious white man caused his Negro neighbor to be falsely arrested, and, together with his two educated daughters, to be brutally beaten and cuffed by a sheriff, on a charge of trespass. The Negro was a prosperous farmer, and, during the World War, he and his family of twelve children purchased approximately $1,000 worth of Liberty Bonds and Thrift Stamps, and he headed an organization which purchased $10,000 in Liberty Bonds. The white man who had the Negro arrested could neither read nor write, and, when he heard of the Negro’s generous subscriptions to the war fund, he remarked: “°E’s getting too damned prosperous and biggity for a nigger.”> In another county in Georgia, a Negro witness in a peonage case was killed by a son of the white farmer against whom the Negro had testified. A boy fishing found the body of the Negro in a creek.® The recent development of the new Ku Klux Klan which has spread over the entire United States, and which now seems to be dying a natural death, does not appear to have been greatly concerned with the Negro. Its main object seems to have been to maintain in the United States the dominance of the Protestant type of citizen. The worst that can be said of its influence in the South is that it has intensified race prejudice among a class of people who already have too much of it. Race riots, as distinguished from lynchings, are violent outbreaks in which one or both races develop the mob spirit. A single individual may initiate the disturbance, but the outcome is the assembling of angry groups of both races and their commission of crimes against each other. The riot of greatest magnitude in the South during the past twenty- five years was the so-called Atlanta riot of 1906. According to a Northern man’s version of it, “A lame boot-black, an inoffensive, in- dustrious boy, at that moment actually at work shining a man’s shoes, was dragged out and cuffed, kicked and beaten to death in the street. *Tbid., sec. C. 5 Ibid., sec. D. * Tbid., sec. D. 130 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Another young Negro was chased and stabbed to death with jack- knives in the most unspeakable, horrible manner. The mob entered barber shops where respectable Negro men were at work shaving white customers, pulled them away from their chairs and beat them. Cars were stopped and inoffensive Negroes were thrown through the windows or dragged out and beaten. They demolished Negro barber shops and restaurants and robbed stores kept by white men.’* Not a criminal was touched by the riot. Its victims were all law-abiding and industrious citizens. Two white men and ten colored men were killed, and ten white men and sixty colored men injured.® Among the riots which have eccurred in the South since the World War the following are the more outstanding: A riot at Charleston, South Carolina, May 10, 1919, between Negroes and sailors from the Naval Training Station grew out of the shooting of a sailor by a Negro. The casualties were two Negroes killed and about twenty Negroes and eight sailors wounded. On July 11, 1919, a riot at Longview, Texas, between whites and Negroes resulted in the wounding of four white men and the burn- ing of a number of Negro residences. The riot grew out of the effort of some white men to punish a Negro school-teacher who was accused of the publication in a Negro newspaper of statements derogatory to a young white woman concerning whom a Negro had been lynched some weeks previous. On August 30 and 31, 1919, a riot at Knoxville, Tennessee, between Negroes and whites resulted in the killing of one Negro and one offi- cer of the National Guardsmen, and the wounding of six Negroes and seven whites. The rioting began with the storming of the jail to get a Negro accused of murdering a white woman. The jail was wrecked and all of the white prisoners, sixteen in number, were re- leased. The Negro prisoner had been removed for safety to another county, but the mob invaded the Negro quarter, where several clashes without fatality occurred. In Washington, D. C., July 19-23, 1919, there occurred a very serious riot in which three Negroes and four whites were killed and some thirty or more people wounded. It started as a result of reported attacks of Negroes on white women. On the morning of July 19 the Washington Témes announced, “The sixth attack by Negroes on white women during the last four weeks,” etcetera. It seems that certain "Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 15. * Ibid., p. 55. OTHER OUTRAGES UPON NEGROES 131 newspapers reported as news, giving no details of names or locality, the wild rumors picked up from the gossip of the streets. A riot at Tulsa, Oklahoma, May 31 and June I, 1921, resulted in the killing of about ten whites and twenty-one Negroes and the burn- ing of a whole section of Negro residences. The riot began with the assembling of a number of armed Negroes at the county jail in response to a rumor that a mob of white people was going to lynch a Negro prisoner charged with assault upon a white woman. The assembling of the Negroes was the signal for an outpouring of the whites who, after driving the Negroes away, followed them to their residence quarter and set fire to their homes. It is commonly be- lieved that the riot would not have occurred but for an inflammatory speech made in Tulsa prior to the riot by a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People. CHAPTER 18 THE PEONAGE OF NEGROES Its Origin—Character and Extent of It—Laws Which Encourage Peonage—The Remedy—General Extent of Outrages upon the Negro—What the White People Are Doing and Should Do to Give the Negro a Square Deal HE term peonage as used in the South has grown out of a court practice which was solely humanitarian in its motive and was designed especially to favor Negro offenders. When white people are fined for a minor offense they usually are able to raise the money from some relative or friend and thus avoid going to jail. In order to give the Negro an equal opportunity to escape a jail sen- tence, laws were made which provided that persons unable to pay a fine might be bound out or bailed to any one who would pay the fine. Under these laws Negro offenders have been bailed to any man who needed their labor, and have been deprived of their freedom until the fine was worked out. Although the kind of Negroes who have to be bailed are not the best workers, and, while the white people who do the bailing are not of the best type of farmers, perhaps nine-tenths of the cases of bailing are terminated according to agreement and without injustice to the bailee. In a great many cases the white man who pays the fine is a friend of the Negro and allows him his free- dom and trusts him to repay the amount of the fine when convenient or at a specified date. Where abuses have arisen from this bailing process they have been neither designed nor foreseen. But a practice of this kind, by its very nature, offers the oppor- tunity for a class of unprincipled white men to exploit the Negro, and, in the last twenty-five years, many instances of such exploita- tion have come to light, accompanied in some cases by unbelievable cruelties, and even by murder of the Negro victims. In a pamphlet issued by Governor Hugh M. Dorsey of Georgia in 1921, there are enumerated twelve such cases of peonage. The worst case in the history of the system came to light in the spring of 1921, when John S. Williams, a planter in Jasper County, Georgia, was indicted for the wholesale murder of Negro men whom he had held in peonage. 132 THE PEONAGE OF NEGROES ified He had made a practice of bailing out prisoners from the Atlanta and Macon stockades and putting them to work on his plantation. Here he retained them unlawfully, beat them unmercifully, and, to prevent the victim from telling on him, began to put them to death and hide their corpses. The trial brought out the fact that eleven Negroes had been done to death on the Williams plantation; six of them had been thrown into a river and five buried on the plantation. The farm boss, a Negro, Clyde Manning, confessed that, under the directions of Williams, he had done most of the killing. The trial attracted national attention and ended in the sentencing of Williams and Manning to life imprisonment. Peonage cases have been most common perhaps in Georgia, but even in that state they have come to light in only a few counties. The general run of people in the cities and rural districts of Georgia have been as indignant and as much amazed over the story of peon- age cases as people could have been in any part of the country, and, under the leadership of Governor Dorsey, have made a determined effort to stamp it out. There is no certain way of uprooting peonage except by repealing the laws which permit a person unable to pay a fine to be bailed out. This might be a hardship on the impecunious offender in compelling him to go to prison for minor offenses, but it is better that he go to prison than become a slave. To be bound to involuntary servitude to a private citizen, under whatever pretext, is to become in reality a slave, and no such servitude should be tolerated in any civilized coun- try. In lieu of the bailing-out laws, the Southern states should adopt the French policy of allowing impecunious offenders to pay their fines by their free labor and earnings within a specified time, and ap- pointing a probation officer to assist them in finding work and to see that they pay the fines, A Georgia law? under which Negroes could be arrested and con- victed upon the charge of fraudulent intent in violating any labor contract has enabled white scoundrels to perpetrate many outrages upon Negro tenants and wage workers. For example, a white man in a county in Georgia had a Negro boy arrested for failing to comply with his contract. The boy had been drafted for service in the United States Army and had served fifteen months, and he pleaded that his service caused him to break his contract. A well-to-do Negro farmer was in the act of signing the boy’s bond, which the sheriff *Code Section, pp. 715-16. 134 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE was willing to accept, when the white accuser in a rage said, “No nigger shall help another nigger to beat me out of my money,” and fired two shots into the Negro farmer, who, however, recovered from the wounds. The white culprit was convicted of “shooting at an- other,” and sentenced to six months in jail or a fine of $300. Under this obnoxious law, any number of Negroes may be arrested and jailed upon a charge of violating the smallest details of a civil contract. Negroes, fearing arrest, may be intimidated into remaining in the service of white men under onerous terms which the contract does not justify. The law has contributed greatly to the perpetuation of peonage. Governor Dorsey recommended the repeal of this law which certainly has no place on the statute books of a civilized people, but up to the present time (1926) it has not been repealed. The injustices and outrages which the Negroes have suffered in various localities in the South have been the outcome partly of un- avoidable and partly of avoidable conditions. The isolation of the people by reason of their distribution in small towns and scattered rural homesteads has not been favorable to an effective police system or to respect for law, and has been unfavorable to the dissemination of education and enlightenment. Southern legislatures have been dominated by a capitalist class of small farmers, and the laws have been made in the interest of that class with scant recognition of the rights of the tenant or wage worker. However, under the wisest system of laws it would have been impossible in the South, as it has been impossible in every other part of the world, to prevent more or less exploitation of the weak and defenseless class by the preda- tory element of the population. The presence of a large population of impecunious and ignorant Negroes offers exceptional opportunity for any unprincipled white man to take advantage of them, and, un- fortunately for the Negro, the number of unprincipled white men has not been too few. But, as deplorable as this fact is, there is no reason for believing that the Negroes of the South have been more imposed upon than a similar class of poor people in any other part of the world. When all of the cases of injustice to the Negro are summed up, the fact stands out that they are a small fraction of the 9,000,000 Negroes who live in the South. In any consideration of the wrongs inflicted upon the Negro it is proper to bear in mind the millions who not only get a square deal but receive generous treat- ment and a protecting hand. In every community in the South there are innumerable white people who not only disdain to take advantage THE PEONAGE OF NEGROES 135 of the Negro but go out of their way to help him and befriend him. They often sell him property, lend him money, and make concessions to him upon terms which they would not make to a white man. They contribute generously to build his churches. They feed him when he is hungry, clothe him when he is naked, and visit him when he is sick or in prison. A highly educated Northern-born Negro who spent a part of his life in the South says: “It is in traveling, chiefly, that a Negro meets with his most discouraging treatment in the South. In the communities where they live, self-respecting Negroes are usually better treated in the South than in the North. They are trusted, em- ployed, encouraged, advised and helped forward in every practical way; and there is often a sincere cordiality, even love, existing be- tween the races which is difficult to describe. An industrious, re- spectable Negro in the South (particularly if he is a minister) may borrow any reasonable amount of money from a bank on his own mere word, or note, without other security. And any imputation against his character is taken up by white men who know him as a personal affront. Southern white men will stand by and cooperate with Northern Negroes who go South, without ‘big-headedness,’ to build up their own people; and to do right. I shall never forget the good white people of Lexington, Virginia, where | pastored a coloured church, who stood by me in my work, shaming refractory spirits in my congregation, and seeing that I was paid; and who, when I left, sent with me their blessings and written commendations. And the same was true of the whites of Westmoreland County, Virginia, where I also pastored a church. The experiences of hundreds of coloured ministers and leaders in the South would corroborate mine. “At this period of its development, conditions are still far from ideal for my people in the South. But this is also becoming more and more true in the North, where, in the larger cities, the idle Negro, shut out from the commonest employment and living more uncer- tainly than a rat, is a sight for men and gods to pity—or despise! The North judges the South too much by its ‘fire-eaters,’ and not enough by its peaceful, kind hearts who are helping my people, and who are loved of them. I have never had an unkind word spoken to me in the South by a white man who knew me personally.” ? But the Southern whites have by no means done as much as they could or should have done to help and protect their untutored dark *Corrothers, In Spite of the Handicap, p. 122. 136 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE population. The chief reason, and one not at all appreciated out- side of the South, for the bad laws and for all of the sufferings inflicted upon the Negro in the Southern states, is the presence in the population of a large element of raw, uneducated, white people, the product of isolation. And the existence of this large element in the population is not altogether due to callousness on the part of the more enlightened class. It is the inevitable result of the poverty and scattered nature of the population, rendering difficult the financ- ing of schools or the location of them within reach of the people. In the effort to uplift these backward whites the South has dis- tributed its state educational funds according to illiteracy, and is now in various sections conducting night schools, and sending teachers from house to house, to teach the aged people to read and write. Thanks to her increasing wealth, the South is now making wonder- ful strides in eliminating ignorance by good schools and in eliminating isolation by good highways. The problem of uplifting the back- ward whites and blacks, and of freeing them from the vices and crimes which proceed from their darkened minds, has been a difficult one, and will yet require much wisdom and heavy sacrifices before it is solved. Ray Stannard Baker, after his study of conditions in the South, was perhaps not too generous in saying this: “I came away from the South deeply impressed with two things: That the South is making as good progress in overcoming its peculiar forms of lawlessness as the North is making in overcoming its peculiar forms.” ® * Following the Color Line, p. 201. CHARTER ETO THE NEGRO BEFORE SOUTHERN COURTS How the Negro Fares When He Commits Crime against the Whites and When the Whites Commit Crime against Him—White Friends of the Negro in Court—Frequent Rendering of Signal Justice to the Negro by White Juries N regard to the probability of the Negro’s getting justice in the Southern courts, one thing may be said with absolute certainty: Neither the Negro in the South nor the impecunious white men in the North, nor in other quarters of the earth, has an equal chance with the rich and powerful class in the matter of litigation. In this respect the South, like every other section, stands condemned, but it is not true, as commonly alleged, that the Negro suffers any in- justice in the Southern courts that is not suffered everywhere else by a similar impecunious class of people. In the matter of homicide the Negro is apt to receive a severer verdict than the white man, but this is equally true in any other part of the United States. Judge Pam of Chicago says that “where a white man will be found guilty of manslaughter, a colored man will be found guilty of murder.” ? In case of indictments for murder, while the Negro, if guilty, is more apt to be convicted than a guilty white man, an innocent Negro is not more apt to be convicted than an innocent white man. “In a county in Mississippi,” says Stone, “in which the Negroes outnumber the whites by nine to one, I have seen a Negro tried by a white jury for the killing of a white man, and walk out of the court room free and without molestation, and the incident excited no word of comment or surprise.” ? In all cases of offenses of white men against Negroes the juries are reluctant to bring in a verdict of conviction, except in the mild- est form, although there are notable exceptions to this rule where the white criminal is especially culpable. Governor Dorsey instances the case of a white man in Georgia who was convicted of rape upon * Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 353. * Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 73. 137 138 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE a Negro woman and sentenced to twelve months in the penitentiary.* In this reluctance of juries to convict white men for offenses against the Negro, the South is not peculiar. In every country, and in every state of the United States, where colored and white people constitute elements of the population, the race prejudice operates against which- ever race is in the minority. An ex-prime minister of Australia says that “juries would not bring in verdicts against defendants accused of acts of violence against the Chinese.” * It is notorious in Haiti that white men receive no shadow of justice in the courts.® It is often charged that the discrimination against the Negro in the South is due to the fact that the juries are all made up of white men. This is true to some extent, but not any more true in the South than in the North. It is axiomatic that in any country or in any of our states the race which dominates the government also controls the jury. The supposition that the Negro in the North has jury privileges equal to that of the white man is a figment of the imagination. To be sure, Negroes sometimes sit in the jury-box in a Northern state in cases of minor importance, but let any white man be indicted for a serious offense and the Negro stands no more chance of getting on the jury in Massachusetts or Illinois than in South Carolina or Mississippi. Judge Pam of Chicago says, that, “In a murder case lawyers will challenge a Negro; and if there were a colored man in the box he would soon be put out.”® Judge Tom- son of the same city says, “Take for example a gun case, with twelve men in the box, and one a colored man, and suppose that the lawyer challenged the Negro. If you went to the lawyer and said, ‘Give me your reason?’ I don’t think he would give you any reason.” 7 In all criminal indictments below the rank of felony, I doubt if, upon the whole, the Negroes in the South are more severely dealt with than the whites; and I am quite sure that in all minor crimes the Negro in the South receives a consideration at the hands of the courts which no poor white class of people receive in any part of the world. Judge Stevenson of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has analyzed 19,000 court cases in that city collected by him in his former capacity *Dorsey’s pamphlet, sec. D. *“Australia’s Way with Asiatics,” Outlook, Dec., 1924, p. 223. *St. John, The Black Republic, p. 146. “Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 352. "Idem. THE NEGRO BEFORE SOUTHERN COURTS 139 of prosecuting attorney. Two-thirds of the cases concerned Negroes, and one-third concerned whites. He says: “In the amount of fine and length of sentence the advantage ap- pears to be altogether with the Negro. The average fine of the white convict is $18.05; of the Negro $14.55, a difference of $3.50 in favor of the Negro. The average term of imprisonment of the white convict is 86.04 days, of the Negro 79.37 days, a difference of 6.67 days in favor of the Negro. The white man convicted of gambling is fined about twice as much as the Negro, and, if imprisoned, his sentence is considerably longer. The fine of the white person con- victed of violating the liquor laws is nearly twice that of the Negro convicted of the same kind of offense. “It appears that, upon the whole, 49.3 per cent of whites and 46.7 per cent of Negroes are fined, which is a difference of 2.6 per cent in favor of the white, if it be leniency in the court to fine rather than imprison. . . . It is common knowledge that a much larger percent- age of Negroes than whites have to be sentenced for non-payment of fine or costs. When a deduction for this is made, the percentage of Negroes sentenced to terms of imprisonment will be found to be not much, if any, more than the percentage of whites sentenced.” In the matter of crimes against property, the white people who are the victims are generally very charitable towards the Negroes, and in thousands of instances make no complaint of the crime. I have known many cases where Negro servants have stolen clothing, jewelry, and other valuable household property and no effort was made to prosecute them. The white people try to recover the property which has been stolen, and, if they do recover it, the servant is often re- tained in the same household; if the property is not, and cannot be recovered, the white people feel that they have nothing to gain by prosecuting the servant, and often, out of sympathy for him or her, or appreciation of his or her good traits, would regret to see the guilty one prosecuted. Furthermore, cases are very common in which white people who have been the victims of Negro crime have spent time and money to prevent the Negro culprit from being arrested or punished. For instance, while I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, a Negro girl about sixteen years old, employed by us as a house maid, forged my sister’s name to a check, and was caught in the act of trying to cash it at the bank. The teller of the bank called in a policeman and had the girl put in jail. The girl was well educated for her age; she had been regularly to school, and was 140 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE very bright and capable as a servant. We all liked her, and were shocked and grieved to find her in jail. We looked upon this girl’s crime as a youthful indiscretion and we all busied ourselves with the solicitor and the judge to secure her discharge. Most white people in the South have known some Negroes for a long time and feel a deep attachment to them in spite of any and all of their faults, and when any one of them gets into the court their white friends frequently intercede to get them out. Only last summer, I was told by my brother-in-law, Judge W. F. Harding of North Carolina, how he and his cousin, a lawyer, had been work- ing strenuously, and of course without pay, to save from punishment a Negro woman who had attacked with an axe a police officer holding a search-warrant. Judge Harding happened to be a friend of a family for whom the Negro woman had once worked, and they were devoted to her and did not want her punished. I could fill a book with similar instances in which the white people have befriended the Negro in the courts. A Northern man who was in the South studying the Negro prob- lem said, “One of the things that I couldn’t at first understand in some of the courts I visited was the presence of so many white men to stand sponsor for the Negroes who had committed various offenses.” ® In civil litigation in the South, strange to say, the Negro in many cases has the advantage over the white man. If a white man cheats or takes advantage of a Negro the jurymen generally have such a contempt for the white offender that they are inclined to give him all that the law allows; whereas, if a Negro cheats or gets the better of a white man, the jurymen generally take the view that any white man who lets a Negro get the better of him is deserving of little consideration, and are inclined to favor the Negro or let him off lightly. In all civil matters I think that the Negro fares as well in the courts as the whites. The following case, reported in the States- ville, North Carolina, Landmark, is an illustration: “The jury’s verdict in the Ross will case in Union county is one of many similar instances in which the gratifying fact stands out that white juries can and do disregard race prejudice. Maggie Ross, a white woman possessed of large estate, lived in retirement and it is alleged that she permitted her negro servants unusual privileges * Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 96. THE NEGRO BEFORE SOUTHERN COURTS 141 in her home. At her death it was found that she had willed the bulk of her estate to three negroes. Various bequests were made to churches, missions and charities (the orphanage at Barium Springs, $2,000) and small amounts were given to various white persons, but the bulk of the estate of 1,500 acres of valuable farming lands and about $35,000 in cash was left to a negro man and his daughter and granddaughter. The white woman had no near kin, but as soon as her will was made public second and third cousins and others farther removed, to the number of 109, entered suit to set aside the will on the ground that Maggie Ross was not mentally competent to make a will and that she was unduly influenced by the negroes who were the beneficiaries. Many witnesses expressed the opinion that she was not mentally competent to make a will, and when pinned down admitted that the opinion was based on the fact that she left her property to the negroes. “That was a natural thought, and that with the natural race feel- ing and the feeling that it was not best all ’round for so much valu- able property to pass from the white race by gift into the hands of negroes, made a strong case to break the will. True, the white bene- ficiaries employed counsel and gave their aid and influence against the effort to set aside the will, but most of these beneficiaries are outside of Union county. Their local influence would be small, while a jury of white Union county citizens would not be expected to look with favor on 1,500 acres of valuable Union county land pass- ing into the hands of negroes, their heirs and assigns, for all time. “But after a hard-fought contest of 15 days it took that Union county jury just 45 minutes to agree that Maggie Ross knew what she was doing when she made her will; that she wanted the negroes to have the property and she was entirely within her rights when she gave it to them. “That is by no means an unusual verdict, either, from the point of race relationship. Not so many years ago a white jury, in Iredell Superior court, took the word of an old colored man against that of two white men—men of property and standing as men of affairs in their community—in a matter involving the ownership of land. There are cases, of course, where passions are aroused, when race feeling sways judgment. But when the facts are set out in an atmos- phere free from passion, in the clear light of justice, the negro will get his rights before the average Southern jury.” 142 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE H. B. Adams, a brother-in-law of the author of this book, drew the will which the kin of Maggie Ross sought to break, and his son informs the author that the Negro beneficiaries of the will received “in round numbers one hundred thousand dollars.” CHAPTERRe26 THEYNEGRO: ASAT CONVICT Various Systems of Employing the Convicts—the Lease or Contract System— The State Farm System—The Chain-gang—Advantages and Drawbacks of the Several Systems—Progress of the South in Solving the Problem of Convict Labor S from one-half to two-thirds of the inmates of the penal in- stitutions in the South are Negroes, it would seem to be in order to give some account of these institutions. First, there are state penitentiaries, consisting of one large build- ing where men are confined who have committed serious crimes. Dur- ing the past forty years these institutions have gradually declined in the number of inmates, due to the increasing practice of employ- ing convicts outside of prison walls. In some states the penitentiaries have come to be used only for the criminal insane, and a small number of long-term offenders who are not capable of arduous manual labor. The maintenance of a large number of convicts within prison walls has been found by experience to be burdensome to the state because of the difficulty of putting them to any kind of work which would yield a profit. Second, as a means of relieving the state of the necessity of appropriating money for the annual deficit incurred by the state peni- tentiaries, the policy was adopted of hiring out convicts under contract or lease to private individuals or corporations for work of various kinds in and outside of the penitentiary walls. By the terms of the contract the state received so much per capita for the labor of each convict, and sometimes furnished an overseer. Convicts so contracted for have been used in North Carolina to build railroads, in South Carolina to work in a cotton factory or on private farms, in Virginia to work in a shoe factory, in Alabama to work in mines and saw- mills, in Georgia to work in lumber camps and brickyards, and in Florida to work in the phosphate beds and in turpentine stills. This lease system has been very profitable to the states, but has never been anything but an evil from the viewpoint of the welfare 143 144 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of the convict. The health of the convicts has been generally neg- lected, resulting in a high mortality, and the discipline of the con- victs has often been brutal. So many evils have grown out of this system that the states, one by one, have abolished it. It still lingers in Alabama, however, where the law abolishing it is not operative until 1927. Third, the county governments in a great many instances have adopted what has come to be known as the chain-gang system or con- vict camp system. As the states adopted the contract and lease sys- tem to avoid the heavy expense of long-term offenders in the peni- tentiary, so the county governments adopted the chain-gang system to avoid the heavy expense of short-term offenders committed to the county jail. Instead of feeding idle men for thirty or sixty days in jail the county authorities now employ the offenders in work upon the public roads. Since these offenders have to work in the open coun- try and sleep in camps, it has been necessary to hobble some of them with chains, and hence the name chain-gang or convict camp. The camps, of course, change their location frequently. In some states, for convenience in moving, the convicts sleep in cages vary- ing in length from sixteen to twenty feet which stand on wheels, not unlike the circus cages for animals. Triple-deck beds on each side of the cage accommodate about eighteen men. In other states the convicts sleep in tents. All, except a few trusties and the women who do the cooking and washing, are shackled with chains while they work, and sometimes also while they sleep. From the standpoint of economy to the state, the employment of convicts to work on the roads has advantages over any other employ- ment. The maintenance cost is borne by the county which uses the convicts, and from the standpoint of the county, the chain-gang is the cheapest means of making and keeping up good roads. From the standpoint of the convicts, there is little to be said in favor of the system. The conditions in some of the camps have been bad beyond belief, and have justified the severest public condemnation. The guards and overseers of the camps have been generally men of little education or standing, who were glad to find a job at from $40 to $60 a month which required only the ability to “cuss” and lean on a gun. In some cases they seem to have been men with no knowledge whatever of hygiene or sanitation. The bedding of the convicts has often been allowed to wear into tatters, and to become dirty and infested with vermin. Referring to one of the camps in THE NEGRO AS A CONVICT 145 North Carolina, the State Board of Public Welfare said: ‘‘The method of disposing of the sewage is most unsanitary. The night buckets are emptied just behind the tent in which the prisoners sleep. This practice exposes men to the unpleasant odors and dangers of con- tracting disease.” * Bathing facilities are often lacking, and, in pro- viding a weekly bath in a tub, several men are sometimes permitted to wash in the same water. In some cases the quality of the food was bad and the quantity insufficient. Sick convicts sometimes suf- fered for days without medical attention and in the Texas camps instances are reported of tubercular and syphilitic convicts being al- lowed to work and sleep beside the uninfected.2. In North Carolina cases have come to light in which the convicts have been brutally whipped and cuffed; * like cases have come to light in South Carolina in spite of the fact that the constitution of that state prohibits corporal punishment.* It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that all of the convict camps are unsanitary and that the discipline in all of them is brutal. The abuses in the system which have been heralded abroad repre- sent exceptional cases which have been written up in the reports of state welfare organizations or legislative investigation committees. The fact that the abuses are being exposed indicates that efforts are being made to remove them. In my travels through the South I have visited many of these convict camps, and in most cases I have found them fairly sanitary and the treatment of the convicts lenient and humane. It is erroneously believed outside of the South, and especially by the Negro press, that the chain-gang is an institution devised solely for the degradation of the Negro and that only Negroes are com- mitted to it. The fact is that the convict camp system was designed solely as an economic measure, and that both whites and blacks are committed to it. There may be some camps in the Black Belt where all the convicts are Negroes, but there are many camps where white convicts equal in number the blacks, and I have seen convict camps in the Upper Piedmont and Mountain regions of the South where all of the convicts were white. The unsatisfactory experience of the state governments in employ- * Report, 1921, p. 108. ? Report, Sub-Committee, Texas Legislature, 1918, p. 281. * Bulletins, North Carolina Board of Public Welfare, Ist quarter, 1923, p. I5. * Article I, sec. 79. 146 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ing long-term prisoners under the lease or contract system, and the general failure to employ them profitably within penitentiary walls, led to the experiment of establishing state convict farms. Beginning about 1886 most of the Southern states began to empty their peni- tentiaries of able-bodied men and to put them to work on farms. At present the number of these farms in each state varies from two to six. The success of these farms, from the economic point of view, varies greatly. In a few instances, where competent overseers are employed, they yield a revenue to the state, in most instances they produce barely enough to cover the cost of maintenance, and in some instances they operate at a loss. The work of convicts on the farms is not too hard, and is favorable to health. A resident physician, or one under contract to visit the farm upon call, is employed for each farm. The mortality of the farm convicts is much lower than that of convicts employed under any other system. In some of the states there are small county farms for short- term offenders, instead of the convict camp, in connection with work on the highways. Frances Kellor, who made a study of the penal institutions in the South in 19ot, said: “The South more than any other part of the country holds the ideal solution of the convict problem. This is the State farm. It is entirely feasible, is self-supporting and revenue-procuring, gives the state full control of convicts, removes them from unhealthful surround- ings, and avoids all danger of labor attacks. No other section of the United States is so well adapted to this system and can enter upon it at so little expense. It abolishes chain gangs and _ publicity of labor.” > Since these lines were written, the South has been moving in the direction of abolishing all lease and contract systems and concentrat- ing the convicts on large farms. A great drawback to these farms has been the working together of the young and old offenders, absence of a matron to supervise female offenders, and the lack of educational and cultural influences. The Southern states especially need training schools for Negro offenders under the age of sixteen, and reformatories for those be- tween the ages of sixteen and thirty corresponding to institutions for the white offenders of the same ages. Until such institutions are “Experimental Sociology, p. 214. THE NEGRO AS A CONVICT 147 provided, the youthful Negro offender will have to live and work beside the worst type of adult criminal. In recent years one notices some efforts by the Southern states to remedy the abuses in their penal system. Legislative investigating committees in Texas, the Board of Public Welfare in South Carolina, the Board of Charities and Public Welfare of North Carolina, and simi- lar investigating organizations in other states have helped to improve conditions by exposing the evils and recommending improvements. Among the public-spirited individuals who have labored to make the conditions better are Frank Bane of Virginia, Dr. G. C. Williams and H. C. Bearly, of South Carolina, Joseph P. Byers of Kentucky, and Burr Blackburn, of Georgia. But a great part of the penal systems in the South is bad beyond remedy and needs to be junked. In penal institutions generally the in- mates are either mental defectives or victims of bad environment, and they no more deserve harsh treatment than a typhoid fever patient. To humiliate these wretches by striped garments and shaven heads, to house them, as we do wild animals, in iron cages or in cells behind iron bars, to march them in chains or in lock-step to and from their labor and mess hall, to stand over them with whips and guns, and, in case of their resentment of this treatment, to lock them in dark cells on a diet of bread and water—this is a spectacle which one may still behold in this twentieth century of our so-called civilization. If we are going into the business of punishing people for their sins, in Heaven’s name let us find the real culprit. Concerning this business, Carlyle once exclaimed: “Alas, the supreme scoundrel, alike with the supreme hero, is very far from being known. Nor have we the small- est apparatus for dealing with either of them, if he were known. Our supreme scoundrel sits, I conjecture, well-cushioned, in high places, at this time; rolls softly through the world, and lives a prosperous gentle- man; instead of sinking him in peat-bogs, we mount the brazen image of him on high columns: such is the world’s temporary judgment about its supreme scoundrels.” ° What most prisoners, black or white, need, in the South or else- where, is education with incentive and opportunity to do useful work. I have visited many penal institutions in the United States and in Eu- ropean countries, but I have seen only one that I did not want to scrap, and this was at Red Hill, England. Here there is no walled enclosure, no prison-house with iron bars, no armed guards or dark cells. I * Essay, “Model Prisons,” 148 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE looked in vain for any indication that it was a prison. The beautiful park-like grounds and the numerous picturesque buildings gave to the institution the appearance of an American university. The boys moved about freely, dressed in white suits. I saw one group playing football, another cricket, while a third were disporting themselves in a swim- ming-pool. The boys are divided into groups of about forty, and live in separate cottages after the manner of the fraternity boys in our _ universities. Each boy attends classes in the forenoon, and in the afternoon works at some trade. He is paid for his work, deposits his savings in a bank, and comes out of the institution.educated and ready to follow the trade he has learned. The records of the school show that ninety percent of the boys “make good.” May we not hope that a vision of something of this kind will guide the new generation of leaders in the Southern states and that, at no dis- tant day, model institutions will rise up to take the place of chain-gangs and iron cages? CHA Piigkn2r PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION Negro Common Schools in the South—Percentage of Negro Children Enrolled— Progress in Diminishing Illiteracy—Increase in Length of the School Term— Higher Qualifications and Salaries for Teachers—Comparative Cost of Negro and White Schools—Development of High Schools, State Normals, and Local Training Schools—Movement for Model Schoolhouses OLLOWING the proclamation of emancipation the center of inter- est in the education of the Negro was at once transferred from the North to the South. There was a general sentiment in the North in favor of giving to the liberated Negroes the rudiments of an education, and throughout the South provision was made for Negro schools through the agency of the Freedmen’s Bureau. This Bureau, during the period of its activities, established a total of 4,239 schools which employed 9,307 teachers and had enrolled 247,333 students. These schools opened a new and large field of employment for educated Negroes. In 1867 the Bureau reported 1,056 Negro teachers and in 1870 it re- ported 1,324. When the Freedmen’s Bureau went out of existence in 1870, many of its schools which had been financed by Northern religious organiza- tions continued to exist under the control of these organizations. In the meantime, schools for Negroes had been set up by some of the reconstructed states. The Southern people were not at all friendly to the school systems established by the Reconstruction legislatures. In several of the states the carpet-baggers attempted to force the white and colored children to attend the same schools. Where separate schools for the races were not provided the white children were practically excluded from the benefits of public education. The teachers and supervisors of the schools were largely carpet-baggers. Many of the white people re- garded the public schools and also the Freedmen’s Bureau schools as only a disguised scheme of the carpet-baggers to enslave the white people, and place them under the domination of their former slaves. When, how- ever, the carpet-bag régime was overthrown, the Southern people 149 150 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE heartily supported the public schools which in several of the States had been long established before the Civil War, but provision was made for separate schools for the Negroes in each state. The Southern people took up the burden of maintaining public schools at a time when they were sorely stricken as a consequence of the Civil War, and the plunder of Reconstruction. The amount of il- literacy among both the whites and blacks was appalling, and such schools as the states were able to support for either race were very inadequate as to length of the school term, efficiency of the teachers, and character of the schoolhouses. As economic conditions in the South improved and more taxes could be levied, the public schools always came in for a larger share of the increased income. The public-school idea has steadily won its way, and to-day there is no people in the world more devoted to the democratic ideal of an educated citizenship than the people of the Southern states. Beside the maintenance of elementary schools, the South has had to establish a system of high schools and normal schools, and to re- construct her state universities. According to the census of 1920 there were, in the Southern states, including Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, 3,471,277 Negro children of school age, i. e., from five to twenty years old, and of these 50.7 percent were enrolled in school. In the individual states the per- centage of Negro children enrolled varies from fifty-nine percent in Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina to forty-two percent in Louisiana. The percentage of Negro enrolment has been gradually catching up with that of the whites, the difference at present being, for instance, in South Carolina 59.1 percent for Negro children and 60.7 percent for white children. In the matter of literacy also the Negroes have been catching up with the white people. From 1880 to 1920 the white people of the United States reduced their illiteracy from seventeen percent to six percent, while the Negroes reduced theirs from seventy percent to 22.9 percent. The percent of Negro illiteracy in the South varies from 12.1 in Missouri, 12.4 in Oklahoma, and 15,3 in West Virginia to 31.3 in Alabama and 38.5 in Louisiana. In length of the school term the Negro schools in the South have been gradually gaining on the white schools. In the District of Co- lumbia and in Virginia the school term is the same for both Negro and white schools, in Oklahoma the difference in favor of the whites is only twelve days, and in North Carolina, only thirteen days. The PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION 151 greatest disparity is in Louisiana, where the white schools run sixty- two days longer than the Negro schools.* As for the expenditures per child of school age in the Southern states, the contrast is in favor of the whites in all of the states. In the District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri there is scarcely any difference in the per capita cost, the figures being $74 and $62.75 re- spectively for the white and Negro children in the District of Colum- bia; $10.29 and $9.46 respectively for the white and Negro children in Kentucky; and $22.24 and $19.46 respectively for the white and Negro children in Missouri. The contrast in per capita cost per child of each race is most striking in Georgia, where the figures are $16.31 for the white child and $2.83 for the Negro child; in Louisiana, where the figures are respectively $25.37 and $3.49, and in South Carolina, where the figures are respectively $19.33 and $2.06. For the smaller expenditure for the education of the Negro child as compared to the white, there are several outstanding causes, some of which are justifiable, or at least unavoidable under existing condi- tions, while others are entirely indefensible. For illustration, in all of those Southern states which embrace a part of the Appalachian Mountains, there are counties in which the Negro population is so small and scattered that it is impossible to lo- cate a school where it would be accessible to any considerable num- ber of Negro children. Therefore, the Negro schools in these counties are few and of the cheapest character. For similar reasons, but to a less extent, many white children cannot attend a public school. “Even to-day” (1919), says the state agent for rural schools in Louisiana, “in six parishes of Southern Louisiana, fewer than 50 percent of the white educables between the ages of six and eighteen are enrolled in our schools. In two of these parishes there are twice as many white children out of school as in school.” * Throughout the region of the Dismal Swamp, from Maryland to Florida, and in all of the Appala- chian region, there are many children so remote from a school that they practically have no educational opportunities. For these scattered populations, both white and black, the Southern states should inau- gurate a system of individual house-to-house instruction such as South Carolina has had in operation for several years among her scattered mountain people. In many Southern cities the Negro population is congested in one, *U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, No. 90, p. 126. *L. M. Favrot’s address before the N. A. A. C.,, p. 5. 152 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE or several, circumscribed districts, where a few schools can be located which are accessible to the Negro population.* In the same cities the white population is scattered over a wide area, including many suburban residential districts, and it is necessary to have many schools in order to accommodate the scattered white population. In Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, because of the contrasting distribution of the Negro and white population, the Negroes, with relatively fewer schools, can reach them more easily than the white people can their more nu- merous schools. In Negro communities of the South land is cheap as compared to land in white communities, and the general character of the Negro resi- dences is greatly inferior to the character of the residences of the whites. Therefore, the land for a Negro school costs much less than the land for a white school, and a Negro schoolhouse can be erected at much less cost than a school for the whites and, at the same time, be an ornament to the neighborhood and stand out in as great a contrast to the residences of the neighborhood as the more expensive white school would stand out in contrast to the residences of a white neigh- borhood. In Northern and Western cities one may often observe a striking contrast in character between the Negro and the white schools. For instance, O. J. Milliken, superintendent of the Chicago and Cook Coun- ty School for Boys, in referring to a Negro residential district, says: “The schools are only boxes for them to go to school in. You don’t find any of the $900,000 school buildings in the colored population district.” * In New York City the value of a Negro school in Harlem in 1924 was $157,269.95 as compared to School No. 62 in a white district which was valued at $1,262,359.13. In any of our large cities the difference between the cost of a schoolhouse in a fashionable district and one in the poorer districts corresponds somewhat to the difference in the cost of white and Negro schools in Norfolk, Atlanta, Charlotte, or Memphis. For example, in Greater New York the site for School No. 12, Manhattan, New York, cost $272,264.56 and the building $508,428.33; whereas the site for School No. 33, Borough of Richmond, cost only $2,500 and the build- * Jones, “Negro Education,’ U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1916, No. 38, p. 8. *Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 334. PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION 153 ing only $22,475.60. The Washington Irving High School of New York City cost $1,824,434.41, whereas the one at Throgg’s Neck cost only $29,398.26.° In all cities North and South the cost of primary and high schools varies greatly according to location, the date of erection, and the whims of the school-boards. The only object in presenting these illustrative figures is to make clear the fact that a mere difference in the outlay for Negro and white schools in the South is not conclusive evidence that the Negro is de- nied a square deal. However, in conceding that some difference, and even a consider- able difference, in the outlay for Negro and white schools is justifiable, we do not admit that an extreme difference can be defended on ra- tional grounds. Where, as in several Southern States, the outlay for the white child is nearly ten times as great as that for the colored child, the only rational inference is that the Negro is not getting a square deal. Owing partly to topography, a considerable number of Southern white people have had very little in the way of educational opportuni- ties, and among them there is a notion that education spoils the Negro. In a lecture I heard Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina deliver in Madison, Wisconsin, he made it very plain that the only “nigger” he liked or had faith in was one of the kind on his plantation who could neither read nor write. And, among this same class of white people, the idea widely pre- vails that, since the Negro pays very little of the taxes he is not entitled to any large share of public revenue for his education. These white people, mostly small farmers, have little realization of the fact that the wage class of people of any country pay indirectly for whatever benefits they receive from the state, through their labor in producing the taxable wealth. Furthermore, among all classes of Southern people there has been a good deal of indifference to Negro education for the reason, first, that most of the white classes have been poor, and have concentrated their energies upon their own welfare; and for the reason, second, that the South has until recently lacked leaders of large enough vision to direct public attention to the development of the natural resources and social institutions of the individual states. For a long time after the *From the records of the New York City Board of Education. 154 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Civil War, the public men in the South expended all of their eloquence upon national issues, and neither knew nor thought much about social conditions or problems at home. The newer leaders of the South have been especially distinguished for their zeal for education, and the task devolves upon them of estab- lishing such educational ideals and policies as will insure to the Negro justice in the apportionment of education funds. But in spite of shortcomings of the South in providing adequate opportunities for the education of the Negro, a mere glance at what has recently been done in that direction indicates that some substantial progress is being made and that there is a growing sentiment in favor of better treatment of the Negro in educational matters. The adjustment of the South to her new educational problem is only one of the many adjustments incident to her passing from the mores of slavery to the mores of freedom; and any sociologist knows that it is impossible to change the mores of a people suddenly, or to any great extent by artificial means, that the change can come only slowly and in conformity to changed conditions. In reference to this matter, the great social science professor of Yale University, William Graham Sumner, wrote as follows in his classic work on Folkways: “In the United States the abolition of slavery was accomplished by the North, which had no slaves and enforced emancipation by war on the South, which had them. The mores of the South were those of slavery in full and satisfactory operation, including social, religious, and philosophical notions adapted to slavery. The abolition of slavery in the northern states had been brought about by changes in conditions and interests. Emancipation in the South was produced by outside force against the mores of the whites there. The consequence has been forty years of economic, social, and political discord. In this case free institutions and mores in which free individual initiative is a leading element allow efforts towards social readjustment out of which a so- lution of the difficulties will come. New mores will be developed which will cover the situation with customs, habits, mutual concessions, and cooperation of interests, and these will produce a social philosophy consistent with the facts. The process is long, painful, and discourag- ing, but it contains its own guarantees.’ ® The impression seems to prevail among some people outside of the South that the meager expenditure for Negro education is due to the unwillingness of the Southern whites to tax themselves for educational chest fotas PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION 155 purposes. But, while the white people of the South cry out loudly against taxation in general, they are not notably behind other people in taxing themselves for education. Numerous investigations have shown that, in proportion to the value of property, the levy for school purposes in the South compares well with that in the North. For in- stance, North Carolina spends for her public schools forty cents for each hundred dollars of taxable property as compared to thirty-eight for Massachusetts.’ Merriam, a Northern author, is frank enough to admit that “three or four months of schooling burdens Mississippi more than ten months burdens Massachusetts.” ® Lyman Abbott said in the Outlook, “While Northern benevolence has spent tens of thousands of dollars to educate Negroes, Southern patriotism has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same purpose. This has been done voluntarily and without aid from the Federal Government.” ® Now and then some Southern legislator complains at the burden of Negro education, and introduces a bill to limit the expenditure for Negro schools to the sum which the Negroes pay in taxes. It is un- doubtedly a fact that much more money is paid out for Negro educa- tion than comes in from Negro taxes (the auditor of the state of Virginia estimated that the Negroes paid in revenues to the state $105,- 565.00 and that the State paid for the education of the Negro $324,- 864.00) ,/° but the same is true of the poorer class of white people in every part of the United States. It is the theory of democracy that educational facilities shall be provided for all classes according to their needs, and not according to their contributions to the state. The Southern people hold to this theory, and never take seriously the oc- casional bill to apportion educational funds upon the basis of Negro taxes. People outside of the South, unacquainted with the economic and geographical conditions and the complications in the distribution of the population, have no idea of the difficulties of building up a public- school system. They do not realize the fact that it was not until 1904 that the Southern people were able to rebuild their per capita wealth to the pre-war figure.11. The funds for education have been far be- "Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 279. * The Negro and the Nation, p. 397. * Vol. 83, p. 634. *® Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 305. “Jones, op. cit., p. 30. 156 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE hind the needs, and it has been a hard problem to make the funds go around. It has been impossible, for instance, to provide schoolhouses in all of the school districts, so that in hundreds of cases the school is held in a church, or in a house. donated or rented. It is more fre- quently the case that the Negro schoolhouse is not publicly owned, but the number of white schools conducted in private houses is amazing. In South Carolina, of the 2,354 Negro, schools, only 1,442 are publicly owned. In Alabama and Georgia only three-fourths of the schools for whites are owned by the public.” In many towns and cities, and also in many rural districts, the com- mon schools for the Negroes are the same in character as those for the whites, though often less expensive. Norfolk, Louisville, Nash- ville, Chattanooga, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Little Rock are conspicu- ous for their up-to-date Negro schools.1* In Atlanta, a recently built school for Negroes cost $500,000 and one in Norfolk cost $600,000. In North Carolina, during Governor Morrison’s administration, more money was spent for the education of the Negroes than was spent for the education of the whites during Governor Aycock’s administration, 1900-1904, which was notable for educational advancement. A novel method introduced in North Carolina for stimulating in- terest among the colored people in education is the holding of Negro county-school commencements. Of this innovation N. C. Newbold, state agent for rural schools, says: “Commencement Day is practi- cally a county holiday. The county superintendent, teachers, school committee, and other educational leaders invite and urge the people throughout the county to gather on the day appointed at the county courthouse or some other suitable place for the exercises. They bring lunch, and come prepared to spend the day. “The exercises on such occasions are varied. Early in the day, or on the day before, the industrial supervisor (if there be one in the county) and other teachers put up industrial exhibits, for the inspec- tion of patrons and other visitors, in the hall where the meeting is to be held, or in some other convenient place. These exhibits consist of sewing, all the way from plain gingham aprons to handsome pieces of embroidery and drawn-work; cooking—cakes, meats, breads, candy; baskets, shuck mats, many samples of wood-work, etc., etc. Many of the best white people visit these exhibits, and expressions of surprise, admiration, and wonder are heard on all sides: The Negroes them- 4 Jones, op. cit., p. 33. *% Tbid., p. 33. PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION 157 selves are elated, happy, both because of the accomplishments of the children, and because their white friends are pleased with the work exhibited. “In some counties, before the exercises in the courthouse, there is a grand parade of the Negroes through the streets of the county town. This is made up of school children, teachers, and patrons in buggies, wagons, floats, carts, and on foot. There is usually a chief marshal, in silk hat and sash befitting his position, and several assistant marshals, all of whom are mounted. Hundreds of people take part in these pa- rades, which create great interest. They are conducted in an orderly, systematic manner. In no case have I seen or heard of disorder or unbecoming conduct on the part of the crowd. Many white people line ‘the sidewalks and street corners to see the parade. In most cases the comments by white people are expressions of surprise, satisfaction, and commendation. Many times have I heard the expression, ‘They are just as orderly as that many white people would be,’ and sometimes a bystander would add, ‘Yes, and more so.’ “The parade usually ends at the courthouse or hall where the indoor exercises are to be held. This is where the state agent for rural schools comes in for his share of the honors. The exercises are usually for- mally begun by some minister, who conducts devotional exercises. There are old-time melodies and other songs, and sometimes exercises by the children. After these the county superintendent, city mayor, or some other official presents the speakers of the occasion. Sometimes the chairman of the county board of education presides. At such times he gives a very practical talk on education from the viewpoint of the business man. The county superintendent has his word of sym- pathy and encouragement. The state agent brings his simple message of progress and hope from the standpoint of the larger unit—the state. Sometimes other white people are present and give interesting, helpful talks. Nearly always the chairman asks the supervising industrial teacher and other leading Negroes to speak. Perhaps the one word ‘happiness’ may be used to describe the tone and spirit of these talks ; they do the white people present as much good as they do the Negroes themselves. The spirit of these meetings is fime—no other word de- scribes it so well... . “When the day’s exercises are over the people return to their homes, encouraged and inspired to attempt greater things for their children, their homes, and their communities.” 4 4 “Negro County-School Commencements,” Southern Workman, Dec., 1916. 158 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE In recent years very good high schools for Negroes have been built in St. Louis, Forth Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Louisville, Norfolk, Atlanta, and Charlotte.® In North Carolina, colored high schools increased from thirteen in 1921 to thirty-four in 1924, and high-school students, from 1,347 to 5,341. By way of preparing for more high schools there are 200 elementary schools which give instruc- tion in secondary subjects.1° In 1924 Texas boasted of 150 schools of- fering high-school work to Negro boys and girls, one-fourth of this number being rated by the state as high schools of the first class. In many localities in the South the missionary and endowed schools for Negroes occupy the place of the public high school, and most of the numerous Negro colleges and universities also cover the ground of the high school. The Southern states are not only building more and better Negro schools on their own initiative, but they are cooperating with outside agencies in supplying public funds and private donations for Negro schoolhouses. For example, the Southern people are heartily aiding the Rosenwald endowment, the object of which is to promote the con- struction of model colored school buildings in cooperation with the local communities and county authorities. The basis of the coOperation is as follows: “For a one-teacher schoolhouse the community and county author- ities must raise in cash, material, and labor, $750. The Rosenwald fund will contribute $400. “For a two-teacher house the community and county authorities will raise, as above, $1,000. The Rosenwald fund will give $500. “In cases of consolidation of two or more schools the Rosenwald fund will contribute more.” The table on following page shows the number of Negro schools built up to September, 1910, and the sources of the funds. In the Southern states the character of the common schools in each county and township depends largely upon local initiative. Where the people have an enthusiasm for education they appear be- fore the county commissioners or board of education, demand new schools, better schools, and better teachers, and they get what they want; whereas the people who are indifferent to education take what is offered them without complaint and allow their schools to become dilapidated. * Jones, op. cit., p. 37. * Ibid., Dp. 37. PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION 159 Amounts contributed by Number 7 OEGA LS MAL NAAM ELEOV TE POAT EIA, TS aN ae 2 oS of school- _— States White Colored Mr. Rosen- Total States houses people people wald Alabama ....... 179 ©=—- $43,776 = $8,445 $91,764.93 $55,450 $190,435.93 PMANSAS . . . a5 3s 22 10,525 1,435 8,654 9,500 30,114 Mreoriad tl)... os": 23 2,075 10,202 17,532 7,500 38,200 Kentucky ...... 5 6,045 250 4,041.50 2,600 12,936.50 Monisiana .:.... 49 9,300 3,000 33,390 17,600 63,290 Maryland ...... 4 2,700 500 1,125 1,450 5,775 Mississippi ..... 28 3,613.50 13,644.05 19,253:25 . 12,276 48,787.70 North Carolina... 85 31,651 3,020:5035 770707 oe 4 305 95,730.25 South Carolina... 9 3,300 8,376 5,006 3,900 21,272 Tennessee ...... 59 72,905 3,870 26,150 30,175 142,100 OCT 38 26,555 750 21,784.80 10,800 68,889.80 Ota Ut tiie 501 213,345.50 54,309.45 265,179.23 193,616 720,540.18 Negro teachers are generally paid lower salaries than white teach- ers for two reasons. First, Negro teachers are not so well trained and are less efficient than white teachers. Second, Negro teachers have a lower standard of living than white teachers. In other words the pay of Negro teachers is governed to a large extent by the same economic laws which determine wages in any other line of work. In hundreds of white schools in the South the salaries of the teachers are very low for the same reason that the salaries of Negro teachers are low. In the mountains of Kentucky, a white school-teacher receives a salary of only $40 per month, but is able to live comfortably on it; whereas a white teacher in Louisville has to be paid $150 a month to cover the higher cost of living in that locality. In Oklahoma the contrast be- tween the salaries of white teachers in the common schools is greater than the contrast between the salaries of Negro and white teachers in the common schools of Richmond, Charlotte, Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans, Memphis, or St. Louis. Among teachers of lower grade the Negroes receive less than one-half as much as the whites, but in all of the states the difference between the salaries of the two races di- minishes among the teachers of higher grade. In Norfolk, Virginia, the salaries of Negro principals of schools have in recent years in- creased faster than the salaries of white principals, and the same is true as to increase in the salaries of high-school teachers. Expenditures for white schools have increased faster than for Negro schools, for the reason chiefly that the needs for white schools have grown faster. It is necessary to remember that in educational progress the white people were a long way ahead of the Negro at the close of the Civil War, and hence it has been necessary to provide a 160 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE great many more secondary schools for the whites than for the Ne- groes. There are ten times as many white children prepared to enter high school as Negro children.‘ Not only are few Negro children prepared to enter a high school, but to a greater extent than white children, they have to drop out of school to earn a living. In the en- tire South there are only 24,034 Negro children pursuing secondary studies.?§ The greater cost of building and maintaining high schools as com- pared to common schools is one of the reasons for the greater expendi- ture for the education of white children.’® In this connection it is to be remembered also that the demands for secondary education for Negro children are met in a large measure by schools maintained by Northern philanthropy. The white schools in the South have suffered, and still suffer, from ill-trained teachers, but slowly, through the development of more and better training-schools, this drawback is being overcome. The Negro schools have suffered more in this respect than the white schools, be- cause of the smaller proportion of Negroes fitted to teach, and the diffi- culty of providing Negro training-schools. The number of qualified Negroes ready to attend normal schools has been so small that only a half-dozen Southern states have deemed it expedient to establish a Negro normal school. Because very few Negroes are able to attend a school which takes them away from home, it has been found necessary to train Negro teachers in county schools. Up to 1918 there were seventy-seven county schools for the train- ing of Negro teachers, distributed as follows: Alabama, eleven; Ar- kansas, five; Florida, one; Georgia, five; Kentucky, two; Maryland, one; Louisiana, four; Mississippi, three; North Carolina, fourteen; South Carolina, six; Tennessee, six; Texas, five; Virginia, eight. The number of such schools is rapidly increasing. They are supported main- ly from public-school funds, but receive aid for current expenses from the state fund, the General Education Board, and from private indi- viduals, white and black. In addition to the county training-schools, there are city normals for Negroes in Louisville, Baltimore, and Wash- ington, and teacher-training courses in the Negro high schools of Richmond, St. Louis, and Little Rock. In Virginia public aid is given to private schools giving summer courses in teaching. Jones, op. cit., p. 42. % Ibid. p. 42. * Tbid., p. 29. PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION 161 A movement making for general improvement in the Negro schools is the appointment of Negro county supervisors. There are already about 163 counties in the South which have such supervisors. Their salaries are paid partly from the county funds and partly from the Jeanes Fund.?° Ten of the Southern states have state supervisors of Negro schools, but so far only white men have received the appoint- ments. In the administration of the public-school system in the South it is difficult to do justice to both races under so widely varying conditions, and it is always much easier to find fault with the system than to point out a remedy. When judging the treatment of the Negroes by the white South, it would be well to consider the treatment of the Negro by the whites in Australia and in South Africa. Maurice S. Evans, a highly intelligent and broad-minded citizen of South Africa, recently visited the South to acquaint himself with our Negro problem through personal observa- tions. He noticed “that on each million of Negro population in the South (1910-11) a million dollars was annually spent for education. In Natal the million natives receive $75,000 worth. In the Transvaal the position is not so good. Here, in this Northern province of the Union of South Africa, it is computed that the native population con- tribute $1,500,000 to the State Exchequer, and yet barely $15,000 is spent upon their education. It is well sometimes to make such com- parisons when one is told that the position in the South in this regard is without parallel, for discrimination and injustice in the civilized world.” 24. He adds that primary education is “within the reach of the great majority of Negro children in the South. I would also say that a special industrial course, or a University education, may be ob- tained by any intelligent Negro boy or girl, however poor, if endowed with grit and character.” ??....and: “that though the appropriations towards Negro education are small as compared with those received by the whites, the opportunities for primary education for the Negro child are greater than in many other civilized countries, and the number of institutions for higher learning are surprising to one who had imag- ined that the opportunity to the Negro ended with a poor elementary education.” 7° » Jones, op. cit., p. 36. ™ Black and White in the Southern States, p. 127. ULL ss fie Len * Evans, op. cit., p. 155. CHAPTER 22 INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING Institutions of Higher Learning and for Technical Instruction Supported by the States and the Federal Government—Institutions of Higher Learning Sup- ported by White Religious Organizations—Endowments of White Philan- thropists to Aid Negro Education—Donations of the Negroes Themselves for the Education of Their Race N the South there are about a dozen Negro normal schools supported by the states, and state aid is also given to private institutions offering courses for the training of teachers. There are also sixteen state agricultural and mechanical colleges for Negroes, supported partly by the states and partly by the federal government. Under the Smith-Lever Act, passed by Congress in 1913 for agri- cultural extension work in the several states, the Negroes are receiv- ing their share of the funds appropriated. The terms of the act re- quire each state to raise a fund equal to the sum contributed by the federal government. The work for the Negroes, under the operations of this act, has consisted of establishing movable schools giving in- struction in agriculture and home economics. Under the Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act of 1917, the Negroes, as well as the white people of the South, are receiving a very practical kind of education which the ordinary elementary school is not able to furnish. The vocations included in the scope of the act are agriculture, home economics, trade, and a variety of industries. This act, like the Smith-Lever Act, requires each state to raise a fund equal to that received from the federal government. The share of the funds which go to the Negro schools is determined by the per- centage of Negroes in the total rural population. Looked at from the standpoint of numbers, the Negroes of the South are better provided with institutions of higher learning than the whites. In each of the Southern states there are from a half-dozen to a dozen Negro colleges and universities. The first impulse toward higher education for the Negroes of the 162 INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING 163 South came from the American Missionary Association, which was strongly anti-slavery, and which planned to establish one school of higher learning in each of the larger Southern states, normal and graded schools in the principal cities, and common and parochial schools in rural centers. Under this plan arose Hampton Institute in Virginia in 1861, and later Atlanta University, Georgia; Berea College, Kentucky; Fisk University, Tennessee; Straight University, Louisiana; Talladega Col- lege, Alabama ; Tougaloo University, Mississippi; and Tillotson College, Texas. In 1862 the American Baptist Home Mission Society began to take interest in the refugees within the lines of the Union army. At first its efforts were purely religious, but they later expanded into an exten- sive educational program resulting in the establishing of eight institu- tions, as follows: For men, Atlanta Baptist College and Virginia Union University; for women, Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, and Harts- horn Memorial College, Richmond; and as coeducational institutions, Bishop College, Texas; Benedict College, South Carolina; Shaw Uni- versity, North Carolina; and Jackson College, Mississippi. In addi- tion to maintaining these schools, the society has given aid to several schools owned by Negroes. In 1866 the Northern Methodists organized their Freedmen’s Aid Southern Education Society, and their efforts have resulted in the es- tablishment of ten institutions of college grade, and numerous others for more elementary study. They have established Clark University in South Atlanta, Georgia, which includes Gammon Theological Sem- inary, the best equipped and endowed of all theological schools for Negroes; Claflin University, South Carolina; New Orleans University, Louisiana; Rust University, Mississippi; Walden University, Ten- nessee; Wiley University, Texas; Bennett College, North Carolina ; George R. Smith College, Missouri; Morgan College, Maryland; and Philander Smith College, Arkansas. In 1882 the Presbyterians incorporated a Board of Missions for - Freedmen and began educational work in behalf of the Southern Ne- groes. The chief institutions established by this board are Biddle Uni- versity, North Carolina, for men, and for women, five seminaries: Ingleside, Virginia; Scotia, North Carolina; Barber Memorial, Ala- bama; Mary Holmes, Mississippi; and Mary Allen, Texas. Independ- ent of the work of this board, the United Presbyterians have estab- lished Knoxville College, Tennessee. 164 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The Episcopalians have established St. Paul Normal and Industrial School, Virginia; St. Augustine’s School, North Carolina; and several minor schools in other states. The Catholics have established St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Colored Boys, Delaware; St. Augustine’s Academy, Kentucky; and St. Frances’ Academy, Maryland. Besides these the Catholics maintain numerous primary schools for Negro children, Other religious organizations maintaining Negro schools include the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions, the Congregational American Missionary Association, the Friends Societies, the Lutheran Board of Colored Missions, etc. In nearly all of these iste Glen the president and faculty were originally white, but gradually Negroes have come to fill most of the chairs. At the present time, about seventy-five percent of the teaching staff of these institutions is colored and all of the Sadaittes are colored, except one or two.* The following are some of the white philanthropists who have made notable contributions to Negro education: THE DUKE ENDOWMENTS The late James B. Duke of Durham, N. C., in his indenture of $40,000,000, besides providing a handsome endowment for Duke University, stipulated that 4 percent of the remainder of the fund, which cannct be definitely stated but which will be several million dollars, be given to the Johnson C. Smith University for Negroes, Charlotte, N. C. His brother, Benjamin N. Duke, has given $300,000 to Kittrell Col- lege, $25,000 to Livingstone College, $50,000 to the Laurinburg Normal and Industrial School, $50,000 to the Durham College—all in North Carolina—and also $25,000 to Utica Normal School of Mississippi. THE SLATER ENDOWMENT John F. Slater of Connecticut has made a gift of $1,000,000 for the benefit of Negro education. The present endowment is $1,750,000, the income of which is used chiefly to encourage industrial education and the training of teachers for Negro schools. Instead of establishing new institutions, the directors of the fund give aid to sixty-eight ex- * Jones, “Negro Education,” U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1916, No. 38. INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING 165 isting schools, selected with reference to carrying out specific objects. Dr. James H. Dillard is the director of the fund. THE PHELPS-STOKES FUND In 1911 an incorporation under the above title was authorized by the New York state legislature to carry out the provisions of the will of Caroline Phelps Stokes, who bequeathed her fortune for the improve- ment of housing conditions of Negroes in New York, and for the edu- cation of Negroes both in Africa and the United States, and for other purposes. The income of the fund has amounted to about $900,000 annually, and the expenditures in behalf of Negro education have been as follows: The publication, in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Education, of a thorough survey of the present status of Negro edu- cation; the establishment of fellowships at the University of Virginia to encourage the study of the Negro; the donation of $10,000 to the Peabody College for Teachers at Nashville to promote helpful relations between that college and the educational institutions for Negroes; and the donation of funds to assist the work of the Southern University Race Commission. THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD This organization has control of a fund of about $34,000,000 do- nated by John D. Rockefeller for the promotion of higher education in the United States. The members of the Board in 1917 were: Fred- erick T. Gates, Walter H. Page, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Albert Shaw, Wallace Buttrick, Starr J. Murphy, Edwin A. Alderman, Hollis B. Frissell, Harry Pratt Judson, Charles W. Eliot, Andrew Carnegie, Ed- gar L. Marston, Wickliffe Rose, Jennie D. Green, Anson Phelps Stokes, Abraham Flexner, and George E. Vincent. The board does not supply endowments for Negro schools, but contributes toward their maintenance. Its chief aim is to aid colleges and universities in increasing their efficiency and in adapting their cur- ricula to the needs of their communities. It has promoted the employ- ment of state supervisors of Negro schools, and better cooperation between public and private institutions. It has encouraged the farm- demonstration movement among the colored people, and the organiza- tion of rural clubs for colored boys and girls. 166 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE THE JEANES FUND In 1907 Anna T. Jeanes, a Quaker lady of Philadelphia, donated $1,000,000 for aid to rural schools for Negroes. The donation was the outcome of presentations of needs of rural schools made to her by Dr. Frissell and Dr. Booker T. Washington. The board of trustees consists of five Northern white men, five Southern white men and five Negroes. William H. Taft and Andrew Carnegie were among the members of the board. The income of the Jeanes Fund has been used chiefly in employing traveling teachers to give instruction in home in- dustries and sanitation, and to organize clubs for the promotion of better schools and neighborhoods. The traveling teachers are ap- pointed by, and work under the supervision of, the county superin- tendents of education, and the Jeanes Fund board has succeeded in hay- ing the county authorities bear a part of the teachers’ salaries. THE ROSENWALD RURAL SCHOOL DONATION In 1914 Julius Rosenwald of Chicago announced through Tuskegee Institute that he would donate money to aid in building rural school- houses for Negroes in the South on the following terms: He would give not exceeding $300 for any school building for Negroes, provided an equal sum were raised from public funds or private subscriptions. Up to June, 1916, Rosenwald had aided in the erection of 142 new schoolhouses at a cost to him of $44,718. His expenditure has been supplemented by public funds to the amount of $21,525; by private contributions from white people, $8,820; and by contributions from Negroes, $61,951.? THE DANIEL HAND EDUCATIONAL FUND This consists of $1,500,000 donated in 1888 by Daniel Hand of Connecticut for the education of needy Negroes in the Southern states. THE STEWART MISSIONARY FOUNDATION This grew out of a gift in 1894 of $110,000 by Reverend W. F. Stewart to promote missionary work among the Africans. The income is used to provide missionary instruction at the Gammon Theological Seminary. *Jones, op. cit., p. 167. INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING 167 Many donations of smaller amounts have been made. The following are some of the Negroes who have contributed funds for the education of their race: Bishop Payne, who donated several thousand dollars to Wilberforce University ; Mary E. Shaw, who donated out of her estate $38,000 to Tuskegee; John McKee of Philadelphia, who left about $1,000,000 for the education of his race; Thomy Lafon of New Orleans, who left $413,000 to religious and educational insti- tutions of that city without distinction of color; George Washington of Jerseyville, Illinois, a former slave, who left $15,000 for Negro ed- ucation; Nancy Addison of Baltimore, who left $15,000, and Louis Bode of the same city, who left $30,000 to the Community of Oblate Sisters of Providence; Anna Fisher, a colored woman of Brooklyn, New York, who left $26,500 to sundry educational institutions. The noticeable fact in regard to tax-supported higher institutions of learning for Negroes is the absence of anything corresponding to a state university for the whites. The reasons for this are that too few Negroes are far enough advanced to justify them; that Howard Uni- versity, in Washington, D. C., supported by the federal government, offers collegiate and professional training for Negroes; and that the numerous colleges and universities supported by religious and philan- thropic organizations supply in a large measure the present demands for higher education. In 1920 there were only 2,641 Negro students pursuing collegiate courses in all of the private and higher institutions in the South, including public high schools.? In each state there are opportunities for industrial training in the agricultural and mechanical colleges and in the private industrial schools, opportunities for teacher-training in the state or private normal schools, and opportunities for theological training in the denomina- tional colleges. When it comes to training for the professions of law, medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry, there are opportunities for the Negro in only a few of the states, but the great national university for Negroes in Washington offers training for these professions. The great number of private Negro colleges and universities, to- gether with the Negro state normal schools, the agricultural and mechan- ical colleges, and the federal aids and educational foundations, would seem to overwhelm the Negro with opportunities for higher education, but the fact is that very few institutions in the South offer the Negro anything above the high-school grades. The chief difficulty in offer- ing advanced courses in these institutions is the lack of students pre- * Jones, op. cit., p. 117. 168 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE pared to take them. As a larger number of Negroes comes to be qual- ified for a four-year college course, both the private and the state- supported schools will have to expand to meet the demand. Even now, the Negroes who are ready and able to receive a college education are at the disadvantage of having to go to Howard University or other in- stitutions a long way from home. To remove this disadvantage, it would seem to be incumbent upon each Southern state to do one of two things: either to raise to college rank some one of her Negro schools, or to offer to qualified Negroes a number of scholarships tenable in a college outside of the state. Such scholarships have been offered for many years in the British Barbados and in British Guiana. In the state of Oklahoma, for example, there is no private Negro college and the state “Colored Agricultural and Normal University” is doing no college work. The result is that Negroes aspiring to edu- cation above that of the high school have to go out of the state to get it. Another thing which each Southern state ought to do is to give better support to her agricultural and mechanical college for Negroes. According to the figures of 1920, the total appropriations by the South- ern states for their sixteen institutions of this kind amounted to only $263,074, which is less than a year’s state allowance for the white agricultural and mechanical college in Oklahoma. CHAPTER 23 INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING (CONT.) Institutions of Higher Learning Supported by the Negroes Themselves—-Endowed and Variously Supported Professional and Industrial Schools—The Work of Hampton and Tuskegee—Public Libraries for Negroes HE first step by the Negroes themselves in the direction of higher education for their race was taken by the African Methodist Epis- copal Church, which during the Civil War had come into sole possession of Wilberforce University in Ohio. At the close of the war the Negroes educated at the university were sent into the South to organize churches and schools. The work of the African Methodist Episcopal Church has expanded from year to year until to-day it maintains one or more schools or colleges in each Southern state. The chief institutions of this organization are Morris Brown College, Georgia; Western Uni- versity, Kansas; Allen University, South Carolina; Paul Quinn College, Texas; and Kittrell College, North Carolina. These institutions are supported by collections from the members of the numerous African Methodist churches. The African Methodist Zion Church next undertook an educative work in the South similar to that of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It established four colleges, one theological school, and seven academies. The leading institution of this organization is Livingstone College, North Carolina. The Colored Methodist Church, a minor section of Methodists, joined in the educational crusade, and established Lane College, Ten- nessee; Miles Memorial College, Alabama; and Mississippi Industrial College, Holly Springs, Mississippi, beside contributing to the support of others. In more recent years, the Negro Baptists have undertaken an im- mense educational scheme in the South. Mention has been made else- where of the institutions of learning established by the American Bap- tist Home Mission Society, which was mostly under the control of white Baptists in the North. After a time, the Negro Baptists began 169 170 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE to inaugurate an educational work independent of that of their white brethren, and have succeeded so far as to outdo them in the number of schools established. At present they have in operation over a hun- dred schools of varying types and standards. Most of them, of course, are miserably poor in every essential. Their schools of higher learn- ing are Selma University, Alabama; Arkansas Baptist College, Little Rock; Florida Baptist College, Jacksonville; Florida Institute, Live Oak; Americus Institute, Walker Baptist Institute, Jeruel Academy, and Central City College, Georgia; State University and Eckstein University, Kentucky; Morris College and Seneca Institute, South Carolina; Central Texas College, Texas; Howe Institute and Roger Williams University, Tennessee; and Virginia Seminary, Lynchburg. The Negro Baptists alone raise for the support of their institutions about $200,000 annually, but this sum, with donations from outside, is al- together inadequate for the efficient maintenance of such a multiplicity of schools. While much of the educational work undertaken by the Negroes has been ill-directed, no one can fail to admire the ambitious spirit and heroic sacrifices which they have made in behalf of educating their people. Many Southern Negroes are educated in Northern universities. There are about 6,000 Negro graduates in the United States and more than two-thirds of them live and work in the South. Among the institutions which prepare for professional careers, Howard University in Washington, D. C., is foremost. It is an insti- tution of high rank and has excellent schools of law, medicine, phar- macy, and dentistry. It is supported by the federal government. Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, is an institution of respectable rank and turns out well-educated physicians, pharma- cists, and dentists; and Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, also of respectable rank, gives degrees in medicine. The University of West Tennessee in Memphis gives degrees in medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry. In Kentucky the Negroes who aspire to enter the legal pro- fession may be educated at the Central Law School of Louisville. As for training for the ministry, there are innumerable colleges and universities in the South which profess to have departments of the- ology. Among these, however, only two or three are of respectable rank. The others are not prepared to offer courses of college rank for the reason that nine-tenths of their pupils are pursuing elementary and secondary courses, and the teachers are qualified only for such instruc- INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING ya tion. They are greatly handicapped by holding to the old classical curriculum with no electives and no instruction in the social sciences. The wiser friends of the Negro in both the North and the South have, from the inception of Negro education, had the good sense to perceive that a backward race needs, above all, an education having to do with the kind of work which is available for earning a living. The need of industrial education among the Negroes is shown in the fact that less than two percent of the Negroes gainfully employed are en- gaged in any kind of skilled or professional work. Among the earliest friends of the newly emancipated Negro none stands out more prominently than General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who founded Hampton Institute for the practical education of Negroes and Indians. He was of Scotch-Irish stock and chanced to be born in the Hawaiian Islands while his parents were doing missionary work there. He graduated at Williams College, and there came under the inspiring influence of Mark Hopkins. In 1862 he enlisted in the Union army, and rose to the rank of brigadier-general. At one time he was in command of Negro troops. After the war he entered the service of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and was assigned to the James- town peninsula in Virginia, where he had to do with thousands of freedmen. General Armstrong believed that the salvation of all men, white or black, was to be found in hard work, and his knowledge of the Ha- waiian and the Negro enabled him to perceive that they were childish, and that what they needed more than anything else was not political power, but education to develop thrift and moral stamina. In 1868 he put his idea into practice by starting an industrial school for Negroes at Hampton, Virginia. He received a small appropriation from Congress and donations from friends, which enabled him to put up a building and employ one teacher and a matron. Maurice S. Evans, in his book Black and WlIute in the Southern States, writes of Hampton and its founder as follows: “This far- seeing and devoted man, the greatest benefactor to the Negro and American Indian peoples, was born in Hawaii of American parents, and commanded a corps of Negro soldiers in the Civil War. A man of unusual insight, he was convinced that for the true uplift of these peoples an education should be given that would form character, and at the same time be calculated to help them and fit them for their work in life, and make them worthy men and citizens. And so Hampton * Jones, “Negro Education,” U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1916, No. 38. 172 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE was founded, and from small beginnings it has gradually grown to the great undertaking I found. It is now presided over by Dr. Hollis B. Frissell, who is carrying on the work in the spirit of the founder. What that is may be expressed in his own words: ‘To train selected youth who shall go out and teach and lead their people, first by example by getting land and homes, to give them not a dollar that they can earn for themselves, to teach respect for labour, to replace stupid drudgery with skilled hands, and to these ends to build up an industrial system, for the sake not only of self-support and intelligent labour, but also for the sake of character.’ “T found on my visit a large park-like area of 185 acres of beauti- fully kept lawns shaded by forest trees, and in this park numerous iso- lated substantial buildings, 113 in number, suited to the numerous and varied requirements of such an institution. The students are both male and female and are all resident. They number over 1,600. The faculty, instructors and officers are for the greater part white, and number about 200, and the policy pursued is laid down by a Board of seven- teen Trustees, including prominent men from both North and South. “Every year a larger number of students apply for admission than can be accepted, but they are not necessarily denied because of poverty; they may, by working during the day, learn and work at a trade and thus earn their board, and academic instruction, which in that case is given in the evening. “There are thirteen Trade Courses, including all the principal handi- crafts, which are practically taught in thoroughly equipped workshops. All male students must also take a course in agriculture, as well as manual training. In the same spirit girls must learn housekeeping in all its branches, gardening and hygiene. This training is of course linked to an academic course. In addition, at a distance of some six miles, is a farm of 587 acres with 175 head of cattle, 31 horses and mules, 300 hogs, and 1000 fowls, with 400 acres under cultivation, and with 22 houses and farm buildings. At both places the greater part of the buildings have been erected by the students, and all repairs are done by them. “All this and much more may be gleaned from the admirable cata- logue issued annually, but it does not exhaust by any means the activities which centre in Hampton. Annual conferences are held to discuss sub- jects of interest to the Negro people, when such matters are on the agenda, as ‘The Negro labourer in his relation to Trades Unions,’ “The INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING 173 progress of Education in rural communities,’ and the like. Twice a year a Farmers’ Conference is convened on the lines I have previously indicated. A mass of literature is issued by the publication department, including an excellent monthly, ‘The Southern Workman,’ and a large number of educative leaflets which are distributed free of charge, or at nominal rates. I select a few of the subjects dealt with in these pamphlets: “Sheep, their care and management,’ ‘Dairy Cattle,’ “Drain- age,’ ‘Mosquitoes,’ ‘Milk and butter,’ “Seed planting,’ ‘Rotation of Crops,’ “Farm manures,’ “Patent medicines,’ ‘Proper use of certain words,’ “Very wisely, as I think, the male students are organized into a cadet corps, and wear neat uniforms made at the place. The Negro is peculiarly susceptible to mass movement and discipline, and this estab- lishes an esprit de corps and mutual feeling and action that could not otherwise be provided for.” ? The other great industrial school for Negroes is Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, founded by Booker T. Washington, who as a poor and friendless boy had worked his way through Hampton. Filled with the enthusiasm and spirit of his alma mater, he resolved to build another institution of the same kind in another part of the South. Tuskegee comprises 2,345 acres and 113 buildings. Its total equip- ment is valued at over $2,000,000. The number of students is about 2,500. “As at Hampton,” says Evans, “these students are compelled to learn a trade, they cannot attend for purely academic instruction and, as there, the poor student gets a chance of working out his fees. At first entrance all must do their share of manual work, whether they pay for their course or work it out, they must undertake janitor’s work, scrubbing floors, cleaning windows and the like. “The work and influence of Tuskegee extend beyond the school grounds, large as these are, and every year sees an increase of this outside extension work. An annual Negro Farmers’ Conference is held on the lines I have previously described. This was established twenty-three years ago, and was then only attended by the local farmers of Macon County; now they gather from all over the South. A Farm- ers’ Institute was formed in 1897, and the members meet monthly at Tuskegee in the large Agricultural Building. A short course is given which consists of two weeks’ concentrated observation and study. When Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 131. 174 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE it was started eleven attended. In 1911 the number registered was 1,900. This work has proved of the greatest value as a stimulus and encouragement. These are only a few of the extension activities which radiate from Tuskegee... .° “The authorities here claim that the average earnings of the 9,000 students who have passed through the Institute are $700 per annum. Their average earnings before they entered were $100 a year. They also say of adult students, of whom there are a considerable number, that before entering their earning capacity was $5 to $10 a month. After remaining at the Institute from one to three years such are in demand at wages running from $1.50 to $3 a day, with prospect of increased pay as experience is gained. The exceptional ones are able to command almost at once from $4 to $5 a day.” * There are about twenty other industrial schools of minor importance scattered over the South, all more or less copies of Hampton and Tuske- gee, and a majority of them founded by graduates of the above-named institutions. In the Southern states there are about twenty-five publicly sup- ported libraries for the Negroes and about the same number supported by private donations. The Carnegie Corporation has donated funds for library buildings for Negroes in Atlanta, Georgia; Greensboro, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Knoxville, Tennessee; Meridian, Mississippi; Mound Bayou, Mississippi; Nashville, Tennessee; New Orleans, Louisiana, and Savannah, Georgia. There are public libraries for Negroes without outside aid at Char- lotte, North Carolina; Galveston, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Louisville, Kentucky. The Carnegie Corporation has donated funds varying from $6,000 to $20,000 for libraries for Negro schools. Mrs. C. P. Huntington has given $100,000 for a library at Hampton. By way of comparing the facilities for higher education among the Negroes in America and South Africa, Evans says: “there is not a single State institution either for higher literary, vocational, or other training in the Union of South Africa. Only one voluntary institu- tion in the whole Union—that of Lonedale, supported by the Presby- terians of Scotland—is in any way comparable with the many in the South. When this state of things is compared with the Universities, Normal Colleges, Medical and Dental Colleges and industrial institu- * Op. Cit., p. 136. * Op. cit., p. 137. INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING 175 tions provided by the States and by philanthropic bodies for the higher intellectual and vocational training of the Negro, it makes a South African wonder at the complaints of the Southern Negro at his lack of educational facilities.” ° MOY.) Ctt,, Dp. 201, CHAPTER 24 THE SITUATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION General Estimate of Institutions of Higher Learning for Negroes—Too many of Such Institutions—Few of Them Doing Work of College Grade—Many of Them Badly Located—Need of Elimination and Codperation in the Interest of Efficiency CONSPICUOUS fault in the educational system of the Negroes, as formerly in that of the whites, is that it is top-heavy; 1. e., it has too many so-called colleges and universities absorbing the funds and energies which might be better applied to strengthening and build- ing up institutions of a more elementary character. The oversupply of Negro colleges has resulted in such competition that, in order to get pupils at all, it has been necessary to admit those who are not even far enough advanced to enter courses of the high-school grade. It thus turns out that many of the Negro colleges make no pretense of doing college work. Only thirty-three percent of the Negro “colleges” in the United States offer any courses of college grade.’ Even the colleges which offer some college courses have to devote most of their energies to preparing their pupils to enter them. Only ten percent of the pupils enrolled in the Negro colleges are pursuing courses above the secondary grade. This elementary instruction is partly necessary because of the absence of high schools and private schools which prepare students for college. Not many years ago the colleges and universities for the whites found it necessary to do much prepar- atory work for the same reason. One might suppose that these numerous Negro colleges are at least doing a valuable work in supplementing the shortage in high schools, but their geographical situation does not fit them to answer the de- mands of a high school for the reason that they require the pupils to live away from home. The institutions of higher learning maintained by Northern white organizations are generally doing serviceable work, but in many cases they are badly located, and maintain an old-fashioned curriculum which is ill-adapted to the Negro’s needs. * Jones, “Negro Education,” U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1916, No. 38. 176 THE SITUATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION 177 The institutions supported by Negro organizations are generally do- ing elementary work, and in most cases have neither the equipment nor the teaching staff necessary to give any kind of instruction efficiently. Of the 153 Negro-owned schools, only sixty are of importance and “a few are brazen frauds imposing upon the philanthropy of Northern donors.” ? Out of a total attendance of 17,299, only I15 are pursuing courses of college grade.* In all of the private schools for Negroes there are 83,679 pupils, of whom only 1,588 are pursuing college courses.* Only three of the private schools have a student body, fac- ulty, equipment, and income sufficient to warrant the title of college.° There is very great need of coOperation between the privately owned schools for Negroes in the interest of concentration of resources and energy upon the schools favorably situated and capable of main- taining proper standards. Also there should be codperation in the interest of modernizing the courses of study, and adapting them better to the needs of the race. The theological schools especially need de- partments of social science, and many of the other schools might serve a useful purpose in introducing training courses for teachers. It is gratifying to note that a beginning in the direction of codpera- tion of the private schools has already been made. In 1913 Dr. James H. Dillard effected a conference of representatives of the various agen- cies concerned in the private schools for Negroes with the view of pre- venting duplication of work and readjusting the curricula to the needs of the community. A good suggestion of a plan for redistribution of schools for the higher education of the Negro is given on a map on page sixty-three in Bulletin 38, published by the United States Bureau of Education in 1916. * Jones, op. Cit., p. 151. * Tbid., p. 151. *Tbid., p. 8. picid) p. 11. CHAPTER 2 RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO Church Affiliations—Emotional Outbursts at Revival Meetings—Character of Negro Preachers—Their Former Tendency to Become Leaders in Politics— Social Aspects of the Negro Church—Great Value of Religion for the Colored People INCE the Civil War the Negro members of the various white re- ligious denominations have to a great extent withdrawn and formed independent churches. Among the independent Negro churches the Baptists and Methodists take the lead, the former with a membership of over 3,000,000, and the latter, about 1,000,000. There are, however, about 600,000 Negroes who belong to white denominations. The Meth- odist Episcopal Church has 320,025 Negro members; the Northern Baptists, 53,842; the Roman Catholics, 51,688; the Primitive Baptists, 35,700; the Presbyterian Churches, 33,445; and the Protestant Epis- copal, 23,775." Most of the Negro members of white churches reside in the Northern states, except the members of the Roman Catholic Church, who are mostly residents of Louisiana. The Negroes of the South at the close of the Civil War were very ignorant and retained a great many superstitions which had been brought over from Africa. They believed firmly in ghosts, haunts, witches, charms, magic, and signs of good and bad luck, and they used a variety of outlandish roots and herbs and hocus-pocus to cure disease. Very naturally, the first Negro converts to Christianity carried over into their new religion a large amount of African superstitions, the elimination of which has been a slow and difficult process. The ignorant white people of the South have not been free from superstition, and they have not greatly helped the Negro to outgrow his. A characteristic of the Negro’s religion, very outstanding for many years following the Civil War, was its high degree of emotionalism and tendency to express itself in frenzied shouts, gesticulations, and ecstatic visions. *Negro Year Book, 1921-22. 178 RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO 179 Myrta Avery, describing the Negro gatherings at the close of the Civil War, says: “Tt was as if a force long repressed burst forth. Moans, shouts and trance meetings could be heard for miles. It was weird. I have sat many a night in the window of our house on the big plantation and lis- tened to the shouting, jumping, stamping, dancing, in a cabin over a mile distant. In the gray dawn, the negroes would come creeping back, exhausted, and unfit for duty.” ? Professor Davenport, in his description of an “experince meetin’ ” among the Negroes of Tennessee, says: “At the outset the interest was not intense, and I noted several colored people on the fringe of the crowd sound asleep. Testimony flagged a little, and the leader called for that expression of tense emotional excitement known among the negroes as ‘mournin’.’ One speaker was floundering in a weltering chaos of images and seemed likely to sink without anybody to rescue him, when the leader rose and with animation on every feature shouted to the audience, ‘Mourn him up, chillun! And the audience began—all except those who were asleep—at first soft, but rising higher and higher until they fell into a rhythm that carried everything before it, including the disciple who had floundered for words in which to shape his re- ligious experience. But he had no trouble longer. Images flashed through his mind with great rapidity and found quick expression on his lips. He spoke in rhythm and the audience rhythmically responded. He was speedily in full movement, head, arms, eyes, feet, face, and soon he was lost in ecstacy. And the contagion swept everything before it. Even the sound sleepers on the fringe of the crowd were caught and carried into the movement as if by a tide of the sea. At the very climax of the meeting, a woman rose to her feet, moved forward to the open space in front of the pulpit, evidently under the compulsion of the lyric wave. Having reached the front, in one wild burst of pent-up emotion, she fell rigid to the floor and lay motionless during the rest of the service. Like the devotees of the ghost dance she was believed to be enjoying visions of the unseen world.” ® Dr. DuBois gives his impressions of a camp-meeting as follows: “A sort of suppressed terror hung in the air, and seemed to seize us—a pythian madness, a demoniac possession, and that lent terrible reality to song and words, The black and massive form of the preacher 2 Dixie After the War, p. 204. *Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, p. 43. 180 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE swayed and quivered as the words crowded to his lips and flew at us in singular eloquence. The people moaned and fluttered, and then the gaunt-cheeked brown woman beside me suddenly leaped straight into the air and shrieked like a lost soul, while round about came wail and groan and outcry and a scene of human passion such as | had never before conceived.” # The shouting and other violent outbreaks characteristic of Negro revivals have been gradually diminishing, and are now rarely found except in the small towns and backwoods, but the Negro’s religion is still very largely an affair of the emotions. George S. Merriam, I think, truthfully says of the Negro’s religion: “Perhaps its most eloquent expression to our imagination is those wonderful oldtime melodies, the negro ‘spirituals’ as they have been made familiar by the singers of the negro colleges. Their words are mystic, scriptural, grotesque; the melodies have a pathos, a charm and moving power born out of the heart’s depths through centuries of sor- row dimly lighted by glimmerings of a divine love and hope. The typical African temperament, the tragedy of bondage, the tenderness and triumph of religion, find voice in those psalms. “Religion is not to be despised because it is not altogether or even largely ethical. The heart depressed by drudgery, hardship, forlorn- ness, craves not merely moral guidance but exhilaration and ecstacy. Small wonder if it seeks it in whiskey; better surely if it finds it in hymns and prayers and transports partly of the flesh yet touched by the spirit.” The religion of the Negro has been following closely after that of the whites, and the extravagant characteristics of both have been due to the same causes. De Tocqueville thought that the religious eccen- tricities and fanaticisms of the Americans were due to the preoccupation of the people with material pursuits, which naturally inclined them to a violent reaction towards the things of the spirit. The people of America, he said, are subject to momentary outbreaks “when their souls seem to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained, and to soar impetuously towards heaven. ... From time to time strange sects arise, which endeavor to strike out extraordinary paths to eternal happiness.” * Hugo Munsterberg attributed the religious ex- cesses of the Americans to the “colorless and dull’ life of the masses. * Souls of Black Folk, p. 190. *The Negro and the Nation, p. 350. * Democracy in America, Vol. 2, p. 142. RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO 181 “Where religion has been the single intellectual stimulus, it has been an intoxicant for the pining soul: and persons drank until they ob- tained a sort of hysterical relief from deadly reality.” 7 If the barrenness of life among the white people has predisposed them to hysterical outbursts, how natural should it be for the Negroes, with their greater confinement to routine and greater mental darkness, to plunge tumultuously towards the illuminations from above. Negro preachers have been, with rare exceptions, men of little edu- cation and a great gift of sonorous verbosity and loud ranting, often also men of a low type morally. They have been pompous, and much given to sensuous indulgence. In the Negro churches in the small towns one can still hear the preacher yelling at the top of his voice, and mem- bers of the congregation who have not been lulled to sleep, responding by frequent exclamations such as “Amen,” “Talk to ‘em preacher,” “Great God,” “You're right, brother,’ “Now you are preaching,” “Dat’s so,” and the like. An Englishman, speaking of a sermon he heard in a Southern town, says: “The text was, “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ I have heard many worse ser- mons than this competent, fluent, popular discourse, which consisted mainly of an exposition of the overpowering strength of the metaphor of ‘hunger and thirst.’ ‘We may credit our backs,’ said the preacher, ‘but we must pay our stomachs; we can put the back off, but we can’t put off the stomach.’ (‘Yes, oh yes!’ shouts, moans, and wails.) ‘No doubt most of you, before you came here have had a good drink of coffee or tea, but how many of you have had a real good drink from the fountain of everlasting life?’ (Confused sounds not unlike the yelpings of a large kennel.) ‘If some of you didn’t eat and drink more physically than you do spiritually, you’d be skeletons. That’s plain talk.’ (Shrieks, wails, and yodelling.)” ® Some of the Negro preachers have a lot of practical sense, as illus- trated in the case of Reverend T. H. Ewing of Kansas City, Missouri. When he took charge of a Baptist church in that city in 1892 only three of his flock owned property. ‘During four years he lectured to his people on the ten cents a day saving plan. He advised them to walk to their work and save the nickel; to live, eat, and dress according to their means; to stay out of the saloons and away from the theatres, and to think of and provide for the future. He advised them to buy "The Americans, p. 517. *Archer, Through Afro-America, p. 165. 182 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE their groceries in bulk and to pay cash instead of the five and ten cent credit plan, so popular to-day, and he showed them in plain figures how much he saved during the year and what could be done with the money.” He urged them to “keep a bank account, and buy a home just as soon as possible.” In 1914 his church membership was 600, and 100 of the members owned their homes.?® The Reconstruction régime in the South had the effect of drawing many Negro preachers into politics. In Mississippi G. W. Gayles, who had begun his career as a Baptist minister in 1867, became a promi- nent figure in the Reconstruction muddle of his state. He was ap- pointed by Governor Ames a member of the board of police for a district in Bolivar county, and later appointed by Governor Alcorn as justice of the peace. He was twice elected a member of the lower house of the legislature and once a member of the state senate.*° Allen Allensworth of Kentucky combined religion and politics, and, at intervals between his pastorate of several Baptist churches, went on the stump for his party, and held a number of offices. He was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket in the campaign of 1880, and a delegate to the National Republican Convention of 1884.” Christopher H. Payne of West Virginia, after serving as a Sunday- school missionary and pastor of several Baptist churches, took up the profession of law and politics. In 1896 he was elected a member of the West Virginia legislature, and later was appointed a deputy col- lector of internal revenue, and lastly consul to the Virgin Islands, where he served for fourteen years and where he now resides and practices law.?? W. B. Derrick of Virginia started out as a Methodist minister, and, after a prominent part in state politics, returned to the ministry and was elected a bishop of his church." H. M. Turner began his career as an itinerant preacher in St. Louis, and in 1867 came to Georgia to organize union leagues and to corral the Negro voters. He was elected a member of the constitutional convention, and later a member of the legislature. President Grant appointed him postmaster of Macon in 1869, but he resigned this office * Martin, Our Negro Population, p. 41. * Woodson, History of the Negro Church, p. 226. “ [bid., p. 230. “ Tbid., p. 231. * Tbid., p. 232. RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO _ 183 on account of opposition. Afterward he was appointed to the office of United States inspector of customs.‘ Among the Negro preachers who have distinguished themselves in some other field than that of politics, the first that comes to my mind is Charles C. Price of North Carolina. He was a man of rare intel- lectuality, to which he had added a liberal education, giving him a broad and sympathetic grasp of the problems of life. Perceiving that his race was in special need of practical education, he became a pioneer in advocating, and putting in practice, industrial education. In 1882 he was appointed to the presidency of Livingstone College at Salisbury, North Carolina, and he erected the buildings for the college with the labor of the students. His chief reputation, however, was won on the lecture platform. He was a superb lecturer, very earnest and forceful in the presentation of his subject, and gifted with a fine flow of wit and humor which was always used to drive home the point of his argument. He lectured before such learned societies as the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, and he once went abroad and lectured to various audiences in England. Whenever he lectured in the South, as many white people as colored came to hear him, the whites sitting on one side of the audi- torium and the colored on the other. I have heard him several times. In his physiognomy and bearing he was a distinguished-looking man, but his skin was as black as that of any Negro I ever saw. C. T. Walker of Augusta, Georgia, has been prominent solely as an evangelistic Baptist minister. For many years he was pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church of Augusta, and, by the force of his per- sonality and eloquent discourses, attracted a great many white people to hear him. For a period of five years he served as pastor of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church of New York City, and while there organized a branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. He made a trip to Europe and the Holy Land, and was the author of several books.® In the larger cities there are now to be found many Negro preachers of education and of moral stamina, but the general run of them are of a mediocre type. I recently attended, in company with an ex-slave of my uncle, a religious service in a Negro Episcopal church in Washing- ton, and the sermon, music, and quiet sereneness of the worshippers compared well with the average service among congregations of white people. 1 bid., p. 232. * Woodson, op. ct., p. 246. 184 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE It is a conspicuous fact that Negro preachers have rarely become distinguished except in politics. In some of the Negro churches the method of taking up collections is that each member of the congregation marches up the center aisle and deposits his cash on a table. This method enables each one to show off his Sunday clothes, and it is said that “a single individual will often go up six or seven times during the collection, giving a nickel each time.” 1® Professor B. H. Meyer of the University of Wisconsin says of his visit to a Negro church in Washington, D. C.: “White people leave the front seats vacant in a church. Negro people in Washington do the opposite. They gather on the foremost seats, the most gaudily dressed ladies and gentlemen in the lead. They pay no attention to the sermon, but chat during the entire service.” The ceremony of baptism, which often takes place on the banks of a river, always attracts a large concourse and is sometimes accom- panied by a wild religious frenzy. “As soon as the candidate has been immersed he or she begins to struggle, beating the water right and left, and four men are kept busy holding the newly inspired applicant.” 17 The Negro churches in the South are the centers of social life to an extent not true of the white churches anywhere. The Negroes are at- tracted to the church largely because of their love of being in a crowd. In connection with each Negro church there are many subordinate societies and clubs which hold frequent meetings and are largely at- tended. Partly because the social life of the Negroes is so intimately bound up with the church, it turns out that all of the social rivalries, jealousies, and feuds are carried over into the church, resulting in the develop- ment of coteries and factions which often split the church in two. In fact, internal bickerings and irruptions are characteristic of the Negro churches. For illustration, of ninety churches in Thomas County, Georgia, about one-half originated in a split; and of the fifty-four churches in Atlanta, eleven were the outgrowth of splits. In conse- quence of these splits the membership of many Negro churches is very small. Seventeen of the churches in Atlanta, for instance, have less than 100 members. The great number of small churches is one reason for the poor average of Negro preachers. The white people of the South, as of the North, are liberal in donating money to help build Negro churches, but otherwise they have * Odum, Social and Mental Traits of the Negro, p. 79. " Thid., p. 86. RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO 185 very little to do with the religious activities of the colored people. It seems to me that a valuable service might be rendered to the religious life of the colored people if the colored and white clergymen more fre- quently exchanged pulpits and more frequently met in ministerial con- ferences. The National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association maintains two secretaries who devote their time to work among colored girls. One of the secretaries travels among school organizations and seeks to build up higher ideals of womanhood and the home. The International Sunday School Association has a Department of Work among Negroes, and employs a field worker who visits the colored schools and organizes teacher-training classes, and introduces better methods of Bible study. In spite of all of the shortcomings of the Negro’s religion, any one who 1s able to penetrate beneath the surface of things must be impressed with the fact that, upon the whole, religion has been a great blessing and uplifting force among the colored people of the South. Maurice Evans, an English writer on the life of the Southern Negro, was able to discern this aspect of the Negro’s religion: “Unable to find their satisfactions in the usual secular channels, finding little but hardship and restriction in their everyday life, and yet bursting with emotionalism, they grasped at the compensations of a life to come, when all toil and sorrow should be done away with, and everlasting joy, of a kind they could understand, would be the portion of all believers. No wonder the songs that dwelt on the golden streets, the harp and crown, and eternal rest, appealed to them, and that their prayers are full of yearning for this glorious hereafter. “Not only for the religious emotions, but for his social satisfactions has the church been the solace of the Negro. I attended many services, and found in Sunday school and church, as well as in many other activities which clustered round them, an obvious satisfaction at the mere pleasure of being together ; chatting conversations, a purring satisfaction in moving among their fellows, a personal importance in occupying recognized official positions, were obviously very pleasant to them. I found that debating societies, tea-parties, guilds, class-meetings, be- nevolent societies and similar activities filled up the week, while almost the whole of Sunday was taken up with services, the necessary intervals being largely occupied with sociability,—in meeting, walking and talking.” 78 *% Black and White in the Southern States, p. 116. +t 4 MS eae Cinisaehe i iste $I tren 4 i ? . ryt Lop £ ia ia Pea many Hietg in “05 fsb a Ale ‘ oe a ‘nyt qj f bia f} ae ae dpe fat ean WER eMe SATE ih AY fecal Cates 34 keg Shy 4 rf hele 4 4 4 1s LU ah a ON, en UT be ee fe PCAC TH deers en uae ; Wath Ket, PAVE SAU PANO ME AI tA i ie. 4 a . ' : A Ae bay ai 7, ay) Pata sta aN Telia KAM area canbe LU baie if" hs Daur | bev ; qi | tf An i uy Ar eh Ree: 1) | . seni ee LN Oe Li { Ve ah ‘ ¥ Oy, , . ] . r { ; i i. Nt pF , | yy ‘ €;) AP f , | PART FOUR micah THE NEGRO IN THE WORLD WAR vaM! say ‘4} eles ih mt WH ‘ Mat ; AY CHAPTER 26 TRAINING CAMPS AND RACE TROUBLES First Employment of Negro Troops—Negro Selectmen in the Training Camps— Race Troubles in Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Elsewhere HEN the United States entered the World War there were about 20,000 trained Negro soldiers ready for service. About half of this number were in the four colored regiments of the Regular Army, and the other half belonged to various companies of the National Guard. The first service of Negro troops during the World War was per- formed by the Ist Battalion of Infantry of the National Guard, Dis- trict of Columbia, which was called out to protect public property in and about the capital, such as the water system, the power plants, etc. The battalion was under command of Major James E. Walker, a colored officer. In the first draft for service in the war, the percentage of Negroes certified for service was higher than that of the whites; the respective figures being thirty-five per hundred for the Negroes and twenty-five for the whites.* The Negro selectmen were trained by white officers at special can- tonments located in various states. There were several camps for training white selectmen for officers, but none for the Negroes, because it was not supposed that there were enough educated Negroes to justify a special camp for making officers of Negro selectmen. However, upon assurances that a sufficient number of Negroes of college grade could be assembled, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker consented to establish an officers’ training camp for colored men at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, and here, by October 14, 1917, commissions were issued for 106 captains, 329 first lieutenants, and 204 second lieutenants. On November 1, these officers were distributed to the various Negro training camps. In August, 1917, at the suggestion of Dr. Robert R. Moton, prin- cipal of Tuskegee Institute, that Secretary Baker call in a colored man as *Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 67. 189 “190 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE his adviser in matters affecting the interests of Negro troops and Negro supporters of the war, Emmett J. Scott, former secretary to Booker T. Washington, was appointed as special assistant to the secretary of war. In and about the various Negro training camps there was much friction between the white officers and the colored privates, between the white and colored officers, and between white civilians and Negro sol- diers. Among both the white and the Negro soldiers there were ignorant and “bully” types of men who were ever ready to go out of their way to express their racial animosities, and to provoke resentments and breaches of the peace. A serious riot occurred at Houston, Texas, where a Negro training camp was located. Some Negro soldiers belonging to the United States Regular Army, who wished to express their contempt for the jim-crow street cars of Houston, entered a car reserved for whites. They were promptly ejected. Later an indignant band of Negro soldiers returned to the city, and, in a street fight with the police, several of the com- batants were killed. Thirteen of the Negro soldiers were tried by court-martial for precipitating the riot, convicted, and executed. A less serious, but similar, trouble occurred at a Negro camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to which had been sent several Negro units of the New York National Guard. One Sunday evening when a Negro soldier, Noble Sissle of New York “stepped into a white hotel to buy a New York newspaper, the proprietor walked up to him, it is stated, and with an oath demanded to know why he did not remove his hat. Sissle, holding the newspaper in one hand and his change in the other, did not respond quickly enough to the demand and his hat was knocked from his head. When he reached down to pick it up and arose he was all but felled by a blow, and as he retreated towards the door was kicked by the white proprietor. On the sidewalk, awaiting Sissle’s return, was Lieutenant James R. Europe, a colored officer, bandmaster of the 15th New York Regiment. A group of colored and white militiamen ‘rushed’ the hotel, but were ‘called to attention’ by Lieutenant Europe, who demanded that the crowd disperse. The New York militiamen expressed themselves as being violently opposed to the treatment which had been visited upon Sissle; and so the next night a group of these soldiers banded together and began marching to Spartanburg, several miles away, to ‘shoot it up’ as the soldiers at Houston had ‘shot up’ that town after the clash with the Houston police in the August preceding.” ? The white people of South Carolina pro- *Scott, p. 80. TRAINING CAMPS AND RACE TROUBLES I9I tested against the retention of the New York militiamen in the camp, and, as a way out of the trouble, the War Department ordered the men overseas. A colored lieutenant by the name of Tribbett, from Connecticut, had been ordered to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and, in traveling through the state of Oklahoma, he occupied a car reserved for white people. When the train stopped at a station near Chickasha, the sheriff entered the car, forcibly ejected Tribbett, and lodged him in the county jail. The next day he was fined for violating the law. The case was called to the at- tention of the War Department, the contention being made that an officer traveling under army orders was not subject to the jurisdiction of the state authorities. The War Department took no action in the matter. Much aao in the public prints grew out of the effort of a Negro sergeant to enter a theater patronized only by white people at Man- hattan, Kansas. The proprietor of the theater refused to admit the Negro, and this was the signal for a volley of protests and criticisms from the Negro soldiers and the Negro press. General C. C. Ballou, commander of the Negro troops encamped near Manhattan, had the proprietor of the theater prosecuted and fined, but, at the same time, issued an order to the Negro troops counseling them against acts which might tend to provoke racial conflicts. He said: “Tt should be well known to all colored officers and men that no useful purpose is served by such acts as will cause the ‘color question’ to be raised. It is not a question of legal rights, but a question of policy, and any policy that tends to bring about a conflict of races, with its resulting animosities, is prejudicial to the military interest of the 92nd Division and therefore prejudicial to an important interest of the col- ored people. “To avoid such conflicts the Division Commander has repeatedly urged that all colored members of his command, and especially the offi- cers and non-commissioned officers, should refrain from going where their presence will be resented. In spite of this injunction, one of the sergeants of the Medical Department has recently precipitated the pre- cise trouble that should be avoided, and then called on the Division Commander to take sides in a row that should never have occurred had the sergeant placed the general good above his personal pleasure and convenience. This sergeant entered a theatre, as he undoubtedly had a legal right to do, and precipitated trouble by making it possible to allege race discrimination in the seat he was given. He is strictly within 192 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE his legal rights in this matter, and the theatre manager is legally wrong. Nevertheless the sergeant is guilty of the greater wrong in doing any- thing, no matter how legally correct, that will provoke race animosity.” ° This order was bitterly denounced by a section of the Negro press. “Many newspapers pronounced the order an insult to the Negro race. At various gatherings of colored people General Ballou’s resignation as commander of the 92nd Division was demanded, and at no time during his incumbency as the head of the Division was General Ballou able to regain the confidence of the colored masses, with whom he had been immensely popular prior to this episode, in recognition of his valued and sympathetic services as supervisor of the officers’ training camp at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, from which came 639 colored men, graduating with commissions as captains and first and second lieutenants.” * When the Negroes who had been commissioned as officers were sent to the Negro training camps, where white officers were in command, much friction grew out of the contact of the Negro and white officers. Many white officers refused, or were reluctant, to salute the colored officers. The colored people were very sensitive to their rights, and they sent to the War Department from all sections of the country a great variety of complaints of discriminations on account of color. “Colored soldiers,” says Scott, “complained that they were kept more closely confined to the camps than were white soldiers; that they had the greatest difficulty in obtaining passes to go to town or to visit relatives, and that they were punished more severely than were white soldiers for trivial offenses. The ‘bad blood’ between the Military Police and the colored soldiers frequently led to free fights, near ‘race riots,’ and the ‘rushing’ of the guards in an attempt to leave camp regardless of the possession of passes.° “Attempts at segregation were charged against the Quartermaster’s Depots at Chicago and St. Louis, where color discrimination was alleged in the matter of appointments, promotions, and working conditions, and where unfairness was said to exist in the withholding from the colored employees of the use of toilet facilities, as well as restrictions in the service of the depot restaurants, cafeterias and the like.” ® MECott, DOS... “Tbid., p. 97. °Tbid., p. 104. *Tbid., p. 96. CHAPTER 27 SERVICE OF AMERICAN TROOPS AS A WHOLE Service of the American Troops in Stopping the German Drive in 1918, and in Forcing the Germans Back—The St. Mihiel Offensive and the Meuse- Argonne Offensive N order to understand the part which the American Negro troops played in the World War it will be necessary to fix in our minds the main stages in the course of that war, and the part which the Ameri- can troops as a whole played in the Allied victory. The initial stage of the war was the drive of the Germans through Belgium and into northern France, in 1914, terminating in the counter- attack of the French, and the retreat of the Germans back to the Marne. The opposing forces now entrenched themselves, forming an irregular battle line from the North Sea to Switzerland. The trenches offered such an impregnable defense that neither army seemed to be able to advance more than a few yards at a dash, and the opinion came to be widespread that the armies were deadlocked and that the war could not end by a military decision. In the course of a year, however, the invention of the tank, the em- ployment of the barrage, and other offensive expedients made it possible for either side to gain considerable territory, but only at a ruinous sacrifice of men. Up to the time that the United States government entered the war in the spring of 1917, the opposing forces in France had been see- sawing, like football players, back and forth, a few yards at a time, with no decided gains for either side, and there had been no decisive fighting on either the Russian or the Italian front. In July, 1917, a small contingent of American troops had arrived in France, and were able to take part in the British attack at Cambrai. In order to prevent the Germans from concentrating their forces against Russia and Italy, the Allies sought to maintain a series of offen- sive movements on the western front. In spite of this effort, however, the Germans withdrew their main divisions and launched a drive against the Russians which culminated on September 3 in the capture of Riga, 193 104 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE and the complete collapse of the Russian forces.1 The following month, the Germans and Austrians combined in a drive on the Italian front which resulted in forcing the Italians back to the Piave River with a loss of 300,000 men and immense quantities of guns, ammuni- tion, and stores. These victories of the Germans were so overwhelming against both Russia and Italy that those nations were practically elimi- nated as factors in the World War. By the month of November, the Germans were concentrating their divisions on the western front, and it was now their evident determina- tion to make a decisive attack on that front before the American troops should have time to reach the battle-line in any formidable numbers. The French and British commanders, knowing that the Germans would be able to assemble on the western front a force much stronger than that of the Allies, were urging the United States to expedite the transportation of her troops, and to place on the battle-line the units which had already arrived in France.” On December 31, 1917, there were 176,665 American troops in France, but only one division had ap- peared on the front. In compliance with the wishes of the Allied commanders, the Ameri- can troops then in France, on January 19, 1918, began to take over scattered sectors of the battle-line, some at the sector north of Toul, some at Soissons, some at Luneville, and others near Verdun.’ While the American troops were thus scattered, the Germans began, on March 21, their first great offensive. The concentration and manipu- lation of their forces was so effective that they overcame all resistance during the initial period of the attack. “Within eight days,” says Pershing, “the enemy had completely crossed the old Somme battle- field and had swept everything before him to a depth of some fifty-six kilometers. . . . The offensive made such inroads upon French and British reserves that defeat stared them in the face unless the new American troops should prove more immediately available than even the most optimistic had dared to hope.” 4 On April 3 the Allies realized that if the onslaught of the Germans was to be resisted, it would be necessary to place all of the Allied forces under one command so that they could be shifted and concentrated * Pershing, Final Report, Commander-in-Chief American Expeditionary Forces, p. 17. 2 Tbid., p. 18. > Tbid., p. 19. * Tbid., p. 25. SERVICE OF AMERICAN TROOPS AS A WHOLE 195 according to the emergencies of the situation; and, in furtherance of this idea, General Foch was chosen as Supreme Commander. The crisis precipitated by the first German offensive caused General Persh- ing to make a hurried visit to General Foch’s headquarters and to place at his disposal all of the American troops then in France, numbering something over 300,000.° On April 9 the Germans pushed back the British line on a front of forty kilometers in the vicinity of Armentieres and along the Lys River.® “The next offensive of the enemy,’ (May 27) says Pershing, “‘was made between the Oise and Berry-au-Bac against the French instead of against the British, as was generally expected, and it came as a complete surprise. The initial Aisne attack, covering a front of thirty-five kilo- meters, met with remarkable success, as the German armies advanced no less than fifty kilometers in four days. On reaching the Marne, that river was used as a defensive flank and the German advance was directed towards Paris.” The American troops in France now numbered 600,000,’ and were more extensively employed along the battle-line and in large enough units to make their assaults conspicuous wherever they happened to be placed. The first unit of American troops to play a decisive part on the battle-line was the Second Division. When the Germans began their advance against the French on the Aisne, the American Second Divi- sion, which had been in reserve northwest of Paris, “was hastily diverted to the vicinity of Meaux on May 31, and early on the morning of June Ist, was deployed across the Chateau-Thierry-Paris road, near Mon- treuril-aux-Lions, in a gap in the French line, where it stopped the German advance on Paris. At the same time the partially trained Third Division was placed at French disposal to hold the crossing of the Marne, and its motorized machine-gun battalion succeeded in reaching Chateau-Thierry in time to assist in successfully defending that river crossing. “The enemy having been halted, the Second Division commenced a series of vigorous attacks on June 4th, which resulted in the capture of Belleau Woods after very severe fighting. The village of Bouresches was taken soon after, and on July 1, Vaux was captured.” ® Wibsih.s| p.n32. "Tbid., p. 20. “Tbid., p. 33. hid. p.. 33. 196 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE On June 9, the Allied morale was greatly strengthened by a suc- cessful resistance by the French of an attack of the enemy along the Montdidier-Noyon front with a view to widening the Marne pocket and pushing his lines nearer Paris.° On July 15 the Germans began their last drive, which they encour- aged their soldiers to believe would “conclude the war with a German peace.” This drive was on the Champagne sector and the eastern and southern faces of the Marne pocket. In this battle the American troops again played a decisive part. Although the Germans penetrated the French line to a depth of eight kilometers, they were completely stopped on the American front adjoining the French on the left. The com- mander of the American Third Division occupying this front reported the day after the battle that “there were no Germans in the foreground of the Third Division sector except the dead.” ?° A single regiment of the Third Division “met the German attacks with counter-attacks at critical points and succeeded in throwing two German divisions into complete confusion, capturing six hundred prisoners.” ™ The American troops now in France numbered 1,200,000, and up to this time had been put in as emergency troops to stop the terrific Ger- man drives. Now that the enemy’s advance was checked, General Pershing desired to carry out the plan, which he had formerly advocated, of assembling the best of his divisions for an attack on the Marne salient. The French favored this counter-attack, and set it in motion along the entire western face of the Marne salient. “The First and Second American Divisions, with the First French Moroccan Division between them, were employed as the spearhead of the main attack, driving directly eastward, through the most sensitive portion of the German lines, to the heights south of Soissons. The advance began on July 18, without the usual brief warning of a preliminary bombardment, and these three divisions, at a single bound, broke through the enemy’s infantry defenses and overran his artillery, cutting or interrupting the German communications leading into the salient. A general withdrawal from the Marne was immediately begun by the enemy, who still fought stubbornly to prevent disaster. “The First Division, throughout four days of constant fighting, advanced eleven kilometers, capturing Berzy-le-Sec and the heights * Pershing, of. cit., p. 34. LIAL AD AGS. * Tbid., p. 35. SERVICE OF AMERICAN TROOPS AS A WHOLE 197 above Soissons, and taking some thirty-five hundred prisoners and six- ty-eight field guns from the seven German divisions employed against Blass} | “The Second Division advanced eight kilometers in the first twenty- six hours, and by the end of the second day was facing Tigny, having captured three thousand prisoners and sixty-six field guns. ... Due to the magnificent dash and power displayed on the field of Soissons by our First and Second Divisions, the tide of war was definitely turned in favor of the Allies.” ? By the last of July the Third Division had forced the enemy back to the Roucheres Wood.** “In the hard fighting from July 18 to August 6, the Germans were not only halted in their advance but were driven back from the Marne to the Vesle and committed wholly to the defensive. The force of American arms had been brought to bear in time to enable the last offensive of the enemy to be crushed.” ** The possibility of another German advance having been removed, the time was opportune to gather the scattered divisions of the Ameri- can troops into a single unit under the direct command of General Pershing. The American troops were now assembled for the first time, and were designated as the First American Army. In the planning of a general Allied offensive the First American Army was assigned to the Meuse-Argonne sector, extending over a front of 150 kilometers, from Port-sur-Seille, east of the Moselle to and including the Argonne Forest. The direction of the American attack was to be towards Sedan and Mezieres. Several French divisions then in the zone were turned over to General Pershing’s command. Preliminary to the general Allied advance scheduled for September 25, General Pershing was assigned the important task of reducing the St. Mihiel salient. Employing along the line of the jump-off about 430,000 American troops and 70,000 French, the advance began at dawn on September 12. “The rapidity with which our divisions advanced,” says Pershing, “overwhelmed the enemy, and all objectives were reached by the afternoon of September 13. . . . We captured sixteen thousand prisoners, four hundred and forty-three guns, and large stores of mate- rial and supplies.’ 7° ™ Pershing, op. cit., p. 36. ee ibid,, p. 36. Oe DIG)» Do30s m1: D.242. 198 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE General Pershing was now able to withdraw most of his divisions from the St. Mihiel region and to concentrate them on the Meuse-Ar- gonne front fora great Allied convergent attack on the German defenses in this region. The territory behind the German line, because of its great railway line into Sedan, formed the pivot of German operations in northern France. The strategic importance of the territory caused the Germans to fortify it by a series of positions twenty kilometers or more in depth.*® The American troops now facing this line numbered about 1,000,000 men,'? and they made the jump-off at dawn on September 26, and, from that time to the signing of the Armistice, November 11, a desperate and almost continuous battle was in progress. All along the line the German forces were beaten back. In about ten days the greater part of the Argonne Forest was captured, also the heights dominating Sedan; and the enemy’s line of communication was cut.‘® Forty-seven different German divisions had been beaten. The First American Army suffered a loss of 117,000 men killed or wounded. It captured 26,000 prisoners, 847 cannon, 3,000 machine guns, and large quantities of midtenalt? While fhis battle was in progress, General Pershing organized a Second American Army under command of Lieutenant General Robert L. Bullard, and this army on October 12 was assigned to the portion of the American front extending from Port-sur-Seille, east of the Moselle to Bresnes-en-Woevre, southeast of Verdun. This army was to strike in the direction of the Briey iron basis. Under instructions from General Pershing, the Second Army was ordered to advance along the entire front. The attack began on November 8, but lasted only three days, being terminated by the signing of the Armistice, November 11.?° “In the face of the stiff resistance offered by the enemy,” says Pershing, “and with the limited number of troops at the disposal of the Second Army, the gains realized reflected great credit on the divi- sions concerned.,”’ 7 * Pershing, Op. cit., p. 44. ™ Tbid., p. 48. SPLDid., .Pi-s52: set) Bop Fe SO vg ie in Meets ee eB ” [bid.; p. 53. CHAPTER 28 SERVICE OF THE 369TH INFANTRY Employment in Building Terminals at St. Nazaire, January, 1918—Experience of the Third Battalion in Guarding German Prisoners in Brittany—The Taking Over of a Sector in the Champagne District—Transference to the Line Below Minancourt in June—The Last German Drive, July 15—Participation in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of September 26 HE main body of Negro troops were organized as a unit under the g2nd Division, the part of which in the war is stated in another chapter. But in addition to the service of this division, there were four Negro regiments which upon arriving in France were brigaded with French troops, and employed in various sectors of the battle-line from the Vosges Mountains in the east to the Belgian front in the west. ‘These four regiments arrived in France earlier than the g2nd Division, and were occupying sectors of the battle-line during the severest and most discouraging stages of the war, when the Germans were making their last and most desperate drives toward Paris. All of these regiments had taken some part in the war before the tide was turned in favor of the Allies in the last German drive of July 15, 1978. The first of these regiments to arrive in France was the 369th In- fantry, formerly a unit of the New York National Guard. After pre- liminary training at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, the regiment was ordered overseas and arrived at Brest, on December 28, 1917. At this time there was pressing need of workmen to assist in the building of docks and railway terminals at St. Nazaire, where most of the American troops and supplies were hereafter to be landed. The regiment was thereforetransferred to this port, and its first service was in constructing this terminal, and in unloading ships. Early in January, 1918, the 3rd Battalion of this regiment was dis- patched to Colquidan, in Brittany, to guard a German prison-camp. Three weeks later this battalion was ordered to join the rest of the regiment at Givry-en-Argonne. From this station batches of picked men of the.regiment were sent to a French divisional training-school. In May the regiment was~sent to Main de Massiges, a part of the 199 200 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE French line, where small batches of the men accompanied French soldiers for practical training in trench warfare and raiding. After about two weeks of this kind of training, the regiment was transferred to Bois d’ Hause, Champagne district, where for the first time the regiment took over a sector. While the regiment was occupying this sector the Germans were pushing forward their great offensive initiated March I5. By June 1 the drive toward Paris had been stopped at Chateau- Thierry with the aid of American troops, and on June 4, some counter- attacks were launched, one of which in the sector held by the Americans, led to the capture of Belleau Woods. The Negro 369th regiment took part in the fighting in Belleau Woods on June 6. In expectation of another German drive, the 369th was transferred to the line below Minancourt, near Butte de Mesnil. Lieutenant John Richards, a Northern man, in command of a machine-gun company of this regiment, gives an amusing account of a stampede of his men when they were going forward to occupy an ad- vanced line of trenches. “The battalion to which I was assigned,” he says, “was in what is called the intermediate position, in trenches and dugouts, two kilo- meters behind another battalion which held the front-line trenches. . . . “Aside from the shelling, which we avoided by staying in our dug- outs and by wasting no time when moving in the trenches, my first real experience in this sector came a few days later, when we moved up to relieve the battalion in the front-line position. Making a relief in the trenches is always nervous work. In the regular trench parallels that stretch across the line of fire, there is good protection against hostile artillery; but in the long boyaus that lead toward the front, there is very little shelter. Moreover, the guns of the enemy are care- fully registered on these communication trenches. All movement must be at night, and accomplished quietly; for if the Germans suspect that a relief is in progress, there will be slaughter among the long lines moving out or in, in single file. “The night of this relief was clear and still; the German guns were silent for once. Rumor was afloat of a tunnel which the enemy were building toward our lines. There is something unpleasant about the idea of tunnels, suggesting sudden explosions of hidden mines. We were half a mile behind the front line, moving slowly up the boyau, or communication trench. I was in charge of a column of seventy-five SERVICE OF THE 369TH INFANTRY 201 men, walking behind them, according to my orders, in case there should be stragglers. At the head of the column were a poilu guide whom the boys did not know and one of our own sergeants. We crawled along, each man bent on not losing sight of the man in front of him... . “We were half-way to the front lines when suddenly there was a shout, a rush; and I was knocked flat by my attachment moving to the rear at triple time. I have never seen living men move faster. They threw off their packs, they threw away their guns. I got up blaspheming, with my face full of mud, tried to stem the rush, and was borne back by it, wondering frantically if I ought to use my pistol. I pursued my small command and found it scattered over the country half a mile back. Knowing almost no names, and bewildered by the dark, I spent a nightmare half-hour, cursing and cajoling them to get into line again. This time I took care to go ahead, and we moved for- ward, picking up the guns and packs, relieving the troops in the front line two hours later than we should have. “What had happened was this: the column had come to a gully with a bridge across it; the bridge had a roof. It looked like a dark hole. Some one at the head of the line had probably whispered, “Ma Lawd, dat am de Boche tunnel!’ then stampeded. The Germans had not fired a shell; the hole which they had seen was innocent of sound or movement—and these were seasoned troops! As for the blunder of having no officer at the head of the files, there was another lieutenant who should have been there, but who lost himself in the labyrinth of the trenches, showing up very wild-eyed next morning... . “All this time we were in what might be called an average sector. There was plenty of healthy artillery activity and frequent raids, but no fighting of the intensity that characterized the sectors farther to the west. The raids were often unsuccessful. When we took a prisoner or two, we were very happy. As for losing prisoners, we never did. Several times our men were taken. Such, however, was their dread of what would happen to them behind the German lines, that their captors could never hold them. Agile as panthers, and with the same hair- trigger quality that caused my downfall the night that someone saw a Boche tunnel in a harmless bridge, they always broke away and got back to our lines. I believe it is true that this regiment has never had a single soldier taken and kept prisoner. Moreover, in these same trenches during the month of July they withstood successfully a terrific bombardment and a strong attack.” + *“Some Experiences with Colored Soldiers,” Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 1919. 202 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The night before the German drive of July 15, some patrols of the 369th Infantry captured several German prisoners who gave to the Allies the information that the German army would begin its drive the next day. “General Gouraud, who commanded the Fourth French Army, took his troops out of the front line trenches over a front of 50 kilometers, and when the attack occurred he had the 369th on one flank of a 50- kilometer line, and the old 69th New York, a part of the Rainbow Division, on the other. When the German fire fell on these front line trenches for five hours and twenty minutes, the shells fell on empty trenches except for a few patrols left in reinforced trenches with signal rockets, gas shells, and a few machine guns. When the hour for the German infantry attack came, these patrols let off their gas bombs and signal rockets and the massed allied artillery let loose on the massed Germans, who were literally smashed and never got through to the second line of the 369th.” ? After the German drive of July 15 had spent its force, the 369th was put on the line near Maison-en-Champagne. On August 12, while a unit of the 369th Infantry was occupying the trenches in this sector, a German raiding party rushed the trenches, and, after firing upon the men and assaulting them with trench knives and clubs, captured five privates and a lieutenant. When the victorious raiders were making their way back to their own trenches, Sergeant Bill Butler, from Salis- bury, Maryland, belonging to Company L, happened to be occupying a forward post and saw that the party would have to pass near him. “The Negro sergeant waited until the Germans were close to his post, then opened fire upon them with his automatic rifle. He kept the stream of lead upon the raiders until ten of the number had been killed. Then he went forth and took the German lieutenant, who was slightly wounded, a prisoner, released the American lieutenant and five other prisoners, and returned to the American lines with his prisoner and the rescued party.’ * When General Pershing launched his great Meuse-Argonne offensive of September 26, the 369th Regiment was transferred from the com- mand of the 16th French Division to the 161st French Division and made the jump-off at the hour when the offensive started. The 369th was supported by the Moroccans on its left, and the French on its *Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 208. * Ibid., p. 211. SERVICE OF THE 369TH INFANTRY 203 right. During the first day’s fighting in the Argonne, a unit of the 369th came to the edge of a swamp when the German machine-guns began to open fire, and, of the fifty-eight of the unit caught in the trap, only eight escaped being killed or wounded. Corporal Elmer Earl of Middletown, New York, belonging to Company K, made a number of trips to the swamp and brought back about a dozen wounded men. Major L’Esperance says: “The heaviest fighting was on September 26, 1918, when we went into action with twenty officers and 700 men in our battalion in the morning, and at the close we had seven officers and 150 men left. Our boys advanced steadily like seasoned veterans, and never lost a foot of ground they had taken or let a prisoner es- cape.” * In spite of the heavy losses the 369th pressed on, following the general advance and driving the Germans back for a distance of seven kilometers. Colonel Hayward, in a letter to Private Henry Johnson’s wife, tells her how her husband and another private, Needham Roberts, won the French Croix de Guerre, for heroic conduct in a skirmish in no man’s land: “He and Private Needham Roberts were on guard together at a small outpost on the front line trench near the German lines, and during the night a strong raiding party of Germans numbering from twelve to twenty, judging by the weapons, clothing and paraphernalia they left behind and by their footprints, stole across no man’s land and made a surprise attack in the dead of the night on our two brave soldiers. “We had learned some time ago from captured German prisoners that the Germans had heard of the regiment of Black Americans in this sector, and the German officers had told their men how easy to combat and capture them it would be. So this raiding party came over, and, on the contrary, Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts attended very strictly to their duties. At the beginning of the attack the Ger- mans fired a volley of bullets and grenades and both of the boys were wounded, your husband three times and Roberts twice, then the Ger- mans rushed the post, expecting to make an easy capture. In spite of their wounds, the two boys waited coolly and courageously and when the Germans were within striking distance opened fire, your husband with his rifle and Private Roberts from his helpless position on the ground, with hand grenades. But the German raiding party came on * Scott, op. cit., p. 278. 204. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE in spite of their wounded and in a few seconds our boys were at grips with the terrible foe in a desperate hand-to-hand encounter, in which the enemy outnumbered them ten to one. “The boys inflicted great loss on the enemy, but Roberts was over- powered and about to be carried away when your husband, who had used up all of the cartridges in the magazine of his rifle, and had knocked one German down with the butt end of it, drew his bolo from his belt. A bolo is a short, heavy weapon carried by the American sol- dier, with the edge of a razor, the weight of a cleaver and the point of a butcher knife. He rushed to the rescue of his former comrade, and fighting desperately, opened with his bolo the head of the German who was throttling Roberts, and turned to the boche who had Roberts by the feet, plunging the bolo into the German’s bowels. This one was the leader of the German party, and on receiving what must have been this mortal wound, exclaimed in American English, without a trace of accent, ‘Oh, the son of a rotime yan “Henry laid about him right and left with his heavy knife, and Roberts, released from the grasp of the scoundrels, began again to throw hand grenades and exploded them in their midst, and the Ger- mans, doubtless thinking it was a host instead of two brave Colored boys fighting like tigers at bay, picked up their dead and wounded and slunk away, leaving many weapons and part of their shot-riddled cloth- ing, and leaving a trail of blood, which we followed at dawn near to their lines. We feel certain that one of the enemy was killed by rifle fire, two by your husband’s bolo, one by grenades thrown by Private Roberts and several others grievously wounded.” ® * Scott, op. cit., pp. 257-8. CHAPTER 209 SERVICE OF THE 370TH INFANTRY Occupation of a St. Mihiel Sector June 21—Transference to Argonne Forest July 4—To the Soissons Sector in August—And to the Oise-Aisne Canal in September—Participation in the Allied Offensive of September and October Which Drove the Germans across the Belgian Border HE 370th Infantry was another unit of colored troops which did not belong to the g2nd Division, but remained brigaded with French divisions throughout its stay in France. This unit was formerly the 8th Regiment of the Illinois National Guard, and while in France came to be called, by the Germans, ‘Black Devils,” and by the French, “Partridges,’ because of their proud bearing. This infantry regiment went into training at Camp Logan, Texas, in August, 1917. After arriving in France and undergoing six weeks’ training under French instructors, the regiment was ready for action and on June 11, 1918, was ordered to Morvillars (Haut Rhin) where it was relieved of all of its American equipment and re-equipped with French arms, including rifles, pistols, helmets, machine guns, horses, wagons, and even French rations, which the colored soldiers regarded as scant compared to those to which they had been accustomed. Thence the regiment was distributed along the Meuse river at Nancois-le-Petit, Trouville, and Velaines. On June 21 the regiment was sent to Han- Bislee, a portion of the St. Mihiel sector. “This being the first time the regiment had occupied positions in the line, it was deemed advis- able by the Division Commander to intermingle the 370th with French troops, in order that officers and men might observe and profit by close association with veteran French troops. Thus, the Ist and znd Bat- talions, commanded by Majors Rufus M. Stokes and Charles L. Hunt respectively, were intermingled with platoons and companies of French battalions. Except for occasional shelling and rifle and machine-gun fire of the enemy nothing of interest occurred while in this sector, and there were no casualties.” * On July 4, the regiment was withdrawn from the St. Mihiel sector *Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 217. 205 206 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE and sent to the Argonne Forest, where it occupied a sector which, except on one or two occasions, was exceptionally quiet. Here the regiment suffered its first casualty in the fall of a private, Robert E. Lee, member of a machine-gun company. In the meantime the Germans were launching their last great drive, July 15, and were bending the Allied line back toward Paris. On August 4 the 370th Infantry participated in its first offensive when a mortar platoon took part in a raid having for its object the filling in of the gaps in the French artillery barrage. For service in this raid Lieutenant Robert A. Ward and the other members of the platoon were highly commended-by the French commander. On August 16, the 370th was relieved of its position in the Argonne Forest and sent for rest behind the lines near Bar-le-Duc. After a rest of fifteen days the regiment was moved forward to positions in the Soissons sector. At this time the Allies had begun their counter- attack, July 18, winning the Second Battle of the Marne and driving the Germans out of the Marne salient back to the Vesle. The tide of battle had turned, and thenceforward to November 11 the Germans were everywhere on the defensive and yielding ground. On September 16, four companies of the 370th Infantry joined in the Allied advance which resulted in the capture of the enemy’s strong positions in front of Mont-des-Singes. “One platoon of Company F under command of Sergeant Matthew Jenkins especially distinguished itself by capturing a large section of the enemy works, turning their own guns on them and holding the position for thirty-six hours without food or water, until assistance came and the position was strengthened. For this meritorious work in this engagement Sergeant Jenkins received both the American Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre.” ? On the Soissons front five companies of the 370th distinguished themselves by capturing from the Germans and holding Hill 304. After a rest in several places of reserve, the 370th Infantry was assembled for the first time as a unit and took over on September 21 a full regimental sector on the Oise-Aisne Canal. A general attack along this front began on September 27, and the 370th took part in the vari- ous engagements which culminated on October 4 in driving the enemy across the canal. On the first day of this battle, September 27, the 3rd Batallion of the 370th drove the Germans back to the Ailette Canal where they *Scott, op. cit., p. 218. SERVICE OF THE 370TH INFANTRY 207 made a stand. “The fighting here was fierce,’ says Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan, the colored commander of the battalion. ‘The Germans had placed barbed wire entanglements in the canal, but we avoided these with pontoon bridges and continued our drive. We reached what was known as Mont-des-Singes or ‘Monkey Mountain’ and the German line, near a narrow-gauge railroad. Here we encountered more concrete emplace- ments, dugouts, and barbed wire, and in getting to the Germans every man of us had to climb up on the railroad embankment, where we were fair marks for any kind of shell the Germans sent over. Naturally we lost many of our men.” # On October 7, following an artillery bombardment, three raiding parties went out into the triangle formed by the Oise-Aisne Canal, a railroad and the Vauxaillon-Bois de Mortier highway. ‘The mission of one of these raiding parties,’ says Scott, ““was to capture prisoners. One of these parties under command of Ist Lieutenant Elisha C. Lane entered the triangle, gained the trenches along the south bank of the canal and ejected the enemy after a hand-grenade fight, Lieutenant Lane and two enlisted men being wounded. This party was unable to hold this trench on account of its being exposed to enfilade fire from two directions. The other two patrols established themselves along the railroad and sent small patrols into the triangle, but were unable to establish themselves therein. No prisoners were captured.” * During the night of October 7 and 8, Company F of the 2nd Battalion, which had been holding a line near La Folie l’Ecluse on the canal, was unable to hold out against the severe assaults of the enemy and Company C of the 1st Battalion was sent forward to relieve it. In spite of the efforts of Company C to hold a position in the triangle it was unable to do so for the same reason as Company F.° In a new general offensive which was begun on October 12, with a view to hastening the retirement of the Germans along the western line of battle, the various units of the 370th Infantry alternately took an active part in the advance. The retreating enemy was fighting only a rearguard battle, but its machine-gun nests made the Allied advance full of difficulty and danger. The Negro troops in the various en- gagements from October 12 to November 11 generally attained their objectives, and shared fully in the Allied achievement of driving the Germans across the Belgian border. * Scott, op. cit., p. 229. * Tbid., p. 220. *Tbid., p. 221. CHAT Phase SERVICE OF THE 371ST REGIMENT Activities Near Verdun—In the Meuse-Argonne Drive—Spotlessness of Record HE 371st Infantry was organized at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, August 31, 1917, and, as Colonel P. L. Miles, its commander, says: “was made up mostly of cotton-field Negroes of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee.” + It differed from the later colored regiments in having all white officers of the United States Army. At this time the training camp for colored officers at Fort Des Moines had not begun to issue commissions. The 371st Infantry was more con- tinuously in battle than any other colored unit, experienced harder fighting and suffered severer losses. It arrived in France on April 23, 1918, and throughout its service overseas was brigaded with French divisions. The regiment went into training at Rembercourt and vicinity, about thirty kilometers from the citadel of Verdun. Says Colonel Miles: “This was within hearing of the guns and close enough to the front to require darkened windows at night and rigid air-plane discipline. The village of Rembercourt was partially destroyed and the regiment there- fore was in the atmosphere of the front from the first. While at the Rembercourt area, the regiment underwent a reorganization in order to fit it for incorporation in the French division. The American regi- ments had but one machine gun company each... . “The regiment arrived in its training area on April 28th; had been reorganized, taking on French organization and French equipment, arms and rations and had progressed to such a degree in its training that on June 6, 1918, it began a march to the St. Mihiel sector to relieve the regiment of French troops then opposite the tip of the German salient. While the regimental commander, who had gone on ahead of the regi- ment, was making his reconnoissance preparatory to the relief, the or- ders were changed and the regiment was sent to the Hill 304 Sector, just west of Dead Man’s Hill in the Verdun area. This is when the * Letter to the author, July 21, 1925. 208 SERVICE OF THE 371ST REGIMENT 209 regiment became a part of the 157th French Division. On arrival, the regiment went into corps reserve on the second line in the vicinity of Betlainsville and on June 16th took over a regimental sector in the first line. “While the regiment was in the training area, part of the officers were sent to visit the front lines for a few days. While the regimental commander and about twenty-five other officers of the regiment were making this visit in the very 304 Sector, which the 157th Division after- wards occupied, the Germans initiated their second grand attack of the year, the one beginning May 9g, 1918, which ultimately seriously threat- ened Paris. “In order to distract attention from the main attack, a demonstra- tion against Verdun was made by the Germans. German raids were put down on the regimental sectors, and the right and left of the one the officers of the regiment were visiting, and a considerable attack against Fort Douaumont was staged. Fort Douaumont is east of the Meuse, while the 304 Hill is west of that river, but the attack was in sight. This was an unusual and valuable experience for an initial visit- ing of the trenches. “The 371st Infantry remained in the front line in the Avocourt sub-sector of the divisional 304 Sector until September 16, 1918, when it was relieved by American troops. The limits of the front were changed several times but the ruined town of Avocourt was always included in our front. During practically the whole of this time two battalions were in the front line and one in regimental or division reserve. “This part of the line was not very active at this time. There was artillery firing daily and machine-gun firing occasionally, especially at night. There were also nightly patrols and a few raids, but the casualties suffered by the regiment were remarkably few during this period. It is a remarkable fact that in all the months of constant first line service of this regiment, it was never raided by the enemy, al- though the regiment that relieved it in September was raided the sec- ond night after the 371Ist’s departure. This speaks well for the regi- ment’s trench discipline. “The 37I1st was taken to an area south of St. Menhould after its relief from three months’ continuous service in the Avocourt sub- sector and after a sojourn there of one day began its night march to the front to participate in the grand offensive of September 26, TLCS e's" «> 210 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “The 371st attacked along the railroad running north through Mon- thois and Vouziers. This is the first railroad you find on the map west of the Argonne Forest. The regiment attacked on a front of about one kilometer, battalions in column. ‘The Ist Battalion led and took the brunt of the losses on the first day. We were engaged nearly the whole day in breaking through the remaining 500 yards or so of trenches in the German first position. On the second day, the 3rd Battalion led, the 1st Batallion being brought back to regimental reserve. The regi- ment made a rapid advance on this day in the open, but suffered con- siderable losses from artillery fire and machine guns used by the enemy in delaying positions. Busey Farm, Ardeuil and Montfauxelles were captured this day. On the following day the regiment advanced, cap- turing Vieres Farm, about three kilometers south of Monthois. “The 371st Infantry made a unique record in this battle. During its rapid advance the Germans made frantic efforts to slow down the advance, and several of their air planes flew very low, machine gunning the regiment. As a consequence, however, the regiment shot down three hostile planes during this advance. Many inquiries of both French and American commanders have convinced me that this is a unique record,)/# Major Charles E. Greenough, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the regiment, in a letter to the author, June 20, 1926, describes the action of his unit as follows: “After the battle was well under way we went forward to what had been the front line of the French trenches where we spent the night on the ground. The following day we advanced to the relief of the Moroccans—those fierce black troops of France, whose very name put the fear of death into the heart of the enemy. Our mission was to continue the attack from the point where the Moroccans had stopped— stopped only because there were no more of them left to go on. We reached and passed beyond Ripond. It was very dark, but towards morning we pushed on about a mile where we were held up by machine- gun fire. The 3rd and my 2nd Battalions received orders to retire behind the crest of a hill, a short distance to the rear. There we spent the day, in the course of which we received a quantity of high explosives and gas shells. It was raining, and as night approached the rain in- creased. The roads were in terrible shape, so our rolling-kitchens did not catch up and we ate some of our reserve rations. * Letter to the author, July 21, 1925. SERVICE OF THE 371ST REGIMENT 211 “Towards morning, the 2nd Battalion was ordered to advance and take a certain position before dawn, which it did. After daybreak we moved forward again and were about to dig in when the whole regiment received new orders. We were to advance in artillery formation as far as possible and drive the enemy before us. The charge was made and we started in the face of a most terrific bombardment. “Our casualties were heavy, but we were able to gain a number of kilometers that day before we were held up because of trouble with our artillery support. We had literally waded through the enemy. At one point we forded a small river and crossed a flooded area some four hundred yards in width. Darkness came on and we were practically surrounded on three sides by the enemy, and their machine guns sniped us continuously from the rear of our flanks, as well as from our front. During the night support came up and our flanks were protected. “We received orders to go forward again at dawn, and during the day advanced as far as a farm a little to the south of Monthois when we were again held up by a most destructive artillery and machine-gun fire. The 2nd Battalion and the 3rd Battalion were each reduced to the strength of little more than a company. The Ist Battalion, then in reserve, was in about the same condition.” During this day’s fighting Major Greenough was wounded and evacuated to a hospital. Captain W. R. Richey of Laurens, South Carolina, says in refer- ence to the action of his company on September 27: “‘At 10 o’clock Sunday morning we were ordered to advance up the valley, but in the meantime an enemy plane flew down low, discovered our position, and signalled his artillery, which opened on us and every minute seemed to be the last one. However, by rifle fire we brought the plane down, killing the pilot and observer. “Long before we reached the village we could see the cowards running up a steep hill beyond, leaving lots of machine guns to stick out, and, believe me, when we reached our objective and rounded up the machine gunners, the men of the 37Ist made quick work of them. “In all, during the two days, Sunday and Monday, our battalion advanced about five miles without the aid of a single friendly artillery shot or any other help. We killed lots of Germans, captured lots of them, and also captured any quantity of material and several big guns. “I am proud of all my officers and all of my men. The whole regi- ment fought like veterans, and with a fierceness equal to any white 212 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE regiment. This was the first time any of them had been under aimed shell and machine-gun fire and they stood it like moss-covered old- timers. They never flinched nor showed the least sign of fear. All that was necessary was to tell them to go and they went. Lots were killed and wounded, but they will go down in history as brave soldiers.” * In a letter to the author, September 16, 1925, Captain Richey says that his Company L assaulted with 195 men, the strength of a company under French organization. “At the end of the fighting on September 30th, all the officers had been wounded and but 38 men remained fit for duty.” ‘ “In October,’ says Colonel Mininger, “we occupied front line trenches in the Vosges where we were on the mountain tops when the Armistice was signed.” ¢ The regiment suffered, mostly in three days, the loss of 1,065 out of 2,384 actually engaged. “It never lost a prisoner,” says Colonel Miles, “in nearly five months of front line service, although it took many.” For its services in this battle, the regiment received the high- est citation given by the French, the Croix de Guerre with palm, and its colors were decorated at a ceremony in Brest a few days prior to its embarkation for home. The citation says: “371st Regiment of In- fantry. Displayed, in the course of the first fighting in which it par- ticipated, all the qualities of daring and bravery characteristic of first- rate storm troops. Under command of Colonel Miles it launched, with fine dash and utter contempt of danger, an attack on an obstinately defended position, captured it after desperate fighting and under ex- ceptionally heavy machine-gun fire. Continuing its advance, in spite of enemy artillery fire which entailed severe losses, captured many pris- oners, beside cannon, machine guns, and important quantities of ma- teriany In addition to the regimental citations there were 146 individual citations for acts of heroism. Lieutenant John B. Smith of Greenville, South Carolina, speaking of the fighting of the 371st in the Argonne Forest, says: “We ad- vanced seven kilometers one day, getting ahead of the line. The next day we were subjected to a terrific counter-attack. The enemy used gas, and airplanes and rushed us with infantry and machine guns. We held our ground for seven hours, fighting part of the time with our *Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 237. “Letter to the author, July 15, 1925. SERVICE OF THE 371ST REGIMENT 213 gas masks on. It was as severe a test as any soldier ever had, but our men never faltered once, although our casualties were very heavy that day. No soldier could have behaved any better under adverse circumstances.” ° One of the Negro soldiers, Frank Washington of Edgefield, South Carolina, in giving an account of his experience in the Champagne sec- tor, said: “I went over the top in the fighting on September 29 and 30. We advanced after the usual barrage had been laid down for us. We went up to the Germans, and my platoon found itself under the fire of three machine-guns. One of these guns was in front and running like a millrace. The other two kept a-piling into us from the flanks, and the losses were mounting. We got the front one. Its crew surrendered and we stopped. The other guns kept right on going, but we got them, too. “It was while we were attacking the guns on our flanks that I was wounded. Ordinary bullets are bad enough but the one that hit me was an explosive bullet. “While I was knocked down, it was safer to stay down. Those machine guns kept right on pumping, not the ones we captured, but others. The wind they stirred up around your face kept you cool all the time. I finally started back, but found myself in a Ger- man barrage. It was shrapnel in front of me and machine guns in back of me. I lay right down and had a heart-to-heart chat with St. Peter. I never expected to get home again.” ° James McKinney of Greenville, South Carolina, who was wounded in the battle, relates his experience as follows: “They turned loose everything they had to offer, and the storm of lead and steel got a lot of our men. Still we followed our officers into the devils’ trenches. A few of the Germans tried to fight with their bayonets, but we. could all box pretty well, and boxing works with the bayonet. A few feints and then the death-stroke was the rule. Most of the Huns quit as soon as we got at them. Even the ones that had been on the machine guns yelled for us to spare them. “While we were advancing we worked along low and took all available cover against the machine-gun fire directed against us. As soon as we came within range we opened fire with hand grenades and accounted for the machine-gun nests. I saw one of the gunners chained to their posts. Their barbed wire gave us trouble. Our *Quoted by Scott, op. cit., p. 238. FScott, of. cit,, p. 235. 214 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE artillery cut it up pretty badly, but still it was a pretty strong barrier against the advancing infantry. When we got tangled up in the wire, Fritz would play with his rifles. I’ve seen fellows get into a Ger- man trench with their uniforms flying in shreds.” 7 * Scott, op. cit., p. 236. CHAPTER 31 SERVICE OF THE 372ND REGIMENT Occupation of Line in Argonne Forest—Trouble with Colored Officers—Dis- charge or Transference of Many Colored Officers—Occupation of Line in the Champagne Sector—Good Account of Themselves Given in the September 26th Offensive CCORDING to data written by Colonel Herschel Tupes: “The 372nd U. S. Infantry was organized at Camp Stuart, Virginia, on or about January 1, 1918, from the following units of colored national guard troops: Separate Battalion of Infantry, District of Columbia ; Separate Battalion of Infantry, Ohio; Separate Company of Infantry, Connecticut ; Separate Company of Infantry, Massachusetts ; Separate Company of Infantry, Maryland; Separate Company of Infantry, Tennessee. “Upon organization these units retained their colored officers. The additional officers required for the field and staff and for the additional regimental units were supplied by the War Department and were white officers excepting the chaplains, dental surgeons and most of the sur- geons, who were colored. The enlisted personnel assigned to the regi- ment were all colored. While upon organization the officer personnel of the regiment was largely colored the policy of replacements of the officer personnel of this regiment, adopted by General Headquarters of the A. E. F., in August, 1918, was to assign white officers in vacancies created by the necessary evacuations of the colored officers ; and the result of this policy was that before the close of 1918 all com- batant officers were white. “Upon the arrival of the regiment in France it was permanently assigned to the French Army and was thereupon reorganized and equipped as a French regiment of infantry; but matters of clothing, pay, uniforms and administration generally continued under the A. E. F. 215 216 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “After arrival at St. Nazaire, France, the regiment proceeded about April 18, 1918, to Conde-en-barrois, where it was trained under the supervision of the 13th French Army Corps. “On June Ist the regiment was assigned to the 63rd French Di- vision and from June 5th to June 30th, 1918, occupied the Sub-Sector Argonne Quest.” ? Early in June two battalions of the regiment were sent forward into the trenches. “Shortly after midnight on the fourth of June began the march to the front line trenches by these black defenders of Democracy, whose only knowledge of warfare was what they had read in histories and other books. The spectacle presented by this column was a most grim one. As far as one could see was a long line of soldiers, half bent forward with the weight of their French packs and other luggage. Ration bags filled with hard-tack and canned meat dangled from either side, while their gas masks, canteens and grenade carriers, axes and shovels which formed the rest of their equipment, occupied the remaining space so that very little of the individual could be seen.” ? On June 27, the 372nd was marched to the Vauquois sub-sector of Verdun. This was a wooded region where there was little patrolling and “no attempts to make a raid on either side.” * Here three colored officers were relieved from duty for insubordination. The morale of the regiment was bad, and the commanding general of the division recommended the withdrawal of the regiment until the causes of the trouble could be removed.* On July 13 the French and white Ameri- can troops on this front made a successful advance, but, for reasons not apparent, the 372nd remained inactive,® and on the 18th was moved back to Siory-la-Perche, eight miles from Verdun, for rest.® On July 26 the regiment was moved to Hill 304 near Montzeville, northwest side of Verdun. The trenches in this sector were thinly occupied on both sides. No hard fighting was expected and “patrolling was the most important function of this sector.’ ... For two weeks no guns were heard on either side.’® Once, about August 8, the *Notes furnished to the author, July 7, 1925. 7 Mason and Furr, With the Red Hand in France, p. 56. PID. 73. * Ibid., p. 76. fl bid. Sapo: SL Didi. Dee7Ox "Tbid., p. 87. ®Tbid., p. 88. SERVICE OF THE 372ND REGIMENT 217 slopes of Hill 304 were shelled, but in this instance no one was killed.® Monroe Mason and Arthur Furr, colored men, writing of the 372nd, said: “During the entire seven weeks of our occupation in this sec- tor we failed to take any prisoners.” *° Here at Hill 304 there was much friction between the men and the officers and between the colored and white officers. A military tribunal was set up to investigate the situation, and the colored officers were placed on trial. “Many off- cers were found inefficient for military duty, either because of a lack of mental capacity or of insufficient military training. In many cases a discharge was recommended, and in most of them transfers were ordered,’’ ++ “From September roth,’ says Colonel Tupes, “the regiment was again nominally in reserve but was actually being moved by march- ing, by truck and by train, together with the remainder of the 157th French Division, which was enroute to join the 9th Corps of the 4th French Army, under General Gouraud, on the Champagne front. (Hans.) Movements were made at night. Daylight hours were utilized in tactical training for open warfare, under the careful super- vision of the commanders in our French Division. We drew so close to the enemy’s lines that daylight training ceased on account of hostile observation. Then, on September 25, the French Corps Commander made the briefest of inspections. Coming up to the regimental commander he said: ‘Colonel, you will join in the attack. I have the utmost confidence in your regiment.’ And then he was gone. No tedious inspection of personnel and equipment. No question as to amount or kind of training, but just to tell us we had _ his confidence.” 1° On the morning of September 26, two regiments of African soldiers and the 369th regiment of American colored troops opened the attack on this front. The French together with these colored units leaped out of their trenches: “shouting like maniacs and pouring over the em- bankments, through the few remaining strands of barbed wire, charged the enemy positions, which had been literally torn to pieces by the hellish barrage of the preceding night. Many dead and wounded Germans were lying about, some still drawing their breath, while others ° Ibid., p. 91. * Tbid., p. 98. “ Tbid., p. 100. “Notes furnished to the author, July 7, 1925. 218 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE undertook to defend the remnants of their fortifications. Never was there a more appalling sight. The furious Africans plunged onward waving their arms and huge knives with fiendish glee, charging Ger- man machine-gun nests with absolute disregard of death and injury. Although their ranks were seriously depleted by the unerring machine- gun fire of the Huns, they drove on, taking one position after another, leaving nothing but wounded and dead and utter destruction in their wake. The American blacks advanced in a more scientific manner, using the wave formation, which made it appear that there were double the number of men. They used shell holes and deses: te aid isuined trenches as a cover from ie fierce ancisno dived “waa Aer ein oe Oiuthe Huns. heyy poured iro ee eee watt rehades into the Hun ranks, which were fas: >ecoming thinner and more demoralized, Groans of agony, curses, prayers, and all manner of heart-rending cries rose up from the lips of the wounded and dying men, but this served as a stimulus. With shouts of hatred and vengeance these blacks pressed on and finally a heroic charge made a break in the Hun lines. Soon they were wildly retreating from the ruthless and unmerciful attack of these black men. All morning the battle pro- gressed until every German had been driven from the village of Ripont and positions in that vicinity.” *% At dusk on the same day fresh French soldiers and the American 372nd colored regiment were ordered forward. The Germans were rapidly retreating and their artillery fire was becoming more faint. Early on the morning of the 27th, the 372nd arrived at the village of Ripont, which had been captured the day before. This regiment had met on the way units of the 369th, and some of the Moroccan and French soldiers, going back for rest. Shortly before noon on September 27, the 3rd Battalion of the 372nd Regiment was ordered to open the attack on the new position occupied by the enemy on the Créte-des-Observatoires, north of Fontaine-en-Dormoise. “Soon they approached the place where the signal was given to separate and deploy into assaulting waves. The Germans had evi- dently determined to make a stand here for they fought fiercely, giving back volley for volley, but the fierceness of the fresh troopers’ attack and the timely artillery fire proved too much for the German morale, and the ‘kultured’ troops turned again and fled in disorder, followed by the bloodthirsty blacks. The stiffest resistance was met at Bussy Farms, which was a strong point in the German defense * Mason and Furr, op. cit., p. 117. SERVICE OF THE 372ND REGIMENT 219 system, and it was here that many men of the 372nd were killed or wounded. The next day the attack was resumed with greater fierceness, and the third battalion, reinforced by the first battalion, renewed their attack on Bussy Farms. It seemed that the infantry could not get the Germans out of the town, and artillery was asked POG Oyu “Huns had poured machine-gun fire into our ranks and the men fell so fast that it looked as if the attack would have to be abandoned until more help arrived. However, a number of nervy and brave non-commissioned officers reorganized their platoons and charged again. At the same time, a barrage opened up, for some new guns had been moved in behind our troops and their well-directed fire, to- gether with the tenacity of our men, proved too much for the Ger- mans, and they again retreated from Bussy Farms, and all along the division front. After taking this position the advance became more rapid for the next German stronghold was several kilometers away in the village of Ardeuil. Several smaller villages had to be taken before reaching Ardeuil, among which were Grateuil and Sechault. The town of Sechault was taken and lost several times before it finally rested in possession of our men. The German batteries poured such a hail of iron into the town that the troops were hastily with- drawn and took their position outside of the town. Here they were ordered to halt until the regiments on our flanks had caught up. A sharp wedge had been driven into the enemy ranks and to go any farther might have meant capture or complete destruction should the enemy attack from either flank. The hardest part of the fighting was finished on September 30, when the village of Ardeuil was taken, together with enormous supplies and munitions. Our objective was Monthois, an important railway center and also a base of supply. The German resistance was completely broken, their morale was entirely destroyed and the few remaining days of our attack were of a much calmer nature. The village of Monthois was partly surrounded on October 3rd, and a stiff engagement ensued as the Germans evidently wanted to hold this town until they had moved most of their supplies. The artillery fire, however, made it impossible for either side to occupy the town. From then until the 7th of October there were many minor engagements, but the black heroes maintained the posi- tions they had taken at such a sacrifice of blood and men. Finally, on the night of the sixth and the morning of the seventh of October, * Ibid., p. 122. 220 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the men were withdrawn and were replaced by the 7oth Regiment of French Infantry.” *° Sergeant Ira Payne of the District of Columbia, giving an account of the fighting of the 372nd at Sechault, tells us that “the Germans were picking off the men in my platoon from behind a bush. The Germans had several machine guns behind that bush and kept up a deadly fire in spite of our rifle fire directed at the bush. We did our best to stop those machine guns, but the German aim became so accurate that they were picking off five of my men every minute. We couldn’t stand for that, so I decided I would get that little machine gun nest myself and I went after it. I left our company, detoured, and by a piece of luck got behind the bush. I got my rifle into action and ‘knocked off’ two of those German machine gunners. That ended it. The other Germans couldn’t stand so much excitement. The Boches surrendered, and I took them into our trenches as prisoners.” 1° During this general advance all combat units not a part of the attacking line were held in regimental support. “During the operations September 27 to October 7, 1918,” says Colonel Tupes, “the following battle casualties were sustained by the 372nd Infantry: “Killed: seven officers; seventy-four enlisted men. “Wounded: 32 officers; 435 enlisted men. “Three officers died of wounds after evacuation. “After these operations in the 4th Army the following approved citation of the 372nd Infantry was published in orders of the French Army: ““Gave proof, during its first engagement, of the finest qualities of bravery and daring which are the virtues of assaulting troops. Under the orders of Colonel Tupes dashed with superb gallantry and admirable scorn of danger to the assault of a position continuously defended by the enemy, taking it by storm under an exceptionally violent machine-gun fire. Continued the progression in spite of enemy artillery fire and very severe losses. They made numerous prisoners, captured cannons, machine guns and important war material.’ “Upon being relieved from operations with the 4th Army, the 157th French Division was sent to occupy a rest sector on the Alsace Front located several kilometers east of the village of San Die, in the Vosges, the 372nd Infantry occupying Sub-sector B. An aggres- ** Mason and Furr, op. cit., p. 123. * Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 251. SERVICE OF THE 372ND REGIMENT 22% sive régime of patrolling resulting in valuable information of the enemy marked the occupation of the sub-sector by the regiment until the armistice.” Just prior to embarkation the French command decorated the regi- mental colors and Colonel Tupes with the Croix de Guerre with palm. Colonel Tupes finally says with characteristic modesty that: “no historian should ever mention the services of the 372nd Infantry in the World War without naming its commanders in the 157th French Division: Colonel Augustine Quillet, who commanded the Infantry of the Division, and Major General Mariano Goybet, the Division Commander. The success of the regiment was due to them and they will always be remembered with honor and affectionate regard by those who served under them.” ?7 ** Notes furnished to the author, July 7, 1925. CHAPTER 32 SERVICE OF THE 92ND DIVISION Taking Over of the St. Die Sector August 25—Transference to the Argonne September 21—Two Flights from the Front—Courtmartial of Leaders for Cowardice—Transference to the Marbache Sector October 5—Participation in the Final Allied Drive of November 10 and 11 HE colored troops from the various cantonments were organized under the 92nd Army Division in command of Major General Charles C. Ballou. The staff and field officers, the officers of the supply units, Quartermaster Corps, Engineer Corps, and artillery units, with few exceptions, were white. The remainder of the com- missioned officers, comprising about four-fifths of the whole, were colored. In May, 1918, the division was ordered overseas and the first contingent reached Brest on June 19. Later in the same month the other units arrived. The infantry units of the division went into training at Bourbonne- les-Bains in Haute Marne for a period of eight weeks, while the artillery brigade and the ammunition train went into training on the artillery grounds at Montmourillon, in the department of Vienne. On August 25 the division took over its first sector at St. Die, the southeastern bend of the battle line stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland. Opposite the sector lay Alsace and behind it lay impenetrable mountains and forests. “The physical barriers,” says Scott, “made extensive military movements impracticable and for this reason the sector was comparatively a quiet one and usually assigned to inexperienced divisions coming into the front line for the first time.” * The division was supported by the French artillery, since the artillery brigade of the division was still in training at Mont- mourillon. The 6th Infantry of the American Expeditionary Force had been occupying a part of this sector, and, a few days before it was relieved by the 92nd Division, it had captured the village of Frapelle, and *The American Negro in the Great War, p. 136. 222 SERVICE OF THE 92ND DIVISION 223 extended its front-line trenches. The Negro companies ordered for- ward to occupy these trenches received their first baptism of fire and gas on August 25. The Germans had taken the offensive on account of the loss of Frapelle. The chief activities along this sector con- sisted of patrolling and raiding parties. On the night of August 31, an attempt of the enemy to retake Frapelle was repulsed, and the day following an attack upon the Negro trenches at Ormont was beaten back. During an enemy raid near Frapelle, September 4, Will Clincy of Birmingham, Alabama, belonging to the 366th Infantry, was operat- ing with his teammate an automatic rifle when his partner was mortally stricken and he himself was very severely wounded. Nevertheless, Clincy continued to fire the rifle alone until the raid was driven back. On September 14 a Negro raiding party captured a group of five German soldiers, the first prisoners taken by the g2nd Division. In the meantime, the Germans captured two Negroes of a patrolling party and thus learned that the forces opposing them were American Negroes. On the same day, near Lesseau, Joe Williams of Acton, Alabama, belonging to the 366th Infantry, was wounded in resisting an attack by an enemy raiding party, which was advancing under heavy barrage and using liquid fire. The sergeant of the combat group to which Williams belonged was killed, and others of the group were wounded. Undismayed, however, Williams, with three others, fearlessly resisted the enemy until they were obliged to retreat. On September 21 General Pershing ordered the g2nd Division to the Argonne sector, preparatory to the Allied drive scheduled for September 26. At this time the Germans had made their last drive, July 15, and were not only on the defensive but were being driven back. On July 18 General Foch had launched his first counter- attack, directed toward reducing the Marne salient where the battle- line projected within sixty kilometers of Paris. This offensive had caused a general withdrawal of the Germans from the Marne. The breathing-spell which this victory had brought to the Allies enabled General Pershing to assemble his scattered units, which had been operat- ing under French and British commands, and to form a united army under his own direction. On September 12 he had, with the as- sistance of 70,000 French troops which had been placed under his command, launched an offensive and reduced the St. Mihiel salient. He was now preparing for the great Meuse-Argonne offensive which contemplated driving the enemy out of the Argonne and threatening 224 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE his base at Sidan. The date of the offensive was set for September 25, and the g2nd Division, which had been in the St. Die sector, was ordered to entrain for the Argonne region. This division arrived on the scene on the 23rd, and the 368th Infantry of the division was assigned to a sector opposite Binaville. The jump-off at dawn September 26 was met by heavy bombard- ment of shot and gas, and the whole front was a maze of wire en- tanglements and machine-gun nests. The colored troops of the g2nd Division engaged in this offensive lacked spirit and several times were thrown into a panic. Says General Bullard: “they had twice run away from in front of the enemy, causing the French, for their own safety, to request the relief of the Negro division from the fighting line. “Some thirty Negro officers were involved in this running away. Five—the clearest cases and supposed leaders of the movement— only five, had been selected for trial by the law officers of the 2nd Army. A court-martial composed of officers from another, a white division, had been ordered for this purpose. “Before this court one Negro officer had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death. It startled me, for much experience and ob- servation in such matters had taught me that where even the most exact justice is meted out to Negroes, if meted out by white men alone, it becomes to Negroes injustice and converts them in the eyes of their fellows into martyrs for the race. I, therefore, at once ordered the court to suspend trial upon the other cases and deter- mined personally to investigate the whole matter and see the state of mind of the Negroes of the g2nd Division before I should pro- ceed any further with the trials. It took about a week for me to complete this investigation. It developed a lack of feeling among the Negroes of the division, a general lack of concern in the whole matter. Many of them knew nothing and almost all of them cared nothing about it. Those who knew seemed to believe that the white court-martial would give justice, and especially a court-martial com- posed of officers of another division. The same investigation also developed that there were some fifty other Negro officers of the di- vision who were at that time being examined as to fitness to retain their commissions, all before boards of white officers. “I ordered all of these boards to suspend their work of examina- tion. But I had in the end to allow the court-martial, having once SERVICE OF THE 92ND DIVISION 225 begun, to continue its trial of the four or five leading cases charged with cowardice. All five were found and sentenced as the first, exactly, I felt sure, as any white men would have been sentenced. Yet I knew that these Negroes could not be held as responsible as white men, and I deliberately set about finding any possible flaw that would excuse an upsetting of all of the proceedings. To this end I called to my assistance General E. A. Kreger, of the Judge Advocate’s Department, representing the War Department in the American Ex- peditionary Forces. He it was who should finally review these cases. He could at the time find no flaws in them, but later he or some other did find one flaw in one case. The last man tried testified in his own behalf that his own captain, who was killed in the runaway, had given him orders to run. There was no other living witness to this captain’s order; the captain himself was dead. So the case against the accused was completely disapproved and he was set free on the ground of uncontroverted evidence of having received an order to run. “I forwarded these five cases for final consideration to the Presi- dent with the recommendation that they all be let off from all punish- ment. I felt perfectly sure that it would so result, and so it did. In 1919, a year later, the President ordered them all released. As I now member it, the other twenty-five officers and the rest of the battalion escaped everything, even reproof.” ” In spite of the balking of the colored troops, the other Allied forces pressed forward and in several days had cut their way en- tirely across no man’s land. At this juncture, several units of the 92nd Division, to wit, the 366th and 365th Infantry and the 317th Engineers, were ordered to move forward and engage in the work of building roads and bridges through the densely wooded gorges and ravines of no man’s land. This work which was done “in the chill rain of dark nights’ was highly commended by General Pershing. On the night of September 27, Lieutenant Charles Young, of Austin, Texas, belonging to the 366th Infantry, was commanding a scout platoon when he was twice severely wounded from shell-fire. He refused medical aid, and remained in an exposed position helping to dress the wounds of his fellows during the entire night. For this soldierly act he later received a medal. By the 5th of October the enemy had been driven out of the ? Quoted from General Bullard’s Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1925, by courtesy of the author and the publishers, 226 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE southern half of the Argonne region, and on that date the g2nd Di- vision was transferred to the Marbache sector east of St. Mihiel, and directly south of Metz, extending along the Moselle river from Mar- bache to Pont-a-Mousson, a distance of sixteen kilometers. The higher officers of the division were much discouraged over the behavior of the Negro troops in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Says General Bullard: “not one of the officers believed that the 92nd Division would ever be worth anything as soldiers. Every one of them would have given anything to have been transferred to any other duty. It was the most pitiful case of discouragement that I have ever seen among soldiers. “The Negro division (diary, November 1) seems in a fair way to be a failure. It is in a quiet sector, yet can hardly take care of itself, while to take any offensive action seems wholly beyond its powers. I have been here now with it three weeks and have been unable to have it make a single raid upon the enemy. They are really inferior soldiers. There is no denying it. Their Negro officers have an inadequate idea of what is expected of soldiers, and their white officers are too few to leaven the lump.’ ““Spent the day (diary, November 5) going about the army and seeing. I saw especially the Negroes, the g2nd Division, which, after more than a month in the trenches cannot yet make a raid. It failed again on one to-day. Poor Negroes! They are hopelessly inferior. I’ve been talking with them individually about their di- vision’s success. That success is not troubling them. With every one feeling and saying that they are worthless as soldiers, they are going on quite unconcernedly. ““The g2nd Negro Division is not making much, if any progress toward efficiency and I am afraid it never will be worth anything as a fighting unit. Its division commanding general is not very strong as a military man. I’m inclined to think he will have to be “S. O. S.ed” and I'll have to have this done.’ “From about the 25th of October then until a few days before the armistice I put forth every effort to have this division execute some offensive operation, as a raid, against the enemy. The division was large and composed of exceptionally husky, vigorous looking soldiers, well equipped. The enemy troops against them were of second or third class, not by any means the best. I provided the most skilled French and American advisers and instructors for them in an effort to have them execute a successful raid. I never succeeded even to a SERVICE OF THE 92ND DIVISION 227 slight degree. As I remember, in those three weeks this division of some 27,000 men captured one German!” ® The activities along this front until November 10 consisted of patrolling and raiding parties in. which the Negro troops generally took a defensive and losing part. Nevertheless, in these raiding ex- peditions a number of individuals among the colored parties displayed soldierly courage and heroism. Robert Brickenridge of Hennessey, Oklahoma, belonging to the 365th Infantry, was severely wounded in action at Ferme de Bel Air, October 29, but, in spite of his wound, he continued to use his automatic rifle, crawling forward for a dis- tance of 100 yards to a position where he could obtain a better field of fire, and assisted in preventing an enemy party from taking a posi- tion on the company’s flank. Finally a bullet from an enemy machine gun killed him. The troops of the g2nd Division were occupying positions on both sides of the Moselle. The battle-line on the east bank began at a point much farther south than the line on the west bank, due to the fact that the St. Mihiel drive had pushed the line northward on the west bank without disturbing the line on the east bank. The mission assigned to the division was to push forward west of the Seille river, along the heights on both banks of the Moselle river in the direction of Corny. The objective was to capture and hold the Bois Frehaut and the Bois Voivrotte, thus advancing thé line to the northern boundaries of these woods. The division was to advance in conjunction with the French 32nd Army Corps and the French 7th Division on the left, and the French 165th Division on the right. The 183rd Brigade (i.e., the 350th Machine Gun Battalion, 365th and 366th Infantry Regiments) was to attack on the east of the Moselle, and the 367th Infantry of the 184th Brigade was to attack on the west of the Moselle. The colored troops on both sides of the Moselle were to maintain liaison with the French. “Two or three days before the armistice,’ says General Bullard, “T resolved to attack the enemy with my whole army. Before I could put my resolution into effect I received an order from Gen- eral Pershing to do just what I had decided to do. The order was given to the g2nd Division as to the rest of the 2nd Army. The division made no impression of consequence upon the enemy. ‘The ® Quoted from General Bullard’s Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1925, by courtesy of the author and the publishers. 228 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE poor 92nd Negroes’ (Diary, November 11) ‘wasted time and dawdled where they did attack and in some places where they should have attacked, never budged at all. It seemed to be as much the fault of the general as of the Negroes.’ ... ‘Two days ago’ (Diary, No- vember 12) ‘and again yesterday the 92nd Division would not fight, couldn’t be made to attack in any effective sense. The general who commands them can’t make them fight.’ “The general seemed to me to have lost sight of mrlitary efficiency in the racial ‘uplift’ problem which filled his mind.” * The g2nd Division contained the first artillery brigade of Negroes ever organized. This brigade arrived at the Marbache section October 18, and there had its first experience in actual warfare. In the attack of November 10 it was operating on the east of the Moselle and was ordered to advance with standing and rolling barrage in the initial phase of the advance and to follow thereafter the advanc- ing infantry with all mobile elements, and to support further advances. The advance commenced at seven o'clock November Io, the troops on the east of the Moselle taking the initiative. By eleven o’clock all first objectives east of the Moselle were attained. By 11:15 the Bois Frehaut was penetrated. At 3:05 the 2nd Battalion, 366th In- fantry, was obliged to withdraw “to the southern edge of Bois Voivrotte because of heavy enemy shelling, high explosives and gas in the woods.”’®> By 7:30 the 2nd Battalion of the 365th Infantry had reached Bois Frehaut and the 1st Battalion was sent forward to support the attack. In the fighting at Bois Frehaut, Corporal Russell Pollard of Weatherford, Texas, belonging to the 365th Infantry: “conducted his squad skilfully in firing on hostile machine guns, until his rifle was broken. He then used his wire-cutters with speed and_ skill under heavy shell and machine-gun fire. Although wounded in his right arm, he continued to cut the wire with his left hand, and assisted his men in getting through it, until ordered to the dressing station a second time by his company commander.” Later he was awarded a medal for this heroic service. During the day the troops on the east of the Moselle advanced into the Bois Voivrotte and captured three prisoners. In the fighting: near the Bois Voivrotte on the 11th of November Private Tom Rivers, from Opelika, Alabama, who belonged to the 366th Infantry, “Quoted from General Bullard’s Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1925, by courtesy of the author and the publishers. * Report of Commander 183rd Brigade. SERVICE OF THE 92ND DIVISION 229 distinguished himself by volunteering, after he had been gassed, to carry important messages through heavy barrages to the support com- panies, and refusing first aid until his company was relieved. For this courageous act he later received a hero’s medal. The next morning, November 11, at five o’clock the attack was renewed on the east side of the Moselle. The advancing troops were met by strong enemy artillery, machine-gun, and infantry fire. Ac- ording to General Barnum’s report, “Troops on the right had reached the outskirts of Brouxieres by 7:30 a. m. Troops on the left had advanced a short distance, but had been forced to retire to the woods.” The artillery was destroying the wire entanglements about Brouxiéres preparatory to farther advance when at 10:45 the order was re- ceived to cease firing on account of the signing of the armistice. During the two days’ fighting the troops on the east bank of the Moselle advanced a total of 314 kilometers. The attack was executed over a difficult terrain. The Bois Frehaut is a wood about 1,500 meters square, and the Bois Voivrotte to the east is a wood about 600 meters square. Both of these woods were a mass of heavy German wire. Their edges were protected by heavy bands of wire and chevaux-de- frise. The attack on the west of the Moselle was less aggressive, but was marked by alternate forward dashes and precipitous taking to the woods. At 9:30 the French on the left had not succeeded in capturing Preny, and the general advance was halted. At 10:30 an attack of the 367th Infantry, 184th Brigade, was repulsed and reinforcements had to be sent forward. Later in the day, in an attack on Pagny, the French 56th Infantry became hopelessly enmeshed in the enemy’s wire entanglements and were being slaughtered by the German ma- chine guns. Two machine-gun units from the 367th Infantry and 350th Battalion respectively were sent to the rescue, and succeeded in silencing the German batteries and covering the withdrawal of the French infantry. The rescuing units held their position until relieved by reinforcements from the 56th. The 367th regiment on the west bank of the Moselle made prac- tically no advance. General Bullard seemed to think that it lacked the fighting spirit. However, it certainly had more difficult ground to cover. “In the area west of the Moselle,” says Major General Martin, “the ground in front of the position slopes to the north into a basin with little or no cover. On the west Preny heights rise 230 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE precipitously out of the plain and the town and citadel dominate the entire basin up to Preny and beyond.” ® The achievements of the 92nd Division on this front consisted in a gain of 3% kilometers on the east bank of the Moselle. “A total of six prisoners was captured; three in the Bois Frehaut, and three in the Bois Voivrotte. “The following material was captured: 1,000 (approximately) grenades, all types; 5,000 (approximately) rounds ammunition; 25 (approximately ) boxes M. G. ammunition, in belts; 50 (approximately ) rifles and bayonets; 10 (approximately) pairs field glasses; 4 (ap- proximately) machine guns; 6 carrier pigeons; I signal lamp and battery; 2 Verey pistols; 3 carbide lamps; 100 helmets. Many over- coats, boots, canteens, belts, and other articles of equipment were left by the fleeing enemy.” The following were the casualties : Killed Wounded Gassed Missing Total BOStiIT LM Tant evans sein Givin is lene 14 67 211 8 300 ZOOUNTINTANULy te 5 nites a et et oer ee 17 52 63 O 132 2coth Battaliontisis se ies see oF I e) II (0) 12 32 11g 285 8 444 General Pershing, in an address to the officers and soldiers of the g2nd Division, January, 1919, said: “IT want you officers and soldiers of the g2nd Division to know that the g2nd Division stands second to none in the record you have made since you arrived in France. I am proud of the part you have played in the great conflict which ended on the 11th of November, yet you have only done what the American people expected you to do and you have measured up to every expectation of the Commander- in-Chief. I realize that you did not get into the game as early as some of the other units, but since you took over your first sector you have acquitted yourselves with credit, and I believe that if the armistice had not become effective on the 11th day of November, the g2nd would have still further distinguished itself.” ° Official Report, quoted by Scott, op. cit., p. 162. CHAPTER 33 WORTH OF THE NEGRO TROOPS Summary of the Services of the Colored Units—Recipients of the Croix de Guerre —Citations for Distinguished Service—General Bullard’s Criticisms of the g2nd Division—General Estimate of The Negro As a Soldier—Enlivening Effect of Negro Regimental Bands in the Camps—Introduction of the French People to Jazz Music N regard to the value of the Negro troops in the World War it is pertinent to say in the first place that any nation at war will have an effective army in the degree that the fighting force is made up of harmonious elements. Any difference in racial elements or cultural background is sure to interfere with the efficiency of the army as a whole. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans only free- men were allowed to enlist for military service. The Carthaginian, Hannibal, though one of the world’s greatest generals, suffered de- feat chiefly because of the heterogeneous elements he was obliged to draft into his army; and William the Conqueror nearly lost the battle of Hastings because, at a critical moment, a division of Alpines, which he had drafted from Brittany, broke ranks and fled. No respectable military man would hesitate to say that our fight- ing force in the World War would have worked more smoothly and effectively if it had been all white. The race problem can no more be eliminated from military affairs than from civil affairs. From the drafting to the mustering out, the presence of the Negro in our army was a source of manifold and perpetual discord, dissipating the time and energies of the War De- partment and the commanding generals in efforts to preserve discipline among the soldiers. The white demagogues and fanatics are as busy and full of mischief in an army as out of it. They preach the doctrine that there should be no race prejudice, and they harp upon any military or social privilege enjoyed by a white soldier that is not equally enjoyed by the Negro. They expect white men to serve willingly under Negro officers, sleep and eat with them in the same barracks and dance with 231 232 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the same ladies at the Moulin Rouge. Such social intermingling of the races does not exist in any of the American states, and cannot be made to exist in an American army. Race prejudice is a hard fact, and military commanders, of what- ever attitude towards the Negro problem, have to deal with the fact, which they find it difficult to harmonize with military efficiency. The 372nd Negro regiment was so wrought up over the question of social equality that it was next to useless as a fighting unit until the crisis of the war was passed and the regimental officers were reorganized. The French soldiers and civilians were of necessity very hospitable to all foreign Allied troops fighting on their soil, and were even very tolerant of behavior on the part of foreign troops which would call for police interference among their own citizens. A certain class of our Negro soldiers mistook this hospitability for license, and pre- sumed that the French people, unlike the white Americans, had no racial prejudices. They found a welcome among a certain class of French women, but when they began to assume attitudes of familiarity with women of another type, they met with resentment and in some instances, overcame this by committing rape. In reference to this mat- ter General Bullard says: “It is commonly believed among Americans that French people have no objections to Negroes, but this I quickly found was an error. . . . While there were very few French people in the region occupied by this division, they were not happy to have the Negroes among them. The Negro is a more sensual man than the white man, and at the same time he is far more offensive to white women than a white man is. The little acts of familiarity that would pass unnoticed in a white man, become with white women the cause of complaint against the Negro. This special Negro division was already charged with fifteen cases of rape. ‘For these reasons immediately after the armistice I recommended in effect that this division be sent home first of all American troops, that they be sent home in all honor, but above all, that they be sent quick. The answer came that Marshal Foch would not, pending peace, approve the transfer of any division back to the United States. In answer I told the American headquarters to say to Marshal Foch that no man could be responsible for the acts of these Negroes toward French women, and that he had better send this division home at once. This brought the order, and the 92nd was, I believe, the very first division to be sent home. I was told that the division WORTH OF THE NEGRO TROOPS 233 was received at home with great glorification. I was perfectly will- ing that it should be; the American Army abroad was relieved. My own sense of relief can be understood when I say that while a part of the division was waiting for its railroad trains to move it to its port of embarkation, among other things, one French women com- plained that she was ravished by five g2nd Division soldiers.” ? A Negro of the 371st Regiment was convicted of attempted rape upon a French girl and sentenced to prison for twenty years. (From data furnished by Col. Chas. E. Greenough, letter of June 19, 1926.) These crimes, of course, reflect great discredit on the Negro soldiers, but the fault is not so much with them as with the white demagogues and fanatics in the army who led the Negro to believe that race preju- dice is a matter of Southern inculcation, and that white and colored men and white and colored women ought to commingle freely without ref- erence to a mere matter of pigmentation of the skin. We, of course, ought not to overlook the fact that only a small fraction of the Negro troops were involved in these crimes. The majority of the men of the g2nd, as of the other divisions, behaved remarkably well. Now, as to the fighting efficiency of the Negro troops, prior to the World War the Negro had entered only two branches and four organizations of the United States Army, to wit: the 9th and roth Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry, whereas during the World War the Negro figured to some extent in every branch of the service, including field artillery, coast artillery, engineer corps, signal corps, hospital and ambulance corps, veterinary corps, labor battalions, auto repairers, etc. The one service which the Negro did not enter was that of the aviation corps. The 92nd Division, made up entirely of Negroes except for the officers of higher command, has come in for the greatest amount of criticism on account of its weakness in aggressive warfare, its small achievements, and its general inefficiency. General Bullard, having successfully commanded a small unit of colored troops in the Spanish- American War, doubted the wisdom of utilizing a large mass of Negroes in a single division. Perhaps the Negro’s nervousness and susceptibility to stampede is heightened by the contagion of mass- suggestion. The general inefficiency of the Negro division was undoubtedly *Quoted from General Bullard’s Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1925, by courtesy of the author and the publishers. 234 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE due in the main to its large complement of Negro colonels, captains, and lieutenants, who lacked the elements of leadership and who could not command the respect and confidence of the privates. The official personnel of a fighting unit is of the first importance for military efficiency, and, unfortunately for the Negro, in his present level of culture, not many men of his color can be found who are qualified for positions of command. The selection of a man for mili- tary command is not a matter of a few weeks’ training in an officers’ training camp, but a matter of discovering men who, in themselves and in their ancestry, represent a high order of intellectual and moral stamina. The Negro race in «increasing numbers may be expected to develop men of this type, but as yet they are rare, and difficult to discover. The graduation of any number of Negroes from an officers’ training camp would necessarily result in a large percent of them proving to be totally unfit for positions of command. When the General Staff of the American Expeditionary Force discovered the large percent of incompetent Negro officers, and set to work to weed them out, there was a great outcry of race prejudice among the Negro officers and privates, leading in some cases to acts of insubordina- tion. The personnel of the enlisted men of the 371st Negro regiment, brigaded with the French, was made up of Negroes of the cotton- fields and was in no sense superior in personnel to the men of the g2nd Division. The brilliant record of the 37Ist was due to the superior type of men in command. Not only were all the officers white and graduates of West Point, which institution serves to select men of very superior intelligence and moral fiber, but “by a special request made at Washington the regiment was granted a twenty-five percent excess of officers over the number allowed in the normal regi- ment.” ? If a division had been made up of white men recruited only from the lowest white stratum of society, and largely officered by men who, neither themselves nor their ancestors, had ever held positions of command, would any sane military man have expected it to make a scintillating dash in battle? The British and French generals wisely, scattered their colored units among their other troops, and it was politics and not military sense which prompted the idea of a great mass of Negroes in a single division of the American army. As a result of this folly the American army suffered serious handicaps, * Quoted from a letter from Colonel Miles to the author, July 21, 1925. WORTH OF THE NEGRO TROOPS 235 and the Negroes comprising the 92nd Division received a stigma for which they were not in any large sense to blame. The 372nd regiment, which throughout was brigaded under French commands, was in some respects a failure, due apparently to its hav- ing a large quota of incompetent Negro officers, and to the perpetual wrangles and jangles between the white and colored officers and _ be- tween the officers and the men. When, in obedience to the general decision to have either all white or all Negro subordinate officers in Negro regiments, the Negro officers of the 372nd were discharged or sent to the g2nd Division, the efficiency of the 372nd was greatly improved, but, in the meantime, much valuable time and energy were wasted. Colonel V. A. Caldwell, commander of the 365th regiment, g2nd Division, says in a letter to the author of this book, September 12, 1925: “I have had considerable service with colored troops in Cuba, and in the Philippine Islands, and have had considerable experience in training them. In the g2nd Division, the trouble, in my opinion, was in shifting officers. Colored troops will do well under officers they know and believe in. They are not difficult to train, but they must have officers to train them who know how to get the training over. In my service with the 365th in the trenches they did as well as could be expected, keeping in mind the way the regiment had been recruited and the training chances it had. I don’t think the color of the officers has much to do with it, but I do believe that almost any colored outfit can be ruined if you keep switching its officers. It is my belief that colored troops have a much stronger personal attitude towards their officers than white troops.” With the exception of the g2nd Division and the 372nd regiment, all of the Negro units in France acquitted themselves with credit and were a real addition to the fighting strength of the American forces. Each unit and also the individuals comprising the units, displayed soldierly qualities and won distinctions for valuable service and acts of heroism. In the Civil War, and in the Spanish American War, as well as in the World War, Negro troops have demonstrated their ability to make good soldiers. However, in many particulars the Negro is a different kind of soldier from the Caucasian of the Anglo-American type. The Negro has his peculiar psychological traits which differentiate him from other races, and these traits come out in his military as in his civil life. Without understanding him, it is impossible to make a good soldier 236 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of him, no matter whether he be commanded by white or black offi- cers. The Negro is not as pugnacious as the Anglo-American, and is more susceptible to panic. He will fight as courageously and reck- lessly as the most pugnacious white man, however, if nothing unusual or startling touches off his hair-trigger nerves. He has many traits which are childish and one of them, not unfavorable to military efficiency, is absolute faith and confidence in leaders of masterful per- sonality. The character of Negro troops, more than the character of troops of any other race, depends upon superior leadership. The 369th, 370th, 371st and 372nd regiments were more fortunate in arriving in France in time-to have some part in resisting the last of the great German drives, but the 92nd Division, which comprised most of the colored troops, did not get into the fighting until the German drives had been stopped, and the tide of battle had been turned in favor of the Allies. In this respect the g2nd Division shared the misfortune of other divisions of the American army. The commanders of the French and American armies were very generous in their citations of divisions, units of divisions, and in- dividuals for heroic and distinguished service, and the colored units and individuals came in for their full share of these citations. In the 92nd Division, one batallion, fourteen individual officers and forty-three privates were cited for bravery. Of the four regiments which served under French commands, the 369th, as a whole, received the French Croix de Guerre, and 174 in- dividuals were cited for bravery. In the 370th regiment, ninety individuals received crosses or medals for distinguished service. The 371st Regiment as a whole received the Army citation for dis- tinguished service, and 146 individuals of the regiment were cited for bravery. The 372nd regiment received the French Croix de Guerre and a number of individual members were cited for bravery. Among the colored, as also among the white, American soldiers, the most common citation was for carrying messages and rescuing the wounded under severe shell-fire. Some typical cases of extraordi- nary heroism among the colored soldiers have been mentioned in re- lating the exploits of the several units. . Colonel James A. Moss of Louisiana, who commanded the 367th Infantry, speaking in general of the efficiency of the Negro soldier, says : “Make the colored man feel that you have faith in him, and then, WORTH OF THE NEGRO TROOPS 237 by sympathetic and conscientious training and instruction, help him to fit himself in a military way to vindicate that faith, to make good. Be strict with him, but treat him fairly and justly, making him realize that in your dealings with him he will always be given a square deal. Commend him when he does well and punish him when he is refractory—that is to say, let him know that he will always get what is coming to him, whether it be reward or whether it be punish- ment. In other words, treat and handle the colored man as you would any other human being out of whom you would make a good soldier, out of whom you would get the best there is in him, and you will have as good a soldier as history has ever known—a man who will drill well, shoot well, march well, obey well, fight well—in short, a man who will give a good account of himself in battle, and who will conduct and behave himself properly in camp, in garrison and in other places.” § Major Greenough, commander of the 371st Regiment, says in a letter to the author, June 19, 1926: “The Negro mind in battle does not think clearly as a rule—but then how many minds do in that awful bedlam? However, he makes up for this by his blind obedience. He will go anywhere you lead him. I remember one soldier telling me that, when we came to that little river I have mentioned previously, he felt he could not attempt to ford it— whipped as it was by a murderous machine-gun fire. He added, though, that when he saw me go in, his confidence returned, and he followed me, for he felt that wherever I went he could go also.” Captain W. R. Richey, of Laurens, South Carolina, speaks in high praise of the 37Ist regiment. The following description and estimate of the Negro soldier is from the pen of John Richards, a Northern-born man, who commanded a Negro unit in the World War: “The colored soldiers are good ‘hikers.’ They endure the fatigue of long marches with remarkable pluck and cheerfulness. A white colonel of a Negro regiment tells how his men would brace up and march as if on dress-parade whenever they passed through a small French village. ‘The command of “attention” is not necessary. Every man swings into step, shoulders are thrown back, and extra distance between ranks closed automatically. Some one is watching them. There was one comedian who stowed somewhere about him for these occasions a battered silk hat. We let him wear it—in small towns. *Quoted by Scott, The American Negro in the Great War, p. 185. 238 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The inhabitants stared at him and laughed. He was happy and made the whole company happy.’ . . . “My dismay was great when I found myself transferred to a famous colored regiment, then in a sector in the Champagne region. I had known little or nothing of negroes. Smiling, dark-skinned por- ters had brushed my clothes on Pullman cars and pocketed my quar- ters; on great evenings I had dined at the Parker House in Boston; and once, when I was a boy, I heard Booker Washington speak. But such experiences do not make for large knowledge of the colored man. I had the typical Northern feeling that only a Southerner could work with him. Thinking over my friends from the North whom I have seen leading and understanding their brother of another race, I am convinced that this idea of the mysterious bond between the South- erner and the Negro is too much dwelt on. Tor my part, looking back at my own small corner of the war, I am very glad to have had the experience of going over the top, first with white, then with colored American troops... . “Colored men are wonderfully good company. Their ridiculous chaff, their comical bewilderment and excuses when they have counted the ammunition wrong or left a rifle to be rained on, are very endearing. “Doan yo’ heah what de man say, yo’ lazy dood?’ In speaking of an officer among themselves, our men seldom said lieutenant or major; it was generally ‘de man.’ And generally the men were ‘de doods.’ Sometimes, from a corporal in a fit of irritation, one would hear, ‘Yo’ big black nigga’; but let an officer use that word, said the captain, and good-bye to his influence! The thing he needed most was a transfer to another regiment. I have never tried it, nor have I heard it tried. Good workers, cheerful humorists, heart- warming children are these soldiers. But beware the time in the cold gray of morning when the big shells come, and every eye must be clear and nerves steeled for the expected raid. Make sure that you move and talk like a paladin who minds eighty-eights no more than flies, whatever your feelings may be. And if you are visiting an out- post at night, know the countersign, and curse, and ring the bell whose handle hangs by the chicken-wire—hard. Even then, be ready to drop flat at any moment, for their nerves are on hair-triggers, and they love to throw grenades. . “Again, when we were well into No-Man’s-Land, and our familiar trenches seemed far away, I remember two boys rolling on the ground WORTH OF THE NEGRO TROOPS 239 crying, ‘I’se got dat gas bad!’ when no gas was there, and other boys laughing at them. When we took prisoners, boys again! Nobody wished to take their sullen captives away somewhere and cut their hearts out—they were much too happy. The proud soldiers escort- ing the detachment to the rear were as good as a brass band. Their march among the shell-holes was nearly a cakewalk. “How willingly they followed their officers among the shattered wire and the ruin of the German trenches, shouldering the heavy guns or carrying the still more cumbersome ammunition! When I was wounded, how tenderly and deftly a big corporal bandaged my mead 1. 1)" “There are other random observations that may throw light on these men. The best of them are very efficient at liaison work, than which there is nothing more important. The messenger must often not only run through hell with his message, but get through. Be- sides courage and endurance, they had a marvelous knack of finding their way in the infernal tangle of an old trench system which had changed hands several times. Our best man was one who in ‘civil life’ had been a distinguished ‘gun-man.’.. . “Sickness has a very depressing effect on the negro: a boy who suffers with rheumatism is sure that it is going to his heart; a cold brings thoughts of an early grave, though theytare really very rugged. We had expected much sickness with the cold weather, yet found, for the most part, nothing worse than imaginings and low spirits. They dropped away fast in the hospital when we were waiting at Brest to go home; but so did their white officers... . “The colored soldier is generally a splendid physical specimen, with great powers of endurance. He is tireless, cheerful, and loyal, and will follow like a dog through artillery barrage and the wind of machine-gun bullets. On the other hand, he has an extraordinary nervousness, does not like the dark, and lacks will and initiative. This last appears most clearly in the case of non-commissioned officers. Many will handle their men very creditably behind the lines, while to an officer some of them are full of intelligent suggestions (too full, if encouraged!). In hard conditions, however, the best of them, though showing no apparent fear, seem to be struck dumb. They do what they are told, but move as if bewildered. I think they lack the free, independent spirit that stirs in the breast of the white; that rises within him when the shells are falling thick and says, ‘I 240 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE am a better man than any Boche, and I am coming through.’ Of course, you find the same spirit in some negroes, but it is rare. They are boys. They do not grow up, even under shell-fire. “Tf I were to join the army again, I should like to serve with colored troops. They are so cheerful and willing, and they march so well. They enjoy the theatrical effect of their drill... . “What a simple lovable people are these dark-skinned brothers of ours ! “Tf I were to go fighting again, I should like to serve with them, too; but it must be realized that this is a very different proposition. I should like to have the power to raise a body of negro troops. They should be picked men, and then picked again. To get non-com- missioned officers for a company, those of a battalion would be combed over, and these sergeants and corporals, when chosen, would be under close observation. In fighting qualities the average of the colored race is not as high as that of the whites; but given the picked men and their thrice-picked leaders, with officers who understand their weakness and strength, the result would be a body of troops that would shed great glory on their race... . “Men of the South who face the race question bitterly, and men of the North who wash your hands of.it, remember that races de- velop slowly! A few years ago, these men were slaves in cotton- fields. A few years before that they were children in the jungles of Africa. They are children still. The race-question is a topic far beyond the scope of this paper; yet, in considering it, let the white citizen remember the lovely traits of his colored brother. We have so much in power, prestige, and development which they have not. We inherit an independent spark, fostered through ages of war and upward groping. Let us hold out our hands and open our hearts to these wonderful boys who move among us, remembering that white and black lie side by side in the fields ‘over there.’ ” * An account of the American Negro in the World War would not be complete without some mention of the part played by the Negro jazz bands in enlivening the camps behind the lines, and in infusing a cheerful spirit and rhythmic impulse into all of the men who had to “go over the top.” If the Germans were unable to conquer France with their lead, steel, and gas, the American Negro bands certainly conquered it easily *John Richards, “Some Experiences with Colored Soldiers,” Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 1919. WORTH OF THE NEGRO TROOPS 241 with their jazz music. This music seemed to gather up in no man’s land all of the echoes of exploded shell and shrapnel and of the shouts of triumph and of the wails of the dying, and to send them wheezing and honking through the instruments of the brass band. France was literally bombarded with “jazz.” High officials of the French Army stole away to Negro camps and sat enraptured before the “jazzers.” The Negro regimental bands, especially that of the 369th, “jazzed” their way through France, and in all of the villages behind the lines the French folk began to pat their feet and catch the jazz spasm. Noble Sissle, a drum-major of the 369th, says that in northern France: ‘We were playing our Colonel’s favorite ragtime, “The Army Blues,’ in a little village where we were the first American troops there, and among the crowd listening to that band was an old lady about sixty years of age. To everybody’s surprise, all of a sudden, she started doing a dance that resembled “Walking the Dog.’ Then I was cured, and satisfied that American music would some day be the world’s music.” ® Emmett J. Scott, in his chapter on “Negro Music that Stirred France,’’ says: “No labor is ever so onerous that it can bar music from the soul of black folk. This race sings at work, at play and in every mood. Visitors to any army camp found the Negro doing musical ‘stunts’ of some kind from reveille to taps—every hour, every minute of the day. All the time the trumpeters were not blowing out actual routine bugle calls, they were somewhere practising them. Mouth- organs were going, concertinas were being drawn back and _ forth, and guitars, banjos, mandolins and whatnot were in use—playing all varieties of music, from the classic, like ‘Lucia,’ “Poet and Peasant,’ and ‘Il Trovatore’ to the folk-songs and the rollicking ‘jazz.’ Music is indeed the chiefest outlet of the Negro’s emotions, and the state of his soul can best be determined by the type of melody he pours forth. “Some writer has said that a handful of pipers at the head of a Scotch regiment could lead that regiment down the mouth of a cannon. It is not doubted that a Negro regiment could be made to duplicate the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ at Balakava—‘into the mouth of hell,’ as Tennyson puts it, if one of their regimental bands should play— *Quoted by Scott, op. cit., p. 308. 242 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE as none but a colored band can play, the vivacious strains of “There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.’ “The Negro’s love of home is an integral part of his nature, and is exemplified in the themes he plaintively crooned in camp on both sides of the ocean. Such melodies as ‘Carry Me Back to Old Vir- ginia,’ ‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ ‘In de Evening by de Moonlight,’ and ‘Suwanee River’ recalled memories of the ‘old folks at home,’ and kept his patriotism alive, for he hoped to return to them some day and swell their hearts with pride by reason of the glorious record he made at the front. The Negro is essentially religious, and his deep spiritual temperament is vividly illustrated by the joy he finds in ‘harmonizing’ such ballads of ancient days as ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,’ ‘Steal Away to Jesus,’ ‘Standin’ in the Need of Prayer,’ ‘Every Time I Feel the Spirit,’ ‘I Wan’ to Be Ready,’ and ‘Roll, Jordan, Roll” The Negro is also an optimist, whether he styles himself by that high-sounding title or not, and the sincerity of his ‘make the best of it’ disposition is noted in the fervor he puts into those uplifting gems, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile,’ ‘There’s a Long, Long Trail,’ ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning,’ and ‘Good-bye Broadway, Hello France.’”’ ® * Scott, of. cit., pp. 301-2. BAR Reb DV ibe NEGRO MIGRATION a eee a ney ii ah ae ils i i py ‘ ' { 4 AX a ii . 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LN A Ay) 4 J x t i f ua fh (dally GENT a ; ate F i / y NB a Nae : j ites i ‘ \y 4 At 1a : ' } ' i es rit f f i Hi ‘i [ Mi f I ; 1 WP, i A, i P j iy . | j i ) ' . 4 4 , a / ; 48 7 ve A) 1g ‘ Ul i] 4 f ‘ oA ' , / , é ‘ ‘ ay i 7) i hiang y 5 i* j j i } vy 5 rs ‘ igh F j ; ee TAD , Fie At ite j UT anal Any f a ett i sf ey Lan, 4 ¢ \ | Vow Miatag Lite } ee at Oa : ; lai if | pas a A ON: mn He met VRRO AV OR CHAPTER 34 MIGRATION PREVIOUS TO 10914 Movement of the Negro During the Days of Slavery—Escape of Runaways to Free Soil—Attraction of Free Negroes to the West and to the Industrial Centers in the South—Trend of Negro Migration after the Civil War— Exodus to the West in 1879—Movement from the Farms to the Towns— Concurrent Migration of Negroes and Whites to the North and West HE migration of the Negroes on their own initiative began dur- ing the days of slavery. It first took the form of flight by runaways, who generally fled in the direction of the free states, most of the fugitives going into Ohio. It is estimated that about 40,000 slaves escaped to Ohio from 1830 to 1860. By way of the “under- ground railroad” about 15,000 fugitives during the same period passed through the free states and pressed on to Canada, settling in towns of southern Ontario. In addition to the runaway slaves, the free Negroes in the South moved about on their own initiative, and were actuated by the same motives as the migrating white people. Many of them were attracted by the gold craze to California in the fifties. The free Negro popula- tion of that State increased from 962 in 1850 to 4,086 in 1860. Other free Negroes followed the movement of white people toward the more rapidly developing states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- gan, and Missouri. The movement of the free Negroes within the South was generally towards the more notably industrial states, where the development of large towns offered better employment in the handicrafts. For instance, there was a movement of the free Negroes of Florida into the towns of I ouisiana, and from Mississippi and Arkansas into the towns of Missouri and Kansas. The movement of free Negroes, however, was never considerable in any Southern state. A large proportion of free Negroes owned land or houses and were disinclined to migrate. For illustration, in all the Southern states, except Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas, the population of free Negroes was greater in 1860 than in 245 240 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE 1850; and in the four states with fewer free Negroes in 1860 the total diminution was only 663. The movement of free Negroes to Liberia, between 1820 and 1852, through the efforts of the American Colonization Society, numbered 7,930. After the emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies in the thirties, there was an acute shortage of labor, and the attention of the free Negroes in the United States was directed to that region as especially inviting to Negro immigrants. The planters of these islands sent agents to the United States in search of Negro labor. In 1834, one of these from Trinidad induced 200 Negroes from New York to accompany him to that island. Later about twenty free Negroes went there from Maryland, and 160 went from Penn- sylvania.* Agents from Jamaica and other islands visited this country in the interest of Negro immigration, but met with very little success. Other islands of the West Indies also were supposed to offer good opportunities for Negroes of the United States. In 1836, Z. Kingsley, a white planter of Florida, purchased 35,000 acres of land, near Port Plate, in northeastern Haiti, and established a plantation there under the direction of his mulatto son, George. In order to supply the labor for the plantation, Kingsley sent over six Negro men whom he emancipated. A year later he visited the plantation and brought with him his mulatto son’s wife and children, and the wives and chil- dren of the six Negro servants, and also ten additional families of slaves, liberated for the purpose of transportation to Haiti.2 The Negroes on this plantation were enjoying good health and prosperity, according to the last accounts, but no additional immigrants had arrived, In 1853 the free Negroes in the North launched an emigration movement toward the Niger Valley in Africa. They sent an agent to negotiate with African kings for territory, and in 1861 a shipload of 2,000 emigrants set sail for Africa.* Owing to lack of capital, unhealthy climate and other causes, two-thirds of the emigrants re- turned to the United States. During the Civil War there was a large and confusing movement of Negroes within the lines of the Federal troops, but it was deter- *Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration, p. 78. 2 Tht ips 77! *Cromwell, The Negro in American History, p. 43. MIGRATION PREVIOUS TO 1014 247 mined by forces which the Negro did not control, and therefore, does not throw any light on the Negro’s migratory tendency. In 1879 there was a great exodus of Negroes from the South to the West, chiefly from the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, to Kansas. Within a period of two years about 60,000 Negroes left the Lower South for Kansas and other points in the West. This im- migration was not encouraged nor even welcomed by the people of the West. In fact, Kansas sent agents into the South to warn the Negroes against coming. When, however, the Negroes arrived in Kansas the white people there were disposed to protect them and lend them a helping hand. The hospitality of the people of that state was greatly overtaxed by the hordes of incoming Negroes. Unable to find employment, and being without resources, the immigrants suffered greatly from cold and hunger, and had to be relieved by public charity. In one year the people of Kansas donated for the relief of the sufferers $40,000, and about 500,000 pounds of clothing and bedding. England sent $8,000 and 50,000 pounds of goods.* A measure of permanent relief was effected by inducing a por- tion of the immigrants to settle on land. Local charities offered tools, teams, and supplies to Negroes who took up land. About 30,000 Negroes settled on land as proprietors, tenants, and laborers. The causes of this migration were partly economic and partly political, The low price of cotton and partial failure of the crop had brought disaster to both Negroes and whites in the Lower South. At the same time, the propaganda of emigration leaders created a general belief among the colored people that the West offered them golden opportunities. The political conditions in the Lower South were discouraging from the standpoint of the Negro. The Reconstruction régime had just been overthrown by means of the Ku Klux and other forms of intimidation, and the Negroes had not only lost control of the states, but were kept away from the polls and subjected to a severity of repression and roughness of treatment which aroused widespread re- sentment. The migration of the Negroes from 1879 to the World War fol- lowed the general trend of the migration of both Negroes and whites during that period. There has been a steady movement of both races from the rural districts to the towns and cities. From 1860 to 1870, * Woodson, of. cit., p. 141. * Ibid., p. 142. 248 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the increase in number of Negroes in Southern cities was greater than that of the whites, due to the uprooting of the rural Negro as a result of the war,® but, since the latter date, the white people have moved more rapidly towards the towns and cities than the Negroes. From 1900 to 1910 the white increase in Southern cities was 7.7 percent more than that of the Negro.” In this trend toward the cities both races have been influenced by the same cause, namely, the more rapid growth of industry as compared to agriculture. Low prices of farm products, and the constantly deteriorating soils, have deterred the more enterprising men from the pursuits of agriculture, while the cities, by reason of their rapidly developing trades and manufactures, have offered tempting opportunities to the wage-earner and the capitalist. The in- crease of manufactured products in sixteen Southern cities from 1880 to 1905 was 143.3 percent. Along with this migration of white people toward the Southern cities, there has been a concurrent migration of white people from the Southern states to the Northern and Western states, where the greater industrial development has offered not only higher nominal wages, but a greater diversity of occupations. From the Civil War to the World War the white South lost an immense asset in the migra- tion of her aspiring young men to other sections of the country. Concurrent with the white migration to the North and West there has been for the same reasons a migration of Negroes, but of a less proportionate extent. The Negro migrants to the North and West prior to the World War were mostly of the servant class from South- ern towns, and were enticed away by the prospect of higher wages. “In the economic movement to the Northern cities,’ says Haynes, “the activity of employment agencies (especially for female domestic help) with drummers and agents in Southern communities, has served to spread tales of high wages, and to provide transportation for large numbers. Again, many who have been to the urban centers return for visits to their more rural home communities with show of better wages in dress, in cash, and in conversation. “The conclusion of the matter, therefore, is that the Negro is re- sponding to the call of commerce and industry, and is coming to the urban centers under economic influences similar to those that move his fellows.” § *Haynes, The Negro at Work in New York City, p. 15. "Tbid., p. 16. *Thid., p. 20. CHAPTER 35 RECENT MIGRATION Extent of Migration North and South—Northern-born Negroes More Migrant than Southern-born—Southern Negro Migration between States—Excess of Volume of White Migration over That of Negro Migration—Causes Which Have Influenced the Migrants—Advantages and Disadvantages of the Migra- tion to Both Races—Gain of the South in Both Negro and White Population HE flow of Negro migration Northward and Westward, which has been in process since 1865, received a new impetus at the beginning of the World War. The migrating Negroes from various points in the South poured in such large streams into Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Gary, and other great cities as to attract national attention, and to arouse much discussion. The columns of the leading newspapers of the North and West contained lengthy stories, with great headlines, telling of the arrival of the black hordes. Sometimes the stories took the form of inter- views with the immigrants, eliciting the various reasons which had induced them to leave the South. Editorial comments followed the reporter's stories, informing the public of the conditions down South which the Negroes were finding intolerable. The Negro press, which always finds good campaign material in Southern outrages, took up this question of migration, and for months gave itemized accounts of the political injustices, the lynchings, persecutions, “jim-crowism,” and other abuses which lay at the bottom of the Negro exodus. Up to 1917 the number of Negro migrants to the North was variously estimated at from 150,000 to 750,000.1_ Later estimates ran the figures much higher. The South was represented as being in despair over the great loss of her Negro population, and not a few editors were rejoicing that at last the South was being duly punished for her sins of omission and commission against her ex-slaves. All of the lead- ing magazines of the country took the matter seriously, and, by special articles and editorial comments, discussed the probable effect upon the South, and also upon the North, of so great a change in the *Donald, “Negro Migration, 1916-18,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 6, p. 4. 249 250 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE distribution of the Negro population. The question was debated in Congress, and a special investigation of it was made by the United States Department of Labor. Finally several books were written on the subject, among them Negro Migration During the War, by Emmett J. Scott, and A Century of Negro Migration, by Carter G. Woodson. All of the publications dealing with the Negro migration lacked one essential element to an understanding of the subject. That is, they contained no statistics showing the extent of the migration. The underlying facts of the matter had to await the Census Reports of 1920. Now that those reports are-at hand, what are the facts? In the first place, the South sustained no loss in Negro population between I9I0 and 1920, but, on the contrary, gained 162,632. Six Southern states lost in Negro population, to wit, Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, but these losses were more than overcome by the gains in the other Southern states. In the next place, the migration of Southern Negroes to the North and West, though greater in volume than in previous decades, was not nearly so great as had been generally surmised. In spite of the migration of 1910-20, the number of Negroes living outside of the states of their birth was little greater in 1920 than it had been in previous decades. The percentage of Negroes living outside of the states of their birth was 16.6 percent in 1910, and I9.9 percent in 1920. The 1920 census shows that the difference between the propor- tion of Southern-born Negroes living in the North and the proportion of Northern and Western-born Negroes living in the South was only Tey Dercenye In 1910 the number of Negroes born in the South and living in the North and West was 440,534, as compared to 780,794 in 1920. Thus the total migration of Negroes from the South during the decade 1910- 20 was only 340,260; and, as an offset to this, during the same period 5,734 Negroes from the North and West migrated into the South. The Negro migration out of the South, therefore, exceeded the Negro mi- gration into the South only to the extent of 334,526.? 7It is possible that the actual number of southward migrating Negroes was much larger and the number of northward migrating Negroes was much smaller than the census figures indicate. The figures of the census are based on the number of surviving migrants in each section, and, in order to arrive at the actual number of migrants, it would be necessary to take into consideration the difference in the death-rate of the Northern-born migrants (city dwellers) who moved into the South, as compared to the Southern-born Negroes (mostly RECENT MIGRATION 251 The attention which the Northward Negro migration has attracted is out of proportion to its importance as compared to other migration movements in the decade 1910-20. It seems that the Negroes born in the North and West have a record for migration which far exceeds that of the Negroes born in the South. The Census of 1920 informs us that the percentage of Northern and Western Negroes living outside of their states of birth was 27.6 percent, as compared to only 19.2 percent for the Southern Negroes. Why should the Negroes of the North and West be so much more migratory than Negroes of the South? Another significant fact in regard to Negro migration of the period 1910-20 is that it was mostly a movement from one section of the South to another, and not a movement to the North. As compared to the 340,- 260 Negroes who left the South, there were 1,063,332 Negroes who mi- grated from one Southern state to another.® But the most outstanding fact about the migratory movement of I910-20 is that vastly more white people migrated than Negroes. The number of Southern white people who migrated from their native states between I910 and 1920 was 1,796,089,‘ and of this number 286,- 039 migrated to the North and 194,447 migrated to the Northwest.° The South should have been as much excited over the departure of 480,486 of her white population as over the departure of 340,260 of her colored folk. Having stated the bald facts in reference to the migratory movement dwellers in the country) who had moved into the North; also allowance would have to be made for the differences in sex and age between the Northern and Southern migrating groups, the latter perhaps being made up more of males and of individuals of advanced age. And finally, allowance would have to be made for the difference in the birth-rate of the migrating groups. All of these differences, I think, would favor an actual Southward migration in excess of the figures indicated by the census, and an actual Northward migration less than the figures indicated. ® Census 1920, Vol. 2, p. 623. *Tbid., Vol. 2, p. 623. 5 The figure 286,039 is the difference between the Southern-born whites living in the North in 1920 (See Census 1920, Vol. 2, p. 614) and the number living in the North in 1910 (See Census 1910, Vol. 1, p. 699). The Census Report here uses the term “North” to include New England and the Middle Atlantic, East North Central, and West North Central states. To ascertain the migration of the Southern whites between 1910 and 1920 to the Mountain and Pacific states, we deduct 335,542, the number of Southern-born inhabitants of these states in 1910 (See Census roo, Vol. 1, p. 745), from 529,989, the number of Southern- born inhabitants of those states in 1920. (See Census 1920, Vol. 2, p. 631.) 252 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of white and colored people during the decade 1910-20, I shall now turn to a consideration of the influences which have determined that move- ment. The causes influencing Negro migration have been of two kinds, namely, social and economic. Among the social causes we need to set down the lynchings, peon- age, poor educational opportunities, injustice in the courts, chain- gangs, segregation laws, resulting in discomfort in travel, the depriva- tion of library and public park facilities, the exploitation of the Negro tenants by the white landlords, the bad housing conditions, and the gen- eral feeling that it is the purpose of the whites “to keep the Negro down.” Evidence that these considerations are important fac- tors is found in the effort of the white people, in sections where labor had become scarce, to bring about better conditions as an inducement for the Negroes to remain at home. Turning now to the economic causes of the migration we have to take into account the extraordinary demand for labor in the industrial centers. The outbreak of the World War brought into the United States a flood of gold from European countries to pay for war products and food. The European demand for munitions, and every kind of war equipment, brought into existence a number of new factories, and these in turn called for an enlarged output of mining products. At the same time the swell in the volume of money which had spread all over the country caused a marvelous increase in the demand for commodities. This extraordinary stimulation to manufacturing and mining created an unusual demand for labor; and the rapid rise in wages led to a rush of labor from the small towns and rural districts to the centers of in- dustry. The migration of labor to meet this extraordinary demand came mostly from the Southern states, for the reason that the low price of cotton, due to the paralysis of European factories, affected labor condi- tions in the South adversely. In the West, where the price of wheat was high, there was not the same inducement for laborers to leave the farms, but nevertheless so many of them did migrate that the problem of securing harvesters for the wheat became distressing. When in 1917 the United States entered the World War, the demand for labor, already great, was multiplied many fold, because of the estab- lishment of many munition plants, and other factories to turn out war supplies, the enormous work needed in the shipyards, the coal, iron, RECENT MIGRATION 253 copper, zinc, and oil fields. The continual inflation of money and the rising wages increased the purchasing power of the people, and there was a demand for goods beyond the power of manufacturers to supply. In the face of all these increasing demands for commodities there was a declining supply of labor, due to the drafting of young men into the military and naval services, and the movement of our foreign popula- tion back to Europe. The labor shortage was such that every man and woman in the country who was able to work could get a job at good wages. The general complaint was that labor could not be had at any price. The movement of labor to meet the demand, after our entrance into the war, as during the ten years prior, was toward the industrial and mining centers, and was drawn from the same sections of the country. The white people of the South, in greater numbers than the colored people, were drawn into this movement. Young men and women by the thousands, from the towns and rural districts of the South, flocked to the departments in Washington, to the munition plants and other establishments in the industrial centers. Even many farmers with families, including both renters and owners of plantations, left their farms for the high wages of the factory. Due to the same influences, large masses of Negroes from the towns and rural districts were also drawn into this migratory movement. The demand for labor was so great that many industries in the North, which formerly had employed only white labor, were glad to give jobs to Negroes; and industries which formerly had employed only a few Negroes to do unskilled work were glad to hire more Ne- groes, and to train them for tasks which required skill. Consequently the Negroes came to share with the white people in the opportunity to earn high wages, and they, as the white people, rushed off to the in- dustrial centers. The migration of the Negroes toward the industrial centers at- tracted national attention more on account of the character of the mi- gration than on account of its volume, and gave rise to the erroneous notion that it was a movement confined to the Negro population and that it must, therefore, be accounted for by the discovery of causes which were influencing the Negroes but not the white people. The fact is that, in spite of the supposed natural migratory tendency of the Negro, the white people of the South have always migrated in greater numbers than the Negro, chiefly because they have been better acquainted with the opportunities outside of their places of birth, and 254 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE better able financially to take advantage of them. A contrast in the di- rection of the white and Negro migrants is that the former have had a greater tendency to move Westward, attracted by the cheaper and more fertile lands. In the decade 1910-20 the West South Central states, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, gained in population 1,257,- 042, largely due to the migration of white people from the South At- lantic and East South Central states. During the same period 286,039 whites migrated to the North, and 194,447 to the Northwest. On the other hand, the Negro migrants, being more distinctly a wage class, have tended to move toward the industrial centers. The migratory tendency of the Southern white people, as compared to the Negroes, is shown in the following statistics: According to the IQIO census, 22.4 percent of the white people were living in some other state than that in which they were born, as compared to 16.6 percent for the Negroes; and, according to the census of 1920, the figures were 22.5 percent for the whites, and 19.9 percent for the Negroes.® As to the white people born in and living outside of their divisions in 1920, the figures were as follows: South Atlantic states, 11.6 per- cent; East South Central states, 22.2 percent; West South Central states, 8.9 percent. ~ As to the Negroes born in and living outside of their divisions, the figures were: South Atlantic states, 11.3 percent; East South Central states, 17.9 percent; West South Central states, 5.9 percent.’ While these figures show that the white people of the South have up to 1920 always migrated in greater numbers and also in greater pro- portions than the Negro population, an examination of the last census brings out the fact that a turning-point has been reached in the respec- tive proportions of the Negro and white migrants. In both interstate and intersectional migration, the proportion of Negroes affected is now greater than that of the whites. The economic reasons for this change are: First, the opening of avenues of employment to Negroes hereto- fore closed; second, the increasing financial ability of the Negroes to migrate, and third, the increasing inducements for the white people to remain at home, arising from the development of diversified industries. It is the rule among all old civilized countries for the wage class to migrate more freely than the property-holding class, and, therefore, we should expect that in the future the Negroes, who are predominantly * Census 1920, Vol. 2, p. 622. *Tbid., p. 616. * Ibid., Vol. z, p. 623. RECENT MIGRATION 255 wage workers, will migrate in larger proportions, though less in the ag- gregate than the white people who are predominantly property holders. The amazing thing is that heretofore the property-holding class in the South has been the more migratory. A striking difference between the migration of Negroes and that of the whites of the South is that the former are more influenced by mass contagion and the blandishments of labor agents, and usually de- part in batches and reach their destination in batches; while the latter, acting more on individual initiative, depart from widely separated localities and arrive at widely scattered destinations, so that neither their departure nor their arrival attracts public attention. Among the other purely economic causes affecting Negro migration in 1910-20, one of importance was the devastations of the boll weevil in the cotton belt. In Mississippi the heaviest migration of Negroes was from the counties most affected by the boll weevil.1? Referring to Georgia, Z. R. Pettet, state crop estimator, says, “The Negro exodus has been greatest in the territory that has been infested (with the wee- vil) long enough to make it difficult to grow a paying crop of cotton. The reported acute labor-shortage line coincides closely with the third- year infestation, except along the southern line." In addition to the ravages of this insect, there was a destructive flood which swept through the black belt of Alabama in July, 1916.'? In a number of counties, “food was distributed to the starving Negroes by the Federal Department of Agriculture and by the organization of the Red Cross.’ 1% “Nearly $50,000 was made up in and around the town of Demopolis, and distributed among the most destitute ones. In several counties they were given work on the public roads for a time. The lumber mills, and other public employments, attempted to take care of the surplus of labor. ** “By the spring of 1916,” says the Department of Labor’s report on Negro migration, “there was a real surplus of labor throughout the black belt which was ready to respond to the demand for labor and higher wages in the northern and eastern States.’ °“Negro Migration 1916-17,” U. S. Department of Labor, 1919, pp. 17, 21, 50, 76, 79. * Ibid., p. 56. “ I[bid., p. 16. 4 Thid., p. 60. * Thid., p. 61. * Tbid., p. 61. * [bid., p. 62. 256 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE However, neither the boll weevil nor the floods has had more than an accelerating effect upon the Negro migration. In considerable num- bers the Negroes migrated from sections where there had been no wee- vil and no floods. The migration of the Negroes was due fundamen- tally to general economic conditions affecting all sections of the country, and influencing whites and blacks alike. Since the World War the northward migration of the Negroes has continued, though at a diminished rate, and the same is true of the mi- gration of the white people. This migration of both races toward the industrial centers, and the less exploited agricultural regions will con- tinue as long as the floodgates of foreign immigration are kept closed. The absence of a reservoir of foreign labor is causing an unusual de- mand for the native workers, and giving employment to Negroes in many industries heretofore epen only to whites. In the course of time, however, our country, like the old countries of Europe, will have filled up and will have a yearly surplus of native labor. When that time comes, the Negroes may find it less easy to secure employment in the industrial centers. While the economic motive has been the larger factor in the migra- tion of the Negro, we should not underestimate the other motives. Among the thousands of Negroes swept along with the current toward the industrial centers, there were undoubtedly some whose main con- sideration in moving was the desire to escape the terrifying and unbear- able behavior of their white neighbors. Also there were among the Negro migrants some whose main motive was an aspiration for better educational opportunities for the children, and the hope of finding out- side of the South an atmosphere of greater civic freedom. The white people in the South migrate in very large numbers primarily to get bet- ter education for their children, but do not for this reason go out of their native states. They move from the backwoods to the progressive towns. Giving due credit to the number of Negro migrants who may have been influenced by undesirable conditions, there can still be no doubt of the fact that if the social conditions had been ever so much better than they were, the volume of Negro migration would not have been greatly less, since the white people, with no complaint against social conditions, migrated in greater numbers than the Negroes. The Northern Negro press, which accepts only the social motive for the Negro migration, regards it as a just punishment to the South for its bad treatment of the Negro, and is in high glee over the imagined RECENT MIGRATION 257 discomfiture of the Southern whites over the shortage of labor. It has, throughout the period of Negro migration, conducted a campaign in the interest of inducing as many Negroes as possible to leave the South. Great bundles of their papers have been sent to towns all through the South, containing harrowing presentations of the lynchings, peonage, jim-crow cars, and other malignities of which the Negroes are the vic- tims, and, at the same time, advertising the high wages, greater freedom and better general treatment of the Negro in the North. The effort to explain the migrations of the Negroes of the United States as mainly influenced by social considerations leads to numerous contradictions and inconsistencies. For example, if the Negro migrations are assumed to arise from social conditions, 1.e., from oppression and outrages, we shall have to admit that the Negro is subject to greater oppression and outrages in the North than in the South, for the reason that the Northern Negro is even more migratory than the Negro of the South. If it be contended that the Negro migration was prompted mainly by the desire to escape undesirable social conditions, we shall have to make clear that social conditions in the South became, during Ig10-20, much worse than they had ever been before, and there is no set of facts to support such a view. If it be assumed that the status of the Negro has been gradually becoming worse, how are we to account for the large volume of Negro migration from the North to the South? The Negro Year Book, 1925-6, says: “It is noteworthy that while the migration of Negroes to the North goes on, the migration of Negroes to the South continues and that the number of (Northern born) Negroes, 47,223, living in the South in 1920 was 5,734 more than the number, 41,489, from the North and West who were living in the South in 1910.” 1® What are the outrageous conditions which have been driving the Negroes from the North? and what fools to migrate into a country where they have never known anything but the heel of oppression? Again, if the Negroes have been fleeing only from undesirable social conditions, why do so many Negroes from Mississippi migrate to Lou- isiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas? In 1g9to there were more Mississippi-born Negroes in Arkansas alone than in the whole of the North. ?? Or why should so large a proportion of the Negro migration of 7 Ras * Donald, op. cit., p. 16. 258 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE 1916-17 have chosen to locate in Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia ? 38 | The migration of Negroes since the World War, as prior to it, has been influenced, like that of the white people, primarily by economic considerations, and no other theory_is consistent with the facts. The greatest inconsistency of those who claim that the Negroes mi- grate because of persecution and oppression is that they, above all others, are most prone to brag of the “marvelous progress’ which the Negroes have made since the Civil War. They swell with pride over the fact that the Negroes own some 10,000,000 acres of land—an area larger than England or Belgium—that they have accumulated $1,500,- 000,000 of property, that their literacy has increased from ten percent to seventy percent, etc., etc. Surely if the Negroes have achieved all of these wonderful things in such a short time, they must have done so in an environment which was not altogether crushing, and surely some of their white neighbors must have reached out to them a helping hand. Turning to the migration of Northern-born Negroes into the South, the explanation is that the South offers excellent opportunities for the professionally educated Negro. There is an ever-increasing demand in the South for teachers in Negro colleges and universities, for doc- tors, dentists, lawyers, and preachers; and, because professional educa- tion is further advanced in the North than in the South, many North- ern-educated Negroes find their best opportunity for a career in the South. Also, due to a similar backwardness in professional education among the Southern white people, many professionally educated North- ern-born white men and women find inviting fields for work in the Southland. A large proportion of the professors in Southern col- leges and universities for the white people are Northern born. The South has always been hospitable to this class of Northern immigrants, and nothing has done more to remove sectional prejudice and promote mutual sympathy and good will than the commingling of white North- ern and Southern men and women in our institutions of learning. A contrast between the white and Negro migrants into the South is that the latter, with few exceptions, tend to propagate and intensify sectional prejudice and to cultivate animosities between the blacks and whites. The effects of the Negro migration since the World War have been in one respect equally disadvantageous to both races. Because the mi- * Donald, op. cit., pp. 53-5. RECENT MIGRATION 25 gration was too sudden it inconvenienced the South in some districts by displacing labor which could not be as suddenly replaced, and it was a detriment to the Negroes by reason of the overcrowding of the houses in centers to which they migrated, and the inability of so many new- comers to adjust themselves to their new environment. The riots in Chicago, Washington, St. Louis, and elsewhere grew out of conditions made by a too sudden influx of the Negro population. Aside from the inconvenience growing out of the loss of Negro la- borers in a few sections of the South, the Southern states have lost nothing by the Negro migration. In spite of the number of Negroes who left the South during 1910-20, the South had a larger Negro population in 1920 than in 1910 by 162,632. And as an offset to the departure of 330,260 Negroes, the South gained in foreign white stock 313,947,'° and in total white population 3,584,759. So far as agriculture is concerned, the shortage of Negro labor in the few sections where there has been a shortage, has had the effect of doing away with the one-crop system in favor of smaller farms and more diversified cultivation. The transition to more diversified and in- tensive farming is bringing larger returns per acre, and tending to keep in the country the young white men who heretofore have been migrat- ing to other sections. So far as domestic service is concerned, the South would be better off without the Negro or other domestic class just as the West is better off without such a class. In the West every member of a family is hab- ituated to domestic work and, by means of up-to-date kitchen and other household equipment, the people live on a high standard and save mil- lions of dollars which the Southern people throw away on servants. The departure of the Negro would raise the wages of all labor, and give the South a laboring class living on high standards and forming an as- similable element of citizenship. If the Negroes were out of the way, the South would have the same chance to get white labor as any other section of the country. A Southern man, or Northern man for that mat- ter, can hardly be found who would not admit that the South, or any other section, would be better off with a population all white. But while the Southern people realize this fact, they are not anxious to see the change come about. They are adjusted to the state of things which exists, and, upon the whole, they like the Negro. As for the effects upon the Negro of his migration to the North, they may be looked at from two points of view. Census 1920, Vol. 2, p. 902. 260 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE From the standpoint of physical vitality the movement of the Negro towards the cities of the North might be regarded as a very great mis- take for the reason that away from the South Negroes die faster than they are born. Perhaps Booker T. Washington had this fact in mind when he urged the Negro to remain in the country and not rush off to the cities. Is not the city too much of a lure for the Negro and is he not facing extinction by yielding to it? But assuming that the Negro cannot survive in the cities of the North, is that a sufficient reason why he should tarry forever in the country? Is it not a fact that what we call the best class of white people, i. e., those of wealth and culture, who mostly dwell in tne big cities, are tending toward extinction because of the decline in their birth-rate? And yet do they not continue to drift toward the great cities? From the standpoint of the cultural advance of the Negro, there are reasons for thinking that his migration to the great cities is an immense gain. If Dr. DuBois is right in his view that the salvation of the Negro, or any race, is to be found only in its exceptional men, the “Talented Tenth” who serve as guides to the masses, then the great city must be for the Negro, as for the white man, an important factor in furnishing the opportunity and inspiration for distinguished leadership. The general drift of population toward the great centers, and the rapid rise in standards of living in consequence of it, are raising many difficult social problems; until the white man has solved them he should be a little charitable with the Negro for his not solving them. [gd cad Bim d D6 THE NEGRO IN LITERATURE AND ART J \ hi ahs EIN | ia \ Bi) 4 i NY ‘ ie) ute ay) rae Mes * Leal Want TG | ; (4h) 1M bite We acai iv Wael en a hy oe he Krersiat hot ‘Nba it een in ee okey 4 Mu ibe te “hmaedh IG ey ee ‘f vio yee one an Ny sh 403 a “bapantaee ia bh Manda hpi "Ki vie * Hay ‘ie: hy hy ) nnn net ‘ dy iy 1 \ vita { f ti i} ae t Ay # \i hy )) b) Litiaty: high ay oat + AW Ay my ay Dba Wy re xi fee ae Aah ee, ha Hye Nee? ner iH mi By) ie, ’ Mn it hk: ny u cst n eM ait ) Ww, Dini vod bias: Priel iN Heh a Ait i aM Sh ' Pay au wiv ag aan i . ‘ i i n “inte eet wi esha sh ds hi i he | 9 Oke Wy Ht: abe ih pith ma aay, avin ie ' ; oe re i: he ‘ Te Hea 4 bay | nis v4 nal ‘Ny BAW Ayekey ba We ae CORT Ua Banat ; a) Wie ae ir tt i ant ey cf vy Hi ‘1 ; in ; j A ( yay a tt, " 80 Ai TANS aati vee a aut ate 4 su A rit | ane ie a cheer | NIT ARS ake 2H AEE dn, PALS Ue ‘Aeatae: ah ; whi i) WTR bei ie Sa uty Lat 4 ae aa ' Le iia " yi any ina Dae i . me ime , he inhi any pe Ber oa 5 i! ee r ein ’ J gr oy oo . | CHAPTER 36 WRITINGS OF NORTHERN WHITES References to the Negro by Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper—The Anti-slavery Poetry of Whittier, Lowell, and Whitman—Mrs. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin—Olmsted’s Journeys through the South—Sociological Studies of the Negro | attempting to indicate the extent to which the Negro has influenced the literature of the Caucasians in the United States, it is difficult to know what to include or leave out. Beside the poems and novels with Negro themes, we have hundreds of pamphlets, thousands of maga- zine articles, hundreds of thousands of newspaper stories, and whole libraries of histories and government documents. The tons of paper used up in writings about the Negro would pretty nearly fill all of the freight cars in the United States, and the floods of ink used upon the paper would form a lake of sufficient magnitude to immerse a large proportion of the Caucasian population of the earth. Within the limits of a single chapter I can only refer briefly to some of the publications which have survived and taken rank as literature as distinguished from history, economies, and polemics. Among the earliest nineteenth century writers to portray the Negro were Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. The former gives us many picturesque and humorous sketches of Negro life, and the latter in his Satanstoe gives us a realistic account of the annual festival held by the Negroes of New York in Colonial times, and known as Pinkster. Incidentally Cooper throws an interesting side- light on Negro superstitions. When the slavery controversy arose in the United States, John Greenleaf Whittier came to be famous as an anti-slavery poet. He set to meter all phases of slavery from the slave ship to the slave’s death. The following lines are from “The Slave Ships’: “Gloomily stood the captain, With his arms upon his breast, With his cold brow sternly knotted, And his iron lip compressed. ‘Are all the dead ones over?’ 263 264 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Growled through that matted lip,— ‘The blind ones are no better, Let’s lighten the good ship!’ “Hark, from the ship’s dark bosom, The very sounds of hell! The ringing clank of iron,— The maniac’s short, sharp yell. The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled,— The starving infant’s moan,— The horror of a breaking heart Poured through a mother’s groan.” “The Farewell’ expresses the lament of a slave mother over the sale of her daughters: “Gone, gone—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone,— Toiling through the weary day, And at night the spoiler’s prey. “O that they had earlier died, Sleeping calmly, side by side, Where the tyrant’s power is o’er, And the fetter galls no more. “Gone, gone—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone, From Virginia’s hills and waters,— Woe is me, my stolen daughters.” James Russell Lowell was very profoundly stirred up over the in- stitution of slavery, and, both in poetry and prose, attacked it with all the versatility and scintillation of his genius. His reactions to slavery were expressed chiefly in his Biglow Papers, which consisted of a series of satirical poems written in the vernacular of the common man, and covering all aspects of the slavery controversy. The Mexican War, the Acts of Congress and those of the Presidents, and the behavior and attitudes of the leading public men became targets for his wit and satire. Much of his Biglow Papers is unintelligible to the present-day reader because of the many references to events and men known only to the historian. His first paper, dated 1846, gives his general reaction to slavery and is a fair sample of his brilliant satire: “Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, Haint they cut a thunderin’ swarth, (Helped by Yankee renegaders,) Thru the vartu o’ the North! ——— WRITINGS OF NORTHERN WHITES We begin to think it’s nater To take sarse an’ not be riled ;— Who’d expect to see a tater All on eend at bein’ biled? * * * “They may talk o’ Freedom’s airy Tell they’re pupple in the face,— It’s a grand gret cemetary Fer the barthrights of our race; They jest want this Californy So’s to lug new slave-states in To abuse ye, an’ to scorn ye, An’ to plunder ye like sin. “Aint it cute to see a Yankee Take sech everlastin’ pains All to git the Devil’s thankee, Helpin’ on ’em weld their chains? Wy, it’s jest ez clear ez figgers, Clear ez one an’ one make two, Chaps thet make black slaves o’ niggers Want to make wite slaves 0’ you... * * * “Wal, go ’long to help ’em stealin’ Bigger pens to cram with slaves, Help the men that’s ollers dealin’ Insults on your fathers’ graves; Help the strong to grind the feeble, Help the many agin the few, Help the men thet call your people Witewashed slaves an’ peddlin’ crew! “Massachusetts, God forgive her, She’s akneelin’ with the rest, She, thet ough’ to ha’ clung fer ever In her grand old eagle-nest ; She thet ough’ to stand so fearless Wile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin’ up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world! “Ha’n’t they sold your colored seamen? Ha’n’t they made your env’ys wiz? Wut’ll make ye act like freemen? Wut’ll git your dander riz? Come, Ill tell ye wut [’m thinkin’ Is our dooty in this fix, They’d ha’ done ’t ez quick ez winkin’ In the days o’ seventy-six. 265 206 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “Clang the bells in every steeple, Call all true men to disown The tradoocers of our people, The enslavers o’ their own; Let our dear old Bay State proudly Put the trumpet to her mouth, Let her ring this messidge loudly In the ears of all the South:— “°T'll return ye good for evil Much ez we frail mortils can, But I wun’t go help the Devil Makin’ man the cus o’ man; Call me coward, call me traitor, Jest ez suits your mean idees,— Here I stand a tyrant-hater, An’ the friend o’ God an’ Peace!’ “Ef id my way I hed ruther We should go to work an’ part, They take one way, we take t’other, Guess it wouldn’t break my heart; Man had ough’ to put asunder Them thet God has noways jined, An’ I shouldn’t gretly wonder Ef there’s thousands o’ my mind.” * That odd genius, Walt Whitman, gave the Negro problem a fillip in his poem, “I Sing the Body Electric.” A slave is on the block for sale and Whitman plays the part of auctioneer as follows: “Gentlemen, look on this wonder, Whatever the bids of the bidders, they cannot be high enough for it; For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant, For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d. “In this head the all-baffling brain, In it and below it the makings of heroes... . Within there runs blood, The same old blood! The same red-running blood! There swells and jets a heart; there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations. (Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlours and lecture rooms?) * Biglow Papers, pp. 65, 66, 68-70. WRITINGS OF NORTHERN WHITES 267 “This is not only one man, this is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns; In him the start of populous states and rich republics, Of him countless immortal lives and countless embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the off- spring of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from your- self, if you could trace back through centuries? )” Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was the most sensational and also the most influential book of all the anti- slavery literature. I remember reading this book in my youth and weeping over it with no thought whatever of its breathing an animus against the South. It impressed me as a truthful and intensely interest- ing revelation of human nature with no more exaggeration than is legiti- mate and necessary in all works of art in order to convey realistic im- pressions. The chief reason that Uncle Tom’s Cabin proved to be a firebrand to the South was that it happened to be written in the year 1852. If it had been written in 1924 it probably would not have been so widely read, but would certainly have been read with absorbed interest in all sections of the country and would have taken respectable rank as a piece of historical literature. Mark Twain wrote more about the Negro than Mrs. Stowe, and looked at him from more angles. While Mrs. Stowe dealt with the Negro from the standpoint of the controversialist, Mark Twain dealt with him primarily from the standpoint of the artist. No Southern writer has seen more of the humorous and comic side of the Negro than Mark Twain and no Northern writer has seen more of the tragic side. A fuller discussion of Mark Twain and the Negro will be found in the next chapter. Frederick L. Olmsted, a native of Connecticut, who made several journeys through the South between 1855 and 1861, embodied his ob- servations in three books: Seaboard Slave States, 1856; A Journey in the Back Country, 1861; and A Journey Through Texas, 1857. These books, in addition to having historic value, possess a human interest, a picturesqueness of description and charm of narration, which entitle them to rank as literature. The author was a man of unusual insight, of outstanding individuality, and of forceful exposition. Some of his descriptions remind one strikingly of the style of Charles Dickens. 268 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The Negro problem looms up in Jack London’s South Sea Tales, wherein two ideas stand out; first, that, ““The white man’s mission is to form the world,’ and second, that, ‘The black will never understand the white, nor the white the black.” These ideas have been taken as the text of a book, The Clash of Color, by an English author, Basil Mathews. Vachel Lindsay, a poet who interprets the life of the Middle West, and attempts to bring poetry back to an art appealing to the ear rather than the eye, has in his repertoire several song-verses on the Negro of which the following is notable: a THE CONGO Av TUDY OF. TE NEGRO eR AC I. Their Basic Savagery Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, A deep rolling Pounded on the table, bass. Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, BOOM, With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision. I could not turn from their revel in derision. THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH More deliber- THE BLACK, ate. CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDENSolemnly TRACK. chanted. Then along that riverbank A thousand miles Tatooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. A rapidly piling And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the climax of speed warriors, and racket. “BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors, “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” WRITINGS OF NORTHERN WHITES 269 A roaring, epic, rag-time tune With a philo- From the mouth of the Congo sophic pause. To the Mountains of the Moor Death is an Elephant, Torch-eyed and horrible, Shrilly and with Foam-flanked and terrible. a heavily ac- BOOM, steal the pygmies, cented metre. BOOM, kill the Arabs, BOOM, kill the white men, moO .HOO, HOO, Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Like the wind in Burning in hell for his hand-maimed host. the chimney. Hear now the demons chuckle and yell Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, Blown past the marsh where the butter-flies play :— All the o “Be careful what you do, sounds very Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, golden. And all of the other Heavy accents Gods of the Congo, very heavy. Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Light accents Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, very light. Last Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.” line whispered. Part II of the poem entitled “Their Irrepressible High Spirits,” and Part III entitled “The Hope of Their Religion,” follow Part I above quoted by courtesy of The Macmillan Company from Vachel Lindsay’s The Congo and Other Poems, copyright by them in rgr4. A novel, Birthright, by T. S. Stribling, portrays the life of the edu- cated Negro. The hero, Peter Siner, is a graduate of Harvard, and the heroine, Cissie Deldine, is also well educated. Both are mulattoes. The author attributes the superiority of these two individuals to their white blood. Of Peter he says: “It was the white blood in his own veins that had sent him struggling up North, that had brought him back with this flame in his heart for his own people. It was the white blood in Cissie that kept her struggling to stand up, to speak an un- broken tongue, to gather around her the delicate atmosphere and charm of a gentlewoman.” Veiled Aristocrats by Gertrude Sanborn is a novel showing the in- fluence of white blood in Negro veins, and the evil of miscegenation. The plot is laid in Chicago. Waldo Frank is the author of a novel, Holiday, which deals with 270 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE race prejudice and the tragedy resulting from the affinity between a Southern white girl and a Negro youth. Among the authors who have given us sociological studies of the Negro, several deserve to be mentioned because of the high literary character of their work. Frederick Hoffman, who in 1896 was statis- tician for the Prudential Life Insurance Company, undertook a study of the vitality of the Negro with a view to determining whether the Negro was a safe risk for a life insurance company. The results of his investigation came out under the title Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. This was the first exhaustive study of the data bearing upon the Negro’s vitality. Mr. Hoffman thought that the increasing death-rate of the Negro indicated inferior vitality and the ultimate extinction of the race. The data up to the time of Mr. Hoffman’s investigation seemed to justify his conclusions. More recently Ray Stannard Baker of Boston has visited the South and West for the purpose of studying the Negro problem at first hand, and has embodied the results of his observations in Following the Color Line, 1908. Mr. Baker displays no sectional bias, but is equally sympathetic with the Negro and the white man in the difficult problems of adjust- ment which they have to face. He is a man of broad grasp and dis- criminating judgment. Another study of the Negro problem by a Northern journalist is that by Raymond Patterson in his book The Negro and His Needs. Mr. Patterson is a graduate of Yale University, and was a classmate and friend of William Howard Taft. After serving for years as a news- paper correspondent at Washington, Mr. Patterson made an extensive tour through the South with a view to acquainting himself with the conditions underlying the Negro problem. He wrote a series of letters embodying his observations for the Chicago Tribune, and in 1911 revised and republished these letters in book form. A foreword to the book, written by his friend, President Taft, heartily commends the author’s presentation of facts as valuable aids to the understanding of the Negro problem, but, of course, disclaims any endorsement of the author’s conclusions, The following extracts will give some idea of the general reaction of Mr. Patterson to the problem: “The Southern man is too close to the negro and the Northern man WRITINGS OF NORTHERN WHITES 271 too far away. Somewhere between these two widely different points of view must be found ultimately the solution of the Negro problem.” # “T doubt if there is a first-class hotel in any large Northern city which could make a practice of receiving Negro guests and keep out of bankruptcy. Yet in these same Northern communities, where, very properly, the Negro is not granted the slightest semblance of social equality, the demand is constantly made that the South shall permit him to vote and hold important offices, which would of necessity in- volve him in constant association with the white people. The people of the North must divest themselves of the idea that the welfare of the Negro is for the present at least in any way connected with the exercise of the tight of suffragel*/ 0% “T do not believe any intelligent, fair-minded, and liberal Northern man can spend even a few months in an exclusive investigation of the race question without becoming convinced, as I have become convinced, that the granting of suffrage to the Negroes, immediately after the war, was a horrible blunder. For while here and there one may find Negroes who are eminently fitted to exercise the right of suffrage, the time has not yet come when it is safe to give the ballot to the Negro millions. It is doubtless true that the methods adopted by the South to eliminate the Negro from politics were at first generally cruel, and are now frequently unconstitutional, but an honest survey of the situation must prove that they adopted the only way to repair the serious breach in the social and commercial fabric of the South, and that the end justified the means.®... “Tt is a simple thing to stand in a Northern pulpit or to sit in a Northern office chair and from that safe vantage ground to speak or write about equal rights, the genius of the American Constitution, the beauty of a free ballot; but the political situation in the South is not a matter of theory, but of fact. If it happens to come in conflict with our American institutions, so much the worse for the institutions. Looked at from the standpoint of theory, the existing political situa- tion in all the Southern States is a cruel outrage, a manifest violation of the basic principles of the Declaration of Independence; looked at in the light of social, commercial, and moral conditions, it is evident that to disturb present conditions rashly, in obedience to the voice of unin- * Patterson, The Negro and His Needs, p. 9. *Thid., p. 107. *Tbid., p. 109. 272 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE formed Northern demagogues, would be disastrous, first to the white man, but ultimately and most completely to the black man. “To travel through the South is to become constantly more and more impressed with the fact that the best interests of the negro are not in any way identified with politics. Whether he has or has not the ballot is a matter which may well be left for settlement until his material and intellectual condition has been vastly improved. For what the Negro most needs to-day is education of head and hand, an education whose sole object shall be to help him earn his daily bread, to teach him to dispose intelligently of the fruits of his labor. Give the ballot to-day to the tens of thousands of ignorant negroes in the cane fields of Louisiana, and they will be much worse off in a year’s time than they now are.®... “Just at the present time, the great masses of the Negroes are dense- ly ignorant but they have their race prejudice, just as much as the white man, and when they have the ballot their votes will go to the Negro candidate, never to the white man.’... “The manifest future of the Negro race in America lies along the line of mental and industrial culture. Booker T. Washington is right, and Burghardt DuBois and T. Thomas Fortune are dangerously wrong. The Negro editors of the North, who write inflammatory editorials which are circulated among the ignorant plantation hands, are not the real friends of the black race. Booker T. Washington has had to win his victories devoid of the sympathy and support of the leaders of his own race. Yet, in some strange way, this great Negro, a century ahead of his own people in intellectual grasp of a complex situation, sees clearly that the black man must be equipped to fight the real battles of the world, that he must learn economy and frugality, that he must acquire property, and that he must make for himself a place in the community from which he cannot be dislodged... . “Tn conclusion, the country must not forget the complications of the race question. There are issues at stake involving politics, education, labor, immigration, industrial and agricultural necessities, all of which must be settled long before we reach the great issue of possible social equality, which, after all, for the present century, is only the fabric of a dream. “Finally, let me reiterate the declaration that the only permanent ° Patterson, op. ctt., pp. 112-13. LOI, 0. LEA, *Ibid., p. 2006. WRITINGS OF NORTHERN WHITES 273 settlement of the race question in America must come through the edu-. cation of the Negro; that this must proceed from the ground up through the district school, and not through the university; and that the people of New York, and of Illinois, and of Oregon are quite as responsible for negro illiteracy as the people of Georgia and Arkansas. “The uplifting of the negro must be done by the nation.” ® Robert E. Speer is the author of two books setting forth the Chris- tian conception of the race problem. The titles are Of One Blood and Race and Race Relations. Eugene O’Neill, playwright, has written two dramas dealing with Negro life—All God’s Chillun Got Wings and The Emperor Jones. George S. Merriam is the author of a book, The Negro and the Nation, which is a study of the Negro problem from the standpoint of history. It covers the period from the introduction of slavery in America to 1906, and discusses the chief political events, including the Civil War and Reconstruction, growing out of the slavery issue. The author is a man of excellent scholarship, of historical insight, and of wide sympathy, which enable him to write without visible bias, or sectional coloring. In every phase of American history in which the Negro is involved he sees and frankly states the virtues and short- comings of both the North and the South. The distinguishing feature of Mr. Merriam’s book is its high ideal- ism. No one can fail to admire the staunch moral fiber which stands out on every page. The only criticism which a Southern man might make of Mr. Merriam is that his idealism implies a future relationship of the races which does not seem attainable in view of our knowledge of human nature as it is now constituted. In his last chapter, “Looking Forward,” Mr. Merriam says: “We, the people of the United States, are to face and deal with this matter. We are all in it together. Secession has failed, coloniza- tion is impossible. Southerner and Northerner, white man and black man, we must work out our common salvation. It is up to us,—it is up to us all! “The saving principle is as simple as the multiplication table or the Golden Rule. Each man must do his best, each must be allowed to do his best, and each must be helped to do his best. Opportunity for every one, according to his capacity and his merit,—that is democracy. Help for the weaker, as the strong is able to give it,—that is Christianity. Start from this center, and the way opens out through each special ei OtiheD. 211. 274 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE difficulty. The situation is less a puzzle for the intellect than a chal- lenge to the will and heart. “First of all, it is up to the black man himself. His freedom, won at such cost, means only opportunity, and it is for him to improve the opportunity. As he shows himself laborious, honest, chaste, loyal to his family and to the community, so only can he win to his full manhood. The decisive settlement of the whole matter is being worked out in the cotton fields and cabins, for the most part with an unconsciousness of the ultimate issues that is at once pathetic and sublime,—by the upward pressure of human need and inspiration, by family affection, by hunger for higher things.’° .. . “But for the right Ra enone of the working relations of the two races, the heavier responsibility rests with the whites, because theirs is the greater power. They can prescribe what the blacks can hardly do other than accept. “What we are now facing is not slavery,—an institution that may be abolished by statute—but its offspring, Caste—a spirit pervasive, subtle, sophistical, tyrannic. It can be overcome only by a spirit more pervasive, persistent and powerful—the spirit of brotherhood... . “Each of us dreams his own dream, and thinks his own thoughts. Differ as we may, let us unite wherever we can in purpose and action. The perfect social ideal will be slow in realization, but it is to-day’s straightforward step along some plain path that is bringing us nearer to it. The black workman who every day does his best work; the white workman who welcomes him to his side; the trade-union that opens its doors alike to both colors; the teacher spending heart and brain for her pupils; the statesman planning justice and opportunity for all; the sheriff setting his life between his prisoner and the mob; the dark-skinned guest cheerfully accepting a lower place than his due at life’s feast; the white-skinned host saying, Friend, come up higher,— it is these who are solving the race problem.” !* * Merriam, The Negro and the Nation, p. 392. vind Gags Vbat neta tote y ™ Ibid., p. 410. CHAPTER'37 MARK TWAIN’S DELINEATION Pudd’nhead Wilson, Dealing with the Tragedy of the Mulatto—Tom Sawyer Abroad—General Attitude of Mark Twain toward the Negro N the writings of Mark Twain, the Negro plays a conspicuous part in Tom Sawyer Abroad, Huckleberry Finn, and Pudd’nhead Wilson. Mark Twain came from slave-holding stock. His father received several slaves by inheritance. Jennie, the house servant, and Uncle Ned, the general utility man, were the companions of Mark Twain’s youth. From them he became acquainted with the ghost stories and other superstitious lore characteristic of the slaves. In addition to his father’s slaves, Mark Twain had an opportunity to know the thirty slaves belonging to his uncle, John Quarles. One of the latter fur- nished the model for his “Nigger Jim” in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. On one occasion Mark Twain was saved from drowning by a slave man, Neal Champ. In his youth he had seen a gang of Negro men and women chained together awaiting shipment. When he grew to manhood and married, he employed Negro servants and one of them, Aunt Rachel, his cook, became the “Auntie Good” in A True Story. When Mark Twain moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1871, he came to know very well Harriet Beecher Stowe, authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He had every opportunity to know the Negroes inti- mately, and liked them, especially those of the ante-bellum type. In writing to his uncle, who had moved to Iowa, he said, “How do you like free soil? JI would like amazingly to see a good old-fashioned Negro.” In Mark Twain’s novel, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Negro characters play the leading parts. The story deals with just one aspect of the Negro problem and that is the tragedy of the mulatto. The central figures in the story are two mulattoes, Roxanna, a slave girl, and Valet de Chambre, her son. The former was only one-sixteenth Negro, having been born of a light-mulatto woman and a white F. F. V. Her son was thirty-one parts white, having been born of Roxanna and a white man of some distinction in Missouri. Both of these mulattoes 279 276 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE were so Caucasion in color and features that they were indistinguish- able from pure-blood whites. [Even the yellowish tint under the finger nails, which is a sure sign of Negro blood, was absent. ‘The scene is laid at Dawson’s Landing, a little town on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day’s journey by steamboat below St. Louis. Roxanna (Roxy for short) was living at this town as the slave of one Percy Driscoll, who was a married man without children. On a certain day in 1830, two boy babies were born in the house, one by Driscoll’s wife and one by Roxy. The Driscoll child was named Thom- as and Roxy’s, Valet de Chambre, shortened to Chambers. Within a week Mrs. Driscoll died, and thereafter Roxy had the care of both babies. To the casual observer the chief difference in the appearance of the babies was the dainty white gown with its blue bows and flummery of ruffles of the Driscoll child and the miserably short gray tow-lined shirt of Roxy’s child. One day Percy Driscoll missed some money and, calling his domes- tic slaves before him, said, “I give you one minute,” he took out his watch. “If at the end of that time you have not confessed, I will not only sell all four of you, but I will sell you down the river.” This threat was, in the minds of the Negroes, equivalent to con- demning them to hell. Roxy reeled in her tracks and the color vanished out of her face; the others dropped on their knees as if they had been shot; tears gushed from their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and three answers came in one instant: Ditdonenatey. Pi idonerath: 7 done ats The three servants, confessing to the crime, were sold up the coun- try, while Roxy, whose hand did not go up, was retained. The reason she could plead not guilty on this occasion was that she had lately “got religion,’ at a revival, and was able to resist the temptation when she saw the money on her master’s desk. But she had remarked to herself, “ ‘Dad blame dat revival. I wisht it had ’a’ be’n put off till tomorrow.’ ” In fact, Roxy had the prevailing slave habit of pilfering. Mark ‘Twain asks the question, ‘““‘Was she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No. They had an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to take military advantage of the enemy—in a small way; in a small way, but not in a large one. They MARK TWAIN’S DELINEATION 277, would smouch provisions from the pantry whenever they got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an emery-bag, or a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or small articles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and so far were they from con- sidering such reprisals sinful, that they would go to church and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in their pockets. A farm smokehouse had to be kept heavily padlocked, for even the col- ored deacon himself could not resist a ham when Providence showed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing hung lonesome and longed for some one to love. But with a hundred hanging before him the deacon would not take two—that is, on the same night. On frosty nights the humane negro prowler would warm the end of a plank and put it up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree; a drowsy hen would step onto the comfortable board, softly clucking her grati- tude, and the prowler would dump her into his bag, and later into his stomach, perfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who daily robbed him of an inestimable treasure—his liberty—he was not committing any sin that God would remember against him in the Last Great Day.” Roxy’s narrow escape from being sold down the river filled her with profound terror. She spent a sleepless night. “Her child could grow up and be sold down the river. The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed and lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet flying to her child’s cradle to see if it was still there. Then she would gather it to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of kisses, moaning, crying, and saying, ‘Dey sha’n’t, oh, dey sha’n’t—you’ po’ mammy will kill you fust.’”’ Once, when she was tucking it back in its cradle again, the other child nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood over it a long time communing with herself: ““What has my po’ baby done, dat he couldn’t have yo’ luck? He hain’t done noth’n’. God was good to you; why warn’t he good to him? Dey can’t sell you down de river. I hates yo’ pappy; he hain’t got no heart—for niggers he hain’t, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him.’ She paused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sob- bings again, and turned away, saying, ‘Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey ain’t no yuther way—killin’ him wouldn't save de chile from goin’ down de river. Oh, I got to do it, yo’ po’ mammy’s got to kill you to save you, honey’—she gathered her baby to her bosom now, and began to smother it with caresses—‘Mammy’s got to kill you—how kin I do it. 278 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE But yo’ mammy ain’t gwine to desert you—no, no; dah, don’t cry— she gwine wid you, she gwine to kill herself, too. Come along, honey, come along wid mammy ; we gwine to jump in de river, den de troubles o’ dis worl’ is all over—dey don’t sell po’ niggers down the river over yonder.’ ”’ Suddenly a strange light dawned in her eyes and she became lost in thought. Instead of drowning herself and her infant she conceived the idea of dressing her baby in Tom’s “flummery of ruffles’ and passing him off as the Driscoll heir. The idea was put into operation and worked. The white child was raised in the habiliments of a _ Negro and in Negro society and in time was sold. Roxy’s child as- sumed the name of Tom Driscoll and was petted and coddled as the heir to the throne. The fake Tom manifested misanthropic traits from his youth. He was devoid of affection and took a delight in wounding the feelings of his associates. He had tried to induce Percy Driscoll to sell Chambers, the real son, down the river. In order to prevent the possibility of this, Judge Driscoll, the brother of Percy, had purchased Chambers. Percy Driscoll died when the fake Tom was fifteen years old. By will Roxy was set free, and went chambermaiding on a Mississippi steamboat. Tom was taken into the indulgent care of Percy’s brother, Judge York Driscoll, whose wife had borne no children. The judge’s widowed sister, also childless, was living with him, and Tom’s coming into the home met with more than a cordial welcome. Tom, the counterfeit heir, was sent to Yale University, but returned in a short time with nothing to his credit. He was idle and dissipated, spending much of his time in the gambling dens of St. Louis. Roxanna, his mother, was obliged to retire from her chambermaid- ing on the Mississippi on account of rheumatism and she suffered the additional misfortune of losing all of her savings through a bank fail- ure in New Orleans. She returned, broken in health and fortune, to the Driscoll home at Dawson’s Landing. Here she was kindly received, but she was much grieved to learn that Judge Driscoll had been com- pelled to liquidate Tom’s gambling debts, and had threatened to dis- inherit him. When, by appointment, Roxy met her son, Tom, she was saddened to find, instead of the affectionate greeting of a white man for his old Negro mammy, an icy coldness and a fiendish disdain. Resentful of this manifestation of ingratitude, Roxy turned indignantly against her MARK TWAIN’S DELINEATION 279 son, told him the truth of his parentage, and commanded that he give her one-half of the monthly allowance from his uncle, Judge Driscoll, upon penalty of her exposing his real identity. In a flash of anger Roxy says: “ ‘You call me names, en as good as spit on me when I comes here po’ en ornery en ’umble, to praise you for bein’ growed up so fine en handsome, en tell you how I used to nuss you en tend you en watch you when you ’uz sick en hadn’t no mother but me in de whole worl’, en beg you to give de po’ ole nigger a dollah ’ for to git her som’n’ to eat, en you call me names—names, dad blame you. Yassir, I gives you jes one chance mo’, and dat’s now, en it las’ on’y a half second—yo hear ?’ ““Didn’t I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a good name, en made you a white gen’l’man en rich, wid store clothes on— en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al’ays sayin’ mean hard things to me befo’ folks, en wouldn’t ever let me forgit I’s a nigger—en—en—’ ”’ Under the threat of exposure Tom shared his allowance with his mother for a while. One day Tom was kicked like a dog by an Italian, but instead of striking back, had the Italian fined in the police court for assault. Judge Driscoll was deeply humiliated to find this show of cowardice in his family, and he promptly vindicated the family name by challeng- ing the Italian and wounding him in a duel. When Roxy heard of this event she looked in her son’s face with measureless contempt and said, “ “In you refuse’ to fight a man dat kicked you, ’stid 0’ jumpin’ at de chance. En you ain’t got no mo’ feel- in’ den to come en tell me, dat fetched sich a po’ low-down ornery rab- bit into de worl’. Pah, it makes me sick. It’s de nigger in you, dat’s what it is. Thirty-one parts o’ you is white, an on’y one part nigger, en dat po’ little one part is yo’ soul. ’Tain’t wuth savin’; tain’t wuth totin’ out on a shovel en throwin’ in de gutter. You has disgraced yo’ birth. What would yo’ pa think o’ you? It’s enough to make him turn in his grave.’ ... “Whatever has come 0’ yo’ Essex blood? Dat’s what I can’t understan’. En it ain’t on’y jist Essex blood dat’s in you, not by a long sight—’deed it ain’t. My great-great-great-gran’father en yo’ great-great-great-great-gran’father was Ole Cap’n John Smith, de highest blood dat Ole Virginny ever turned out, en his great-great-gran’- mother or somers along back dah, was Pocahontas de Injun queen, en 280 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE her husban’ was a nigger king outen Africa—en yit here you 1s, a-slinkin’ outen a duel en disgracin’ our whole line like a ornery low- down hound. Yes, it’s de nigger in you.’ “She sat down on her candle-box and fell into a reverie. Tom did not disturb her; he sometimes lacked prudence, but it was not in circumstances of this kind. Roxanna’s storm gradually went down, but it died hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone, it would now and then break out in a distant rumble, so to speak, in the form of mut- tered ejaculations. One of these was, ‘Ain’t nigger enough in him to show in his finger-nails, en dat takes mighty little—yit dey’s enough to paint his soul.’ ” t Pretty soon Tom was again overwhelmed with gambling debts and in danger of losing his inheritance through the discovery of the fact by his uncle. Systematic burglary in the town had failed to retrieve his losses. In order to save her son from possible disinheritance, Roxy agreed to allow her son to sell her into slavery, provided he sold her in the up-country. Tom accepted this proposition with alacrity and sold his mother for $600 but, contrary to her explicit injunctions, he sold her down the river. After suffering everything but death from overwork and ill-treat- ment on a slave plantation, Roxy, in revenge, assaulted her cruel over- seer and fled in disguise to St. Louis. Here she met her son, Tom, who had seen the advertisement of her running away, and who also had seen her master and was in the act of assisting him to recover her. When Roxy had wrung this confession from Tom she turned to him and, with scornful gaze, exclaimed, “ ‘What could you do? You could be Judas to yo’ own mother to save yo’ wuthless hide. Would anybody b’lieve it? No—a dog couldn’t. You is de low-downest or- neriest hound dat was ever pup’d into dis worl’—en I’s ’sponsible for it’—and she spat on him. He made no effort to resent this.” The climax of Tom’s career was the assassination of his benefactor, the uncle, to whose property he was heir. Tom was attempting to steal money to pay his gambling debts. ‘The opportunity seemed to be pro- pitious one night when his uncle, who had been examining his chest of valuables, fell asleep in his chair. As Tom reached for the chest the uncle awakened, the men grappled and in the struggle the uncle was stabbed to death. No character in fiction was ever painted in more repulsive coloring MARK TWAIN’S DELINEATION 281 than that of this mulatto, Tom. He was a liar, coward, ingrate, hypo- crite, and murderer all in one lump. If, on the one hand, Tom’s small part of Negro blood made him the monster that he was, on the other hand, his mother’s greater part of Negro blood did not overcome in her the high intelligence and high spirit characteristic of the best type of Caucasian. Mark Twain was not attempting to expound the laws of heredity but was merely portraying life as it is, including the eccentricities and tragedies of racial intermixture. Pudd’nhead Wilson is all tragedy, and not the least of its tragic aspects is that the real Tom Driscoll, who was raised as a Negro slave, was so stamped with self-abasement that he could never feel at ease in white people’s society and that the mulatto, Roxanna, with her keen intellect, resourcefulness, intensity of feeling, and courage, remained illiterate and always spoke in the worst Negro vernacular. In Tom Sawyer Abroad there is a fine illustration of Negro super- stition in the remarks of “Nigger Jim,” when sailing down the Nile River, ‘‘ “Hit’s de lan’ of Egypt, de lan’ of Egypt, an’ I’s lowed to look at it wid my own eyes. An dah’s de river dat was turn to blood, an’ I’s looking at de very same groun’ whah de plagues was, an’ de lice, an’ de frogs, an’ de locus’, an’ de hail, an’ whah dey marked de door-pos’, an’ de angel o’ de Lord come by in de darkness o’ de night an’ sleu de first-born in all de lan’ o’ Egypt. Ole Jim ain’t worthy to see dis day.’ ” Trudging through the desert, Tom and Jim became thirsty, and while in search for water, there loomed before them three times the mirage of a very inviting lake. ‘“‘Dey’s been a lake an’ somethin’s happened, en’ de lake’s dead, en we’s seen its ghos’; we seen it twiste, en dat’s proof. De desert’s ha’nted, it’s ha’nted sho; Oh, Mars Tom, le’s git outen it; I’d druther die den have de night ketch us in it again en de ghos’ er dat lake come a-mournin’ aroun’ us en we asleep en doan know de danger we’s in. She’s dah agin, Mars Tom; she’s dah agin; en I knows I’s gwine to die; ’case when a body sees a ghos’ de third time, dat’s what it means.’ ” In portraying Negro characters in his novels, Mark Twain had no thought of dealing with the Negro problem. Like a true artist, he pictured the Negroes as they appeared in real life, the good and the bad. From a study of his writings some inferences might be drawn as to his general estimate of the Negro’s intellectual and emotional en- dowments, but such inferences, however well-drawn, would merely 282 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE show that he was influenced by the prevailing ideas of his time and would not justify the view that he was trying by propaganda either to raise or lower the Negro’s rank among the races of mankind. The one thing which may be confidently said of his attitude toward the Negro is that it was sympathetic. He saw under the black skin the pulsations of a human being, and he revolted against the institu- tion of slavery, and every other form of degradation to which the Negro was subjected. _ eS eS Se CHAPTER 38 WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus and Other Stories—Thomas Nelson Page, the Interpreter of the Virginia Slave—Dialect Stories of Ambrose Gonzales —Novels of Tom Dixon—James Lane Allen—Other Authors Dealing with the Negro MONG the Southern writers who have dealt with the Negro, the name of Joel Chandler Harris is preeminent. He is the master- ful interpreter of the Negro of the hinterland of Georgia, and the Car- olinas. The dialect in which his Uncle Remus and other stories are written, is that of the hinterland Negro. The older and more quaint Negro dialect is found along the islands and lowlands of the coast among the Negroes who are descendants of the first slaves imported. In one of Mr. Harris’s later publications, Nights with Uncle Remus, he attempts to give certain variants of the Uncle Remus stories in the coastal dialect, but he had no first-hand contact with the coastal people, and was not at home in handling their mode of thought and speech. The animal stories of Harris are transformations of the folk tales of the native African. These stories brought by the Negro slaves to America had to be modified to suit the animal life of the New World. Br’er Rabbit was substituted for the crafty gazelle; the fox or wolf was substituted for the leopard; the bear for the elephant, and so on. Speaking of Mr. Harris’s Uncle Remus, Gonzales says:: “These myths were known and told by Negro nurses to white children over all the Southern States, and in the West Indian Islands as well, but the artistry of Harris lay in the systematic understanding of children prompted by his kindly heart, and the human appeal of the tender re- lations of the little boy and the old Negro family servant was irresist- ible, not only to the children, but to those happy grown-ups who loved him. “Tt is interesting to know that in the low country of South Carolina, instead of ‘Br’er Rabbit’ and ‘Br’er Fox,’ it is invariably ‘Buh Rabbit ‘en Buh Wolf.’ Strange, too, because wolves must have been found in upper Georgia or Carolina for more than a hundred years after they 283 284 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE were exterminated along the coast, within whose forests still abound the grey foxes whose natural prey is the rabbit. “Encouraged by the success of the ‘Uncle Remus’ stories, which greatly surprised this singularly modest man, Mr. Harris wrote novels and other stories of Georgia life among whites and blacks. While these were published successfully, it is upon the animal tales of “Uncle Remus’ that his fame has been permanently established. “In the introduction to one of his volumes Mr. Harris has made a rather exhaustive study and analysis of the origin of these Negro myths. That they are of African origin none can doubt, but, as on the West Coast of Africa, whence the slaves came to the American con- tinent and the West Indies, there are neither wolves, foxes, nor rab- bits, it would be interesting to know what African animals were their legendary prototypes. In Jamaica many of the ‘Uncle Remus’ tales are current and have been told to English children by their black nurses for generations, but in these the Anancy Spider, a black, hairy taran- tula-like creature, is substituted for the rabbit in the mythical triumph of mind over matter—cunning over physical strength—while the tiger does duty for the outwitted fox. Whence comes the Jamaica tiger? One can only surmise that tales of the strength and ferocity of the Jaguar (‘el tigre’ to the Spaniards), the great spotted cat of South and Central America, were brought from the mainland to the West Indies by the Indians of the Caribbean Coast or the earlier Negro slaves; but in Jamaica even the saddle-horse story is told complete in all its details, the spider, clapping spurs to the tiger’s flanks and riding him up to the house of the ‘nyung ladies’ (Mis’ Meadows an’ de gals), hitching him to a post and walking boldly in to love’s conquest. For the “Tar Baby’ story, instead of the violated spring, the drinking preserve of fox or wolf, a ‘tar pole’ is set up in a banana grove, and to this sticky lure the pilfering spider is found stuck fast by the lord of the plan- tation when he makes his morning rounds.” 4 The most recent and also a most excellent piece of literature dealing with the ante-bellum Negro is The Black Border: Gullah Stories of the Carolina Coast by Ambrose FE. Gonzales. This book contains a number of very charming stories written in the peculiar dialect of a type of Negroes known as Gullah, and found along the coasts and is- lands of South Carolina and Georgia. The Negroes of this type are supposed to have come from the hinterland of Liberia, and, because of their location in large groups on the immense plantations of the South *Gonzales, The Black Border: Gullah Stories of the Carolina Coast, p. 15. a ee eS ee WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 285 Carolina lowlands, they have remained cut off from contact with the white people to a greater extent than the Negroes of any other section of the South. “Slovenly and careless of speech,” says Gonzales, “these Gullahs seized upon the peasant English used by some of the early settlers and by the white servants of the wealthier Colonists, wrapped their clumsy tongues about it as well as they could, and, enriched with certain ex- pressive African words, it issued through their flat noses and thick lips as so workable a form of speech that it was gradually adopted by the other slaves and became in time the accepted Negro speech of the lower districts of South Carolina and Georgia.” ? Colonel Charles C. Jones of Georgia in his Myths of the Georgia Coast gives some of the “Uncle Remus” and other stories in correct Gullah dialect. The work of Colonel Jones contains the most au- thentic record we have of Negro myths. The originals of many of the “Uncle Remus” stories are found among the Gullah Negroes who rep- resent the earliest importation of African slaves. Thomas Nelson Page is the outstanding literary exponent of the Negro of Virginia. On account of the patriarchal character of slavery in Virginia, the relationship between the master and slave in that state was often that of mutual tenderness, and beautiful loyalty and affec- tion. Mr. Page has pictured for us truthfully the old family servant and his relations to his master’s household, but has shown us very little of the relations of the Negroes to each other, and leaves out altogether the new Negro of the period of emancipation. The novels of Tom Dixon are preeminent in their concentration of interest on the problem of the Negro. Several of them seem to have been written with the view of showing the menace of the Negro population, and the justification for the maintenance of white suprem- acy. The material for his novels is mostly historical, covering the slavery régime, Reconstruction, and the modern era of emancipation. The author has a masterful resourcefulness of plot, a felicity of diction, and a forcefulness of style which have ensured for his novels an extraordinary sale. His Leopard’s Spots and his Clansman have attracted the widest interest and provoked the greatest controversy. The subject-matter of these novels has been put together in the form of drama and converted into a motion picture, under the title of The Birth of a Nation, which has had a most phenomenal run. It is a story of the Reconstruction rule in the South, and the Negroes and carpet- 2 Tbid., p. 10. 286 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE baggers of that period are represented in such a way as to excite the deepest repulsion. The spectators of the play are swept along by its passionate appeal. They thrill with excitement, burn with indignation, and break forth into storms of exaltation and applause when the Southern white man triumphs over his brutish oppressors. Because of the intense passion which the play arouses, and the be- lief that it tends to array the white man against the Negro, a great outcry of protest has been raised against its presentation. The Ne- groes, especially, have condemned it, and in many cities of the North and West its exhibition has been prohibited. It has stirred up the in- dignation of a class of people in-the North very much as Uncle Tom's Cabin roused the indignation of the Southern slaveholders. But whatever one may think of Mr. Dixon’s way of looking at the Negro problem, his novels have a value as works of art. They display a penetrating insight into human nature, and contain many interesting and sympathetic interpretations of Negro character, of which the fol- lowing extract from The Leopard's Spots, reprinted by courtesy of the publishers, Doubleday and Page Company, is a sample: AN EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY Nelse was informed by the agent of the Freedman’s Bureau when summoned before that tribunal that he must pay a fee of one dollar for a marriage license and be married over again. “What’s dat? Dis yer war bust up me en Eve’s marryin’?”’ “Yes,” said the agent. “You must be legally married.” Nelse chuckled on a brilliant scheme that flashed through his mind. “Den I see you ergin ’bout dat,” he said as he hastily took his leave. He made his way homeward revolving his brilliant scheme. “But won't I fetch dat nigger Eve down er peg er two! I gwine ter make her t’ink I won’ marry her nohow. I make ’er ax my pardon fur all dem little disergreements. She got ter talk might putty now, sho nuff!” And he smiled over his coming triumph. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when he reached his cabin door on the lot back of Mrs. Gaston’s home. Eve was busy mending clothes for their little boy, now nearly five years old. “Good evenin’, Miss Eve!” Eve looked up at him with a sudden flash of her eye. “What de matter wid you, nigger?” “Nuttin’ tall. Des drapped in lak ter pass de time er day, en ax how’s you en yer son stanin’ dis hot wedder!” Nelse bowed and smiled. WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 287 “What ail you, you big black baboon?” “Nuttin’ tall, Ma’am, des callin’ roun’ ter see my frien’s.” Still smiling, Nelse walked in and sat down. Eve put down her sewing, stood up before him, her arms akimbo, and gazed at him steadily till the whites of her eyes began to shine like two moons. “You wants me ter whale you ober de head wid dat poker?” “Not dis even’, Ma’am.”’ “Den what ail you?” “De Buro des inform me, dat es I’se er young han’some man en you’se er gittin’ kinder ole en fat, dat we ain’t married nohow! En dey gimme er paper fur er dollar dat allow me ter marry de young lady er my choice! Dat sho is a great Buro!” “We ain’t married?” “Nob-um.” “Atter we stan’ up dar befo’ Marse John Durham en says des what all dem white folkes say?” “Nob-um.” Eve slowly took her seat and gazed down the road thoughtfully. “T tink I drap eroun’ ter see you en gin you er chance wid de odder gals fo’ I steps off,” explained Nelse with a grin. No answer. “You ’member dat night I say sumfin’ bout er gal I know once, en you riz en grab er poun’ er wool outen my head fo’ I kin move?” No answer yet. “Min’ dat time you bust de biscuit dobo ober my head, en lam me wid de fire-shovel, en hit me in de burr er de year wid er flatiron es I was makin’ for de do’?” “Yas, I min’s dat sho!” said Eve with evident satisfaction. “Doan you wish you nhebber done dat?” “You black debbil!’ “Dat’s hit! I’se er bad nigger, Ma’am,—bad nigger fo’ de war. En I’se gittin’ wuss en wuss,’ Nelse chuckled. She looked at him with gathering rage and contempt. “En den fudder mo, Ma’am, I doan lak de way you talk ter me sometimes. Yo voice des kinder takes de skin off same’s er file. I laks ter hear er ’oman’s voice lak my Missy’s, des es sof’ es wool. Sometimes one word from her keep me warm all winter. De way you talk sometime make me cole in de summer time.” Nelse rose while Eve sat motionless. 288 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “T des call, Ma’am, ter drap er little intment inter dem years er yoarn, dat’ll percerlate froo you min’, en when I calls ergin I hopes ter be welcome wid smiles.” Nelse bowed himself out in grandiloquent style. All the afternoon he was laughing to himself over his triumph, and imagining the welcome when he returned that evening with his mar- riage license and the officer to perform the ceremony. At supper in the kitchen he was polite and formal in his manners to Eve. She eyed him in a contemptuous sort of way, and never spoke unless it was absolutely necessary. It was about half past eight when Nelse arrived at home with the license duly issued and the officer of the bureau ready to perform the ceremony. “Des wait er minute here at de corner, sah, twell I kinder breaks de news to ’em,” said Nelse to the officer. He approached the cabin door and knocked. It was shut and fastened. He got no response. He knocked loudly again. Eve thrust her head out the window. “Who’s dat?” “THit’s me, Ma’am, Mister Nelson Gaston, I’se call ter see you.” “Den you hump yo’se’f en git away from dat do, you rascall.” “De Lawd, honey, I’se des been er foolin’ you ter day. I’se got dem licenses en de Buro man right out dar now ready ter marry us. You know yo ole man nebber gwine back on you—I des been er foolin’.” “Den you been er foolin’ wid de wrong nigger!” “Lawd, honey, doan keep de bridegroom er waitin’.” “Git er away from dat do!” “G’long chile, en quit yer projeckin’.” Nelse was using his softest and most persuasive tones now. “G’way from dat do’!” “Come on, Eve, de man waitin’ out dar fur us!” “Git away, I tells you, er I scald you wid er kittle er hot water!” Nelse drew back slightly from the door. “But, honey, whar yo ole man gwine ter sleep?” “Dey’s straw in de barn, en pine shatters in de dog house!” she shouted slamming the window. “Eve, honey !—” “Doan you come honeyin’ me, I’se er spec’able ’oman, I is. Ef you wants ter marry me you got ter come co’tin’ me in de day time fust, en WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 289 bring me candy, en ribbons en flowers and sich, en you got ter talk purtier’n you ebber talk in all you born days. Lots er likely lookin’ niggers come settin’ up ter me while you gone in dat wah, an’ I keep studin’ bout you, you big black rascal. Now you got ter hump yo’se’f ef you ebber see de inside er dis cabin ergin.” Crestfallen Nelse returned to the officer. “Wal, sah, deys er kinder hitch in de preceedins.” “What's the matter ?” “She ‘low I got ter come co’tin’ her fust. En I spec I is.” The officer laughed and returned to his home. She made Nelse sleep in the barn for three weeks, court her an hour every day, and bring her five cents’ worth of red stick candy and a bouquet of flowers as a peace offering at every visit. Finally she made him write her a note and ask her to take a ride with him. Nelse got Charlie to write it for him, and made his own boy carry it to his mother. After three weeks of humility and attention to her wishes, she gave her consent, and they were duly married again. In the novels of James Lane Allen, the Negro does not figure con- spicuously, but most of them contain picturesque sketches of Negro character. In Two Gentlemen from Kentucky, there are several inter- esting Negro types and one of them, Peter, gives the following account of his courtship: “The colonel was sitting on the stone steps in front of the house, and Peter stood below, leaning against a Corinthian column, hat in hand, as he went on to tell his love-story. “ “Hit all happ’n dis way, Marse Rom. We wuz gwine have pra’r- meetin’, en I ‘lowed to walk home wid Phillis en ax ’er on de road. I been ’lowin’ to ax ’er heap o’ times befo’, but I ain’t jus’ nuver done so. So I says to myse’f, says I, “I jes’ mak my sermon to-night kinder lead up to whut I gwine to tell Phillis on de road home.” So I tuk my tex’ from de lef’ tail o’ my coat: “De greates’ o’ dese is charity ;” caze I knowed charity wuz same ez love. En all de time I wuz preachin’ an’ glorifyin’ charity en identifyin’ charity wid love, I couldn’ he’p thinkin’ ‘bout what I gwine say to Phillis on de road home. Dat mak me feel better; en de better I feel, de better I preach, so hit boun’ to mek my heahehs feel better likewise—Phillis ’mong um. So Phillis she jes sot dah listenin’ en listenin’ en lookin’ like we wuz a’ready on de road home, till I got so wuked up in my feelin’s 1 jes knowed de time wuz come. By-en-by, I hadn’ mo’n done preachin’ en wuz lookin’ round to git my 290 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Bible en my hat, ’fo’ up popped dat big Charity Green, who been sittin’ ‘longside o’ Phillis en takin’ ev’r las’ thin’ I said to herse’f. En she tuk hole o’ my han’ en squeeze it, en say she felt mos’ like shoutin’. En’ ‘fo’ I knowed it, I jes see Phillis wrap ’er shawl roun’ ’er head en tu’n "er nose up at me right quick en flip out de dooh. De dogs howl mighty mou’nful when I walk home by myse’f dat night,’” added Peter, laugh- ing to himself, “‘en I ain’ preach dat sermon no mo’ tell atter me an Phillis wuz married. ““Hit wuz long time,” he continued, “‘’fo’ Phillis come to heah me preach any mo’. But ‘long ’bout nex’ fall we had big meetin’, en heap mo’ um j’ined. But Phillis, she ain’t nuver j’ined yit. I preached mighty nigh all roun’ my coat-tails till, I say to myse’f, “D’ ain’t but one tex’ lef’, en I jes got to fetch ’er wid dat!” De tex’ wuz on de right tail o’ my coat: “Come unto me, all ye dat labor en is heavy laden.” Hit wuz a ve’y momentus sermon, en all ‘long I jes’ see Phillis wras’lin’ wid ’erse’f, en I say, “She got to come dis night, de Lohd he’pin me.” En I had’n mo’n said de word, ’fo’ she jes walked down en guv me ’er han’. “Den we had de baptizin’ in Elkhorn Creek, en de watter wuz deep en de curren’ tol’ble swif’. Hit look to me like dere wuz five hundred uv um on de creek side. By-en-by I stood on de edge o’ de water, en Phillis she come down to let me baptize ’er. En me en ’er j’ined han’s en waded out in the creek, mighty slow, caze Phillis didn’t have no shot roun’ de bottom uv’er dress, en it kep’ bobbin’ on top de watter til I pushed it down. But by-en-by we got ’way out in de creek, en bof uv us wuz tremblin’, En I says to ’er ve’y kin’ly, “When I put you un’er de watter, Phillis, you mus’ try en hole yo’se’f stiff, so I can lif’ you up easy.” But I hadn’t mo’ ’n get er laid over de watter ready to souze er un’er when ’er feet flew off de bottom uv de creek, en when I retched out to fetch ’er up, I stepped in a hole; en ’fo’ I knowed it, we wuz flounderin’ roun’ in de watter, en de hymn dey was singin’ on de bank sounded mighty confused-like. En Phillis she swallowed some watter, en all ’t oncet she jes grap me right tight roun’ de neck, en say mighty quick, says she, “I gwine marry whoever gits me out’n dis yere watter!”’ “ “En by-en-by, when me en’er wuz walkin’ up de bank o’ de creek, drippin’ all over, I says to ’er, says I: “Does you ’member what you said back yon’er in de watter, Phillis ?” “T ain’ out’n no watter yit,’ says she, ve’y contemptuous. “When does you consider yo’se’f out’n de watter?” says I, ve’y humble. WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 291 “When I git dese soakin’ clo’es off’n my back,” says she. ““Hit wuz good dark when we got home, en atter a while I crope up to de dooh o’ Phillis’s cabin en put my eye down to de key-hole, en see Phillis jes settin’ *fo’ dem blazin’ walnut logs dressed up in ’er new red linsey dress, en’er eyes shinin’. En I shuk so I mos’ faint. Den I tap easy on de dooh, en say in a mighty tremblin’ tone, says I: “Ts you out’n de watter yit, Phillis?” “T got on dry dress,” says she. “Does you ’member what you said back yon’r in de watter, Phillis ?” says I. “De latch-string on de outside de dooh,” says she, mighty sof’. ““Fn I walked in.’ “As Peter drew near the end of this reminiscence, his voice sank to a key of inimitable tenderness; and when it was ended he stood a few minutes, scraping the gravel with the toe of his boot, his head dropped forward. Then he added, huskily: “Phillis been dead heap o’ years now,’ and turned away.” Sherwood Bonner (Mrs. Edward McDowell), of Mississippi, is the author of Dialect Tales, Suwanee River Tales, etcetera, depicting Negro character. Her sketch “Gran-mammy”’ is here reprinted by coutesy of Little Brown and Company, owners of the copyright: GRAN’MAMMY In our Southern home we were very fond of our old colored mammy, who had petted and scolded and nursed and coddled,—yes, and spanked us,—from the time we were born. She was not a “black mammy,” for her complexion was the color of clear coffee; and we did not call her “mammy,” but “gran’mammy” be- cause she had nursed our mother when a delicate little baby,—loving her foster child, I believe, more than her own, and loving us for our dear mother’s sake. She was all tenderness when we were wee toddlers, not more than able to clutch at the great gold hoops in her ears, or cling to her ample skirts like little burrs; but she showed a sharper side as we grew old enough to “bother round the kitchen” with inquisitive eyes and fingers and tongues. I regret to say that she sometimes called us “limbs” and would wonder with many a groan and shake of her head, how we con- trived to hold so much of the Evil One in our small frames. “T never seed sich chillern in all my born days,” she cried one day, 292 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE when Ruth interrupted her in the midst of custard-making, to beg leave to get into the kettle of boiling soap that she might be clean once for all, and never need another bath; while Sam, on the other side, en- treated that she would make three “points” of gravy with the fried chicken for dinner. (Sam always came out strong on pronunciation; his very errors leaned to virtue’s side.) “T ’clar to gracious,” said poor gran’mammy, “you'll drive de sense clean outen my head. How Miss Mary ’xpects me ter git a dinner fit- ten fur white folks ter eat, wid you little onruly sinners furever under foot, is mo’ dan I kin say. An’ here’s Leah an’ Rachel, my own gran’- chillern, a no mo’ use ter me dan two tar babies.” She looked very threatening as she shook her rolling-pin at her two idle grandchildren. They only grinned in an aggravating way; for to them as well as to us, the great wide kitchen, with its roomy fire-place, where the back-log glowed and the black kettle sung, was the pleasant- est place in the world. As gran’mammy grew older, her manner softened; her love was less fluctuating. It was she to whom we ran to tell of triumphs and sorrows, whose sympathy, ash-cakes and turnover pies never failed us. It was she who hung over our sick-beds ; who told us stories more beau- tiful than we read in any books; who sang to us old-fashioned hymns of praise and faith; and who talked to us with childlike simplicity of the God whom she loved. During the troubled four years that swept like the hot breath of the simoon over our country, she was true to the family. Her love, her courage, her faithful work, helped us to bear up under our heavy trials. And when the gentle mother whose life had been set to such sweet music that her spirit broke in the discords of dreadful war, sank out of life, it was in gran’mammy’s arms that she died, and neither husband nor children mourned more tenderly for the beautiful life cut short. *k * k There was a hawthorn hedge around the place, and looking through its interstices I saw a soldier in gray coming toward the gate. The sun was in my eyes, and the first thing I noticed about him was that he was extremely ragged. Then I saw that he had a long tawny beard, the like of which I had never seen before. As he drew nearer, his face seemed familiar; those honest blue eyes—what! Did my own eyes deceive me? Could it be? “O God of all mercies!’ breathed, rather than spoke, dear gran’- WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 293 mammy, sinking to her knees, and stretching out her arms to the com- ing figure. The next moment doubt was at rest. Strong arms fairly lifted me from my feet and caught me to our dear soldier’s breast; and a voice we had thought forever hushed cried out merrily, “Why, my little coz, how tall you have grown!” It was the old familiar voice of Allan Edmandson. I have always been proud that I neither screamed nor fainted; but I clung to him with such a white frightened face, that he became alarmed. “My mother! is she well?” “Yes! yes!” I gasped, “but we heard you were killed.”’ “T was left for dead on the field,” he said gravely; “but a Northern soldier picked me up, and saved my life, though his comrades insisted that I was dead and should be left where I had fallen. I was sent to the hospital, exchanged as soon as I was well, got a furlough from my colonel, and here I am, only needing a little petting to set me up again.” “O Allan! do not waste another minute. Come quickly to poor aunt Sarah!” But gran’mammy laid a hand on Allan’s arm. “Stop, honey, stop; Miss Katie, you forgit. Don’t you know dat joy itse’f is sometimes more dan a breakin’ heart kin bear? Mis’ Sarah is mighty frail, an’ she mus’ be made ready to meet dis shock, for dis is jes’ as much a shock as de lie dat struck her down. Blessed be de Lord for sendin’ de last so quick on de heels of de fust. Now, Miss Katie, you jes’ take Mars’ Allan in de house an’ tell your ma to give him some coffee an’ hoe-cake right away ter put a little color in his po’ cheeks, an’ I'll go upstairs, an’ break de news ter Mis’ Sarah. Now, whatever you do, Mars’ Allan, don’t come up till I say de words.” She hurried away, and Allan and I followed more slowly, for he was still very weak. After seeing the joyful meeting with my mother and the rest of the family, I left the excited group that surrounded the re- turned soldier, and slipped upstairs to learn how gran’mammy was breaking the news. Aunt Sarah’s door was ajar. She was seated by the fire in an atti- tude of utter dejection. Gran’mammy was bustling about the room, an expression of perplexity on her dear old brown face. Presently with a sidelong glance at poor Aunt Sarah, gran’mammy began to sing softly. I had never heard her croon anything but Methodist hymns. Now, to my surprise, she broke forth in a chant that Miss Rose was very fond of singing with us after vesper service Sunday afternoon: “Praise de Lord, O my soul! O my soul! and forget not all his benefits.” 294 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE At first Aunt Sarah took no notice; but, at a louder, more vigorous, “Praise de Lord, Praise de Lord!’ she shook her head, as if a gnat was buzzing about her ears, and looked at the singer with a dull look of sur- prise in her weary eyes. “Gran’mammy singing!” she said, in a faint voice. Gran’mammy came and stood directly in front of my aunt. She tried to laugh, but the tears tumbled out of her eyes so fast that she choked in the effort to swallow them. “Why, yes, Mis’ Sarah,” she at last managed to say; “when my heart is light with thinkin’ of de goodness of de Lord I can no mo’ help singin’ dan if I was a saint in heaven worshippin’ at de throne.” “The goodness of God!” echoed Aunt Sarah, drearily; “He has forgotten mercy; He has turned His face from me; He has left me desolate and forsaken in my old age.” “De Lord never forgits,’ said gran’mammy, solemnly; “an’ He never fails to keep de promises He has made. Lean on me, Miss Sarah. Rest yo’ po’ tired head. Speak de name of yo’ boy. It’ll do yer good to talk about him.” “No, no, no!’ said Aunt Sarah, shrinking back; “I thought you loved him, gran’mammy, but you could come to my room and sing. Go away, I do not want you.” “T’ll go, Mis’ Sarah, in one little minute. Love Mars’ Allan? Why, wusn’t my arms de fust ter hol’ him—a little soft, helpless innocent— even before you held him to yo’ own mother’s heart? An’ from that very minute I loved him. I kin see him now, a little white-headed boy, always runnin’ ter his ole gran’mammy fur turn-overs an’ ginger-cakes. Heven’t I watched him all through de years, growin’ as straight an’ tall as a young poplar, full of his jokes, but with never a mean streak in him, bless de Lord! An’ den, Miss Sarah, don’t you mind how he looked in his gray uniform, wid de gold lace on his sleeves ; an’ how his eyes would kindle an’ his voice ring out when he talked of de country he loved next to God?” “Gran’mammy! do you want to break my heart? Why do you tor- ture me?’ And Aunt Sarah burst into such wild, wild tears that I was frightened. | “Oh! my po’ sweet mistis, I wants to mend yo’ heart, not break it ;” and gran’mammy, too, burst into tears, kneeling now by Aunt Sarah with her arms around her. “I wants you to call ter mind jes’ one thing—de commandment given by de Lord to His people, given wid a promise, Kin you say it over ter me?” WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 295 “Honor thy father and thy mother,” said Aunt Sarah, like one in a dream, “and thy days shall be long in the land—’’ “Stop dar Mis’ Sarah,—stop at dat promise,’ almost shouted gran’- mammy. ‘Did Mars’ Allan honor his father an’ his mother ?” “Always! Always! He never disobeyed us in his life. No son could have been better or nobler.” “And thy days shall be long in the land,” cried gran’mammy, “which the Lord thy God giveth thee! Now, Miss Sarah, jes’ trust God. He won't break dat promise.” Words cannot do justice to the solemnity, the yearning tenderness, the pathetic earnestness, that made the dear old woman like one in- spired. Wave after wave of feeling rolled over her face. I do not know how to express it—but a sacred, even a religious rapture seemed to hold her in its possession. Strong feeling had exalted her. I felt as if I should like to steal in and pray beside her. She still knelt, but she kept her arms clasped about the frail figure in the arm-chair. Wild, vague suspicions were evidently forming in Aunt Sarah’s mind. She looked at gran’mammy—a piteous, agonizing gaze. But gran’mammy’s eyes met hers with steady joy. “What do you mean?” she gasped huskily. “In God’s name, what do you mean?” “T mean,—lean on me, dear, lean on me,—I mean dat if our blessed Lord wuz on earth to-day, an’ we could kneel at his feet askin’ de life of our boy, he could give it ter us. For Allan’s grave has not been dug, an’ Allan’s livin’, not dead to-day.” “What have you heard?” “A messenger has come.” Then I saw a transformation. Aunt Sarah sprang up, the color and light flashing into her cheeks and eyes, the vigor and erectness of youth restored to her shrunken and bowed figure. No longer a haggard old woman,—like a girl she threw open the door, and swept past me with- out a word. Armistead C. Gordon of Virginia, who occupies a high rank as a Southern poet, essayist, and fiction writer, is very clever in handling Negro dialect, of which the following is a specimen: ENVION Reg’lar ole time F. F. V.’s dey was—fus’ famblys, ye knew—wid day hansum kerridges an’ fat black niggers a-settin’ up on de boxes an’ 296 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE a-grinnin’ foreber; case dey got so much ter eat. I told ye! An’ de way ole Cunnel Toliver’d move ’roun’ ’mongst de company, a-bowin’ here an’ a-scrapin’ dar, an’ a-sayin’ ter all on ’em: “I’m mos’ happy ter have ye here on dis mos’ suspeceous occasion!” An’ den de supper, an’ de dancin’. ’Twarn’t none o’ yer 10 o’clock in de mornin’ go-way on de half pas’ ten train sort o’ weddin’s dat my young marster got married at. Big supper, dance all night, an’ de whole crowd stayin’ dar sebrel days. Table fa’rly loaded down wid ev’rything ye could think of—Ole Ferginyer ham, ole Ferginyer turkey, ole Fer- ginyer cured ven’son, ole Glorster Pint oysters, an’ ole Ferginyer moun- tain-dew f’om beyant de Blue Ridge; an’ wine an’ egg-nogg ’twel you cudden’ hole yer bref. An’ evy now an’ den de ole Cunnel sed: ‘“Gennulmen, jine me!” an’ dey’d step up ter de long “hog-any side- board whar de silver chewreens an’things was stacked an’ dey’d mix de peach an’ honey, an’ bow ter one another an’ say: “My ree-gards, gennulmen!” an’ drink it off, while de niggers stan’in’ aroun’ wid dey white ap’uns on ter wait on de table’d feel dey moufs fa’rly waterin.’ Den come de dancin’—none of yer new-fangled brass ban’ Garmins, but de reg’lar ole time swing-cornders; an’ de whole thing windin’ up wid a ole Ferginyer Reel. An’ Pompey Rowan was de boss fiddler, wid two mo’ o’ dem Tide-water niggers—young ’uns, ye know. Dey’s an orful perlite set, dem darkeys, down ’bout Glo’rster Pint—reg’lar ‘ris- tercratic niggers dat knows what’s what. Come o’ dey ’vocations, I ‘spec’. An’ fiddle—Lord, you jes oughter heerd dem three niggers slingin’ o’ de bow. De pictures on de walls looked like dey was gwine ter step down outer dey frames an’ jine dat reel. Eben de preacher what morrid de couple, soon arter Pomp struck up, marches ober ter de sideboard an’ takes peach an’ honey in his’n wid de Cunnel; an’ de fus’ thing I knowed he was jerkin’ ez lively a hoof ez any sinner in dat crowd. Well, arter de doin’s was done ended, we come back up here ter de mountains, an’ Mars’ Berkeley and Miss Agnes settled down at de Grasslane place dat ole Master gin ’em; an’ sech another happy couple I never is seed. I stayed in de house an’ waited on de table; an’ I watched ’em an’ I think dat dey loved one another about jes de same. Dar warn’t much diff’unce. But I notice “bout dis time dat Mars’ Berk was eternally an’ foreber comin’ up here ter town ter make speeches out dar in front o ’de Co’t "Ouse; an’ down at Grasslane he kep’ a-readin’ o’ de newspapers. An’ de fus’ thing I knowed he had done got him a calvary company an’ used ter have a drill ev'ry day. An’ den one May mornin’—I ree-collects it ez well ez if it was yestiddy— WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 207 _- he come ter me, an’ he sez: ‘“Envion, saddle de hosses an’ git yerse’f ready ter go off wif me. De Yankees 1s pas’ de Potomac, an’ my com- pany is ordered out.” In two hours everything was ready, an’ de hosses a-stannin’ at de do’. De sun was shinin’ ez bright an’ puty ez I ever seen it; de green was on de trees good, an’ de willow bushes all along de bank o’ de creek in front o’ de house fa’rly sparkled in de light. De cherry an’ de apple trees was all in blossom, an’ de birds was a-singin’ like dey was gwine ter bus’ deyselves. Yes, sah, de place looked mighty beautiful, an’ it did seem a pity-like ter leave it. But the purties’ thing o’ it all was young Miss Agnes, dressed up all in white, a-stannin’ dar in de porch whar de honeysuckle vines was a-growin’, waitin’ ter see Mars’ Berkley mount an’ ride away. “T cudden’ let you go, my darlin’, sez she, ez she put her hand on his gray coat-sleeve, “but for de fac’ dat I know yer country calls you, an ‘tis yer duty. Ez it is, ef you stayed, I cudden’ love you ez I do.” An’ den de tears came in her eyes when he put his arms about her— an’—an’ I looked away. We mounted de hosses an’ rid off ; an’ when we turned in our saddles dar she still stood ’neaf de honeysuckles all white and beautiful, a-shad- in’ her eyes wid her han’ an watchin’ on us go. Dat was de last time dat he ever seen her. Up an’ down, roun’ an’ about, Mars’ Berk an’ me carried our cavalry company, a-fightin’ an’ a-scrimmagin’ wid de Yankees, an’ a-manoovrin’ roun’ ginnerally. Ontwel at last’ dey got us over yander beyo’d Culpepper Co’t ’Ouse at dat place dey calls Manassas, whar Gennul Borygard an’ Gennul John- son had dissembled all de soljers in de country to whop out de Yankees dat was comin’. I mos’ commonly stayed ter de rear an’ tuk keer o’ de baggage when de fightin’ was goin’ on; but dat day Mars’ Berk, sez he: “Envion, you must come wid me. Mebbe I'll be killed down here ter- day, becase it’s gwine ter be a big fight; an’ ef so, dar’s a letter in my pocket what I wants tuk back to yer Miss Agnes.” So dat day, when de lines o’ infantry was a-deployin’, an’ a-filadin’ an’ a-carryin’ on, an’ Mars’ Berk was a-settin’ dar on his horse wid his drawed sabre up agin his shoulder, in front o’ his company, I was right by him. An den de bugles sounded all on a sudden, an’ Mars’ Berk said “Charge!” Right down on de Yankees in front of us we rid, wid de hosses a-snortin’ an’ de bright swords a-shinin’ in de sunlight. It would ha’ looked awful purty, ef I hadn’t been so skeered. I thought to myself: “Nigger, yer time’s come now, sho!” but I rid right on wid em, close ter Mars Berkley. We charged again de Yankee ranks, an’ 298 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE our hosses ez we met ’em, come up on dey haunches. De way de pistols was a’goin’ pop! pop! pop! was a caution; an’ sich another yellin’ an a-Swearin’ an a-cussin’ an’ rattlin’ 0’ swords an’ scabbards an’ tin can- teens I never heerd in all o’ my born days. But Mars’ Berk never said -a word. He rid right on silent, wid his sabre a-fallin’ right an’ lef’ *twel all on a sudden I seed de sword sorter quiver—’case I was awatch- in’ on him all de time—an’ den he flung bofe arms up in de a’r, an’ rolled over ter one side. “My Gord, for Miss Agnes!” sez I; an’ I cotch him in my arms, an’ draggin’ him off’n his hoss ter mine I rid out o’ dat bloody mix wid him ter de rear. A bullet tuk me in-de shoulder ;—ef my shirt was off, you could see de mark dar now, sah—but I didn’t never stop for dat. I ker- ried him out o’ de reach o’ dem whistlin’ bullets, an’ laid him down on de groun’ ez sof’ like ez I could. He groaned an’ said sumpin’ bout Miss Agnes, an’ den a sort o’ gugglin’ soun’ kim in his throat; an’ I knowed dat dat was de las’ on him. I retch down inter his breas’ pocket whar he had tole me de letter was, an’ I tuk it out. Dar was a lot o’ blood on one cornder of it; but I put it in my pocket ter take ter my young Mistis jes so. I buried him dar dat night on dat fiel’. I dug his grave wid my own han’s, an’ I laid him away without coffin or sheet; but I put a big rock over de place so dat I would know whar ter find him when Miss Agnes sent me arter him again. An’ den, widout sayin’ nothin’ ter Gennul Borygard or Gennul Johnson, widout no passport or nothin’, I sot out for home wid dat letter. I never shall forgit ontwel my dyin’ day de look on Miss Agnes’ face when she seen me a-slowly comin’ up over de bridge, across de meadow creek an’ through de big front gate. She stood on de porch a-lookin’ out, like she looked dat May mornin’ when we left her; an’ at fus’ she started to’ds me. Den I see her sort o’ ketch at de pillar by her side; an’ when I had got dar her face was whiter dan Mars’ Berke- ley’s was when de death grip was on him; an’ she sort o’ gasped out at me: “Envion, is he dead ?”’ I did’n say a word—I cudden’; but she seen it in my eyes. An’ wid a sort o’ low cry dat cut through me sharper’n a knife, an’ made me for- git all about dat bullet in my back, she sort o’ staggered an’ fell for- ruds. I cotch her in my arms an’ tuk her in. I ain’t nothin’ but a poor good-for-nothin’ nigger; but it does me some good ter remember dat I fit in de battle ‘long side o’ de braves’ WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 299 man dat was in dat wah; an’ dat when I come back I tuk keer 0’ young Miss Agnes.” ° John Charles McNeill, a promising young poet of North Carolina, whose career was lamentably ended at the age of thirty-three, wrote many charming little poems in which the Negro figured in a variety of aspects. Two of them follow: "POSSUM TIME AGAIN Oh, dip some ’taters down in grease En fling de dogs a ’tater apiece. Ram yo’ brogans clean er tacks, Split de splinters en fetch de ax. It’s ‘possum time again! Catfish tender, catfish tough, We ’s done et catfish long enough. We ’s tar’d er collards en white-side meat, En we ’s gwine have supp’n’ wut ’is good to eat. It ’s ‘possum time again! De pot ’s gwine simmer en blubber en bile Till it gits scummed over wid possum ile. But le’ ’s don’t brag till we gits de goods. Whoop! Come along, boys! Wes off to de woods. It ’s ’possum time again! * MR. NIGGER How could we do without you, Mr. Nigger? Could we not talk about you, Mr. Nigger, We'd have to quit our politics, ’T would put our papers in a fix, We'd have to start and learn new tricks, Mr. Nigger. Ah, ragtime would be sadly misst, Mr. Nigger! There ’d be no elocutionist, Mr. Nigger. The Coon-song’s flow would then be checked, The minstrel show would soon be wrecked And writers of your dialect, Mr. Nigger. *From Library of Southern Literature. *McNeill, Lyrics from Cotton Land, p. 55. 300 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE I cannot see, if you were dead, Mr. Nigger, How orators could earn their bread, Mr. Nigger; For they could never hold the crowd Save they abused you long and loud As being a dark and threatening cloud, Mr. Nigger. But plough my land and barn my crop, Mr. Nigger. I’ll furnish sorghum for your sop, Mr. Nigger. And see you earn your money’s worth, Else, when dull times possess the earth, I’ll burn you to excite the North, Mr. Nigger. You’re a vast problem to our hand, Mr. Nigger. Your fame is gone throughout the land, Mr. Nigger. The heart of all this mighty nation Is set to work out your salvation, But don’t you fear expatriation, Mr. Nigger.® Irwin Russell, a native of Mississippi, is the author of numerous poems, of which several deal with Negro character in Negro dialect. One of his best dialect poems is the following: MAHSR JOHN I heahs a heap o’ people talkin’, ebrywhar I goes, "Bout Washingtum an’ Franklum, an’ sech gen’uses as dose; I s’pose dey’s mighty fine, but heah’s de pint I’s bettin’ on: Dere wuzn’t nar a one ob ’em come up to Mahsr John. He shorely wuz de greates’ man de country ebber growed. You better had git out de way when he comes ‘long de road! He hel’ his head up dis way, like he ’spised to see de groun’; An’ niggers had to toe de mark when Mahsr John wuz roun’, I only has to shet my eyes, an’ den it seems to me I sees him right afore me now, jes like he use’ to be, A-setting on de gal’ry, lookin’ awful big an’ wise, Wid little niggers fannin’ him to keep away de flies, °McNeill, op, cit., pp. 1-3. WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 301 He alluz wore de berry bes’ ob planters’ linen suits, An’ kep’ a nigger busy jes’ a-blackin’ ob his boots; De buckles on his galluses wuz made ob solid gol’, An’ diamon’s!—dey wuz in his shu’t as thick as it would hol’. You heered me! ’twas a caution, when he went to take a ride, To see him in de kerridge, wid ol’ Mistis by his side— Mulatter Bill a-dribin’, an’ a nigger on behin’, An’ two Kaintucky hosses tuk ’em tearin’ whar dey gwine. OY Mahsr John wuz pow’ful rich—he owned a heap o’ lan’: Fibe cotton places, ’sides a sugar place in Loozyar’ ; He had a thousan’ niggers—an’ he wuked ’em shore’s you born! De oberseahs ’u’d start ’em at de breakin’ ob de morn. I reckon dere wuz forty ob de niggers, young an’ ol’, Dat staid about de big house jes to do what dey wuz tol’; Dey had a’ easy time, wid skacely any work at all— But dey had to come a’runnin’ when ol’ Mahsr John ’wd call! Sometimes he’d gib a frolic—dat’s de time you seed de fun: De ’ristocratic fam’lies, dey ’u’d be dar, ebry one; Dey’d hab a band from New Orleans to play for ’em to dance, An’ tell you what, de supper wuz a’tic’lar sarcumstance. Well, times is changed. De war it come an’ sot de niggers free, An’ now ol’ Mahsr John ain’t hardly wuf as much as me; He had to pay his debts, an’ so his lan’ is mos’ly gone— An’ I declar’ I’s sorry fur my pore ol’ Mahsr John. But when I heahs ’em talkin’ ’bout some sullybrated man, I listens to ’em quiet, till dey done said all dey can. An’ den I ’lows dot in dem days ’at I remembers on, Dat gemman warn’t a patchin’ onto my ol’ Mahsr John! Mary Johnston is the authoress of a novel, The Slave Ship, which describes life in Colonial Virginia, and the transportation of Negroes to America. Black Cameos, by R. Emmet Kennedy, presents the life of the Lou- isiana Negro, in prose, poetry, and song. O. Henry gives us an interesting Negro story in his Uncle Bushrod. Among the more recent novels dealing with the Negro are the fol- lowing: Mister Fish Kelly, by Robert McBlair, portraying a shiftless, lazy but likable Negro in the South; Green Thursday, by Julia Peterkin, describing the life of the Negro tenant farmer ; 302 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE White Blood, by Vara A. Majette, portraying Negro life in the tur- pentine region of Georgia; White and Black, by Herbert A. Shands, a realistic story of the race problem in Texas; The Land of Cotton, by Dorothy Scarborough, the story of poor whites and blacks in the cotton belt. Nigger, by Clement Wood, depicting the history of a Negro family in its migration from rural Alabama to Birmingham; Dark Days and Black Knights and Sun Clouds, by Octavius R. Cohen, are books of short stories exhibiting the humorous aspects of Negro life. Robert L. Durham’s Call of the South is the story of a President of the United States whose social equality theory and practice result in the marriage of his daughter to a cultured mulatto. The story culminates in a harrowing tragedy. It is well written and has had a sensational run, eliciting much favorable and unfavorable comment. Among Southern poets, it is very singular that the two most noted, Edgar Allan Poe and Sidney Lanier, scarcely mention the Negro. The Negro is also conspicuously absent from the works of several of the South’s most famous novelists, for example, John Fox, Mrs. Craddock, Lucy Furman, and Corra Harris. These authors seem to have chosen as the characters they would portray the Appalachian Mountaineers, who inhabit regions where there are none or very few Negroes. Professor W. B. Smith of Tulane University published in 1906 a book, The Color Line, in which he argues, upon anthropological grounds, that the Negro is an inferior race with little to hope for in the future. It is written in a scholarly and brilliant style, but has not been favorably received because of its pessimistic note. White America, by Ernest L. Cox, is a brief for maintaining the purity of the white race. Edgar Gardner Murphey, of Arkansas, is the author of two books which deal very extensively with Negro problems: The Present South, 1904; and The Basis of Ascendency, 1909. His discussions are con- structive and his attitude towards the Negro is sympathetic. His books have been widely read and very favorably reviewed by both the South- ern and Northern press. Dr. W. D. Weatherford, president of the Southern College of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Nashville, Tennessee, is the author of Present Forces in Negro Progress, Negro Life in the South, and more recently The Negro From Africa to America, WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 303 His books deal with the Negro problem from the standpoint of the principles of Christianity. He manifests throughout his writings a fairness and friendliness toward the Negro. He looks at the facts with frankness, and endeavors to bring the white people to a better under- standing of the Negro, and to a fuller responsibility in raising the level of the Negro’s status. His book, The Negro From Africa to America, is unsurpassed as a condensed history of the Negro in America, and it contains the best presentation of the social aspects of the Negro prob- lem to be found in any single volume. Dr. Weatherford’s books are used as texts by thousands of students in the voluntary study classes of the Young Men’s Christian Associations, and in colleges and uni- versities giving courses on the racial problem. Mrs. L. H. Hammond is author of a book, Jn Black and White, which approaches the Negro problem with rare insight, sympathy, and frankness, and which contains much in the way of hopeful and helpful suggestions. Commenting upon her book, the Outlook says: “Mrs. Hammond is a southerner who has an intimate knowledge of working class conditions, both North and South, and she makes the keynote of her book the assertion that the Negro problem is primarily not a Negro problem at all but a poverty problem, and that the colored people have suffered grave injustice from the failure of the South to understand this fact. “The book deals therefore with poverty among the Negroes and its amelioration—with health, housing, delinquency, education, civil rights. It speaks in gentle but no uncertain terms of the Negro’s helpless posi- tion and the injustice he often experiences. Examples are given of re- fined colored women who have been forced into jim-crow cars and ob- liged for hours to hear filthy language amid filthy surroundings; of colored boys sent to the chain gang for ten and fifteen years for the commission of petty offenses; and of educated, industrious Negro fam- ilies forced, because of segregation, to bring up their children on streets where vice is permitted to traffic unrestrained.” A very scholarly, intellectual, and frank discussion of the Negro problem is that of John Moffat Mecklin, in his Democracy and Race Friction: A Study in Social Ethics. The author is a native of Mis- sissippi, and is now professor of philosophy in the University of Pitts- burgh. He takes the ground that the friction between the Negro and the white man in our democracy is inevitable and ineradicable, and that the only good to come out of a discussion of the problem is to arrive at a modus vivendt. 304. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “There are certain problems,” he says, “which from their very na- ture do not admit of a categorical solution. They are as perennial as human existence itself. The real meaning of life is found in frankly acknowledging them and in bravely facing the duties to which this ac- knowledgment gives rise. It is only the dogmatic philosopher or the orthodox theologian who presents us with final solutions and then con- tentedly takes an intellectual and moral holiday. For the masses of men life is largely a compromise with insuperable difficulties, a persis- tent and courageous struggle for a modus vivendi,” © Professor Mecklin’s book discusses in separate chapters, the “Basis of Social Solidarity,” “Race Traits,’ the “Negro and His Social Heri- tage,” “Race Prejudice,” “The Philosophy of the Color Line,” “Creat- ing a Conscience,” “The Negro and the Supreme Court,” and “Equality before the Law.” In his chapter on “Race Prejudice,” he makes the following com- ment: “In an enlightened and self-conscious community there is a very important sense in which the group mind is consciously reflected in the choices individuals express in the marriage relation. The group mind of the primitive man was only vaguely aware of the intent to conserve the group type, and with it the basis of the group culture, in its insis- tence upon the observance of custom and taboo in regard to marriage. In modern society, where there is a much clearer apprehension of the interests involved, the powerful influence of public sentiment, expressed indeed in conventions and social habits and yet distinctly aware of its purpose, is everywhere in evidence controlling the choices of the con- tracting parties. Society recognises that the interests and inclinations of the parties immediately concerned should be subordinated to the larger interests of the group. It is distinctly aware of the fundamental importance, for the welfare and continued existence of the group’s life, of conserving the hereditary racial basis which is the bearer of the group culture. The social condemnation of the union of whites and negroes is a manifestation of this demand that group integrity be preserved. Such an intermingling of blood implies a vast deal more than the union of the two persons concerned. It would inevitably bring in time a pro- found modification of the cultural ideals of the white through the re- sulting transformation of the ethnic background of those ideals. The loss of this ‘self-conscious ethnic personality, this self-poised psycho- physical entity, which makes a civilisation possible, would be a serious disaster. *Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction: A Study in Social Ethics, p. vii, WRITINGS OF SOUTHERN WHITES 305 “Hence prejudice against colour may in its lasi analysis be prompted by laudable instincts of group self-preservation. Race-friction may be .due to an inevitable conflict between group values as they find concrete embodiment in two diverse races. Where races differ so greatly that the result of amalgamation is neither the one type nor the other, but a confusion of the two, the race that has the most at stake resists it as meaning ultimately the dissipation of its cultural identity and the cheap- ening of all that makes its future worth living for. It is no accident of history that mongrel peoples are almost always characterized by insta- bility of political institutions and a general inchoateness of civilisation. “It is certain, then, that there is much inarticulate wisdom in the race antipathy which the uncritical humanitarian would class with the fear of mice and rats. To be sure, it often seems stubbornly irrational and even flagrantly undemocratic. A young white woman, a graduate of a great university of the far North, where negroes are seldom seen, resented it most indignantly when she was threatened with social ostra- cism in a city farther South with a large negro population because she insisted upon receiving on terms of social equality a negro man who was her classmate. The logic of the social mind in this case was some- thing as follows: When society permits the free social intercourse of two young persons of similar training and interests, it tactitly gives its consent to the possible legitimate results of such relations, namely, mar- riage. But marriage is not a matter that concerns the contracting par- ties alone; it is social in its origin and from society come its sanctions. It is society’s legitimised method for the perpetuation of the race in the larger and inclusive sense of a continuous racial type which shall be the bearer of a continuous and progressive civilisation. There are, however, within the community two racial groups of such widely di- vergent physical and psychic characteristics that the blending of the two destroys the purity of the type of both and introduces confusion— the result of the blend is a mongrel. The preservation of the unbroken, self-conscious existence of the white or dominant ethnic group is synonymous with the preservation of all that has meaning and inspira- tion in its past and hope for its future. It forbids by law, therefore, or by the equally effective social taboo, anything that would tend to con- taminate the purity of its stock or jeopardize the integrity of its social heritage. “The presence of a large element with more or less mixed blood cannot be taken as proof that the basis of this race antipathy is es- sentially superficial, for this intermingling has taken place in direct 306 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE opposition to the social sanctions of both groups. The impulses that have brought about this fusion are not essentially different from those exhibited in the mating of animals of different breeds. They cannot be cited against a legitimate race antipathy and in favour of race amalgamation, unless, of course, we are prepared to place the sanctions of human society on the same level with that of the brutes. It is one of the curious illustrations of the mental distortion aroused by the discussion of this vexed race-question that writers often seem inclined to find in these evidences of the triumph of the animal in both races a rational justification for race fusion. The ultimate issue at stake is not altered by the fact that in this clandestine fashion white blood has found its way into the veins of a few illustrious in- dividuals, classed as negroes, but in reality belonging to neither ethnic group. “The fundamental incompatibilities of racial temperament and tradi- tion which operate to make the great majority of actual unions be- tween the two groups unhappy and the fact that many of those who do enter upon these unions belong to the criminal or anti-social ele- ment of both groups would seem to indicate that the condemnation of such unions by the better elements of both races has a substantial basis.” 7 Dr. Thomas J. Woofter, member of the Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation, is the author of The Basis of Racial Adjustment, which is designed for use as a text in classes for the study of race problems. The book aims to lead the student to view the problems from the stand- point of the best sources, and not to impose the author’s bias. At the end of each chapter sources are cited from both Negro and white authorities. " Mecklin, op. cit., pp. 145-9. CHAPTER 309 NEGRO POETS Paul Laurence Dunbar—Claude McKay—James Weldon Johnson—Means, Haw- kins, Corrothers, and Fenton Johnson—Recent Tendencies in Negro Poetry— The Tragedy of the Mulattoes Revealed in Poetry MONG the Negro writers of poetry the name of Paul Laurence Dunbar stands out as preéminent. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872. After receiving a high school education he began to earn his living as an elevator boy at a salary of $4 a week. In 1893 he was appointed by Fred Douglass as assistant in the care of the exhibit from Haiti at the World’s Fair. Dunbar began to write verses when he was in high school, and by the time he had entered upon his duties at the World’s Fair he had written a number of clever poems and had attracted some attention as a reader of them. In 1893 a collection of his poems was published under the title of Oak and Ivy, and in 1895 a second collection ap- peared under the title of Majors and Minors. These poems caught the eye of William Dean Howells, who wrote a favorable review of them for Harper’s Weekly. Thereafter Dunbar was well known to students of current literature, and his suceeding publications found a wide and appreciative circle of readers. Among his later publica- tions were Lyrics of Lowly Life, Lyrics of the Hearthstone, Poems of Cabin and Field, etcetera. His merit as a poet consisted in his faithful delineation of the life of the Negro in its humble and picturesque setting, with a fine touch of humor and pathos, and an artful use of dialect. His reputation was enhanced by his visit to England in 1897, on which he won recog- nition in literary circles. Upon his return to America, at the age of twenty-six, he was able to devote himself entirely tc his literary compositions and to public readings. But, just as he was entering into the flowering period of his career, his health began to fail. In- ability to carry on his literary work was necessarily followed by finan- cial embarrassment. Through the influence of Robert G. Ingersoll, he was appointed to a position in the Library of Congress, but was 397 308 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE obliged to give up this work after a few months owing to the bad effect of the confinement upon his health. After a vain search for health in Colorado, he returned to his home at Dayton, where he died February 9, 1906. Dunbar’s achievement as a poet was, indeed, remarkable for a man whose span of life covered only thirty-four years. But he was richly endowed by nature—a real poetic genius. He had the poet’s imagination and delicacy of feeling and these found expression through the medium of a refined literary taste and felicity of language. One of his most beautiful poems is “The Deserted Plantation” in which he shows his ability to see and.interpret the finer aspects of the ante- bellum South: “Oh, de grubbin’-hoe’s a-rustin’ in de co’nah, An’ de plow’s a-tumblin’ down in de fiel’, While de whippo-will’s a’wailin’ lak a mou’nah When his stubbo’n hea’t is tryin’ ha’d to yiel’. “In de furrers whah de co’n was allus wavin’, Now de weeds is growin’ green an’ rank an’ tall; An’ de swallers roun’ de whole place is a-bravin’ Lek dey thought deir folks had allus owned it all. “An’ de big house stan’s all quiet lak’ an’ solemn, Not a blessed soul in pa’lor, po’ch, er lawn; Not a guest, ner not a cai’age lef’ to haul ’em, Fu’ de ones dat tu’ned de latch-string out air gone. “An’ de banjo’s voice is silent in de qua’ters, D’ ain’t a hymn ner co’n-song ringin’ in de air; But de murmur of a branch’s passin’ waters Is de only soun’ dat breks de stillness dere. “Whah’s de da’kies, dem dat used to be a-dancin’ Ev’ry night befo’ de ole cabin do’? Whah’s de chillun, dem dat used to be a-prancin’ Er a-rollin’ in de san’ er on de flo’? “Whah’s ole Uncle Mordecai an’ Uncle Aaron? Whah’s Aunt Doshy, Sam, an’ Kit, an’ all de res’? Whah’s ole Tome de da’ky fiddlah, how’s he farin’? Whah’s de gals dat used to sing an’ dance de bes’? “Gone! not one o’ dem is lef’ to tell de story; Dey have lef’ de deah ole place to fall away. Couldn’t one o’ dem dat seed it in its glory Stay to watch it in de hour of decay? NEGRO POETS 309 “Dey have lef’ de ole plantation to de swallers, But it hol’s in me a lover till de las’; Fu’ I fin’ hyeah in de memory dat follers All dat loved me an’ dat I loved in de pas’. “So I’ll stay an’ watch de deah ole place an’ tend it Ez I used to in de happy days gone by. ’T well de othah Mastah thinks it’s time to end it, An’ calls me to my qua’ters in de sky.” His poem, “Sympathy,” is an introspection and expresses the loneli- ness and circumscribed life of the latter-day cultured and aspiring Negro. SYMPATHY I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals— I know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats his wing Till its blood is red on the cruel bars: For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting— I know why he beats his wing! I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings! Another of Dunbar’s lyrics is “With the Lark.” WITH THE LARK Night is for sorrow and dawn is for joy, Chasing the troubles that fret and annoy; Darkness for sighing and daylight for song,— Cheery and chaste the strain, heartfelt and strong, All the night through, though I moan in the dark, I wake in the morning to sing with the lark, 310 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Deep in the midnight the rain whips the leaves, Softly and sadly the wood-spirit grieves. But when the first hue of dawn tints the sky, I shall shake out my wings like the birds and be dry; And though, like the rain-drops, I grieved through the dark, I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark. On the high hills of heaven, some morning to be, Where the rain shall not grieve thro’ the leaves of the tree, There my heart will be glad for the pain I have known, For my hand will be clasped in the hand of mine own; And though life has been hard and death’s pathway been dark, I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark. Claude McKay, a native of Jamaica, who has taken up residence in New York City, is the author of a number of poems conspicuous for versatility and imaginative insight. His first poems were written while he was on the constabulary force of Jamaica, and were pub- lished under the title Constab Ballads. His second volume came out in England under the title Spring in New Hampshire, with a preface by I. A. Richards of Cambridge. His most recent volume bears the title of Harlem Shadows, and is an interpretation of Negro life in New York City. His sympathy for the children of his race, who have fallen victims to the wiles of the great city, is disclosed in the following poem: HARLEM SHADOWS I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire’s call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest; Through the lone night until the last snow-flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast, The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street. Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street, NEGRO POETS 311 The poet’s philosophy of triumph over every adversity 1s shown in his little stanza entitled “Baptism,” as follows: “Into the furnace let me go alone; Stay you without in terror of the heat. I will go naked in—for thus ’tis sweet— Into the weird depths of the hottest zone. I will not quiver in the frailest bone, You will not note a flicker of defeat; My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet, My mouth give utterance to any moan. The yawning oven spits forth fiery spears; Red aspish tongues shout wordlessly my name. Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears, Transforming me into a shape of flame. I will come out, back to your world of tears, A stronger soul within a finer frame.” The reaction of McKay to the race riot in Washington in 1919 was the following poem: If WE MUST DIE If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far out numbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! James Weldon Johnson, a native of Florida who was educated at Atlanta University and at Columbia University, has written poems which have been accepted by the Century, Independent, and other mag- azines and he is the author of Fifty Years and Other Poems, 1917; and The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922. One of his poems of decided merit is an ode to Negro folk music under the title “O Black and Unknown Bards”: “O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? 312 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE How, in your darkness, did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes? Who first from out the still watch, lone and long, Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song? “Heart of what slave poured out such melody As ‘Steal away to Jesus’? On its strains His spirit must have nightly floated free, Though still about his hands he felt his chains. Who heard great ‘Jordan roll’? Whose starward eye Saw chariot ‘swing low,’ and who was he That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh, ‘Nobody knows de trouble I see’? “What merely living clod, what captive thing, Could up toward God through all its darkness grope, And find within its deadened heart to sing These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope? How did it catch that subtle undertone, That note in music heard not with the ears? How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown, Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears. “Not that great German master in his dream Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars At the creation, ever heard a theme Nobler than ‘Go down, Moses.’ Mark its bars How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung Going to valorous deeds; such tones they were That helped make history when Time was young. “There is a wide, wide wonder in it all, That from degraded rest and servile toil The fiery spirit of the seer should call These simple children of the sun and soil. O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed, You—you alone, of all the long, long line Of those who’ve sung untaught, unknown, unnamed Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine. ? “You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings; No chant of bloody war, no exulting pean Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings You touched in chord with music empyrean. You sang far better than you knew; the songs That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed NEGRO POETS 313 mind leet 2 alle ht aaa his a EE URS SS ES Still live—but more than this to you belongs; You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.” Among his dialect poems the following is representative: MY LADY’S LIPS AM LIKE DEV HONEY (Negro Love Song) Breeze a-sighin’ and a-blowin’, Southern summer night. Stars a-gleamin’ and a-glowin’, Moon jus shinin’ right. Strollin’, like all lovers do, Down de lane wid Lindy Lou; Honey on her lips to waste; ’Speck I’m gwine to steal a taste. Oh, ma lady’s lips am like de honey, Ma lady’s lips am like de rose; An’ I’m jes like de little bee a-buzzin’ "Round de flowers wha’ de nectah grows. Ma lady’s lips dey smile so temptin’, Ma lady’s teeth so white dey shine, Oh, ma lady’s lips so tantalizin’, Ma lady’s lips so close to mine. Bird a-whistlin’ and a-swayin’ In de live-oak tree; Seems to me he keeps a-sayin’, “Kiss dat gal fo’ me.” Look heah, Mister Mockin’ Bird, Gwine to take you at yo’ word; If I meets ma Waterloo, Gwine to blame it all on you. Oh, ma lady’s lips am like de honey, Ma lady’s lips am like de rose; An’ I’m jes like de little bee a-buzzin "Round de flowers wha’ de nectah grows. Ma lady’s lips dey smile so temptin’, Ma lady’s teeth so white dey shine, Oh, ma lady’s lips so tantalizin’, Ma lady’s lips so close to mine. Honey in de rose, I ’spose, is Put der fo’ de bee; Honey on her lips, I knows, is Put der jes fo’ me. Seen a sparkle in her eye, Heard her heave a little sigh; 314 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Felt her kinder squeeze mah han’, ’Nuff to make me understan’, Sterling M. Means is a Georgia Negro who has written some pleas- ing verses under the title Deserted Cabin and Other Poems of which the following is typical: THE OLD DESERTED CABIN Dis ole deserted cabin Remin’s me ob de past; An’ when I gits ter t’inkin’, De tears comes tick an’, fast. I wunner whur’s A’nt Doshy, I wunner whur’s Brur Jim; I hyeahs no corn-songs ringin’, I hyeahs no Gospel hymn. Dis ole deserted cabin Am tumblin’ in decay; An’ all its ole-time dwellers Hab gone de silent way. Dey voices hushed in silence, De cabin drear an’ lone; An’ dey who used ter lib hyeah Long sense is dead an’ gone. Walter Everette Hawkins, a native of North Carolina, and, since 1913, an employe in the city post office of Washington, is the author of Chords and Discords which contains some poems with a refreshing freedom from the tragedy of color. One of these dealing with the universal theme of romance is: ASK ME WHY I LOVE YOU Ask me why I love you, dear, And I will ask the rose Why it loves the dews of Spring At the Winter’s close; Why the blossoms’ nectared sweets Loved by questing bee,— I will gladly answer you, If they answer me. Ask me why I love you, dear, I will ask the flower Why it loves the Summer sun, Or the Summer shower; NEGRO POETS 315 I will ask the lover’s heart Why it loves the moon, Or the star-besprinkled skies In a night in June. Ask me why I love you, dear, I will ask the vine Why its tendrils trustingly Round the oak entwine; Why you love the mignonette Better than the rue,— If you will but answer me, I will answer you. Ask me why I love you, dear, Let the lark reply, Why his heart is full of song When the twilight’s nigh; Why the lover heaves a sigh When her heart is true; If you will but answer me, I will answer you. James D. Corrothers, a native of Michigan, who was educated at Northwestern University and at Bennett College, North Carolina, is the author of Selected Poems, 1907, and The Dream and the Song, 1914. Some of his poems have appeared in the Century and other magazines. Of the two poems quoted below, one has a fine poetic flavor, and the other an exquisite humor. IVE LeLNY DEMWOODS YW ANUNOBODY DAT’ I De ole owl libs in a lonely place "Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah! Eyes lak sunflowers in his face ’Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah. Sets an’ broods alone, alone Sets an’ sigh an’ moan an’ moan, When de silvah moon goes down—— ’Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah. II O heah de lonely whip-po’-will! ’Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah Complainin’ when de night am still—— "Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah! Dah de wand’rin’ night winds stray, 316 For ten years or more following the death of Paul Laurence Dun- bar, the Negro poet most widely known and esteemed was William His poems have found their way into the Atlantic Monthly, the Century, and other magazines of literary rank, and later appeared in book form under the titles of Lyrics of Stanley Braithwaite of Boston. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Dah de groanin’ branches sway, Ghosts an’ witches lose dey way—— ’Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah. III "Way down in my Southern home—— "Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah—— Dah’s de place I longs to roam *Way in de woods, an’ nobody dah. O ma lub wid eyes ob coal, Listen ’til ma story’s tole; Owl’s a-hootin’ in my soul—— "Way in de woods, and nobody dah! GHOSES I Dey may be ghoses, er dey may be none; I takes no chances on de thaing, ma se’f; ’Twon’t neber sho’ten no man’s life to run, When somethin’ ’nother’s skeert ’im mose to deff. II De white man’s logic may be all-sufficin’ Foh white folks—in de day-time; but dey’s qu’ar Thaings seen at night; ’n’ when ma wool’s a-risin’, Dese feet o’ mine is gwine to bu’n de a’r. III Ain’t gwine to pestah wid no ’vestigation, Ma business is to git away f’om dah Fas’ is I kin—towards ma destination De ghose ain’t bo’n kin ketch me, nuther, sah! ? Life and Love, The House of Falling Leaves, etcetera. He is also the author of three anthologies, The Book of Elizabethan Verse, The Books of Restoration Verse, and The Book of Georgian V erse. *By courtesy of the Century Magazine. *By courtesy of Truth. NEGRO POETS 317 For a number of years he has contributed articles on literary topics to the Boston Evening Transcript. Fenton Johnson of Chicago, editor of the Favorite Magazine, is the author of A Little Dreaming, 1914; Visions of the Dusk, 1915; and Songs of the Soil, 1916. His poem “The Mulatto’s Song” expresses the tragedy of the man of color. THE MULATTO’S SONG Die, you vain but sweet desires! Die, you living, burning fires! I am like a Prince of France,— Like a prince whose noble sires Have been robbed of heritage; I am phantom derelict, Drifting on a flaming sea. Everywhere I go, I strive, Vainly strive for greater things; Daisies die, and stars are cold, And canary never sings; Where I go they mock my name, Never grant me liberty, Chance to breathe and chance to do. How the World War filled the Negro with new aspiration and hope is brought out in his poem “The New Day,” which is in part as fol- lows: “Forget not, O my brothers, how we fought In No Man’s Land that peace might come again! Forget not, O my brothers, how we gave Red blood to save the freedom of the world! We were not free, our tawny hands were tied; But Belgium’s plight and Servia’s woes we shared Each rise of sun or setting of the moon. So when the bugle blast had called us forth We went not like the surly brute of yore, But, as the Spartan, proud to give the world The freedom that we never knew nor shared. These chains, O brothers mine, have weighed us down As Samson in the temple of the gods; Unloosen them and let us breathe the air That makes the goldenrod the flower of Christ; For we have been with thee in No Man’s Land, Through lake of fire and down to Hell itself; And now we ask of thee our liberty, Our fréedom in the land of Stars and Stripes.” 318 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Countee P. Cullen, a student in New York University, is the author of a volume of poems issued by Harper & Brothers, 1925, under the title Color. From this volume the following two poems are quoted by courtesy of the publishers: INCIDENT Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.” I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember. DIALOGUE Soul: There is no stronger thing than song; In sun and rain and leafy trees It wafts the timid soul along On crested waves of melodies. Body: But leaves the body bare to feed Its hunger with its very need. Soul: Although the frenzied belly writhes, Yet render up in song your tithes; Song is the weakling’s oaken rod, His Jacob’s ladder dropped from God. Body: Song is not drink; song is not meat, Nor strong, thick shoes for naked feet. Soul: Who sings by unseen hands is fed With honeyed milk and warm, white bread; His ways in pastures green are led, And perfumed oil illumes his head; His cup with wine is surfeited, And when the last low note is read, He sings among the lipless dead With singing stars to crown his head. Body: But will song buy a wooden box The length of me from toe to crown, To keep me safe from carrion flocks When singing’s done and lyre laid down? NEGRO POETS 319 In recent years one notices a marked tendency in Negro poetry toward wailing and bitter complaint, expressing the feeling of the cul- tivated Negro that he is isolated, despised, and debarred in some way from the fullness of life to which he has a right. Some of the poems indicative of the new trend in Negro literature are as follows: THE OPTIMIST Never mind, children, be patient awhile, And carry your load with a nod and a smile, For out of the hell and the hard of it all, Time is sure to bring sweetest honey—not gall. Out of the hell and the hard of it all, A bright star shall rise that never shall fall: A God-fearing race—proud, noble, and true, Giving good for the evil which they always knew. ... * a sa So dry your wet pillow and lift your bowed head And show to the world that hope is not dead! Be patient! Wait! See what yet may befall, Out of the hell and the hard of it all. —Ethyl Lewis. “My people laugh and sing And dance to death— None imagining The heartbreak under breath.” —Charles Bertram Johnson. AT. THE (CLOSED GATE OLNUSTICE To be a Negro in a day like this Demands forgiveness. Bruised with blow on blow, Betrayed, like him whose woe-dimmed eyes gave bliss Still must one succor those who brought one low, To be a Negro in a day like this. To be a Negro in a day like this Demands rare patience—patience that can wait In utter darkness. ’Tis the path to miss, And knock, unheeded, at an iron gate, To be a Negro in a day like this. 320 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE To be a Negro in a day like this Demands strange loyalty. We serve a flag Which is to us white freedom’s emphasis. Ah! one must love when truth and justice lag, To be a Negro in a day like this. To be a Negro in a day like this— Alas! Lord God, what evil have we done? Still shines the gate, all gold and amethyst, But I pass by, the glorious goal unwon, “Merely a Negro’—in a day like this! —Corrothers. BROTHERS They bind his feet; they thong his hands With hard hemp rope and iron bands. They scourge his back in ghoulish glee; And bleed his flesh ;—men, mark ye—free. They still his groans with fiendish shout, Where flesh streams red they ply the knout. Thus sons of men feed lust to kill And yet, oh God! they’re brothers still. They build a pyre of torch and flame While Justice weeps in deepest shame. F’en Death in pity bows its head, Yet ’midst these men no prayer is said. They gather up charred flesh and bone— Mementos—boasting brave deed done. They sip of gore their souls to fill; Drink deep of blood their hands did spill. Go tell the world what men have done Who prate of God and yet have none; Think of themselves as wholly good, Blaspheme the name of brotherhood; Who hearken not as brothers cry For brother’s chance to live and die. To keep a demon’s murder tryst They'd rend the sepulcher of Christ. —Joshua Henry Jones. “What need have I for memory, When not a single flower Has bloomed within life’s desert For me, one little hour? NEGRO POETS eM “What need have I for memory, Whose burning eyes have met The curse of unborn happiness Winding the trail regret? “I am folding up my little dreams Within my heart to-night, And praying I may soon forget The torture of their sight.” —Mrs. G. D. Johnson. ELE OCT OROG IN One drop of midnight in the dawn of life’s pulsating stream Marks her an alien from her kind, a shade amid its gleam, Forevermore her step she bends, insular, strange, apart— And none can read the riddle of her strangely warring heart. The stormy current of her blood beats like a mighty sea Against the man-wrought iron bars of her captivity. For refuge, succor, peace, and rest, she seeks that humble fold Whose every breath is kindliness, whose hearts are purest gold. —Mrs. G. D. Johnson, DEL T bet All these must die before the Morning break: They who at God an angry finger shake, Declaring that because He made them White, Their race should rule the world by sacred right. They who deny a common Brotherhood— Who cry aloud, and think no Blackman good— The blood-cursed mob always eager to take The rope in hand or light the flaming stake, Jeering the wretch while he in death pain quakes— All these must die before the Morning breaks. All these must die before the Morning breaks: The Blackmen, faithless, whose loud laughter wakes Harsh echoes in the most unbiased places. They who choose vice, and scorn the gentle graces— Who by their manners breed contemptuous hate, Suggesting Jim-crow laws from state to state— They who think on earth they may not find An ideal man or woman of their kind. But from some other Race that ideal take— All these must die before the Morning break! 322 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE We know, O Lord, that there will come a time, When o’er the World will dawn the Age Sublime, When Truth shall call to all mankind to stand Before Thy throne as Brothers, hand in hand, Be not displeased with him who this song makes— All these must die before the Morning breaks! —Roscoe C. Jamison. Why should these cries of melancholy and bitter complaint find such general expression in the more recent Negro poets? Nearly all of the Negro poets are mulattoes. Now, why should the mulattoes of to-day be more downcast than the free mulattoes of the ante-bellum days? And why should the mulattoes of the North be more downcast than the mulattoes of the South? It might be argued by the eugenist that the outcry of the mulatto is due to the disharmony of his inherited traits, the surging of the white blood in his veins as it surged in Mark Twain’s mulatto char- acter, Roxanna. The cultivated mulatto constitutes the tragedy of the Negro problem as the cultivated mixed type constitutes a tragedy in other racial blends. Again it might be argued by the sociologist that the mulatto is de- pressed and resentful merely because he is socially proscribed. The statement is often found in treatises on the Negro that the cultivated mulatto has something of the white man’s disinclination to mingle with the blacks, and the inference from this supposed fact is that the mulatto craves the society of the whites. The mulatto is supposed to ask him- self such questions as these: Why should merely one drop of black blood in my veins consign me to this isolation? Why should a mere difference in the pigmentation of the skin separate one man from per- fect fellowship with another? Because the mulatto is socially isolated he is supposed to feel that the world is cold and unjust. But, as plausible as this explanation seems to be, there are reasons for doubting its validity. It is by no means certain that the mulatto covets the society of white people. Generally speaking, we should ex- pect that any more or less distinct racial group would find its most satisfying fellowship within the circle of its own kind. As the colored people of the United States raise their level of culture, and as the num- ber of distinguished men among them increases, we should expect that their feeling of race solidarity and of race pride would become more NEGRO POETS 323 pronounced and, so far as social contact is concerned, that they would have little reason to feel isolated. Peter Nielsen, who has studied the ways and thoughts of the na- tives of Africa for many years, tells us in his recent book that there is a growing tendency among whites and blacks of South Africa to remain ethically separate.* Another significant fact is that many mulattoes in the United States are so light of complexion that, if they had a mind to do so, they could cross the color line any day by merely chang- ing their locality. These considerations do not lend strong support to the idea that the melancholy notes of Negro poetry are due to the repressed desire of the colored people to commingle with the whites. I think that the fundamental cause of the sad dissatisfaction ex- pressed in Negro poetry is to be found in the general feeling among the colored people that they are looked upon as an inferior and despised race, and that, no matter what degree of excellence they may attain to, they cannot gain the respect and recognition which they merit. Take for instance Dunbar’s pathetic poem, “Sympathy,” wherein he speaks of the caged bird beating its wings “till its blood is red on the cruel bars.” Here it is evident, both from the title of the poem and from its content, that the author is not troubled over the question of social re- lationships, but that he suffers as a caged bird because his genius has no world of sympathy and appreciation in which to wing its flight. It is the ambition of a man of culture of any race to play his part before an audience which is representative of the most enlightened class, and which is competent to appreciate the merit and to fix the rank of the actor. The mulatto who develops a talent in any field of endeavor feels that he is condemned to act upon an inferior stage, and before an unrepresentative audience which, however loudly it may ap- plaud, is powerless to give him the recognition he craves. Sometimes, after infinite patience and long suffering, by accident or stealth, he is discovered by a few of the actors and auditors of the larger theater, but, no matter how great his merit, the stage-door of the larger theater remains closed to him. There can be no greater wrong inflicted upon any genius than to bar him from recognition by whatever authoritative group may happen to sit in judgment. And there is no uglier, or more cruel manifestation of race prejudice, than that which would lead one to disdain a work * Neilsen, The Black Man’s Place in South Africa, p. 121. 324 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of art merely because it is the product of a man of color. Who to-day can read the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar and not feel a regret that so fine a spirit as his should have lived among us and received so little notice or sympathy that it had to beat its wings red against the bars of our indifference? The Negroes of the United States are extremely sensitive to the opinion and attitude of the white people, and what they crave, and de- serve more than anything else, is to be respected according to their merits. To accord this respect to the Negro involves no breaking down of the ethnical separateness of the races, but it involves the building up of better race relations and a higher culture for both races. Every aspiring Negro should be encouraged by the white people to rise to the top, and should be applauded by them when he gets there, for nothing is more sure to hamper the advance of one race than to live side by side with another which is deprived of hope. Lord Macaulay believed that poetry necessarily declined with the advance of civilization, for the reason that civilization has a tendency to obliterate from the mind of man that imagery which is the essence of all poetry. Among a somewhat backward people, whose interests are mostly objective, the mind of the individual is a sort of picture gallery, filled with the imagery of the outer world; whereas among a highly civilized people, whose interests are mostly subjective, the mind of the individual is merely so many pigeon-holes for storing up abstract and classified knowledge. A highly civilized people, therefore, will have many distinguished scientists, but no great poets.* If Macaulay’s theory is correct it would lead us to anticipate, for some years to come, an increasing ascendancy of Negro poetry, and, since poetry is destined to be a scarce article in the future, we should give a cordial welcome to whatever muse, white or black, may be able to enliven and charm our declining imagination. *“Essay on Milton.” CHAPTER 40 NEGRO NOVELISTS AND HISTORIANS Novels of Chesnutt and Dunbar—Historical Studies of Williams, Brawley, Scott, Grimké, and Others N novel-writing Charles Waddell Chesnutt takes the highest rank among the Negroes. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1858, he began as a teacher in a public school in North Carolina, the state from which his parents had come. Later he was chosen principal of the North Carolina Normal School at Fayetteville. At the age of twenty-five he left North Carolina and for a while worked in a newspaper office in New York. Then he returned to his native home in Cleveland, where he worked as a stenographer and at the same time studied law. In 1887 he was admitted to the bar, but his natural bent carried him into the field of literature. His observations in North Carolina led him to write a series of short stories portraying the dialect, man- ners, superstitions and tribulations of the Southern Negro. These were published in the Atlantic Monthly and later appeared in book form under the title The Conjure Woman. Chesnutt is distinctly a problem novelist. His stories deal with the problem of race prejudice and the tragedy of those who live on the border-line of color. His first novel, The House Behind the Cedars, which appeared in 1920 and which has been the most widely read, has as its central theme the tragedy of the mulatto. The heroine of the story is a mulatto girl who has the aspiration of the Caucasian and the handicaps of the Negro. The story reveals the sufferings and tragic pathos resulting from the white man’s sin in bringing into the world a child endowed with the passion to rise, but without hope. Two others of Chesnutt’s novels, The Marrow of Tradition and The Colonel’s Dreams, revolve around the same theme and reflect the shadows that overspread the life of the half-caste. Paul Laurence Dunbar, though distinguished as a poet rather than as a writer of prose, is the author of several novels: Folks from Dixie, 1898, The Love of Landry, 1900; Heart of Happy Hollow, 1904; etcet- 325 326 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE era. Healso wrote Strength of Gideon and Other Stories, 1902. All of these have literary and artistic merit and reveal much that is picturesque and blithesome as also much that is disconsolate in human nature. Had his poetry not overshadowed his prose, he would have won a respectable place in literature as a novelist. A novel, The Fire in the Flint, by Walter E. White, represents the ill treatment of the Negro and all of the darker aspects of the race problem in a small Georgia town. A recent book by Jean Toomer entitled Cane is made up of short stories, a drama and a few poems, all having reference mostly to the Negroes in Georgia and Washington, D. C. In the field of history a conspicuous figure is George W. Williams, author of The History of the Negro Race in America. This book is highly valuable as a piece of research, giving a scholarly presentation of the status of the Negro from Colonial times to the present. Its chief fault is animus against the white man. The author dwells bitterly upon the grievances of his people, and overlooks the many blessings and splendid opportunities which fortune has brought to them through contact with the white man’s culture. The book sounds no note of en- thusiasm over the enlargement of the Negro’s freedom in the West Indies, in North and South America, and even in Africa. It stresses what the Negro has endured, not what he has achieved. Moreover, it lacks the discriminating judgment which is essential in writing history. A historian of the opposite type is Benjamin Brawley, who deals with more recent history and shows us what the Negro has accom- plished as a result of such opportunities as chance has placed in his path. Mr. Brawley received the degree of master of arts from Harvard and is now professor of English in the Atlanta Baptist College. His publications are: A Short History of the American Negro, 1913; The Negro in Literature and Art, 1918; A Social History of the American Negro, 1921; Africa and the War, 1918; Women of Achievements, 1919. All of these books are valuable in telling what the Negro has done and is doing, and in furnishing the inspiration for further strides upward. Dr. Carter G. Woodson, founder and editor of the Journal of Negro History, is the author of the following books: The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, The History of the Negro Church, The Negro in Our History, and A Century of Negro Migration. All of his books are based on painstaking research, and they bring NEGRO NOVELISTS AND HISTORIANS 3277, to light a vast collection of important facts showing the part which the Negro has played in American history. As editor of the Journal of Negro History, Dr. Woodson is doing a valuable service in furnish- ing a medium through which the achievements of the Negro can reach the educated public. Archibald H. Grimké, of Boston, is the author of biographical sketches of Garrison and Sumner, written for the American Reformers Series, also author of Modern Industriahsm and the Negro of the United States, and of sundry papers dealing with the civil rights ques- tion. The most recent historical writer is Emmett J. Scott, author of The American Negro in the Great War. His book gives a very interesting and full account of the part played by both the Negro soldiers and Negro civilians in the Great War. It covers the period from the declaration of war against Germany to the mustering out of the soldiers after the armistice. It tells of the vari- ous services rendered by each of the Negro regiments in the Army, with a recital of many heroic and thrilling incidents of the battle-field, in- cluding the names of the regiments, companies, and individuals receiv- ing the Croix de Guerre and other recognitions of distinguished service. The book is an exceedingly valuable contribution to the history of the World War. CHAPTER 41 THE NEGRO ON THE RACE PROBLEM Personality and Points of View of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, and James D. Corrothers—Discussions of the Problem by Thomas, Holtzclaw, Kelly Miller, and Others OOKER T. WASHINGTON, who has impressed the American people more than any other Negro, is the author of many books and magazine articles covering matters of vital interest alike to the American Negro and the American white man. His most notable book is his autobiography, Up from Slavery. Commenting upon this book, William Archer, an English novelist, says: “His life, as related by himself in ‘Up from Slavery,’ is a story of great heroism to rank with any in literature. Born a slave in a one room cabin, with no glazed window, and an earthen floor, he remained there until, when he was eight or nine, emancipation came. After that he worked in a salt-furnace and in a coal mine, devoured all the time by a passion for knowledge which overcame what seemed almost in- credible difficulties. At last he set forth for Hampton Institute, where General Armstrong was then just beginning his beneficent work. He had five hundred miles to travel and scarcely any money. He worked and often begged his way; for Mr. Washington has never been ashamed to beg when there was a good object to be served. Arriving at Rich- mond, Virginia, without a cent, he worked for several days unloading a ship, and slept at night in a hollow under a wooden sidewalk. “At Hampton he found the system in operation which he has since adopted at Tuskegee Normal; that tuition is covered by endowments, while the student is enabled to pay (in part, at any rate) by work for his board and clothing. He soon distinguished himself, not by great attainments, but by the thoroughness of his work and the sincerity and elevation of his character. Then, in 1881, it occurred to the State of Alabama to start a normal school for coloured people at a little village named Tuskegee, some forty miles from the capital, Montgomery. It did not, however, occur to the State of Alabama to provide any build- ings or apparatus; it simply allotted £400 a year to be applied to the 328 THE NEGRO ON THE RACE PROBLEM 320 salaries of the teachers. On General Armstrong’s recommendation, Mr. Washington, then a youth of some five and twenty years, was en- trusted with the organization and management of the school; and the account of how, with practically no resources at all, he built up the great and beneficent institution which has now made the name of Tuskegee world-famous is indeed a remarkable story of indomitable courage and persistence. Mr. Washington felt that his personal failure would be reckoned a failure to his race. Out of the nettle, danger, he plucked the flower, safety, and Tuskegee now represents the greatest individ- ual triumph his race has ever achieved.” 4 Other books by Booker T. Washington are: The Story of the Negro, 1909; frederick Douglass, 1907; My Larger Education, 1912; Character Building, 1903; Working with the Hands, 1904, etcetera. He wrote articles for the leading magazines and was greatly in demand as a lecturer. Following his untimely death an editorial in The World’s Work paid him this tribute: “Booker T. Washington had a superlative degree of common sense. That was his chief characteristic. He believed in the constant appli- cation of the homely doctrine of hard work. That was his solution of the so-called Negro problem. His doctrine could well have been ap- plied to many white people, but he never applied it to them. His business was helping the Negro and he minded his business. That was another of his chief characteristics. “He tried to teach the people of his race that if they lived decently and worked hard they would gradually overcome the handicaps under which they suffered. He warned them against the allurements of pol- itics, of trying to gain enough political power to legislate themselves into positions which they could not hold. To those who demand equality he answered that when the best Negro society was as advanced as the best white society there would be no incentive to mix the two; and that until that time it was obviously impossible. “His philosophy left every proper door of hope open to the Negro and yet asked for him no special favors. He did protest against unfair treatment, and his protests received more recognition than those of any other man of his race for the very reason that he asked that the Negro be given his due and did not ask for more than that. His philosophy did not spend itsel® so much upon the rights of the Negro as upon his duties and opportunities. * Archer, Through Afro-America, p. 49. 330 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “The measure of the man’s strength was that he could become the leader of his race upon so homely a programme as the doctrine of hard work and right living. “He was not liked by those Negroes who wished to achieve prog- ress by the short cuts of agitation and legislation. He was not liked by white people who have never admitted that the Negro and the white man are different. But to the great majority of the sensible men of both races his doctrine appealed. They aided his efforts and they deeply regret his loss.” After a tour of observation of Negro life in the South, Ray Stan- nard Baker said in reference to Booker T. Washington: ‘Wherever I found a prosperous Negro enterprise, a thriving business place, a good home, there I was almost sure to find Booker T. Washington’s picture over the fireplace, or a little framed motto expressing his gos- pel of work and service.” The preéminent author among the Negroes of to-day is W. E. Burghardt DuBois, though it is difficult to know under what literary head to class him. His authorship covers the field of fiction, history, biography, economics, and sociology. Perhaps his proper classification is that of essayist. Born at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, he was gradu- ated from Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1888. From there he went to Harvard University, where in 1890 he received the degree of bachelor of arts; in 1891, the degree of master of arts; and in 1895, the degree of doctor of philosophy. He taught for a while at Wilberforce University and from 1896 to 1910 was professor of history and economics at Atlanta University. Ite gave up his chair in order to take up work with the National As- sociation for the Advancement of the Colored People, and was elected editor of the organ of the association which appears monthly under the title of The Crisis. DuBois’s first publication was his doctor’s thesis The Suppression of the Slave Trade, a scholarly, unbiased discussion of the movement for the suppression of the slave trade in the Colonial and later period of American history. In 1899, he published The Philadelphia Negro and in the years immediately following he wrote several articles deal- ing with the dark side of the color line, which appeared in the Ailantic Monthly, The World’s Work, and other magazines. These articles are embodied in the volume, The Souls of Black Folk. THE NEGRO ON THE RACE PROBLEM 331 His Souls of Black Folk, his Darkwater, together with half a dozen short essays of like themes, may be considered distinct literary pro- ductions. Besides his Suppression of the Slave Trade, his contribution to history consists of an article on John Brown for the American Crisis Biographies, and numerous magazine articles touching upon the eco- nomic, educational and religious history of the Negro. Most of his writings in recent years, especially his editorials in The Crisis, have been in favor of securing for the Negro a full share in American culture by the complete ignoring of color. Glenn Frank, in his article “The Clash of Color,” Century Magazine, November, 1919, says of DuBois: “DuBois, in the early days of his public career as a scholar and writer, wrote in a style of liquid beauty his protests against the color line in American life. Huis writings were touched with an appealing sadness. The poet in him spoke in those days. But in these later days hate has rusted upon his pen. He speaks more bluntly. He snarls as a wolf at bay. The poet has abdicated in favor of the propagandist. He tells the Negro soldier that he went to Europe as a fighting man and that he must return fighting, fighting, fighting for the unqualified rights of an American citizen.” One of the best books written by a Negro is the autobiography of James D. Corrothers published under the title In Spite of the Handi- cap. The author is of Scotch-Irish, Indian, and Negro stock, the Cau- casian element showing itself in his fine features and intellectual coun- tenance. He was born in a Negro settlement of Cass County, Michi- gan; educated at Northwestern University and elsewhere; and has had a very eventful life in both North and South. In his introduction to this book, Ray Stannard Baker says that it “gives us a striking picture of what race prejudice means in the North, and the difficulties which the Northern Negro is forced to meet. It also throws much light on conditions with which few writers on the race question have dealt: I mean the problems which confront the abler and more intelligent Negroes, the leaders of the race, in their contact with their own people. And finally it is a book singularly with- out rancor: the book of a man who in spite of difficulties has main- tained a cheerful and helpful outlook on life.” Mr. Corrothers’ story of his life is comparable in interest and heroic S82 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE achievement to Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery. It begins with the career of a bootblack and leads up to that of a preacher of the Gospel and a writer who finds entrée to the leading magazines. Mr. Corrothers is the author of a publication entitled The Black Cat Club, which contains character studies of Negro life in the great cities of the North, and includes several poems by the author in Negro dialect. William H. Thomas, a Negro lawyer of Cincinnati, is the author of a book, The American Negro, which of all the books written by Negroes is perhaps the most unpopular. His point of view is that of the irra- tionally prejudiced white man.. A casual reader of the book would never imagine that the author was a man of African descent. None of the ancestors of Thomas were slaves. On his mother’s side he was of German and English stock. His maternal grandfather was a son of a white indentured servant by a Negro man born in Pennsylvania in 1758. His maternal grandmother was a white German woman born in Maryland in 1770, and from that colony she emigrated to Ohio. His paternal grandparents were of mixed blood and were born in Virginia. Thomas was born in Pickanay County, Ohio, in 1843. His parents were devout Christians and in their morning orisons and every prayer never omitted supplication for “those in bondage.” In his book he says: “As far back as I can remember, my parents’ home was the rendezvous of escaping slaves from whose recital my childish heart drank in the miseries of human chattel.” A term in a county school and ten months’ study in a college in Ohio was all of the schooling that Thomas had. He volunteered in the Civil War, and in an attack upon the defenses of Wilmington, North Carolina, he received a gunshot wound which cost him his right arm. After the war he studied theology and worked on a religious news- paper. In 1871, he was sent to South Carolina to teach the freedmen, and a year later was licensed to practice law in that state. He was ap- pointed justice of Newberry, and later was elected a member of the South Carolina legislature, in which he was instrumental in settling the presidential vote of South Carolina in 1876. He traveled all over the South and had a wide acquaintance with the colored population. Thomas is very pessimistic as to the future of the Negro in Amer- ica. His attitude toward the Negro problem is like that of the religious evangelist toward the unconverted, He believes that regeneration is THE NEGRO ON THE RACE PROBLEM 333 entirely a matter of will power of the individual. He, therefore, mini- mizes all efforts at regeneration through laws or other external means. He says, “The Negro can be a man if he will. All human regenera- tion—moral, mental, physical—is an internal process begun and com- pleted within the individual himself.” ? William Holtzclaw is the author of a very buoyant little volume, The Black Man’s Burden. It is the story of his achievement in educa- tional work and, at the same time, an inspiring account of the progress of his race in education. The author entered Tuskegee penniless and worked his way through. He is now principal of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute of Mississippi. In his introduction to the book Booker Washington says: “I do not know a single graduate of Tuskegee who has more completely car- ried out in his life the spirit which the school has sought to instill in its students, nor do I know one who is doing a more useful or more successful work for his race and for the community in which he lives.” Dr. Robert R. Moton, the successor to Washington as principal at Tuskegee, is the author of Finding a Way Out, An Autobiography, 1920. In this book, as also in his public lectures, he shows breadth of outlook and a fine spirit. He is interested in the constructive side of the Negro problem, and, like his predecessor, is trying to get the colored people to do the things needed to be done. He is a man of devotion to his race and his country and is winning his way as a great leader. Kelly Miller, a professor in Howard University, is author of Race Adjustment, An Appeal to Conscience, Out of the House of Bondage, etcetera. His books are a plea for more righteousness in all of the white man’s dealings with the Negro. He is an outstanding leader of Negro thought, and represents a class of educated Negroes who are earnestly striving for a rational adjustment of race relationships. William Pickens, an ex-slave from South Carolina, has become known through his two books, The Hour of Slavery, an Autobiography, 1911; and The New Negro: His Political, Civil, and Mental Status and Related Essays, 1916. The author graduated at Yale University in 1904, and has since been a professor in Talladega College, Alabama. He is a man of mediocre ability, lacking in imagination, literary refine- ment, and balanced judgment. In his latter book he classes Alexander Hamilton as a Negro. William A. Sinclair, author of The Aftermath of Slavery, sees only *Thomas, The American Negro, p. 365. 334 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the political aspect of the Negro problem, and his book is a tirade against the white South for limiting the suffrage of the blacks. Alain Locke’s The New Negro, 1925, breathes the spirit of the edu- cated and aspiring man of color. J. W. Cromwell’s book, The Negro in American History, 1914, is an extravagant and vaunting narrative of the achievements of his race and is entirely without merit. To sum up, I would say that in both quantity and quality the writ- ings of the American Negro are highly creditable in view of his lim- ited opportunities. In the fields of poetry, history, autobiography and moral philosophy, one can single out productions which may be con- sidered valuable contributions to the world’s culture. GUIAPT oRta2 NEGRO FOLK SONGS Their African Origin—Spirituals of the Southern Plantations—Funeral Songs— Work Songs—Satirical and Humorous Songs—Influence of Negro Folk Songs on the Music of the Whites HE music of the American Negro had its beginning in Africa. The folk music of the native African is very difficult to reproduce for the reason that it cannot be written so as to preserve its emotional color or timbre. Mr. Krehbiel in his Afro-American Folk Songs has given us a very good collection of native African music, but we can form a correct idea of it only from the impressions it has made upon the white residents in Africa who have had the pleasure of listening to it. All missionaries and explorers describe the music as peculiarly plaintive and melancholy. The original poetry which belonged to the African folk music was lost in transit to America, but the emotional tone and rhythm were trans- ferred to new compositions, partly original, and partly imitative modifi- cations of the hymns sung by white people. Congo airs have followed the wanderings of the Arab, have enlivened the street music of Constantinople, and have charmed the courts of Bersia, The musical impulse in the Negro prompts to spontaneous recitative and improvised songs, and, in the atmosphere of the Southern planta- tions, the Negro developed unconsciously a new and rich store of folk music. The songs of the black slaves in the South are, in the opinion of Krehbiel, “original and native products. They contain idioms which were transplanted hither from Africa, but as songs they are the prod- uct of American institutions; of the social, political, and geographical environment within which their creators were placed in America; of the influences to which they were subjected in America; of the joys, sor- rows and experiences which fell to their lot in America.” ? “Perhaps the innate lightness of heart and carelessness of disposi- * Krehbiel, Afro-American Folk Songs, p. 22. 335 336 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE tion, carefully cultivated by the slaveholders for obvious reasons, had much to do with the circumstance that there are few utterances of pro- found sadness or despair found in the songs, but many of resilient hope- fulness and cheerful endurance of present pain in contemplation of the rewards of rest and happiness hereafter.” * The following are some of the best known folk songs: SOMEBODY’S BURIED IN THE GRAVEYARD Somebody’s buried in the graveyard, Somebody’s buried in the sea, Going to get up in the morning a shouting, Going to join Jubilee. 1. Although you see me coming along so, To the promised land I’m bound to go. 2. I have some friends before me... gone, By the grace of God I'll follow on. 3. Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m... down, But still my soul is heavenly bound.® BALM IN GILEAD There is a Balm in Gilead, To make the wounded whole, There is a Balm in Gilead, To heal the sin-sick soul. 1. Sometimes I feel discouraged, And think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit Revives my soul again. 2. Don’t ever feel discouraged, For Jesus is your friend, And if you lack for knowledge, He'll ne’er refuse to lend. 3. If you cannot preach like Peter, If you cannot pray like Paul, You can tell the love of Jesus, And say, “He died for all.” * ? Krehbiel, op. cit., p. 45. * Work, Folk Song of the American Negro, p. 34. *Work, op. cit., p. 43. NEGRO FOLK SONGS 337 “OH, NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I SEE” Chorus Oh, nobody knows the trouble I see, Nobody knows but Jesus. Oh, nobody knows the trouble I see, Glory hallelujah. 1. Sometimes I’m ‘up, Sometimes I’m down, Oh, yes, Lord. Sometimes I’m level with the ground. Oh, yes, Lord. Chorus Oh, nobody knows the trouble I see, etc. 2. If you get there before I do, Oh, yes, Lord. Tell all-a-my friends I’m coming, too, Oh, yes, Lord. Chorus Oh, nobody knows the trouble I see, etc.® “SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT” Chorus Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home; Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home. 1. If you get there before I do, Coming for to carry me home; Tell all my friends I’m coming, too, Coming for to carry me home. Chorus Swing low, sweet chariot, etc. 2. I looked over Jordan and what did I see? Coming for to carry me home; A band of angels coming after me, Coming for to carry me home. Chorus Swing low, sweet chariot, etc.° * Work, op. cit., p. 43. *Tbid., p. 60. 338 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE I ee a ll el “IN BRIGHT MANSIONS ABOVE” Chorus In bright mansions above, In bright mansions above, Lord, I want to live up yonder, In bright mansions above. 1. My mother’s gone to glory, I want to go there, too; Lord, I want to live up yonder, In bright mansions above. Chorus In bright mansions above, etc. 2. My Saviour’s gone to glory, I want to go there, too; Lord, I want to live up yonder, In bright mansions above. Chorus In bright mansions above, etc." SDYPAND GBS Chorus Oh, by and by, by and by, I’m a-going to lay down my heavy load. 1. I know my robe’s going to fit a-me, well. I’m a-going to lay down my heavy load; I tried it on at the gates of hell, I’m a-going to lay down my heavy load. Chorus Oh, by and by, by and by, etc. 2. Oh, some-a these mornings bright and fair, I’m a-going to lay down my heavy load; Going to take-a my wings and cleave the air, I’m a-going to lay down my heavy load. Chorus Oh, by and by, by and by, etc? * Work, op. cit., p. 62. tbsp. 70, NEGRO FOLK SONGS 339 YOU MUST BE PURE AND HOLY 1. When I was wicked an’—a prone to sin, My Lord, brethren, ah my Lord! I thought that I couldn’t be born again, My Lord, brethren, ah my Lord! Chorus You must be pure and holy, You must be pure an’—a holy, You must be pure and holy To see God feed his lambs. 2. [ll run all round the cross and cry, My Lord, brethren, ah my Lord, Or give me Jesus, or I die, My Lord, brethren, ah my Lord. You must be pure and holy, etc. 3. The Devil am a liar and conjurer too, My Lord, etc. If you don’t look out he’ll conjure you, (cut you in two, ) (cut you through, ) My Lord, etc. 4. O run up, sonny, and get your crown, My Lord, etc. And by your Father sit you down, My Lord, etc. 5. I was pretty young when I begun, My Lord, etc. But, now my work is almost done, My Lord, etc. 6. The Devil’s mad and I am glad, My Lord, etc. He lost this soul, he thought he had, My Lord, etc. 7. Go ’way, Satan, I don’t mind you, My Lord, etc. You wonder, too, that you can’t go through, My Lord, etc. 8. A lily white stone came rolling down, My Lord, etc. It rolled like thunder through the town, My Lord, etc.” * Allen, Slave Songs of the United States, p. 107. 340 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE THE OLD" SHIP tOF°ZAON 1. What ship is that you’re enlisted upon? O glory hallelujah! ’Tis the old ship of Zion, hallelujah! ’Tis the old ship of Zion, hallelujah! 2. And who is the Captain of the ship that you're on?—O glory, etc, My saviour is the Captain, hallelujah! * O’ER ‘THE CROSSING Bendin’ knees a achin’, Body rack’d wid pain, I wish I was a child of God, I’d git home bime-by. Keep pray-in’ I do believe We're a long time waggin’ o’ de cross-in’, Keep pray-in’, I do believe We'll git home to heaven bime-by. O yonder’s my old mudder, Been a-waggin’ at the hill so long, It’s about time she cross over, Git home bime-by. O Hear dat lumberin’ thunder A-roll from do’ to do’ A callin’ de people home to God; Dey’ll git home bime-by. O see dat forked lightin’ A-jump from cloud to cloud, A-pickin’ up God’s chil’n; Dey’ll git home bime-by. The Negro custom of sitting up with a corpse was often accompanied by the following song: “T look o’er yan-der, what I see? Somebody’s dying ev’ry day. See bright an-gel stand-in’ dere; Somebody’s dying ev’ry day. Chorus “Ev'ry day, pass-in’ a vay Ev’ry day, pass-in’ a vay, Ev’ry day, pass-in’ a vay Somebody’s dying ev’ry day.” * Allen, op. cit., p. 102. NEGRO FOLK SONGS 341 The following nocturnal funeral song was written down by Col. Higgison: “T know moonlight, I know starlight; I lay dis body down. I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight; I lay dis body down. I know de graveyard, I know de graveyard, When I lay dis body down, I walk in de graveyard, I walk troo de graveyard To lay dis body down. I lay in de grave an stretch out my arms; I lay dis body down. I go to de judgment in de evenin’ of de day When I lay dis body down. An’ my soul an’ your soul will meet in de day When we lay dis body down.” The Colonel says of this song, “I was startled when first I came on such a flower of poetry in the dark soil.” 1 Says Krehbiel, “There was sunshine as well as gloom in the life of the black slaves in the Southern Colonies and States, and so we have songs which are gay as well as grave; but as a rule the finest songs are the fruits of suffering undergone and the hope of the deliverance from bondage which was to come with translation to heaven after meaty ** It was very common for the native Africans to sing as they worked. Women sang in chorus while pounding wheat, and men sang while hoeing the ground, or rowing a boat.'* Such songs had for their purpose rhythmic movement, like the rhythm of the march all the world over. This habit of singing to stimulate exertion was brought by the Negroes to the New World. Lafcadio Hearn in his Two Years in the French West Indies, says: ‘Formerly the work of cane-cutting re- sembled the march of an army—first advanced the cutlassers in line, naked to the waist; then the amareuses, the women who tied and car- ried, and behind these the Ka, the drum, with a paid crieur or crieuse, to lead the song, and lastly the black commandeur for general.” Referring to Negroes in the South, Booker T. Washington tells us that, “Wherever companies of Negroes were working together, in the * Quoted by Krehbiel, op. cit., p. 109. “Tbid., p. 26. * Tbid., pp. 47, 57. * Quoted ibid., p. 47. 342 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE pad SMTA SINE MLa ati NSU c a ALD Aaa ans ents ue tk RAREST OE cotton fields and tobacco factories, on the levees and steamboats, on sugar plantations, and chiefly in the fervor of religious gatherings, these melodies sprang into life.” “The singular fact to be noticed here,” says Krehbiel, “is that the American Negro’s ‘spirituals’ were also his working songs, and the sig- nificance which this circumstance has with relation to their mood and mode. The spirituals could not have been thus employed had they been lugubrious in tone or sluggish in movement.” *° A common slave song heard on the steamboats was I’m Gaine to Alabamy, the words of which were as follows: 1. “I’m gwine to Alabamy, Oh For to see my mammy, oh 2. “She went from ole Virginny, And I’m her pickaninny 3. “She lives on the Tombigbee, I wish I had her wid me 4. “Now I’m a good big nigger, I reckon I won't git bigger. 5. “But I’d like to see my mammy, Who lives in Alabamy.” Some of the Negro folk songs were satirical. In Africa the penchant for musical lampooning is quite marked, and has been culti- vated by a class of minstrels, found under various names in nearly every tribe, who have great powers of improvisation and, in both a facetious and serious vein, deliver their satires in song. The satirical song has been much in vogue on plantations in America where the Latin influ- ences were dominant, as in the Antilles and Louisiana. Because the Anglo-Saxon civilization is less tolerant of primitive institutions, the satirical song has not flourished in the Southern states. Some of the folk songs had a fine flavor of humor, of which the following is a sample: RUN, NIGGER, RUN! O some tell me that a nigger won’t steal, But I’ve seen a nigger in my corn-field; O run, nigger, run, for the patrol will catch you, O run, nigger, run, for ’tis almost day.” * Krehbiel, of. cit., p. 48. * Allen, op. cit., p. 89. NEGRO FOLK SONGS 343 Concerning the influence of Negro folk songs on the music of the white race, Krehbiel says that three-fifths of the Negro songs he has studied ‘“‘contain the peculiarly propulsive rhythmical snap, or catch, which has several times been described as the basis of ragtime.” 1” fe says also that the rhythmical characteristic of the Negro songs has had a decided influence upon the dance-melodies of Spanish America."8 “Tn conclusion, a word on the value of these Afro-American folk- songs as artistic material and their possible contribution to a national American school of music. In a large sense the value of a musical theme is wholly independent of its origin. But for a century past na- tional schools have been founded on folksongs, and it is more than likely, in spite of the present tendency toward ‘impressionism’ and other esthetic aberrations, that composers will continue to seek inspiration at its source. The songs which I have attempted to study are not only American because they are products of a people who have long been an integral part of the population of America, but also because they speak an idiom which, no matter what its origin, Americans have in- stinctively liked from the beginning and have never liked more than now. On this point Dr. Dvorak, one of the world’s greatest national- ists, is entitled to speak with authority. In an essay on ‘Music in America, which was printed in the Century Magazine for February, 1895, he said: ““A while ago I suggested that inspiration for truly national music might be derived from the negro melodies or Indian chants. I was led to take this view partly by the fact that the so-called plantation songs are indeed the most striking and appealing melodies that have been found on this side of the water, but largely by observation that this seems to be recognized, though often unconsciously, by most Americans. All races have their distinctive national songs, which they at once recog- nize as their own even if they have never heard them before... . It is a proper question to ask, what songs, then, belong to the American and appeal more strikingly to him than any others? What melody would stop him on the street if he were in a strange land, and make the home feeling well up within him, no matter how hardened he might be, or how wretchedly the tune were played? Their number, to be sure, seems to be limited. The most potent, as well as the most beautiful ™ Krehbiel, of. cit., p. 48. * Tbid., p. 68. 344 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE among them, according to my estimation, are certain of the so-called plantations melodies and slave songs, all of which are distinguished by unusual and subtle harmonies, the thing which I have found in no other songs but those of Scotland and Ireland.’ ”’ 1° * Krehbiel, op. cit., p. 153. CHAPTER 43 MODERN NEGRO MUSIC; NEGRO DANCES Negro Music Since the Civil War—Negro Composers and Vocal Artists—The Jubilee Singers—The Famous “Blind Tom” and Other Instrumentalists— Ragtime and Jazz—The African Dance and Its Modification in America— Blending of the Dance with Religious Exercises INCE the Civil War the Negro has done very little in the way of composition of popular songs. The Negro Year Book for 1924 gives a list of a dozen or so of Negro composers of songs, but none of them occupy a high rank. J. Rosamond Johnson, a native of Florida, was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, and has com- posed a number of songs with distinct Negro characteristics. Several of his pieces were sung by May Irwin, Lillian Russell and Anna Held. Many Negroes have sung well. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield of Mis- sissippi was educated in Philadelphia, and, because of her fine voice, attracted attention as a concert singer both in America and England and was widely known as “The Black Swan.” Madame Marie Selika of Chicago has appeared before cultivated audiences in cities of the United States and also in Paris and Berlin. The Paris Figaro and the Berlin Tageblatt paid high tributes to her vocal genius. Hamilton Hodges of Boston, Flora Batson of Providence, and half a dozen other Negroes have won respectable recognition as vocal artists. Numerous Negro glee clubs have attained to wide popularity, and among these the Fisk Jubilee Singers deserves special praise. J. B. Marsh, in his story of the Jubilee Singers, states that: ‘“They were at times without money to buy needed clothing; yet in three years they returned, bringing back with them nearly one hundred thousand dollars. They had been turned away from hotels and driven out of railway wait- ing rooms, because of their color; but they had been received with honor by the President of the United States; they had sung their slave songs before the Queen of Great Britain, and they had gathered as invited guests about the breakfast table of her Prime Minister. Their success was as remarkable as their mission was unique. Altogether these singers by their seven years of work raised one hundred and fifty 345 346 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE thousand dollars, and secured for their institution school books, paint- ings, and apparatus to the value of seven or eight thousand more. They sang in the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzer- land, and Germany. Since their time they have been much imitated, but hardly equalled, and never surpassed.” * In the line of instrumental music the Negroes have produced several men of genius of whom the most celebrated was Thomas Bethure, known as “Blind Tom,” born a slave near Columbus, Georgia, in 1849. At an early age he was noted as a musical prodigy. He could immedi- ately reproduce on the piano any piece of music he had heard. He traveled for years and gave concerts in all of the great cities of America and Europe. Joseph Henry Douglass, grandson of Frederick Douglass, and now instructor of music in Howard University, is a well known violin soloist, as is also Clarence White of Boston. There have been many Negro arrangers of band music and, though few of them have attained to fame, they have displayed much originality in combining various in- struments, and in introducing novel elements of rhythm. Altogether they have undoubtedly had a decided influence upon the musical taste and development of the American people. It is commonly believed that both ragtime, and jazz music, which has become so widely popular, had their origin among the Negro bands of New Orleans and other towns of the lower Mississippi. The native African, with his highly developed sense of rhythm, has a passionate fondness for dancing, and the music of his dances has the characteristic rhythm of his folk songs. Except the war dances, nearly all other African dances are described as orgies of sensuality. In transplanting itself to America the African dance has preserved much of its lasciviousness, especially in regions dominated by Spanish and French culture. The celebrated and fascinating Spanish Habanera, which originated in Havana, is said to have been a Negro product upon which graceful melodies were imposed.?. In Louisiana, the Antilles, and Spanish America the Roman Catholic church exercised a restrictive and reformative influence upon the Negro dances, and in Anglo-Saxon America the Negro dances were suppressed by the Protestant churches, especially the Methodist and Baptist denominations, at least to the ex- tent of eliminating the sensuous element. Lafcadio Hearn described a dance he witnessed in New Orleans in *Quoted by Brawley, Short History of the American Negro, p. 326. * Krehbiel, Afro-American Folk Songs, p. 114. MODERN NEGRO MUSIC; NEGRO DANCES 347 which the Negroes “danced the Congo, and sang a purely African song to the accompaniment of a drygoods box beaten with a stick or bones, and a drum made by stretching a skin over a flour barrel. As for the dance—in which the women do not take their feet off the ground—it is as lascivious as is possible. The men dance very differ- ently, like savages leaping in the air.’ * The tendency of the various religious denominations in America to discountenance and prohibit the native African dance caused the plan- tation darkies to introduce into their religious exercises some of the elements of the African dance. The Negro “shouts,” so celebrated in the Lower South in the slave days, were generally accompanied by danc- ing, as the following description will illustrate: “The true ‘shout’ takes place on Sundays, or on ‘praise nights,’ through the week, and either in the praise-house or in some cabin in which a regular religious meeting has been held. Very likely more than half the population of a plantation is gathered together. Let it be the evening, and a light-wood fire burns red before the door of the house and on the hearth. For some time one can hear, though at a good dis- tance, the vociferous exhortation or prayer of the presiding elder or of the brother who has a gift that way and is not ‘on the back seat’— a phrase the interpretation of which is ‘under the censure of the church authorities for bad behavior’—and at regular intervals one hears the elder ‘deaconing’ a hymnbook hymn, which is sung two lines at a time and whose wailing cadences, borne on the night air, are indescribably melancholy. “But the benches are pushed back to the wall when the formal meet- ing is over, and old and young, men and women, sprucely dressed young men, grotesquely half-clad field hands—the women generally with gay handkerchiefs twisted about their heads and with short skirts—boys with tattered shirts and men’s trousers, young girls bare-footed, all stand up in the middle of the floor, and when the ‘sperichil’ is struck up begin first walking, and by and by shuffling around, one.after the other, in a ring. The foot is hardly taken from the floor, and the pro- gression is mainly due to a jerking, hitching motion which agitates the entire shouter and soon brings out streams of perspiration. Some- times they dance silently, sometimes as they shuffle they sing the chorus of the spiritual, and sometimes the song itself is also sung by the dancers. But more frequently a band, composed of some of the best singers and of the tired shouters, stand at the side of the room to ? Quoted ibid., p. 125. 348 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ‘base’ the others, singing the body of the song and clapping their hands together or on the knees. Song and dance are alike extremely energetic, and often, when the shout lasts into the middle of the night, the monoto- nous thud, thud of the feet prevents sleep within half a mile of the praise-house.”’ + The modern tango is African in name and motif, and the turkey trot, though not African in name, is not less a descendant of the lascivious African dance.” ® “The Nation, May 30, 1867. ° Krehbiel, op. cit., p. 114. CHAPTER 44 NEGRO DRAMA, PAINTING, AND SCULPTURE Ira Aldridge and Charles Gilpin as Dramatists—Henry O. Tanner, E. W. Scott, and Albert Smith as Painters—Edmonia Lewis and Meta Warrick as Sculptors S yet the Negroes have no outstanding figure in the theatrical world. Several of them, however, have had successful careers on the stage. One of these is Ira Frederick Aldridge, said to have been born in Maryland about 1810, who accompanied Edmund Kean to England and who became a popular actor there, playing the part of Othello. He received decorations from European crowned heads. Several years ago a Negro, Charles Gilpin, successfully played a star part in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones. The leading char- acter of this drama is a Negro who is represented as an ex-Pullman porter and ex-convict, who escapes to the West Indies, and there sets himself up as a person of royalty among the natives. When his decep- tion begins to be discovered, he flees to the woods, where he is over- come with superstitious fears. The play is a psychological study de- signed to reveal the supposed superstitious nature of the Negro. The critics generally agreed that Gilpin played the part well. Robert Allen Cole (Bob Cole), a native of Georgia, 1868-1911, won success and reputation in New York as an organizer and actor of comic plays depicting Negro life. He was also a composer of comic songs. Several Negroes have taken part in photoplays, and others, mostly women, have won popularity as dramatic readers. The most celebrated Negro painter is Henry O. Tanner, a native of Ohio. He studied in Paris and achieved distinction as a painter of pictures representing scenes from the Bible, such as “The Holy Family,” “Christ Walking on the Sea,” “Christ at the Home of Lazarus,” etcetera. Several of his productions have found a place in the Luxembourg gal- lery, and at various times his paintings have been exhibited in the art galleries of the United States. He won money awards and gold medals for his exhibition of paintings at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, and the St. Louis Exposition in 1905. 349 350 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Edward William Scott of Indiana manifested at an early age a taste for painting, and, after a course of training at the Chicago Art Insti- tute, went to Paris and studied at the Julian Academy and under Henry ©. Tanner. Several of his paintings have been exhibited in the Salon des Beaux Arts at Toquet; one of his paintings, “La Pauvre Voisine,”’ was purchased by the Argentine Republic. He has done some mural decorative work on public buildings in Indianapolis, Chicago, and other cities. The Negro Year Book says: “He is interesting himself in Negro subjects and is doing in painting what Dunbar has done in verse. He is now spending considerable time in the South painting Negro types.” : No painter of African descent seems to have done anything notable in the interpretation of nature. Sir Harry H. Johnston thinks that the Negro lacks feeling for landscape.* Albert A. Smith, born in 1896, has shown conspicuous merit as an etcher of portraits, and has won deserved recognition. In 1911 he was awarded, by the DeWitt Clinton High School of New York, a scholarship in the Ethical Culture Art School. In 1915 he entered the National Academy of Design, and received several medals for clever work. In 1918 he enlisted in the World War and served until July of the year following, when he reéntered the National Academy of De- sign and won a prize for a painting from life. His best work has been in etchings, and he has just completed a series of portraits of noted Negroes, including Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booker Washington, Toussaint Louverture, etcetera. His most recent work is an etching of Alexander S. Pushkin, a Russian poet of African ancestry. In the art of sculpture two Negro women have attained prominence. Edmonia Lewis of New York attracted attention in 1865 by a bust of Robert Gould Shaw. Soon thereafter she went to Italy, where she continues to reside. Her works include “The Freedwoman,” ‘The Death of Cleopatra,” “The Marriage of Hiawatha,” etcetera, and busts of John Brown, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, and Longfellow. Meta Warrick (Mrs. Fuller), of Massachusetts, studied in Paris and is said to have been admired by the great sculptor Rodin. Her works lean towards the gruesome and the gloomy, and bear such titles as “The Wretched,” “The Silent Sorrow,” and “Carrying the Dead Body.” *The Negro in the New World, p. 426. CHAPTER 4s THE NEGRO PRESS Representative Newspapers and Magazines—Contrast between Northern and Southern Papers—Over-emphasis of the Negro’s Grievances by the Negro Press—Obligation of Both the Negro and the White Press to Bring About Better Race Relations | BRS the Civil War there had been started at various times about twenty-four periodicals published by Negroes. Among these, only one survived and attained to any notable success and that was the North Star published by Frederick Douglass at Rochester, New York. The motive of Douglass in launching this paper was to arouse interest in the Negro and especially to remove the prejudices against him. He believed that a well-conducted press in the hands of the Negro would convince the white people of the Negro’s capacity. The North Star, later entitled the Frederick Douglass Paper, became an effective force in the movement for the abolition of slavery. At the present time there are about 500 Negro newspapers, thirty- one magazines, eighty-two school journals, two college fraternity maga- zines, and several periodicals of fraternal orders, of business, of music, ELC; The leading monthly magazine is the Crisis, organ of the A. A. A. P., published in New York, which has a circulation of about 70,000. The Journal of Negro History is a monthly publication of high standing, devoted, as its title implies, to historical research, and to the dissemination of information in regard to the achievements of the Negro race throughout the world. It is issued under the patronage of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The edi- tor of the journal is Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D., who, in addition to his work as editor, has written several very valuable books dealing with the life of the Negro in America. The journal has just rounded out its first decade of existence, and in this short time it has made an immense contribution to the general store of knowledge concerning Negro life and achievement. *Detweiler, The Negro Press in the United States, p. 1. 351 352 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE A journal which renders a very unique service to the Negroes of the United States is Opportunity, published monthly by the Department of Research and Investigations of the National Urban League. Under the editorial direction of Charles S. Johnson the magazine has attained to a high degree of excellence. It concerns itself with matters of con- temporary interest, and covers very much the same field for the Negroes that the Outlook or the Independent covers for the white people. It contrasts with the Crisis in emphasizing opportunities instead of griev- ances. Its contributed articles would do credit to any magazine and have to do with Negro poets, painters, musicians, dramatists, and authors, and such problems as Negro migration, education, health, recre- ation, religious activities, and the like. In short, it portrays the Negro’s part in the world’s work in such a way as to stimulate hope, aspiration, and pride. The oldest magazine published in the interest of the Negro is the Southern Workman, founded in 1872 by Samuel C. Armstrong and pub- lished monthly by the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Its original object was to promote the interests of the undeveloped races, and, for a long time, it contained much matter pertaining to the Ameri- can Indians, but in recent years it has come to deal almost exclusively with the American Negro. Its special field is education, particularly education for agriculture and the mechanic arts, but it publishes numer- ous articles covering all sorts of activities in the line of cultural uplift. The magazine has been of incalculable benefit to the Negro and the Indian. The best known and most influential newspapers in the North are the Guardian of Boston; the Age, News, Messenger, Crusader, and Negro World of New York City; the Defender, Whip, Enterprise, and Broad Ax of Chicago; the Freedman of Indianapolis; the Courier and the American of Pittsburgh; and the Tribune of Philadelphia. Among the outstanding newspapers of the South are the Afro- American of Baltimore; the Western Review of Little Rock, Arkansas; the Florida Sentinel, of Jacksonville; the Savannah Tribune, of Sav- annah, Georgia; the Louisville Leader, of Louisville, Kentucky; the Negro Advocate, of New Orleans; the St. Louts Independent; the Gate City Argus, Greensboro, North Carolina; the Black Dispatch, Oklahoma City; the Southern Indicator, Columbia, South Carolina; the Memphis Times; the City Times of Galveston; the Houston Observer; and the Richmond Planet. In several respects the Negro papers of the North and South stand THE NEGRO PRESS 353 in sharp contrast. The papers of the North are more absorbed in politics, while the papers of the South give relatively more space to items of local interest, such as those pertaining to social functions, religious and fraternal activities, schools, health, and business. The Northern papers are more radical and more bitter than those of the South. With a few exceptions they are extremely partisan, and discuss political issues, especially those concerning conditions in the South, with such a passion as to destroy candor and the capacity to form a judgment related to the facts. Their attitude towards the white South is that of frenzied hatred and vengefulness. They see in the Southern white man only a monster of iniquity who deserves condign punishment for his sins against the Negro. ‘They profess to believe that the white South is endeavoring, with might and main, to reduce the Negro again to a state of slavery. They denounce very justly the lynchings and other injustices to which the Southern Negroes are sub- jected, but scorn to credit the white South with any worthy endeavor or achievement in behalf of the colored population. Any evidence of improvement in the status of the Southern Negro seems to be unwel- come to them as diminishing the fuel for the flame of malice. The Northern press seeks, above everything else, to inspire the Southern Negroes with a hatred of their white neighbors, and to a large extent it has succeeded in doing so. Consequently it looks with disfavor upon the movement for cooperation in the South between the two races. The rabid Northern press needs to learn that in cultivating hatred be- tween the races in the South it is doing the same for the races in the North. The Negro press concerns itself to an irrational extent with the col- ored man’s grievances against the white man. The Negro, to be sure, has real grievances and plenty of them, but harping upon them has become such a habit of the Negro press that very often the Negro editor writes in vague generalities about injustices and outrages of which he has no real knowledge, and which in fact do not exist. One of the most widespread and frequent complaints among Negro editorial writers is that the white press takes notice of Negroes only who commit crime.2. The white press is undoubtedly too much given to exploiting crime, and it is a fact that some papers give more promi- nence to crime by a Negro than by a white man, but it is not at all true that the white press overlooks the Negro who distinguishes himself in something other than crime. The white press in all sections of the * Kerlin, The Voice of the Negro, pp. 3-4. 354 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE country is very quick to discover and applaud Negroes who display any unusual talent or render any meritorious service. From Frederick Douglass to W. E. B. DuBois the white press has been the open door for the recognition of Negroes of merit. Rarely has any Negro won recognition for meritorious achievement save through the white press. A more discriminating attitude on the part of the Negro press toward the grievances which exist would have a greater tendency to correct them. A man who habitually shouts at the top of his voice will find that it will only squeak when the occasion comes for it to thunder. Instead of representing the white man as ever striving to keep the Negro in a state of degradation, it would be more wholesome for the Negro masses and more in accordance with the truth, if the Negro press would dwell on the fact that in America the Negro has been given an opportunity and a helping hand not accorded to him in any other part of the world and that the rapid progress of the Negro in the United States is a tribute to the white man’s good will and humanitariar spirit. Despite his handicaps the Negro in the United States has more grounds for gratitude toward the white man than for animosity. It is much to be desired in the interest of both races that they un- derstand each other better and draw nearer together in sympathy and in common quest of what is good for all concerned; and the obligation belongs alike to the Negro and the white press to bring about this better understanding and relationship. PART SEVEN PROPOSED SOLUTIONS OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM ie) seb eid vy ¥ hs ys, AG My iy Me psn ” th wKAIN, | iy i in aK Sih mh Sat Wali yay abs ie pivtay i is Slt SEE me ESC RN in SoA ott ine ay a \ Ks! an U * is ae ‘ af fa | ; ” N rah viele eC SAR alley Sey ae Rn ania ae ita cave ra bse eae tat Gals ARE RPE i tat uk 8d AA £3) aii i OM aj i a ‘ AAs ‘ vale cana Riel, an : way. y ene me aah MDS Hii, Ny , Hn bl FA en OC oy Rae HAN aN ry iu i ee | Se vient fis, sts nahh ry h Bye of aia the y ‘ He ve sibeeess vy cin em Henk *) ‘eh hook aes “Mad rT toa) Au ¥) +a) NMA al te Ak & sik si i] ail : i i C “ PAN Vela tliat oi ae TAY Ae areal i es my + eA TARTAR iP wily AD AN i af cA AR WAS VW Ned Ramee Ris Ay ‘ ‘ ha . Maey oa il Nae } ma: ay rh my RP) AE ae i fi iii Ate beta an pas 4 “4 “Ny! bya : Pe RY Cat, AEN nt pty Hae ith F a Art i | i : ae cate ee NG IA RN eT WY ay ereral! ALAA: wih j (as 1 Diy ry sf ty ar ead Kore Hl Ht) 1 “beeir% Bia | saya ae! H ‘ AN tC Pe eat " Ath ate a ay al fm Ava ¥ Sy, wa ing ) Bs ne Y pla We, Cr Mf ; nee rT nia ia wy iv nN WOU eaT Ree y geil ine War SL CHAPTER 46 THE NATURELORW HE PROBEEM Approach from the Standpoint of History, Biology, Anthropology, and Psychology —The Author’s Personal Observations of the Negro in the United States— Definition of Race—The Problem of Harmonizing the Interests of Two Unlike Races in the Same Territory and under the Same Government AM drawing to a close of my twenty years’ study of the Negro races. At the beginning of this study I was impressed with the fact that an understanding of the Negro problem in the United States would not be possible without a study of the Negro in his original habitats, and in regions to which he had been transplanted. I have, therefore, devoted several volumes of my work to Negro history. In addition to the light thrown upon the Negro problem from the stand- point of history, I have found it necessary to make excursions into biology, anthropology, eugenics, and psychology, ali of which sciences have made valuable contributions to our understanding of racial prob- lems within the past twenty years. And fortunately I have been able to supplement my knowledge of the Negro obtained from books by personal observation of him in all sections of the United States. I spent my youth in North Carolina, where the Negroes constituted a very large and important factor in the life of the whites; and, since attaining to manhood, I have had opportunity to know the Negro in the North and West through my residence in New York, Massa- chusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Up to my eighteenth year the only domestic servants I knew were Negroes. I remember with distinctness many of the cooks, nurses, butlers, farm hands, and wood-choppers employed by my father. I also remember several Negro cooks and nurses employed in my own home. I have rented land and houses to Negroes, and sold land and houses to them. I have chopped cotton with Negroes on a farm owned by my uncle, and, while working in a grocery story, I used to accompany an old Negro truckman to and from the railway sta- tion to assist him in loading and unloading barrels of molasses, boxes of bacon, and sacks of flour. I have played with Negro children and 357 358 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE danced to Negro music. On various occasions I have ridden beside Negroes in wagons, carriages, and railway trains. I have sat beside them in the classrooms, and have had them sit as pupils in my own classes. I have sat beside them at the theaters, and even at the same table with them on board ships, in restaurants, and at public banquets. I have lectured to Negro audiences, and often listened to Negro preachers, teachers, and campaign orators. And lastly I have served with Negroes on the Inter-Racial Commission of Oklahoma. So far as my personal acquaintance with the Negroes is concerned, I feel friendly toward them. The great majority of those I have known have been Negroes of very superior virtues, and for some of them I have an abiding respect and affection. I count as one of my dearest friends, and as one of the most beautiful Christian types of men, an old Negro slave who belonged to my grandfather. I have known a great many more good Negroes than bad ones, and I feel very thankful to Providence that I grew up in a community the life of which was interwoven with that of the blacks. The ties of affec- tion which have bound me to Negro servants, and the splendid loyalty which has characterized their behavior toward me and mine, are very precious memories. Because of their childish naturalness and originality of thought and action, they have been a source of absorb- ing interest, of wholesome animation, good cheer, and lively humor. Whatever else may be said of the Negroes they are certainly the most interesting race in the world. And there are few Southern people of my age whose lives have not been brightened by Negro associations and memories. I cannot but deem it a misfortune for anyone not to have had the charm and picturesqueness of the Negro as a background to his life. My general attitude toward the Negro being one of kindliness, I hope I have not been unduly biased in the interpretation of his his- tory. I would certainly feel much mortified to realize that I had con- sciously colored any fact or circumstance to his disparagement. The Negro problem is only one aspect of the ever present fact of racial conflict, which has been the chief factor in all of the great wars that have scourged mankind, and which is now the greatest obstacle to world peace. Anthropology teaches us that exterminating wars began on our earth as soon as mankind differentiated into races. In paleolithic times the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon races, which flourished in Europe, seem to have been completely exterminated by later invaders. And in neolithic times, when the Nordic, Alpine, THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 359 and Mediterranean races came to divide the territory of Europe, there was a continuous inter-racial war, with the fortunes of the combat shifting from one race to the other. In the metal ages, and through- out the historic period to the present, race wars have marked all of the great revolutions of history. The Babylonians’ history is the story of warfare with the Elamites, Kassites, Arabs, and Syrians. The history of the Assyrians is a story of warfare with the Armenians, Medes, Chaldeans, Aramzans, Philistines, Damascans, Israelites, Syrians, and Egyptians. The Egyptian history is a story of warfare with the Ethiopians, Libyans, Palestinians, Arabs, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and the modern British. Europe’s history is a story of conquest of the Greeks by the Romans, of the Romans by the Nordics, of the overruning of the Nordics, Alpines, and Mediter- raneans by the Asiatic Saracens and Huns, and of conflict between the Protestant races of the North and the Catholic races of the South. And our contemporary history is a story of the greatest of all racial wars, ignited by friction between the Slav and Teuton in Southeastern Europe. If it be argued that these wars have been national as well as racial, I admit the fact, but maintain that to a greater extent they have been fundamentally racial, for the reason that all nations have had their origin in race segregation, and that they are still everywhere to a great extent bound together by racial sentiment. Is it not high time we understand the race problem? Are we to stumble on forever, with our eyes shut, like the blind man tapping his way with a stick, when we might just as well look ahead and keep away from the precipices? In any attempt to understand the race problem it is necessary, first of all, to have a clear idea of what is meant by the word “race.” In common usage we apply the term “race” to a group of people who differ in either physical or cultural characteristics. For instance, we speak not only of the black people of Africa as a race, but also of the English race, the Irish race, and the Scottish race. In one case we have in mind physical differences, and in the other only cultural differences. The English, Irish, and Scotch are people of mixed physical characteristics, but they have so much in common that they are hardly distinguishable in appearance, and would be known as a single race except for geographical separation and dif- ferences of culture. Now, in studying the race problem it is of capital importance to kcep in mind the two different senses in which the word “race” is 360 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE used, In the discussions in this book I use the term “race’’ to mean a group of people who differ physically and visibly from other groups. The contact of races differing in this sense always gives rise to a serious race problem. Even in the case of groups differing only in culture there are often very serious conflicts, for when the same race belongs to different political divisions there is a development of rival cultures, which often lead to animosities and war. However, when races differ only in culture, the problem is very different from that which arises when they differ physically. The conflict of races differing only in culture is generally solved by con- quest, assimilation, and amalgamation; whereas the conflict of races differing physically is solved or remains unsolved according to the degree of the differences. Wherever races of salient visible differ- ences occupy the same territory, or compete for it, the result is per- petual strife, often leading to the extermination of one or the other. It is impossible to determine a priori to what extent, or if at all, any two races will assimilate and amalgamate. We can only ascer- tain their assimilability when we see them in contact, and observe their behavior. However, history furnishes us with so many instances of racial contact that we are able to know without question that certain widely contrasting races do not blend, or do so in a manner which prevents complete assimilation. We learn from history that races differing as widely as the white, black, brown, and yellow tend to occupy distinct segregated areas of the earth, and that they have never cooperated harmoniously under the same government. On the other hand, history teaches us that certain races which differ but slightly in physical features intermarry, and assimilate more or less freely, for example, the Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean types of Europe. Here, however, where there is scarcely any conscious racial difference, the three types tend so strongly to marry within their respective groups that they have predominated in a marked degree in the same territory for 10,000 or more years. The presence of 10,000,000 Negroes in the United States offers exactly the same kind of problem as would be offered if we had in our nation 10,000,000 Japanese or Chinese centering on the Pacific coast, or 10,000,000 Hindus centering on the North Atlantic coast. History furnishes us no instance of a satisfactory solution of such a problem. The Negro problem is especially interesting and important for the reason that it is one of a type for which human experience has thus far found no solution. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 301 A realization of these facts should caution us against lending too much credulity to the numerous prophets among us who claim to have discovered a solution to the Negro problem. The problem is simply this: To find a means of harmonizing two races as unlike as the Negro and the Caucasian in the same territory and under the same government. Let us now review the various schemes and programs which have been brought forward as a possible solution of this great problem. CHAPTER 47 AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY Argument That Races Are Equal—Standards for Measuring the Superiority of One Race over Another in Physical Appearance—Difference in Ideals of Esthetic Values—Question of the Mental Equality of Races—Humanitarians and Men of Science Who Uphold the Doctrine of Race Equality HE proposition to solve the race problem in the United States by amalgamation is one around which most of the other proposed solutions revolve, and therefore it should have first consideration. The advocates of amalgamation assume that all races are equal, i. e., given the same opportunities they will attain to equal culture. They therefore regard any claim of one race to superiority over another as merely race prejudice, which all enlightened people should outgrow. Before we can properly weigh the arguments for and against amalgamation, we must answer the question, Are all of the races of mankind equal? And in attempting to answer this question we must set up some generally accepted standard for measuring racial values. As a matter of fact, are there any such standards? Is there any agreement among men of science as to what physical or mental en- dowments are most valuable? How can we maintain that a white skin is superior to a black one, a Roman nose superior to a flat one, or a thin lip superior to a thick one? In other words, in the matter of esthetics, are there any absolute standards applicable to races? An answer to the question has been attempted by Edmond Burke in his essay On the Sublime and the Beautiful. He contends that the physical constitution of man is such that certain stimuli to the eye, ear, and touch are intrinsically pleasing, and other stimuli displeas- ing. For instance, a smooth surface is more agreeable than a rough one, a curved line more agreeable than a zigzag one, certain color combinations are agreeable and others irritating, etc. Therefore, cer- tain forms, colors, textures, etc., are intrinsically and universally su- perior in esthetic values to others. If we accept Burke’s general principle we may be justified in asserting that certain human features are superior to others. For example, among all races there seems to 362 AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY 363 be a preference for individuals having the lighter color of skin. Throughout Africa the lighter colored blacks are preferred to the dark, as is evidenced by the fact that everywhere the ruling or aristocratic class is observed to be of lighter hue than the masses. Also among the brown and yellow races the ruling castes are observed to be lighter than the common people.?, Even among the white races the lighter hued seem to be preferred to the darker. The upper classes among the Greeks and Romans were of a fairer type than the slave and, in all of the present races of white people, the lighter types predominate over the darker in the higher walks of life. We have only to look around us in our own country to perceive that in the mating of young people the fairer types of women are preferred to the darker, and that painters and fiction-writers generally choose the blonde type as the ideal. Among the Negro populace of Haiti, Jamaica, Santo Domingo, and the United States, the preference for the mulatto in marriage, and the superiority which the lighter color gives to the mulatto, are obvious to the most careless observer. There seems to be a tendency among all peoples to associate black with evil and this tendency accounts in a large measure for the preju- dice against the black race and for the notion that the black race is inferior. Dr. Owen A. R. Berkeley-Hill in a recent paper read before the Indian Psycho-analytical Society of India, says: “The yellow man distinguishes himself from the brown, the brown from the black; no one among these wants to be black. One suggested ex- planation of the idea is the relation between ‘blackness’ and ‘evil,’— among all races of whatever color ‘blackness’ has this connotation. It has been and is associated with ‘witchcraft,’ ‘devils,’ ‘sins,’ ‘bad luck,’ and ‘all the other distressing and horrible aspects of human experience.’ The association is as common among brown or black people as among yellow or white.” ... “When we turn to the so-called ‘white’ races of Europe and Amer- ica, we find ‘blackness’ playing an immense part in association with devils, witchcraft, and the like. One need only turn to the book by Miss Margaret Murray, ‘The Witch Cult in Western Europe,’ to find a mass of evidence in support of this contention.” * it seems quite a tenable judgment, therefore, on zsthetic grounds, *Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. 1, pp. 133, 195; Vol. 2, pp. 123, 207, 235. *Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 369; Deniker, The Races of Man, pp. 384, 387. *Quoted in Opportunity, Oct., 1925. 364 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE that a fair complexion is superior to a dark one. And a similar line of argument would seem to justify the conclusion that other features of the human physiognomy have likewise unequal values. Nevertheless, while all races may prefer certain facial features to others, their preference is generally manifested only within the circle of their respective members. Every race prefers its own general type. Among the Hottentots, whose noses are very flat, a mother who happens to have a child with a prominent nose will artificially flatten it. Every race has its standard of beauty, which no doubt conforms to zsthetic principles, but the individuals of one race are not generally attracted by the individuals of any other race having features of a widely different type. Consciousness of kind binds people of like type into a sympathetic union, and, at the same time, awakens in them a social aversion to people of a different type. If some black people in the United States prefer whites in marriage, it is on account of the superior culture of the latter, and not on account of the appeal made by a white skin. But for the difference in culture of the two races the Negroes would prefer mating with their own kind, although they would prefer the lighter type of their | own kind. Thus, while on esthetic grounds a certain kind of features of the human physiognomy may be adjudged superior to another kind, it is not a tenable theory that the features characteristic of one race are superior to those of another race, for the reason that consciousness of kind gives a separate standard for each race, and there is no arbiter between these conflicting standards. Passing to the question of the mental equality of races, we find a wide difference of opinion among both scientists and laymen. The notion of race inequality runs through all history, and not until the latter part of the eighteenth century was there any tendency to dis- card it. The ancient Egyptians regarded it as profane to eat with the Hebrews.* The Greeks and Romans despised all foreigners as barbarians. Throughout history each race has considered itself superior to any other. The idea of racial equality began to find champions during the Revolution in France, when the doctrine of equality found enthusi- astic favor among the French masses. Brissot, a member of the French Assembly, in discussing the color question as pertaining to Saint Domingue, expressed the opinion that the Negroes were equal to the * Genesis XLIII, v. 32. AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY 36s whites, and he therefore advocated civil rights for the Negroes, and intermarriage of the two races.5 The commissioners sent by the French Assembly to Saint Domingue in 1792, especially one Sonthonax, were believers in race equality. In 1806, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, of Gottingen University, one time court physician to the King of Eng- land, maintained that the races of mankind were equally endowed. He said in reference to the capacity of the Negro, that “there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so dis- tinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original ca- pacity for culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth as the Negro.’ ® The English opinion on the question of race equality seems to have followed that of John Locke, who held that the mind of an infant was a tabula rasa, the same in all individuals without specific tendencies of any consequence. In 1827, Lord Macaulay, writing in the Edinburg Review, expressed his opinion as follows: “We entertain little doubt that when the laws which created a distinction between the races shall be completely abolished, a very few generations will mitigate the prejudices which those laws have created and which they still maintain. ... At that time, the black girl, who as a slave would have attracted a white lover, will, when her father gives her a good education and can leave her a hundred thousand dollars, find no difficulty in procuring a white husband.” Mr. Lyell, an Englishman who visited the United States in 1849, held views similar to those of Macaulay. He said: “This incident (the runaway marriage of a white man with a mulatto seamstress) is important from many points of view, and especially by proving to what an extent the amalgamation of the two races would take place, if it were not checked by artificial prejudices and the most jealous and severe enactment of law.” ? John Stuart Mill remarked that “of all vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversi- ties of conduct and character to inherent natural differences’; and “Dowd, The Negro in America, Vol. 1, p. 3. * Beitrige zur Naturgeschichte, p. 312. He mentions Benjamin Banniker, Phyllis Wheatley, and a midwife in French Switzerland as examples of Negro perfectibility, 7 Second Visit to the United States, New York, 1849, Vol. 2, p. 216. 306 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Thomas Buckle, who believed that environment was the determining factor in race development, quoted in his History of Civilization, with evident approval, the above remark by Mill. During the anti-slavery agitation in the United States a number of enthusiastic friends of the Negro felt firmly convinced that there was no difference between the Negro and white man except in color of skin. William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, William E. Channing, and a host of their disciples believed that the Negro was in every way equal to the white man; and, during the Reconstruction period in the South, nearly all of the carpet-baggers, missionaries, and agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau, had as their chief aim the enforcement of social and civil equality among the whites and blacks. In 1864 D. G. Croley published a book on Miscegenation, in which he advo- cated not only the amalgamation of whites and blacks, but of whites and Chinese, and of all other races. Theodore Tilton, editor of the Independent, could see no objection whatever to the amalgamation of races, and his utterances on the subject practically amounted to advocacy. The above-named champions of the idea of race equality were in- fluenced to a great extent by the humanitarian sentiment which began to sweep over the civilized world towards the close of the eighteenth century. None of them had the advantage of scientific data or prin- ciples to guide them, and their opinions grew out of their high ideals, and were supported merely by their general understanding of human nature. In more recent years, a vast amount of new knowledge has come to light through the development of the sciences of biology, anthro- pology, psychology, and sociology, and the new science of eugenics. More complete and more accurate data have been collected pertain- ing to the origin, history, and character of races, and important dis- coveries have been made concerning human heredity. This new body of knowledge, however, has not led to any unity of opinion among scientific men in regard to the question of race equality. Perhaps the stronger tendency among men of science has been to swing back to the view that the races of mankind are un- equally endowed, but many authorities believe that the evidence avail- able points in exactly the opposite direction. The most celebrated of the more recent champions of race equality is the French author, Jean Finot. In his book, Race Prejudice, he AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY — 367 takes the ground that racial intermixture has gone on for so long a time that there are now no distinct races on the earth; and no differ- ence in the mental capacity of the groups of people which we call races.°® He cites the mulattoes of the island of Tristan da Cunha as an exceptionally beautiful type due to the crossing of the European and the Negro. “It is pleasant,’ he says, “to see that the crossbreeds of Java are superior to the Malays, and that the Brazilians of the province of St. Paul, who are the progeny of Portuguese and in- digenous tribes, viz., the Cerigos and the Gaynazes, excel physio- logically, intellectually and morally.” ° Now, it is not clear to my mind how the crossing of two stocks can result in a superior type “physiologically, intellectually and mor- ally” if the two were equal to start with, and, if it is a fact, as claimed by Finot, that some crossings result in highly beneficial re- sults, surely then the kind of crossings of human beings, as of cattle or chickens, must be of the greatest importance instead of being a matter of indifference. G. Spiller, organizer of the Universal Races Congress, read a paper at the first session on “The Problem of Race Equality,” in which he said: “We are, then, under the necessity of concluding that an impartial investigator would be inclined to look upon the various important peoples of the world as, to all mtents and purposes, essen- tially equals in intellect, enterprise, morality, and physique. “Race prejudice forms a species belonging to a flourishing genus. Prejudices innumerable exist based on callousness, ignorance, misun- derstanding, economic rivalry, and, above all, on the fact that our customs are dear to us, but appear ridiculous and perverse to all who do not sympathetically study them. Nation looks down on nation, class on class, religion on religion, sex on sex, and race on race. It is a melancholy spectacle which imaginative insight into the lives and conditions of others should remove.” *° L. L. Zamenhof of Poland, the originator of the international lan- guage known as Esperanto, in his paper read at the Universal Races * Without desiring to be understood as opposing Finot’s general conclusions, I wish to point out an inconsistency in his reasoning. While claiming that the races are equal he admits that race crossings result in an improvement in the stock, and that the superior individuals of every country are the result of cross- breeding. See p. 163. °Finot, Race Prejudice, p. 161. * Proceedings of the Universal Races Congress, I9II, p. 35. 368 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Congress, touched upon the subject of race equality as follows: “When, in the course of time, the negroes have lost all traces of their for- mer barbarism and slavery, when they have attained a high degree of culture and given the world a number of great men, this unconscious disdain and antipathy will be turned into respect, and we shall no longer feel the slightest aversion for the black skin and the thick lips of the negro." “Tf we find an immense difference between the mind of some race in the interior of Africa and that of a European race, we must seek the cause not in any difference of natural qualities, but in the diversity of civilization and political conditions. Give the Africans, without any mingling of rancour or oppression, a high and humane civiliza- tion, and you will find that their mental level will not differ from ours. Abolish the whole of our civilization, and our mind will sink to the level of that of an African cannibal. It is not a difference of mentality in the race, but a difference of imstruction.” ** John Oakesmith, a brilliant English scholar, seems to agree with Finot in the equality of races. At any rate he does not consider that the racial factor has counted for anything in the growth of English civilization. In his book, Race and Nationality, he argues that Eng- lish culture has been an indigenous evolutionary growth, and that the racial composition of the population has not been of any consequence. Other European exponents of the doctrine of race equality are J. M. Robertson, author of The Germans, and Introduction to English Politics, and Emile Durkheim, author of many philosophical and socio- logical treatises. On this side of the Atlantic the doctrine of race equality has very able and numerous champions among our present day men of science. Robert H. Lowie, curator of anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History, in his book, Culture and Ethnology, dis- cusses among other things culture and race, and, in speaking of the range of values in each racial group, says: ‘“‘Now it is obvious that, where the number of individuals considered is small, excessive values are less likely to occur than in a larger series. In a gathering of a hundred men, we are not likely to find a man above 6 feet 6 inches in height ; the average stature of all New Yorkers will probably not be any greater than that of one hundred men selected at random, yet in the entire city we shall find a number of individuals of gigantic % Proceedings of the Universal Races Congress, I9II, p. 427. * Tbid., p, 428. AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY — 369 stature. When we apply this fact to our special problem we see at once that extraordinary deviations from the norm cannot be expected to occur in a tribe of 500 or even 5,000, while among the vast popula- tions of India, China or the Caucasian countries of America and Europe such favorable variants are likely to occur with consider- able absolute frequency. These variations, as has already been sug- gested, need not even be excessive to produce significant cultural re- sults. Again, we may urge the principle of minimal variations. A little greater energy or administrative talent may be just sufficient to found a powerful state; a slightly greater amount of logical consistency may lead to the foundation of geometrical reasoning or of a philo- sophical system; a somewhat keener interest, above the purely utilitarian one, in surrounding nature may give a remarkable impetus to the de- velopment of science. “Now this puts an entirely different construction on the facts. Assume that racial differences are at the bottom of some of the observed cultural differences. This fact would not necessarily mean, then, that the average ability of the inferior races is less, but only that extreme variations of an advantageous character occur less frequently among them. This, for example, is the view taken by Professor Eugene Fischer, the physical anthropologist, a very firm believer in racial differences, but as regard variability rather than in point of average intellectual equipment. It is also essentially, if I understand him, the point made by Professor Thorndike. But precisely because the population of the several races differs so enormously, we are for many of them without a fair standard of comparison. Statistically, any actual number of measurements is only a small sample of an infinite series; but we have no means of ascertaining empirically what the extreme variations, of which Veddas or Australians are organically capable, would be like. This, necessarily, leaves the ultimate problem of racial differences unsolved. Nevertheless, our considerations have not been in vain. They show, for one thing, how many factors have to be weighed in arriving at a fair estimate of racial capabilities, factors which are naively ignored in most popular discussions of the subject. We can, farther, say positively that whatever differences may exist have been grossly exaggerated. In the simpler mental opera- tions, comparative psychological studies indicate a specific unity of mankind. Differences in culture are certainly not proportionate to mental differences, i.e., relatively slight differences in native ability may well have produced tremendous cultural effects. Since, finally, 370 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE cultural differences of enormous range occur within the same race, and even within very much smaller subdivisions, the ethnologist cannot solve his cultural problems by means of the race factor.” ** A. A. Goldenweiser in his book, Early Civilization, and in several magazine articles, is earnestly striving to remove what he calls “‘the modern obscurantism” of race distinctions. He makes the assertion that “no proof has been forthcoming of the inferiority of other racial stocks to the white.” * Franz Boas, professor of anthropology in Columbia University, in various publications takes the ground that the primitive races are much more highly endowed mentally than they have been rated, that their backwardness in culture and lack of opportunity have been mis- taken for lack of mental capacity, and that the differences in the culture of races are due to other factors than inborn capacity. In his recent article in the Nation, January 28, 1925, entitled “What is a Race,’ he says: “The occurrence of hereditary mental traits that belong to a particular race has never been proved. The available evi- dence makes it much more likely that the same mental traits appear in varying distribution among the principal racial groups. The behavior of an individual is therefore not determined by his racial afhliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment. We may judge of the mental characteristics of families and individuals, but not of races.’ 7% Alfred M. Tozzer, professor of anthropology in Harvard Uni- versity, takes the ground that there can be no bad consequences in the mixture of the most diverse peoples.*® Ralph Linton, of the Field Museum of Natural History, is of opinion that: “There is no reason to suppose that the United States of one hundred or five hundred years hence will be any the worse for * Lowie, Culture and Ethnology, 1917, p. 45. * Goldenweiser, Early Civilization, p. 6. See also “Racial Theory and the Negro” in the Urban League Bulletin, Vol. 13, No. III; and “Some Problems of Race and Culture in the United States” in the Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1922. * A fuller statement of his views may be found in his The Mind of the Primitive Man, New York, 1911; “Human Faculty as Determined by Race,” Proceedings, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 43, pp. 301-27; “The Anthropological Position of the Negro,” Van Norden Magazine, Ap., 1917; “Problem of the American Negro,” Yale Review, ns. Vol. 10; pp. 384-95. * Social Origins and Social Continutties, pp. 11-12. AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF EQUALITY 371 the gradual absorption into its white population of the present Mongol, Indian, and Negro minorities. The first two are numerically unim- portant, while the Negroes, including those who already have a white mixture, form only about Io per cent of the total. . . . Even the pure ‘old American’ is so: hopelessly mixed that a little more alien blood is not likely to hurt him.” 1” Among the other Americans who have expressed their belief in race equality are: H. A. Miller, of the Ohio State University, author of Races, Nation and Classes; G. E. Howard, of the University of Nebraska; ** James J. Holm, native of Wisconsin and author of Race Assimilation, 1910; Charles S. Keyser, of Pennsylvania, author of Minden Armats, The Man of the New Race, 1892; Sylvester Russell, author of The Amalgamation of America, Chicago, 1920; J. E. Emery, author of Our Fathers House, Philadelphia, 1893; W. J. Gaines, author of The Negro and the White-man, Philadelphia, 1897; Charles Stearns, author of The Black Man of the South. The Negro authors in America, almost without exception, regard the doctrine of race equality as having been firmly established. ““An Anthropological View of Race Mixture,” Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. 19, p. 76. * American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 22, pp. 577-93. CHAPTER 48 AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF INEQUALITY Authors Who Hold That Races Are Endowed with Unequal Capacities—Darwin —Romanes—Galton—T ylor—Keane—Marett—Gobineau—Taine—H untington —Dixon—Osborn—Angell—East—Grant—Wissler and Others URNING now to the scientific opinion upholding the more tradi- tional idea of racial inequalities, I will mention the following rep- resentative authors: Charles Darwin in his Decent of Man states that the races of men differ very notably in mental faculties.* G. J. Romanes, following the principle of Darwin, argues in his Mental Evolution in Man that the mentality of the races of men differs according to the degree of advancement of each race from the primitive state.’ Francis Galton, the founder of the new science of eugenics, be- lieved that races as well as individuals differed in hereditary endow- ments, and he, more than any other man, has stimulated interest in the hereditary factor in all social problems. Edward B. Tylor, an English anthropologist, holds that the “inbred capacity of mind” is one of the chief means of distinguishing races; and he points out striking contrasts in the mental and moral tempera- ment of the Indians and the Negroes, and of the Russians and Italians. He speaks of the Caucasian as “gifted with the powers of knowing and ruling which give him sway over the world.” * A. H. Keane, in his Man: Past and Present and in his Ethnology, accepts without question the theory of racial inequality and points out the innate mental traits of different races. Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Sociology regards the distance between the primitive and civilized races as very great.® R. R. Marett, reader in anthropology in Oxford University, be- lee), SV Ly * Anthropology, p. 74. *Ibid., p. 113. Port, Ch VIL, 372 AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF INEQUALITY 373 lieves that difference in race “extends to mind as well as to body. It is not merely skin deep. Contrast the stoical Red Indian with the vivacious Negro; or the phlegmatic Dutchman with the passionate Italian. True, you say, but what about the influence of various climates, or again of their different ideals of behaviour? Quite so. It is immensely difficult to separate the effects of the various factors. Yet surely the race-factor counts for something in the mental con- stitution, Any breeder of horses will tell you that neither the climate of New Market, nor careful training, nor any quantity of oats, nor anything else, will put racing metal into cart-horse stock.” ° G. Archibald Reid, an English scholar, in his book, The Laws of Heredity, says: “Like individuals, races differ in their mental char- acteristics.”’ 7 Among French writers the most celebrated apostle of race distinc- tions is Comte Arthur de Gobineau. In his Les inégalités des races humaines he attributes all progress to racial purity and all decadence to racial intermixture. Gustav LeBon perhaps ranks next to Gobineau in attaching. great importance to race differences. In his Evolution psychologique des peuples, he points out how each race possesses a particular set of psy- chological traits. Hippolyte Taine, the great psychologist, historian, and art critic, says in reference to the races of Europe: “If you consider in time the leading races from their first appearance up to the present, you will always find in them a class of instincts and of aptitudes over which revolution, decadences, civilizations have passed without affect- ing them.” § Edmond Demolins, in his book Comment la route crée le type social, which is very similar in point of view to the recent notable book Char- acter of Races, by Ellsworth Huntington, tries to show how the traits of different races have been the outcome of environment. In his Anglo-Saxon Supremacy, he draws very striking contrasts between the Anglo-Saxons and the French, Some other French authors holding like views are J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 121; Vacher de Lapouge, “Laws of Anthropo-Sociol- ® Anthropology, p. OI. ™P, 426. Some other English authors taking the same view are Stewart Chamberlain, in Foundations of the Nineteenth Century; Thomas Lloyd, in The Making of the Roman People; and Charles M. Nottidge, in The Origin and Character of the British People. ® Lectures on Art, Vol. I, p, 216, 374 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ogy,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 6, p. 54, and “Les Selections sociales,” p. 293; Alfred Fouillée, Psychologte des peuples européens and Psychologie du peuple frangats. Among the American authors who hold tenaciously to the convic- tion that the races of mankind differ, the most outstanding representa- tive at the present time is Ellsworth Huntington, associate research professor in Yale University. In his recent book, The Character of Races, he attempts to show how superior and inferior racial groups have arisen through the process of mutations, racial mixture, and nat- ural selection. He begins his study in the Miocene period when the ancestors of man lived in trees, and shows how the change toward a colder and dryer climate led to a restriction of the forest area and the development of the anthropoid ape. The apes which migrated south, following the forest, underwent no improvement, whereas those which remained in the region of diminishing forest and colder climate were obliged to walk erect in going from one tree to another and to use their forelimbs to grasp sticks and stones to defend themselves from the other animals. At the same time, they had to adapt them- selves to a diet of cereals and meat instead of that of fruits and nuts. After man had evolved, the same change of climate which had de- veloped a higher type of ape operated to develop a higher type of man. “In the first great migrations those who went to the tropical re- gions subjected themselves unknowingly to conditions which presum- ably tended toward stagnation or even toward retrogression, for mod- erate activity was often more profitable than great activity, while the abundance of resources and lack of the exigencies of the seasons tended to give the stupid almost as good a chance of survival as the intelligent. Among those who migrated east or west, there was prob- ably no great selection of one type rather than another because there was no marked change in environment. They progressed to the ex- tent that other causes determined, but in those respects were pre- sumably little better off than the rest of mankind.” Next the author shows how each of the great glacial ages con- tributed to develop superior types of men through the process of migration, intermixture, and natural selection. Fach ice age affected migration in such a way as to bring about a convergence of the selected types of men into a small area compris- ing Western Asia and North Africa. There, under the influence of the maximum environmental change, maximum migration and maxi- “rs AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF INEQUALITY 375 mum racial mixture, man reached his highest mental development.® The author goes on to indicate how, from the close of the ice ages to the present, the geographic conditions have continued to stamp upon each racial group a distinct character. He discusses the character of the American Indians, the Jews, Chinese, Greeks, Irish, etc., and explains their special traits as the outcome of three controlling factors: environment, racial intermix- ture, and natural selection. He even goes so far as to indicate how natural selection has tended to produce different types of people within the United States, such as the Puritans, the South Carolinians, the Californians, etc. “The more we study this process of selection,” he says, “the more we realize why one race differs from another in temperament and mentality as well as in physique, and why the spirit Gf one,age.is divetse.from that of the next.’ *? Roland B. Dixon, professor of anthropology in Harvard University, expresses his views on the subject as follows: “That there is a differ- ence between the fundamental human types in quality, in intellectual capacity, in moral fibre, in all that makes or has made any people great, I believe to be true, despite what advocates of the uniformity of man may say. It is no answer to the charge that people of cer- tain racial types have never unaided made their mark in history to say that an unfavorable environment or stress of circumstances has prevented the great achievements of which they are theoretically capable. The mere fact that in all the thousands of recorded, and the tens of thousands of unrecorded, history they have not risen superior to their environment, fought and battled their way out of it and into a better one—this fact alone is proof, to my mind, that they are less dowered with those qualities, the possession of which peoples of other types have proved by doing again and again what the weaker peoples have failed to do.” !? Henry Fairfield Osborn, professor of zodlogy in Columbia Uni- versity, takes the position that heredity is a greater factor in the history of man than environment and that the races of man differ very radically in inherited equipment. “European history,” he says, “has been written in terms of na- tionality and of language, but never before in terms of race; vet ° The Character of Races, p. 59. PiLvids Diez. “Dixon, The Racial History of Man, p. 518. 376 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE race has played a far larger part than either language or nationality in moulding the destines of men; race implies heredity and heredity implies all the moral, social and intellectual characteristics and traits which are the springs of politics and government. “The moral tendency of the heredity interpretation of history is for our day and generation and is in strong accord with the true spirit of the modern eugenics movement in relation to patriotism, namely, the conservation and multiplication for our country of the best spiritual, moral, intellectual and physical forces of heredity; thus only will the integrity of our institutions be maintained in the future. These divine forces are more or less sporadically distributed in all races, some of them are found in what we call the lowest races, some are scattered widely throughout humanity, but they are cer- tainly more widely and uniformly distributed in some races than in others. “Thus conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country, of a true sentiment which is based upon knowledge and the lessons of history rather than upon the sentimentalism which is fostered by ignorance. If I were asked: What is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic today? I would certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our people of those hereditary traits through which the principles of our religious, political and social foundations were laid down and their insidious replacement by traits of less noble character.” James Rowland Angell, president of Yale University, discusses the evolution of intelligence in a symposium The Evolution of Man, edited by Baitsell. In reference to race differences he says that: “There is fairly definite evidence that extant human races differ appreciably in their native intelligence, and those which are living most nearly in the state of nature which we believe to have char- acterized the early history of our own racial stock are, generally speak- ing, marked by apparently lower average intelligence and by relatively fewer intellects of high grade.” Edward M. Fast, of Harvard University, in his recent book Man- kind at the Crossroads, expresses his conviction that the modern sci- ences have firmly established the fact of racial inequality. He says: “Thus anthropological data, psychological data, and genetical data fit ™ Preface to Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race. veal Sh AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF INEQUALITY 377 together like the parts of a picture-puzzle. In each line taken separately there is proof of wide variability within the race, and of different levels between races. Taken together, the proof is overwhelming. “Huntington has disposed of the bugbear of black-brown world domination in that novel study Cwilization and Climate. His multitude of varied observations establish this thought: men can reach a high degree of efficiency in active constructive work only where there is a moderate humid temperature with sufficient daily variation to act as a physical stimulus. Some of the sluggishness of the tropical races may be due to the attacks of animal parasites which can ultimately be eradicated. But by no means all of it is attributable to this cause. Continuous heat, day and night, saps the energies and breaks the will. Labor efficiency drops almost to the absolute zero. From three to five men clutter up the ground slowly carrying out tasks easily accomplished by any ordinary individual in the bracing air of the north. “Now this climatic limitation of initiative is a remarkable thing. It may account for more of the white man’s success in life than one would like to admit. Why the temperate regions were not settled sooner in the history of mankind is a deep riddle; but the fact of the matter is that the regions with a stimulating climate are now and always have been the regions where progressive ideas are carried out. And to-day the black and the brown races live entirely in the zone of low initiative, while the only members of the yellow race living in the zone of real thought and work are the northern Chinese and the Japanese. “Thus the conception represented by the following quotation from W. E. B. Dubois, the negro firebrand, is not one with which to frighten any but children and professional peril-hunters. Writing of the colored peoples, he says: ‘These nations and races, composing as they do a vast majority of humanity, are going to endure this treat- ment just as long as they must and not a moment longer. Then they are going to fight, and the War of the Color Line will outdo in savage inhumanity any war this world has yet seen. For colored folk have much to remember and they will not forget.’ “There are several interesting things about this quotation, to which it seems worth while to draw attention. In the first place, it calls to mind as an apt reply the peace offer Mark Twain’s nineteenth- century Yankee and his trained followers proposed to make to the whole massed chivalry of sixth-century England: ‘You fight in vain. 378 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE We know your strength—if one may call it by that name. We know that at the utmost you cannot bring against us above five and twenty thousand knights. Therefore, you have no chance—none whatever. Reflect: we are well equipped, well fortified, we number 54. Fifty- four what? Men? No, mands the capablest in the world; a force against which mere animal might may no more hope to prevail than may idle waves of the sea hope to prevail against the barriers of England.’ “One hears such outbursts as this of Dubois solely from the mixed bloods. Only when there is white blood in his veins does the negro or the Malaysian cry out against the supposed injustice of his con- dition, and then only when in contact with numerically superior whites. “The thought aroused by Dubois’s words is more important, as it concerns the imputation of the colored races suffering grievously and long, crushed under the iron heel of white ambitions. In the nar- row sense this is true; broadly speaking it is a falsehood black as night. Individuals have suffered in every epoch; but there have been no racial boundaries to injustice. Self-preservation has been a stronger instinct than race-preservation. The sins of the white race against the colored, be they red, brown, or black, are trivial lapses from fair play compared with the evils arising from social struggles within their own nations. Is it not fair, then, to scan the benefits of white control once in a while, not in a sterile search for altruism in white world policies, but merely in the interests of truth? “Let one examine the vigorous growth of Java under the Dutch, the wonderful progress of India since she joined the British Empire; or, better still, compare the Afro-American with his cousin of Haiti or of tropical Africa. One and all these peoples have prospered through their contact with European civilization. The more intimate and direct the alien control, the greater is the tide of achievement. The more thoroughly one studies the population question, the more forcibly it is impressed upon him that white brains and initiative have so im- proved the resources of such races, that not only have millions more of their people passed over the bridge of life than otherwise would have been possible, but that these millions have lived more comfort- ably and peacefully.” 74 William McDougall, professor of philosophy in Harvard Univer- sity, is very pronounced in his belief that the races of mankind have very dissimilar hereditary traits. In his book, Js America Safe for “East, Mankind at the Crossroads, p. 120. oe a oS AMALGAMATION: ARGUMENT OF INEQUALITY 379 Democracy?, he contrasts the Nordic and Mediterranean races, and in- cidentally discusses the mentality of the Negro. Madison Grant, chairman of the New York Zoological Society and author of The Passing of the Great Race, has attracted very wide attention and has been much criticized because his book contends that the Nordic race is the greatest of all races. In contrasting the Alpine, Nordic, and Mediterranean races he says: ‘These races vary in- tellectually and morally just as they do physically. Moral, intellectual and spiritual attributes are as persistent as physical characters and are transmitted substantially unchanged from generation to genera- tion. These moral and physical characters are not limited to one race but given traits do occur with more frequency in one race than in another. Each race differs in the relative proportion of what we may term good and bad strains, just as nations do, or, for that matter, sections and classes of the same nation.”’* .. “The Alpine race is always and Ani eee a race of peasants, an agricultural and never a maritime race. In fact they only extend to salt water at the head of the Adriatic and, like all purely agricul- tural communities throughout Europe, tend toward democracy, al- though they are submissive to authority both political and religous being usually Roman Catholics in western Europe. This race is essen- tially of the soil and in towns the type is mediocre and bourgeois.1® . . . “The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant and democratic character of the Alpines. The Nordic race is domineering, individual- istic, self-reliant and jealous of their personal freedom both in political and religious systems and as a result they are usually Protestants. Chivalry and knighthood and their still surviving but greatly impaired counterparts are peculiarly Nordic traits, and feudalism, class distine- tions and race pride among Europeans are traceable for the most part to thegnorth Aa “The mental characteristics of the Mediterranean race are well known and this race, while inferior in bodily stamina to both the Nordic and the Alpine, is probably the superior of both, certainly of the Alpines, in intellectual attainments. In the field of art its su- periority to both the other European races is unquestioned, although * Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, p. 226. * Ibid., p. 227. * Tbid., p. 228. 380 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE in literature and in scientific research and discovery the Nordics far excel it. 7* The most recent anthropologist to touch on this question is Clark Wissler, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, in his book, Man and Culture, New York, 1923. In reference to race differ- ences, he says: “Our point is that these tests do bring out individual differences that are innate, and also tend to reveal group differences of the same character. Thus we have strong grounds for the assump- tion that variability is an observed characteristic of innate qualities, both in regard to individuals and groups,” ...and he adds, “On what grounds could we expect that, in view of all the individual variation we know to exist, large hereditary groups of men would show identical ranges and averages of mentality ?” John M. Mecklin, professor of philosophy in the University of Pittsburgh, makes the following statement in his Democracy and Race Friction: “That racial differences do exist may be inferred from our knowledge of the psycho-physical organism which leads us to expect psychic differences where we find physiological differences.” 1° Some other well-known American authors holding similar views are Samuel J. Holmes, professor of zoology in the University of Cali- fornia, in his The Trend of the Race, page 263; Hugo Miinsterberg, late professor in Harvard, in Psychology, page 234; Edward A. Ross, in Principles of Sociology and The Old World in the New, etc.; Lothrop Stoddard, in The Rising Tide of Color, Revolt of Civilization, etc. * Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, p. 229. bide aie fei CHAPTER 49 WRITERS ON NEGRO INFERIORITY Sir H. H. Johnston—Lombroso—Carlyle—Jefferson—Shaler—Hart—Evans— Bryant and Others—Question of the Superiority of the Mulatto NUMBER of writers, both scientific and lay, who have essayed to speak on racial problems, especially emphasize the inferiority of the Negro. For instance, Sir H. H. Johnston says that the Negro “in his wild state, exhibits a stunted mind and a dull content with his surroundings, which induces mental stagnation, cessation of all upward progress, and retrogression towards the brute: In some re- spects I think the tendency of the Negro for several centuries has been an actual retrograde one. As we come to read the unwritten history of Africa by researches into languages, manners, customs, tradi- tions, we seem to see a backward rather than a forward movement going on for some thousand past years—the return towards the savage, and even the brute. I can believe it possible that, had Africa been more isolated from contact with the rest of the world, and cut off from the immigration of Arabs and Europeans, the purely Negroid races, left to themselves, so far from advancing towards the higher type of humanity, might have actually reverted by degrees to a type no longer human.” + The English ethnologist, A. H. Keane, speaking of the Negro, makes the statement that “the standard attainable by pure Negro communities left to themselves may be measured by the social usage prevalent amongst the peoples of Ashanti, Dahomi, and the Oil Rivers, with their degraded fetishism and now abolished sanguinary customs.” ? Cesare Lombroso, in his L’Uomo Bianco e L’Uomo di colore, rates the Negro race as a very inferior one.® M. Petit de Baroncourt, professor of history in the Academy of Paris, expresses his conviction of the physical and mental inferiority of the Negro.* * British Central Africa, p. 472. *Stanford, Compendium of Geography and Travel, Vol. 1, p. 332. See also Keane, Man, Past and Present, p. 40. ere sk20. *De I’Emancipation des Noirs, Paris, 1845. 381 382 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE George N. Tricoche, in La Question Des Noirs aux Etats Unis, contends that the Negro is inferior and that his intermixture with the whites would be a catastrophe. A. M. Carr-Saunders, an English scholar, in his recent book, The Population Problem avers that “‘the Negro is intellectually on the average somewhat inferior, and certainly possesses somewhat different emotional and temperamental characteristics.” ® Thomas Carlyle, in his essay on “The Nigger Question,” says: “That you should cut the ligature, and say ‘He has made us equal,’ would be saying a palpable falsity, big with hideous ruin for all coucerned inl dtwue. Thomas Jefferson wrote his estimate of the Negro in the follow- ing guarded language: “I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances are inferior to the whites in the endow- ments both of body and mind.” ° N. S. Shaler, late professor of geology in Harvard University, said of the Negro: “All the facts we have point to the same un- happy conclusion, that the Negro considered as a species, is, by nature incapable of creating or maintaining societies of an order above barbarism, and that, so far as we can discern, this feature of his nature, depending as it does, on the lack of certain qualities of mind, is irremediable.” ? Professor A. B. Hart, in The Southern South, closes his chapter on “Negro Character” with this statement: “Race measured by race, the Negro is inferior, and past history in Africa and in America leads to the belief that he will remain inferior in race stamina and race achievement.” ® Charles B. Davenport’s estimate of the Negro may be inferred from the following suggestion which he offers in reference to legislation to prevent un-eugenic marriages: “No person having one-half part or more Negro blood shall be permitted to take a white person as spouse. Any person having less than one-eighth part of the Negro blood shall not be given a license to marry a white person without a certificate from the State’s Eugenics Board.” ® "Ps: 447. *Works of Jefferson, Vol. 3, p. 230. "The Neighbor, p. 139. ahead * Eugenics Record Office Bulletin, No. 9. WRITERS ON NEGRO INFERIORTY 383 Maurice Evans, an Englishman resident in South Africa, in his Black and White in the Southern States, comparing the Zulu and the American Negro, says that the former “have more native ability as they certainly have more dignity.’’*° Again he says: “The idea that the Negro has only to get similar education to do as a white man has done in all his varied activities, is absurd, though this opinion is strongly held by those of mixed descent.” 1 The Rev. A. T. Bryant, in his Mental Development of the South African Native, says in reference to the Negro: “First of all, we be- lieve that some innate difference does at present exist between the mind of the average adult male of the European race and that of the average adult male of the African. The African boy is comparatively precocious up to about twelve when he undergoes an actual decline of mind-energy and decrease in mind-power to a point below that already reached in the preceding stage which is never regained.*27 ... “The African intellect, as exemplified in its manhood is simply incapable of reaching the brilliancy or of attaining the range of the European. Be it a matter of reflecting, or of judging, or compre- hending, or conceiving, the African is everywhere hopelessly outdis- tanced by the European. Only in the province of memory and of imitation can he bear a favorable comparison with him, for in these two respects the African is decidedly strong.*% “Negroes educated in European Universities,” adds the Rev. Bryant, “are extraordinary specimens which do not justify any modifi- cation of our general position.” ™ G. Elliot Smith, professor of anatomy in the University of Man- chester, in his article, “The Influence of Racial Intermixture in Egypt,” * offers the following comment on the Negro: “The Negro was as definitely negroid six centuries ago as he is now, and was as different from the round heads of the Mediterranean shores at the end of the Stone Age as at present, and all the millennia of exposure of their scattered descendants to vastly different climates and condi- tions of life, have produced amazingly little effect upon their physical characteristics.” He believes that the physical, mental, and moral dis- * Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 85. » Ibid... p: 272: * Eugenics Review, Vol. 9, p. 43. * [bid., p. 44. “ Tbid., p. 49. Sluis VOU NTs Dr: 103, 384 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE tinctions between races are the result of thousands of years of differ- entiation, and are: “substantiated by the whole history of the world, and the experience of those who have watched the intercourse of various peoples. “Difference of race implies a real and deep-rooted distinction in physical, mental and moral qualities, and the contrasts in achievement of the various peoples cannot be explained away by lack of oppor- tunities, in the face of the patent fact that among the more back- ward races of the present day are some that first came into contact with, or even were the founders of, civilization, and were most favor- ably placed for acquiring culture and material supremacy.” 7° Primitive people, Professor Smith goes on to say: “make progress only through the infusion of the blood of a superior race. The proto- Egyptians were a branch of that swarthy, narrow-headed, black-haired people of small stature which probably assumed its distinctive traits somewhere in North Africa. They settled in the Delta, and for thousands of years carried on an unprogressive and low type of cul- ture. About the time of the First Dynasty, Egypt was invaded by a southern branch of the Alpine race which had become adapted to maritime life. The new racial element became the aristocracy and exercised a powerful influence upon Egypt’s golden age. About the same time this new race invaded the south the southern extremity of the Egyptian population began to mingle with an alien race of a very different type. For, just before the time of the First Dynasty, small Negroes, in some respects akin to pygmies, began to appear in Lower Nubia; and from this time onwards this influence, and that of a variety of other Negro tribes, became more and more potent. “If the alien influences that were brought to bear on Egypt from the north exerted a stimulating effect upon the development of her culture, it is equally certain that the Negro infiltration from the south was a drag and a hindrance.” 1” William Archer, an English man of letters, in his book, Through Afro-America, has this to say: “I have not hitherto emphasized the essential and innate inferiority of the Negro race, because my argu- ment did not demand it. But the fact of this inferiority seems to me as evident as it is inevitable. However fallacious may be the bound- aries between this and that European race, the boundaries between the European and the African are real, and not to be argued away. The * Eugenics Review, Vol. 7, p. 166. * LDtd), D. 181: Ke. rl WRITERS ON NEGRO INFERIORTY 385 European is the fruit of untold generations of upward struggle, the African of untold generations of immobility. At the very dawn of history the ancestors of the white Americans had advanced to a point beyond that which the ancestors of the Afro-American had attained when they were shipped across the Atlantic from fifty to two hundred years ago. That the Negro race has some very admirable qualities is not denied. It is not denied that civilization has brought with it certain disadvantages and corruptions, and that the white savage is in some ways a more deplorable phenomenon than the black savage. Nor is it denied that the Negro, in virtue of his strong imitative instinct, has, in many ways, shown a remarkable power of taking on a cer- tain measure of civilization. But all this does not practically lessen the huge historic gap between the two races. Even if we admit the innate power of the Negro to overtake the white man in intellectual grasp and moral stability, we must in reason allow him a few cen- turies to make up the millenniums of arrearage. Whatever it may become in the course of ten or fifteen generations, the Negro race here and now is inferior to the white race, not only because of its previ- ous condition of servitude, but, ultimately and fundamentally, because of its recent condition of savagery. Therefore, the white race, in accept- ing amalgamation, would be degrading from its birthright, and climb- ing down the scale of humanity.1® ... “Does any one really believe that the genius of Cesar and Napoleon, pf Milton and Goethe, had nothing to do with their facial angle, and could have found an equally convenient habitation behind thick lips and under woolly skulls?” *° Charles Francis Adams, after a visit to Africa, wrote an article in the Century Magazine expressing his conviction that an almost im- measurable gulf separated the mental capacity of the white man from that of the black man. His reflections on this subject are as follows: “Finally, as to the African in America, what gleam of supposable light does a brief visit to the White Nile throw on our home problem? A good deal,—perhaps. In the first place, looking about me among Africans in Africa,—far removed from that American environment to which I have been accustomed,—the scales fell from my eyes. I found myself most impressed by a realizing sense of the appalling amount of error and cant in which we of the United States have in- dulged on this topic. We have actually wallowed in a bog of self- *® Through Afro-America, p. 223. Subeds, p., 223. 386 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE sufficient ignorance,—especially we philanthropists and theorists of New England. We do so still. Having eyes, we will not see. Even now, we not infrequently hear the successor to the abolitionist and humanitarian of the ante-civil-war period,—the ‘Uncle Tom’ period,— announce that the difference between the White Man and the Black Man is much less considerable than is ordinarily supposed, and that the only real obstacle in the Negro’s way is that—‘He has never been given a chance.’ For myself, after visiting the black man in his own house, I come back with a decided impression that this is the sheerest of delusions, due to pure ignorance of rudimentary facts; yet we built upon it in reconstruction days as upon a foundation stone,—a self-evident truth. Let those who indulge in such theories go to the Soudan, and pass a week at Omdurman. That place marks in commerce, in letters and in art, in science and architecture, tue highest point of development yet reached by any African race. As already suggested, the difference between Omdurman and London about measures the difference between the Black and White. Indis- putably great, that it admits of measurement is questionable.” 7° The view that the white man is superior to the Negro in mental endowment leads logically to the view that the mulatto is superior to the pure Negro. The late Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, asserted that “almost all the Negroes of this country who have shown marked capacity of any kind have had an evident mixture of white blood.” ** The opinion of Seth K. Humphrey on the question may be inferred from the following quotations: “Most of the literature and all of the statistics covering Negro accomplishments are worthless since they. deal mainly with doings of White men incumbered with Black in- herifances,*“ yew “Booker Washington is said to have kad a remarkably able White father. Surely no one who has watched his great educational work would say that the Black inheritance of Booker Washington was thus demonstrating itself.” ?° During the World War psychological tests were applied separately to the mulattoes and pure Negroes at Camp Lee. “In one of the tests (alpha) the lighter negroes obtained a median score of fifty, »“Tight Reflected from Africa,” Century Magazine, Vol. 72, p. 105. ™ Shaler, op. cit., p. 163. ™ Mankind: Racial Values and the Racial Prospect, New York, 1917, p. 164. * Thid., p. 166. WRITERS ON NEGRO INFERIORTY 387 while those of darker hue fell to thirty. In another test (beta) the lighter class had a median score of thirty-six as compared with a median score of twenty-nine for the darker class.” ** The superiority of the mulatto over the blacks is generally assumed to be due to the infusion of white blood.”® The believers in race equality are obliged to hold that the mulatto or mixed product of any two races is equal to either race forming the mixture. Finot, in arguing this point, cites as a fact that “the Griquas, mixed products of Hottentots and Dutch, or the Cafusos, are quite equal to pure whites, just as the cross breeds of Indian and Spanish are at best as good as the Spaniards themselves.” Replying to this, Maurice Evans says: “The Griquas I do know, and am familiar with many Europeans who live among them, and have daily dealings with them. It is utterly contrary to fact to say they are equal to Europeans; either physically, mentally, morally, as a whole, neither are they equal in any single character of value. A more unfortunate example for M. Finot’s argument he could not pos- sibly have found, for the Griquas are a degenerate, dissolute, de- moralized people, weak and unstable, lazy and thriftless. They appear to be constitutionally immoral, far more so than either the Euro- pean or Bantu people among whom they live.” ?¢ Professor Edward B. Reuter, of Iowa University, in his book on The Mulatto in the United States and in his more recent book on Population Problems, admits that the mulattoes are superior to the pure Negroes, but he inclines to the view that the superiority of the mulattoes is due to more favorable opportunities and not to their mental inheritance from the white race. To quote his own language: “The colored men who have risen to eminence in literature, science, art, or statesmanship have been, in nearly all cases, from the group of bi-racial ancestry. In very few cases have full-blooded Negroes risen to position of first rank in the councils of their race. * Quoted from East, Mankind at the Crossroads, p. 136. * Among the innumerable authors who go on this assumption, the following are typical: H. E. Berlin: “The so-called Negroes who have in any way dis- tinguished themselves above their fellows, are not full-blood negroes, but half- breeds,’ (“A Southern View of Slavery,’ American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 13, p. 518); J. J. Holm: “Ninety percent of all the leaders of the race are the offspring of the Caucasion.” (Race Assimilation, p. 279); David Starr Jordan: “Apparently, the mulatto as a whole is superior to the pure African Negro.” (“Biological Effects of Race Movements,” Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 87, p. 267.) * Black and White in the Southern States, p. 26. 388 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “In explanation of this phenomenon, resort is commonly had to biological facts. The mulatto is pointed to as a superior man because he is in part a white man. He is thought to have the energy and ambition of the white race by virtue of his white ancestry; the full- blood Negro is said to be indolent and unambitious. But here as elsewhere the importance of heredity as a factor in social success is easily and generally exaggerated. The assumption was the natural one so long as the idea of a mental hierarchy of races was a tenable posi- tion. But with the establishment of the fact that the races are much more nearly equal in capacity than was formerly supposed, it becomes difficult to account for the superiority of the mulattoes in this way. “Tt is, however, not necessary to resort to the assumption of an inherent superiority of the mixture over the black part of the ancestry to account for the superior social and mental status; the facts are sufficiently explained in social and psychological terms. The mulattoes have enjoyed a superior opportunity for the acquisition of culture. As slaves they were assumed to be superior and were given superior opportunities; they were given the lighter occupations, those requiring the exercise of more intelligence; they were more in contact with the superior class, as body and house servants, and in various con- fidential and personal relations. Their relationship to the master or the master’s family frequently secured for them special consideration and privilege and opportunity not accorded to other members of the servile group. They enjoyed more freedom as slaves and were more frequently the ones who were freed from servitude and its cultural handicaps. Many of the present-day mulattoes are descended from several generations of freedmen who had a tradition of superiority while the bulk of the race was yet in servitude. They have had some- what more time to advance and have had and do have somewhat more encouragement in their efforts to do so. Nearly the whole force of the social and psychological situation has been exerted to produce the superior status.” 27 7 Reuter, Population Problems, pp. 279-80. — CHAPTER 50 DIFFERENCE OF RACES Relation of the Size of the Brain to Intelligence—Inferences from the Smaller Brain of the Negro—Nonsignificance of Size of the Brain in Determining the Mental Capacity—Inferiority of the Negro as Shown by Psychological Tests Applied to Negroes and Whites—Lack of Standard for Determining the Superiority of One Race over Another—The Indisputable Fact of Race Difference EVERAL scientists have postulated a connection between the mental capacity of races and their form of head and average brain-weight. Charles Darwin was perhaps the first scientist to do this. In his De- scent of Man is this statement: “The belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilized races, the ancient and modern people, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate system.” * Dr. Bischoff admits the parallelism of large brain-weight and in- tellectual capacity, but does not believe that a large brain in itself uni- formly betokens superior intelligence. Dr. H. Matiegka, who holds to the theory of correlation of brain-weight and intelligence, has collected data showing the average brain-weight of people of different occupa- tions as follows: 14 Day laborers 1410.0 grams 34 Laborers 1435.5 grams 14 Porters, watchmen, etc. 1435.7 grams 123 Mechanics, workers at trades, etc. 1449.6 grams 28 Business men, teachers, clerks, musicians, etc. 1468.5 grams 22 College-bred scholars, physicians, etc. 1500.0 grams ? Sanford B. Hunt, surgeon of the United States Volunteers, bas- ing his conclusion upon autopsies of whites and blacks in the Civil rt ? Uber das Hirngewicht die Schadelkapacitat und die Kopfform, sowie deren Bezichungen zur Psychischen Thatigkeit des Menschen. 389 390 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE War, states that the standard weight of the Negro brain is over five ounces less than that of the whites.’ On this subject Ellsworth Huntington, in his recent book, The Char- acter of Races, says: “Of course mere size does not mean that a brain is necessarily of high caliber, for the largest brain ever measured was that of an idiot. Nevertheless, it is a fact that as we go upward in the scale of evolution, both in men and animals, the size of the brain in proportion to the body is on the whole closely correlated with the degree of intelligence.’ * He says that the Negro has qualities oppo- site to those of the Nordic people and if placed in such an environment as that of Iceland would probably be exterminated.° Roland B. Dixon, in his book, The Racial History of Man, corre- lates in a general way the capacity of races with the size and form of their heads. Classifying racial groups according to form of the head, he finds that the larger-brained people, such as the Mediterranean- Caspian and the Ural-Alpine, have played the great part in the world’s history, the highest civilizations having sprung from a general mixture of these types. On the other hand, the small-brained people, whom he defines as the Proto-Australoid, and Proto-Negroid, with their low skulls, broad noses and prognathous jaws, have always been worsted in competition with the large-brained people.® William McDougall thinks that “‘on the large average intellectual capacity varies with the size of the brain.” ? In regard to this matter of correlation between intelligence and cranial form or size, I have to say that, although I appreciate the bril- liancy, originality, and immense value from the historical point of view of the thesis worked out by Professor Dixon, and although I can agree with Darwin and others that in a very general way there is a correlation between the mind and its envelope, I doubt if we know enough of the character and extent of the correlation to justify us in applying it to any of our present-day race problems. In recent years effort has been made to measure the intelligence of individuals by psychological tests, such as that of Binet and others. Sundry investigators have applied these tests to groups of Negroes and whites with a view of ascertaining the difference in their mental ca- * Smith, The Color Line, p. 82. *Huntington, The Character of Races, p. 31. ° Ibid., p. 218. °R S18: * The Group Mind, p. 360. ee Se ST ee DIFFERENCE OF RACES 301 — pacity. George O. Ferguson applied tests to 489 whites and 421 col- ored pupils, and his findings were that in the so-called lower traits there was no great difference between the Negro and white; but in a test of higher capacity the average Negro appeared to be only three- fourths as efficient as white persons of the same training. He says: “It is probably correct to say that pure Negroes, and Negroes three- fourths pure, mulattoes and quadroons, have roughly 60, 70, 80 and go percent respectively of white intellectual efficiency.” ° The same writer in an article on “The Mental Status of the Ameri- can Negro,” in the Scientific Monthly for June, 1921, remarks that psychological tests indicate that the average ability of the American Negro is about ten percent below the average of the whites. He does not believe that the Negro will ever equal the whites in mentality. Miss A. H. Arlitt, of Bryn Mawr College, tested 342 children from the primary grades of one district, including children of white native- born Americans, of Italians, and of Negroes. The results showed marked inferiority of the Negro children.® Professor R. S. Woodworth, in his article on the “Comparative Psychology of Races,” in the Psychological Bulletin ?° summarizes the findings of three observers who applied intelligence tests to white and colored children, showing in each case the inferiority of the latter. Messrs. S. L. Pressey and G. F. Teter, in an article on “Comparison of Colored and White Children by Means of Group-scale of Intelli- gence,’ in the Journal of Applied Psychology for 1919, have summed up their conclusions as follows: “The colored children of a given age are at about the average for white children two years younger... . Analysis by test shows the colored to average below white children of the same age on all the tests.” The United States Army records, giving the results of mental tests applied to different races, show that the mental age of the Negro ranks lowest, being 10.37 as compared to the 13.08 for the native whites.™ “Our army recruits,” says East, “after passing successfully on a physical basis, were tested by examinations especially designed to grade inherent ability without giving advantage to the educated man because of his education. These examinations formed the greatest psycholog- ical investigation ever conducted, and they yielded results which are ®* Journal of Heredity, Ap. 1917, p. 153. ° Quoted by McDougall in Js America Safe for Democracy? p. 63. WONT I Ap. 402. ™ Paul Popenoe, “Intelligence and Race,” Journal of Heredity, Vol. 13, No. 6. 302 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE extremely useful. They are not perfect by any means, but as a meas- ure of mental capacity they compare favorably with the average school examination designed for measuring knowledge in a given subject. It must be confessed that I for one hesitated in coming to a judgment on their validity until I had had an opportunity of examining the com- plete report on them published as a memoir of the National Academy of Sciences. There is in this report ample evidence to convert the sceptic to the belief that they give a picture of innate ability which is statistically valid, when averages only are considered.” “A very large number of individuals were given various tests, and were rated on a letter-scale running from the very superior, rated A, to the very inferior who had not sufficient mentality to become satis- factory common soldiers, rated D—. A random sample of these exam- inations geographically representative follows: Number Percentage making grade of Race cases A B B— le C— D D— Whites— Groups 1, Il, IV.': ‘93,073 4.1 8.0 15.0 25.0 23.8 ie i 7.0 Negroes— Groupiel Viele wanes 18,8091 0.1 0.6 2.0 oe? 12.9 29.7. 49.0 “Some of the examinations undoubtedly placed the Negroes at a slight disadvantage, but since others were advantageous to them, the table makes out a very good case for white superiority. And the re- sults are corroborated in other ways. For example, 45.6 percent of a large sample of Negroes from Northern States rated D or D—, while 86.2 per cent of a sample of similar size from the Southern States obtained this low rating. Thus, after making large corrections for possible unfair application of the tests, the ambition and relative intel- ligence which has made so many Negroes migrate to the North is measured quantitatively.” 1%; An analysis of the Army intelligence measurements seems to show that the low rating of certain white and Negro groups is related to de- fective elementary education, and this fact raises the question as to whether the low rating of the Negro as compared to the whites might not be due to lack of schooling. Some psychologists interpret all mental tests as of negative value in determining the question of inherited race differences. For example, ™ Popenoe, “Intelligence and Race,” Journal of Heredity, Vol. 13, No. 6. ADIs, Dell 3A. DIFFERENCE OF RACES 393 Henry C. Link in his article “What is Intelligence,” in the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1923, says: “There is absolutely nothing in the technique of intelligence tests as applied so far, which warrants any comparison whatsoever between the inherent intelligence of various groups or races. All that we can say is that there is a difference in their scores, and that this difference may be due to any number of factors, of which native endowment is only one.” In the opinion of the author of this book psychological tests are very valuable for vocational guidance, and they indicate individual and racial differences, but are not conclusive as to the superiority of one individual or race over another. For illustration, two individuals may show the same I. Q. and yet be as opposite as the poles in the urge to adventure, in persistency, in constructive imagination and other char- acteristics which no psychological test has been able to discover. A Chinaman may show a lower intelligence rating than an American and yet may have traits which admirably fit him for his native environ- ment. He may be considered inferior only in the sense that he is not admirably fitted to our environment. It has been often pointed out by school teachers as evidence of the inferiority of the Negro that the development of his mind tends to be arrested about the age of puberty. Testimony to this effect seems to be pretty unanimous among teachers in Africa. Carr-Saunders, how- ever, suggests that this tendency to arrest in Negro education may be merely “a turning away from the training felt to be strange and for- eign, owing to the strength of the native tradition which claims all the affection and interest of the young man.” 14 The term race equality involves a good deal more than a general ability to learn. It means like response to the same stimulus, the pos- session of the same propensities, the same emotional temperament, and the same general aptitudes. For myself I see no reason for as- suming that the races of man are alike in these respects if dogs are not. I do not think that any one acquainted with dogs will contend that the traits and propensities of the bulldog-are the same as those of the bird- dog, although in general intelligence the two may appear to be equal. Presuming that the American Indian and the African Negro are equally endowed mentally, it is nevertheless obvious that they differ strikingly in temperament, that the Indian, having adapted himself by natural selection to his environment, has acquired mental, emotional, and phys- * The Population Problem, p. 398. 394 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ical traits different from those acquired by the Negro in Africa. The Indian is stolid and obstinate; the Negro plastic and rollicking. Two children of the same family often show, so far as anybody can discover, the same degree of intelligence and yet stand as opposite as the poles in natural gifts, such as initiative, originality, imagination, temper, and capacity for conversation, mathematics, music or mechani- cal manipulation. We do not know how to define such differences in terms of unit characters, and know nothing of their mode of inheritance. Race equality means that a black skin is equal to a white one, and, while I admit that there is no way of proving that either kind of skin is superior, because skin-color has a different value for each race, the fact is that the white skin is superior from the point of view of the white race. There is, therefore, no truth in the statement that the races of man are equal in the sense that their heritable traits are equally desirable. To sum up: The theory of race equality, in a certain limited sense, may be rationally defended, that is, we have reason to believe that all races of men have the same mental faculties, and that in general abil- ity to learn they differ in no important degree. But, due to many centuries of natural selection, the races of men have not now equal capacity to adapt themselves to the same environmental conditions, nor to attain to the same accomplishments. Race equality means that, whereas differences in hereditary value exist among all varieties of plants and animals, the races of men form an exception to the rule and through all the vicissitudes of climate and social revolution have remained undifferentiated. It means that the biological principle of natural selection does not apply to human beings, that no matter what climatic differences men may have been subjected to, the average value of each group remains the same. It means that sexual selection is inoperative among men, and that no matter what principle may govern the choice of human beings in mating, each gen- eration in every group remains endowed with equally desirable inheri- tance. It means that there is no such thing as social selection, that in the long history of warfare among men, it has made no difference what type of men have been killed, the average quality of each racial group remains the same. It means that all history is nonsense which speaks of the decadence of peoples, that race values always remain the same for each race throughout its history. It means that the sci- ence of eugenics is “bunk,” that, no matter how races or individuals may intermix, the resulting progeny always yields to each group the DIFFERENCE OF RACES 395 same proportion of physically and intellectually efficient individuals. This is, indeed, a complacent philosophy, which no man of the first order of ability has ever believed in. For the most part our modern apostles of race equality and amal- gamation represent a reaction against a class of racial philosophers who have gone to the opposite extreme of attributing all progress to the enrichment of racial inheritance. The equalitarians and amalga- mationists sneer at such writers as Madison Grant, who holds a brief for the Nordic race, and who overlooks the influence of all environ- mental factors in social progress. They speak of him and his followers as neo-Gobineaus, and they find in the evident fallacy of the one-sided view of Grant and Gobineau a proof that all progress has been due entirely to environment. The fact is that the neo-Gobineaus and the neo-amalgamationists are equally irrational and blind to essential facts. Both antagonists are influenced more by their emotions than by their reason and mistake an obsession for an intellectual judgment. They remind one of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller, who was so ham- pered by his cranial capacity that when an idea entered his mind he could look at it only on one side. The neo-amalgamationists say that there is no evidence satisfactory to their minds that races are unequal. And their conclusion is perfectly sound from their point of view, for they rule out, as unsatisfactory or as no evidence, all the facts of history and biological data which do not lend color to their obsession. The controversy between the neo-Gobineaus and the neo-amalga- mationists is merely a revival of the old question of nature or nur- ture, of the relative importance of heredity and environment. Men of small caliber, whose emotions run away with their reason and who are naturally inclined to see only one side of a question, are apt to go to one extreme or the other in evaluating heredity and environment. And this question especially lends itself to a one-sided view, for the reason that the line of demarcation between heredity and environment can never be exactly determined. I imagine, however, that the great body of sane scientific men and laymen will look on the controversy between the neo-Gobineaus and neo-amalgamationists with a large amount of indifference, and, in the meantime, go on their way discovering and applying new knowledge of both heredity and environment in the interest of human progress. While I do not believe in the equality of the human races, any more than in the equality of dogs or of tobacco, I would not wish to be under- stood as having the slightest sympathy with the idea that the Nordic 306 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE race is the paramount race of the world. The Nordic race is the great- est race only in the sense that it is better adapted than any other race to the Nordic region. Other races are equally well adapted to their en- vironments and have made contributions to culture equal to those of the Nordics. The Nordic race seems to have special aptitudes for exploration, colonization, science, and invention. The Mediterranean race seems to have special aptitudes for esthetic achievement, excelling in painting, sculpture, and architecture and in the graces of speech, manners, and general ornamentation. Both races have made very different but es- sential contributions to civilization, and there is certainly no ground for the hypothesis that one is intellectually superior to the other. Each has gone through a long process of natural selection and has acquired physical and mental traits suited to its environment. As between what we call the Nordic, Alpine, Mediterranean, and Semitic races, I think that any claim of the superiority of one over the other is invidious in view of the great contribution of each to the world’s culture. But the fact that any two races have made great con- tributions to culture is not a proof that their amalgamation is, under all circumstances, desirable, or advantageous to civilization. Finally, whether the races are equal or unequal has very little to do with the race problem, for as I shall attempt to show in subsequent chapters, the problem would be essentially the same if all races were in fact equal. Our reaction to the problem will be very slightly affected by anything we may believe in reference to racial superiority or infe- riority. As far as my discussion of the race problem is concerned, I am willing to assume that all races are equally capable of the highest culture. The essential fact in the race problem is that races differ, whether that difference be inborn or acquired. Discarding all considerations of superiority and inferiority, I take the ground that racial groups differ. They differ in physical characteristics, in psychological traits, in tradi- tion, and in general culture, and these differences give rise to the race problem, no matter what may be the facts as to the superiority of one race over another. In the following chapter I shall venture to point out some of the obvious differences between the Negro and the Caucasian. CHAPTER 51 NEGRO-CAUCASIAN PHYSICAL CONTRASTS Anatomy and Physiology of the Negro—Resistance to Disease—Muscular Strength —Acuteness of the Senses—Wide Differences among the Negroes Them- selves Physically the Negro differs from the Caucasian as follows: STATURE AND PROPORTIONS His average stature is shorter.? His arms are on the average two inches longer. His fingers are long and more slender.” He has longer legs, with a thin calf.* He has a flat foot, low instep, backward projecting heel, and some- what prehensile great toe. The ankle of the European rises from 2% to 2%4 inches above ground; that of the Negro from 1% to 114.4 The great toe of the Negro is shorter than his second toe and also shorter than the great toe of the Caucasian.® He has a shorter neck, which gives strength in carrying burdens.°® He has a narrower and more pointed pelvis, giving an ungraceful straightness to the waistline. HEAD He has a longer and more narrow head, being dolichocephalic, al- though some types of Negroes have somewhat broad heads. He has a thick cranium, resistant to blows which would break the ordinary European skull. *Burmeister, Comparative Anatomy and Psychology of the African Negro, DAG. > lind., D.. 6: * Tbid., pp. 6-7. RL Pe. OD, 0. 7. CADIS D. °Tbid., p. Io. "Tbid., pp. 8, 10. 397 308 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE He has a smaller brain, averaging about thirty-five ounces as com- pared to forty-five ounces for the European.* The sutures of the skull close earlier than in case of the European. He has a projecting jaw; large zygomatic arches; and high, prom- inent cheek bones. FEATURES He has a thick epidermis, cool, soft, and velvety to the touch, mostly hairless and emitting a peculiar odor. His complexion is a deep brown, due to thickness of the coloring matter in the Malphigian mucus membrane. He has black eyes with a yellowish sclerotic coat.* His hair, in cross-section view, is elliptical and flattened, causing it to grow spirally and giving it a frizzy or woolly appearance.”® He has a short, flat, snub nose, depressed at the base, with dilated nostrils and concave ridge. He has thick, protruding lips. The diseases of smallpox and measles are more fatal to the Negro than to the Caucasian; while the Negro is largely immune from yellow fever, which is extremely fatal to the Caucasian. The constitution of the Negro is more resistant to the injurious ef- fects of alcohol because of his greater power of elimination through the pores of the skin. White physicians, who have had long experience in treating the Negro, find that in many cases he requires a different dosage from that required by the white man. In muscular strength the Negro is probably inferior to the white man, 1. e., he is less capable of sustained physical effort. The physical strength of the white man has, however, on the average, declined as a result of the substitutes he has invented for muscular power. Emer- son remarked that the civilized man had built himself a coach and lost the use of his legs. But there may be a connection, as Spencer re- marked, between muscular strength and brain power. Pugnacity and determination may give the muscles more strength.” The Negro differs somewhat from the Caucasian in acuteness of *Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 56; Burmeister, op. cit., p. 10. * Burmeister, op. cit., p. 12. * Tbid., p. 12. “Odum, Social and Mental Traits of the Negro, p. 167. "Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Ch. V. NEGRO-CAUCASIAN PHYSICAL CONTRASTS 399 the senses. Explorers generally comment upon the superior sight of all uncivilized people,’® and statistics seem to show that all dark-eyed people have better eyes than the light-eyed. Professor Henry Drum- mond believed that the eyes of civilized man were rapidly undergoing degeneracy.’* Upon the thesis that primitive people have superior eyes, it may be inferred that the vision of the Negro is superior to that of the Caucasian, although comparative data on the subject are not avail- able. In sensitiveness of the ear the Negro, in common with all primi- tive people, is superior to the Caucasian. It is said that the Veddahs of Ceylon find bees’ nests by the hum, and that the Australians can hear a horse’s footsteps a mile distant.1® Frances Kellor found in her investigation of the sense of hearing among whites and Negroes in the Southern States that the former could hear the tick of a watch at a distance of four and seven-tenths inches and the latter at a distance of six and three-tenths inches.’® In the matter of smell, the lower animals generally surpass man. This is especially observed in ants and dogs. Likewise, the more prim- itive races of man seem to have more sensitive nostrils than civilized people. The Andamanese are said to be able to find fruit at a great distance by the smell. Professor Drummond says: “The sense of smell, compared with its development among lower animals, is, in the civilized man, already all but gone. Compared with the savages, it is an ascertained fact that the civilized man in this respect is vastly in- ferior.” +’ The senses of taste and smell are so closely allied that what is said of one applies to the other. To pain, the Negro, in common with all primitive people, seems to be callous. ‘The savage,” says Letourneau, “‘is ordinarily less sensitive than the civilized man to the inclemency of climate, to physical pain, etc.” 18 Spencer points out that, among peoples having few means of alleviating discomforts, natural selection would favor the survival of a callous type.?® The Negro not only differs physically from the white man, but in his ne VOLT. VL “The Ascent of Man, p. 104. *TLetourneau, Sociology, p. 73. * Experimental Sociology, p. 52. ™ Op. cit., p. 106. * Sociology, p. 74. * Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Ch. V. 400 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE native country is represented by divergent types.2° Professor Shaler, of Harvard University, attempted to point out the different types of Negro in the United States due to their coming from different zones and stocks of Africa. He defined the Guinea type, Zulu type, Arab type, and Red Bongo type.*? Recently the theory has been advanced by Professor Keith that the differences between races are due to variations in the functioning of the ductless glands, which are known to have a profound influence on bodily organs.”? ® See Ratzel, History of Mankind; Dowd, The Negro Races, Vols. 1 and 2. * Popular Science Monthly, Vol. -57. * Nature, Vol. 104, p. 302. CHAPTER 52 THE PSYCHE OF THE NEGRO Cheerfulness—Impulsiveness— Vanity — Improvidence—Frankness—Truthfulness —Sympathetic Response—Emotionalism—Intolerance of Discipline—Restless- ness — Irrational Thinking — Reminiscent Imagination — Feeble Inhibiting Power, etcetera. N regard to the psychological characteristics of the Negro, the first fact to notice is that there is more uniformity in them than there is in those of the Caucasian.* The mind of the Negro can best be understood by likening it to that of a child. For instance, the Negro lives in the present, his in- terests are objective, and his actions are governed by his emotions. Dr. Carl Vogt, professor of natural history in the University of Geneva, and Fellow of the Anthropological Society of London, says: ‘The erown up Negro partakes, as regards his intellectual faculties, of the nature of the child, the female, and senile white. He manifests a pro- pensity to pleasure, music, dancing, physical enjoyments, and imitation, while his inconstancy of impressions and all the feelings are those of the child.” * Ray Stannard Baker, in his observation of the Southern Negro, was struck by his cheerfulness: “The temperament of the Negro is irresponsibly cheerful, he overflows from his small home, and sings and laughs in the streets; no matter how ragged or forlorn he may be, good humour sits upon his countenance, and his squalor is not unpicturesque. A banjo, a millet supper from time to time, an ex- citing revival, give him real joys.” * Says Burmeister: “The Negro is very loquacious and given to loud outbursts of joy or grief.” * William H. Thomas, himself a Negro, also noted the childish traits of his race: “The Negro lives only in the present, and though at times doleful in language and frantic in grief, he is, like a child, readily soothed by trifles and easily diverted by persuasive speech.” ® *Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, pp. 34, 333. * Lectures on Man, p. 116. * Following the Color Line, p. 61. “Comparative Anatomy and Psychology of the African Negro, p. 15. *The American Negro, p. 134. 401 402 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE If cheerfulness is characteristic of children and of the Negro mind, so also are impulsiveness and fits of anger. The Negro, like a child, is easily irritated, and prone to quarrel and to fight. When angered he becomes a “raving Amazon, as it were, apparently beyond control, growing madder and madder each moment, eyes rolling, lips protruding, feet stamping, pawing, gesticulating.” ° The Negro is like a child in his vanity, fondness for showing off, and in his love of the spectacular.? He has an “inordinate love of pa- rade and show.” ® Says the Negro Thomas: “He assumes knowledge when densely ignorant, and to have wealth when sunk in deepest pov- erty. Assuredly such self-sufficiency would be amazingly inexplicable, did we not know that he has inordinate craving for all spectacular dis- play which makes him the central figure.” ® Jealousy, which is closely linked with vanity, is a great passion in the Negro.’ Says John Daniels, “The members of this race are excessively dis- posed to circulating gossip and slander about one another and gener- ally to depreciating one another’s conduct and character. . . . Let one of them make a proposal or initiate an enterprise appealing for general support, and immediately detractors arise, to cast aspersions on his motives and to propose something different.” ™“ Living like a child in the present, the Negro has little thought of the morrow, and is therefore very improvident.’* Concerning this trait, DuBois says: “Probably few poor nations waste more money by thoughtless and unreasonable expenditure than the American Negro, and especially those living in large cities like Philadelphia. First, they waste much money on poor food, and unhealthful methods of cooking. The crowds that line Lombard Street on Sundays are dressed far be- yond their means, much money is wasted in extravagantly furnished parlours, dining-rooms, guest-chambers, and other visible parts of the Homse peri e “Only pressure from the strongest animal needs will force him *Odum, Social and Mental Traits of the Negro, p. 224. "Tbid., p. 255. Burmeister, op. cit., pp. 14, 16, 18. * Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 377. *The American Negro, p. 121. * Burmeister, of. cit., p. 17. “In Freedom’s Birthplace, p. 156. ™ Burmeister, op. cit., p. 16. *% The Philadelphia Negro, p. 87. i THEPSY CHE) .OF+ EEE |) NEGRO 403 to forecast the future, and sacrifice the present to make provision foraits;i/44 Maurice Evans makes this comment upon the Negroes he observed in the Southern United States: “I saw abundant evidence of reckless, wasteful expenditure. The dress of the city Negro congregations was more fashionable, with apparently more spent on gewgaws and frip- pery, than that of the middle class English congregations probably ten times as wealthy. The youth of both sexes were often adorned in ultra- fashionable attire, often looking ridiculously bedizened, and obviously conscious of their finery. I have seen such emerging from a pitifully poor-looking home, leaving a mother dressed in rags. The drummer selling gramophones, harmoniums, buggies, and other luxuries on the deferred payment system, can always find customers or victims in the Negro cabins. ... “On market days and shopping nights, they throng the streets, not to buy necessaries and depart, but to lounge about, feel important, and finally succumb to the temptations to buy some useless article they cannot afford.” 15 Of the improvidence of the Negro of the Mississippi Valley, Stone remarks: “In a town full of negroes we have had to largely substitute coal as a cooking fuel because we could not get stovewood cut. Ona plantation with nearly three hundred Negroes surroundimg us my part- ners wife has frequently, for long periods, had to patronize a city laundry. . . . It is so easy to exist by various and devious means, that our Negroes, in alarming numbers, are ceasing to care to do much more than live from hand to mouth.” 1° The Negro manifests a juvenile characteristic also in his natural frankness and truthfulness. He is apt to speak unreservedly, since he is not given to reflection. His credulity and proneness to believe what- ever is told him are often taken advantage of by the unscrupulous white men, and are the means of enticing the Negro to part with his money. Some writers claim that the Negro is suspicious and distrust- ful,’” but I think this is true only of those who have suffered from their frankness and truthfulness. Since the Negroes are very emotional, and swayed largely by feel- “ Tbid., p. 88. * Black and White in the Southern States, p. 89. * Stone, op. cit., p. 199. * Odum, op. cit., p. 39; Thomas, op. cit., p. 140. 404 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ing, they are easily appealed to through their sympathies. They are very responsive to a kind word or act of generosity, and manifest a deep and lasting affection for white people who befriend them. This is shown in innumerable instances among Negro domestics. Professor Shaler says of the Negro: “They have a singularly quick sympathetic contact with the neighbor; they attain to this state of mind and shape themselves to meet him as no other primitive people do. Those who have had a chance to compare in this regard the Negro and the American Indian must have been struck by the difference between the two peoples in this most important feature. The Indian, though really much more akin to us in spirit, is so slow to become friendly that we rarely attain to any close relations with him. The Negro comes even more quickly to that attitude than the average man of our own PAGCOR bein “We have in the Negro capacities for affection and good faith which of themselves alone afford an important part of the foundations of so- ciety 1° . . . a disposition which is perhaps more cheerful, more kindly than that of any other race.” *° Among themselves, however, they rarely form strong ties. In hours of sorrow or misfortune there is often a pathetic absence of a true friend to offer help or solace.”! Sexual incontinence is a natural result of their emotionalism and sympathetic responsiveness. A very striking child-like trait among Negroes is their intolerance of discipline. They chafe under restraint, and on this account drift into occupations in which the labor is irregular and unskilled. They fre- quently change masters for no other reason than to escape discipline. Commenting on this trait, the Negro author, Thomas, says: ‘Every semblance of that power of endurance inherent in the Saxon race is conspicuously wanting in the freed people.” ?? Odum says they shirk details and difficult tasks.?3 Restlessness is another child-like trait of the Negro, closely associ- ated with his dislike of discipline, and his love of sight-seeing. He is ever on the go. He must go to town on Saturday, join every excursion, * The Neighbor, p. 140. Oia. Dh 50. ” [bid., p. 157. * Odum, op. cit., p. 251. Ode C4t..D, 72 op OR ior t tain BUR Tad LHe PY CHE, OF THE yNEGRO 405 or frequently move bag and baggage from one plantation to another, or from one town to another, or from one state to another. “This travel,” says Stone, “is for the most part entirely aimless, and it is a common thing for a Negro to take a trip from a plantation to a town fifteen miles distant, with bare train fare in his pocket, and a crop badly in need of his attention at home. On Saturday, field work is practically suspended, and that day is usually given to aimless mov- ing about, or to assembling about stores and stations to witness arrivals and departures of others.”’ *4 Mecklin thinks that in reasoning the Negro “tends to subordinate the relational and abstract elements to the imaginal,’ ... and that “the individual or group that tends to do its thinking in terms of men- tal imagery rather than in general ideas will be strongly emotional and perhaps will find logical thinking difficult from the presence of the dis- turbing emotional elements. Where this peculiarity has its roots deep in individual or racial temperament the results are of particular im- portance for the student of social problems.” 7° He shows an entire absence of the judicial temperament. His conclusions generally rest upon mere feeling or bias. Thomas observed that: “the Negro neither associates correlated facts, nor deduces logical sequences from obvious causes. He is largely devoid of imagination in all that relates to purely intellectual exercises, though he has fairly vivid conceptions of such physical facts as appeal to the passions or appetites.” 7° . . . “His will is governed by mercurial and intractable ebullitions of moods.” 7 The actions of the Negro, more often than his reasoning, show an absence of rational correlation. His behavior is often characterized as whimsical or notional.?* In his migratory habits, and in his purchas- ing of goods, and in his choice of an occupation or place of residence, there is often no rational explanation that any one can discern. Again the Negro is child-like in his faculty of imagination, which is employed almost exclusively in reproducing concrete images reflected, upon his retina. It is rarely employed in visualizing abstract ideas, such as honor, virtue, loyalty, and truth.2® External blandishment controls him more than fixed principles do. The more the mind of any indi- vidual is filled with concrete images the more intense is the strength of * Stone, op. cit., p. III. > Op. cit., p. SI. * Thomas, The American Negro, p. 109. 7" Thid., p. 130. * stone, of. cit, p. 145. ” Odum, op. cit., p. 39. 406 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE his emotions, and the weaker the force of abstract considerations which hold the emotions in check. In consequence of his emotional dominance the Negro has feeble inhibiting power. Whatever feeling, desire, or passion seizes him for the moment, tends to express itself in immediate action. Lack of inhi- bition in the Negro explains his sexual incontinence, and his disposition to quarrel, fight, and steal. It is often said that the Negro is “a born pilferer,” *° but in fact there is no such thing as an instinct or natural tendency to steal. The general practice of stealing is due to a momen- tary craving which is not, as in the case of the white man, restrained by fixed rules which have been reflectively set up as guides to conduct. The gregarious tendency is perhaps stronger in the Negro than in any other race. He loves the crowd, and has nothing of the Anglo- Saxon aptitude for isolation, or ability to resist crowd-pressure. In any political or social issue which arouses strong passions, the Negro tends to act on the basis of common feeling or prejudice, and not on that of differences in ideas and convictions. Imitativeness is a strong characteristic of the Ne; egro, and is closely connected with his gregariousness.** The strong tendency of the Negro to loafing and vagabondage is the outcome of his gregariousness, his dislike of restraint and discipline, his lack of foresight, his weak inhibiting power, and his propensity to migrate. All through the South, at railway stations, in shopping dis- tricts, and in Negro residence quarters, you may see groups of Negroes talking together and watching the crowd. In Negro villages in Africa the men spend almost their entire time in the palaver house, while the women do all of the industrial labor of supporting the population. Throughout the Southern states this African custom of compelling the women to support the family prevails to an astonishing extent, especially in towns where the women engage in domestic service. In reference to this trait McDougall makes the apt remark that “races bred in the tropics are in fact incurable loiterers, their chief de- sire is for the afternoon life or, as is commonly said of the Malays throughout the Eastern Archipelago, they are great legswingers; they prefer to undertake no labour more arduous than sitting still swinging their legs. All this, though more or less true of the tropical races in general, is pre-eminently true of those inhabiting regions which are ” Thomas, op. cit., p. 384. ™ Burmeister, op. cit., p. 14. THE PSYCHE OF THE NEGRO 407 moist as well as hot, the Malays, the Burmese, the Siamese, the Pap- uans, the Negroes of the African jungle regions.”’ *? Self-abasement or submissiveness is a trait generally associated with strong gregariousness.** The Negro is accustomed to following the crowd, and is prone to lean upon any one of strong will and overbearing conduct.** “The freedman,” says Thomas, “‘is essentially a helpless being, with inbred disposition to lean on somebody or something.’ *° He is easily worked up to a high pitch of frenzy. Wherever he lives in considerable masses, as in the segregated quarters of our large cities, he constitutes a very inflammable element of the population. He easily yields to crowd contagion and is very subject to hypnotic influence.** The characteristic of self-abasement, involving as it does a lack of self-respect, explains the Negro’s extraordinary imitativeness. “This slavish imitation of the white,’ says Mecklin, “even to the attempted obliteration of physical characteristics, such as woolly hair, is almost pathetic, and exceedingly significant as indicating the absence of feel- ings of race pride or race integrity. Any imitation of one race by an- other, of such a wholesale and servile kind as to involve complete race self-abnegation, must be disastrous to all concerned.” ** Carr-Saunders remarks that Negroes are ‘“‘un-self-assertive as com- pared with white men.” *° The self-abasement among the Negro is the outcome of his African environment, where the aspects of nature are antagonistic, terrifying, and overawing. Centuries of life in this environment has developed an apprehensiveness and sense of fear which give rise to much super- stition, and dread of things powerful, unusual, or mysterious. The Negro shows an extraordinary fear of an officer of the law, of dark- ness, of black cats, of dogs, or of a corpse.*? The Negro’s strong instinct of flight, and his correspondingly strong emotion of fear, make him a prey to superstition to an extent not found in any other race. The Negro has an explosive mental temperament. To make this ™The Group Mind, p. 303. * Burmeister, op. cit., p. 17. * Odum, op. cit., p. 255. * Op. cit., Di 371. * Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, p. 43. * (bid. p: 08. * The Population Problem, p. 463. * Odum, op. cit., p. 240. 408 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE clear it is necessary to point out that the mental temperaments of the races of mankind are of two opposite types. One is characterized by a tendency to immediate reaction in some form of behavior, and the other by a tendency to deliberate, reflect, and brood. The one acts objectively, the other subjectively. One is what McDougall calls the extrovert type, the other the introvert. The Caucasians of southern Europe and the Negroes of Africa are extrovert. The Caucasians of northern Europe, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Semites, and the North American In- dians are introvert. The extrovert type is impulsive, talkative, inter- ested in the present, and generally has characteristics of children, 1. e., is weak in self-control, inhibition, and self-reliance, and is given to violent outbursts of temper as well as to enthusiastic action. The Negro seems to be the most pronounced example of the extrovert type. The introvert type is introspective, inclined to combativeness in the realm of ideas, independent of judgment, and manifests a high degree of self-reliance and power of inhibition.*® As for the psychological traits of the mulatto, they vary with the degree and kind of white blood entering into the mixture. Burmeister thought that the Negro traits generally predominated. “The male mu- latto,’ he said, “is remarkable for his intelligence and the female for her social qualities.” ** He also thought that the passions of both races were intensified in the mulatto.*? Finally, it should be said that some of the traits above enumerated as belonging to the Negro are common to ignorant white people or back- ward people of any race, and if the traits of the Negro, as herein de- fined, are predominantly child-like, one might infer that they are so be- cause the Negro is yet undeveloped, and that when he has had proper discipline his traits will show the characteristics of the adult, i. e., will be indistinguishable from those of the Caucasian. It seems very probable that education and contact with the Cau- casians will have a tendency to modify the Negro’s traits, and I am cer- tain that in the United States natural selection is working towards the elimination of certain traits which stand in the way of the Negro’s sur- vival. However, judging from what we know of the persistence of the “Carr-Saunders believes that temperament and disposition are more im- portant factors of success than mere intellect, and that these are heritable and vary in different races. The Population Problem, p. 471. “Comparative Anatomy and Psychology of the African Negro, p. 21. SLOG. D921. THE PSYCHE OF THE NEGRO 409 characteristics of races, even when subjected to new and varying environ- ments, as for example in the cases of the Indian and the Jew, I do not believe that the characteristics of the Negro will undergo any marked change for many generations. CHAPTER 53 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION The Function of Crossing among Plants and Animals—Consequences of Crossing Near and Distantly Related Types—Importance As a Factor in Crossing of the Quality of the Characters Inherited—Biological Considerations Weighing Against Amalgamation HERE seems to be a general agreement among biologists that the function of crossings in the plant and animal world is to increase variability and to preserve or strengthen physical vigor, that in all forms of life numerous differences exist and that any kind of crossing which takes place may have beneficial or injurious consequences, depending upon whether the offspring does or does not inherit traits favorable to survival, or, in case of artificial crossings, favorable to any result de- sired. In a state of nature, crossings have been limited to closely related types for the reason that widely contrasting types are incapable of crossing. Darwin thought “that a cross between individuals of the same spe- cies, which differ to a certain extent, gives vigour and fertility to the offspring, and on the other hand the balance of evidence decidedly tends to show that a cross between individuals of different species, or even of very distinct varieties of the same species, is by no means bene- ficial as a general rule.” ? For example, if a stockman wishes to preserve the vitality of his herd of Jersey cattle, he will, now and then, introduce Jersey stock from another herd, but would not think of introducing Holsteins or Durhams. “In general,” to quote East and Jones in their book on Inbreeding and Outbreeding, “it can be said that differences in uniting germ plasms, when not too great, may bring about more efficient development and increased fertility. Beyond that critical point of difference both fertility and vigor may be decreased, but fertility is usually the first to suffer—even complete sterility often being coupled with rampant growth.” ? *Chatterton-Hill, Heredity and Selection in Soctology, p. 127. oll ea ke 410 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION Ail The same principle has been applied to man. Topinard, for in- stance, asserted that the intermingling of nearly related races is cer- tainly good and that of distantly related races certainly bad.* David Livingstone once remarked that “God had made the white man, and God had made the black, but the devil had made the half-breed.” Carr-Saunders illustrates the principle as follows: “Roughly speaking there are two possible kinds of crosses between races. First, there are crosses between the most clearly distinguished varieties, such as white and black. Heterosis, or hybrid vigour, will be exhibited in a marked fashion in the first generation. Heterosis, the underlying cause of which has only recently become apparent, is always at its height in the first cross. The increase of vigour, however, is not long maintained in subsequent generations. Further, each type, such as those which we are considering, has a series of character complexes, built up through ages of selection and compatible with one another, and by crossings such complexes are broken apart. The chance of gain, on the other hand, through favorable re-combination of characters is small. On the average, therefore, the result of such a cross is unfavor- able. There may also be crosses between races exhibiting less differ- ences. Again, heterosis will be visible on crossing. But in distinction to the results of the former kind of cross, the other results may not be unfavorable. Great variability may follow such a cross and this is on the whole advantageous. Valuable character re-combinations may also come to light. Thus we may say that, so long as there is not too great a difference between the races which cross, the results are usually genetically favorable; there will be the advantage of hybrid vigour, though this is always temporary, and there may very possibly be the advantage of valuable character re-combinations.”’ * The same idea is advanced by McDougall, who says: “The cross- ing of the most widely different stocks, stocks belonging to any two of the four main races of man, produces an inferior race; but the crossing of stocks belonging to the same principal race, and especially the cross- ing of closely allied stocks, generally produces a blended subrace supe- rior to the mean of the two parental stocks, or at least not inferior.” ® Not only from the standpoint of physical vigor, but also from the standpoint of mental characters, the crossing of distantly related races is held to be detrimental. *Eléments d’ Anthropologie générale. *The Population Problem, p. 38. *The Group Mind, p. 332. 412 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “The many elements,” says McDougall, “which go to form the men- tal constitution of an individual become, in a mixed race, variously com- bined. If the crossed races are very widely different, the results seem to be in nearly all cases bad. The character of the cross-breed is made up of divergent, inharmonious tendencies, which give rise to internal conflict, just as the physical features appear in bizarre combination.” ° In reference to the consequences of the crossing of distantly and closely related types, East and Jones make the following statement: “The world faces two types of racial combination: one in which the races are so far apart as to make hybridization a real breaking-down of the inherent characteristics of each; the other, where fewer differ- ences present only the possibility of a somewhat greater variability as a desirable basis for selection. Roughly, the former is the color-line problem; the latter is that of the White Melting Pot, faced particu- larly by Europe, North America and Australia. “The genetics of these two kinds of racial intermixture is as fol- lows: Consider first a cross between two extremes, typical members of the white and of the black race. In the first generation the individuals show a notable amount of heterosis, indicating differences in a large number of hereditary factors. They are intermediate in hair form, skin color, head shape, and various other physical attributes, in mental capac- ity, and in psychical characters in general; although they show ex- traordinary physical vigor. In later generations segregation and recom- bination in many of these characters can be traced with little diffi- culty ; but if one describes the descendants of the cross as a population, or even the total characteristics of a single individual, fluctuation around the average of the two original races is still the rule. There may be an approach to the head form of one race combined with the skin color of the other, an approximation of the hair of the one coupled with the other’s stature; nevertheless, there is little likelihood of an individual return to the pure type of either race. The difficulties involved are those described in Chapter VII. The races differ by so many transmissible factors, factors which are probably linked in varied ways, that there is, practically speaking, no reasonable chance of such breaks in linkage occurring as would bring together only the most desirable features, even supposing conscious selection could be made. And selection is not conscious. Breeding for the most part is at random. The real result of such a wide racial cross, therefore, is to break apart those compatible physical and mental qualities which have established a *The Group Mind, p. 1093. BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION 413 smoothly operating whole in each race by hundreds of generations of natural selection. “If the two races possessed equivalent physical characteristics and mental capacities, there would still be this valid genetical objection to crossing, as one may readily see. But in reality the negro is inferior to the white. This is not hypothesis or suppositions ; it is a crude state- ment of actual fact. The negro has given the world no original contri- bution of high merit. By his own initiative in his original habitat, he has never risen. Transplanted to a new environment, as in the case of Haiti, he has done no better. In competition with the white race, he has failed to approach its standard. But because he has failed to equal the white man’s ability, his natural increase is low in comparison. The native population of Africa is increasing very slowly, if at all. In the best environment to which he has been subjected, the United States, his ratio in the general population is decreasing. His only chance for an extended survival is amalgamation. “The United States has been confronted by this grave question for some time. In Africa it has hardly yet come to the fore, but within three generations it will be recognized as the political and economic problem. What the solution will be, no one knows. It seems an un- necessary accompaniment to humane treatment, an illogical extension of altruism, however, to seek to elevate the black race at the cost of lower- ing the white. And the statement is made with all due regard to the fact that there are certain desirable characteristics existent in the black race, and that unquestionably the two races overlap in general inherent capacity. The white race as a whole is not equal to the black race in resistance to several serious diseases, as the medical records of the United States army show. ‘The two strains have built up disease re- sistance along different lines, and the addition of both sets of im- munity factors would be desirable. But the practical attainment of such a benefit, given the genetic premises, is so improbable as to be negligible, apart from other considerations.” * Observations and experiments in the crossing of plants and animals have brought out the fact that, in the matter of vigor and fertility, the results of the crossings of the distantly and closely related types are not as uniform as was formerly believed. “There is a popular belief,” says Conklin, “that hybrid races are always inferior to pure bred ones, but this is by no means the case. Some hybrids are undoubtedly in- ferior to either of the parents, but on the other hand some are vastly “East and Jones, Inbreeding and Outbreeding, pp. 252-4. 414 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE superior; only experience can determine whether a certain cross will yield inferior or superior types. Society may well attempt to prevent those crosses which produce inferior stock while encouraging those which produce superior types.’ § Some biologists, as for example L. C. Dunn of the Storrs’ Agri- cultural Station, do not believe that, from the standpoint of vigor or fertility, the hybrids of plants or animals are inferior to their parents. In reference to crossings among the races of man, he says: “Are human hybrids more vigorous or less than the parent types? Are they under any biological handicaps such as infertility? Are the new combina- tions of characters in hybrids disharmonious or incompatible? Dog- matic answers can certainly not be given from the human data. The Boer-Hottentot hybrids and the Norfolk population are certainly at least the physical equals of either parent race. In Hawaii the physical measurements of hybrids, while they do not indicate a pronounced hy- brid vigor, show that the hybrids are not inferior. And in the opinion of more than one observer some of the hybrid groups, e. g., the Hawai- ian-Chinese, represent a physical improvement of the parent types. “Disharmonic types undoubtedly do exist among hybrids, but only in the sense that combinations of traits occur which are not normal or frequent in purer types. As far as can be ascertained from physical measurements these new combinations are not injurious, and no deroga- tory significance need be attached to disharmony. It is a normal oc- currence after crossing.” ® Dunn attaches great importance to the increased fertility which gen- erally results from crossings. “Striking racial differences exist, which are not abolished, but com- bine and endure through cross-matings. These diverse combinations and the variability which results may be one condition of evolutionary progress in man as in the lower animals and plants. It may be sug- gested that in a complex civilization which rests on division of labor, variability is even more essential than in more primitive societies. Real racial differences may then be the raw materials needed for an enlarg- ing society.” 1° It is universally understood that race crossing increases variability, but an increase of variability does not necessarily imply an improvement * Heredity and Evolution in the Development of Man, p. 301. °“A Biological View of Race Mixture,” Publications of the American Socio- logical Society, Vol. 19, p. 54. *® Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. 19, p. 56. BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION 415 in racial stock, nor guarantee us against the inheritance of undesirable traits. A visit to any of our institutions for the feeble-minded will show us striking examples of increased variation due to crossings. The introducing of a Holstein bull amongst a herd of Jersey cows might add to the vigor or variability of the herd, but would certainly bring down the quality of the milk. It does not follow that race mixture is a good thing merely be- cause animal vigor may be preserved by it. The main consideration in the crossing of plants and animals is not the extent of variability nor the degree of hybrid vigor, but the quality of the characters trans- mitted. When we seek by artificial process to improve the breed of chickens, hogs, or cattle, we do not assemble a motley collection of all possible breeds, but select one type supposed to be superior, or we cross two slightly unlike types, segregate the offspring, and breed strictly from the selected stock. A prerequisite to the production of any desired type of plant or animal is intelligent selection, followed by segregation which prevents any crossing with another type. To permit free crossing would render impossible the artificial production of any new or im- proved type. Biologists who favor amalgamation justify their position upon the ground that, from their point of view, race crossings have not been demonstrated to be bad. In reply to this attitude Holmes remarks: “The inheritance of a superior race is a very precious possession to be conserved at all costs. The argument from ignorance should not be used to defend race crossing because we cannot prove that it is bad; it should be used rather to counsel caution because we do not know that it is not bad. In the light of our ignorance about race crossing, the wisest course is to go slow and play safe. Our ignorance is no justi- fication for taking a leap in the dark.” # So far as I am able to comprehend the teachings of biological sci- ence, the outstanding fact seems to be that plants and animals vary and inherit characters according to Mendelian principles and that an im- provement in any variety or type can be brought about only by natural or intelligent selection and not by miscellaneous crossings. By way of summarizing the biological aspect of amalgamation, I quote as follows from Arthur Dendy, professor of Zoology in King’s College, London: “Whatever may be the selecting agent, there is al- ways one thing necessary before it can bring about any improvement, ™ Studies in Evolution and Eugenics, p. 223. 416 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE and that is the isolation of the selected variations, the prevention of interbreeding with the less favored individuals of the race, so that the incipient adaptations shall not be swamped by crossing. For this reason the pigeon fancier keeps his birds in separate cages and the stock breeder is scrupulously careful to allow no random mating. The numerous varieties of domesticated dogs, as is well known, breed freely with one another if allowed to do so, and the results are mongrels. Similarly, when different varieties of pigeons are mated together the offspring tend to revert to the condition of the original wild rock pigeon from which all the varieties were derived. . . .” “The differences between the various branches of the human family, especially as regards mental and moral development, are enormous, and there can be no doubt that they are maintained by geographical isola- tion. What, then, is to happen now that this isolation is being every day more completely abolished? Our modern means of communication are rapidly bringing all parts of the world so close together that the natural barriers to migration will soon cease to have any importance. All races will intermingle; they are already doing so. Under these newly arisen conditions, what is to prevent the interbreeding of all types of humanity and the gradual establishment of one vast mongrel population? Any one who is acquainted with the half-caste inhabitants of such a country as, for example, South Africa, will at once realise the dangers attendant upon such a state of affairs. A mongrel is no more desirable amongst human beings than it is amongst domesticated animals. “The humanitarian, but utterly unscientific, doctrine that all men are equal has much to answer for. If followed out to its logical con- clusions it must lead to the general and permanent deterioration of the human race, for the highest types of mankind are in a minority, and it will be a case of levelling down and not of levelling up.” * “The Biological Foundations of Society, p. 168. aiid D7, CHAPTER 54 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION The Cause of Racial Affinities and Antipathies—Natural Impulses Which Develop Consciousness of Kind—Control of Consciousness of Kind over the Social and Sexual Relations between Animal Groups—lIllicit Sex Relations between Different Races—Operation of Psychological Laws to Prevent Too Intimate Inbreeding and Too Distant Outbreeding URNING now to the psychological point of view, we learn that nature has planted in the animal species and varieties certain dis- positions which serve to encourage crossing with varieties offering slight contrasts and to prevent crossing with varieties offering wide con- trasts. These dispositions give rise to racial and group affinities and an- tipathies. The natural disposition of each animal species or variety leads in the first place to associational preferences, or to what we may call group affinities and antipathies ; and as a consequence of these there are developed sexual attractions and aversions between different groups. All animals are more or less gregarious, or show a social preference for their own kind. If the question be asked, why animals of like kind find solace in association the answer would seem to be that the contact with their kind gives play to the emotions of sympathy and wonder. The sensation of a kindred touch is accompanied by a feel- ing of security which relaxes tension and expands sympathy. At the same time the contact gives play to the emotion of surprise and wonder, and answers to what psychologists used to call the instinct of curiosity. The individuals of any group are more or less differentiated, and the contrasts excite a general pleasurable stimulation of the emotions. In other words, the interest which an individual finds in companion- ship with another is due to the refreshment he derives from a certain degree of unlikeness. If the unlikeness is too great, a feeling of fear or repulsion is awakened. That particular degree of contrast which insures pleasure to the members of a herd or group is what we generally call likeness. This tendency of like individuals to form groups is what Giddings calls consciousness of kind, and what he regards as the most fundamental sociological fact. Worms, he tells us, recognize each other 417 418 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE by the touch, and so thoroughout the animal kingdom each individual tends to flock with its kind. The sex relations of animals are determined by their natural group- ing or feeling of consciousness of kind. The sex affinities and aver- sions of individuals are influenced by the same likenesses and contrasts which influence the animal groupings, but they always arise after the groups are formed. The sex impulse, which only becomes active at a certain age, season, or following a chance affinity, is generally manifested within the circle of consciousness of kind of each individual. For instance, according to Westermarck, in the forest of Dean, the dark and pale colored herds of deer, which have been long kept together, have never been known to cross. On the Faroe Islands, the half-wild native black sheep are said not to have readily mixed with the imported white sheep. “In Circassia, where six sub-races of the horse are known, the horses of three of these races, whilst living a free life, almost always refuse to mingle and cross, and will even at- tack each other.” + It is common knowledge that a mare’s aversion to an ass is so strong that it can be overcome only by a ruse. The feeling of consciousness of kind controls the sex relations among human beings in the same way as among the lower animals. Wester- marck tells us that the Indian races of Paraguay “are too proud to intermarry with any race of a different color, or even of a different stock. In Guiana and elsewhere, Indians do not readily intermix with Negroes, whom they despise, . . . in San Salvador . . . a man who had intercourse with a foreign woman was killed. Mr. Powers informs us of a California tribe who had put to death a woman for committing adultery with or marrying a white man; and among the Barolongs, a Bechuana tribe, the same punishment was formerly inflicted on any one who had intercourse with a European. Among the Kabyles, ‘Je mariage avec une negresse west pas defendu en principe; mais le famille s’opposerait a une paredle union... . The black and fair people of the Philippines have from time immemorial dwelt in the same country without producing an intermediate race. . . . And, in Ceylon, even those Veddahs who live in settlements, although they have long associated with their neighbors, the Singhalese, have not yet intermarried with them. “Count de Gobineau remarks that not even a common religion and country can extinguish the hereditary aversion of the Arab to the Turk, of the Kurd to the Nestorian of Syria, of the Magyar to the Slav. * History of Human Marriage, p. 281. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION 41g Indeed, so strong, among the Arabs, is the instinct of ethical isolation, that, as a traveler states, at Djidda, where sexual morality is held in little respect, a Bedouin woman may yield herself for money to a Turk or European, but would think herself forever dishonoured if she were joined to him in lawful wedlock. “Marriages between Lapps and Swedes very rarely occur, being looked upon as dishonourable by both peoples. They are equally un- common between Lapps and Norwegians, and it hardly ever happens that a Lapp marries a Russian. At various times, Spaniards in Central America, Englishmen in Mauritius, Frenchmen in Réunion and in the Antilles, and Danish traders in Greenland, have been prevented by law from marrying natives. Among the Hebrews, during the early days of their power and dominion, marriages with aliens seem to have been rare exceptions. The Romans were prohibited from marrying barbarians; Valentinian inflicted the penalty of death for such unions. Tacitus was of opinion that the Germans refused marriage with foreign nations, and the like seems to have been the case with the Slavs. . . .? “The Ainos not only despise the Japanese as much as the Japanese despise them, but are not very sociable among themselves; one village does not like to marry into another... 3 “Everywhere the system of caste seems to have originated in the opposition of one race to intermarriage with another. The Sanscrit word for caste is “varna,’’ meaning color, which shows how the distinc- tion of high and low caste arose in India. That country was inhabited by dark races before the fairer Aryans took possession of it; and the bitter contempt of the Aryans for foreign tribes, their domineering spirit, and their strong antipathies of race and religion, found vent in the pride of class and caste distinctions.” * The aversion to marrying outside of the circle of consciousness of kind is not the result of the sexual instinct, for the reason that this instinct is so strong that it often leads to intercourse between individu- als belonging to different circles of consciousness of kind, who would feel a repugnance to each other so far as any habitual association is concerned. Racial antipathy is felt by innumerable individuals whose sex instincts have never been awakened. The sentiment of love which leads to marriage among highly civilized people is a very complex phenomenon involving a variety of emotions other than those related to *Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 365. * Ibid., p. 367. *Tbid., p. 368, 420 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE sex.5 It is normally awakened by association among individuals within the same circle of consciousness of kind; and an individual of one circle will generally feel a repulsion to members of other circles in so far as any intimate social contact is concerned. The social antipathies which races manifest toward each other always develop into a racial sentiment against social and marital intermingling wherever two con- trasting races face each other in large masses. Any intermingling of unlike races in social, as distinguished from purely business, relationships, suggests the natural consequence of mis- cegenation, and excites a feeling of repulsion and disgust among the masses of both races. Wherever, therefore, two widely contrasting races are brought together in the same territory it is necessary to observe certain social conventions in order to prevent the too frequent explosion of indignation and resentment. Rules applying to all alike avoid the embarrassment and ruthlessness of individual discriminations. A strict obedience to the conventional rules comes to be regarded as a test of loyalty to one’s race, and any one who disregards them is apt to be looked upon as an apostate and to be penalized by ostracism. I wish to make clear the fact that racial antipathies among human beings do not arise directly from the sexual instinct, but from a combina- tion of other natural dispositions and tendencies which awaken a con- sciousness of kind and develop a group sentiment. Now there are two circumstances under which consciousness of kind fails to develop or breaks down, resulting in the more or less free intermingling of diverse races. The first is that of a frontier country where the population is more or less heterogeneous. Here it is im- possible for each individual to find companionship or to marry within his own race, and his sense of race consciousness is lost or overcome by his sex impulse. The other circumstance is that of an open country where one race is widely and thinly dispersed among the masses of another race. For instance, in the Sudan region of Africa, a small number of Caucasians, perhaps Libyans or Berbers, invaded the country of the blacks and scattered themselves as rulers among the dense mass of natives, with the result of intermarrying and forming an intermediate type.® I believe that the consciousness of kind among men and the lower animals, which guides them in the matter of mating, is in entire harmony with the laws of progress. We know from history and general ob- *Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, p. 488. *Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. 1, p. 79. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION gai servation that races which differ but slightly manifest an attraction for each other and freely amalgamate; while those which differ notably manifest an aversion to each other and do not amalgamate, or do so only under abnormal conditions. Isolation, conquest, slavery, and vice are the only means by which amalgamation ever takes place between visibly unlike races. Thus we find a perfect agreement between the principles of psychology and the principles of biology on the subject of race amalgamation. | It is sometimes asserted that when two dissimilar races are thrown together, it is only the superior one which manifests aversion to social and marital intermixture ; and it is often pointed out that in the United States, the Negroes rather court than shun social relations with the whites. The fact is, however, that both races have the same social and marital antipathies, and the same tendency to group according to con- sciousness of kind. Every race has its own standards of beauty and its own color preference.’ The Chinese dislike the white skin of the Europeans, and it is said of an Australian woman who had a child by a white man, that she smoked it with oil to give it a darker color.® When a very backward race is thrown 1n contact with the masses of a race of higher culture it is impressed with its inferiority, and, through the feeling of vanity and pride, will try to imitate the superior race, and will court sexual relations with it. But one may yield to this vanity and pride without changing one’s ideal of beauty or natural preference, just as an individual woman of a white race may choose to mate with a man personally repulsive to her because of his wealth or other ex- traneous possession which appeals to her cupidity. So with the Negro race in the United States; some Negro men or women, from considera- tions of pride may choose white mates contrary to their natural inclina- tion. But I think it is quite obvious, in spite of the generally acknowl- edged superiority of the white race, that the mass of Negro men and women prefer mating with their own kind. Sir Harry H. Johnston says: “The mass of the (Negro) race, if left free to choose, would prefer to mate with women of its own type.” ® Even mulatto men show a decided preference for mulatto women, and black men for black women. Again it is often argued that there are no natural racial antipathies because, however opposite the races, there is always sexual intercourse *Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. 257, 263. *Thid., p. 264. *The Negro in the New World, p. 462. 422 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE between them, resulting in a large number of hybrids. In reply to this argument I would call attention to the fact that the sexual intercourse between widely different races is almost always illicit and confined al- most entirely to the licentious class of both races in whom the sex passion overcomes only momentarily the racial antipathy. It is a matter of common observation all around the world that white men addicted to vice will have sexual relations with women of other races for whom they feel no natural affinity, and toward whom they would feel the deepest repugnance at the thought of living with them in the permanent relationship of husband and wife. The fact that any two races have casual sex relations is no evidence whatever of their lack of social ana marital antipathy. ; A chief cause of our misunderstanding of the race problem grows out of the different feelings which members of the same race manifest toward any widely different race with which they come in contact. For instance, the Englishman in England who only occasionally sees an African or East Indian does not feel the aversion to social contact with them which is felt by the Englishman in Africa or India. The reason for this difference is that the feeling of aversion to the social intermingling of two races never arises unless the races exist together in large enough masses to awaken frequent suggestions of consciousness of kind, and intermarriage. In case of such massing together, the feel- ing of repulsion unconsciously and instinctively arises. For illustration, the white people of California feel a social repulsion toward the Jap- anese but none toward the Negroes, who are not there in sufficient numbers to awaken the feeling; while the white people of the Southern states feel a social aversion toward the Negro, but none toward the Japanese, whom they rarely see. There are, indeed, a number of very highly cultured men in the United States, in England, in France, and in Germany, who have not come in contact with the masses of any widely different race, and who, therefore, feel no social aversion to other races. They imagine that they have arrived at a higher state of moral culture than the rest of mankind, and they, therefore, look with condescension and condemnation upon people who exhibit such feeling. The fact is that all men manifest social aversion to other races under similar condi- tions of contact. Northern people of the United States who have taken residence in the South spontaneously acquire the same antipathy to the Negro as the native whites. If the Negroes were as rare in Mississippi as they are in the rural districts of Massachusetts there would be a plenty of white people in Mississippi who would feel no social aver- PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AMALGAMATION = 423 sion to them, who would think nothing of sitting at table with them, and who would be able to felicitate themselves on their superiority to ordinary humanity. Viewing the subject of racial contact from every conceivable psycho- logical aspect, I find no ground for believing that the Caucasian and the Negro will ever amalgamate while they co-exist in large numbers. CHAPTER 55 SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS Question of Importance of Amalgamation As a Factor in the Evolution of Culture—Light on the Question from History—Social Conditions Favorable to Cultural Advance HAT can be said in favor of racial intermixture from the stand- point of sociology? Is it not a historical fact that the amalgama- tion of races has been the chief factor in the progress of civilization throughout the world? It is certainly a fact that the history of the world is largely made up of race conquests and subjugations, and of racial interminglings and amalgamations; and I suppose that among the mass of thinking people there is a general conviction that, somehow or other, race interblending has been an essential factor in the progress of civilization. At any rate, all of the present-day advocates of amalgamation lay stress upon the part which race crossing has played in the evolution of culture. In setting out to inquire into the soundness of this point of view, we must have in mind some definition of the term culture or civiliza- tion. For the purposes of this discussion we shall define culture roughly as follows: (a) The energy or urge to create, and (b) The expan- sion of sympathy through the development of common interests, group sentiments, and organizations, and the acquisition of habits, technique, patterns, or what the anthropologists call trait-complexes. Primarily culture is a subjective phenomenon; secondarily, it is objective, and recognizable by tools, machinery, buildings, and all material products and contrivances. In view of the fact that the kind of culture which spreads itself over the world is vastly more vital than any other problem, there is urgent need that we know how culture is developed and diffused, and what the consequences are of the contact and intermixture of different cultures. One of the most recent and important developments in anthropology is the study of cultural areas, cultural centers, and cultural diffusion.? *Wissler, Man and Culture. 44 SOGIOLOGICAL: ASPECTS 425 In a rough way the whole world has been divided into cultural areas, and the culture-traits in each area have been catalogued. In this study it has been found that culture-traits are everywhere more highly per- fected at the center of the culture area than at the periphery. Now we are just beginning to understand something about culture centers and the important part which they have played, and in the future will play, in the progress of civilization. Just as we have developed a consciousness of our individual and political responsibility and rights, so we are now awakening to a sense of our responsibility and rights as participants in a common culture. As it is essential that an individual control his personal development and that the State control its development, so is it essential that a people protect and control their culture. “What we were fighting for in the late war,” says Wissler, “was the right of Belgium and every other country to possess and cherish its own culture.” * Wissler looks forward to a time “when all peoples shall have rights to their culture, based upon the facts and conditions of culture and not upon the conveniences of relatively few individuals. In the same sense that the world rose out of social gloom when it came to see the position of the individual, it is now ready to take one step more, the consciousness of itself as having and developing cultures, and in meeting the challenge of the future by the formulation of culture rights.” ® It seems to me that the first essential of cultural advance is a fa- vorable environment, 1. e., a stimulating climate, a meagerness of re- sources demanding strenuous effort, and a geographical situation afford- ing contact of people over a wide area, and at the same time affording protection from disturbing invaders by natural barriers of water, moun- tains, deserts, or forests. If the climatic and geographic factors are favorable, the population within the area will, by intercommunication, come to have a common culture, i. e., more or less uniform habits, methods of exploitation, modes of intercourse, standards of behavior, etcetera. The prevalence of the same culture over a wide area is fa- vorable to discoveries and inventions which make for cultural advance. For a concrete illustration, in the history of white colonization in Amer- ica there was a more or less common culture among the inhabitants in every locality. The most common material culture product was the axe. Now, the fact of this instrument being used by so many indi- *Tbid., p. 334. 5 Tbid., p. 335. 426 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE viduals over a wide area was highly favorable to innovations and im- provements in it. The chances were great that some user of the axe would manifest his creative genius by giving it a new shape, or by changing its weight, or the curvature of its handle. And each innova- tion which proved by experience to be an improvement would be in great demand by the woodsmen, and would rapidly spread throughout the population; and, in the course of some generations, an axe would be produced which was perfectly adapted to its purpose. In fact, that is what has happened to the American axe. It has received innumerable contributions from expert axemen; it is now the most perfect and most beautiful of American tools, and is vastly superior to the axe in any other part of the world. It would have been impossible for a perfect or standardized axe to develop elsewhere than at the center of the axe- complex. I think it was under conditions similar to those above named that the first steps in culture were made. In the prehistoric stage of evolution we notice the beginnings and advancement of culture indicated by prog- ress in the invention and use of tools and weapons, and in the dis- covery and use of natural resources. There was an eolithic period, when man invented nothing, but merely displayed his genius by dis- covering natural products which answered to his needs. For tools he picked up sticks and rocks which chance threw in his way. Then there was a palzolithic period, when man learned to make tools of stone, but in a clumsy and rude fashion. A third period was the neolithic, when man learned to make a great variety of implements and weapons of stone in a very skilful and even artistic manner. Lastly there was a metal age, of copper, bronze, iron, etcetera, merging into the era of civilization. The data upon the movement of races during the prehistoric time consist of skeletal remains of man, of man’s tools and implements, and the caves in which man dwelt; and these data diminish in number as we go back towards the eolithic period, where they are reduced to mere fragments of two skeletal remains, and a small collection of stones sup- posed to have been used by man. Nevertheless, on the basis of such data anthropologists have not hesitated to generalize the movement of races, and the distribution of culture throughout the prehistoric period, at least so far as Europe is concerned. Henry Fairfield Osborn, in his Men of the Old Stone Age, says that the two races of the eolithic period, the Heidelberg and the Piltdown, SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 427 did not intermix and both became extinct without leaving descendants.* In the palzolithic period the two principal races which flourished in Europe were the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon. According to Osborn, the former race, like the Heidelberg and Piltdown races, disap- peared without mixing with any other race, or leaving descendants.® Referring to the Chellean phase of the palzolithic period, he says: “This culture marked a distinct and probably a very long epoch of time in which inventions and multiplications of form were gradually spread from tribe to tribe, exactly as modern inventions, usually originating at a single point and often in the mind of one ingenious individual, grad- ually spread over the world.’’® And, speaking of the later phases of the same period, he does not find “any evidence of the crossing or mix- ing of the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthal.”’7 The evolution of art among the Cro-Magnons, he says, was autochthonous, and in no way related to race-intermixture.® T. Erie Peet, in his discussion of the endolithic period (a period cov- ering the early use of metals in Italy) points out that its culture was continuous, due to trading and commerce, and not to immigration of alien races.® Now, tentative as any generalization may be in reference to the peoples of prehistoric times, it is significant that the data have not suggested to any anthropologist the idea that progress in culture has been due to race fusions. Without any evidence of racial intermix- ture, we observe that the stone axe, flattened on one side, less smooth on the other, characteristic of the late phase of the palzolithic period, spread over a great area in Europe. And later, when the bow and ar- row came into use, that they spread over the world among races which were very opposite in type, and which, far from having intermixed, had never come into contact.’° The bronze culture spread among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Syr- ians, Alpines, Nordics, and Mediterraneans in no conceivable rela- “Osborn, Men of the Old Stone Age, pp. 144, 491. *Tbid., pp. 256, 258. Hrdlicka believes that there are traces of the Neander- thal race in the physiognomy of some modern Europeans, but says nothing of race intermixture. Jbid., p. 257. *Ibid., p. 150. rabid, D. 272. *Ibid., pp. 279, 324. ’ The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy, Ch. XII. ** Wissler, Man and Culture, p. 131. 428 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE tionship to amalgamation. The same may be said of the dissemination of the use of iron or that of the domestication of the dog and horse." As the result of the acquisition of the bow and arrow, and of the bronze and iron weapons, there were exterminating wars, conquests, and more or less amalgamation; but there is no evidence that racial amalgamation preceded the spread of culture or was the cause of it. Carr-Saunders is of the opinion that cultural advances among men have been mainly due to the accumulation and interchange of tradition, and very little to change in the character of the human stock. He says: “Though a stimulus may always be detected at work during periods of advance, it is by no means always possible to find evidence of favor- able germinal change. There is frequently no evidence at all of ger- minal change at such periods. In the past no doubt contact often im- plied racial intermingling, and, though in the present state of biolog- ical knowledge we are justified in supposing that crosses between two races not too distant would usually have favorable results, there is no sufficient foundation for attributing favorable results to all such inter- mingling, as has been done by some authors—von Luschan, for in- stance. The conclusion would seem to be that germinal change is never more than a contributary cause of advance, and that traditional change is the whole explanation of some of such periods.” ?? IXven the notion commonly found in histories that warfare and conquests have been essential or important means of disseminating cul- ture is now called in question by anthropology. In reference to this notion, I quote as follows from Clark Wissler’s Man and Culture: ‘Now it appeared in a previous discussion that culture uniformity and political unity do not correlate and that the pursuit of the problems thus presented had laid the foundations of the scientific investigation of culture. What, then, is the true relation of conquest to the spread of culture? “Both the data of history and anthropology suggest that the rule is for conquest to follow diffusion. As to the fortunes of militarism, the facts are plain: time after time it triumphed even to the extent of weld- ing all peoples of similar culture and sometimes succeeding in annex- ing a few of the nearest wilder peoples. First, it is the nucleus, or the central cluster of tribes that is subjected; then attention is given to the surrounding ring of tribes. But long before this stage is reached, dif- fusion began. So when the military complex comes upon the scene, “Wissler, Man and Culture, p. 111. “The Population Problem, p. 463. SOO ROGICAT Ariel Ss 429 it needs but to follow the broad, well-blazed trail of spreading culture. Rarely does it lead culture even in its assaults upon the wilder folk. Indeed it may be doubted if it greatly facilitates diffusion, except as it accelerates colonization.” *% John Oakesmith in his Race and Nationality boldly asserts that: “Institutions and characteristics are not modified by the immission of new blood into the bodies of the people who possess them, but by the admission of new influences which operate from outside upon the minds and bodies of the people.** “The progress of civilization is dependent upon the intermingling of different communal traditions,” ?° iP) 4176, “ Oakesmith, Race and Nationality, p. 146. * Ibid., p. 149. CHAPTER 56 SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS (CONT.) Dependence of the Value of Amalgamation upon the Culture Level of the Races Forming the Amalgam—The Effect of Contact of Races on Different Levels and on the Same Level of Culture—Beneficial Effects of Amalgamation of Races on High Levels of Culture and on Nearly the Same Levels F racial intermixture has not been an essential factor in the progress of culture has it been a negligible factor? There can be no denying that racial intermixture has a reciprocal effect upon the races forming the amalgam, but what that effect is must depend upon the character- istics and the culture level of each race concerned. Leaving entirely aside the debatable question of the inherent su- periority or inferiority of races, we can arrive at the consequences of racial intermixture by studying the interaction of racial contact on different levels of culture, since no two races have the same culture. I think it is quite possible to formulate general principles explaining the effects of culture contact on different levels; and on such a basis we can decide in any given case whether an amalgamation is beneficial or injurious. While not pretending to have discovered these general prin- ciples, I will venture to offer some tentative generalizations and to suggest how they might be supported by historical data. First, suppose we consider the effect of contact in the same terri- tory of two races on low levels of culture. Since neither race brings to the other any new elements of culture, there would be no stimulus to cultural advance, and, since aggregations of people on low levels of culture have imperfect social organizations, the tendency would be toward group conflicts, community isolation and eco- nomic and social instability, preventing the development of common tradition, and ending in social stagnation. An irregular and undevel- oped system of communication would limit personal contact to narrow circles, and render impossible the first essential to cultural advance, to wit: a culture disseminated over a wide area. Instances of such results of culture contact on low levels are found 430 SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS A431 abundantly in India, in Central Africa and the Sudan, in North Amer- ica among the Indians, in Asia among the pastoral nomads, and in Europe among the primitive races of the great northern plain. In the case of a high culture predominating over a low culture in the same territory, the result is a temporary decline of culture of the race on the higher level, followed by renascence, but a decline of cul- ture of the race of the lower level without renascence. Because of the injurious consequences of the assimilation of such opposite cultures, it is the natural tendency of the people so juxtaposed to protect themselves by segregation and the development of a caste system. The reasons for the injurious consequences to the race on the higher level are as follows: (1) It assimilates the worst elements of the lower culture through contact of the degenerate representatives of both groups, with the bet- ter elements remaining apart. (2) The segregation of races limits the area of common culture to racial boundaries, and sets up dual standards and ideals, while the de- fenseless position of the race of lower culture tempts the one of higher culture to compromise its standards in the interest of exploitation. (3) The dominance which the race of higher culture exercises over the one of lower culture develops in the former a prideful, haughty, and often bullying spirit, narrows its sympathies, imprisons its spir- itual life, and lulls to sleep its impulse to create. The recovery from the downward tendency is always slow, and comes only through suffering and heroic sacrifices in the effort to raise the culture level of the whole population. But the renascence must always proceed under handicaps as long as the two cultures re- main unassimilated. The reasons for the decline of the race on the lower level are: (1) A too sudden breaking down of the standards and folkways, resulting from a sense of race inferiority. (2) The eagerness to imitate the people of high culture, resulting in the assimilation of their vices. (3) The feeling of despair cr hopelessness in view of the wide dis- tance between the two cultures, resulting in the extinction of the im- pulse to create. Instances of the results of such contact are found in Africa and Australia, where the whites have dominated over the blacks; in Amer- ica, where the whites have dominated over the Indians; in India, where 432 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the Aryans have dominated over the Dravidians; and in Japan, where the yellow race has dominated over the white Ainu. Commenting on the injurious effects of the contact of civilized people upon backward people, the German economist, Bucher, says: “Tf, since their acquaintance with European civilization, so many prim- itive peoples have retrograded and some even become extinct, the cause lies, according to the view of those best acquainted with the matter, chiefly in the disturbing influence which our industrial methods and technique have exerted upon them. We carried into their childlike existence the nervous unrest of our commercial life, the hurried hunt for gain, our destructive pleasures, our religious wrangles and animos- ities. . ... Under these conditions has he (the primitive man) gone to ruin, just as the plant that thrives in the shade withers away when exposed to the glare of the noon-day sun.” + If the contact of races on such disparate levels of culture has the consequences above outlined, it seems probable that like consequences would follow from the presence of widely opposite cultures which have arisen among people of the same race and nation. For example, let us turn to the contact of cultures in any of our so-called highly civilized nations. Here do we not find evidence of a strangling of culture on both the higher and lower levels? Where the cultural differences are great, they imply great inequality in opportunity and in the distribution of wealth. The classes at the social top are lulled to sleep by the security of their position and lose the incentive to cre- ate, while those at the bottom are discouraged because of the great dis- tance which separates them from the top. The classes at the bottom tend toward a caste status and the work they have to do, becoming more automacic by machinery and system, offers little opportunity for in- centive or for the expression of the impulses of pugnacity, curiosity, self-assertion, and acquisition which are essential to human efficiency and contentment. The repression of these impulses constrain the masses on the lower economic level to find an outlet in vice, crime, and class- warfare. And finally the flames of aspiration are quenched. Free intermingling takes place only among the degenerate repre- sentatives of both levels of culture. The feeble-minded, ignorant, and economically weak classes on the lower level offer irresistible tempta- tions to exploitation to the egoistic, predatory, and morally perverted individuals on the higher level. Any class which is rendered secure by * Industrial Evolution, p. 82. For fuller discussion of this kind of contact see Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. 1, Ch. XXXIX. SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 433 great fortunes is always hampered in the development or maintenance of high standards, and can hardly escape the prideful and exclusive spirit which sets up barriers to contact and narrows sympathy and outlook. The demoralizing effect of widely contrasting groups in the same political boundary is shown glaringly in the fine arts, where the pre- ponderating demands of the opulent class lower the standards, sub- ordinating substance to form, and moral essence to the pleasure of the senses. The class of people of low economic status are driven in self-de- fense to develop a strong class spirit which, as the class spirit of the more favored people, makes also for narrowness of sympathy and outlook. Finally, the barriers between the higher and lower classes, the con- flicting interests and the alienation of sympathy, prevent the develop- ment of a common tradition and idealism which are indispensable to cultural progress. On the other hand, in a society where opportunities are open there can never be great contrasts in the culture levels of the population, the intermingling will be free and assimilation rapid, with everybody re- ceiving stimulus to express whatever genius he may possess. Therefore, we seem to find that the general principle governing the contact of races on different levels of culture applies also to the con- tact of different classes of people within the same race and nation, this general principle being that contact within the same territory of dis- tantly related cultures is detrimental to progress, while the contact of nearly related cultures is stimulating to progress. The renascence of a people representing extremes of culture is only possible through a consciousness of the evil consequences, and a heroic effort to change the conditions. The great difficulty is that such a people may not have the intelligence to associate their suffering with its causes. A renascence of both classes would be possible only in case they were composed of the same race or of races closely akin, afford- ing opportunities for free social intermingling, and intermarriage. If it be said that all civilizations have been characterized by con- tact of opposing cultures in the form of classes and castes, and that such contact has been, in some instances at least, consistent with con- tinuous ascent in culture, I admit the fact, but would contend that instances of continuous ascent have been among nations where the people forming the classes and castes have been of the same race, and 434 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE that otherwise, as in India, there has been no continuous ascent, but stagnation. In case of a race of low culture predominating over one of high culture, the result is a decline of the race on the higher level without renascence, unless the race on the lower level is eliminated or is able to rise to the higher level. The reasons for the decline are general im- poverishment and lack of opportunities and incentive, following the triumph of the inferior culture. The race on the lower level also suffers decline, but may be followed by renascence, the extent of which depends upon the capacity of the race for adapting itself to the new environment, and especially the pos- sibility of complete assimilation of the blood of the other race. The reason for the decline of the race on the lower level is the outburst of lust and sensuality which the opportunity to exploit provokes, and the sudden breaking down of old mores which unchains all of man’s worst passions. A renascence of this race is only possible after a long period of time allowing opportunity for assimilation, and for the growth of a new tradition embodying readjusted standards, patterns, and institutions. Some of the instances of such dominance of low over high culture are as follows: The conquest of the Chinese by the Mongols; of the Sumerians by the Semites in Mesopotamia; of the Egyptians by the Hyksos, by the Libyans, and by the Nubians; of the Roman Empire by the Nordic barbarians, and the dominance of the Negro over the Caucasian in the island of Haiti, and in the Southern United States during the period of Reconstruction. In the case of intermingling in the same territory of races on high levels of culture, the effect is not to lower the culture but to arrest or slow up its advance. No matter how many admirable elements of cul- ture each race may possess, its further progress is retarded during the period of mutual assimilation which necessarily brings about disruption and confusion of mores, and a general unsettling of standards and ideals. Each race has a tendency to segregate itself and to hold on stubbornly to its venerable traditions, and also each race has a different aptitude for assimilation. During the process of assimilation, the handi- cap to an advance in culture is the absence of a common tradition, em- bodying common models, trait-complexes, and ideals. Instead of a common bond uniting all, there are isolated and antagonistic culture- groups which prevent the growth of a common culture. In each race the creative energy is diverted from new and higher paths of culture to SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 435 a futile and injurious struggle to preserve the old, and to obtain su- premacy over rival cultures. These handicaps to progress are irremedi- able until the lapse of an indefinite period of time during which one type of culture is able to absorb and obliterate the other. The best example of such intermingling of races is found in the United States, where more races on higher levels of culture have come together than elsewhere in the world; and here we observe all of the strife, and unsettling of traditions and standards, which inevitably arise from such racial intermingling; and we also observe the handicaps to an advancement of our culture which the general confusion entails. Take as one illustration, our recent behavior in connection with the World War. Now, | think there can be no doubt of the fact that our entrance into that war was tardy almost to an extent fatal to western civilization, and that the reasons justifying our entrance at the last mo- ment (aside from our anger at repeated insults to our flag) were as valid in 1914 as in 1917; but the chief reason we could not rise prompt- ly to our duty in this matter was the presence in our population of races with traditional animosities toward the Allied nations, and the fear of our politicians of losing the vote of these races. And, after getting into the war, by being goaded and spat upon until we no longer had any self-respect, and, after sitting with our feet under the peace table with the burden upon us of assuming our obligations for the removal of the causes of future wars, and for the reconstruction of the prostrate world, we withdrew our pedal extremities and hastened back to our flesh pots. Our excuse for this was a pretense of alarm over the power to be granted to the proposed League of Nations, but the invalidity of such an excuse is shown in the evident willingness of the covenanters of the League to accept any reservations or amendments which we might propose, and the fact that, having rejected the League, we have inti- mated no willingness upon any terms whatever to enter into any per- manent affiliation with other nations in the interest of peace. Of course, it is charged that our failure to join the League was due to President Wilson’s stubbornness in refusing to accept emasculatory reservations, but the real fact is that we had racial elements in our population an- tagonistic to the Allied powers; and that our politicians of both dom- inant parties were willing to pander to these elements for the sake of their continuance in office. Nothing could better illustrate the handicap to cultural advance of the intermingling of heterogeneous races, upon whatever higher levels they may stand. We shall have to remain a hermit nation until our 436 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE heterogeneous racial elements have had time to develop a unified cul- ture and tradition. Our idea of America as a melting pot for all the races of the world is sound enough within limits, but any melting pot is not only liable to boil over if overfed, but liable to distill a hell-broth, like the witches’ cauldron in “Macbeth,” if its ingredients are ill-chosen. Among other examples of intermingling of races on high levels, we may mention the French and English in Canada, the English and Dutch in Colonial New York and in South Africa, the Spanish and Italians in Argentina, and the Teuton and Slav in what was formerly Austria-Hungary. The intermingling of races on high levels of culture is favorable to continuous advance in civilization only when the races concerned are nearly alike in type and culture, and when the assimilation is not too rapid, nor on too large a scale. Carr-Saunders remarks: “In order that the contact should be effective it is necessary that the differ- ences between the cultures should not be too great.” ? ! The flowering period in every nation comes only after its tradition has had time to ripen. The elements of any tradition must become assimilated, sifted, and harmonized, and this ripening process can never take place under conditions of violent or persistent shocks from the im- pact of foreign elements. A certain degree of isolation is necessary for a nation, as for an individual, in order to permit the development of its personality and its innate genius. “The words, German, French, English,” says Humphrey, “are as- sociated in our minds with distinctive social characters. These im- pressions are based upon fact, and there need be no prejudice in them. . . . Each has come to flower after the manner induced by its own par- ticular inheritance values, and is not destined to flower again after the manner of any other.” ® Concerning the question of the general mixing of races and cul- tures, John B. Crozier, an English author, offers the following reflec- tions: “Now, what I venture to affirm .. . is, that of all the political curses which can befall a nation this mixing of inherently antag- onistic races, colours, creeds and codes of morality, is the one which, when once it has been allowed (it matters not for what reason), is of all political complications the most irremediable by any and every known instrument for the uplifting of mankind—whether by the exhortations *The Population Problem, p. 425. * Mankind: Racial Values and the Racial Prospect, p. 117. SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 437 of the pulpit or press, by legislation, by the good will of all concerned, or even (if the races are any way evenly matched) by physical force itself, short of a war of extermination—as, indeed, the Negro problem in America, the Jewish problem on the Continent, the mixture of races and creeds in Austria-Hungary, in the Balkans, in Ireland, and in India, bear only too eloquent and despairing witness.” * The reason that race mixture will not work is: “that the pure white of Justice which is believed to be the remedy for all political evils will be stained and degraded by the impure colours of the mixture into which it has to plunge and dye its hands, long before these mixtures will admit of justice being applied to them; and further, that the high- er moral code of nations, instead of being raised by the attempt to ap- ply it, will during the progress of the experiment, become more and more degraded, until it descends with its lynchings, and homicides in its train, to the level of barbarism again. My contention, in other words, is that the application of pure justice to these mixtures can never get a foothold at all, but will be blocked at every turn from the start; and that to imagine or expect otherwise is of all delusions and utopias the most hopeless—besides being fraught with the most ter- rible consequences to the posterity of any and every nation that em- Darksvonpitiast yt. “The mere presence of alien races and colours in sufficient num- bers in the same area is enough to work its damning effects even with- out intermarriage, the vote, or social promiscuity. For just as the pig- eon-fanciers tell us that you can spoil a particular strain by keeping other breeds alongside of it, even when there is no intermixture in the mating, so all we should have to do in England, for example, would be to admit a sufficient number of Kaffrs into the country to do menial or unskilled labor, and a sufficient number of Chinese or Japanese to do the more refined and skilled forms, when it could safely be pre- dicted that within a generation hardly a self-respecting Englishman, short of starvation, would be found to do a stroke of menial labour for love or money—as was seen in the Southern States of America before the war, and as we see, in a way, in the South Africa of to-day. . . .° “Tf you have whites, Negroes, Chinese, Mohammedans and Hindoos confronting one another in the street, and spitting in each others’ faces as they pass, the amount of social justice that either gods or men can *Crozier, Sociology Applied to Practical Politics, p, 121, °Tbid., p. 122, *Tbid., p. 125, 438 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE get out of such a relationship will quickly be discovered to differ toto coelo from what can be got without effort, or strife, from the simple relations of fellow citizens of the same blood, colour, religion and code of social morality on the same area of political soil.’ “Until the Millennium comes there is no political complication which will more surely act as a direct incentive to murder, anarchy, and every form of moral degradation, than these unblest and thrice-accursed unions. The whole scheme of Nature goes dead against them, and all history is strewn with the ruins of the nations that have either know- mgly encouraged or unwillingly have been forced to submit to Lette se é “The age of collossal mushroom empires made up of every variety of admixture of races and colours went out with the Roman rule; and from that time to this, the evolution of civilization has made steadily in the direction of separating out men of the same race, colours, social and moral codes, and in consolidating them and keeping them apart as separate nationalities.” ® The same general conclusions may be reached if we use the term “standards” instead of “culture” in evaluating the effects of racial con- tact. Every race or nation has its traditional standards which it consid- ers superior to any other, and which it is eager to impart to the rest of mankind. Now, if a race of high standards happens to predominate in a coun- try over a race of low standards, the inevitable result will be an effort of the former to enforce its standards on the latter. What would this effort accomplish for the race of low standards? Professor T. N. Carver answers the question for us: ‘Nothing is any more certain than that this would result in their speedy extinction. So far as the world has any definite experience, the attempt to force a rigid standard of conduct upon those weak peoples who have lived under a loose standard is never successful. It is about as difficult for a race to survive an enforced change of social standards as to survive a geo- logical cataclysm.” ?° If in a business affair we see one man actuated by scrupulous in- tegrity, and another willing to stoop to any unfair method, we can get "Crozier, Sociology Applied to Practical Politics, p. 126. * Ibid., p. 113. * Ibid., p. 126. * Carver and Hall, Human Relations, p. 202. SOGIOLOGICAL/ ASPECTS 439 an idea of the effect of contact of two races having different standards. It is evident that if the race of the higher standard is to compete with that of the lower, it must be dragged down toward the level of the lower, or it will be worsted. Take for example, the difference in what we call the standard of living of people. ‘Other things being equal,” says Carver, “a race with a cheap standard of living, provided it does not interfere with its working capacity, will tend to drive out a race with an expensive standard of living. The Japanese in California, having a cheaper standard of living,—that is, being willing to marry and multiply on smaller incomes than Americans,—will tend not only to underbid Americans for positions, or to outbid them in buying land, but to outbreed them as well, producing larger families and increas- ing from generation to generation at a higher rate. The inevitable re- sult of this would be to displace the American population and make this continent a Japanese colony, as it was made a European colony a few centuries ago by the coming of [‘uropean settlers. There are only two possibilities of avoiding this under the unrestricted immigration of peoples. The Japanese standard of living must be made as expensive as the American, or the American standard of living must be made as cheap relatively to productive power as that of the Japanese. There is no third alternative except the gradual giving way of the Americans before the Japanese. Whether it be the Japanese, the Chinese, the Hindu, or the Afghan standard of living that is in competition with the American, the principle is the same, and the results would be the same.” 14 The same principle applies to any other kind of standard. People of high standards cannot compete with people of low standards without injurious or fatal consequences, and therefore the first obligation of a people on a high standard is to protect themselves from low-standard competitors. Clark Wissler, in speaking of the culture center to which we Amer- icans belong, i. e., the culture of North Europe, says that its preserva- tion is the most important problem for the future of our civilization. While he does not contend that the race which at present bears this culture is superior in capacity to all other races, he reminds us that it so happens that the Nordic race is inheritor of this culture and is in- separably bound up with it. “So the Nordics stand out as the new generation in the family of the world, the hope of the immediate future; it is theirs to carry for- “Carver and Hall. op. cit., p. 212, 440 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ward the lamp of civilization, so that when their strength is spent, it may be safely passed to some fresh and youthful hand. Faced with such a responsibility, it would be criminal not to give the best thought of the time to the conservation of whatever virtues this stock possesses. To this end the research of the future should be directed, as energeti- cally as it is now to the discovery of new ways for burning up the coal supply of the world, for what shall it profit if we so spread this great fire that the race itself is burned up?” !? In so far as difference of culture influences amalgamation there is reason to believe that amalgamation will be less common in the future than it has been in the past. Frontier conditions which jumble races and cultures are everywhere passing away, and people are becoming more and more rooted to their geographical and political territories. The races and culture groups, instead of blending and forming one homogeneous mass, are becoming more and more differentiated. “The mere fact,” says Mitchell, “that nations occupy different geographical areas brings about a relative isolation of the peoples, for most indi- viduals of modern populations are as surely fixed to their native soil as rooted plants and slow-moving animals. At first sight it would seem as if modern man, with his greater powers of prevision, intelli- gence and mechanical locomotion, must be free from limits of geog- raphy. But it is not so. An animal or a savage has only the con- venience of the moment to tie him to any spot, and as his world is little more than his own skin, wherever he is able to find food and shelter, he is at home. Modern man is bound to his locality by a thousand chains, forged by his more complex needs and emotions. In his case, moreover, there exist causes of isolation other than those found amongst animals. First there is language, with all its implications of thought and feeling, memories of past history, political and social ideals, dif- ferences that act strongly against freedom of intercourse, even where geographical barriers do not exist... . “Even when the frontiers are mere lines drawn on a map, indiffer- ent to physical or racial features, the nations stand back to back, each facing its own capital and in every way add to the difficulties of inter- course and so secure those conditions under which divergent modifica- tion is most rapid.” #8 The foregoing general principles, setting forth the effect of contact of races on difference levels of culture, harmonize with the principles “4 Wissler, Man and Culture, p. 359. * Mitchell, Evolution and the War, p. 69, SOCIOLOGICAELASPECTS 441 of biology and psychology in supporting the thesis that the contact of nearly related races is advantageous, and of the distantly related races, detrimental; and, therefore, the conclusion seems to be warranted that the amalgamation of distantly related races would be, from the cultural point of view, a catastrophe. The disinclination to social intermingling and to intermarriage be- tween races strikingly unlike in physical type is not in the nature of a “prejudice” which may be outgrown, or uprooted by enlightenment. A race on a low level of culture is bound together by a single tie—that of common racial sympathy, and, because this tie is based upon visible likeness and is not weakened by any ties which separate the masses into cultural groups, it is more apt to act en masse, and to yield to crowd contagion. On the other hand, a race on a high level of culture is less susceptible to race cohesion because of the innumerable interests which divide it into economic and social classes, political factions, and scien- tific, philosophical, and religious schisms. Often an individual of a race on a high level of culture will sacrifice his race to his class, or his culture. Nevertheless, a race on a high level of culture has, upon the whole, an intensified racial consciousness and pride because of its ability to distinguish other than the physical traits of any other race and its veneration for the ever-increasing traditions of its own handi- work. Even races which differ but slightly in visible traits often mani- fest a jealousy of one another which incites them to destructive compe- tition, and sometimes to warfare. The aversion which unlike races feel to social intermingling is due to their consciousness of difference, which arises spontaneously from the feeling in each race of “consciousness of kind,’ and wherever two races come in contact in sufficient masses, this consciousness of differ- ence is felt. In all parts of the United States we observe this social aversion showing itself wherever the Negro in considerable numbers comes in contact with the whites. “Human nature,’ says Ray Stan- nard Baker, “is essentially the same in Philadelphia, or in Charleston, in New Orleans or in Cape Town. Where groups of whites and blacks are brought together in these widely separated parts of the globe they will in all probability behave in much the same way under similar cir- cumstances. The frank acknowledgment of this fact is the only basis for the proper comprehension of this infinitely complex question of race relationship.” 14 The antipathy between the whites and the Negroes is not confined “ Following the Color Line, p. 177. 442 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE to the United States. It may be seen in full force in Africa, in the West Indies, Brazil, Cuba, and wherever the whites and blacks are thrown together. The French have “jim-crow” steamers on the Con- go,’ and in West Africa it has been the unwritten law among the French that one never takes off his hat to a member of the black race.1° The German people, who have had but slight contact with the Negro, protested loudly to the Allied powers against the occupation of Germany by colored troops. Twenty important women’s societies in Germany combined into a national union to appeal to the public sentiment of the world against this humiliation and outrage.*’ Opposi- tion to social intermingling is everywhere manifested between races with marked differences. It is shown between the whites and the yel- low Filipinos, who are “in many instances superior in education and training to the underbred Americans who seek to draw the color line.” 18 The American whites show a marked aversion to the Chinese and Jap- anese in California; and the English whites in India show a like aver- sion to the brown Hindus. The aversion of widely contrasting human races to intermingling socially is not a species of narrowness, nor is it evidence of a deficient humanitarian feeling. Since, as stated in preceding chapters, the in- termingling of opposite types of men and culture is detrimental to progress, the refusal of an individual to associate with members of another race in such a way as would naturally lead to racial intermix- ture is entirely consistent with humanitarianism. ‘The interest or good of any species or race is of far more importance than that of any mem- ber of it. Therefore the observance of conventions tending to prevent intermarriage between the whites and the blacks is both rational and altruistic. Now and then we meet an individual of very pronounced humani- tarian impulses and of very commendable religious zeal who speaks, writes, and acts in reference to racial contacts in a way which only adds to the confusion and difficulties of the problem, because he has a con- viction that his religion enjoins him to treat all other human beings as brothers, and that true brotherhood calls for free and unrestrained as- sociation with all people of whatever condition or race. Missionaries of this type went into the Southern states during the * Kingsley, West African Travels, p. 93. * Adamson, Voyage to the Senegal, p. 50. ™ Survey, Aug. 2, 1920, p. 580. * Henry P. Willis, Our Philippine Problem, New York, 1905, p. 250. SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 443 Reconstruction period, and, by reason of their mistaken ideas of brotherhood, stirred up ill-feeling between the whites and blacks where formerly good feeling prevailed. The spirit of brotherhood which the Christian religion inculcates does not mean that, in social relations of an intimate kind, we should have no preferences but should lock arms with, and bring into the in- violable circle of our domestic hearths, as constant companions, any human beings, whatever their color or race character. It is possible for one to live according to the Golden Rule, and fulfil all of his obliga- tions to his fellow-men without adopting the policy of indiscriminate social intermingling outside of the circle of his own race. One may show all proper respect and a true affection for individuals whom he would not like to offer the freedom of his home. In many cases there is a complete social separation of Negroes and white people without the least sacrificing of any natural affection which may have developed between them. I know of some Negroes toward whom I feel an af- fection not unlike that I feel for my blood-relations, and for whom I would make any reasonable sacrifice. And I, in fact, communicate to them my feeling of devotion, and they communicate their like feeling to me, and, under whatever circumstances arise, I am free to do for them whatever I might do for any white person without violating any social convention or subjecting them to humiliation. On the social question we understand each other, and it is never a cause of embar- rassment to us. A man violates no religious or moral principle in limiting his habit- ual associations to persons for whom he feels some special affection or attraction. Everywhere in the world the social groups and culture- groups, comprising individuals bound together by like feelings and spe- cial interests, have been among the most essential factors in advancing civilization and in perfecting human character. The promiscuous inter- ningling of people in the domestic and strictly social relationships would be disastrous to civilization, even if all the people were of one race. We can and do meet all of our obligations to the sick, the deformed, the decrepit, and the criminal without issuing an invitation to miscel- laneous humanity to eat at our table and to be the companions of our wives and daughters. Outside of the strictly social relationships, a man’s religion or moral sense often impels him to mingle with, and serve, all classes and races of people. The namby-pamby religious zealot who would solve the race problem by urging, or compelling by law, the indiscriminate social intermixture 444 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of races is like the man who would bring about harmony in the feline world by tying together peaceful cats by their tails and hanging them over the clothesline. In insisting on the ineradicable preference of each race for social intermingling and intermarriage within its own kind, I do not wish to be understood as implying that there is not very often developed out of this a race prejudice which is irrational and indicative of lack of human sympathy. It is likely to lead to disparagement of merit in other races than our own, to acts of hostility, to unfair methods in business competition and in all spheres of rivalry. A preference, or a selectiveness of any kind, which goes beyond what is absolutely nec- essary for the protection of racial integrity, and the domestic sanctu- ary, is the mark of a narrow mind and a cold heart. CA DE nga EXTENT OF AMALGAMATION Decline of Lawful Marriage Shown by Statistics of Intermarriage—Excess of Number of Marriages between White Women and Negro Men over Number Between Negro Women and White Men—lInferior Character of the Whites and Blacks Who Intermarry—Marked Diminution of Illicit Intercourse be- tween the Races OMING now to the extent of amalgamation of the Negro and Caucasian in the United States, we find that cases of intermar- riage and also of licentious intercourse are becoming more rare. From the earliest times the marriage of Negroes with white per- sons in this country was considered highly undesirable, and in the Colonial period such marriage came to be prohibited by law in nearly every colony. As to the number of marriages between blacks and whites in Colonial times there are no statistics; but the references to such marriages in the records and literature of that period indicate that they were very rare, and aroused indignant protests from the white people. Such marriages as did take place in those early days seemed to have involved only the lowest class of whites. Williams, in his His- tory of the Negro nm America, referring to the intermarriage of some white women and Negro men, says: “Many of the women had been indentured as servants to pay their passage to this country, some had been sent as convicts, while still others had been apprenticed for a term laVeaTs 46" Brackett, in his study of the Negro im Maryland, refers to similar marriages of serving-women from England and Negro men.? Edward B. Reuter, in his book, The Mulatto in the United States, says in regard to the Colonial period: ‘There seems to be absolutely no evidence of intermarriage of the mixed sort in which the white con- tracting party was not of the lowest and usually of a vicious class. “But whatever little intermarriage may have taken place between the Negroes and servant class of whites in early colonial times, it de- *Vol. 1, p. 240. “Md Sah Wea) 445 446 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE creased to almost absolutely zero as the status of the Negro became fixed and better understood. The spirit of fellowship that at first existed be- tween the slaves and the indentured servants, imported criminals, pau- pers, and prostitutes, gradually gave place to the feeling of bitter hatred that, throughout the days of slavery, characterized the relations of the ‘poor whites’ and the Negroes.” ® EK. R. Turner, in his study of the Negro in Pennsylvania, refers to the attitude of the people of that state toward intermarriage of blacks and whites as follows: “After a while a strong feeling was aroused, so that in 1821 a petition was sent to the Legislature, asking that mixed marriages be declared void, and that it be made a penal act for a Negro to marry a white man’s daughter. In 1834 such a marriage provoked a riot at Columbia; while in 1838 the subject caused a vehement out- burst in the Constitutional Convention then assembled. Three years later a bill to prevent intermarriage was passed in the House, but lost in the Senate. From time to time thereafter petitions were sent to the Legislature, but no action was taken; the obnoxious marriages continu- ing to be reported, and even being encouraged by some extreme advo- cates of race equality. Nevertheless, what the law left undone was largely accomplished by public sentiment and private action. As time went on marriages of white people with Negroes came to be considered increasingly odious, and so became far less frequent. When a case oc- curred, it was usually followed by swift action and dire vengeance. The fact that a white man was living with a Negro wife was one of the causes of the terrible riot in Philadelphia in 1849.” * Since the Civil War and the emancipation of the Negroes, the statutes in the Northern states prohibiting intermarriages have been abolished. But the sentiment against intermarriage of whites and blacks is still sufficiently strong to render such unions very rare. In the Northern and Western states the numerical inferiority of the Negro population brings about an indifference on the part of white people to the few intermarriages which may take place. Frederick Hoffman collected available data on the mixed marriages in the United States up to 1895; and his figures showed that marriages between whites and blacks were on the decline in every state where statistics on the subject had been collected. His investigation covered the marriage records of Michigan from 1874 to 1893; Rhode Island be dae. “Pp. 195-6. EXTENT OF AMALGAMATION 447 from 1881 to 1893; Connecticut from 1883 to 1893, and the city of Bos- ton from 1855 to 1890.6 Baker gives Boston figures to 1905.° In the West, where the number of mulattos is relatively greater than in the North or the South, the presumption is that the number of mixed marriages is also greater. Unfortunately the marriage records give no information as to the race, and there is no way of ascertaining the ex- tent of intermarriage except by private observations and investigations. A recent study of the intermarriage of whites and Negroes made by a graduate student of the University of Minnesota, indicates that the number of such marriages is greater in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul than in any other cities of the United States. According to the opinion of a white woman who is the wife of a Negro there are about 200 cases of unions between whites and blacks in the two cities. The white women of such unions ‘‘are mostly Swedish or German, or otherwise foreign-born.” The unhappy outcome of these unions, as brought out by the investigation, would lead one to think that they would decrease rather than increase.’ Taking together the data furnished by Hoffman to 1895, and the available evidence since then, I think the conclusion is warranted that in this country lawful marriage between whites and blacks is on the de- cline. The general character of the whites and blacks who have inter- married has been low. “The few white women,” says Bruce, “who have given birth to mu- lattoes have always been regarded as monsters; and without exception they belong to the most impoverished and degraded caste of whites, by whom they are scrupulously avoided as creatures who have sunk to the level of the beasts of the field.” ° Hoffman made a study of thirty-seven cases of intermarriage of whites and blacks, eight of these cases being marriages of white men to Negro women, and twenty-nine cases of white women to Negro men. “Of the eight white men, four were lawfully married while the other four were living openly in concubinage. Three of the men were crim- *Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 200. ° Hoffman also quotes statistics showing a decline of mixed marriages in the West Indies. Op. cit., p. 201. "Hoffman, “Problem of Negro-White Intermixture and Intermarriage,” Eugenics in Race and State, 1923, Vol. 2, p. 184. * The Plantation Negro, p. 53. 448 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE inals or under suspicion of being such; one man had killed another for insulting remarks concerning his negro wife, one killed his mistress in a fit of jealousy, one was stabbed and horribly burned by vitriol by his colored mistress, one killed his colored mistress by slow poison to ob- tain possession of her property, the ill-gotten gains from a house of ill-fame. The others were more or less outcasts. One was a saloon- keeper, one had deserted his family for his Negro mistress, two were men of good family but themselves of bad reputation. “Of the twenty-nine women, only nineteen were lawfully married to the colored men with whom they were living, while ten lived in open concubinage. So far as my information goes only five of the nineteen were of foreign birth, one English, one German and three Irish. Of the nineteen that were married, four were known prostitutes, two were guilty of bigamy, four either sued for divorce or had deserted their husbands. Five were apparently of respectable parentage and living in content with their husbands; while for four the information is want- ing. Of the ten who were not married, eight were known prostitutes, one was insane and only one was known to be the daughter of respect- able parents. “Of the twenty-nine colored men who married or lived with white women, only one, an industrious barber, was known to be of good char- acter. Five were of fair repute; nine were idlers, loafers or drunkards; eleven were of proven criminal and anti-social tendencies; while for three the character could not be ascertained. Of the eleven criminals, two were murderers, three were thieves, three were guilty of bigamy, one was keeper of a house of ill-fame, while the last two were arrested for inhuman cruelty to their own or foster children. The result of the twenty-nine cases of race mixture prove that of the women, twelve were known prostitutes, three were of ill repute, charged in addition with cruelty and abuse of children, two were murdered by their colored hus- bands, one committed suicide, one became insane, two sued for divorce, two deserted their husbands, five were apparently satisfied with their _ choice, while for four the information could not be obtained. Thus out of twenty-nine instances only five gave any indications of not hav- ing been absolute failures, and of the five in only one instance is the proof clear that the marriage was a fair success. “Comment on these cases is hardly necessary. They tend to prove that as a rule neither good white men nor good white women marry colored persons, and that good colored men and women do not marry white persons. The number of cases is so small, however, that a definite EXTENT OF AMALGAMATION 449 conclusion as to the character of the persons intermarrying is hardly warranted. However, it would seem that if such marriages were a success, even to a limited extent, some evidence would be found in a collection of thirty-seven cases. It is my own opinion, based on per- sonal observation in the cities of the South, that the individuals of both races who intermarry or live in concubinage are vastly inferior to the average types of the white and colored races in the United States; also, that the class of white men who have intercourse with colored women are, as a rule, of an inferior type.® A study of the Negro-white unions in Minneapolis and St. Paul shows that the white women entering into such unions are mostly for- -eign-born, and with few exceptions “‘social wrecks.” In summing up the results of the study, the investigator says: “From personal ob- servation there would seem to be not a single case in which the white wife of a Negro is truly happy over her marriage. In such cases as were investigated there invariably have been unfavorable circumstances which forced the white woman or girl to accept the approaches and at- tentions of the Negro. Outside of the innocent and ignorant foreign- born and country-bred girls, none of these women are to be pitied, for, leaving out the exceptions referred to, the majority are social degenerates or moral outcasts. There is not a self-respecting white woman or girl who would marry a Negro of the class visited or in- vestigated. Those who have done so, from whatever cause, are, in a certain sense, white slaves, who try to make life happy by self- deception.” 7° The white wife of a Negro: “finds herself ostracized by both white and Negro women.” . . . “She is severed from all intercourse with her white neighbors; she does not go out in public with her Negro husband ; she would not recommend her sisters or others to marry Negro men, obviously on the ground that such mixed marriages bring social unhappiness and dissatisfaction.” *” | Fortunately the union of whites and blacks results in few offspring. The investigation in Minnesota shows that: “The average number of children will not exceed two to a family.” ** ®Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 210. ” Quoted by Hoffman, “Problem of Negro-White Intermixture and Inter- marriage,” Eugenics in Race and State, reprint, Vol. 2, p. 186. ™ Ibid., p. 184. “Tbid., p. 185. * Tbid., p. 185. 450 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The records of charity organizations in large cities show not infre- quently that the white women who are married to Negro men are often helped. Superintendent Spindler, of the poor department of Milwau- kee, stated through the Milwaukee Sentinel “that a large percentage of the white women in mixed marriages at one time or other receive aid from his office.” 4 There are several cases of the marriage of reputable white women to Negro men. The second wife of Frederick Douglass is an example. But it would be difficult to name examples to the number of half a dozen. The wife of Jack Johnson, the pugilist, whatever her standing before marriage, was led to commit suicide, assigning as her reason loneliness and unhappiness. In commenting upon the Negro-white marriages in Minnesota, Hoffman says: “Race intermixture, on the fringe of social decrepi- tude, is not in the slightest degree an indication towards a tendency which may possibly lead to race fusion. . . . Intermarriage between whites and blacks, just as much as wrongful sexual relations without marriage, are essentially anti-social tendencies and therefore opposed to the teachings of sound eugenics in the light of the best knowledge avail- able to both races at the present time.” *® The number of mulattoes in our population may throw some light upon the extent of racial intermixture which has been, and is, going on outside of marriage. There are no statistics as to the number of mulattoes of earlier date than 1850. Some idea, however, can be formed of their number in Co- lonial times from the census records of Maryland. In 1755 the census of that colony showed that eight percent of the Negroes were mulattoes, i. e., there were 42,764 colored people, and of these 3,592 were mulat- toes. On the assumption that the percentage of mulattoes was the same in the other colonies there would have been 27,552 mulattoes in the country at that date.’® The percentage of our colored people who were mulattoes in 1850 was 11.2; 1n’ 1860, 13.2; in ‘1870, 12 ;4an “1800, 15,27/10) aGIGN 2am, Since I910 our census has not attempted to make a separate count of mulattoes. The increase of mulattoes has been general throughout all sections of the country, and the ratio of mulattoes to pure Negroes has **\Mar.)12, 1003: *“Problem of Negro-White Intermixture and Intermarriage,” Eugenics in Race and State, reprint, Vol. 2, p. 188. * Reuter, The Mulatto in tie United States, p. 112. EXTENT OF AMALGAMATION 4si also everywhere increased except in the Mountain, Pacific, and East North Central divisions.** The mulatto increase has been due mainly to the intermarriage of Negroes and mulattoes, and not to the intermarriage or miscegnation of Negroes and whites. The percentage of the mulattoes in the colored population of our country has always been greater in the Northern sections.'® According to the census of 1910 the percentage for each section was as follows: New torlandivan. a, caresete yrs 33.4 ITCCHeRT AA TIAIICICH tare citere eet tar 19.6 Bast® North’ Gentral 2a, Fon 3332 West, North: Centraliny.). pane: 28.7 OULU At LICE ie atte the ane Pet 20.8 Paste OOUTi uC entralmr te tele cera. 19.1 MeSUROUULCO MUCH alt irom aie 20.1 VLOUNCAIN ie seve ments A yemetarnes ors s 28.6 Da ciic ee oh ats eeu YR OT i 20.9 “The distribution of the mulatto population at all times,” says Reu- ter, “for which the facts are known, has been in general accord with the ratio of the races. Where the proportion of whites in the population is highest, the mulatto population as a rule is highest; and where the proportion of Negroes in the population is highest, there, as a rule, the percentage of mulattoes is lowest.” *® The greater percentage of mulattoes in the Northern sections has been due probably to two facts: First, the colored population in the North has always been more concentrated in cities, where Negro women come into contact most frequently with dissolute white men. “It is there, too, that the opportunity to conceal the relationship makes the control of the situation by the prevailing sentiment less effective than in the rural situation.” ?° Second, the migration of colored people has been mostly from the South to the North, and the mulattoes, more largely than the Negroes, have formed this migration. It is evident that the mulatto increase in the United States has been due mainly to the intermixture of Negroes and mulattoes, and not to ™ Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States, p. 119. 1 bid.,*D.. 120. tiie Deal 22. ” Tbid., p. 164, 452 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the intermixture of Negroes and whites, that the intermixture of whites and blacks was at its maximum in early Colonial times and has been diminishing every year since. The concensus of opinion of competent observers supports the view that sexual intercourse between whites and blacks is everywhere rapidly diminishing. Bruce, referring to Virginia, expresses the opinion: “that illicit sexual intercourse between the races has diminished so far as to have almost ceased outside of the cities and towns, where the association, being more casual, is more frequent.” 7? A. H. Stone, a planter of Mississippi, and the author of Studies in the American Race Problem, says: “There was a vast amount of this amalgamation up to perhaps twenty years ago. Since then there has been a decided change of sentiment on the part of southern white men. I know that not long ago it was not an uncommon thing to find an over- seer or superintendent on the plantation who would have from one to half a dozen concubines. This practice has practically been done away with. The planters will not permit their overseers to do such things, and the overseers themselves will not offend in this regard, although they are placed in an extraordinary position, frequently being the only white person in a great multitude of colored people.” The testimony of Southern men on this subject is confirmed by the opinions of outsiders who have had opportunity to acquaint themselves with the facts. For example, James Bryce, referring to the Negro in the United States, says: “There is practically no admixture; and so far as can be foreseen they will remain, at least in the sub-tropical part of the South, distinctly African in their physical and mental character- istics for centuries to come. The same remark holds true of the white and black races of South Africa, where the processes of blood mix- ture, which went on to some extent between the Dutch and the Hotten- tots, has all but stopped.” Raymond Patterson, a Northern man, and author of The Negro and His Needs, remarks that he found the opinion prevailing “over all the south, that the amalgamation of the black and the white races is rapidly disappearing.” 2° * The Plantation Negro as a Freeman, p. 53. **“Assimilation of Races in the United States,” printed in the Smithsonian report, 1893, p. 587. pie dai to CHAPTER 58 OPPOSITION TO AMALGAMATION Sentiment of the Whites and Negroes against Amalgamation—Representative Opinions of Men of Both Races—Unity of Spokesmen for the Negroes of the South against Amalgamation—The Futility of Advocating Amalgamation as a Solution of the Race Problem UTTING aside all scientific or theoretical considerations, the over- whelming sentiment of both the Negroes and Caucasians against amalgamation ought to be convincing proof of the futility of holding out racial intermixture as a possible solution of the race problem. Wherever in the United States, or elsewhere, the Negroes constitute a considerable mass of the population they naturally segregate, and find a satisfying social life among members of their own race, and conse- quently have no desire to intermarry with the whites. In the Southern United States, for instance, the Negroes have a highly developed social life among themselves, and they not only prefer intermarriage with their kind, but cannot understand why any one should even discuss the subject of amalgamation. If they were left alone, the idea of inter- marrying with the whites would never enter their minds. The only champions of amalgamation among the Negroes are found in the Northern states among the mulatto class who do not want to be mixed with or be classed with the blacks, and who have an inadequate social life among themselves. Among the white people in the United States there has never been any advocacy of amalgamation except among the few fanatics who flourished during the period of anti-slavery agitation preceding the Civil War. The white race, especially the Nordic branch of it, has always been outspoken against any intermarriage with the Negro. As illustrating the strength of Caucasian sentiment against such mixture, I quote from the writings of several representatives of the race as follows: Dr. James Hunt, F. R. S., president of the London Anthropo- logical Society in 1864, made the following statement: “It has been a 453 454 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE favorite theory with some visionary philanthropists that intermarriages of different species would be highly favorable to the race, but we have never heard of any of them who were willing to commence the prac- tice in their own families. There is certainly no method that could possibly be devised, which would certainly and as expeditiously de- grade the whole human family as amalgamation.” * Henry Ward Beecher, in a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal, March 3, 1865, wrote: “I do not think it wise that whites and blacks should mix blood . . . it is to be discouraged on grounds of humanity.” ? Senator John J. Ingalls said, in reply to Fred Douglass’ assertion that the races would coalesce: “I do not agree with him. There is no affinity between the races; this solution is impossible. . . . There is no blood-poison so fatal as the adulteration of race.” ® D. H. Chamberlain, the Reconstruction governor of South Carolina, in a letter to the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, remarked: “I find myself forced by my experience and observation to say that perhaps our first practical aim should be to undo, as fast as possible, what we have heretofore done for the Negro since his emancipation; namely, the inspiring in him the hope or dream of sharing with the white race here a social or political equality; for whoever will lay aside wishes and fancies and look only at realities will see that these things are impossibilities within any measurable reach of time, if ever. I assume as a certainty that what you call ‘the blending of races,’ by inter- marriage, cannot take place between the Negro and the white race of this country. I go farther and say that such intermixture is as undesirable as it is impossible. It would be the degradation of the white race, but not the elevation of the Negro race.” James Bryce, himself, speaks of amalgamation as follows: “Where two races are physiologically near to one another, the result of inter- mixture is good. Where they are remote, it is less satisfying, by which I mean not only that it is below the level of the higher stock, but that it is not generally and evidently better than the lower stock. The mixture of whites and Negroes, or of whites and Hindus, seldom shows good results. . . “Should this view be correct, it dissuades any attempt to mix races so diverse as are the white Europeans and the Negroes... . “The matter ought to be regarded from the side of neither the *The Negro’s Place in Nature, p. 20. * Quoted by Avary, Dixie After the War, p. 395. * Quoted ibid., p. 396. OPPOSITION TO AMALGAMATION 445 white nor of the black, but for the future of mankind at large. Now, for the future of mankind, nothing is so vital as that some races should be maintained at the highest level of efficiency, because the work they can do for thought and art, and literature, for scientific discoveries, and for raising the standard of conduct, will determine the general progress of humanity. If therefore we were to suppose the blood of the races which are now most advanced to be diluted, so to speak, by the most backward, not only would more be lost to the former than would be gained to the latter, but there would be loss, possibly irreparable loss, to the world at large.” 4 W. P. Livingstone, an English authority, long familiar with the Negro in Jamaica, in his book, The Race Conflict, says of amalgama- tion: “The only effect which the subject has on the whites is to rouse their fiercest passions, and to make the proposal seriously would be to doom the Negro to destruction. Those who discuss it cannot know what they are talking about.” William Archer, an Englishman, who has studied the race prob- lem in the United States, states his views in the following language: “The South, then, is urged by amalgamation theorists to embark upon, or submit to, what is at least a great experiment. It is to quell its highest instincts (for so it regards them, rightly or wrongly) and to commit what it feels in the marrow of its bones to be a degrading race-abnegation, in deference to a half-scientific, half-humanitarian opinion, held by certain theorists outside its own boundaries, to the effect that, after all, there is no great difference between black and white, and that the complexion of the future will certainly be a uniform yellow. Can any one blame the South for answering: ‘No, thank you! If you in England or New England are tired of being white men, and sigh for the blessing of an African blend, we can send you several million Negroes, of both sexes, who will no doubt be happy, on suitable terms, to intermarry with your sons and daugh- ters. For our part, we are content with our complexion as it is. We see no reason to believe that the African slave trade was the means adopted by a beneficient Providence for the ultimate improve- ment of our Anglo-Saxon stock; nor, on the other hand, can we ex- pect it as a just punishment for the sins of our fathers that our race, as a race, should be merged and obliterated in indiscriminate hybrid- Sta * Relation of Advanced and Backward Races of Mankind, pp. 24, 39. Through Afro-America, p. 221. 450 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “T do not understand how any white man who has ever visited the South can fail to be dismayed at the thought of absorbing into the veins of his race the blood of the African myriads who swarm on every hand.” ® Archer does not think that the people of England would be any more inclined to amalgamate with the Negro than the people of the Southern States. “England, for instance, would certainly not be a more desirable place of residence if one-fourth of her population were transmuted into the semblance of the Dahomeyans, even suppos- ing that the metamorphosis involved no moral or intellectual change for the worse. A monochrome civilization is, on the face of it, pref- erable to such a piebald civilization as at present exists in the Southern States.” 7 Coleridge, in commenting upon the marriage of Desdemona and Othello, says: “It would be something monstrous to conceive of this beautiful Venetian girl falling in love with a veritable Negro.” Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, gives his views in these words: ‘Northern and southern opinion are identical with regard to keeping the races pure—that is, without admixture of the one with the other, (and) ... inasmuch as the Negroes hold the same view, this supposed danger of mutual racial impairment ought not to have much influence on practical measures. Admixture of the two races, as far as it proceeds, will be, as it has been, chiefly the result of sexual vice on the part of the white men; it will not be a wide-spread evil, and it will not be advocated as a policy or method by anybody worthy of consideration.” ® The attitude of the Caucasion toward intermixture with the Negro has not changed within the historic period. As far back as 700 B. C. the fair widowed Queen Dido of Carthage committed suicide rather than comply with the unnatural and selfish importunities of her sub- jects, to marry Tarbus, the swarthy monarch of Mauritania in Africa. About the shallowest type of agitator of our time is the man who has an obsession or mental complex for uniformity. Among the human races, as among animals in general, the pairing of the sexes is governed by consciousness of kind which insures the blending of nearly related types only. The facts of history, as well as those of anthropology, make it perfectly plain that from the dawn of man to ° Through Afro-America, p. 232. AT bidees pe vac * Quoted by Avary, Dirie After the War, p. 306. OPPOSITION TO AMALGAMATION 457 the present, instead of a tendency toward uniformity of type, there has been a tendency in the opposite direction. “Nature,” says Ruskin, “abhors equality and similitude just as much as foolish men love them.” The beauty of a painting lies not in uniformity or clash of color but in variety and harmony of color. Why any sane person should wish for a time when the races of the world would lose all identity and become a single chromatic type passes all understanding, for it is only by each race’s retaining its individuality and flowering in its particular habitat that the culture of the world can receive its greatest variety and richness of content. CHAPTER 59 COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION Efforts to Colonize the Negro in Africa—Lincoln’s Plan of Colonizing the Negro in the West Indies—Archer’s Idea of Colonizing the Negro in Lower Cali- fornia—Views of Henry M. Stanley and Others on Colonization—The Marcus Garvey Scheme—Question of the Negro’s Aptitude for Colonization HE earliest proposed solution of the Negro problem in America was that of colonization. This seems to have been first suggested by Rev. Samuel Hopkins and Rev. Ezra Stiles, of Newport, Rhode Island, where the African slave trade had been extensively carried on. In a circular letter issued by them in 1773, they invited sub- scriptions to a fund for establishing a colony of free Negroes on the West Coast of Africa. Contributions were made by some ladies of Newport, and by citizens of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 1777 Thomas Jefferson proposed a colonization scheme to the General Assembly of Virginia, but no action on his proposal was taken. In 1793 he advocated a plan of colonization to be carried on by the several states and by the national government, and he continued to urge this idea up to his death in 1826. In 1787 the British government established a colony on the African coast at Sierra Leone, as a home for destitute Africans from different parts of the world, and as a means of spreading civilization among the natives. After the American Revolution, Dr. Hopkins endeavored, without success, to make arrangements by which free blacks from America might join this colony at Sierra Leone. In 1815 a Negro by the name of Paul Cuffee, of Boston, who had made a fortune as a sailor and trader, becoming enthusiastic over the colonization idea, inaugurated the first emigration of Negroes from this country to Africa. Fle carried in his own ship, and at his own expense, nine families of Negroes, a total of thirty-eight persons, from New Bedford, and landed them at Sierra Leone.? A systematic and extensive colonization project began to take form in December, 1816, when a group of prominent citizens from various * Colonization Reports, Vol. 1, p. 123. 458 COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION 459 states met in Washington, and effected a tentative organization which culminated in the American Colonization Society. The idea of coloniz- ing the Negroes in Africa or elsewhere met with the hearty endorse- ment of many of our leading statesmen. Jefferson in 1820 wrote: “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free: nor is it less certain than that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.” * A few years later, writing to Jared Sparks in regard to the Negro, he said that he deemed it in the interest of our safety and happiness “to provide an asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that population from among us, and establish them under our patronage and protection as a separate, free, and independent people, i some country and climate friendly to human life and happiness.” ° Henry Clay, in an address in 1829 said: “If we were to invoke the greatest blessing on the earth, which Heaven, in its mercy, could be- stow on the nation, it would be the separation of the two most numerous races of its population, and their comfortable establishment in dis- tinct and different countries.’ 4 Daniel Webster once remarked that: “If any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme to be carried on by this government upon a large scale, in the transportation of the colored people to any country or any place in the world, I shall be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that object.” 5 Up to 1875 the American Colonization Society had raised about $2,800,000, and had sent to its colony in Liberia about 15,000 Negroes, to which were added 5,722, captured in the slave trade and sent there by the United States government. The emigration of Negroes to Africa, however, was only a small percentage of the increase in num- bers, and, as a solution of the Negro problem, it seemed to be im- practicable. The interest in the society was kept up only by a few friends of the Negro who hoped that the colony already planted in Liberia might become a missionary center for the dissemination of civilization among the African natives. But the idea of colonizing the Negro continued to live and find champions; and Africa was not the only country thought of as an ? Raynor, Jefferson Manuscripts, p. 64. ® Ford, Writings of Jefferson, Vol. 10, p. 290. *The African Repository and Colonial Journal, Vol. 2, p. 23. * Quoted by Patton, The History of the American People, p. 135. 460 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE objective for deportation. Benjamin Lundy favored colonization of the Negro in Haiti and Canada. In 1833 a convention of Negroes in Philadelphia declared in favor of colonizing their race in Texas.® From time to time up to the Civil War sundry slaveholders in Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas emancipated their slaves, some- times in batches of fifty to 100 and more, and settled them on cer- tain lands in Ohio and Indiana. After about 1833, the people of the United States became agitated over the question of the abolition of slavery and therefore inter- est in colonization was almost extinguished. Abraham Lincoln, how- ever, was one of the few friends of the Negro who continued to put faith in the colonization idea. Speaking on the subject of colonization in 1857, he said: “Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time favor- able to, or, at least, not against our interests, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.’ * In his first annual message to Congress, December, 1861, Lincoln advocated the colonization of the thousands of Negroes who had come into custody of the Federal government through the operations of war.® Congress accordingly passed an act appropriating $600,000 to be used by him in carrying out his plan. In furtherance of the act, Lincoln invited a delegation of prominent colored men to meet him at the White House on August 14, 1862; and at this meeting he said: “And why should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should you leave this country? This is perhaps the first ques- tion for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us broader differences than exist between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both as I think. Your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on account of each sidé. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least, why we should be separated... . “Sir, our present condition—the country engaged in war—our white men cutting one another’s throats—none knowing how far it will extend—and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for °The African Repository and Colonial Journal, June, 1832, p. 86. "Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 1, p. 235. * Messages and Papers of the President, Vol, 6, p. 54. COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION 401 your race among us there could not be war, although many men en- gaged on either side do not care for you one way or another. Never- theless, I repeat, without the institution of slavery, and the colored race, as a basis, the war could not have an existence. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. “The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you. I do not propose to dis- cuss this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would.... “T ask you then to consider seriously, not pertaining to yourselves merely, not for your race and ours for the present time, but as one of the things, if successfully managed, for the good of mankind—not confined to the present generation.” ® The money appropriated by Congress for carrying out Lincoln’s plan was used mostly in fruitless efforts to settle Negroes in New Granada, and on La Vache island, off the coast of Haiti. Since the Civil War there has been no organized effort to send the Negroes out of our country, but the colonization idea has persisted in the minds of numerous students of our Negro problem. William D. Simpson, a lawyer of Yorkville, S. C., in testifying be- fore the sub-committee which was investigating the Ku Klux in ’7r said: “I do honestly believe the solution of this difficulty is the separa- tion of the two races. ... Either the one or the other ought to be colonized. I tell you, as a citizen of South Carolina, I would rather be moved to-day by the General Government beyond the Mississippi, if they would pay me for my house, make a new State, and let the Negro take this, or move the Negro—one or the other. I think it is a fallacy, this effort to carry on government by these two races so widely distinct. It is a fallacy, and the sooner the American people find it out the better.” 1° Henry M. Stanley, the great African explorer, was favorable to the idea of colonizing the American Negroes in Africa, “There is space enough in one section of the Upper Congo basin,’ he said, “to locate double the number of the Negroes of the United States with- out disturbing a single tribe of the aborigines now inhabiting it. I °Raymond, The Life, Public Services, and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Pp. 504. “Ku Klux Reports, Vol. 5, p. 1316, 462 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE refer to the immense Upper Congo forest country, 350,000 square miles in extent, which is three times larger than the Argentine Re- public, and one and a half times larger than the entire German Empire, embracing 224,000,000 acres of umbrageous forest land, wherein every unit of the 7,000,000 Negroes might become the owner of nearly a quarter square mile of land. Five acres of this, planted with bananas and plantains would furnish sufficient subsistence—food and wine. The remaining twenty-seven acres of his estate would furnish him with tim- ber, rubber, gums, dye-stuffs, for sale... . The climate is healthy and equable, owing to the impervious forest which protects the land from chilly winds and draughts. . . . To those Negroes in the South accustomed to Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, it would be a reminder of their own plantations without the swamps and the de- pressing influence of cypress forests. Anything and everything might be grown in it, from the oranges, guavas, sugar-cane, and cotton of sub-tropical lands to the wheat of California and the rice of South Carolina. If the emigration were prudently conceived and carried out, the glowing accounts sent home by the first settlers would soon dissipate all fear and reluctance on the part of the others. But it is all a dream. The American capitalists, like other leaders of men, are more engaged in decorating their wives with diamonds than in busy- ing themselves with national questions of such import as removing the barrier between the North and the South. The open sore of America—the race question—will ever remain an incurable fester. While we are all convinced that the Nessus shirt which clings to the Republic has maddened her, and may madden her again, it is quite certain that the small effort needed to free themselves for ever from it will never be made.” ™ Dr. Edward W. Blyden, Negro of Jamaica, and author of Chris- tianity, Islam and the Negro, believed that there was no hope for his race in America, and he favored their migration back to Africa. Dr. R. W. Schufeldt, of the Medical Corps of the United States Army, in his book, America’s Greatest Problem, also favored colonizing the Negro in Africa. Carl McKinley, of Charleston, South Carolina, in his dn Appeal to Pharaoh, also advocated the colonizing of the Negro in Africa. Clinton S. Burr, in his book, America’s Race Heritage, says: “How- ever, it was the general view of the American public, during the period leading up to the World War, that it would be entirely impossible * Quoted by Clowes, Black America, p. 212. COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION 463 to transport so large a multitude of our Negroes to Africa, albeit over a long term of years. At that time the world did not know that over two million American soldiers would some day be conveyed across the ocean to France, through the submarine blockade and the mine fields in the short space of twelve months; and that they would be set down in a land ‘milked dry,’ so that of necessity they would be forced to take most necessities with them. The world did not know that it would be startled by the virtual cities, railroads, forts and institutions that would spring up in France. But we know this today: and we know, too, that if our idealism is great enough, we can transport millions of blacks abroad, colonize them in self-supporting communities under United States jurisdiction, and have wealth and resources to spare. As a matter of fact, we could make such a scheme self-supporting by utilizing the labor of the Negroes to im- prove regions with vast resources still untouched. The scheme is not visionary if the nation is big enough to carry through a settled policy which might be fulfilled only after many years of self-abnegation, but whose final results would be as great a benefit to future generations as reforestation or any system of conservation of our national resources. “The former German possessions in Africa, including healthful upland regions, might be acquired by the United States, the purchase price being offset in part by the war debt of Europe. Then, again, arrangements might be made with Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, or the European governments of Guianas, to transfer part of the American Negroes to these countries, with the proviso that the United States capitalists supply the necessary funds to develop the countries in question. . “Lastly, in this connection, we might adapt, to the peculiar ex- igencies of the Negro problem in the United States, the plan pro- posed by General Botha in South Africa; that is, to relegate the Negro population, or at least a portion of it, to certain reservations. In such districts, set aside for their welfare, the Negroes might be able to work out their destiny with financial and technical assistance, to begin with. At least the attempt could be made on a small scale to determine the extent of the Negro’s ability to progress when pro- tected from the competition of the whites.” 1? John Temple Graves has suggested the colonization of the Negro in the Philippine Islands. * Burr, America’s Race Heritage, p. 157. 464 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE William Archer, the most recent writer on the subject, tells us that the proper place to colonize the Negro is in Lower California, or in some other undeveloped region of the West. “It would be absurd for me,” he says, “to forecast in any detail the methods by which the concentration should be brought about. They must be devised and elaborated by the great American states- man who is to come. If he can successfully grapple with this colossal task, he will deserve to rank with Washington and Lincoln in the affections of his countrymen. It might be safely predicted that he will attempt no sudden and forcible displacement of the mass of the negro race. Rather he will establish local conditions that shall tempt the younger and more enterprising negroes to migrate of their own free will; while he will probably fix by legislation a pretty distant date—say five and twenty years—after which it shall be competent for the various State governments forcibly to evict (by compensa- tion) and transplant to the new State any negroes under, say, forty- five years of age still lingering within their boundaries. There will be no need at any time to disturb old or middle-aged negroes who are disinclined to start life afresh under new conditions."* .. . “It might be necessary at first to establish some provisional gov- ernment, like that of an American territory or English crown colony; but as soon as the country was sufficiently settled, and the mechanism of life in full swing, there could be no difficulty or danger in admitting the new community into the union, with full State rights. Negro education has enormously progressed since the bad old days of Recon- struction; and there is no reason to doubt that the population could furnish a competent legislature, executive and judiciary. Legislative aberrations would be checked by the Supreme Court of the United States; and if things went thoroughly wrong, and a new Haiti threatened to develop in the heart of the Republic, why, United States troops would always be at hand to hold a black mob or black adven- turer in awe. But it would doubtless be a fundamental principle that no white man could vote or hold office in the negro State, while, reciprocally, no colored man could vote or hold office in a white state. The abrogation of the Fifteenth Amendment would remove from the Constitution of the United States a constant source of trouble.*. . . “The idea that all the world ought to belong equally to all men, and that rational development tends towards an unrestricted inter- * Archer, Through Afro-America, p. 239. “1btd., p. 2A1. COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION 465 mingling of races, seems to be signally contradicted by the trend of events. Is it not a great essential for the ultimate world peace that races should learn to keep themselves to themselves?” 1° In recent years there has developed among the Negroes in the United States a movement to reclaim Africa for their race; and, while it does not contemplate the immediate migration of American Negroes to Africa, its program would seem to pave the way ultimately for such a movement. The originator and leader of this movement is Marcus Garvey, a Negro from Jamaica, now of world fame, and known as the “Negro Moses.” He is at the head of an organization entitled “The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Community League.” His idea is to set forces at work in Africa that will give rise to an African Empire, using the Republic of Liberia as a nucleus. ‘With my organization,’ he says, “we hope to place in Liberia skilled artisans and scientists, men who can determine the possibilities in the soil, the mineral wealth, the raw materials to be reached, and then, we think, when we have acquired all of the ex- pert information, necessary to intelligently proceed, we ought to go about the raising of the finance with which Liberia can underwrite her economic problems. In this way we can assist in the growth of a dream that may not come in my day. Liberia will be able to develop to a high state in every way. If sixty million Japs have been able to establish a government in sixty years so powerful as to make every nation fear it, surely four hundred millions of black people ought to be able to accomplish the same thing in ten years.” *° Garvey’s organization has branches in all of the states, and he employs some goo or 1,000 Negro orators to stump the country in the interest of his project. However, he himself is the principal spokesman for his cause. He is a man of very striking personality, possessing a very black skin, pugnacious face, and eloquent tongue, and he lectures to immense throngs of his race in all sections of the United States. He is often introduced to audiences as ‘President General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Pro- visional President of Africa.’ With the funds collected he has already begun operations on the African continent. Early in 1921, fifteen pioneers sailed for Liberia in ships owned by the U. N. I. A., carry- ing on board surveyors, architects, carpenters, chemists, physicians, etc., to begin the work of rehabilitating the “dark continent.” * Tbid., p. 241. ** Report in the Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, May 25, 1922. 466 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The Garvey movement is regarded generally, especially by the whites, as a mere chase after the rainbow, but I consider it a matter of serious import, in every respect creditable to its leader, and to all who are backing it. Garvey’s dream will never be realized, but his effort may result in providing a refuge for his people when they come to feel the struggle for existence here too unequal, and too cruel. But has the Negro any aptitude for empire building or coloniza- tion? A very striking argument against the practicability of any scheme of colonization by the Negroes themselves is presented by the Negro author, Thomas, in his book The Amertcan Negro. He says that the Negro is: “‘wanting in the migratory instincts of other races, for, despite occasional roamings, he is content only in aggre- gated racial habitations of fixed locality and defined bounds. It is this characteristic which interposes a fundamental barrier to any scheme for African colonization, and to it is due the neglect of the negroes after their emancipation to settle on the public lands of the general government, of which, in the South alone, there were millions of acres open to public entry under the homestead laws of the United States. “The negro, however, is not without some experience in coloniza- tion in the Western world. We do not allude to fugitive slave settle- ments in Canada, for that form of migration was mainly individual, and in no instance rose to the dignity and importance of concerted community settlements, carried on under organized methods. He has, however, made several abortive attempts at colonial migration. He has gone to Mexico under the most illusive promises, only to meet disappointment and beggary. He has emigrated to the West, empty- handed and ignorant of the conditions of life which obtain there, only to find himself stranded and drifting back to his former abode. In each instance he failed to better his condition, because common- sense methods were left out of his reckoning. To both localities he went, not as a land-seeker and home-builder, or to become a creative factor in a permanent community, but as a crude laborer to a market already overcrowded with untrained forces. His migration was made impulsively and ignorantly, without one sane element entering into his calculations. That he should fail, was, from every rational stand- point, a foregone conclusion. “Perhaps his most notable attempt at colonial settlement was that of the Haitian migration scheme which had its rise during the closing years of the fifties. This was a movement which duped thousands COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION 467 of negroes North and South with delusive tales of wealth and free- dom, and led them to cast their lot with a people with whom they had no affinity, and from whom they could receive no succor when sub- sequent poverty and illness had reduced them to dire distress. Most of the negroes who went to Haiti afterward found their way back to the United States; and it is the trustworthy opinion that ninety per cent of all the negroes who leave the United States for Liberia would return could they find the means to do so. “We contend that the negro has not the capacity for any exten- sive scheme of migration. If he had, abundant opportunities involv- ing little risk lie all about him. For instance, what better opening could be conceived than for a few like-minded and well-equipped freedmen to get together and lease land in some suitable Southern section, and build up a community after their liking? If there really exists any deep-seated desire among these people for self-govern- ment, such a settlement ought to be reckoned by hundreds and even thousands of families. An experiment of this sort, if successful, would naturally fit them for exercising greater civil responsibilities, besides exerting a profound influence on the political condition of freedmen elsewhere. In the end it might open the way for a wide- spread recognition of a desire to better themselves.” 17 William McDougall, professor of psychology in Harvard Univer- sity, in his book, Is America Safe for Democracy, contrasts the Nordic and Mediterranean races in their aptitude for colonization, and he argues that a race which has a strong gregarious instinct, like the Mediterranean race, does not make successful colonizers; that only a race having pronounced self-reliance and an aptitude for isolation, like the Nordic race, ever succeeds in opening up and settling a new country. If the Mediterranean race is disqualified for coloniza- tion by reason of its gregarious tendencies, the Negro race should be still less qualified, since it is the most gregarious of all the races of the world. The most recent advocate of colonization is Ernest S. Cox, who, in his book, White America, published in 1925, makes a plea for the compulsory transportation of the Negro to Liberia or some other part of his homeland. He says: “We must settle the negro problem once for all, and to do this we have no recourse other than to return the negro to his homeland... . “If the negro is timid and does not wish to go when the ways ™ Thomas, The American Negro, pp. 355-7. 468 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE of his going and the means of his living there are provided for him, then he is to be made to go. “The question of the repatriation of the negro should not be left to the negro’s decision, any more than the question of the removal of the Indian was left to the choice of the Indian. Some of the Indian tribes wished to remain east of the Mississippi River; others wished to go to the lands allotted to them if they were assured of a stable gov- ernment in their new homes. The Indian was in the way of the ad- vancement of civilization; those who did not wish to move were made to move. Their consolidation was primarily for the purpose of leav- ing the Caucasian unhindered in his progress. Can anyone believe that American civilization was endangered by the Indian as it is by the negro? But the Indian was not segregated until the Federal Gov- ernment undertook the measure with force and decision. Nor will the negro be repatriated until the Federal Government turns itself seriously to the task. “Repatriation will ih our negro problem aie and will give the negro a future... . “We would not return our negroes en masse, but only those of breeding age, and be as much as a generation in placing them in their new homes, making it possible by this slow process to fill up their gap in the United States and to provide them with the certainties of sub- sistence in Liberia. “Again, there is no necessity for confining our negroes to the pres- ent limits of Liberia. We should widen, by purchase, that country’s borders. If not this, we should acquire the Belgian Congo, which is the richest and most inviting portion of the world yet awaiting the light of civilization. If not the Belgian Congo—then Portuguese West Africa; or part of the French possessions; or German Togoland, or the Kamerun. These latter having passed from German hands as a result of the recent war, there is an added hope of their acquisition. We may rest well assured that England, with her present understand- ing of the negro problem, her need of civilized labor in her vast African possession, and, not least, her consciousness that she played the dominant role in fastening the negro and negro slavery upon her former American possessions, will do anything in her power to aid in returning them to Africa. With her sympathetic and practical aid there is not need to look further.” 1% Up to the present time all of the efforts at Negro colonization have * Cox, White America, pp. 335-44. COLONIZATION AS A SOLUTION 469 been signal failures, and I see no ground for hoping that Cox’s scheme or any other will ever succeed. I think the time is coming, however, when our country, like the old countries of Europe, will have an over- flowing population, causing the Negro to feel more sharply than now the pressure of competition with the whites and then, not unlikely, the states having a large Negro population may offer transportation to Negro citizens who may wish to migrate to some other country. CHAPTER 60 RACEMSEGREGA PION SAS tA SL UL Natural Tendency of Races to Keep Apart—Negro Segregation in America— Opposition of the Negroes to Enforced Segregation—Advantages and Dis- advantages of Segregation—Views of James Bryce on the Subject N discussing the question of Negro and Caucasian segregation in the United States, we would do well to recall the fact that there is a general tendency among the races of the world to segregate; and that this is especially true of races which differ in color. The black, brown, yellow, and white races have gradually and spontane- ously segregated themselves, and now occupy well defined geographical areas, except where conquest has disturbed the isolating process. B. L. Putnam Weale, in his book, The Conflict of Color, argues that racial ties are much stronger than national ones, and that the future boundary lines of nations must conform to those of the races. According to his classification, there are four great races of the world: the white, the black, the yellow, and the brown. Each of these races, he tells us, has its natural habitat to which it is adapted; and each would resist the encroachment of any other race. He regards as especially dangerous to the future of the white race a continuance of its aggressions upon the territory of other races. The black, yellow, and brown races vastly outnumber the whites, and the time is not distant when they may be expected to acquire a military efficiency equal to that of the whites, and when they may probably make formid- able alliances, and turn against their former white tutors. It be- hooves the white race, therefore, as speedily as possible to withdraw from the territory of other races. Since the World War the idea of racial segregation, advanced by Weale, seems to have seized the minds of the foremost statesmen of every great nation, and has found expression in the League of Nations, whose chief aim, it seems, is to bring about world peace by conforming political boundaries to those of the race. This trend toward the international segregation of the races of the world should suggest to the people of the United States that we 470 RACE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION 471 lend a helping hand to the black, yellow, and brown races, but keep our hands off of their territory, and preserve our territory for our own race. “Every consideration,” says Conklin, “should lead those who be- lieve in the superiority of the white race to strive to preserve its purity and to establish and maintain the segregation of the races, for the longer this is maintained the greater the preponderance of the white race will be.” ? Wherever races differing widely in physical characteristics come together in the same territory, through conquest or immigration, the tendency is for each race to form segregated groups; i. e., they occupy different areas or stratify into castes and classes. Instances of terri- torial segregation of races in the same country are the Japanese and Ainu of Japan, the Malays and Negritos of the Philippine Islands, the Europeans and the aborigines of South Africa, the Yankees and Sandwich Islanders in Hawaii, and the Americans and Amerindians of Porto Rico. The most striking instance of race stratification is in India. From the beginning of Negro slavery in America, it has been the natural tendency of the whites and blacks to live apart, except in so far as the economic conditions necessitated contact. Neither the whites nor the blacks have had any idea of intermingling their blood, and down to the present time both races have been in favor of social separation wherever they have existed together in considerable masses. The policy of segregating the Negro in the United States has not come about through any consideration of expediency, or mutual advantage, but has resulted from the natural dispositions of the races. In the Southern states the general policy of segregation is preferred by both races, but differences of opinion exist as to the place and manner of drawing the line of separation. In all of the Southern towns the Negroes tend to live together in one or more sections, generally designated as Africa, Haiti, Snow Hill, etc. In a number of settlements and incorporated towns all, or nearly all, of the inhabitants are Negroes. There are fifty of such towns listed in the Negro Year Book, published at Tuskegee Institute, Ala- bama. Of these, thirteen are in Oklahoma, six in Georgia, five in Alabama, five in Texas, four in California, four in Ohio, and from one to three in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee, Kansas and *The Direction of Human Evolution, p. 53. 472 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Florida. Also there are many towns in the South and West where Negroes are not permitted to reside. These anti-Negro towns are found mostly in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Indiana, and in the smaller towns in the Appalachian region of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, also in some small towns’ along the Atlantic Coast in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Even in agricultural regions of the South there is a tendency toward segregation. “A natural segregation of the races,” says Baker, “is apparently taking place. I saw it everywhere I went in the black belt. The white people are gravitating towards the towns, or into white neighborhoods, and leaving the land, even though still owned by white men, more and more to the exclusive occupation of the Negroes. Many black counties are growing blacker while a few white counties are growing whiter.”’ ? In the cities the Negroes have their distinctive residence quarters, their own banks, clothing and dry-goods stores, grocery stores, drug stores, and barber shops; their professional class of dentists, physicians, and preachers; and their social groups, lodges, picture shows, churches, and Young Men’s Christian Associations and Young Women’s Chris- tian Associations. Says the mulatto Thomas, “in many sections, light-hued negroes associate together, and hold themselves as much aloof from contact with the blacks as do the most exclusive whites.” ° In some Western states it has seemed necessary to regulate segre- gation in order to prevent race friction, leading to crime, riots, and other disturbances of the peace. For example, in Kansas City, where the Negroes constitute only about three and one-half percent of the population, they made such a showing of numbers in the city schools in some districts as to give rise to perpetual animosity, and frequent clashes between the white and Negro children. At length the an- tagonism led to an outbreak, and the killing of a white boy. This tragedy aroused public sentiment, which brought pressure to bear upon the state legislature and resulted in the establishment of special schools for blacks. Everywhere in the North and West where the Negroes are found, they are more or less segregated from the whites geograpically, and also in churches, theaters, hotels, and retail stores, not by law, but by custom, and the good sense of both races. * Following the Color Line, p. 70. *The American Negro, p. 202. RACE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION 473 In the Southern states, where the two races are thrown together in great masses, there would be perpetual clashes, and outbreaks of violence in schools, churches, hotels, and in places of amusement if there were not some local regulation of racial contact. Legalized separation of the races in the South pertains to schools, hotels, restau- rants, theaters, street cars, and railway cars. Recently there has been some agitation among the whites in favor of laws requiring the Negroes to occupy specified blocks in cities and specified areas of farm land. In 1912 the legislature of Louisiana authorized the segregation of whites and black in the cities, and the same year a similar law was passed in Virginia. Ordinances com- pelling residential segregation of the Negro have been enacted in Okla- homa City, Tulsa, Baltimore, and St. Louis. No state, however, has yet enacted a law requiring the segregation of Negroes in agricultural districts. But such laws exist in South Africa. Commenting upon the policy of territorial segregation of the Negroes in South Africa, Evans says that: “the separation of the races is held by a majority of the Europeans to be the true policy, and the principle has been accepted by the Legislature. In 1913 a Land Bill providing for territorial separation was passed through Parliament, and a Commission was appointed under the Act. It is now engaged in provisionally demarcating the areas which it is in- tended should eventually be white and black respectively, and mean- while the leasing and sale of land between the races is prohibited.” 4 The proposition to segregate the Negro in rural districts of the South has been championed by Clarence Poe, and other Southern leaders of high standing. One of the chief arguments in support of it is that it would free white women of the fear of attack, and encourage white immigration. But up to the present time sentiment in favor of it does not seem to be strong or gaining ground. D. W. Weather- ford, field secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association, ob- jects that a rural segregation law would tend to drive the Negroes into towns where they are already too numerous for their good, or the good of the white people. He shares the opinion of most white people that it is best that the Negroes stay in the country and become landowners.® The Southern Negroes themselves oppose this form of segregation, and generally oppose any compulsory segregation, but they heartily “Black and White in the Southern States, p. 258. °“Race Segregation in the Rural South,’ Survey, Jan. 2, 1915. 4r4 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE favor the segregation which takes place spontaneously. They prefer their own social life, which in many respects is fuller and more joy- ous than that of the whites. They prefer their separate schools, churches, lodges, clubs, and other institutions. They do not want social equality, nor do they often give it a thought. Booker T. Washington was of the opinion that: “This division of the races is an advantage to us as a people, in so far as it permits us to become the teachers of our own people. No better discipline can be given to a people than that which they gain by being their own teachers. They can have no greater opportunity than that of developing within themselves the. ideals and the leadership which are to make them not merely in law, but in fact, the masters of their own fortunes.” ® The leaders of the Negroes in the North generally oppose every kind of race segregation. Not having an equal opportunity with their Southern brothers to maintain schools, churches, and other in- stitutions for their own race, their social life is often circumscribed in a way which awakens a sense of loneliness and isolation. They are therefore very sensitive to the discriminations against them by the whites, and their sensitiveness is the keener because they are mostly mulattoes, who, having less of the gregarious instinct than the pure Negro, feel disinclined to mingle with the blacks. The white people outside of the South who have written about Negro segregation generally commend it as necessary and wise in sections of the country where Negro population is large. Field, in his book, Glimpses of New England, says: “That the whites should desire to keep to themselves is not to be ascribed to arrogance; it does not even imply an assumption of superiority. It is not that one race is above the other, but that the two races are different, and that, while they may live together in the most friendly relations, each will consult its own happiness best by working along its own lines. This is a matter of instinct, which is often wiser than reason. We cannot fight against instinct, nor legislate against it; if we do we shall find it stronger than our resolutions and our laws.” ? J. M. Mecklin, of the Pittsburgh Psychological Institute, in his book, Democracy and Race Friction, expresses his opinion as follows: “Viewed from the standpoint of the good of society as a whole, *The American Negro of Today, pp. 67-70. ge te RACE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION 475 laws requiring social segregation in the South are undoubtedly based upon a sound social philosophy.” ® A. B. Hart, of Harvard University, believes that: “Race separa- tion would give greater opportunities to the Negro, and reduce the contact with the lower class of whites out of which comes most of the race violence in the South. It is substantially the method applied in the Northern cities, though nowhere to any degree as in the South. It is a method which, with all its hardships to the Negro of the higher class, comes nearest being a modus vivendi between the races.” ® Maurice Evans, an Englishman long resident in South Africa, who has studied the Negro in the United States, takes the ground that segregation is working to the advantage of the Negro: “the segrega- tion of the race has thrown the members on their own powers, and has developed the qualities of resourcefulness. The very process which may have seemed to some like a policy of oppression, has in fact re- sulted in a process of development.” ?° What would happen to the Negroes in the South, if they were not segregated? They would have to compete in every occupation with the whites; they would find the door of opportunity practically closed to them in all the higher walks of life. It would rarely happen that a Negro could secure a position as teacher in a school, as pastor of a church, or as editor of a paper. There would be no Negro doctors, dentists, lawyers, actors, or singers. Even in the unskilled trades they would have to compete with the white man. What does the Negro gain by segregation? He finds in the South a large field of employment open to him with little or no competition from the whites. In other words, segregation enables him to lead an easier and less strenuous existence, which insures to him a diminish- ing death-rate and a higher birth-rate; also, it enables him to resist the downward pressure into poverty, vice, and crime. Above all, segregation builds up cooperation and race pride, and, by diminishing the incentive to imitate the whites, tends to bring out in the race its special aptitudes and geniuses. The progress of mankind can be best advanced by each race’s developing the genius and culture peculiar to it instead of striving to imitate another. Segregation enables the Negro to find among his own people as many opportunities in the higher walks of life as are found among mer 200. *Quoted by Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 146. * Evans, op. cit., p. 156. 476 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the white people. He may be a merchant, banker, doctor, lawyer, dentist, school-teacher, college president, pastor of a church, editor of a paper, actor, musician, officer in a lodge, and so forth. In many Southern states there are more Negroes holding high positions in professional life than in the entire territory of Brazil, where segregation has largely broken down as a result of racial intermixture. But whatever may be said of the expediency or advantages of segregation, it cannot be regarded as a solution of the Negro prob- lem. No matter how earnestly both races may cooperate to make it work satisfactorily, it will always be a source of racial jealousy and friction, and, in its practical applications, will often work hard- ships and injustice to large groups, giving rise to perpetual com- plaints, animosities, and demands for readjustment. In sections where large masses of Negroes and whites are thrown together segregation may be said to work with a considerable degree of satisfaction and advantage to both races, but in sections where the Negroes form a small minority of the population, a policy of segrega- tion works a great hardship upon the Negro, depriving him of many essential privileges which his own race is unable to offer. It restricts his opportunities in the higher avenues of employment. - But whatever advantages there may be in segregation there is always the drawback that it keeps each race aloof from the other on its best side. “The best side of every civilized people,” says Merriam, “is seen in its homes. The white and the black homes of the South are strangers to each other.” The race on the lower level of culture is apt to come in contact mainly with the lower elements of the race on the higher level of cul- ture. James Bryce was of the opinion that the contact of an advanced and a backward race in the same territory was productive of evil consequences to both races, and he therefore thought that such contact should be avoided as far as possible. He says: “There are the cases in which an Advanced and a Backward race find themselves living side by side in large masses upon the same soil, having entered it at different times. Instances are found in the former Slave States of North America, where seven millions of Negroes and fourteen mil- lions of whites dwell together! in Algeria, in British South Africa, and in Western South America, in both of which latter regions the numerical preponderance of the Backward races is very great, though for South America no trustworthy statistics exist. ™ The Negro and the Nation, p. 408. RACE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION 477 “Where the two races occupy different parts of the country, or where one is mainly rural, the other mainly urban, or where the habits of life are so dissimilar that opportunities for social intercourse occur but sparingly, occasions for collision may be few. This has been the case over most of Spanish America, and is to a great extent true also of Algeria. But where the races live in the same towns and villages, and follow the same pursuits, antagonism is sure to arise. It arises from Inequality, because as one of the races is stronger in intel- ligence and will, its average members treat members of the weaker race scornfully or roughly, when they can do so with impunity. It arises from Dissimilarity of character, because neither race under- _ stands the other’s way of thinking and feeling, so that each gives offense even without meaning it. It arises from Distrust, because the sense of not comprehending one another makes each suspect the other of faithlessness or guile. The Backward race, being the weaker, is usually that which tries to protect itself by guile, while the more advanced race relies upon the prestige of its knowledge, the force of its will, and its ingrained habit of dominance. Violence, when once it breaks out, is apt to spread, because the men of each race take sides in any tumult, and apt to be accompanied by cruelty, because pity is blunter toward those who stand outside the racial or social pale, and the passions of a racial conflict sweep all but the gentlest natures away. Every outrage on one side provokes an outrage on the other: if a series of outrages occur, each race bands itself to- gether for self-defense, awaiting attack, and probably provoking at-~ tack by the alarm its combination inspires. Nor are difficulties in the sphere of industry wanting, for the more advanced race may re- fuse to work in company with the Backward one, or may seek to relegate the latter to the basest and worst-paid kinds of work. So too the Backward race may give offense by working for lower wages and thus reducing the general scale of payment. “These troubles may be apprehended whatever the form of gov- ernment, for they spring out of the nature of things. But others vex the political sphere. If one race enjoys privileges denied to the other, it is sure to abuse its power to the prejudice of the Back- ward people, placing them, it may be, under civil as well as political disabilities, or imposing heavier taxes upon them, or refusing them their fair share of benefits from the public revenue. If, on the other hand, both races are treated alike, granted the same suffrage, made eligible for the same offices, each will be disposed to organize 478 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE itself separately for political purposes, so that a permanent separa- tion of parties will be created, which, because irrespective of the issues that naturally arise from time to time, may prevent those from being dealt with on their merits, and may check the natural ebbs and flows of political life. The nation will, in fact, be rather two nations than one, may waste its force on internal dissensions, may lose its unity of action at moments of public danger. Evils of this order tend to be more acute the more democratic a government be- comes. ‘Two courses are open, but each will have elements of danger. If political privileges are refused to the Backward race, the contrast between principle and practice, between a theoretic recognition of the rights of man as man and the denial of them to a section of the population, will be palpable and indefensible. If that lower section be admitted to share in the government, an element will be admitted the larger part of which will be unfit for the suffrage, being specially accessible to bribery and specially liable to intimidation. So, too, though the evils described may exist whatever be the condition of the lower race, they will become, in one sense at least, more accentu- ated the more that race advances in intelligence and knowledge. Slaves or serfs who have been bred up to look upon subjection as their natural lot bear it as the dispensation of Nature. When they have attained a measure of independence, when they speak the tongue and read the books and begin to share the ideas of the dominant race, they resent the inferiority, be it legal or social, to which they find themselves condemned. Discontent appears and social friction is in- tensified, not only because occasions for it grow more frequent, but because the temper of each race is more angry and suspicious. These phenomena, present even where the races are not very diverse in habits of life or level of culture, as is the case with Greeks, Armenians, and Turks in various parts of the East, or with Moors and Jews in Morocco, may become of graver import as between races so far apart as whites and Negroes in the Gulf States of North America, or whites and Malays in the Philippine Isles, or Europeans and native fellaheen in Egypt. “Although the troubles which follow upon the contact of peoples in different stages of civilization are more serious in some countries and under some conditions than they are likely to prove in others, they are always serious enough to raise the question of the best means of avoiding such a contact, if it can be avoided. “That contact can be averted by inducing European peoples to RACE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION 479 forbear from annexing or settling in the countries inhabited by the colored races is not to be expected. The impulses which move these peoples in the present will not be checked by the prospect of evils in the future. Besides, the work of annexation is practically done already. Neither can it be suggested that one of two disparate races already established should be removed to leave the ground free to the other. No one proposes that the French should quit Algeria, or the English India, or the Russians Western Turkistan, not to add that the mischiefs likely to follow such a withdrawal would be greater than the difficulties which the presence of the conquerors at this mo- ment causes. Men talked at one time of deporting the seven millions of Negroes from the Southern States of America to Africa, but this utterly impracticable scheme has been dropped. The only case in which the question of preventing contact arises in a practical form is where immigrants of a Backward race are found swarming into a country peopled by a European stock. Such a case has arisen in California and British Columbia, whither Chinese have migrated, as also in Australia as respects Chinese, and Japanese, and Indian coolies, and in Natal. In all these cases statutes have been passed intended to arrest or to limit the influx of the Backward race; and in Cali- fornia and Australia, where the methods have been most stringent, the desired result is being attained.” ” In discussing race segregation we need to bear in mind that it has no necessary connection with our notion of racial superiority or in- feriority. The tendency of races, occupying the same territory, to live apart is due primarily to the fact that they are visibly and strik- ingly unlike. For instance, our opposition to Japanese colonization on our Pacific Coast is not due to our belief in the inferiority of the Japanese people. Even if we believed that they were ever so superior to ourselves our opposition to their colonization here, and our dis- inclination to assimilate them, would be none the less pronounced. And, if the situation were reversed, and the white people should at- tempt to colonize anywhere in Japanese territory, the Japanese would feel and act towards our intrusion just as we feel and act towards their intrusion into our territory. If the Japanese could understand the fact that racial segregation is due solely to physical differences, and not to notions of superiority or inferiority, they would be able to accept it with good grace, and even to welcome it. The tendency of the whites and Negroes in the United States to “Bryce, Relation of Advanced and Backward Races of Mankind, p. 70. 480 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE live apart would be as ineradicable as it is now if the Negroes were believed to be in all respects superior to the whites. Of course, wher- ever two dissimilar races come in contact on different levels of culture, the tendency to segregate is intensified; but it is entirely erroneous to suppose that segregation is solely or fundamentally due to differ- ences of culture. It is very confusing and, I think, very unfortunate that we have come to use the term “social equality’ in connection with the dis- cussion of our race problem. The disinclination of the Negroes and whites toward free social intermingling should not be continually as- sociated with the idea that the Negro is inferior and undeserving of social elevation and respect. While most Negroes are, in fact, in- ferior to most white people, the opposition to the social intermixture of the races is not due fundamentally to the inferiority of the Negroes, but to the fact that the natural differences between the races render social intermixture incompatible with the natural disposition of both races. Opposition to free social intermingling would be the same no matter what might be the culture level of the Negro. Certainly, it is not good manners to wound the feelings of cul- tivated Negroes by implying their inferiority when we wish to con- vey the idea merely that the best interest of both races requires that they move within their respective social spheres. The more enlight- ened white people of the South want to see the Negro rise to what- ever heights are possible to him socially or otherwise among his own people. To say: “We oppose the social intermingling of the races,” would, in most cases, better convey the idea in mind than to say: “We oppose social equality.” CHAPTER 61 AVFREEASTADE INVGHE BLAGK«BELT Proposal to Create a Colored Free State out of the Southern Black Belt— Possibility That Immigration of Dark Whites from Southern Europe or Mexico May Lead to a Hybrid Race Similar to That of Tropical South America—Supposition That the Political Power of This Hybrid Race Would Be Intolerable to the Northern and Western States, and Lead to the Erection of a Colored Free State T the joint meeting of the American and British Associations for the Advancement of Science in Canada in 1924, President J. W. Gregory of the Geographical Section of the British Association read a paper on the “Color Line,’ which he characterized as the problem of the present century. Referring to the problem in the United States, Dr. Gregory touched briefly upon several of the proposed solutions. In regard to amalgam- ation, he “quoted some authorities as anticipating the betterment of the human race by interracial fusion, but said that modern stu- dents of eugenics supported the view that ‘the interbreeding of widely different types produces weak, inferior offspring with a chaotic con- stitution.’ He quoted from a recent detailed study to show that the children of Lapp-Norwegian (Mongolian-Caucasian) unions were in- ferior physically and mentally to both parents. “*This doctrine,’’”’ he said, “ ‘cannot be regarded as established, but the strong intellectual aversion to such unions among the Teutonic people will doubtless prevent the adoption of race amalgamation be- tween the negro and whites in North America and Northern Europe.’ ” He went on to say that he did not regard disfranchisement, or segregation, or deportation as a practicable solution. “No simple measure,” he said, “that could be imposed on the country by the Leg- islature appears to be available, but some solution may be reached by a process of drift. It is for the geographer to search for the factors that are likely to guide this drift. “One of the most significant movements in the Southern States is for much of the agricultural work to pass into the hands of immigrants from Southern Europe, while the negroes, through the restlessness 481 482 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE which is the weakest element in their character, tend to settle in the towns. Stone, a representative Southerner, remarks that planters must seek more reliable labor than that of the negro who has already been replaced in tobacco cultivation in Kentucky. Booker Washing- ton repeatedly called attention to the seriousness of the danger that the negro would be driven from the skilled occupations. The re- cent agreement between Italy and Mexico for the settlement of 500,000 Italians in Mexico would provide an additional source for Italian inflow into the Southern States. The feeling against interracial mar- riage is not so strong among the people of Southern Europe as it is with the Teutons; hence extensive South-European immigration into the cotton districts may lead to their future occupation by a hybrid race similar to that of tropical South America. This process would render impossible the continued refusal of political and municipal rights to any citizen who has a trace of negro blood. The colored people would regain the suffrage, and the political developments of the Southern States on normal American lines would be impossible. If the whites in the Southern States be divided between Republicans and Democrats, the negro vote would hold the balance of power; and owing to the considerable overrepresentation of the Southern States in proportion to population, American policies might be determined by the negro vote. Such a situation would be intolerable to the Northern and Western States. Hence, to avoid it, they might agree to the Southeastern States being formed into a group with a special measure of home rule in some departments of Federal jurisdiction. “This solution may take a century or more to develop; but the geographical considerations indicate it as the most probable issue from the negro strength in the Southeastern States.” Of all the possible outcomes of the Negro problem, this one of converting a number of Southern commonwealths into a free colored state is the most deplorable to contemplate. In the island of Haiti the Negroes got possession of the territory by massacring the whites. In the Southeastern United States, if Dr. Gregory’s prediction comes to pass, the Negroes will gain possession of the territory by the blood- less and easy “process of drift.” The probabilities of conditions arising in the Black Belt which would justify and make necessary the conversion of that section into a free state are not very great. If the Negroes of the Black Belt continue to drift toward the towns, their places on the farms might, as Dr. Gregory supposes, be A FREE STATE’ IN’ PHESBEACK BELT 483 —_ filled by the immigration of the Mexican “greaser” (so-called in the Southwest), who is a mixture of the Indian and South European. In fact, in the Southwestern states, particularly in Texas, the num- ber of Mexican immigrants who have already taken the places of the Negro on the farms and on railroads is quite noticeable. Should this immigration continue for a century it is conceivable that a vast majority of the population of the Black Belt might be made up of miscellaneous hybrids. The Mexicans might intermarry largely with the Negroes, especially with those of the mulatto type, and the average complexion of the colored population would, in consequence, be much lighter than it is now. Then it would be impossible in the Southern states, as in Brazil and Cuba, to draw a color line, for the reason that in many instances it would be impossible to tell whether a slightly colored person had in his veins Negro, Indian, or Mexican blood. The attempt to segregate the colored and white people of the South in schools, churches, railroads, hotels, and other public places, would lead to such confusion as to become entirely impracticable. Also, illiteracy presumably becoming a thing of the past, it would be im- practicable to formulate any franchise laws which would exclude the colored voters, who would all stand together, and absolutely dominate the states of the Black Belt. In national politics it is conceivable, as Dr. Gregory surmises, that the colored vote might hold the bal- ance of power, forming a colored bloc which would prove so obstructive to legislation, and so generally obnoxious that the people of the North- eastern and Western states would rather erect a free state for the colored people than to tolerate them as a part of the union. The problem of the Colored Belt would be a repetition of the Irish prob- lem of Great Britain. In view of the increasing trend toward socialistic legislation, it is more than probable that the Colored Belt would make short shrift of the problem of alien ownership of land. Either by means of confiscation or taxation the plantations belonging to the native or alien whites would be speedily transferred to the colored peasant. The chief fact militating against Dr. Gregory’s prophecy of an eventual free colored state is that the proportion of Negroes in that region is not on the increase. The declining birth-rate of the Negroes in the Black Belt, together with their high death-rate and yearly migra- tion, not only give them a diminishing rate.of increase but, according to the last census, that of 1920, an actual falling off in numbers. In the decade 1910-20, the Negro population of Mississippi diminished 484 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE by 74,303 or seven percent; that of Alabama diminished by 7,630 or eight percent; that of Louisiana diminished by 13,617, or 1.8 percent. Georgia was the only state in the Black Belt which gained in popula- tion between 1910 and 1920, and her increase did not offset the losses of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. The present tendency is for the Negroes of the Black Belt to move into other Southern states. For illustration, the Negro population of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland increased during the Ig10-20 decade to an extent which nearly equalled the losses in the other states. There is, therefore, no present indication that the Negro population in the Black Belt will preponderate over the white population or gain in relative strength. The question which remains as necessary to evaluate Dr. Gregory’s prophecy of a future free colored state, is: Will Mexican immigrants come in to fill the places of the emigrated blacks, and, if they do, will they complicate the color problem by intermarrying with the blacks ? The trend of agriculture in the United States is away from cul- ture dependent upon human muscle or horse power, and toward culture dependent upon mechanical power and machinery. Less and less labor is necessary per acre of product, and more and more capital. Inten- sive farming is taking the place of extensive farming. This change is being hastened in the South by the recent Negro migration. As more capital and machinery come to be employed in agricul- ture, the number of native whites who will take up agriculture as a career will increase, and the demand for labor of the Mexican type will be diminished. It does not seem at all likely, therefore, that the immigration of Mexicans into the South will ever be on a large scale. Before the lapse of another century the United States will be overpopulated, like the countries of Europe, and will be exporting instead of importing labor. Should Mexicans come to the South in any considerable number, I do not think that they would intermarry with the Negroes to the extent that Dr. Gregory supposes. In the Central or South Ameri- can states the South Europeans have intermarried with the Indians, but not with the Negroes.. The mestizo, half Spanish and half Indian, has somewhat intermarried with the Negro, but in the majority of instances the hybrid offspring of the mestizo and Negro is the result A FREE STATE IN THE BLACK BELT 485 | of illicit relations. The term Negro, especially African Negro, is odious alike to the Spaniard and mestizo. The Mexican “greasers,” who have come into Oklahoma and Texas, show as little tendency to mix with the Negro as the native Caucasians. There does not, there- fore, seem to be a strong probability of the free intermarrying of the Negroes and Mexicans within the next century. To sum up, the facts in the case do not point decisively to a future free colored state in the Black Belt as the outcome of the race prob- lem in the South, if the problem be left to the “process of drift.” CHAPTER 62 CIVIL EOUALTRY AS Ay SOLUSLION Practical Difficulties of Enforcing Civil Equality in a Nation of Racial Diversity —Failure to Enforce Civil Equality in the South During the Reconstruction Period—Result of Effort to Eliminate Color Discrimination in the Franchise —Theory of John Stuart Mill That Only One Race Can Govern in One Territory—Theory of Charles Francis Adams That the Principle of Equality Applied to the Negro and Caucasian Works Only Chaos EARLY all of the Negroes in the United States, and a large ele- ment of the whites, believe that the solution of the Negro prob- lem is a very simple one, namely, to give the Negro the same civil rights as the white man. In other words, the solution is to enforce the decrees of our Constitution which prohibit any civil discrimina- tions on account of race or color. This solution was the one advocated by William Lloyd Garrison, and his anti-slavery followers prior to the Civil War, and, since the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to our Constitution, it has been earnestly desired by a majority of the white people of the United States, in- cluding many men of the highest patriotism and finest idealism. The phrase in our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, met with the enthusiastic and universal approbation of the American people. This declaration, however, was not under- stood as meaning anything more than that all of the white men com- posing the population had inalienable right to equal opportunity in this new country. The author of the Declaration represented a state where Negro slavery was a recognized institution, and, though he deplored the existence of the institution, it is very evident he had no idea that the Negroes would ever be citizens of our republic. Down to the Civil War, even in states which had abolished slavery, the Negro was not allowed civil rights, except in Massachusetts, Ver- mont, Maine, and Rhode Island. The organic law of Virginia, as of other slaveholding states, contained the expression: “All men are born free and equal.” At the time of the adoption of our Constitution it was so gen- erally understood that citizenship in this country was for Caucasians 486 CIVIL EQUALITY AS A SOLUTION 487 only that the question was not even discussed, and all of the original declarations of equality in our organic laws must be interpreted as having reference to the white population only. Soon after the adoption of our Constitution, however, the declara- tion of equality came to be interpreted literally, and to be applied to the Negroes. The champions of the abolition of slavery used the declaration of equality as an argument in favor of their cause, and began to point out the inconsistency of such a declaration with the existence of slavery. But, while the equality argument was used to combat slavery, it was not urged in favor of giving the Negro the right to vote and hold office. Laws disqualifying Negroes from voting or holding office continued in existence in Northern states which had long before abolished slavery, and in Western states where slavery had never existed. The idea that the exericse of the franchise was one of the rights necessarily belonging to a people “born free and equal’ was a very gradual development, and never became widespread until the events of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The Northern people believed that the exercise of the franchise by the Negroes was the only means by which the latter could protect themselves against oppressive laws made by their former masters, and the idea prevailed generally throughout the North that there should be in our republic neither civil nor social discriminations on account of race or color. It may be that sectional hatred, and the desire to humiliate and punish the South, played a part in the enactment of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to our Constitution, but there is no reason to doubt that most of the Northern people favoring these amendments were actuated primarily by humanitarian considerations and high idealism, and that they could see no reason why the new provisions of our Constitution, so evidently just from a theoretical point of view, might not be fully realized. But, alas, for the consequences! During the Reconstruction Period the effort to enforce civil and social equality in the South by the bayonet was a signal failure, and, since the withdrawal of the bayonet, neither civil nor social equality has existed in any Southern state. Before the experiment of civil equality was tried in the South, practically all men who knew human nature, and had had an oppor- tunity to observe the effect of racial contacts, foresaw the impossibility of two races as unlike as the Negro and the Caucasian living together on terms of equality. De Tocqueville in 1830 said he could not imagine 488 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “that the black and white races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing.” * William H. Seward, speaking at Detroit, Michigan, September 4, 1860, made this statement: “The great fact is now fully realized that the African race here is a foreign and feeble element, like the Indians, incapable of assimilation . . . and that it is a pitiful exotic, unwisely and unnecessarily transplanted into our fields, and which it is un- profitable to cultivate at the cost of the desolation of the native vineyard.” ? Lincoln, in his debate with Douglas at Quincy, October 15, 1858, spoke as follows: “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical differ- ence between the two which, in my judgment, would probably forbid them living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” * In the debate at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858, he said: “TI will say that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about, in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” + Not only does observation of racial contact in the United States lead to the conviction that equality cannot exist between the Negroes and whites, but an acquaintance with history leads to the same con- viction. Thus far no two races differing in any marked degree have ever lived together harmoniously in the same geographical area. The Roman Empire included within its boundaries many contrast- ing ethnic groups, but all of these were separated from each other geo- graphically, and the same is true of the modern British Empire. Even when ethnic groups differing only slightly in physical appearance have * Democracy in America, Vol. 2, p. 238. * Quoted by Munford, Virginia’s Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession, p. 167. * Quoted ibid., p. 1609. * Quoted ibid., p. 168. CIVIL EQUALITY AS A SOLUTION 480 been brought into close contact under the same government, they have been slow to amalgamate and produce a common culture. The Jewish people, who take rank with any other race in physical type and intellectual capacity, have never assimilated the culture of any other race, and have rarely, if ever, enjoyed equal rights under any gov- ernment of which they have been subjects. The nearest approach to a harmonious cooperation of different ethnic groups under the same government is found in the Republic of Switz- erland; but, even there, we find the different ethnic groups geographi- cally isolated, preserving their respective language and traditions, and, through the system of local government, each living largely independent of the other. The experience of Switzerland throws no light whatever upon the problem of ethnic contact such as we have in the United States. The French nation might be cited as an example of rather complete assimilation of several originally different ethnic elements, but in this case the racial contrasts have been so slight that, from pre-Roman times to the present, they have been freely intermarrying. The example of France, therefore, throws no light on the situation in the United States, for the reason that there is no race problem where ethnic groups differ so slightly that they spontaneously amalgamate. In any state where the Negro population is in a majority or con- stitutes a large proportion of the citizenship, the feeling of racial con- sciousness prompts the Negroes to vote together, and they, with an ele- ment of scalawag whites who wish to ride into office on the backs of the Negro, gain control of the state governments to the exclusion of the whites. Aside from the incompetence and corruption which necessa- rily follow such rule, the outstanding thing is the strange contradiction which the conditions and consequences reflect upon our constitutional declarations of equality; on the one hand the declaration forbids civil discrimination on the basis of color and, on the other hand, imposes a régime wherein the whole civil control actually depends on color. This is a political reductio ad absurdum. What happened in the South as a result of the effort to enforce civil equality between the whites and the blacks would have happened in any other country where any other two races visibly different existed together in large masses. All races of men are more or less gregarious, and wherever, in the same territory, two conspicuously different races come together in masses, there is developed a consciousness of kind 490 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE which inclines the members of each race to draw together in common sympathy for common action. In each race a sentiment of loyalty is awakened which leads its members to prefer each other in every sphere of competition or rivalry with another race. The natural tendency of the Negroes to feel a consciousness of kind and to sympathize with races of kindred kind, is evidenced in the fact that when the Japanese defeated the Russians in 1905, the Negro press gave “a quite clear cry of exaltation over the defeat of a white race by a dark one.’ ® In political action, each race stands together, and the strongest, in numbers or otherwise, dominates the government. Therefore, human nature being constituted as it is, it is impossible for two races visibly different to live together in large masses in the same territory on terms of equality. In the domain of social science, as in that of natural science, a truth can be arrived at only by experiment and induction. If the chemist finds that two elements, subjected to innumerable tests, have never united, he will tell you that they are not assimilable, and he would not think of writing a formula calling for their amalgamation; and so in social science, when we find that two races, subjected to innumerable tests, have never assimilated, we are rational in assuming that they are not assimilable, and we need not be surprised to find that political for- mule calling for their assimilation fail to work. We would have had a race problem in California, similar to that in the Southern states, and with no less deplorable consequences, if our national government had not put a stop to the Mongolian immigration, but had attempted to enforce social and civil equality between the Mon- golians and the native whites. The Mongolians, becoming a large ele- ment of the population, would have been drawn together, like the South- ern Negroes, by their consciousness of kind, and would have voted ac- cording to color; and wherever, in any city or county they were in a ma- jority or nearly so, they would have dominated the government, and their government would have been one in fact based on color. The Chicago Tribune in a recent editorial says: “ We admit frankly that if political equality had meant the election of Negro mayors, judges, and a majority of Negroes in the city council the whites would not have tolerated it. We do not believe that the whites of Chicago would be any different from the whites of the South in this respect.” ° *Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, p. 240. *Quoted in Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 551. CIVIL EQUALITY AS A SOLUTION 491 John Stuart Mill long ago announced the sociological law that two unlike races, occupying the same territory, cannot enjoy equal civil rights, that only one race in fact can constitute the governing power. Wherever two or more dissimilar races are found in large masses with- in the same political boundaries, each is drawn together by conscious- ness of kind, and there is a perpetual and destructive conflict for su- premacy. Was not the World War set in motion by such racial fric- tion in Southeastern Europe? It may be argued that the consciousness of kind, which tends to seg- regate races and prevent their harmonious cooperation on equal terms, is a mere prejudice which ought to be overcome by enlightenment. But in social science, as in physical science, we have to be governed by facts. We cannot decree the assimilation of two races any more than a chem- ist can decree the mixing of oil and water. The fact is that certain races do not assimilate; and cannot do so for the reason that their conscious- ness of kind, which separates them in sympathy, is the outcome of in- eradicable impulses of human nature. Civil equality or any other kind of equality between races as unlike as the white and black, and mingled as they are in the same territory, is a dream which can never be real- ized. In attempting to apply our constitutional declarations against dis- criminations on account of race or color, it is necessary to be governed by “the rule of reason”: on the one hand, the Supreme Court, in en- deavoring to protect the Negro against injustice, has to guard against injustice to the white people en masse. In the last analysis our Su- preme Court can only decide whether the de facto government shall be Caucasian or Negro. Charles Francis Adams, writing in the Century Magazine in 1906, expressed a doubt if it were possible for the Negro and Caucasian to live on equal terms under the same government, and therefore he ques- tioned the wisdom of the United States government in attempting to give the Negro full civil rights through the several amendments to our Con- stitution. He quotes this statement by Sir Samuel Baker: “So long as it is generally considered that the Negro and the White Man are to be governed by the same laws and guided by the same management, so long will the former remain a thorn in the side of every community to which he may unhappily belong.” Commenting upon this, Adams says: “If true, this strikes at the very root of our American polity,—the equality of man before the law. We cannot conform to it. If the fact must be conceded,—so much the worse for the fact. By all good Americans at least, the theory will 492 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE none the less be maintained, the principle confidently asserted. We are thus confronted by a condition. The existence of an ineradicable and insurmountable race difference is indisputable. The white man and the black man cannot flourish together, the latter being considerable in num- ber, under the same system of government. Drawing apart, they will assuredly become antagonistic. An opposite theory can be maintained, and will work with more or less friction where the white greatly domin- ates, and the black element is a negligible quantity ; when, however, the black predominates, the theory breaks down, and some practical solu- tion is reached not in conformity with it. As Hamlet was led to observe in a quite different connection —‘This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.’ “What, then, is to be our American outcome? The negro squats at our hearthstone; we can neither assimilate nor expel him. The situation in Egypt is comparatively simple. The country will be developed by European money and brain; and the African will find his natural place in the outcome. Facts will be recognized, and a polity adopted in har- mony with them. Will the results reached there react on us in Amer- ica?—-Who now can say? The problem is intricate. Meanwhile one thing is clear :—the work done by those who were in political control at the close of our Civil War was done in utter ignorance of ethnologic law and total disregard of unalterable fact. Starting the movement wrong, it will be yet productive of incalculable injury to us. The Negro, after emancipation, should have been dealt with, not as a political equal, much less forced into a position of superiority; he should have been treated as a ward and dependent,—firmly, but in a spirit of kindness and absolute justice. Practically impossible as a policy then, this is not less so now. At best, it is something which can only be slowly and tenta- tively approximated. Nevertheless, it is not easy for one at all observ- ant to come back from Egypt and the Soudan without a strong suspicion that we will in America make small progress towards a solution of our race problem until we approach it in less of a theoretic and humanita- rian, and more of a scientific, spirit. Equality results not from law, but exists because things are in essentials like; and a political system which works admirably when applied to homogeneous equals results only in chaos when generalized into a nostrum to be administered universally. It has been markedly so of late with us.” 7 "Adams, “Light Reflected from Africa,” Century Magazine, Vol. 72, p. 106. CHAPTER 63 WHITE SUPREMACY AS A SOLUTION Unwillingness of the Caucasian to Divide Responsibility with Another Race in the Same Territory—The Caucasian’s Strong Sense of Consciousness of Kind and Strong Sense of Property Rights—Theory of Carlyle That the Right to Hold and Control Any Territory Belongs to the Race Best Fitted to Use It-—Superior Claims of the Caucasian to Territory in America INCE civil equality between the Negro and Caucasian seems to be impossible of realization, a great many white people in the United States think that the only solution of the Negro problem is white su- premacy, and that we should guarantee this by suitable franchise laws, or, if necessary, by removing the obstructions to it in our Constitution. Among the white people of the United States there is a wide-spread feeling that this is a white man’s country. In the South and in the Pacific Coast states this feeling is especially strong. It is not at all sur- prising, therefore, that a considerable number of people think that the solution of the race problem is white supremacy. This proposed solution seems on the surface to be entirely feasible, for the reason that :t is in agreement with historical facts. White su- premacy seems to have prevailed in all parts of the world where the white race has settled and planted its culture, except in Haiti, where the white race has been exterminated by the Negro. Wherever the white race has taken root upon any soil it does not yield to the supre- macy of any other race, and will resist to the point of total extinction rather than suffer any other race to domineer over it. It may be said in criticism of this trait of the white race that it is a relic of barbarism which should be eliminated by the progress of civil- ization, but calling it names does not alter the fact. The Caucasian race, and the Nordic branch of it in particular, will not submit to the control of any other race in a territory which it has purchased by its en- terprise and sacrifice of life; and in any discussion of the race problem it is necessary to reckon with this fact if we would arrive at any work- able procedure. There are two reasons why the white race will not divide responsi- bility with other races in the control of any territory. The first is a con- 493 494 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE sciousness of kind which disinclines it to commingle with a race of un- like kind, and the other is a highly developed sense of property rights. The white race has gone through a long economic evolution during which the occupation of definite territory and the private ownership of land have been the basis of its existence. The lands which it has re- claimed from forest and swamp, and from wild beasts and wild men, have been gained at the cost of many sacrificed lives and much strenu- ous work. The Romans were so jealous of their land boundaries that they had a god, Terminus, especially to guard and protect them. They set up stones to mark the limits of each estate, and woe to the man who should encroach upon another’s possessions! If he so much as touched a boundary stone with his plow, éven accidentally, the god would strike him dead. The white races of Northern Europe, who have founded homes in the clearings of the great northern forest, have developed a jealousy of property even more intense than that of the races of South- ern Europe. This property sense has come down to our modern nations with an increasing and expanding growth. A sacred regard for private and public property has been and is now a fundamental and ineradicable trait of the white men of western civilization. When the white men of Europe had the daring and hardihood to sail the seas and found settlements in the New World, they developed an intensified sense of both private and public property. Having gained a bit of territory at the expense of much labor and suffering they felt that they had an inalienable right to it, and they were ready to defend it with the last drop of their blood. The right of a people to any territory implies, of course, the right to rule over it, and in conceiving of this right, the white men always had in mind, as partners entitled to share in it, the members of their own race only. With this idea of ownership the New World was every- where explored and settled by the white men. In no colony of America was a government set up by the white men with any idea of ever includ- ing Indians or Negroes as its citizens. After the adoption of our Con- stitution the Negroes in several states acquired the privilege of suffrage through fulfilling the qualifications prescribed for and intended to apply only to whites. But, when it was discovered that Negroes could qualify for citizenship, special laws were made to exclude them in nearly all of the states. In 1860 the Negro could vote only in five New England States and under special restriction in New York. Not only was suf- frage denied the Negro, but in several states laws were made to prohibit Negro immigration. WHITE SUPREMACY AS A SOLUTION 495 The Reconstruction régime in the South made clear the fact that the white people of that region would suffer extermination rather than en- dure Negro rule, and in this respect the Southern people do not differ in the least from the Caucasians in other parts of the world. In Haiti, where the fanatics of the French Revolution decreed the supremacy of the Negro, and sent an army of 5,000 men there to enforce it, the whites, though hopelesly in the minority, fought with a courage and desperation unsurpassed in history, and continued to fight until thev were practically exterminated. In the Hawaiian Islands the Caucas- ian element, consisting chiefly of the descendants of New England, suc- ceeded in wresting the government from the native inhabitants, and our national government then took the islands under its wing, and now pre- serves white supremacy there in spite of the numerical preponderance of the natives and the Mongolians. In California the white people would no more submit to the rule of the Japanese than the Southern peonle would submit to the rule of the Negro. And the people of New England would be as determined for white supremacy as the people of the South if similarly menaced. I think it is as well settled as anything can be that the people of no state in the Union would submit to be ruled by the Negro, Mongolian, or other unassimilable race, nor would the people as a whole look on such a rule with indifference. In combating the doctrine of white supremacy it is often alleged that this is as much the Negro’s country as it is the white man’s. Hasn’t the Negro been here several centuries, and hasn’t he labored and suffered to make it what it is? This same question was asked in reference to the Negroes of the West Indies, and it was answered, from the white man’s point of view by Thomas Carlyle. The people who can make the best use of a piece of this planet, argues Carlyle, have a right to it. In the West Indies pumpkins grow in great abundance, and the natives have sat there idle, up to their ears in pumpkins. The I¢nglish came along and made the island bear the fruits which the gods intended them to bear, and also prepared the soil to produce a nobler type of man and woman. It is not a question as to who came first, but who came with the gift of converting jungle into civilization.1 This is the line of argument that the white race employs for its justification for dominance in any territory which it has redeemed from savagery. In Africa, in India, and in the East and West Indies, where the white races have planted their culture, they provide for white suprem- acy by a colonial policy which limits the suffrage of the natives and * Essay, “The Nigger Question.” 496 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE also their representation in the local assemblies and councils. And, since the United States has come to be a nation with outlying colonies, we also have had to adopt the same policy. In the Philippines, in Porto Rico, in Hawaii, and in the Danish West India Islands which we recently purchased, we have safeguarded white supremacy by limiting the voting and legislative power of the natives. As a result of the Civil War and the radical domination of Con- gress following it, our Constitution was amended with a view to pre- venting the Southern states from disfranchising the Negro. It was decreed that there should be no limitation of suffrage on the basis of color. The enactment of these amendments made it necessary for the white people of the South to maintain their supremacy by resort to intimidation, ballot jugglery, and forcible exclusion of the Negro from the polls. The use of such methods, however, was so humiliating to the Southern people, and so conducive to social disorder, that the wiser of their leaders sought to accomplish their object by enacting franchise laws with provisions which would exclude the great mass of Negroes on other grounds than color or race. Such franchise laws were enacted in nearly every Southern state, and were sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States; so that now white supremacy is maintained in the South by due process of law. It would be a mon- strous solecism if, under our Constitution, white supremacy could be provided for in our colonies and not in our states. But, while white supremacy in the United States is an unalterable fact, it does not follow that such supremacy is a solution of the Negro problem or the Mongolian problem. Another unalterable fact is that the Negroes are here to the extent of 10,000,000, and, however much the whites may dominate, there will always be a question as to how far the Negroes may approach the whites in civil privileges. Tfowever necessary and inevitable white supremacy may be, it does not follow that the exclusion of the Negro from participation in politi- cal activities is good either for the Negro or for the white man. As matters now stand, the Negro, whether in the South or in the North, has an active and effective part in politics only by depositing a ticket in the ballot box. He rarely holds office, and more rarely is a factor in party organization, primaries, stump-speaking, and the formulation of policies. It is possible to give to the Negro all of the political activities and thrills which are enjoyed by the white men without in the least jeopardizing white supremacy. In each city and state the Negro pop- WHITE SUPREMACY AS A SOLUTION 497 ulation might be divided into districts, and each district be allowed to elect so many Negro representatives to the city council and state legislature. In New Zealand the native population is allowed represen- tation in this manner, The Negroes, to the extent that they vote at all, will certainly al- ways vote solidly on a racial basis, and always will be a disturbing factor in party government and in local and national legislation. And, if white supremacy could forever eliminate the Negroes from influence in politics, it would still leave untouched the problem of the Negro as an economic and moral factor in our national life. I cannot, therefore, regard white supremacy as a solution of the Negro problem. We have had white supremacy everywhere in our country since its colonization by the white race, except during the pe- riod of Reconstruction in the South, and in the meantime the Negro problem has grown in magnitude and complexity. The great increase in the Negro population, and the rapid changes in our industrial life, have revealed the problem in new aspects, and called for new adjust- ments, demanding the highest wisdom of the men of both races. CHAPTER 64 EDUCATION AS THE SOLUTION Argument That It Is Unjust to Place the Burden of Educating the Negro upon the South and That the National Government Should Help—Views of Ex- President Taft, Raymond Patterson, William H. H. Hart, and Others OME students of the Negro problem believe that the real solution of it is to be found only in education. Raymond Patterson, a Northern man, and author of The Negro and His Needs (1911), says: “Taking a consensus of opinion among those who are striving for the uplift of the Negro, we arrive at the belief that the most practicable method of solving the race problem is the method of education, of a kind adapted to the peculiar temperament and needs of the black race. Not only justice and humanity call for it, but expediency as well. “The South was never any too rich, as regards the mass of the white people; its wealth was always concentrated among the wealthy planter class. Even of that wealth it was despoiled by the war, its fields were desolated, its plantations ruined, its capital dissipated, and its young men made old before their time, through the hardships of soldiery. To-day the South is prosperous, but it has no reserve capi- tal of its own. In fact, it is just beginning to save. Its public funds are small; its tax levies are necessarily meager; its needs are great. It will take still a generation or two to make up the vast monetary losses of the Civil War. In the face of all this, it finds itself with a growing Negro population of many millions. To ask the South, un- aided, to educate these Negroes would be a cruel injustice; and indeed, it is impossible to believe that the few rich people in the South would tax themselves to attempt to educate millions upon millions of the blacks who were once their slaves. Any effort on the part of the government to saddle the education of the black mass upon the little white minority would mean surely bankruptcy, possibly rebellion. And the Negroes obviously cannot educate themselves; they are hopelessly poor and pitifully ignorant. It is plain that there is need for a move- ment on the part of the whole nation towards the uplift and education 498 EDUCATION AS THE SOLUTION 499 of the Negro race.”* Mr. Patterson would have Congress apportion funds to the states on the basis of illiteracy. As for the kind of education needed by the Negro, Mr. Patterson favors the public common schools, side by side with manual training of the sort given at Hampton and Tuskegee. He says that the higher education of the Negro at the present time “seems like an attempt to put on the roof before the work is begun on the foundation.” He would abolish all but a few of the so-called Negro colleges and uni- versities.” Ex-President Taft has been very greatly interested in Negro edu- cation and he is president of the Hampton Institute board of trustees. In a bulletin of the Institute he makes the following statements: “The result has demonstrated that in the principles that Armstrong taught is to be found the solution of our race problem in this country. Here is to be found the explanation of the marvelous progress which the statistics show has been made by the negro race in the half century of ‘up from slavery.’ Among the chief factors in this, so far as it repre- sents real progress of the negro, are to be counted Samuel C. Arm- strong, Hollis B. Frissell, and the greatest and most distinguished graduate of Hampton, the founder of Tuskegee, that great American, Dr. Booker T. Washington. “The Hampton of to-day in material growth is far beyond what Armstrong left it. There is a great plant on an inlet of Chesapeake Bay and there is a handsome endowment, not large enough for all the purposes of the institution, but one far beyond the dreams of the founder. “The influence of Hampton upon its students is one of the most striking instances of personal inspiration that the writer has ever seen. Each year a company of men and women deeply interested in the cause of negro education and uplift meet at Hampton’s commencement and drink into their souls the spirit that the atmosphere and the en- vironment and the attitude of the students and faculty give. “Hampton is a place for pessimists to visit that they may be cured of their unhappy state of mind. It is a place for materialists to go that their hearts may be opened and that they may be taught the value of unselfish help to others in securing happiness for the helper. It is a place for statesmen to visit in order that there may be revealed to them a way of creating citizens who shall strengthen a State. It is a place * Patterson, The Negro and His Needs, p. 197. *Tbid., p. 199. 500 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE for him who would seek evidence of the great moral returns to this country from the sacrifices of the Civil War to find them at Hampton in palpable form. It is a place for the southern white man, anxious for the promotion of his section of the country, to go that he may realize, as so many of his fellows now do, how essential and how pos- sible it is to make his black fellow citizens of the fair South a source of profit, of peace, of law and order, and of general community hap- piness. “Upon the southern white man depends the solution of the race problem, and one of the hopeful signs is his growing interest in the method of solving it at Hampton and Tuskegee and the other great negro educational institutions of the South.” A. H. Merriam, another Northern man, also regards education as a proper solution of the Negro problem. “The interests at stake,’ says he, “are common to us all. The backlying cause of the trouble,—slavery and its accompaniments—was in a sense our common responsibility; we all ought to have united to get rid of it peaceably, and the North ought to have paid its share. For this dereliction the South has paid a terrible price. The North, too, suffered woefully, yet in far less measure. Would it not be the part of patriotism and statesmanship—of wisdom and good will—that all should now take some share in lifting the load which weighs heavi- est on the South, but hurts us all? ... The South is carrying more than its share of national expense, and without complaint. Our tariff system presses far heavier on the agricultural South than on the manu- facturing North. Of our payment of pensions, running up to $130,- 000,000.00 a year,—the South bears its proportion, though it is paid to men for fighting against her, and the South makes no remonstrance. Is it not simple justice, is it not a matter of national conscience and honor, that the whole nation should help her in educating the future citizens of the republic?” 3 William H. H. Hart, a quadroon lawyer and philanthropist of Wash- ington, D. C., agrees with the views of Merriam. ‘The great pity of it all,” remarks Hart, “is that the South has not the means to provide school facilities which shall approach in completeness those of the East and the great West. The war did two terrible things to the South. It exhausted its resources, and it destroyed its most promising manhood. Poverty retards progress, and poverty enforces and continues the il- literacy of the South. Senator Blair was the one statesman since Lin- * Merriam, The Negro and the Nation, p. 406. EDUCATION AS THE SOLUTION 501 coln who proposed an adequate and certain means of relief which should put the South on an equal footing with the rest of the coun- te es aa “Our institutions demand the education of the masses, and the whole country must, in the nature of things, provide the common school for the great ignorant masses of the colored population in the South. It is unfair to expect the whites of the Southern States to bear the entire burden.” 4 “Quoted by Patterson, op. cit., p. 172. CHAPTER 6s DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW Interest in Social Equality and in Political Measures among Northern Negroes— Ideas of DuBois and Booker Washington Contrasted—Denunciation of Roosevelt and Harding by Northern Negroes for Their Remarks on the Race Problem—Evidence That the. Negroes Are Losing Ground Because of Their Radical Leadership N reference to nearly everything which concerns the welfare of their race, the Negroes of our country are divided into two op- posing camps. One group seeks the interest of their race through law enforcement, and the enactment of more legislation designed to pro- tect the Negroes against unfair discriminations, and its general atti- tude towards the whites, especially the Southern whites, is one of antagonism. The other seeks the interest of their race through the elevation of its economic, educational, and moral status, with the view of preparing it for the exercise of whatever rights and privileges be- long to free men. And this latter group, in all of its policies, seeks a better understanding and cooperation between the races. The Negroes of the first group are generally mulattoes who reside in the Northern states where there are relatively few pure Negroes. They do not feel at home with the blacks, and, unable to find a place among the whites, they have a constricted and unsatisfying social life which causes them to feel isolated, lonely, and sometimes bitter. Being generally better educated than the mass of Negroes, they all aspire to leadership, but there are few careers open to them in the line of service to their own race, owing to the smallness of the Negro population. They find their most inviting field in politics or in journalism. The business of corralling the Negro vote is a fascinating one, and offers prospects of appointment to a job under the national government, or some city government. As editors of newspapers, they all aspire to be spokesman for the mass of Negroes in both sections of our country. But they are handicapped as leaders by lack of contact and familiarity with the darker mass of their race, and they are apt to emphasize phases of the Negro problem which are of particular interest to the mulatto 502 DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 503 only. The question they are more interested in than any other is that of social equality, and their main efforts are directed to the abolition of all laws or arrangements which would prevent the free intermixture of the whites and blacks in schools, vehicles of transportation, hotels, restaurants, theaters, parks, etcetera, and to building up a public senti- ment which would do away with every form of discrimination on ac- count of color. They assume that the Negro is equal to the white man, and that whatever interferes with the free intermingling of the two races is merely the result of narrow prejudice. They look with disfavor on any author who makes a plea for any kind of racial in- tegrity. A recent reviewer in the Journal of Negro History refers to “the idea of racial integrity” as “‘the fundamental cause of race hatexn? The other group of Negroes are residents of the Southern states in which there are large masses of their race. The leaders among them are largely mulattoes, but include also a number of men of rather dark complexion. The Southern mulattoes generally find a satisfying social life among their own people, and consequently have no craving for social intermixture with the whites. They care nothing for what is called “social equality,” and do not understand why anybody wants to discuss it. They know intimately the characteristics and conditions of the mass of their people, and they realize that the greatest need of the race is a rise in its level of culture through advancement in in- dustry, education, and morals. They are decidedly interested in politics, and aggressive in their demands for justice before the law and in the courts, but they em- phasize duties and responsibilities, and economic and moral efficiency more than civil rights, and believe that the surest means of acquiring any right is by demonstrating one’s fitness to exercise it. The South- ern Negro leaders generally feel that the fate of the blacks and the whites is indissolubly bound together, and they therefore seek friendly relations and cooperation with the whites. The mulatto leaders of the North, knowing little of the Southern Negro and less of the Southern white man, do not understand why a Southern Negro can feel friendly toward the Southern white man. They therefore assume that the popularity of a Southern Negro leader among white people must be due to a truculent spirit, or to hypocritical diplomacy. One of the chief objections they raised against Booker Washington was his popularity with the Southern whites. He was ac- Sate 025) -p. 103: 504. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE cused of truckling to the whites, and of introducing into the North the Southern white man’s estimate of the Negro. Southern Negroes who have friends among Southern white people are stigmatized as “pussy- footers,” and “white folks’ niggers.” ° Charles Price, the forerunner of Booker Washington as a champion of industrial education for the Negroes, was a strong advocate of codperation between the races, and it is certain that he enjoyed the friendship and esteem of a large circle of the best white people. Wher- ever he lectured he had as many white people in his audiences as col- ored people. The fact is that it is quite impossible for any Negro educator, preacher, politician, or other kind of leader in the South, to amount to anything without having a large circle of admirers and loyal friends among the whites. The Southern white people, whatever else may be said of them, are good sportsmen, and are ever ready to push forward and brag on any man who has won success in any line of usefulness, in spite of political differences. It is therefore quite im- possible for a Southern Negro to attain to any worthy distinction without having friends among the whites, and it is natural for him to feel kindly toward the whites, and very unnatural for him to feel animosity toward them. Booker Washington, like all preceding South- ern Negroes who have attained to distinction, grew up with many ties binding him in sympathy to the white people, and he aspired to merit their good will, friendship, and cooperation. Moreover, Booker Wash- ington was a man of such broad sympathy and outlook, and of such fine spirit, that it would have been impossible for him to feel hatred toward his white neighbor. Dr. Moton, the successor of Booker Washington as principal of Tuskegee and as leader of the Southern Negroes, is naturally very popular with Southern white people because of his high character and achievements. And having grown up among the whites, he knows them, and finds them in many ways helpful to him. He there- fore has no disposition to hate them, but reciprocates their good will, and realizes, as Booker Washington did, the advantages of their support. The following article from the Broad Axe of Chicago, April 2, 1921, illustrates the difference of attitude between the Northern and Southern Negro toward the white people: “It is nauseating to read the rot given out by R. R. Moton, principal of Tuskegee, as he travels * Ferris, The African Abroad, Vol. I, p. 184. * Crisis, Vol. 5, p. 21. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 505 through the South in jim-crow cars, stopping now and then to make speeches lauding his oppressors. If he were the only one to suffer it would matter little, but his words are promptly telegraphed all over the country, and every time he opens his mouth the colored people sink lower in the minds of those who read. Many of his statements are wholly without foundation in fact. “For instance in a recent lecture before the students of the Uni- versity of North Carolina, the wires say he said: “The Negro race has advanced further than any similar number of colored people anywhere on the globe because it has the privilege of coming in contact with the white people of the South.’ Could anything with a smaller amount of truth and a greater amount of servility be compressed into one sen- tence? “The census of Brazil shows that there are about 22,000,000 people with more or less Negro blood in that country, or nearly twice as many as there are in the United States, according to census figures. And the colored people of Brazil, although they were once slaves, and were not emancipated until 1888, a quarter of a century after Lincoin’s procla- mation, have advanced further than the colored people in this country, because they have reached the point where color does not count. They are absolutely free from any social or civil discrimination. The color line does not exist in Brazil, and the blackest Brazillian is in every way the peer of the whitest of his countrymen. “Principal Moton deems it a wonderful thing that his race ‘has had the privilege of coming into contact with the white people of the South.’ Here are some of the benefits of the contact: Two hundred and fifty years of slavery; enactment of the infamous Black Codes to retain slavery, in fact, after its abolition; segregation; denial of living wages; denial of equal school facilities; disfranchisement; jim-crow cars, etcetera. Why even Tuskegee Institute which furnishes Prin- cipal Moton his bread and butter is the gift of the North. Northern people have given 95 percent of the endowment fund, and the greater portion of the running expenses is begged in the North. The State of Alabama gives the measly sum of about $3,000. “Here is another gem from Principal Moton: ‘To the Southern white people we owe our language and our religion, and all that we have learned and all that we have advanced in civilization.’ Think of a man who would say such things being the head of an institution which trains the youths. Is it strange that many of the students come out imbued with distorted ideas of their proper place in the world? 506 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “Then Principal Moton came out in his peroration in which he said that ‘no Southern colored man wanted social equality.’ In that statement he showed his ignorance of the English language. He prob- ably meant to say that the colored people were not seeking matrimonial alliances with white people. Principal Moton may not wish social equality, but there are millions of colored people who desire it. “For a colored man to laud the brutal South, which has heaped un- speakable wrongs upon his people for hundreds of years, is a disgusting exhibition of servility.” W. E. B. DuBois believes that the solution of the Negro problem can be brought about only by according to the Negro all the political and social privileges accorded to the whites, and, so far as education is a factor in the problem, he believes that the first step is to develop, through higher institutions of learning, an intellectual aristocracy among his people. “The Negro race,’ he says, “like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes, must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth: it is the prob- lem of developing the best of their race that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst, in their own and Diller Tacesou. wal, “If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher [Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread-winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life... .* “Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of their aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes which have hindered that progress were the thinking first that *The Negro Problem, by representative Negroes, p. 34. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 507 no more could ever rise save the few already risen; or second, that it would better the unrisen to pull the risen down.® “T would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say and insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk with its vision of success to imagine that its work can be accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men, and women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public schools; Mi4.:4.9 “Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work—it must teach Life. The Tal- ented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.” 7 Charles W. Chesnutt, like DuBois, emphasizes political action and believes that everything is subordinate to the Negro’s obtaining full civil rights: “Nations do not at first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, and often times fall back into slavery again be- cause of too great wealth, and the resulting luxury and carelessness of civic virtues. The process of education has been going on rapidly in the Southern States since the Civil War, and yet, if we take superficial indications, the rights of the Negroes are at a lower ebb than at any time during the thirty-five years of their freedom, and the race preju- dice more intense and uncompromising.” § Mr. Chesnutt might be interested to know that a philosophy exactly opposite to his was once held by no less a person than Victor Hugo. In reference to an incendiary who had set fire to a library, Hugo ex- claimed: “A crime committed by yourself against yourself, infamous creature . . . for knowledge comes first to man, then comes liberty.” ® ° The Negro Problem, by representative Negroes, p. 45. *Tbid., p. 61. *Tbid., p. 75. *Tbid.. p. 104. *See poem, “Whose is the Fault.” 508 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE The great mass of Negro politicians and editors of papers follow the lead of DuBois, Chesnutt, and other Negroes of a radical type. What Booker T. Washington thought as to the solution of the Negro problem may be summed up in the following extracts from his writings: ‘“Scarcely a week or a month goes by that I do not find on my desk a letter, a pamphlet, or a book in which some one has tried to formulate a solution of the race problem. Many of these letters and pamphlets contain valuable suggestions, and, so far as I am able to do so, I read them all, read them with interest and, I hope, with profit. As a rule, however, it seems to me that these solutions have one com- mon fault. They start out apparently with the notion that the Negro is a fixed quantity, always and everywhere the same, and then proceed as if the race problem, like a problem in arithmetic, could be solved once and for all by a mere process of reasoning, once you had defined all the terms. “The trouble in this case is that, like other human problems, the race problem is one in which the terms are not fixed and cannot, therefore, be brought into the shape of a hard and fast formula. “For my own part I have long ago given up the notion of solving the race problem wholesale. It seems to me rather that it can only be solved in detail. It is for this reason that I find myself interested in the progress of the individual Negro quite as much as I am interested in the progress of the general average. The colored man who breaks a record, who does something new and better in his particular line than any other colored man has done before, is not only widening the opportunities of the race, but he is encouraging others to follow in his steps. What one man has done another may do.” ?° “In my mind there is no doubt but that we made a mistake at the beginning of our freedom of putting the emphasis on the wrong end. Politics and the holding of office were too largely emphasized, almost to the exclusion of every other interest. “I believe the past and present teach but one lesson—to the Negro’s friends and to the Negro himself,—that there is but one way out, that there is but one hope of solution; and that is for the Negro in every part of America to resolve henceforth that he will throw aside every non-essential and cling only to the essential,—that his pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day shall be property, economy, education, and Christian character. To us just now these are the wheat, all else the chaff. The individual or race that owns the property, pays the * “Solving the Negro Problem in Detail,” Independent, Mar. 27, 1912. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 509 taxes, possesses the intelligence and substantial character, is the one which is going to exercise the greatest control in government, whether he lives in the North or whether he lives in the South.” ™ “T would teach the race that in industry the foundation must be Jaid—that the very best service which anyone can render to what is called the higher education is to teach the present generation to provide a material or industrial foundation. On such a foundation as this will grow habits of thrift, a love of work, economy, ownership of property, bank accounts. Out of it in the future will grow practical education, professional education, positions of public responsibility. Out of it will grow moral and religious strength. Out of it will grow wealth from which alone can come leisure and the opportunity for the enjoyment of literature and the fine arts.” 1° Booker Washington believed fully in higher learning for his race, but thought that the greater present need was practical education for the masses. He said: “I believe most earnestly that for years to come the education of the people of my race should be so directed that the greatest proportion of the mental strength of the masses will be brought to bear upon the everyday practical things of life, upon some- thing which they will be permitted to do in the community, in which they reside: 43 “There is danger that a certain class of impatient extremists among the Negroes, who have little knowledge of the actual conditions in the South, may do the entire race injury by attempting to advise their breth- ren in the South to resort to armed resistance or the use of the torch, in order to secure justice. All intelligent and well-considered discus- sion of any important question or condemnation of any wrong, both in the North and the South, from public platform and through the press, is to be commended and encouraged; but ill-considered, incendi- ary utterances from black men in the North will tend to add to the burdens of our people in the South rather than relieve them.” "4 Dr. R. R. Moton, the successor to Washington at Tuskegee, holds that the Negro problem is one for the Negro himself to solve by lifting himself to a higher level of culture, and is fundamentally a moral one. “Whatever question there may be about the white man’s part in this situation, there is no doubt about ours. Don’t let us delude our- "The Future of the American Negro, p. 132. “The Negro Problem, by representative Negroes, New York, 1903, p. 18. Ot. Dil. “The Future of the American Negro, p. 206. 510 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE selves but keep in mind the fact that the man who owns his home and cultivates his land and lives a decent, self-respecting, useful, and help- ful life is no problem anywhere. We talk about the ‘color line,’ but you know and I know that the blackest Negro in Alabama or Mis- sissippi or Africa or anywhere else who puts the same amount of skill and energy into his farming gets as large returns for his labor as the whitest Anglo-Saxon. The earth yields up her increase as willingly to the skill and persuasions of the black as to the white husbandman. Wind, wave, heat, steam, and electricity are absolutely blind forces, and see no race distinction and draw no ‘color line.’ The world’s market does not care and asks no.question about the shade of the hand that produces the commodity, but it does insist that it shall be up to the world’s requirements. “I thank God for the excellent chance to work that my race had in this Southern country; the Negro in America has a real, good, healthy job, and I hope he may always keep it. I am not particular what he does, or where he does it, so he is engaged in honest, useful, Works"), “The race problem in this country, I repeat, is simply a part of the problem of life. It is the adjustment of man’s relation to his brother, and this adjustment began when Cain slew Abel. Race pre- judice is as much a fact as the law of gravitation, and it is as foolish to ignore the operation of one as of the other. Mournful complaint and arrogant criticism are as useless as the crying of a babe against the fury of a great wind. The path of moral progress, remember, has never taken a straight line, but I believe that unless Democracy is a failure and Christianity a mockery, it is entirely feasible and practicable for the black and white races of America to develop side by side, in peace, in harmony, and in mutual helpfulness each toward the other ; living together as ‘brothers in Christ without being brothers-in-law,’ each making its contributions to the wealth arid culture of our beloved country.” 15 Paul Laurence Dunbar offered no special recipe for the uplift of the Negro race, but believed that the conditions underlying the ad- vancement of the Negro “are the same that account for the advancement of men of any other race: preparation, perseverance, bravery, patience, honesty and the power to seize the opportunity.” 7° * Address delivered at Tuskegee, May, 1902, printed in Dunbar, Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, p. 367. ** The Negro Problem, by representative Negroes, p. 209. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 511 He differs from most other Negro authors in laying little emphasis upon political propaganda, and he was not an admirer of the Negro politician. “The street corner politician,’ he says, ‘“who through ques- tionable methods or even through skillful manipulation, succeeds in securing the janitorship of the Court House, may be written up in the local papers as representative, but is he? . . . The rabid agitator who goes about the land preaching the independence and glory of his race, and by his very mouthings retarding both, saintly missionary, whose only mission is, like that of ‘Pooh Bah!’ to be insulted; the man of the cloth who thunders against the sins of the world and from whom honest women draw away their skirts, the man, who talks temperance and tipples high-balls—these are not representative, and whatever their station in life, they should be rated at their proper value, for there is a difference between attainment and achievement. “Under the pure light of reason, the ignorant carpet-bagger judge is a person and not a personality. The illiterate and inefficient black man, whom circumstance put into Congress, was a representative but was not representative.” *” “To have achieved something for the betterment of his race rather than for the aggrandizement of himself, seems to be a man’s best title to be called representative.” 1° Dunbar goes on to say “that for the last forty years the most help- ful men of the race have come from the ranks of its teachers, and few of those who have finally done any big thing, but have at some time or other held the scepter of authority in a school.” ?® He gives high praise to Booker Washington, W. H. Council of the Normal School of Alabama, R. R. Wright of the State College of Georgia, Kelly Miller of Howard University, and W. E. B. DuBois of Atlanta University. He also points with pride to Negroes who have achieved distinction in art, and he believes that it will be through indi- vidual achievements of something “definite and concrete” that ‘the race problem will gradually solve itself.” 7° Booker Washington, in his celebrated Atlanta speech in 1895, ex- pressed the point of view of the Southern Negro when he said, “In all things purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” At this time Booker “The Negro Problem, by representative Negroes, p. 192. * Tbid., p. 180. ™ Ibid., p. 200. ® Ibid., p. 206. 512 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE ee pai UU ES ie nhc lel ia ee ee ea Washington was at the head of an industrial school for Negroes in Tuskegee, Alabama, and his address was a plea for more general indus- trial education for his race ; his remark about social separation of the two races was only incidental. The practical philosophy of the address, and its incisive and forceful style, as well as its fine spirit, made an electrical impression on his audience, and Booker Washington was at one bound a famous man. The part of his address referring to social separateness, however, did not meet the approval of mulattoes in the North. They regarded Booker Washington’s figure of speech as a compromise, and in all of their references to his Atlanta address they still call it the “Atlanta Compromise.” The Northern mulattoes, because they cannot associate with the whites, and do not want to associate with the blacks, are hyper- sensitive on the subject of social opportunities and privileges. The different points of view of the Northern and Southern Negroes in ref- erence to social equality are brought out in their attitude toward an address delivered by President Harding at Birmingham, Alabama, October 26, 1921. The President began his speech with a quotation from an article in the Edinburgh Review by F. D. Lugard as follows: “Here, then, is the true conception of the interrelation of color—complete uniformity in ideals, absolute equality in the paths of knowledge and culture, equal opportunity for those who strive, equal admiration for those who achieve ; in matters social and racial a separate path, each pursuing his own inherited traditions, preserving his own purity and race pride; equality in things spiritual, agreed divergence in the physical and marital.” Concerning this statement of Mr. Lugard’s the President said: “Here, it has seemed to me, is the suggestion of the true way out. Politically and economically there need be no occasion for great and permanent differentiation, for limitations of the individual’s opportunity, provided that on both sides there shall be recognition of the absolute divergence in things social and racial. When I suggest the possibility of economic equality between the races, I mean it in precisely the same way and to the same extent that I would mean it if I spoke of equality of economic opportunity as between members of the same race. In each case I would mean equality proportioned to the honest capacities and deserts of the individual.” The President could not have said anything more in line with the views of Booker Washington. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 513 Dr. R. R. Moton, in an article in the Outlook, November 9, 1921, commending very highly the President’s address, said: “The President has proposed a platform upon which black and white, North and South, can stand without sacrifice, on the one hand, of any traditions of the white race, and, on the other, without sacrifice, of any fundamental rights of the Negro as an American citizen. “Furthermore, the President has asked for the Negro nothing more than what leading men of both races in the South are asking, and we are grateful to him for having delivered the address in the South where the problem is most acute. Huis address comes at the opportune time when not only the leading white people of the South, but the average white person as well, are more determined than ever before that the Negro shall have an equal chance with other Americans,” The Southern Negro leaders and the rank and file of Southern colored people, were highly pleased with the President’s speech. But the Negro leaders in the North were thrown into a rage by its utterance on the social question. For example, William A. St. Clair, writing to the Guardian, a Negro paper of Boston, said: “The speech delivered by President Harding in Birmingham, Alabama, yesterday is fraught with the most dangerous, pernicious, destructive and hell-born doctrines that have ever been uttered in the fifty years of our development, not only by a president of the United States, but by any responsible Cabi- net Minister. “The colored race cannot afford to ignore these utterances; un- questionably great harm has already been done our race as indicated by remarks made by some white people in my hearing, and incalculable in- jury to our race will certainly follow. “President Harding exploits in Birmingham, in the heart of the South, and in the very toils of the serpent of racial prejudice, the doc- trines of amalgamation, social equality and the question of the Colored ballot; and as I see it, simply to gain the favor of those whites in the South who have been the oppressors of our race, and who have used their every power to destroy us as American citizens.” Even Theodore Roosevelt, while he was President, came in for severe denunciation from the Northern mulattoes on account of his utterances on the race problem before a Southern audience. He was held up as turning traitor to the Negroes because he emphasized the Negroes’ duties more than their rights in a speech to colored people at Jacksonville, Florida, in 1905. He said: “It seems to me that it is true of all of us that our duties are even more important than our 514 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE rights. If we do our duties faithfully in spite of the difficulties that come, then sooner or later the rights will take care of themselves.” 4 The chief factor in the opposition to Booker Washington arose from the jealousy of the Northern mulattoes. The meteoric appearance of Booker Washington among the luminaries of the race excited the envy of the Northern Negroes, and they set themselves to work very dili- gently to undermine his hold upon the great mass of his race, and also upon the white people, North and South. The opposition to Washington was started by DuBois who objected that Washington’s educational policy underrated the value of institutions of learning of the classical type. This was followed by criticisms of a less rational and more cap- tious nature from other leading Negroes. | The initial onslaught upon Booker Washington was made by George Washington Forbes of Boston, who is described by a Negro author as “endowed with the generalship of Napoleon, George Washington, Abra- ham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, Count Von Moltke, and James G. Blaine.” ?? During his several years of editorship of the Guardian “he mapped out the campaign against Booker T. Washington.” 7? Forbes had the sup- port of the Northern mulattoes, and he lost no opportunity to belittle, misrepresent, and antagonize every move or utterance which Washington made. Booker Washington was charged with responsibility for the disfranchisement laws in the South, for the extension of the jim-crow laws, for lynchings, and for every handicap to which the race was subjected. It was alleged that “he ridiculed the higher aspirations of his own people, and asked his own people to cease contending for man- hood rights,” ?* that he built up a “colored political and educational machine,” that he used money to bolster up his partners’ newspapers, that he sought to exclude men not of his party from securing any edu- cational, political, ecclesiastical, or editorial jobs, or from securing financial support for their institutions, that he “showered his favors upon the mediocre men in the Negro race, and attempted to starve the powerful men into submission.” 75 The Negro author, Ferris, speaking of the crystallization of opposi- tion to Washington, says: ‘Then, Hon. John E. Milholland, Editor Oswald Garrison Villard, Miss Mary White Ovington, author of that * Quoted from the Springfield Republican. ™ Ferris, The African Abroad, Vol. 1, p. 915. * Tbid., Vol. 1, p. 915. *4 Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 184. e FOtds, VO 2, 4 O13. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW SIs splendid monograph, ‘Half a Man,’ Mr. William Walling, Hon. Moor- field Story, Hon. A. E. Pillsbury, and other prominent men and women of both races, organized the Society for the Advancement of Colored People ; elected Hon. Moorfield Storey as President; selected DuBois as secretary, with headquarters in New York City; and interested such public spirited citizens as Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Mr. Jacob S. Schiff, Mr. Henry Morgenthau, and Prof. Spingarn in it; then DuBois forged ahead of Washington, and became the recognized spokesman for his race.” 7° The organization of the N.A.A.C.P. definitely divided the Ne- groes of the United States into two opposing schools of thought. The one, composed mostly of Northern mulattoes, emphasized political ac- tion, and, because of its general indictment of the whites (the Southern whites in particular), and its violent and braggadocio spirit, was called the militant school. The program of the N.A.A.C.P. for 1921 relates entirely to political lines of action, and is as follows: “1, Anti-Lynching legislation by Congress 2. Abolition of Segregation in the Departments at Washington 3. Enfranchisement of the Negro or reduction of southern repre- sentation, if necessary 4. Restoration of Haitian independence and reparation, as far as possible, for wrongs committed there by the American administration, through Congressional investigation of both military and civil acts of the American Occupation 5. Presentation to the new President of a mammoth petition of say, 100,000 bona fide signers, collected by the various branches, re- questing the pardon of the soldiers of the 24th Infantry imprisoned at Leavenworth on the charge of rioting at Houston, Texas 6. The abolition of jim-crow cars in interstate traffic 7. Treatment of colored men in the Navy; where once many ratings as non-commissioned officers were held by Negroes, now colored men can enlist only as mess boys, in other words, as servants 8. Appointment of a National Inter-Racial Commission to make an earnest study of race conditions and race relations in the United States g. Appointment of colored assistant secretaries in the Labor and ‘Agricultural Departments which would give the Negro official represen- tation in the two phases of national life where he needs most and suf- fers most Io. Continuance of the fight in the Arkansas cases.” * Ferris, op. cit., Vol, 2, p. 912, 516 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Albeit that some of the above proposed measures are meritorious, the program as a whole has several serious faults. In the first place, it is a revival of the spirit and policy which characterized the radical carpet-bag régime of Reconstruction days in the South, and, if the program were carried out, it would result in another régime of Negro rule, with all of such a régime’s evil consequences to both races. And it has the same fault as the carpet-bag leadership in concentrating the interest of the Negro upon political activities. It leaves out of sight entirely any constructive policy designed to meet the practical needs of the race, such as a better laying hold of the obvious economic oppor- tunities now available and fast slipping away, the elevation of the domestic life of the race, and measures for bringing about a higher mental and moral efficiency. It tends too much to throw the burden of the Negro’s problems upon political action by the whites, and to incul- cate race dependency instead of race self-help. Another fault of the program is that it asks for political appoint- ments in the department at Washington on the basis of race. If the Germans, Irish, Poles, Jews, Italians, and other races, would also clamor for racial representation, we would arrive at a state of things worse than the spoils system. To be sure, the Negro, like every other race, ought to be considered in making political appointments in so far as it furnishes men preéminently fitted for the jobs, but it is un-Ameri- can, and certainly a very unpopular policy, for any race to organize and demand political patronage. The Association for the Advancement of the Colored People has an official organ, the Crisis, and it sends out lecturers all over the country to agitate in favor of its program. ‘The three subjects which are most vehemently stressed are lynching, jim-crow laws, and the reénfran- chisement of the Negro. The Association assumes that the exercise of the franchise is a natural right, and seeks to abolish the franchise re- strictions in the South, and to restore the government of those states to the status of the Reconstruction era. The absence of any condemnation of rape or other crime, or any concern for the diminution of Negro crime, is conspicuous. Race segregation in schools, even where the Negroes of the locality have expressed a preference for it, is denounced as race apostasy. The chief exponent of the radical Negro point of view is William Monroe Trotter, editor of the Boston Guardian. He would have the North take up arms again, and punish the South for its position on the Negro question, and he is ever ready to hurl epithets, even at a North- DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 517 ern white man, who does not go the full length in championing the cause of the Negro in every issue that arises. For instance, he denounced Roosevelt for his discharge of the Negro soldiers connected with the Brownsville riot. The egoism of Trotter is so crass that he cannot bear the least rivalry in his self-assumed role of Negro leadership. Hence Booker Washington was to him like a red rag to a bull, and was de- nounced as a traitor to his race. Some years ago, when Washington went to Boston to address a colored audience in Zion Church, “Trotter and his friends scattered cayenne pepper on the rostrum, and created a disturbance which broke up the meeting.” *’ But, although Trotter was jailed for this offense, he was not in the least ashamed of it, but regarded it as a splendid exhibition of Negro heroism. Trotter’s newspaper, and others of like kind throughout the North, keep up an incessant tirade against what they call race prejudice in total obliviousness to the fact that they exhibit more of it than any other class in America. If any Southern white editor should carry on a campaign of abuse of the Negro half so full of narrowness, male- volence, and ignorant prejudice as is characteristic of a large section of the Northern Negro press, he would be universally condemned by the Southern sentiment. The Trotter type of newspaper is blind to the fact that, in inflaming the passions of the Negro against the Southern whites, they are at the same time kindling race animosities in the North, and driving all whites and blacks into opposing camps. It is amazing that the race which has the most to lose from race prejudice should be the most deliberate and aggressive in stirring it up. The rampant type of Negro would do well to take the hint thrown out by the Chicago Tribune, to wit: “The blacks form less than ten percent of the popu- lation of the United States. They have less than one-tenth of a ghost of a show if the relations between white and black become bitterly hostile.” 28 The jeremiad of the Negroes concerning the white South, which has been carried on since the Civil War, is causing the colored people to lose the sympathy and support of a class of whites, both in the North and in the South, whose help the colored people of our country greatly need now, and will hereafter need more urgently. As evidence that the Negroes are losing hold upon the best class of white people, I will cite the following remarks by writers outside of the South: * Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 225. * Quoted in Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 552. 518 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Reverend Francis J. Grimké, a prominent Negro of Washington, D. C., says: “Many of those who were our best friends, who stood by us during the great struggle for freedom, before and immediately after the war, are now on the other side . . . if there should be an uprising of the blacks, there would not only be a united South, but also a united North, to crush it out.” *° William Archer, our English critic, observes that in the North “the dislike of the individual has greatly increased, the theoretic fond- ness for the race has very perceptibly cooled.” *° The Outlook quotes with approval the remarks of A. H. Stone of Mississippi on the two types of Negro leaders. In introducing Dr. Moton to an audience at Greenville, Mississippi, Mr. Stone said: “There are to-day two groups of Negro leaders—groups which are as wide apart as the Poles and which are as distinct as the whites and Negroes themselves. I am not going to call any names. One set of Negro leaders is distinctly radical. The leadership of the other group is con- servative and is working for peace and harmony between the races. It is left with the white people to choose which Negro leadership they will encourage. “There is no more trying position in American life to-day than that of a conservative Negro leader in the South. He must steer an even course and at the same time maintain his position of leadership without sacrificing any right principle. When Booker T. Washington died and I was appealed to for a suggestion as to the man to succeed him, I replied, without hesitation, that Robert R. Moton stood head and shoulders above all other men.” The Outlook adds this comment: “Mr. W. Anthony Aery, the secretary of Hampton, himself a white man, tells us that in traveling with Dr. Moton on the trip, during which the Greenville meeting was held, he found himself comparing conditions between the races as they are now and as they were when years ago he made a similar trip with Booker Washington. He noted in Mississippi ‘a growing spirit of racial good will and racial cooperation.’ He found ‘white and black folks everywhere discovering—almost intuitively—that they cannot make much real progress by hoeing their rows as separate groups. They are dis- covering that they can go ahead very much faster by pulling together and by forgetting some of their differences.’ ”™The Negro, His Rights and Wrongs, p. 34. * Through Afro-America, p. 209. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 519 “We agree with Mr. Aery’s conclusion that ‘the influence of men like Booker T. Washington, Robert R. Moton, and others, scoffed at as conservatives, has been invaluable in bringing about this era of good feeling.’ ” Maurice Evans, an Englishman, having become acquainted with the militant school of Negroes during his sojourn in the United States, is led to remark: “The impression I got was that it was essentially a mulatto movement. The leaders I met were mostly men of mixed blood, and whatever may be the composition of the rank and file, it may be taken as true that those who inaugurated the movement, and those who gave it force and direction, are in the main whites and part whites. This is what I should have expected.** “Whenever and wherever I met the disciples of this school I knew what to expect,—a list of grievances, injustices and insults, and I got to expect exaggeration. As my personal experience widened with my travels and observations, I was able to cite what I had seen, sometimes in extenuation, but this was seldom favorably received. It seemed to me, that rather than accept palliatives, even when tending to establish permanently better relations, they would reject them, and unless any change went to the root of the matter, would prefer to hear that the bonds were tightened rather than relaxed, thus giving them additional cause for complaint. “T have before me a copy of a letter, couched in the most courteous terms, written by a white sympathizer, and remonstrating at the tone of certain articles which criticize recent racial occurrences, and counselling that a more moderate tone be adopted. The reply, which may be said to represent officially the opinions and temper of this school, is full of stinging bitterness, with caustic and biting references to such careful and cushioned friends, who will not follow them all the way. “There is a conspicuous absence of anything like a constructive side of their policy. In scathing terms they refer to the industrial move- ment among the Negroes, and deride the efforts to make a carpenter out of that which they contend is not yet a man. First they say, let the Negro be made a man with a man’s rights, and then set to work to make him what else you will. . . . This party or school do not, how- ever, seem to assist the Negro to improve his condition by education or otherwise. “Tt struck me as somewhat cowardly to fulminate against abuses in * Black and White in the Southern States, p. 199. 520 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE the comparative safety of the North, and create bitter disaffection among those in the South who might have to suffer grievous wrong as the result of imbibing such teaching.” *? Ray Stannard Baker, a Bostonian, thus expresses himself on the subject: “While Washington is building a great educational institution, and organizing the practical activities of the race, DuBois is the lonely critic holding up distant ideals. Where Washington cultivates friendly human relationships with white people among whom the lot of the Negro is cast, DuBois, sensitive to rebuff, draws more and more away from white people... .” * “Down at the bottom—it will seem trite, but it is eternally true— the cause of the race problem, and most other social problems, is simply lack of understanding and sympathy between man and man. And the remedy is equally simple—a gradual substitution of understanding and sympathy for blind repulsion and hatred.” *4 “Owing to the increase of Negro population, and for other causes which I have already mentioned, sentiment in the North toward the Negro has been undergoing a swift change.” *° “In every large city both white and colored people told me that race feeling and discrimination were rapidly increasing.” °° The cause of growing prejudice against the Negro: “is the bump- tiousness, the airiness of the half-ignorant young Negro, who, feeling that he has rights, wants to be occupied constantly in using them. He mistakes liberty for license.” *” “Summed up, I think the feeling of the better class of people in Boston (and elsewhere in Northern cities) might be thus stated: ‘We have helped the Negro to liberty; we have helped to educate him; we have encouraged him to stand on his own feet. Now let’s see what he can do for himself. After all, he must survive or perish by his own enrOriso ne The drifting apart of the races seems to have been observed by DuBois: “Nothing has come to replace that finer sympathy and love between some masters and house servants, which the radical and more ” Black and White in the Southern States, p. 199. * Following the Color Line, p. 223. Tol Wid. DP. 30T, ™ (bid. D.. 218. ie Rn bee "hid. p. 125. *Tbid., p. 118. DIFFERENT NEGRO POINTS OF VIEW 521 uncompromising drawing of the color line in recent years has caused almost completely to disappear.’ °° Frederick H. Hoffman speaks of Negro leadership as follows: “While here and there some able men of the colored race have sounded the word of warning, and have preached the gospel of hard work and self-help, the great majority of those who have undertaken to direct the fortunes of the negro race have, through false education, diverted the tendencies of the race in a direction which must lead to disaster.” *° William H. Thomas, author of The American Negro, regards the racial problem as one which the Negro must solve himself by a regen- eration of his character. He believes, as the typical religious evangelist, that the most important thing in life is the individual’s choice between righteousness and sin, and between wisdom and folly. “The truth is,” says Thomas, “that Negroes have not yet realized that their inefficiency is due to fundamental and inherent traits of character in no sense related to external conditions. Nor do they comprehend that the eradication of such characteristic defects is the one thing needful before they can hope to secure recognition and place among the efficient forces of society.” * “The relation between the races is daily becoming more liable at any moment to precipitate actual hostilities between them. The grav- ity of the situation is further accentuated for the reason that the ig- norant and credulous freedmen have no adequate conception of their shortcomings. Devoid of discernment and sober judgment, they pose as the peers of their immediate white fellow-citizens, such is their colossal conceit, and are imbued with the belief that the people of the North stand ready to support and defend them in these pretensions.” * Thomas adds in reference to the Negro leader: “His fiery denun- ciations of social ostracisms are marvels of rhetorical rhapsody, and his fervid prophesies of the achievements of his people a hundred years hence reach the topmost wave of hysterical ecstasy; but as to how the race, with its millenniums of sensuous burdens, can attain the one or eliminate the other, he is portentously silent, because he obviously has no suggestion to make.” * “While Saxon industry and courage are achieving their purpose, * “Relation of Negroes to Whites,” Annals of the American Academy, Vol. 18, Denlet: ” Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 286. “The American Negro, p. 207. aL OSGi Dy 227% PS Tbid. npeigsts 522 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Negro lethargy, Micawber-like, stands waiting for something to turn up in the way of donated relief.” ** “Though golden opportunities for acquiring knowledge and material gain lie all about him, such is his characteristic shiftlessness and so in- trenched is he in mental stubborness and foolish egoism, that he is never other than a sensuous dawdler, glorying in self-laudation.” * In regard to the Negro’s complaint of repression by the whites, Thomas remarks: “In setting up this plea, the fact is overlooked that, while other races gather in the fruits of achievement, he lies at the bottom of our social organization expending energy in useless mur- murs.” 46 Thomas further adds the remark that “the accredited spokes- men of the race are incessantly striving to shift their obvious duties to other shoulders, and lay the blame of their own misdeeds to other causes than their own shortcomings.” *7 Even some Boston Negroes seem to be out of sympathy with the radical type of leadership. One of them, writing to the New York Age, remarks that the better element of both white and colored people is disgusted over the frequent assembling of radicals in Faneuil Hall, and the “throwing up of their hats, yelling and going into hysterics over some subject relating to somebody a thousand miles away, never in re- lation to conditions right at home.” 48 The Negroes in America have had too many Moseses leading them into, instead of out of, the wilderness. They have been kept in a state of alternate hysteria and prostration from the over stimulation of their passions. Their grievances, real and imaginary, have been overworked. Their vision of the realities of life has been so highly colored by exag- geration that they have lost the faculty of rational judgment. Pro- fessor Willcox remarks in this connection: “I cannot accept a large proportion of the accounts printed in Northern papers, describing the relations of the two races in the South. One of the virtues of civiliza- tion imperfectly developed in the Negro race is veracity, and accounts coming from them must be tested carefully before acceptance.” *° Among races, as among individuals, sympathy is not to be won by perpetual whining. The too frequent exposure of one’s sores, however distressing, tends to drive away friends. “Thomas, The American Negro, p. 354. TyL010 een TO, *Tbid., p. 340. “ Toid., p. 136. “Quoted from Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 227. “© Studies in American Race Problems, p. 472. PART EIGHT Poe COULURE! 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"te ORCA Ae lala ann MoHARt ° ‘ hI Sav (59 Sapam NG fh oy meri Ba hell ' é WY ce Pay di } ae Gal ae P f ba) Wis ; ; I vi, : vats Wie A ti f WTO aA, finsee! e ne bi tala het 4 ‘gt ‘the Ade my » if a ij Ky " ri Ma Mik: ate Puss r seni ik HA AM. ; f y eh ’ \ . A J ) CHAPTER 66 BIOLOGICAL CHANCES OF SURVIVAL Absence of a Solution of the Negro Problem in Social Science—Relinquishment of the Problem to the Biological Principle of the Survival of the Fittest— Probability of the Survival of the Negro from the Standpoint of History and Vital Statistics HERE seems to be no solution of the Negro problem from the standpoint of social science. Neither anthropology nor sociology, nor political science, has yet announced any tenet upon which a solu- tion might be proposed. Certainly history offers no instance of the harmonious commingling of a white and a black race in the same ter- ritory, and none of the proposed solutions so far attempted, or advo- cated in the United States, offers any prospect of proving workable. The Negro problem, like that of mixing oil and water, is insoluble, and the authorities most competent to speak on the subject generally confess it to be a problem for which there is no solution. “To-day, more than ever,” says Hoffman, “the colored race forms a distinct ele- ment, and presents more than at any time in the past the most compli- cated and seemingly hopeless problem among those confronting the American people.” + Henry Nevinson, who has studied the Negro in the United States and in Africa, is of the opinion that, “The whole problem is still before us as urgent and uncertain as it has ever been. It is not solved. What seemeth a solution is already obsolete. The problem will have to be worked through again from the start.” ? When, however, human prevision fails to find a solution to a race problem it has to work itself out blindly through the operation of the laws of biology. In case of competition of two species, the fitter sur- vives and the less fit perishes. Have we such a situation in the presence of the Negro and Caucasian in the United States? Is it possible for both to survive under condition of competition? Some light on the probability of the survival of the Negro in America may be gained by an inquiry into the effect of contact of the *Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 1. * Harpers Monthly, Vol, 111, p. 348. 525 526 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Negro and the Caucasian in other parts of the world. History furnishes us with several instances of a competitive struggle between these two races, and between the Negro and the yellow and brown races. The French ethnologist Quatrefages states that the Negro type originated in southern Asia, and was the sole occupant of that region for an in- definite period. Then it migrated eastward, giving rise to the black populations of Melanesia, and westward, giving rise to the black popu- lations of Africa. The earliest type of Negro, says Quatrefages, was a pygmy which was partly exterminated and partly driven into the most mountainous and inhospitable districts by the development of a taller and more vigorous Negro type. The taller type supplanted the pygmies, and spread over a vast territory in southern Asia, Melanesia, and Africa. In all of these regions, however, it has been gradually giving way to the advances of the yellow and white races. The English ethnologist, Keane, agrees with Quatrefages that the Negro race once occupied vast domains in Asia, Oceania, and Africa, but has been steadily losing ground as a result of yellow and white immigration.? A branch of the Negro race which at one time spread over a large part of India has entirely disappeared as a result of the encroachments of the white race, leaving, as evidence of its existence there, only the present dark-brown Dravidians, who represent an early mixture of the Negro and Aryan.* In Africa, within the historic period, the Negro in the North has been yielding territory to the more aggressive Semites, Libyans, and Berbers; and in the South and West, to the races of Europe. The Bushmen who constituted a large aboriginal element in South Africa,®> have been gradually driven into the Kalahari desert by the Bantu, and there they have suffered further depletion from the Dutch, who shot them down as wild beasts. The Hottentots, a pygmy race akin to the Bushmen, who at one time, as pastoral nomads, roamed over the whole of Cape Colony, have almost become extinct as a result of their contact with the Dutch and the English. Only a small rem- nant of them now survives north of the Orange River. The more hardy Kafirs, who once occupied large sections of eastern and northern Cape Colony, have been partly driven north into the forests, and partly utilized as a serving class for the Dutch and English. But both those that have been driven out and those remaining as servants have suffered ® Keane, Ethnology, Ch. XI. *Quatrefages, The Pygmies, p. 52; Keane, Ethnology, p. 254. ° Keane, Ethnology, p. 248. BIOLOGICAL CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 527 a great falling off in numbers as a consequence of contact with white civilization. In West Africa, where the British, French, German, and Portuguese have planted settlements, the native population has tended toward rapid decline. In the Black Islands, 1. e., that long string of islands stretching from New Guinea to Fiji, contact with the Europeans has everywhere re- sulted in a great diminution in the native Negro population. In the Fiji group the population has dwindled, within fifty years, from about 200,000 to 94,400.° In Brazil and Cuba the declining birth-rate and high death-rate of the Negro population indicate, if not ultimate extinction, a progressive decline in the relative strength of the Negro population. In Santo Domingo and Haiti, the Negro has survived by exterminating the whites and excluding them from citizenship, and in the British West Indies the Negro, under a highly paternal control, survives, but with a dimin- ishing birth-rate and high death-rate which are not reassuring for the future. It seems that not only the Negro, but other races on a low level of culture have uniformly undergone rapid physical deterioration and decline of population as a result of contact with Caucasian civiliza- tion. For instance, note the Tasmanians, extinct since 1850, the aborig- inal Australians, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Hawaiians, formerly numbering 500,000, now reduced to less than 50,000, the Indians of Oklahoma, etcetera. This deterioration of the lower cultured races shows itself in a decline in their birth-rate and an increase in their death-rate brought about through inadaptability to the discipline of the white man’s institutions.’ Let us now turn to mortality statistics, and see what light they throw on the probable survival of the Negro in America. As soon as the Negroes were emancipated they began to leave the homes of the white people, and to segregate themselves in the towns and in the country where, freed from the oversight of their former masters and mistresses, they lived under conditions which favored the development and spread of a variety of diseases. A rise in their death- rate was, therefore, inevitable. The first authoritative study of the vital statistics of the Negro was *“Australasia,’ Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel, Vol. 2, p. 485. "For fuller discussion of the causes of deterioration see Dowd, The Negro Foces; Vole Chy XOXIX: 528 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE made in 1896 by Frederick Hoffman, statistician of the Prudential Life Insurance Company, the object of the study being to ascertain if life insurance could be safely offered to the Negro race. Hoffman found that the mortality of the Negro was two or three times that of the whites, and he attributed the higher mortality of the Negro to his con- stitutional weakness and his bad traits which led him into vice. He quoted the Union Army records of the Civil War showing that the Negroes enlisted were less infected with diseases than the whites, but that their death-rate from diseases was three times greater than that of the whites.® Then he pointed out that, following the Civil War, the mortality records of Charleston, 1865-1894, show a death-rate of the Negro from consumption much greater than that of the whites; that statistics of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 1865-1872, show a higher death-rate for the Negro from constitutional and respiratory diseases.® An examination of the mortality records of the Negro in all sections of the country prior to 1896 revealed the fact that his death-rate was relatively high and tending to increase. Hoffman, therefore, came to the conclusion that the high mortality of the Negro, as manifested since the Civil War, was unfavorable to his survival. He believed that everywhere the great cause of the dying out of backward peoples in contact with the Caucasian is unchastity, and that the vices of the Negro in America are the chief cause of his high mortality. “It is not in the conditions of life,’ he said, “but in the race traits and tendencies that we find the causes of the exces- sive mortality. So long as these tendencies are persisted in, so long as immorality and vice are the habit of life of the vast majority of the colored population, the effect will be to increase the mortality by hered- itary transmission of weak constitutions, and to lower still further the rate of natural increase, until the births fall below the deaths, and gradual extinction results.” 1° This gloomy outlook for the Negro seemed to be justified by the data available at the time of Hoffman’s investigation. Since the year of Hoffman’s investigation, however, the Negro death-rate has very notably declined. From Igto to 1g2t the rate fell from 24.2 to 18.4. Indeed, the Negro death-rate has shown a greater decline in recent years than the white rate. The decline in the rate for *Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 74. * Tbid., p. 80. ® Ibid., p. 95. BIOLOGICAL CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 529 the whites in the registration area between 1910 and 1920 was 17.7 per- cent, that for Negroes 23.9 percent. The Negro death-rate now is no higher than was that of the whites in 1890. For example, the white death-rate in New York City in 1890 was 28.5 per thousand. The Negro death-rate of that city in 1921 was only 17.9 per thousand. In the same city in 1919 the Negro infant mortality was 151 per thousand births, which was less than the white infant mortality in 1890 in New Orleans, Charleston, or Richmond. Among the Negroes insured in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the deaths from tubercu- losis have fallen forty-two percent since 1911.1? A general decline in the death-rate of the Negro for every age period is indicated in the statistics of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com- pany covering 1,500,000 of its policy holders for the past decade. Com- menting upon these figures, Woofter says: “Among the very young children the death-rate has dropped more than one-half. Tuberculosis mortality has decreased from 418 per 100,000 to 244, or 42 percent. Deaths from typhoid and malaria, which especially affect the rural districts, declined 75 per cent. In spite of the influenza epidemics, deaths from pneumonia have declined 26 per cent. Improvement along so many and diverse lines is most hopeful and indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the colored people have awakened to the im- portance of the health problem in their affairs.” ?” But, in spite of the gratifying showing of these figures, the death rate of the Negro is still dangerously high. According to the statistics of 1920, in eleven states which keep separate records, the adjusted rate of mortality from tuberculosis is three times as great for the Negroes as for the whites. About the same ratio holds for the respira- tory diseases, according to the reports of the Metropolitan Life Insur- ance Company. At present the Negro death-rate is 18.4 compared to 12.8 for the whites. The high mortality of the Negro is a great handicap in his struggle for existence. The larger proportion of Negroes who die before reaching the age of self-maintenance represents an immense economic loss to the race. For example, in a million of Negroes born in Wash- ington City only 499,169 survive to the age of five as compared to 739,061 whites surviving to that age—a difference of 240,492 lives. An economic waste of such magnitude places the Negro at a great “E. K. Jones, “The Negro’s Struggle for Health,” Opportunity, June, 1923, p. 4. ™The Basis of Racial Adjustment, p. 62. 530 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE disadvantage in comparison with the Caucasian. And the economic loss to the Negro through illness is even greater than the loss through death. For instance, in the town of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, an in- vestigation by the Missouri Negro Industrial Commission revealed the fact that the wage-working Negroes of the town averaged a loss of sixty-five days—eighteen percent of the year—due to illness. The Negro Year Book estimates that 450,000 Negroes are seriously ill at any one time, and that the annual loss to the race in earnings through sickness and death is $300,000,000. The most discouraging aspect of the Negro’s future, however, is not his high death-rate but the rapid. falling off in his birth-rate. For in- stance, in the last decade, 1910-20, his birth-rate declined seventeen percent as compared to a decline of only 2.5 percent for the whites. As the Negroes change from rural to city life their birth-rate falls faster than that of the whites who undergo the same change.** The death-rate of the Negro already exceeds the birth-rate in most of the states outside of the South. Only in the Black Belt of the South does the Negro show an encouraging excess of births over deaths. In the Piedmont region of the South, where industrial life is complex and strenuous and fast approaching conditions which obtain in the North and West, the Negro death-rate more nearly equals his birth-rate. If the decline in the birth-rate of the Negro is due in any large meas- ure to vice and disease, and not to prudential considerations, there is a strong probability that it will continue to fall until it sinks below the death-rate. Raymond Pearl, in discussing the vital index of the Negro (the vital index being the ratio of 100 births divided by the deaths), says that “except in the rural districts of the southern states, practically never does the vital index of the Negro population rise to a value of as much as 100. But plainly any population with a vital index under 100 is a dying population. ... “Under conditions as they are, Nature, by the slow but dreadfully sure processes of biological evolution is apparently solving the Negro problem in the United States in a manner which, when finished, will be like all Nature’s solutions, final, complete, and absolutely definite. Just in proportion as the Negro becomes anything but an agricultural laborer in the southern states does he hasten the time of his final ex- tinction in this country.” ' * “Negro Population in the U. S. 1790-1915,” Census Report, p. 290. * Quoted by Holmes, Studies in Evolution and Eugenics, p. 253. BIOLOGICAL CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 531 But, whatever inferences may be drawn from statistics, there is one consideration which weighs against the possible extinction of the Negro in the United States, and it is that what we call Negro mortality statistics include data derived from a wide variation of ethnic elements. About twenty percent of our so-called Negroes are people with varying degrees of Caucasian blood and Caucasian traits, and among the Negroes of pure African strain at least five percent have been blended with various African stocks such as the Semitic, Libyan, and Galla, whose traits differ widely from those of the West African, who constituted the bulk of our slave population. If, therefore, we take the most pessimistic view possible of the Negro’s vitality statistics and assume that the bulk of the race in the United States possesses inherited traits which unfit them for survival in our highly complex environment, we have to remember that twenty- five percent of our Negro population is made up of ethnic elements which retain very slight traces of the West African stock. Is it not reasonable to suppose that at least this twenty-five percent will be able to adapt itself to the conditions of existence in the United States ? CHAPTER 67 ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL Probability of the Survival of the Negro from the Standpoint of His Economic Status—His Apparent Failure to Advance up to 1895—Gloomy Predictions for His Future at That Time—Wonderful Strides After 1895 under the Leadership of Booker Washington—Rise of a Prosperous Negro Middle Class—Problem of the Ability of the Negro to Keep Pace with the Ever- Increasing Specialization and Inténsification of Industry N the next place, what is the outlook for the survival of the American Negro from the standpoint of his being able to make a living? How is he succeeding in the various occupations in securing the means of subsistence ? Up to about 1895 competent judges doubted whether upon the whole the Negro had made any progress in industrial efficiency. Frederick Hoffman, writing in 1896, made the most pessimistic predictions in regard to the Negro’s industrial future. He found that in Mississippi, even where the Negro occupied the more fertile land, the white man produced nearly twice as much cotton to the acre. He found that in Virginia the total product of tobacco and the product per acre fell off in the five counties in which the Negroes were the chief cultivators. “This falling off,” he said, “is more the result of diminishing economic efficiency in the Negro in this branch of agriculture than of changes in the productiveness of the soil, or the substitution of other crops.” ? He found that in South Carolina and Georgia the total product of rice and also the product per acre had fallen off in the rice areas where the Negro was the chief cultivator, and in reference to this he said: “We must attribute a decreasing production more to the growing inefficiency of Negro labor than to other economic causes.” ? He quotes from the Progressive South the statement that: “it is seldom that sufficient ability is found in a Negro to permit him to manage and cultivate even a small farm. When his land is paid for, his labor becomes impaired in its value to the community in which he lives, as he will subsist on next to nothing and work only when necessity compels.” ° *Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 256. * Dbtd.. pc 250. * Ihid., p. 268. 932 ee ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 533 On the basis of such evidence as this, Hoffman was led to believe that: “while the settlement of the Negro on land which is his own may insure a happier and less burdensome existence, it is very doubtful whether such a condition would not, in the end, prove more of a hin- drance than a help to the economic progress of the South,” and “that, if the present tendency towards a lower degree of economic efficiency is persisted in, the day is not far distant when the Negro laborer of the South will be gradually supplanted by the native laborer.” 4 As for the final outcome, he said: “In the plain language of the facts brought together, the colored race is shown to be on a downward grade, tending towards a condition in which matters will be worse than they are now, when disease will be more destructive, vital resistance still lower, when the number of births will fall below the deaths and gradual extinction of the race take place.” ® Professor Shaler of Harvard University, writing just a few years later than Hoffman, remarked that: “Wherever a black man owns a place he neglects it; he is usually content with a dirty shanty, and while he has much natural faculty for the immediate tasks of the farmer, his lack of foresight leads him to wear out his fields. As is well known, the lands of the South have been sorely taxed by bad agriculture, though of late years there has been a very great improvement in this regard. There is evidently reason to fear further depredations from an ex- tended possession of the soil by the Negroes. Here we shall have to trust to the imitative motive of the race, and to the training of a minority of them in the art of farming, with the hope that the contagion of example may help the conditions.” ° Alfred H. Stone, a Mississippi planter, using data of the years 1898-1905, showed that the Italian cotton growers in Chicot County, Arkansas, produced 120.1 percent more lint cotton per acre than the Negroes.’ | Professor Walter F. Willcox, of Cornell University, on the basis of data obtained prior to 1900, pointed out that the cultivation of crops in which the Negro formerly had a monopoly was shifting to other sec- tions of the country where the labor was chiefly or entirely white.® “From all the evidence,” he says, “it seems clear that Southern * Tbid., p. 308. mt... Ds 312 *The Neighbor, p. 172. * Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 183. *Tbid., p. 450. 534 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE agriculture is becoming increasingly diversified, and is demanding and receiving a constantly increasing amount of industry, energy, and in- telligence—characteristics which the whites more generally possess or more readily develop.” ® Even prominent colored men of nee period took a pessimistic view of the Negro’s economic future. For instance, Professor Hugh M. Browne of Washington said to a Negro audience in 1894: “White men are bringing science and art into menial occupations and lifting them beyond our reach. In my boyhood the household servants were coloured, but now in the establishments of the ‘four hundred’ one finds trained white servants. Then the walls and ceilings were whitewashed each spring by coloured men: now they are decorated by skilled white artisans. Then the carpets were beaten by coloured men: now this is done by a white man managing a steam carpet-cleaning works,” etcetera. William H. Thomas, a Negro author, in 1901 made this forecast for his race: “It does not necessarily follow that race extinction in- volves physical death through strife and carnage; that is an improbable event. Negro elimination, however, is just as inexorably decreed through the dry rot of mental and spiritual inanition; and to these forces he is fated to succumb, should he not yield ready obedi- ence to the ethical and mental evolution in visible operation around him,*7° Up to 1895 the available evidence on the economic status of the Negro did not seem to justify a favorable outlook. The mulatto class were losing out in the skilled trades and in domestic service, which had belonged to them by tradition, while the mass of blacks on the farms, having gained very little in the way of education, appeared to be de- creasing in productive power. At the close of the Civil War there were two classes of Negroes very wide apart in economic status and opportunity. One class, a small minority, comprised the sons and daughters of free parents, the former domestic slaves in the households of the whites, and the recently emancipated artisans. The members of this class were nearly all mulat- toes, and nearly all educated, i. e., they could read and write, and were skilled in some kind of work. They constituted the aristocracy of the colored population. The other class comprised the great mass of blacks who had been the field hands on the slave plantations. They could neither read nor * Quoted from Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 453. The American Negro, p. 413. ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 535 write, and had had very little opportunity to know white people or to imitate their virtues. Therefore, among the colored people of the South, after the Civil War, as among the white people prior thereto, there was no middle class, and the contrast in culture between the top and the bottom of society was very great. No one who has yet written on the Negro problem seems to have comprehended the initial difficulty of the Negro’s finding an economic footing for himself at the close of the Civil War. The mulatto class, though able to read and write and do skilled work, were handicapped by the great mass of ignorant blacks who were too poor to support a colored man in any kind of service to his race except that of preaching. ‘They were, therefore, obliged to find a livelihood by continuing to be the servants of white people. The larger proportion of mulattoes, of both sexes, took up domestic work, which was a blind alley leading to no promotion. The artisans among the mulattoes had to compete with the rising middle class of whites who had taken up the crafts formerly carried on only by slaves. In this competition the mulattoes, of course, gradually lost out. It is no won- der that so many mulattoes went into politics during the Reconstruc- tion period and later went into the ministry. The great black mass, illiterate and unacquainted with any work except agriculture, found their chief and almost only opportunity in cultivating the soil as tenants or wage workers. Without capital, or experience in self-direction, and with no ability to learn by reading, they could not, in large numbers, do efficient work and get far enough ahead to become farm owners. Conditions, however, were favorable for the Negro’s acquiring land. Many estates in the South had been con- fiscated and abandoned, and some of these were settled by Negro tenants or purchasers. The migration of the white planters to the towns rendered available for renting or buying thousands of acres of land at low prices. A large number of Negroes had earned good wages as laborers for the Union armies, and the Freedmen’s Bureau paid out about $7,000,000 in bounties to Negro soldiers. “During the first ten years after the war,” says Booker Washing- ton, “a large part of this money was invested in Southern States. Dur- ing the next ten years, from 1876 to 1886, Negroes increased their holdings in farm land by nearly 100 percent, having at the close of that period 802,939 acres of land, the assessed value of which was $2,508,198.” 11 ™ The Story of the Negro, p. 41. 536 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Up to about 1895 the most notable industrial achievement of the Negroes was the acquisition of land, but this achievement did not represent a great advance in the efficiency or well-being of the Negro farmers. For the most part the rural Negroes lived in shacks, plowed with lean stock, kept few hogs or chickens, raised few vegetables, used no fertilizers, practiced no rotation of crops, and consequently ob- tained a poor yield per acre. Since 1895, however, the industrial status of the Negro has under- gone a very great transformation. Evidence of progress is now visible in all lines of activity. In order to appreciate the magnitude of the Negro’s achievement in the past thirty years, we shall have to visualize the kind of founda- tion which any people have to build before they can erect a stable in- dustrial structure. The progress of a people in industry, as in science and art, depends upon the development of a group spirit, organization, and leadership, the accumulation of models, types, or patterns, a certain ripeness of tradition, and a sufficient freedom from strain to permit of reflection and meditation. No matter how muth genius a race may have, much time has to elapse before these favoring conditions can be evolved. If it has required two centuries for the white man of America to achieve a marked degree of industrial efficiency, and two centuries and a half for him to achieve anything notable in the fine arts, we should hardly expect the Negro, with his ignorance and background of servitude, to make great strides in any line during the first thirty years of his freedom. The first essential for the industrial advancement of the Negro was the development of a group or racial consciousness, and this was not possible until the mass of Negroes had learned to read and write, and had built up a press to serve as a means of disseminating common ideas and of awakening common aspirations. It was not until thirty years after the Civil War that there was sufficient enlightenment and means of communication among the Negroes to serve as instruments of racial consciousness and racial direction. The great turning-point in the career of the American Negroes was the year 1895 when their self-consciousness was aroused and set in motion by the meteoric appearance of Booker T. Washington as their leader. The first task of Dr. Washington was to impress upon his people the fact “that economic efficiency was the foundation for every kind ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 537 of success.” 7? He tells in his Story of the Negro how the Negro leaders after the Civil War had imitated the white aristocracy before the war in finding their chief career in politics, and how this tended to lead the colored people to look for their salvation in some kind of help from the national government instead of working it out for themselves by self-reliance and thrift. He relates how a community of colored people near Tuskegee, Alabama, raised funds and sent a spokes- man to Washington to ascertain if the new administration (Garfield’s) “would do something to better their condition,’ ** and how they were cast down over the failure of their spokesman to accomplish anything. In the meantime the spirit of the new gospel of self-reliance and thrift emanating from Tuskegee permeated the community and even con- verted the man who had been sent to importune the Garfield adminis- tration. “Since that time,’ says Dr. Washington, “he has purchased a farm, has built a decent, comfortable house; is educating his chil- dren, and I note that never a session of the monthly Farmer’s Institute assembles at Tuskegee that this man does not come and bring some of the products from his farm to exhibit to his fellow-farmers. . He has learned that he can do for himself what the authorities at Wash- ington could not do for him, and that is make his life a success.” ™* The spirit of Tuskegee began to infect the whole rural population of colored people, and the result was more landowners, better methods of cultivation, better homes, and better neighborhoods. Professor George W. Carver of Tuskegee set the pace by raising 266 bushels of sweet potatoes on a single acre, as compared to the average for the country around of thirty-seven bushels,?® and by rais- ing 500 pounds of cotton on one acre as compared to the average yield for the South of only 190 pounds.'® Some examples of the increasing efficiency of the Negro farmer are as follows: : Alfred Smith, a former slave in Georgia, made himself famous as “the cotton king’ of Oklahoma, having won the first prize for his cot- ton in Liverpool and at the World’s Fair in Paris.’” Sam McCord of Alabama has won fame from the fact that while * Washington, The Story of the Negro, p. 192. 8 Thid., p. 190. 4 [bid., p. 192. * Washington, Working with the Hands, p. 136. * Thid., pp. 164-5. ~ Dias, PD) 53. 538 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE he farms only two acres of land, he raises on those two acres every year four bales of cotton, the average yield for the State being little more than one-third of a bale.'® R. L. Smith, a native of South Carolina, moved to Texas and there in 1906 organized the Farmers Improvement Association, the members of which in 1907 owned 71,439 acres of land, valued at over a million dollars, with live stock valued at $275,000.19 A colored man who had been attending the farm conference at Tuskegee related his experience to Dr. Washington as follows: “I started plowing with my pants rolled up and barefoot. I saved five hundred dollars and bought a home in Albany, Georgia. I bought two hundred acres for seven dollars an acre, and paid for it in three years. I made that pay for two hundred acres more. After awhile I bought thirteen hundred acres. [ live on it, and it is all paid for. I have twenty-five buildings and they all came out of my pocketbook. That land is now worth twenty-five dollars an acre. For a distance of four or five miles from my settlement, there has not been a man in the chain-gang for years. I work forty-seven head of mules. The only way we will ever be a race is by getting homes and living a virtuous life. I don’t give mortgages. I take mortgages on black and white. I have put the first bale of cotton on the market in Georgia every year for eight years.” ?° After all, it was not the money side of industrial work that most interested Booker Washington. “Every bale of cotton,” he says, “can be turned into books, into opportunity for travel and study. The man who grows corn must remember that the growing of corn is not the end of life, but that corn can be turned into refinements and beauties of a civilized life and a Christian home.” #4 How Booker: Washington looked upon farming as merely the means to a higher culture is shown in the building he erected at Tuskegee for the children of the town and vicinity, named ““The Children’s House,” where children were taught to cultivate flowers and shrubbery, to sweep, dust, set a table, and make the home attractive. The second task which Booker Washington set himself to accom- plish was to develop a middle class of Negroes to occupy the great va- * Washineton, Working with the Hands, p. 54. * TIbid., p. 380. ” Ibid., p. 140. * Washington, Putting the Most into Life, p. 21. ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 539 cant field between the tiller of the soil and the small class of educated Negroes who were engaged in politics and the ministry. To this end it was necessary to build up Negro culture in two direc- tions in which it was notably weak. First, common-school education needed to be more widely disseminated so that the mass of Negroes might become acquainted with new ideas and new opportunities. ‘Our students at Tuskegee,’ says Dr. Washington, “are instructed con- stantly in methods of building schoolhouses and prolonging the school term. It is safe to say that outside the larger Southern cities and towns in the rural district, one will find nine-tenths of the school buildings wholly unfit for use, and rarely is the public school session longer than five months—in most cases not more than four. These conditions exist largely because of the poverty of the States. One of the problems of our teachers is to show the people how through private effort they can build schoolhouses and extend the school term.”? Booker Washington spent a great deal of his time and energy in visiting country schools and in writing and talking in behalf of making them more efficient. In reference to a school he visited in South Caro- lina, he said: “I was recently in a school-room in South Carolina. The teacher had a reputation for being a well-fitted instructor, and I expected much of him. He was teaching the children by the latest methods. The children sang well, they recited their lessons well, but the fact that one third of the plastering was missing made the greatest impression on me. I could not detect the slightest attempt on the part of the teacher or students to see that the plastering was restored. I should have suspended school a day or two until the plastering could be replaced, rather than teach day after day by silent approval a lesson of disorder. If the teacher is careless, the pupils will accept his standards and go through life in an indifferent, slipshod manner. If from the first day they enter school they are surrounded with object lessons of order and cleanliness, more will have been done to educate them in a large and helpful way than if they had centred their interest in books alone. “Order and beauty are sacrificed in many of our schools because one third or one fourth of the window-glass is out. Sometimes I have seen obsolete hats and discarded dresses doing duty in the absence of win- dow-glass or window-panes knocked out in order that the stovepipe might be run through the broken place. The child never outlives the 2 Working with the Hands, p. 210. 540 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE impression made by such a sight. The parents will join their children in helping to patch broken plastering if the teacher will take the lead. When the plastering is mended, a few pictures should be placed on the walls, and in this work the parents’ cooperation can be depended upon.” 78 One of the most important departments of Tuskegee was that for the training of school teachers. Of the results of this department, Booker Washington said: “There is hardly a single Southern State where our men and women are not found in some of the large schools for training teachers.” ** The other direction in which.Negro culture needed strengthening, in order to develop a middle class, was the practical arts and crafts and in business enterprise. To meet this need Dr. Washington offered training at Tuskegee in bricklaying, carpentry, tailoring, broom-making, mattress-making, blacksmithing, plastering, harness-making, saw-mill- ing, plumbing, shoe-making, electrical engineering, architecture, etcetera. This kind of training has enabled hundreds of Tuskegee pupils to carry on some skilled trade in Negro communities. In the matter of developing initiative, enterprise, and coopera- tion in trade, and in other business lines, little could be done in the way of instruction at Tuskegee, but one of the greatest achievements of Dr. Washington was in encouraging the development of his people in this field. He went about from town to town in all of the South- ern states, acquainting himself with the Negro business men, and by public addresses and by magazine articles tried to inspire them to greater achievements. In 1899 he organized the National Negro Business League, at a time when there were in the United States only 20,000 business concerns owned by colored people with a total capital of $10,000,000. In 1923 the number of organizations had grown to 60,000 with a total capital of $60,000,000." The spirit of business cooperation and organization spread very rapidly among the Negroes throughout the country. Negro banks, insurance companies, factories, and mercantile establishments of various kinds came to be common in cities having a large Negro popu- lation. The result has been the development of a large middle class of * Washington, Putting the Most into Life, p. 14. *Working with the Hands, p. 211. *Moton, “Business Progress of the Negro,” Southern Workman, Nov., 1923, P. 531. ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 541 Negroes. In 1895 the property owned by Negroes was mostly in farm land and farm houses. Now the value of city property owned by Negroes is fast catching up with the value of their farm property. For example, in 1923 the assessed value of the land owned by Ne- groes in North Carolina was $48,343,205 and the assessed value of their city property was $30,332,118. The rise of this middle class has meant greater opportunities for the Negro doctor, dentist, lawyer, editor, author, and artist. The great achievement of Booker Washington in increasing the Negro’s industrial efficiency has been contemporaneous with the shift- ing of Negro leadership from the preacher and politician to the educa- tor and the business man. Since 1895 the Negroes of the United States have developed all of the fundamental requisites of industrial efficiency, 1. e., group conscious- ness, organization, and leadership; and models, types, and patterns to stimulate emulation. If the Negro has made substantial progress under the adverse con- ditions which have existed up to the present time, will he be able to continue to progress under the conditions of the future? In the future will the conditions be more favorable or less favorable for his progress? Up to the present time the opportunities for the Negro have been in one respect very favorable in that the newness of our country has created an extraordinary demand for labor. In another half century it is certain that our country will become filled up, and, instead of receiv- ing a great tide of immigration from other countries, we shall be send- ing our overflow to South Africa, Canada, South America, and the islands of the seas. We shall be in the position of the older countries of Europe with an annual surplus of inhabitants, elbowing each other for jobs, and ever on the lookout for some new region to redeem. When that time comes, will not the Negro be at a greater disadvantage than he is now? Will there not be a white man applying for every job? And will not the Negro find the door of opportunity more tightly closed than ever before? In the Southern States up to now the Negroes have had a monopoly in the field of unskilled labor, but will not the time come when the pressure of population will force the white men into. this field? In the future will not our industrial system demand a higher order of efficiency among all classes on account of the general speeding up of production, the more highly specialized division of labor, and the standardization of methods? May we not anticipate an increasing ten- 542 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE dency for every kind of work to require education and apprenticeship until the field of unskilled labor is practically abolished ? In the future will not the more settled conditions of industry and the better organization of production, in the interest of more regularity in the employment of labor, tend to do away with seasonal labor, or jobs offering long or frequent intervals of rest? And, if some scheme of insurance against unemployment, such as that proposed in Wiscon- sin, should become general, penalizing employers for dismissing em- ployes, will not employers be more careful what kind of labor they select, and will they not be chary of employing men who are apt to be inconstant in their work? The one certain fact in regard to the future is that the conditions of labor for the white man, as well as for the Negro, will require greater efficiency, and, to meet this demand, both races will have to improve their average inherited physical and mental capacity and undergo a more strenuous discipline. Will the Negro keep step with the white man in this kind of progress? Dr. Ludwig Buchner, speaking in general terms, says that backward peoples will never be able to catch up with civilized peoples. “All back- ward branches of the human family,” he asserts, “will by degrees dis- appear with but few exceptions under pressure of civilized man, and we can even now easily foresee the time when a certain uniformity of culture and material conditions, or a true cosmopolitanism of civilized man, will be diffused over the greater part of the inhabited and habitable part of our planet.’ *° In spite of much evidence of industrial progress by the American Negro up to 1914, Professor Mecklin, in his Democracy and Race Fric- tion of that date, predicted: “that the Negro in America will eventually disappear ; not in a generation or century, it may take several centuries. The means will be natural. Certain portions of the Southern States will for a while, perhaps, be almost given up to him; but in time he will be crowded out even there. Africa may take a part; the rest will, as the country fills up, as life grows harder and competition fiercer, become diffused and will disappear, a portion, perhaps, not large, by absorption into the stronger race; the residue by perishing under conditions of life unsuited to him.” In answer to this gloomy prophecy we may ask, why may not the Negro, by continuing to increase his efficiency, belie such prophecy as he * Man, in the Past, Present and Future, p. 180. ir aAT. ECONOMIC CHANCES OF SURVIVAL 543 did the more numerous gloomy prophecies prior to 1895? 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Ps cat iy Oy Jj ; : 5 Pa PA ha ae Wiehe xs hay ae tune: i ed ny sity y hs mite ' hay ry Me its ie ay eee ‘i nl? beh ayer an 1 +] : i Hale A i i An \ has Oph RTH) trates i May Re UE Ti oa hays Sty me a ‘Hey ihe pi, ave a Mi Mia , a oe Hs ihe } ‘Ha syed i Ny wt Areas ir 8) Hu ony viata f | , " Wo A ' > Nd ve : yt ue he : { éf j . at) r i ¢ i 1h van i iy . \ i v, fre al AY Teste ph aie Wig A i ai ae jan muha ONS oth A aig on Ce wig, rite SU AARON F Diy. i) | re ' ve rm) y 4 mea ey nt fren al nia a Ma beth ea Bi ha ee i ay ¥ Oe ite i i “4 PART NINE PATH Sn Oi OEE ‘ Al : : ‘ oa) | ‘ 4 ] ‘ a ‘ i re | ; oe j ‘ é - ‘ , ’ CHAPTER 68 RACIAL COOPERATION Grounds for an Encouraging Outlook—Lines of Endeavor Favoring Survival— Need of the Races for More Knowledge of Each Other and More Friendly Cooperation—Recent Efforts toward Inter-racial Understanding and Uplift— Work of the Y.M.C.A., University Professors, the Commission on Inter- racial Cooperation and Other Organizations—Part Played in Uplift by Southern White Women AKING into consideration the Negro’s natural plasticity, his adaptation to the régime of slavery in the New World and his rapid transformation in the direction of fitting himself for the condi- tions of freedom, there seem to be good grounds for the belief that he will be able to adjust himself to whatever situations may arise in the future. I believe that his possibilities of achievement are such as to justify him in looking forward hopefully to the coming years, and that in the effort to realize these possibilities there will be found opportuni- ties of sufficient magnitude to call forth general enthusiasm, and be worth the while of the best minds of both races. The specter of race extinction certainly ought not to terrify a race which counts on our globe over 200,000,000 souls. If it be true, as cer- tain astronomers and geologists tell us, that some day this earth of ours will have radiated its heat, and become a barren mass of matter like the moon, then all races are destined to extinction. But that catastrophe is too remote to shadow our interest in and enjoyment of the present hour; and so the ultimate fate of the Negro, whatever it may be, is too remote to repress the Negro’s present-day aspirations. Assuming that the Negro will abide with us for an indefinite period, and, at the same time, knowing that he will always have great difficulties to overcome, I will indicate some of the broad paths of hope which lie immediately before him. I believe that the greatest hope for the Negro lies in the direction of a better understanding of the white people and a greater inclination to cooperate with them in a spirit of good faith and friendship; for the time is surely coming when there will be a white man or woman avail- 547 548 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE able for every job in the United States, and when the opportunities for the Negro will depend much more than now upon the white people’s good will. There is no danger, however, of the Negro’s ever being crowded out provided he can develop proper efficiency, and keep in the good graces of the white people. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by intensifying race prejudice, and alienating him- self from the sympathy, good will, and helping hand of his white neighbor. Both races need a unity of spirit, a hunger for the higher things, a disposition to help each other and to rejoice in each other’s triumphs. The white man should be able to say to the black man: Friend, come up higher. The white man has nothing to gain by keep- ing the Negro on a low level of culture, and he is always the loser in withholding from the Negro anything which is evidently for the Negro’s good. If the Negro can afford to be wronged, the white man cannot afford to wrong him. To the extent that the Negro is “kept down,” the white man must stay down with him, for as Emerson says: “If I put a chain on a slave I fix the other end around my own neck.” The no- tion, wide-spread among unthinking white people, that “the Negro’s place” is at the social bottom, needs to be got rid of. The “natural place” for any race is the highest level to which it is capable of climb- ing. But no matter how sincerely both races may desire to promote each other’s welfare the problem of racial contact will always call for the highest wisdom of both races in safeguarding their respective in- terests, and in bringing about equitable and amicable adjustments. A prerequisite to good will and codperation between the races is that they know and understand each other. Race hatred, as all other kinds of hatred, arises in the first place from ignorance of the people we hate. As Charles Lamb once remarked, “I can’t hate anyone I know.” Now the fact is that the Negro and the white people have been drifting further apart since the days of slavery, and know less of each other than ever before. Under slavery the races knew each other through their intimate per- sonal contacts. The domestic slaves, especially, not only had oppor- tunity to know the white people, but grew like them in taste, manners, disposition, and often in habits and morals. Following the slave rela- tionship, the Negroes who worked for the white people as domestic servants continued to live in cottages on their former masters’ prem- ises. The home life of the Negroes was still under the observation of the white people, who continued their oversight of the Negro families, lending their personal services in case of sickness or other misfortune, RACIAL COOPERATION 540 Later, the Negro servants ceased to live on the premises of the white people, and came to reside in segregated quarters which entirely removed them from any intimate observation or familiarity with the whites. But, notwithstanding this separation, the white people more or less con- tinued to exercise a paternal interest in the family of any Negro who worked for them, often sending provisions and clothing for the chil- dren, and visiting the family in its afflictions, or sending medical relief. Gradually, however, with the development of railroading, mining, and manufacturing, where great numbers of Negroes came to work for a corporation, and the development of a tenant and landowning class of Negroes in the country, all paternal oversight of the Negroes has been abandoned, and the relationship of the races has become entirely com- mercial and impersonal. The diminishing personal contact of the two races has resulted in an increasing ignorance and distrust of each for the other, and a grow- ing aloofness and mutual animosity. In the North as well as in the South the contact of the races has been narrowing. In recent years race riots have become more frequent and more widely distributed over the country, and wherever these occur, there is always an effort made to trace the cause to some rash act of one race or the other. But the fact is that all race riots have one and the same origin, and that is race hatred. It is a waste of energy to try to discover who made the first grimace or threw the first stone. Race riots will always be proportion- ate to race antagonisms, and the guilty parties are never they who threw the first stones, but they who fan the flames of race hatred. The welfare of the Negro and the whites of the United States is inseparably bound together, and any degradation or inefficiency of the one race will be a handicap to the progress of the other; and any gen- eral rise in the culture level of the one will also facilitate a rise in the culture level of the other. Therefore, mutual understanding and co- operation should be sought in connection with all questions affecting the interests of the two races. What the Negro needs and wants more than anything else is to be rated by the white people for what he is worth. I do not believe that the Negroes generally have any desire to enter the social circles of the whites, but the educated and cultured class of Negroes feel justly ag- grieved when they are no better treated than the Negroes who are thrift- less, vicious, and criminal. The proneness of the white people to judge all Negroes only by the bad ones is due to lack of acquaintance with the educated Negro. Few 550 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE white people have any idea of the aspiring and striving for better things which may be observed in any Negro community. Recently when I talked to a Negro literary club, comprising both men and women of Oklahoma City, I could not escape the feeling that their earnest striv- ing under manifold handicaps, together with their evident longing for sympathy and encouragement, was one of the most admirable and, at the same time, most pathetic things which one may see on this earth. RECENT EFFORTS TOWARD INTER-RACIAL COOPERATION The first organized movement since Reconstruction, designed to de- velop a more enlightened public opinion on inter-racial matters, was that of organizing, through the Y. M. C. A., special classes in colleges and universities for the study of the race problem. The leader of this move- ment was Dr. W. D. Weatherford, president of the Southern College, Nashville, Tennessee, and author of several books on the Negro which have been used as texts in these classes. Up to 1924, about 30,000 white college men and women had enrolled in these Y. M. C. A. courses for the study of the Negro problem. In addition to this work Dr. Weatherford has held, in connection with the Y. M. C. A. summer school at Blue Ridge, North Carolina, several conferences of college and university professors on the teach- ing of the racial problem in their respective institutions. Dr. Moton of Tuskegee, Dr. Fisher of Fisk University, and other representative Ne- groes, have lectured at these conferences. The pioneer work of Dr. Weatherford in seeking to arouse, among educated people, an interest in the race problem, has led to the forma- tion of two very important organizations which have become powerful factors in educating the public along racial lines, and in promoting inter- racial cooperation. WORK OF THE SOUTHERN SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS The first of these was the Southern Sociological Congress, composed of representative Southern men from all walks of life, which has been meeting annually for the discussion of social problems especially affect- ing the South. At the first meeting of this congress, in Nashville, Ten- nessee, May, 1912, there were two sessions dealing with race prob- lems, attended by men of both races. The interest in the race problem was so great that the congress decided to appoint a permanent com- mittee on race relationships. The members of this committee were: RACIAL COOPERATION wor James H. Dillard, M.A., LL.D., Chairman, New Orleans, Louisiana; Rev. J. G. Snedecor, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; A. Trieschmann, Crossett, Arkansas; Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Lincoln Hulley, Leland, Florida; Prof. E. C. Branson, Athens, Georgia; Hon. Wm. H. Fleming, Augusta, Georgia; Dr. J. D. Hammond, Augusta, Georgia; Miss Belle H. Bennett, Richmond, Kentucky; Rev. John Little, Louisville, Kentucky ; Bishop W. P, Thirkield, New Orleans, Louisana; G. H. Huckaby, Shreveport, Louisiana; A. H. Stone, Dunleith, Missis- sippi; Rev. H. K. Boyer, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Miss Grace Biglow House, St. Helena Island, South Carolina; Dr. W. D. Weather- ford, Nashville, Tennessee; Bishop W. R. Lambuth, Nashville, Ten- nessee ; Dr. George W. Hubbard, Nashville, Tennessee; Rev. A. J. Bar- ton, Waco, Texas; Dr. H. B. Frissell, Hampton, Virginia. The second meeting of the congress was held in Atlanta, in Decem- ber, 1912, and the entire program was devoted to racial questions, and later published in book form under the title, The Human Way. The program of the Atlanta meeting was in part as follows: “The Present Situation,’ James H. Dillard, M.A., LL.D. “How to Enlist the Welfare Agencies of the South for Improvement of Conditions Among the Negroes,’ W. D. Weatherford, Ph.D. “Work of the Commission of Southern Universities on the Race Question,’ Governor C. H. Brough, Ph.D. “The Negro Working Out His Own Salvation,” Prof. E. C. Bran- son, A.M. “Desirable Civic Reforms in the Treatment of the Negro,’ Prof. W. me ocrores.; Ph.D): | “Tnter-Racial Interests in Industry,” Principal R. R. Moton. At the sub-meetings of the congress representative men and women of both races have met and talked over a variety of matters of common interest. WORK OF THE UNIVERSITY COMMISSION During the first meeting of the Southern Sociological Congress there was effected an organization known as the University Commission on Southern Race Problems, made up of professors in Southern univer- sities. The initial members were: James J. Doster, University of Alabama; C. H. Brough, University of Arkansas; James M. Farr, University of Florida; R. J. H. De- Loach, University of Georgia; W. O. Scroggs, Louisiana State Univer- sity; W. D. Hedleston, University of Mississippi; Charles W. Bain, 552 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE University of North Carolina; Josiah Morse, University of South Caro- lina; James D. Hoskins, University of Tennessee; W. S. Sutton, Uni- versity of Texas; William M. Hunley, University of Virginia. Meetings have been held from time to time, and all phases of the race problem have been studied. The commission has issued several open letters to the college men of the South, covering such subjects as Lynching, Education, Migra- tion, and the New Reconstruction. The following are extracts from these letters: . Lynching “This letter is not written to convince you that lynching is a crime, for you know it already. Its object is to urge you to show others whenever opportunity presents itself that lynching does more than rob its victims of their constitutional rights and of their lives. It simul- taneously lynches law and justice and civilization, and outrages all the finer human sentiments and feelings. “The wrong that it does to the wretched victims is almost as noth- ing compared to the injury it does to the lynchers themselves, to the community, and to society at large. “Lynching is a contagious social disease, and as such is of deep concern to every American citizen and to every lover of civilization. It is especially of concern to you, and you can do much to abolish it. Vice and crime know that their best, though unconscious and unwilling allies, are luke-warmness and timidity on the part of educated, ‘good’ citi- zens. Wrong is weaker than right, and musi yield whenever right is persistent and determined. “Tt is, of course, no argument in favor of lynching, nor can we de- rive any legitimate satisfaction from the fact that it is not confined to any one section of our country and that the victims are not always black. One of the bad features of lynching is that it quickly becomes a habit, and, like all bad habits, deepens and widens rapidly. Formerly lynch- ings were mainly incited by rape and murder, but the habit has spread until now such outrages are committed for much less serious crimes. “The records of lynching for 1914, compiled by three different agencies, give the total number for the year at 52, 54, and 74, the author- ity for these figures being Tuskegee Institute, the Chicago Tribune, and the Crisis, respectively. “The conflicting reports cannot be harmonized, but, to avoid any possibility of exaggeration, we may employ the most conservative of these for analysis. RACIAL COOPERATION 503 “It reveals these facts: Number lynched—colored: male 46, female 3; white: male 3, female o. Total 52.” Education “In its first open letter to college men of the South, issued at the beginning of the present year, (1916) the University Commission urged them to unite their efforts with those of the press, the pulpit, the bar, the officers of the law, and all other agencies laboring for the elimination of the monster evil of mob violence. These agencies have labored diligently and with substantial results, as is indicated by the decrease of the average annual number of lynchings from 171 for the decade 1886-1895 to 70 for the decade 1g06-1915. Nevertheless, the commission wishes to reiterate its appeal with renewed emphasis, know- ing that the eradication of so virulent a social disease as the lynching mania can be effected only by the prolonged and vigorous efforts of sane and patriotic citizens. “In this letter the Commission wishes to direct the attention of the college men to the educational aspect of the race question, inasmuch as the solution of all human problems ultimately rests upon rightly directed education. In its last analysis, education simply means bringing forth all the native capacities of the individual for the benefit both of himself and of society. It is axiomatic that a developed plant, animal, or man is far more valuable to society than the undeveloped. It is likewise obvious that ignorance is the most fruitful source of human ills. Fur- thermore, it is as true in a social as in a physical sense that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. The good results thus far obtained, as shown by the Negro’s progress within recent years, prompt the Commission to urge the extension of his educational opportunities. “The inadequate provision for the education of the Negro is more than an injustice to him; it is an injury to the white man. The South cannot realize its destiny if one-third of its population is undeveloped and inefficient. For our common welfare we must strive to cure dis- ease wherever we find it, strengthen whatever is weak, and develop all that is undeveloped. The initial steps for increasing the efficiency and usefulness of the Negro race must necessarily be taken 1n the school room. There can be no denying that more and better schools, with better trained and better paid teachers, more adequate supervision and longer terms, are needed for the blacks, as well as the whites. The Negro schools are, of course, parts of the school systems of their re- spective states, and as such share in the progress and prosperity of 554 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE their state systems. Our appeal is for a larger share for the Negro, on the ground of the common welfare and common justice. He is the weakest link in our civilization, and our welfare is indissolubly bound up with his. “Many means are open to the college men of the South for arousing greater public interest in this matter, and for promoting a more vigorous public effort to this end. A right attitude in this, as in all other impor- tant public questions, is a condition precedent to success. For this reason the Commission addresses to Southern college men this special appeal.” A New Reconstruction “The world-wide reconstruction that is following in the wake of the war will necessarily affect the South in a peculiar way. Nearly 300,000 Negroes have been called into the military service of the country ; many thousands more have been drawn from peaceful pursuits into industries born of the war; and several hundred thousand have shifted from the South to the industrial districts of the North. The demobilization of the army and the transition of industry from a war to a peace basis are creating many problems which can be solved only by the efforts of both races. The Negro, in adapting himself to the new conditions, should have the wise sympathy and generous cooperation of his white neighbors. It is to the interest of these, as well as of the Negro him- self, that readjustment should proceed with the least possible difficulty and delay. “We believe that this readjustment may be effectively aided by a more general appreciation of the Negro’s value as a member of the community. Lack of sympathy and understanding between two groups of people frequently causes one group to regard the shortcomings of a few individuals of the other as characteristic of all that group. This is a natural tendency, but it is neither rational nor just, and it has proved, we believe, one of the great obstacles to the development of more satisfactory racial relations in this country. “The Negro’s contribution to the welfare of the nation has never been more clearly indicated than by his services during the Great War. When the call to arms was sounded his country expected him to do his duty, and he did not fail. Large numbers of black men on the fields of France made the supreme sacrifice for the cause of world democracy. Tn other war services the Negroes did their full share. Many thou- RACIAL COOPERATION 555 sands were employed in the building of ships, the manufacture of munitions, the construction of cantonments, and in the production of the coal, iron, cotton, and food stuffs without which victory would have been impossible. The Negroes’ purchases of Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps, and their contributions to the Red Cross, the United War Work Fund, and other similar agencies are in themselves a splendid record of which the Negroes and their white friends may be justly proud. “It may also be appropriate in this connection to recall that through- out the period of hostilities the Negro was never suspected of espionage or of sympathy with the enemy, and that he has been wholly indifferent to those movements fostered by radical aliens that aim at the destruc- tion of the American form of government. This good record of the whole race deserves such publicity as will offset the common tendency to judge it by the shortcomings of some of its members. No people is spurred to higher things when habitually referred to in disparaging or contemptuous terms. Ordinary human beings tend to live up to or down to the role assigned them by their neighbors.” WORK OF THE COMMISSION ON INTER-RACIAL COOPERATION A third organization of recent development is the Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation, which seems to have grown out of the spirit of unrest among the Negroes in the United States following the World War. The situation suggested to the minds of several prominent re- ligious workers the idea of a conference to devise some means by which better relations between the races might be established. In furtherance of this idea, a conference was held in Atlanta in 1919, attended by men and women from all sections of the country. After a general discussion of the situation the conference issued the following proclamation: “We, a group of Christians, deeply interested in the welfare of our entire community, irrespective of race or class distinction, and frankly facing the many evidences of racial unrest, which in some places have already culminated in terrible tragedies, would call the people of our own beloved community to a calm consideration of our situation before extremists are allowed to create a condition where reason is impossible. In no spirit of alarmists, but with the clear vision of earnest men, 550 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE conscious of the responsibility which a Christian democracy imposes upon self-reasoning and self-governing citizens, let us strive to meet our obligations in the spirit of Jesus Christ... . “We do not believe that there is any one statement which we may make, or any one act which we may perform which will solve all the supremely difficult and delicate problems that face us, but we are confident that by conferences conducted by leaders of both races, coming together in the spirit of Jesus Christ, there will be an atmosphere of mutual confidence and wisdom out of which shall come plans and enter- prises for the righting of wrongs, and the creation of fair and just opportunities for even the least of our brethren.” The idea of calling together representative men of both races to discuss their differences met with an enthusiastic response from the thinking public, and led to the formation of an Inter-Racial Commission whose purpose has been to bring about racial cooperation throughout the Southern states. The Y. M. C. A. appropriated money to finance the work of the Commission and furnished the leaders to direct the work. The commission has headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia, and the officers are: Dr. M. Ashby Jones, chairman; R. H. King, chairman executive committee; Will W. Alexander, director; Mrs. Maud P. Henderson, woman’s work; Robert B. Eleazer, educational director ; Dr. T. J. Woofter, Jr., research secretary; David D. Jones, general field secretary ; field staff, Dr. James Bond, Louisville, Kentucky; J. D. Burton, Oakdale, Tennessee; R. W. Miles, Richmond, Virginia; Clark Foreman, Atlanta, Georgia; Mrs. Jesse Daniel Ames, Georgetown, Texas; Mrs. C. P. McGowan, Charleston, South Carolina. The commission has established in each Southern state a general committee on inter-racial cooperation, composed of about twenty-five members, equally divided between the races. This state committee has general direction of all matters involving race relationships. It appoints two general state secretaries, one from each race, who are paid salaries, and required to give all of their time to organizing county inter-racial committees, and to initiating plans and programs for the promotion of the mutual welfare of the races. The work of the county inter-racial committee varies according to local needs. The activities of the committee have to do mostly with such matters as justice in the courts, repression of mobs, better school facilities, adequate libraries, parks, the improvement of sanitary condi- tions, etcetera. The county committee cooperates with the county and city governments, the boards of education, the superintendent of RACIAL COOPERATION 557 education, chamber of commerce, churches, and other organizations which might be helpful in any program of common welfare. From the headquarters of the Inter-racial Commission in Atlanta, handbooks and pamphlets are sent to the state inter-racial commissions, and to the county inter-racial committees, offering suggestions as to what to do, and giving information as to what has been and is being done throughout the South for the betterment of the Negro population.* The state commissions and the state secretaries generally look after the interests of the Negro in reference to state institutions, such as industrial schools, schools for the deaf and blind, normal and industrial schools, common schools, and high schools, and also in reference to adequate appropriations by the state legislatures for the support of these institutions. About 800 county inter-racial committees have been organized and are functioning. The work of these committees may be illustrated by citing a few examples of what has been accomplished. In Breathitt county, Kentucky, the inter-racial committee prevailed upon the county authorities to erect at the county seat an adequate schoolhouse for the Negroes at a cost of $7,000. In Graves county, Kentucky, the committee created a public sentiment which resulted in the erection of a high school for the colored people at Mayfield, costing $25,000. In Louisville the committee and state secretary assisted in raising $40,000 among the white people for Simmons University, a colored institution. In Tennessee the state committee and state secretary were active in getting a legislative appropriation of $100,000 for the colored A. and M. College, making available $220,000 more in conditional gifts from other sources. In Virginia the inter-racial committees have assisted in clearing Manassas Industrial School from debt by raising $28,000. In various states the inter-racial committees have cooperated with the local authorities in the establishment of high schools for Negroes, of public libraries, day nurseries, playgrounds, hospitals, and clinics. In Hopkins county, Kentucky, the committee succeeded in averting the lynching of a Negro who had murdered the sheriff of the county. A mob gathered at Madisonville, where the Negro was jailed, and not only threatened to lynch the murderer but to burn the colored section of the town. The colored members of the committee agreed to offer 1 Handbook for Inter-racial Committees, by Edwin Mims; Codperation in ° Southern Communities, by T. J. Woofter, Jr., and Isaac Fisher. 558 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE poy tbh neh AALS at a aa kann lh doesn eet oan a pa ee a reward for the arrest and conviction of the murderer. They imme- diately had struck off hundreds of hand-bills, signed by representative Negroes of the region, regretting the killing of Sheriff Hunter, who was known to be especially friendly to the colored people, and distributed those among the angry threatening mob. The effect was immediate, for when these white men saw the attitude of the colored citizens, and were convinced they had no sympathy for the lawless element among their race, the mob quietly dispersed, and Hopkins county and the State of Kentucky were saved the disgrace of a lynching, and possibly the loss of lives and homes of innocent colored people. The Negro was subsequently arrested, tried at Madisonville without any disturbance whatever, convicted, and electrocuted. The Negroes of the community paid their proffered reward, refusing assistance from their white friends, who, moved by their upholding of law and order, wished to help them. The Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation is fortunate in having as its director Will W. Alexander, a man of rare vision, initiative, and tact. WORK OF THE SOUTHERN CLERGYMEN The Inter-racial Commission has been instrumental in stimulating the religious organizations of the South to take a more active and prac- tical interest in the welfare of the Negro. At the request of the commission, three of its members, Rt. Rev. Theodore D. Bratton, Bishop of Mississippi; Dr. William L. Poteat, president of Wake Forest College, and Dr. R. E. Blackwell, president of Randolph-Macon College, issued invitations to representative clergymen of the Protestant Churches in the South to attend a conference on inter-racial codpera- tion at Blue Ridge, North Carolina, in August, 1920. The conference was largely attended and, after a general discussion, issued an appeal to the Christian people as follows: “We, a group of white Christian men and women of the South, absolutely loyal to the best traditions and convictions of the South, and especially to the principle of racial integrity, voluntarily assembled upon the invitations of the Commission on Inter-racial Codperation, and after prayerful and careful consideration of prevailing inter-racial relations and conditions, do deliberately declare it to be our profound conviction that the real responsibility for the solution of inter-racial problems in the South rests directly upon the hearts and consciences of the Christian forces of our land. RACIAL COOPERATION Ae) “We are also persuaded that the best method by which to approach the consideration and solution of such problems is through local organ- izations, composed of the recognized Christian leaders of both races, organizations similar to the Christian Council formed and functioning so effectively under the inter-racial Christian leadership of Atlanta, Georgia. “Tt is a matter of common knowledge that grave injustices are often suffered by members of the Negro race in matters of legal procedure, traveling facilities, educational facilities, the public press, domestic service, child welfare and in other relations of life. Therefore, we venture to make the following observations and suggestions: “We unhesitatingly declare lynching to be a crime against the honor of our nation. We rejoice to know that many Southern goy- ernors and other Christian leaders have taken very high ground on this question and have by their attitude and action reduced the crime of lynching in their respective states. We believe the Christian people of the South are unalterably opposed to this savage practice. We, therefore, recommend that the pulpit, in the religious press and denom- inational literature, and in every other possible way, the Christian _ forces of the South unhesitatingly and uncompromisingly condemn and oppose all mob violence, and that the voice of our united Christian effort be steadfastly raised in the defense of the sacredness of life and of law and order. “In the matter of legal justice, we urge our ministers and laymen throughout the South, by frequent visitation, to keep in close touch with the administration of justice in their local courts, particularly in the petit courts. In this connection we express the hope that “Legal Aid Societies’ will be formed in all cities and larger towns, and that the service of competent lawyers will be enlisted by such Legal Aid Societies to the end that the poor and the unprivileged of all races shall have justice. “We recommend that the ministry and leaders of the local churches of both races co-operate in the promotion of local Inter-Racial Com- mittees for the purpose of securing better inter-racial relations to the end that peace and justice may be observed for all.” The Rev. John Little, the son of a slave-owner, has been conducting, for fourteen or more years, a mission for religious and social service among the Negroes of Louisville, Kentucky. 560 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE WORK OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN CHRIST In 1921 the Federal Council of the Churches in Christ, acting upon appeals from the Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation, created a commission on Negro churches and race relations, and the first meeting of the commission was held in Washington, July, 1922. It was pre- sided over by John Eagan of Atlanta. Dr. Robert E. Speer, as president of the council, explained the influences that had led to the creation of the commission and focused attention on the fundamental contri- bution which the Christian churches, committed to the Gospel of brotherhood and to the method of cooperation, can make toward the solution of this problem. Dr. W. W. Alexander, director of the Com- mission on Inter-racial Cooperation, and Professor Isaac Fisher of Fisk University told of the far-reaching work which has been carried on by that body through establishing local inter-racial committees in the great majority of communities in the South. Mrs. Luke Johnson, of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, spoke upon the new interest of Southern church women in the racial question. Professor John R. Hawkins, financial secretary of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, opened the discussion of the work which the Federal Council’s commission should do. Others, colored and white, took part in the discussion. At the conclusion of the meeting the following statement of the purposes of the commission was unanimously adopted: “The Christian conception of God and man constrains us to believe whole-heartedly that the races should and can live together in mutual helpfulness and good-will, each making its own contribution to the richness of the human family as a whole and cooperating with the others in seeking the common good. “We, therefore, set forth the following as the purposes which this Commission will seek to serve: “tT. To assert the sufficiency of Christianity as the solution of race relations in America and the duty of the Churches and all their organ- izations to give the most careful attention to this question. “2. To provide a central clearing-house and meeting-place for the Churches and for all Christian agencies dealing with the relation of the white and negro races, and to encourage and support their activities along this line. “3. To promote mutual confidence and acquaintance, both nationa!ly and locally, between the white and Negro Churches, especially by state RACIAL COOPERATION S61 and local conferences between white and Negro ministers, Christian educators and other leaders, for the consideration of their common problems. “4. To array the sentiment of the Christian Churches against mob violence and to enlist their thorough-going support in a special program of education on the subject for a period of at least five years. “s. To secure and distribute accurate knowledge of the facts re- garding racial relations and racial attitudes in general, and regarding particular situations that may be under discussion from time to time. “6. To develop a public conscience which will secure to the Negro equitable provision for education, health, housing, recreation and all other aspects of community welfare. “7 To make more widely known in the Churches the work and principles of the Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation, and espe- cially to support its efforts to establish local inter-racial committees. “8. To secure the presentation of the problem of race relations and of the Christian solution by white and Negro speakers at as many church gatherings as possible throughout the country.” The Commission on Inter-racial Cooperation, which carries on its work mostly through local organizations, has brought about notable results in Nashville and Atlanta. At Nashville, the Commercial Club appointed a committee on race relationship, cornposed of representative men of different occupations, and the Negro leaders of the city appointed a like committee to co- operate with the committee of the whites. Joint meetings of the two committees were held, and five sub-committees were appointed as fol- lows: I. On justice in city and county courts. 2. On uniform and impartial enforcement of the street-car laws. 3. On handling by newspapers of the news relating to Negroes. 4. On the improvement in equipment and in equality of teachers in Negro schools. 5. On parks, playgrounds, and general living conditions. The joint committee also employed a special lawyer to look after the general status of the Negroes in the courts. The sub-committees have brought about many changes for the bet- terment of the Negroes. The efficiency of Negro schools has been improved, the press of the city, which formerly had made reference to Negroes only in connection with crime, began to print news of Negro activities in business, education, religion, and other lines of worthy 562 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE endeavor, an additional public park was provided for the Negroes, and so on. When a drive was started for an increased endowment for Fisk University, the Commercial Club got behind it by appointing a com- mittee to go to New York to aid in the campaign, and Governor Rob- erts, and Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt University accompanied the committee and made addresses in behalf of the endowment. In Atlanta in January, 1916, there was organized a commission on church codperation made up of representatives of the ministry and laity of the Evangelical denominations. This commission appointed a special committee on racial relationship and invited the Negro ministers of the city to appoint a like committee. These respective committees of the two races have held joint meetings, and worked together for better race relations and better conditions for the Negro. As a result of their joint effort a high school has been established for the Negroes, the salaries of Negro teachers have been increased, a public park has been established, and better transportation accommodations secured, etcetera. The original commission on church cooperation has been reorganized into the Christian Council, which cooperates with a duplicate Negro council. PART PLAYED IN UPLIFT BY SOUTHERN WHITE WOMEN The white women of the South, through their clubs, churches and other organizations, have been spending a great amount of money, and giving personal services of a manifold kind for the uplift of the colored population. Everything which they have attempted to do has been done by personal contact and cooperation with the colored women. Back in 1885 the white women of Atlanta held prayer meetings with colored women throughout the city in behalf of carrying the prohibition election. About the same time, which was during the worst days of the Georgia convict camps, the white women made and won a fight for the proper segregation and protection of colored women prisoners.? The white women of the Southern Methodist Church, through their Missionary Council, have been supporting an industrial department for girls in a school established by their church for the training of colored ministers and teachers. They have also been supporting a social settle- ment for colored people in Augusta, Georgia, and another at Nashville, Tennessee, and the directors of each are men and women of both races. The Methodist women render service in colored Sunday schools, *Hammond, Southern Women and Racial Adjustment, p. 9. RACIAL COOPERATION 563 promote colored missionary societies, school betterment, recreational facilities, and especially the formation of, and codperation with, colored women’s community clubs for betterment along all lines.° In reference to the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Presbyterian Church, Mrs. W. C. Winsborough of St. Louis writes, under date of January 19, 1926, as follows: “The earliest work of our church for the negro was the founding of Stillman Institute for the training of negro preachers at Tuscaloosa, Ala., fifty years ago. This Institution was founded by Dr. Stillman who realized the great need of training an educated ministry for the spiritual leadership of the negro race. The attendance of this school has been inter-denominational and we have sent out more ministers to other de- nominations than to our own, but several have been in the missionary work in Africa and others are leaders in the ministry in our own as well as other denominations. “About five years ago the plan at Stillman was changed to include a school for girls, a large brick dormitory being built for this purpose. The men in Stillman have always been able to earn their way through the school by working on the large farm which is attached to the In- stitution. The girls’ instruction is also industrial as well as literary. We have there now about two hundred and fifty students, boys and girls, and about fifteen candidates for the ministry. We now have a dairy in connection with the school, and a machine shop. The standards of the school have been raised this year to include two years of college work and next year, it will be a standard four-year college. “Our church has forty-two negro churches whose ministers are largely supported by the Home Missions department of our church, Their membership numbers one thousand three hundred and eight. “One of the most outstanding pieces of work which has been done by our church is the establishment of Conferences for Colored Women by the women of our church. The first of these was established ten years ago at Tuscaloosa, Ala. Representative colored women from surround- ing States are called together for one week, for study of the Bible, of social conditions, and of better ways of living, play-ground work, sew- ing school, nursing and other practical betterment plans.” The first wife of President Wilson, when a young girl and art student in New York, sought out a colored Sunday-school and taught there during her two years’ stay in that city. At Meridian, Mississippi, the white women conduct a Bible teachers’ class and a story teller’s > Hammond, Southern Women and Racial Adjustment, p. 11- 504 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE league for colored people. In Uniontown, Alabama, the Presbyterian white women have been visiting Negro homes and reading the Bible to the colored sick and aged.* The Southern Baptist women have carried on a number of industrial schools for colored children in Baltimore.® In Texas and other states. they cooperate with the colored people in missionary programs. The women of the Episcopal Church aid, in various ways, the work of the General Board of Missions of their church in the support of par- ish schools for Negroes.® Student conferences attended by both white and colored women are held annually in the South under the auspices of the Y. W. C, A." The Southern club women concern themselves with nearly every phase of social welfare and their work has brought them into frequent contact and cooperation with the colored people. In their programs of civic betterment they have found the colored women ever ready to co- operate. The women of the two races have often worked jointly in campaigns for cleaning streets and alleys, for removing resorts of vice, and for other civic improvements. The club women of Baltimore have a committee on work for col- ored people, and employ as secretary a trained colored woman who is a graduate of Hampton. The committee concerns itself with health, housing, school attendance, and other interests of the Negro population. Among other things it supports a day nursery. In Mississippi the white club women frequently go to Negro schools and give health talks.® In Alabama the federated club women support a colored farm demon- strator and a colored woman to organize canning clubs.? In Georgia the club women support moonlight schools to eradicate illiteracy among both races,?° and pay the salary of an organizer of Junior Leagues in the public schools of both races. In Jacksonville, Florida, the club women employ four public nurses for the colored districts." The club women of Atlanta have conducted a cooking school for colored women and girls, intended for colored home-makers, and not for training cooks for white people. *Hammond, Southern Women and Ractal Adjustment, p. 13. °Ibid., p. 14. *Ibid., p. 15. "Tbid., p. 16. *Tbid., p. 24. *Tbid., p. 24. dation OL 2A: “1 bd.) 0) 25, RACIAL COOPERATION 565 In Augusta, Georgia, the club women have interested themselves in a reformatory for colored children, playgrounds, sanitation, etcetera. Several years ago the women of Birmingham put on a campaign to clean up the Negro slums and the public interest aroused in the matter led the city to erect there a $60,000 industrial school which has trans- formed the entire neighborhood. CHAPTER 69 RACIAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT Necessity for Effective Codperation of Inter-Racial Understanding on the Social Question—Variations of the Color Line under Different Conditions of Race Contact—The Natural Tendency of Unlike Races to Live Apart—Contrast Between the Northern and Southern Negroes on the Social Question— Tighter Drawing of the Color Life Resulting from Agitation against It— Hope of Mutual Understanding on the Social Question and of Increasing Inter-Racial Cooperation. HE first step in the direction of effective cooperation is to arrive at a mutual understanding upon the fundamental question of racial relationships about which there is at present a great amount of confusion and misunderstanding. The extent of racial contact varies with the varying ratio of Negroes to whites in each state. In consequence of these varying extents of contact the customs and conventions governing race relations are more or less different in each locality. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that whites and blacks in different sections of our country have different ideas as to what the race relationships should be. Let us now analyze these different customs and conventions in the different geographical areas and see if we can discover in them some underlying principle which the whites and blacks might agree upon as a basis of racial adjustment for all localities. To begin with let us take an example of a community of white people where there is no color line in public places. Reverend Henry Hugh Proctor, a colored man, while living in Atlanta, Georgia, went on a trip to the Holy Land and, in writing an account of this trip, said: “I was again surprised when I found diffi- culty in securing passage with touring parties on account of race prej- udice, although I applied to companies in Boston as well as in New York. The problem was solved by the purchase of an independent teeta co “After the difficulty in securing my passage I presumed I would be ill-treated on shipboard. Contrary to this I was treated with the highest courtesy from the captain to the humblest steward on ship- 566 RACIAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT 567 board during the twenty-nine days I sailed on the Franconia. I sat at the captain’s table, and a French woman sat on one side of me and a German on the other. “I wondered before leaving if I should not get lonely for people of my own color. To my surprise I saw colored people everywhere. I saw a young colored man playing on the gambling tables at Monte Carlo. One sees people of all colors in Cairo. The man who drove my carriage to the Jordan was jet black. The priest presiding at the Greek church in Tiberias was of pure ebony. I met a colored man from Virginia in Geneva. There were many colored people in Bel- gium. Tall black men stood at the doors of the beer gardens in Berlin. Colored people are plentiful in Paris. They seem to be at home in London. Since three-fourths of mankind belong to the colored races it ought not to be surprising to find colored people all over the world. As a matter of fact I was often taken for an American Indian, an East Indian, an Egyptian, and what not. “Although I did find colored people everywhere, I found the color line nowhere. As the skyline of New York faded out the color line faded with it. I traveled for fifteen thousand miles in the Old World and I saw nothing of racial discrimination during that time. On the other hand my color was an attraction, instead of a detraction. At Corfu, Greece, I was mistaken for a king, being the only colored man on board.’ ? Now, since the Rev. Mr. Proctor found no color line in England, should he conclude that the Englishman is a superior type of white man who has risen above color prejudice? On a moment’s reflection he would be obliged to answer in the negative, for he would recall the fact that where native Englishmen came in contact with large masses of colored people as in Australia, South Africa, or Jamaica, the color line is drawn there just as it is in Georgia. By inquiry he would learn that a Chinaman boarding a British liner for his native country would have to pay double price, for the reason that the state-rooms accom- modate two persons and no Englishman will occupy a room with a Chinaman. If colored men were as rare in the Southern United States as in England or Continental Europe, and if Keverend Mr. Proctor were touring the South, would he not be able to write back to his people in New York and tell them that he found no color line in public places and that his color was an attraction instead of a detraction? * Proctor, Between Black and White, pp. 145-6. 568 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE In New York, where Reverend Mr. Proctor now lives, he finds that the colored people are not segregated to the same extent as in Georgia, that there are no separate schools, or jim-crow railway or street cars. Yet he is too intelligent a man to suppose that this difference is due to anything more than the fact that the Negro population in New York is relatively smaller than in Georgia. If he were acquainted with the history of New York he would know that the color line was drawn in New York city as in any South- ern community when in 1740 the Negroes constituted a considerable proportion of the population. These facts ought to suggest the truth that the reaction of the white man to the colored man is about the same everywhere under similar conditions of contact. I-verywhere in the United States the white people draw the color line to whatever extent is practicable to avoid an undesirable frequency or intimacy of contact, and nowhere is there any free intermingling of whites and blacks except in dens of vice. A general recognition of the fact that the attitude of the white peo- ple toward racial intermingling is substantially the same in all of the states would go a long way toward terminating a discussion which serves only to inflame the passions of both races. The second step in the direction of effective inter-racial coOpera- tion is to arrive at an understanding as to why there is a color line be- tween the whites and blacks in the United States or elsewhere. I think the colored people generally have a very wrong idea of the reason for this color line. They are aware of the fact that their race as a whole is yet backward in culture, and that many white people dis- play a contempt for any man with a dark skin. They, therefore, con- clude that the white people draw the color line only because they be- lieve the Negro race to be an inferior one. In Chapter 54 I have tried to make plain that the extent of social intermingling between races de- pends primarily upon their degree of visible likeness, and not upon their natural capacity or their culture. Races in contact which differ in any marked degree tend to keep themselves socially apart for reasons which are no discredit to them, and which grow out of their consciousness of kind and their natural and ineradicable preference for intimate association with their own kind. The feeling of likeness which draws the members of a race to- gether results in a racial tradition and a pride of achievement which RACIAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT 569 intensify their natural gregarious tendency. Hence, although it may be that most white people do regard the Negro as inferior, the funda- mental cause of the color line, nevertheless, is that the two races are incompatible because of their unlikeness. For example, while the white people of California admire the Japanese for their capability and achievements, they tend to draw away from them socially as the white people of Mississippi draw away from the Negro; and, if the Japanese preponderated in the population of California as the Negro preponder- ates in Mississippi, the color line would probably be as rigidly drawn in the former state as in the latter. Physical difference, together with pride of tradition, tends more or less to separate all races, and the degree of separateness depends upon the degree of difierence. The main idea to grasp is that in cases where the separateness is complete, or where it is partial or varying, there need be no lack of mutual respect, good feeling, and cooperation. A recognition of the fact that the social segregation of white and black in the United States is due primarily to their unlikeness, and that the segregating tendency is natural to both races, would have the happy effect of removing from the mind of the Negro the idea that the white man’s part in the segregation is due to a race hatred or to a culpable race prejudice. When we come to an understanding on the social question we can turn our energies to the important and practical task of establishing cus- toms, standards, and institutions which will insure to both races fair opportunities under the varying conditions of race contact in the dif- ferent sections of the United States. Our ideal should be, not a régime of castes, but one of parallel culture with opportunity for each race to flower according to its genius. Would it be possible to win the whole-hearted adherence of the white and colored people of our country to an ideal of this kind? Many people of both races doubt it. Some colored people regard the issue of breaking down the social barriers as paramount, and on this issue ac- cept no compromise. And some white people are skeptical of the sin- cerity of those colored people who profess to have no desire for white society. Back in 1896, when Booker Washington said that the races could be as separate as the fingers in social matters and one as the hand in all that is essential to the welfare of each, a large section of the Northern Negroes denounced this figure of speech as a compromise. 570 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE And, when President Harding used substantially the same figure in his Birmingham speech, October 26, 1921, a similar chorus of protests arose from the Negroes of the North. William Archer, the English student of our race problem, does not believe that the Negroes who profess indifference to social separation are sincere; he thinks that they hope by insisting upon social contact to wear down the white man’s race-pride and force him finally to ac- cept amalgamation. He quotes the statement of the Negro Kelly Miller that “two races cannot live indefinitely side by side, under the same general régime, without ultimately fusing,’ and adds the comment that between looking forward to amalgamation as inevitable and hoping and dreaming for it is not greatly different. Professor Reuter remarks that: “The desire of the mixed-blood man is always and everywhere to be a white man; to be classed with and become a part of the superior race.” ” In reference to the question of social intermingling with the whites, Professor Reuter notes the contrast of attitude between the Negro leaders of the North and South. He tells us that in the South: “The bi-racial arrangement—the sep- aration of the Negroes from the whites and their independence in many of the affairs of life—created a need and supplied a place for the su- periorameniiofiithewace. »t “To the extent that the races became separated and the Negroes gained in independence and developed a sense of racial pride and self- reliance, there was a place for an educated class within the race; there was a need for teachers and preachers, for physicians and lawyers, for business men and entertainers, and for all the host of other parasitic and semi-parasitic classes that go to make up a modern community. With the rise of a middle-class, the race was able to support a profes- sional and leisure class; previously the educated Negro was an idler and a parasite. The isolation of the race forced the Negroes to de- pend upon their own educated men and so made a place for such men.’ “The separation of the races freed the Negro professional and business men from the competition of the better trained and more effi- cient white men and consequently gave them an opportunity to rise out of all proportion to their native ability and training. The plane of com~ petition became one on which they could hope to succeed. The older— the slave and reconstruction plan of adjustment—was an accommodation * Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States, p. 315. *Tbid., p. 350. RACIAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT S71 on horizontal lines. The white man was at the top, the black man was at the bottom. It was a caste distinction that prevented the rise of the capable individual out of his group. In the newer arrangement, the opportunity to rise was limited only by the ability and the industry of the individual man. There was no superior caste above him. “As has been previously pointed out in detail, the superior men of the race are, with scarcely the proverbial exception, mulattoes. The segregation of the Negroes, the rise of a middle-class, and the conse- quent bi-racial adjustment of the races thus have made a place and furnished a vocation for the mulattoes. Unable to escape the race and unable to constitute a caste above the race, they remained with the race and became its real leaders. They are the professional and business men of the race. They are the leaders in all the racial and inter-racial af- fairs. The bi-racial arrangement gives the mulatto the opportunity for a useful life and, at the same time, it allows him to remain superior to his black fellows. “These Southern mulatto leaders, however, are men who, at least outwardly, consider themselves Negroes. They are men who have given up, in practice if not in theory, the hopeless struggle for social recognition by the whites and identified themselves with the black group. Their status is fixed; they are members of the Negro race. Social equality with the whites is out of the question and the denial of it ceases to disturb them. The success they make in life is in another direction and the amount of it depends upon themselves. They are men who have concealed, if they have not succeeded in overcoming, their aversion for the black man. They do not openly flaunt their su- periority because of their white blood, and they find their life and their work among their darker and more backward fellows. The mu- lattoes, for the most part Southern mulattoes, have, in this new adjust- ment of the races, found their place as the real and natural leaders of the race. They are the men who teach the black man in the schools and in the Negro colleges, who preach to him from the pulpits, who man- age his banks and business enterprises, who rise to prominence in all the social, political, and economic affairs of the race. . . .4 “The mulatto feels himself in alliance with the group and in the cooperation of common activities there arises a sympathetic understand- ing and appreciation which fuses the mulatto, in sentiments and atti- tudes, with the larger whole. He is identified with the black group, feels the mute longing of the common folk, feels himself a part of it, is “Reuter, op. cit., pp. 359-62. 572 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE moulded by it, and comes, little by little, to realize himself as a factor in the common life and purpose of the group. He ceases to be, in thought and feeling, a stranger among his people; he learns to appre- ciate them, ceases to be ashamed of his relationship to them, ceases to resent being classed with them. Their problems become his problems ; their life, his life. The mulatto thus ceases to be a problem within a problem; he becomes a functioning unit in the social life of an evolving people.” ® Turning to the aspects of the question in the North, Professor Reuter says that: “where the Negroes are relatively less numerous, they have in general not been legally assigned a definite racial status in the community life. ... ] “There is among the Negroes in the North an absence of unity and race solidarity. The numbers of the race are relatively small, widely scattered, unorganized, and without a common interest. It is predom- inantly an urban population and stands for the most part as a popula- tion of unskilled laborers dependent for the means of livelihood upon white employers. Their tendency to congregate in one or a few sec- tions of the cities and towns gives an appearance of unity which in reality does not exist; the residential segregation is a matter of eco- nomic necessity rather than a matter of choice. The race is divided into innumerable antagonistic groups, societies, orders, factions, cliques, and what not, endless in number and puzzling in complexity, whose mutual jealousy and distrust prevent any united, coOperative action. There is no leadership that has any considerable following and no pro- gram for racial progress that has the assent of more than a faction of the Negro group; there is nothing to hold the various factions to- gether and the group is without any semblance of organized unity. “The superior men of the race, even more than in the South, are mulattoes. . . .® “The Northern mulattoes are, however, in spite of their superior education and position, without a definite rdle in the inter-racial life of the community. More than in the Southern section of the country, the mulattoes are separated in fact and in sympathy from the mass of the race. They are proud of their European blood, their smoother fea- tures, their ‘better’ hair and their higher economic status; they are not always careful to conceal the fact. Frequently they live apart from the Negro community, find their social life among others of their kind, at- * Reuter, op. cit., p. 362. *Ibid., p. 366. RACIAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT 573 tend white churches or form congregations of their own class and color. The upper class mulattoes are frequently without much acquaintance with the real Negroes. In their professional or business life, they are separated from the mass of the race and come often into very little contact with them even in a business way. Their idea of the Negro and their attitude toward him, is the idea and the attitude of the white man. The attitude is one of more or less kindly toleration and mild contempt which changes to active discrimination and positive hatred when the Negro assumes the attitude of an equal and seeks the priv- ilege of social equality. In their public utterances the Negro may be idealized, but there is no desire or disposition on the part of the mulatto to have any intimate association with him. “Yet the mulattoes assume the role of spokesman for the race; they undertake to represent the Negro and to speak for him. Their superior education, their higher economic status as well as their greater individ- ual success, and their more prominent position give plausibility to their assumption of leadership and allow them, rather than men who are closer to the race and better able to voice the feelings and attitudes of the inarticulate mass, to get themselves accepted as representatives of the Negroes. They appear as champions of the Negro at all times when there is profit or notoriety to be gained by so doing. They make incendiary speeches, draw up petitions and protests, appear before leg- islative and executive committees as the representatives of a people they only imperfectly represent... .”7 “The agitations of the mulatto groups and individuals are, for ob- vious reasons, carried on in the name of the Negro, not in the name of the mulatto. The ends to be reached are such as concern the real Negroes very little. The agitations voice the bitterness of the supe- rior mulattoes, of the deracialized men of education, culture, and re- finement who resent and rebel against the intolerant social edict that excludes them from white society and classes them with the despised race? “The inter-racial situation in the North is thus, in very large part, a caste arrangement. The mulattoes are the superior men and form or tend to form, a separate and exclusive class above the race. They assume the role of spokesman for the race but they are not an integral part of it as are the mulatto leaders of the South. . . ° "Reuter, op. cit., pp. 367-8. ®Ibid., p. 370. °Ibid., p. 371. 574 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE “The mulattoes are rather outside the race, above it. They have not given up the hope of equality with the whites; they are not satisfied to be Negroes and to find their life and their work among the members of the race. They are contemptuous of the blacks who are socially below them and envious of the whites who are socially above them. The ac- commodation of the races is on horizontal lines with the educated and light-colored mulattoes standing between the blacks and the whites.’ 7° Professor Reuter, however, goes on to say that the caste, or horizon- tal, status of race relations in the North is giving way to the bi-racial status which obtains in the South through the increasing tendency to identify the Northern mulattoes with the Northern blacks and the re- sulting increase of racial solidarity. ‘But curiously enough,” he says, “the rebellious attitude of the militant mulattoes against the habitual attitude of the white group and their agitations against discriminations, whether carried on by themselves or by their white sympathizers, which have for their real though seldom openly avowed and sometimes not consciously understood purpose the allowing of the superior, educated mulattoes to escape from the Negro race and to be absorbed into the white race—their protests and complaints and campaigns of bitterness and abuse—have an effect quite different from that desired. It tends to defeat its own object and works ultimately to the profit of the Negro group as a whole rather than to that of the protesting group. Instead of influencing the white man to recognize the mulattoes as a superior type of man and to accept them on a rating different from that on which he accepts the mass of the race—as an individual regardless of race or color—the effect is to identify the complaining individuals more closely with the masses of the race; it tends to solidify the race and, in the thinking of the white man, to class the agitators with it. Its effect is not to break down the white man’s antipathy and prejudice, but to make the feeling more acute and to make more conscious and distinct the de- termination of the white people to preserve their ideals of racial and social purity. It results in a stricter and a more conscious and pur- poseful drawing of the color line and a drawing of the line where it had previously not been drawn. In the effort to escape the race, the mulattoes become more than ever identified with it. The segregation policy which exists in all lines everywhere in the South and less openly and frankly but frequently not less effectively in the North wherever the Negroes are numerous and troublesome, is in large part a reaction *® Reuter, op. cit., p. 371. RACIAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT 575 on the part of the white people against the militant mulattoes’ efforts to achieve social equality with the whites. “Both the mulattoes and the Negroes stand to profit in the end by the agitation of the radical mulatto group for social and class recog- nition. The struggle for abstract rights is not productive of any im- portant results in the way of removing racial prejudice or social dis- crimination; it has rather the contrary tendency. But it serves to identify the mulatto with the race and this is an advantage both to the black and to the yellow man. The black Negroes are the gainers by having their natural leaders thrust, even though it be against their will, back upon the race. The mulattoes are gainers in that they are thus forced to see and to embrace the great opportunity which the presence of the people of their own race affords them for a useful and a valu- able life of real leadership. The horizontal accommodation—the caste system—of the North seems destined ultimately to transform itself, as the earlier caste system of the South has already largely done, into a vertical accommodation—a bi-racial system.” 1? Assuming that there is a considerable group of Negroes in the United States who still ardently crave the society of white people and look forward to a day of general amalgamation, there are reasons for believing that their interest in racial intermixture is a temporary and artificially cultivated state of mind which is contrary to their natural impulse, and which will either pass away, or linger as an aberration among a class of men whose influence will be negligible. I have iterated that the tendency of unlike races, when juxtaposed in mass, is to segregate and to prefer social contact and intermarriage within their own race circles. In the United States, if some Negroes crave the society of white people, it is in a large measure because the white people represent a higher culture, the possession of which, with all of its privileges and opportunities, seems impossible outside of that society. Hence it is the aspiration of the Negro for cultural fellow- ship and opportunity rather than for companionship with white people which inclines him to long for and to imagine that he would enjoy the white man’s. society. The more we enlarge the opportunities of the Negro, and the more he develops a cultural tradition of his own, the more he will be drawn toward his own people and the less he will feel a desire to mingle socially with the whites.” “Reuter, op. cit., pp. 372-4. ” Dr. Frissell, president of Hampton Institute, says: “I wish our friends in the South could learn the lesson we have learned here, which is that when the 576 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE It may be several generations before the highly educated class of Negroes can find a satisfying intercourse in the society of their own people, and, in the meantime, those of them who seem to covet the so- ciety of white people should be less viewed as longing for the day of universal miscegenation than as longing for a day of universal culture when the intercourse between races shall be characterized by justice and courtesy. From the standpoint of each race, therefore, I think there are pos- sibilities of a more sympathetic understanding of each other’s point of view, of an agreement on things fundamental, and of a hopeful going ahead toward more open opportunities. Negro is really cultivated and taught self-respect he prefers to keep to himself, to associate with other cultivated negroes, and does not bother the white people at all.” Quoted by Patterson, The Negro and His Needs, p. 191. CHAPTER 70 SUGGESTED SPHERE OF NEGRO ACTIVITY Propitiousness for the Survival of the Negro of Conditions Which Minimize Competition with the Whites—Advantages of the Natural Tendency of the Negro to Keep Apart—Need of Training More Negroes for Skilled Labor and for Professional Careers—Need of Education Better Adapted to the Negro’s Cultural Status and Spheres of Activity I THINK it stands to reason that the survival of the Negro would be favored by the maintenance of conditions which minimize competi- tion with the white race. Without assigning to the Negro the exclusive status of a serving class, or furthering the process of segregation by law, it should be possible to keep open to him sundry spheres of activity upon which the white man would not aggressively encroach. For in- stance, Negroes are not likely to be hampered in the purchase and op- eration of farms, and, beside the large sphere which they occupy as tenants, crop-hands and domestic servants, they should be able to hold and enlarge the field, in which they have gained entrance as both skilled and unskilled workers, in the world of mining and manufactur- ing. Any kind of work which by custom has come to belong to a group of Negroes will be easy to retain as compared to kinds of work in which the Negro has only an individual and precarious foothold. The natural tendency of the Negro to segregate insures for him a diversity of occupations almost equal to that of the whites. It offers opportunities for nearly every kind of trade and handicraft; it opens a career for the teacher, the doctor, the dentist, the lawyer, and the preacher. There will always be room at the top for men and women of talent. Among the lines of activity offering the prospect of immediate ad- vancement to the Negroes, I would suggest the training of larger num- bers of them for the skilled trades. A great drawback to the Negroes at present is that they furnish an oversupply of raw labor which is everywhere the most irregular in demand or the poorest paid. The best service which could be rendered the Negro would be to provide for him more and better-equipped industrial schools with the view to relieving the pressure in the unskilled trades, and enabling him to earn 577 578 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE better wages, and secure more regular employment. ‘There is a large field for the Negro in the skilled trades in serving his own race. And in a great many kinds of skilled trades, now occupied by the whites, the Negro could find entrance, if he had an efficiency equal to that of the whites. The vast resources yet undeveloped in this country will insure a great demand for labor for many years to come, and the Negro should qualify himself to share in supplying that demand. The exclu- sion of the Negro from the unions of skilled laborers has been more on account of his inefficiency and objectionable traits than on account of his color. If the Negro were less zealous in raising the race issue on all occasions, and less disposed to follow the lead of men who make a profession of stirring up race prejudice, the opposition to him in indus- trial circles would be less stubborn. In many manufacturing and me- chanical industries there are now large numbers of skilled Negro em- ployes, and in some cases they are admitted to the unions of the whites, and in other cases they belong to unions of their own. The field of the Negro in the skilled trades is by no means occupied, and there are possibilities of greatly enlarging it. In the line of the professional careers there are extensive oppor- tunities still available for the Negro, both within his own race and in open competition with the whites. In the profession of teacher in the common schools and in colleges, in the ministry, in medicine, dentistry, law, literature, and art, there is a growing demand, made necessary by the increasing Negro population. In most of the professions the ser- vices of the Negro are limited almost entirely to his own race, but in some of the professions of the highest rank, such as authorship, music, painting, and sculpture, the Negro can count on a liberal support from the white public. In the fine arts the Negro has a special advan- tage in the prominence which he gains through the rarity of men of his color found in them. The generous support which the white public has given to Negro artists like Henry O. Tanner, the painter, and Meta Warrick Fuller, the sculptor, and Negro authors like Booker Washington, DuBois, Dunbar, etcetera, shows that there are great possibilities for the Negro in these lines of culture. And these pos- sibilities could be greatly enlarged by building up a more friendly re- lationship between the races. It is unreasonable to expect the Negroes in the lower walks of life to manifest an ambition to rise if there are not opportunities at the top, where the more gifted of the race may win distinction and serve as inspiring models. For all the people of the United States there is need of an educa- SUGGESTED SPHERE OF NEGRO ACTIVITY 579 LE ELLE EEE TET NRE edi tional policy which embraces the phases of life which lie outside the realm of books, especially those phases which lie within the realm of social life. And the need of such an educational policy is especially urgent for our Negro population. The Negro authors and editors in the United States are generally obsessed with the idea that learning to read and write is education, and they point to the falling off in Negro illiteracy as evidence of the marvelous progress of their race. Contrary to this, Frederick Hoffman has presented evidence to show that education has thus far had no appreciable effect on the moral progress of the Negro in the United States.t He takes Leroy-Beaulieu’s definition of education as a process of developing desirable traits and of eliminating undesirable traits ; and he finds that the undesirable traits of the Negro tend to persist in spite of everything that schools have been able to accomplish. What- ever may be thought of the soundness of Hoffman’s view, I think the fact is evident from what I have said in Chapter 52 of this volume that the traits of the Negro are different from those of the Caucasian, and that some of the Negro traits militate greatly against his moral stamina, and his likelihood of survival. Therefore, it seems to me that there are vast opportunities for Negro leaders to distinguish themselves by devising new educational policies, new kinds of schools, and new kinds of mental and moral stimuli, with a view to strengthening the desirable traits of their people and eliminating the undesirable ones. The work of Booker Washington represents an unique innovation in Negro education, the consequence of which has been a notable uplifting of a large mass of his people; and there are unexplored fields for many more Booker Washingtons, if the future can raise up men of his power of visu- alizing the needs of the race. Up to the present time, Negro education has shared, with that of the white man, the fault of being top-heavy, 1. e., colleges and univer- sities have developed out of proportion to, and at the expense of the common and high schools. There are so many Negro colleges and uni- versities that it is impossible to maintain them except on a very low standard of efficiency. There is, therefore, need of eliminating the mass of these so-called institutions of learning, and concentrating the available resources on a few institutions of high standard, located geo- graphically in reference to demand. The present status of Negro sec- ondary education represents an immense waste of money, and indicates a lack of grasp of the educational needs of the race. Negro education has also shared with that of the white man the *Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, p. 236. 580 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE fault of being too scholastic, 1. e., having too little relation to practi- cal life, and being particularly deficient in the social sciences. As for elementary education, the Negroes of the South, as also the white people, need more and better common schools. In propor- tion as the wealth of the South increases, and the public-school system becomes more efficient, the white people should see to it that the schools for the Negro receive an adequate share of the increasing school fund. All primary schools for Negroes, it seems to me, should be equipped for instruction in the industrial arts, especially domestic economy, and, in the rural districts, agriculture. And, with our development of a rich and philanthropic class, we should make liberal gifts to such special schools as Hampton and Tuskegee, and not leave them entirely to Nor- thern generosity for their expansion. In other chapters I have discussed the subject of Negro education in detail, and I merely mention it here in order to point out the great possibilities of raising the economic and moral status of the Negro through the medium of better ¢ducational policies and better codrdi- nated schools. CHAPTER 71 GOOD HOMES, LESS POLITICS, MORE VISION Paths of Hope in the Direction of Better Dwelling-houses and Better Protection of the Negro’s Home—The Suppression of Mobs—Less Concentration upon Politics—Better Understanding between the North and South on the Political Question—Removal of Incentives for the White Demagogue—Golden Oppor- tunities Now Beckoning to the Negro of Thrift fe from better education, however, there are many things which might be done for the advancement of the welfare of our Negro population, and among these I would mention better housing and sani- tary conditions in Negro residential districts. In the towns and cities of the United States the Negroes generally occupy segregated quarters, commonly designated as New Africa, Haiti, Snow Hill, Smoky Hol- low, Log Town, Buzzard’s Roost, etcetera, where the houses are generally in a state of dilapidation, and without modern conveniences, and where the streets and premises generally are without sanitary reg- ulations or oversight. Now, it is perfectly evident that no amount or kind of education is going to do much to elevate the Negro as long as his domestic surroundings are so demoralizing. If the slums of our white people in our large cities are the breeding grounds of vice, dis- ease, and crime, so also are the slums of our colored population. A boy or girl raised in slum surroundings has not a half a chance of mak- ing good. As a first essential to any moral progress of either white or black people, we need to establish standardized housing conditions. The renting of houses unfit for human habitation is one of the worst crimes which can be committed, and we need public sentiment and laws to prevent such houses from being occupied. Every municipality which has a Negro quarter should provide it with proper sewage drains, light, street-cleaning, and garbage-collection ; and, above all, with proper police protection, to the extent at least of suppressing disorderly houses. In addition to what municipalities might do for the Negro quarters, something ought to be done by public-spirited white men in the direc- tion of building model houses for Negroes to buy or rent; and much also ought to be done by the Negroes themselves in the direction of 581 582 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE organizing land companies, and building and loan associations, to pro- vide better locations and better homes for their people. One of the most momentous needs of the Negro is a higher stand- ard of sex morality. Sexual incontinence seems to be a great weak- ness of the Negro race, which is partly due to hereditary traits devel- oped in Africa, and partly due to its position of servility among the white races. Under the matrilineal family, which has existed from time immemorial in Africa, sexual incontinence is not attended with the evil consequences that necessarily follow from it among the Cau- casian races, the traditions of which are those of the patrilineal family. Consequently there have never developed among the Negro races the ideas of chastity which are so consecrated among the Caucasians. The animistic and polytheistic religion of the African Negroes rather pro- motes sexual incontinence, and exalts it to a virtue, while the religion of the Caucasians regards sexual incontinence as a cardinal sin. Among the Negroes of the United States nothing so much harms their vitality and stands in the way of their economic and moral effi- ciency as their addiction to sexual vice. On account of the constitu- tional weakness of the Negroes in this matter, their unfortunate tra- ditions, and their present defenseless position, the task of elevating the domestic morals of the race will be very difficult and will require a long period of time for the accomplishment of results. But the need of prog- ress in this respect is so pressing that it should call forth from the best men and women of both races an immediate concentration of endeavor to set influences at work which will in some measure answer to the need. One of the things which the white people should do, in the matter of better home life for the Negro, is to develop a stronger sentiment against sexual intercourse between white men and Negro women; not alone because of the mongrel progeny which follows, but because such intercourse is especially degrading to both races. Prostitution all over the world is, and has ever been, a matter of the strong taking advan- tage of the weak. Because the white man, thanks to his inherited cul- ture, occupies a position of eminence, it is especially ignoble in him to find his victims among the weak and unprotected women of the Negro race. It is hardly less ignoble to take advantage of the weakness of Negro girls than to take advantage of a feeble-minded, a deaf, a blind, or an orphaned white girl. If Southern chivalry exalts and defends the honor of Southern white women, should it not manifest some dis- position to build up and protect the virtue of colored women? What the spirit of Southern chivalry needs to do is to visit such condemna- GOOD HOMES, LESS POLITICS, MORE VISION — 583 tion upon the white consorts of Negro women that cohabitation be- tween the races will be completely suppressed. The white race, as the stronger, instead of exploiting a weaker race, is under obligation to defend and protect it. While cohabitation between the races is undoubt- edly on the decline, public sentiment in the South is still too lenient with the Southern white bully who utters diatribes against social equal- ity and lynches Negroes for assaults upon white women, and, at the same time, cohabits with the black wench, bringing into the world a mongrel progeny representing the lowest inheritance of both races. Maurice Evans thinks that if the South is to escape the censure of the civilized world, it must see to it “‘that the standard of honor be so raised that the chastity of the Negro woman is safeguarded as that of her white sister.”* In this connection it seems fitting to say that the white people should take more effective measures to protect the Negro against white mobs. Any people claiming to be civilized and free should be able to provide an adequate legal redress for every wrong, and whenever a free people override their own laws they thereby confess their incapacity for self- government. The white man who joins a mob puts himself on a level with the Negro criminal in that both have given way to brute passion. Mob action, by either white or colored men, instead of helping, only postpones, the settlement of the race problem. Within the past few decades the South has awakened to the discredit and injury to its civ- ilization of lynchings and others forms of mob-violence; and public opinion, as reflected by the press, the pulpit, and the platform, is prac- tically a unit against such forms of lawlessness. There is, however, still an amount of lawlessness prevalent which indicates that public sentiment alone is powerless to control it. A Southern woman says in reference to lynching: “There are a hundred law-abiding Southerners—oh, far, far more—to every one of these lawless firebrands; yet, individualistic as we are, unorganized by a social consciousness, half a dozen of them can sway the weak, the excitable, the uninformed among us, and fire the mob spirit, and lay the honor of thousands in the dust.” ? A lesson which our modern democracies have not yet sufficiently learned is that an aroused public opinion is inadequate to check a wrong or inaugurate a reform. In order to make itself prevail, it is necessary that public opinion be organized. This fact has been brought home to 1Black and White in the Southern States, p. 191. 2“Black and White in the South,” Outlook, Mar. 7, 1924. 584 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE us time and again in our warfare against political corruption in our cities. The South needs to organize civic leagues in every town and county which should be the exponents and administrators of public sentiment. These should enlist the service of the best men and women of both races, and, in addition to carrying out a continuous program of civic betterment, should be prepared to act promptly and vigorously against any threatened violence. The inter-racial committees, now widely or- ganized in the counties in the South, are having a wholesome effect in building up sentiment against violence. They are not, however, in- tended to take the place of local civic leagues, but merely to cooperate with them. The organization of civic leagues should greatly facilitate the work of the inter-racial committees. The chief reason of the per- sistence of mob violence in the South is that the people do not realize the necessity of organization until some unforeseen and unexpected riot breaks out, as in Atlanta in 1915. The civic leagues and the inter-racial committees should cooperate with the authorities of the city, the county, and the state governments in the matter of proper schools, libraries, parks, police protection, sanitation, transportation facilities, etcetera, for the colored people. The motto of the white race should be: A higher civilization by uplifting the Negro, not by exploiting him. In reference to the exercise of political privileges, there is need of a better understanding between the white people of the South and those of the North, and between the Negro and the whites of both sections. The people of the South are thoroughly reconciled to the fact that the provisions of our Constitution, prohibiting any discrimination in civil rights on account of race or color, are there to stay. During the Reconstruction times, when these provisions were added to our Constitu- tion and put in force, the Southern people bitterly opposed them be- cause they could not foresee how such provisions could be carried out without rendering permanent the deplorable state of things which the Reconstruction era had brought about. The Southern people now know that the new provisions of the Constitution do not prohibit a state from excluding from the franchise those citizens who cannot make an intelli- gent use of it; and, because the repeal of the new provisions of our Constitution is impossible and unnecessary, the Southern people are firmly resolved to live under and obey the Constitution as it stands. However, the South is in favor of protecting itself against a pos- sible relapse into the Reconstruction horrors by enacting franchise laws which, while conforming to our Constitution, will exclude from the GOOD HOMIES, LESS POLITICS, MORE VISION 585 baliot the element of the population which is a menace to good govern- ment. These franchise laws are much criticized on the ground that they are not applied alike to the whites and blacks. For instance, it is claimed that illiterate Negroes are strictly excluded from voting while illiterate white men vote without molestation. Now, the facts of the matter are about as follows: First, in most of the Southern states Ne- groes who are legally qualified to vote are allowed to do so without hindrance. For instance, in Virginia and North Carolina qualified Ne- groes are as unhampered in voting as qualified white people. Second, in some states where the Negro population is very great, the suffrage tests are applied more stringently to Negroes than to whites. The rea- son for this stricter scrutiny of the Negroes is because experience has shown that their votes have been a menace to good government, and the object of the new franchise laws is to remove this menace. Now, ad- mitting that the laws are more strictly applied to the Negroes, it does not follow that the discriminations against them are solely on account of their race or color; for, even in South Carolina, one may see at many polling places Negroes, known to be good citizens, depositing their bal- lots without any objection whatever from the white people. The fun- damental reason, therefore, for excluding the mass of Negroes from the ballot is their unfitness, and not merely their color. In South Carolina the mass of Negroes remain away from the polls, because so few of them are legally qualified that their vote has no effect on the result. Their vote is therefore not solicited by political leaders and they lapse into an indifference to political campaigns. With the present status of the Negro race in South Carolina I do not believe that a larger participation of the Negro in politics would be good for either race. So long as South Carolina regulates her franchise according to law, the people from outside, black or white, should not be over-ready to offer criticisms. To be perfectly frank, however, whatever might be the fitness of the Negroes under any test, the white people would not permit them to vote, if, as in South Carolina or Mississippi, their voting would mean a return to Negro domination. The history of Reconstruction has fully demonstrated that the white people will resort to any means possible, and even suffer extermination, rather than submit to Negro rule. If the Negroes exercised their franchise privilege as do the Germans, Bo- hemians. Poles, Tews, and other races in our country, by voting accord- ing to their convictions, and distributing their votes among the existing political parties, their exercise of the franchise could never become a 586 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE menace; but so long as they vote on a racial basis their exercise of the franchise will be a menace wherever they are numerous. I do not be- lieve that the white people of any state in our Union would submit to Negro supremacy, and I do not believe that public sentiment anywhere would sanction such supremacy. For the same reasons the people of our country would not countenance Japanese supremacy in California. Any element of population in any state which becomes a menace to good government cannot be said to be qualified for exercising the franchise, and any state having such an element in its population can always find rational and constitutional grounds for protecting itself. It seems to me to be a settled fact, demonstrated over and over again, that neither the Negro, nor any other colored race will ever be allowed to exercise civil rights in the United States to the extent of controlling any part of our government. And, therefore, I think it the part of wisdom for Negro leaders to recognize this fact, and not to make too much ado over the franchise in states where the Negroes con- stitute a menacing proportion of the population. They should, at least, limit their complaints to cases of unquestionably qualified Negroes who have been denied the ballot, and they should cease to hold up to the mass of their race the false idea that the franchise is a right, instead of a privilege depending upon fitness for good citizenship. In states where the Negro population is not a menace, I think that the white people are willing to cooperate with the Negro leaders in seeing to it that all qualified Negroes are allowed to vote. In the matter of the Negro franchise in the South there is opportunity for Negro leaders to exercise a wisdom and discretion which will reflect credit on them- selves, and, at the same time, pave the way for a larger number of Ne- groes to qualify for the suffrage and to profit by its privileges. They should appreciate the fact that the harmonious living together, in the same territory, of two races as unlike as the Negro and the Caucasian is one of the most difficult of problems, and that any straining of the Negro in the direction of political activities is apt to make the problem more difficult. Says the late Professor Shaler: “There is no other way open to us except to trust the future of the Negro to the white people with whom he is in contact. All the expedients of the reconstruction period re- sulted in hindering the advance of the work it was intended to accom- plish, for the reason that it set the races over against each other; it broke up the old friendly relation which had effaced the most serious of the tribal prejudices, and set those persons in flame. Any further GOOD HOMES, LESS POLITICS, MORE VISION _ 587 effort to force an adjustment will be likely to result in something like race war. That we had best trust, and may fairly trust, to the South to contrive safety and justice out of the situation has happily become evident to the whole people. By putting the burden on those who are best fitted to bear it we shall sooner and more surely bring them to deal with it in the manner in which men of our race are accustomed to deal with grave social problems—painstakingly and with justice.” * The worst of the political aspects of the Negro problem is the mis- chief done by white demagogues. The fact that the Negro vote often has a deciding influence in the nomination and election of candidates for office opens the way for the white demagogue to get in power by coddling the Negro and pandering to his prejudices. In the North, the white demagogue, in attempting to ride into office on the Negro’s back, is prone to outdo the most radical Negro, in charging the Southern whites with every kind of injustice to the Negro population, and he chimes in with the radical Negro leaders in proclaiming the franchise laws in the South unconstitutional and outrages upon the natural rights of the citizens. At the same time, the white demagogue in the South is apt to curry favor with the lower type of his own race by a constant harping upon the Negro issue, or making a business of corralling the Negro vote in the hope of gaining some elective or appointive office for himself. The Northern white demagogue has a motive for stirring up in the Negro a bitterness against the Southern whites, and the Southern white demagogue has a motive for stirring up in the whites a bitterness against the Negro. Thus the presence of the Negro in our midst gives a special field for the flourishing of a type of white politi- cian who otherwise would remain in obscurity. Since the Civil War the Negro voters have been only dice and trump-cards for white dema- gogues. They have introduced into our political life a new game of chance, played for a few white men’s benefit, and to the detriment of the Negro. “It is well to understand,” says Shaler, “that the experiment of combining in a democratic society, in somewhere near equal numbers, two such widely separated races as the Aryans and Negroes, has never been essayed. Even under arbitrary governments the association of less discrepant folk has proved impracticable.’’ In harmony with the view. of Shaler, Professor Walter I’. Willcox remarks that, “The greatest problem which modern democracy has to ®The Neighbor, p. 336. * Tbid., p. 180. 588 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE face is perhaps this: Can the democratic forms developed among a homogeneous people with unifying traditions like the people of England, Old and New, be extended to people widely different in race, religion, and ethical and social code?” ® In the face of the greatest problem that confronts a democracy, and one which has nowhere been solved, it would seem to be the part of wisdom of Negro leaders to stress some other point of race relationship than that of political equality, which in other races has come about by a slow evolution, following the attainment of equality in other respects. The saddest fact, in all of the tragic conflicts between the Negro and the whites, is that in nearly every case the inciters of trouble have been either white demagogues or white fanatics. There would never have been a race war in Saint Domingue, with its massacre of the white population, but for the work of white fanatics sent out from France, who inflamed the passions of the blacks, and urged them to take up arms against the white population. Perhaps one reason for the great influence of the white demagogues over the Negro is that the better class of whites stand too much aloof from him. It is not to be wondered at that the Negro follows the only white people who take an interest in him. The demoralizing in- fluence of the bad white men over the Negro should be overcome by a closer cooperation between the better element of both races, such as the inter-racial commissions in the South are attempting to bring about. The best white people must become the best friends of the Negro before the worst Negroes can be saved from corruption by the worst white people. Instead of rushing the Negroes in the direction of the political rapids, it should be the part of wise leadership to point the way to the open doors which offer easier and more inviting ascent into the higher levels of culture. In the fields of agriculture, trade and crafts, educa- tion, and professional life, there are possibilities of an ever-increasing freedom to aspire and achieve. Whatever diverts the attention of the Negro away from these op- portunities which now lie invitingly before him must do him harm and perhaps irreparable harm. That these opportunities are golden is attested by the unbiased opinion of men from outside the South. “The friends of the race,” says Maurice Evans, “and the friends of the whole South, should impress on the Negro that now he has a chance, but that the chance is one which, if not taken now, will pass never * Quoted in Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 475. GOOD HOMES, LESS POLITICS, MORE VISION 589 to be repeated. Individuals and races have their opportunity which if neglected never comes again. If the Negro race cannot see and seize this one, the increasing competition of urban life, the ever-augmenting complexity of our civilization, will find him unprepared, and the out- look for him is dark indeed. He will remain a helot, not bound by the material shackles that bound his limbs in slavery times, but as much a slave as though those fetters remained.” ° “Dr. Booker Washington is right, emphasize the opportunities, and what opportunities! Would to God the rural labourer of my own race in my native land had such a chance. Imagine it a land of sunshine, not too hot nor too cold, abundant rainfall distributed through the year, timber for all purposes, firewood at the door, and streams of clear water running through the land. I shall show elsewhere how the Negro may get a home of his own in this land, meantime I ask my readers to take my word for it that any able-bodied, intelligent, industrious, thrifty Negro may have a home of his own in these surroundings, and what a home he could make! Seeing the opportunity standing out so clearly— even I, just a visitor, felt my fingers itch to grasp axe and spade and make a beginning... .’” “Has the race the insight to see the great opportunity and the con- centrated force of purpose to seize it? For there is a great opportunity open to the mass of the Negro people, such as is offered to few of the backward races of the world.” § Another Englishman, Sir Harry H. Johnston, says that “nowhere in the world—certainly not in Africa—has the Negro been given such a chance of mental and physical development as in the United States.” ® * Black and White in the Southern States, p. 259. ’ Ibid.) piv 1to. 5 Tbid., p. 248. *The Negro in the New World, p. 478. CHAPTER 72 FAITH IN ACHIEVEMENT Paths of Hope in the Direction of Revivification of the Negro’s Religion—The Development of His Natural A‘sthetic Aptitudes—The Complexity and Mul- tiplicity of the Difficulties of the Negro Problem—Likelihood of Compen- sating Advantages to Both Races.If Each Faces the Problem with Soldierly Courage and Faith in Human Destiny HERE are large possibilities in the direction of revivifying the Negro’s religious life. The religious impulse is very strong in the Negro race, and there is no reason why this impulse should not be turned in a direction which would lead to a profound transformation in the moral vigor of the race. There is need of a higher type of man in the Negro ministry, and, as a prerequisite to meeting this need, there must be a reconstruction of Negro theological schools. At present there are too many Negro theological schools, their scholastic standards are too low, and their curricula are too unrelated to the ethical aspects of life. In the task of consolidating these schools, and of introducing higher standards and more social science, there are splendid openings for distinguished leadership. Also, no less inviting opportunities for leadership lie in the direc- tion of developing the Negro’s zsthetic aptitudes. It is well known to all students of the Negro race that the esthetic propensities and talents of the race are very strong. Gobineau stated it as his opinion that the Negro is the most zsthetic of all races. Now, there is no telling what wonderful strides the Negro might make in securing a better economic footing, and in elevating his moral status through the development of zsthetic crafts and products. In woven work, wood work, metal work, and pottery, and in all kinds of decorative art, there are open doors for the Negro, to say nothing of music, the art in which the Negro has shown the most conspicuous talent. From New York to Florida, Negro musicians used to be employed exclusively for the dances and other social functions of the white people; but their places are now taker by white musicians, not because of race prejudice 590 FAITH IN ACHIEVEMENT sor but because white musicians have learned to play by note and furnish better music. The wonderful musical aptitudes of the Negro have remained undeveloped and, for the most part, have gone to waste largely because the leaders of the race have been too exclusively absorbed in theology and politics. The foregoing suggestions of opportunities for the betterment of the Negro race are not intended as offering a solution to the Negro problem, but only as setting forth the present paths of hope. No matter what program may be followed by the white people or by the Negroes, the Negro problem will not be solved as long as the Negro is a part of our population. But the impossibility of a solution is no reason for pessimism, or for relaxing our efforts in behalf of promoting the welfare of the two races. Much can certainly be done in the line of eliminating useless and hurtful conflicts. The very diffi- culties, perplexities, and sufferings which the Negro and the white man have had to face, and will have to face in the future, as a result of their coming in contact, may result in a blessing to both. In the case of races, as in the case of individuals, the highest mental and moral culture is never attained except under conditions which necessitate surmounting catastrophe, misfortune, and broken hopes. It is the ability to suffer and triumph over adversities that develops the manly man, and also the exalted race. Disasters and handicaps of every kind are only demoralizing to an individual or race when they are over- whelming or when the individual or race lacks the faith and courage to cope with them. It is possible for the white man in the South to rise to a higher plane of culture than otherwise would be possible to him, if he but measure up to his full responsibilities. And, also, it is possible for the Negro to rise to a higher plane than otherwise would be possible to him, as a consequence of his handicaps in the way of degrading servitude, and economic and social proscriptions, if he but measure up to his full responsibilities. The Jews, who have suffered more than any other race on account of misfortune, persecution, and preju- dice, have learned to make a virtue of every adversity, and to-day are second to no race in mental and moral achievements. The field is broad enough in the United States for both the Negro and the Caucasian to make their respective contributions to the world’s progress, and for each to help the other where the pathway is steep and stony. Above all, it is incumbent upon us to have faith that our endeavors 592 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE will achieve results outrunning our present knowledge and vision. In the great undertakings of a race, nation, or individual, achievement always goes beyond the mark aimed at when accompanied by earnest striving and faith. Our initiative and our courage are apt to take a wrong tack and falter, if not sustained by the feeling that somehow, in the eternal and universal unfolding, better things will come to pass than we can foresee. The main thing to do in reference to the Negro problem is not to formulate a program or policy with the conviction that we have at last discovered some solution, but to be ever pressing forward, courageously striving in the direction of our higher hopes and standards. We should ever sail toward the stars’ but at the same time keep a sharp eye for the rocks. A reason why we cannot formulate a general program or policy covering the whole Negro problem is that the problem differs in each state, in each county of the several states and in each separate com- munity of each county. For instance there are counties in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama which have fewer Negroes than some counties in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island. In Lowndes County, Alabama, there are over 30,000 Negroes, and in Winston County, Alabama, only seven The people in our Northern states who are finding the Negro problem difficult should realize how much more difficult it is in the South. All we have done toward a solution is to make a first step. What is the next? Our business is to watch it. While the problem is a puzzle to the intellect, it is a challenge to the heart! It is not given to man to look far into the future. The greatest advances of civilization have come about without any one’s having had the vision to foresee or predict them. They have been made possible only by the strenuous endeavor of millions of men pressing toward a goal whose outlines were dim and indefinable. “The truth is,” says Cooley, “that it is often one of the requisites of progress that we trust to the vague, the instinctive, the emotional, rather than to what is ascertained and intellectual. The spirit takes on form and clarity only under the stress of experience; its newer out- reachings are bound to be somewhat obscure and inarticulate. . . . The opinion sometimes expressed that social science should set forth a definite, tangible criterion of progress is also, I think, based on a false conception of the matter, derived, perhaps, from mechanical theories of evolution. Until man himself is a mechanism the lines of his higher FAITH IN ACHIEVEMENT 593 destiny can never be precisely foreseen. It is our part to form ideals and try to realize them, and these ideals give us a working test of progress, but there can be nothing certain or final about them.” } The attainment of a solution of the Negro problem is like the attain- ment of a state of liberty, in behalf of which we have been throwing up our hats, and towards which we have been struggling, for several thousand years,—a thing forever indefinable and impossible, as long as human lite and its conditions are susceptible of improvement. Life is a process of growth, ever requiring infinite renewals and readjustments, and we must ever struggle upward toward an ideal which can never be realized. No two races could possibly offer more striking contrasts than the Anglo-American and the Negro. The one has self-refiance, sequestra- tion, Puritan rigor, and an inclination to morbid introspection. The other has a childish spontaneity and nonchalance, and a disposition to lean upon any one of strong will and self-assertion. The Negro loves the street life, the crowd, and the spectacular. He is loquacious, fond of worldly amusements, and knows how to enjoy himself whole- heartedly and without restraint. The Anglo-American crosses bridges before he gets to them, and his evil forebodings always cloud his path- way to an extent which his actual experiences rarely justify. And, when adversity, in fact, overtakes him, he is often sour or downhearted for the rest of his life. The Negro always looks forward optimistically to a better day, he sees the rainbow in the storm, and when bowed down under the most crushing misfortune, he displays a healthy aptitude for recovery, and his tears of sorrow are quickly transformed into sparkles of mirth. The morbidness of the white man has been undoubtedly meliorated by the humor and rollicking disposition of the Negro, and the excessive emotionalism of the Negro has been meliorated by the introspective and inhibitory traits of the white man. May we not hope that the conflict of these two opposite races will work out a com- pensating advantage to both, and that the final outcome will justify all that the conflict has cost? PisiaOny LHe PRINCIPAL SOURCES, USED MIN Tris PREPARATION OF THE TEXT Adams, Charles Francis, “Light Reflected from Africa,’ Century Magazine, Vol. 72, n. s. Vol. 50. Allen, James Lane, Two Gentlemen from Kentucky. 1The Social Process, p. 406. 594 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Allen, William Francis, Slave Songs of the United States, New York, 1867. Andrews, N. P., “The Negro in Politics,’ Journal of Negro History, Oct., 1920. Archer, William, Through Afro-America, London, 1910. Atlanta University Studies, Nos. 1 to 21. (Various aspects of the Negro problem. ) Avary, Myrta Lockett, Dixie After the War, New York, 1906. Baker, Ray Stannard, Following the Color Line, New York, 1908. Bancroft, F. A., Sketches of the Negro in Politics, New York, 1885. Boas, Franz, The Mind of the Primitive Man, New York, 1911. Boas, Franz, “The Anthropological Position of the Negro,’ Van Norden Magazine, Ap., 1917. Bowen, Louise D., The Colored People of Chicago, Chicago, 1913. Brawley, Bonieniel Short History of the American Negro, New York, 1913. Brawley, Benjamin, The Negro in Literature and Art, New York, 1918. Brawley, Benjamin, A Social History of the American Negro, New York, 192. Brawley, Benjamin, Women of Achievement, New York, 1919. Brink, G. W., Negro Migration, What Does it Mean? New York, 1918. Bruce, Philip A., The Plantation Negro as a Freeman, New York, 1889. Bryce, James, “Assimilation of Races in the United States,” Smithsonian Report, 1893. Bryce, James, Relation of Agee and Backward Races of Mankind, Oxford, 1902. Bullard, General R. L., Personalities and Reminiscences of the War, New Norkyto2k, Bulletins of the United States Bureau of Labor, Nos. I0, 14, 22, 32, 35, 37, 38, 48. (Studies of Negro conditions in various localities.) Burmeister, Hermann, Comparative Anatomy and Psychology of the African Negro, New York, 1853. Burr, Clinton S., America’s Race Heritage. Cable, George W., The Negro Question, New York, 1890. Cable, George W., The Silent South, New York, 1885. Carlyle, Thomas, Essay, “The Nigger Question.” Carr-Saunders, A. M., The Population Problem, Oxford, 1922. Carver and Hall, Human Relations, New York, 1923. Chatterton-Hill, Georges, Heredity and Selection in Sociology, London, 1907. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, The House Behind the Cedars, New York, Igoo. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, The Marrow of Tradition, New York, 1901. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, The Colonel’s Dream, New York, 1905. Clowes, W. Laird, Black America, London, 1891. FAITH IN ACHIEVEMENT 595 Collins, W. H., The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South, New York, 1918. Conklin, Edwin Grant, The Direction of Human Evolution, New York, 1922. Conklin, Edwin Grant, Heredity and Evolution in the Development of Man, London, 1919. Cooley, Charles H., The Social Process, New York, 1920. Corrothers, James D., In Spite of the Handicap, New York, 1916. Cox, E. S., White America, Richmond, 1925. Cromwell, J. W., The Negro in American History, Washington, 1914. Crozier, John B., Sociology, Applied to Practical Politics, London, 1916. Cullen, Countee, Color, New York, 1925. | Daniels, John, In Freedom’s Birthplace, New York, 1914. Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, New York, 1871. Demolins, Edmond, Comment la route crée le type social, Paris. Dendy, Arthur, The Btological Foundations of Society, New York, 1924. Deniker, J., The Races of Man, New York, 1904. De Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, New York, 1g00. Detweiler, Frederick G., The Negro Press in the United States, Chicago, 1922. Dixon, Roland B., The Racial History of Man, New York, 1923. Dixon, Thomas, The Leopard’s Spots. Dixon, Thomas, The Clansman. Donald, H. H., “Negro Migration, 1916-18,” Journal of Negro History, Wok: Gipy 4. Douglass, Frederick, My Bondage and Freedom, New York, 1855. Dowd, Jerome, The Negro Races, Vols. I and 2. DuBois, W. E. B., The Philadelphia Negro, Philadelphia, 1899. DuBois, W. E. B., Souls of Black Folk, Chicago, 1903. DuBois, W. E. B., Darkwater, New York, 1920. DuBois, W. E. B., The Gift of Black Folk, Boston, 1924. Dunbar-Nelson, Alice, ‘““The People of Color in Louisiana,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 2, No. I. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, Oak and Ivy, New York, 1893. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, Majors and Minors, New York, 1895. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, Folks from Dixie, New York, 1898. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, Love and Landry, New York, 1goo. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, Strength of Gideon and Other Stories, New York, I902. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, Heart of Happy Hollow, New York, 1904. Duncan, H. G., The Changing Race Relationship in the Border and Northern States, Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1922. East and Jones, Inbreeding aud Outbreeding, Philadelphia and London, 1919. 506 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE East, Edward M., Mankind at the Crossroads, New York, 1924. Edwards, W. J., Twenty-five Years in the Black Belt, Boston, 1918. Eggleston, Edgar, The Ultimate Solution of the American Negro Problem, Boston, 1913. Epstein, A., The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh, 1918. Evans, Maurice S., Black and White in the Southern States, New York, IQI5. Ferris, William H., The African Abroad, New Haven, 1913. Field, Edward, Glimpses of New England Town Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Providence, 1897. Finot, Jean, Race Prejudice, New York, 1907. Ford, Paul Leicester, The Works of Jefferson, New York, 1904. Gobineau, Joseph Arthur, The Inequality of the Human Races, New York, IQI5. Goldenweiser, A. A., Early Civilization, New York, 1922. Goldenweiser, A. A., “Racial Theory and the Negro,’ Urban League Bulletin, July, 1922. Gonzales, Ambrose C., The Black Border: Gullah Stories of the Carolina Coast, Columbia, 1922. Grant, Madison, The Passing of the Great Race, New York, 1922. Grimké, Archibald H., Modern Industrialism and the Negro of the United States. Grimké, Rev. Francis J., The Negro, His Rights and Wrongs, Washington, 1898. Hammond, Lily H., Jn Black and White, New York, 1914. Hammond, Lily H., “Southern Women and Racial Adjustment,” Slater Fund Pamphlets, 1920. Harper, Frances E. W., Sketches of the Southern Life, Philadelphia, 1896. Harper, Frances E. W., Poems, Philadelphia, 1900. Harris, Joel Chandler, Uncle Remus and His Friends, Boston, 1902. Hart, A. B., The Southern South, New York, 1910. | Haynes, George E., The Negro at Work in New York City, New York, IQI2. Hearn, Lafcadio, Two Years in the French West Indies, New York, 1890. Hoffman, Frederick H., “Problem of Negro-White Intermarriage,” Eu- genics in Race and State, Vol. 2, 1923. Hoffman, Frederick H., Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, New York, 1896. Holmes, Samuel J., The Trend of the Race, New York, 1921. Holtzclaw, William H., The Black Man’s Burden, New York, 1915. Hrdlicka, A., “Physical Differences between the White and Colored Child,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 11, 1808. Humphreys, Seth K., Mankind, Racial Values and Racial Prospect, New York, 1917. FAITH IN ACHIEVEMENT 597 Huntington, Ellsworth, The Character of Races, New York, 1924. Johnsen, Julia E., The Negro Problem, New York, 1921. Johnson, Fenton, Tales of Darkest America, Chicago, 1920. Johnson, Fenton, 4 Little Dreaming, Chicago, 1914. Johnson, Fenton, Visions of the Dust, New York, 1915. Johnson, James Weldon, The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922. Johnston, Sir Harry H., The Negro in the New World, New York, Igto. Jones, Charles C., Myths of the Georgia Coast. Jones, Thomas Jesse, ““Negro Education,’ U. S. Bureau of Education Bulle- tin, 1916, No. 38. Keane, A. H., Man, Past and Present, Cambridge, 1900. Keane, A. H., Ethnology, Cambridge, Igo. Kellor, Frances A., Experimental Sociology, New York, 1got. Kennedy, R. Emmit, Black Cameos, New York, 1923. Kerlin, Robert T., Negro Poets and Their Poems, Washington, 1923. Kerlin, Robert T., The Voice of the Negro, New York, 1920. Kinley, David, Negro Migration During the War, New York, 1920. Kirk and Porter, A History of Suffrage in the United States, University of Chicago Press, 1919. Krehbiel, Henry E., Afro-American Folk Songs, New York, 1914. Le Bon, Gustav, Psychology of Peoples, New York, 1808. Lindsay, Vachel, The Congo and Other Poems, New York, 1914. Livingstone, W. P., The Race Conflict, London, 191i. Livingstone, W. P., Black America, London, 1899. Lowell, James Russell, Biglow Papers, Boston, 1890. Lowie, Robert H., Culture and Ethnology, New York, 1917. Macaulay, Thomas B., “The Social and Industrial Capacities of Negroes,” Essays, Vol. 3. Marett, R. R., Anthropology, New York, 1912. Martin, Asa E., Our Negro Population, Kansas City, Mo., 1913. Mason and Furr, The American Negro Soldier with the Red Hand in France, Boston, 1920. Mathews, Basil, The Clash of Color, New York, 1924. McCord, Charles Henry, The American Negro as a Dependent, Defective and Delinquent, Nashville, 1914. McDougall, William, Js America Safe for Democracy? New York, 1921. McDougall, William, The Group Mind, New York, 1920. McKay, Claude, Harlem Shadows, New York, 1922. McKay, Claude, Constab Ballads, London, 1915. McNeil, John Charles, Lyrics from Cotton Land, Charlotte, 1907. Mecklin, John M., Democracy and Race Friction, New York, 1914. Merriam, George S., The Negro and the Nation, New York, 1906. Miller, H. A., Races, Nations and Classes, Chicago, 1924. Miller, Kelly, Race Adjustment, New York, 1908. 508 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Miller, Kelly, 4n Appeal to Conscience, New York, 1918. Miller, Kelly, Out of the House of Bondage, New York, 1914. Mitchell, P. Chalmers, Evolution and the War, London, 1915. Morton, Richard L., “The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902,” University of Virginia Publications. Moton, R. R., Finding the Way Out, New York, 1920, Munford, T. T., Virginia’s Attitude Towards Slavery and Secession, New York, 1909. Murphy, Edgar Gardner, The Present South, New York, 1904. Murphy, Edgar Gardner, The Basis of Ascendency. New York, IgtI. “Negro Education,” U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1916, No. 38. “Negro Migration, 1916-1917,’ Report, U. S. Department of Labor, 1919. Negro Year Book, Tuskegee, 1924-26. Nielsen, Peter, The Black Man’s Place in South Africa, Cape Town, 1922. Oakesmith, John, Race and Nationality, New York, 1917. Odum, Howard W., Social and Mental Traits of the Negro, New York, Igo. Osborn, Henry Fairfield, Man of the Old Stone Age, New York, 1915. Ovington, Mary W., Half a Man, New York, 1911. Page, Thomas Nelson, The Negro, the Southerner’s Problem, New York, 1904. Parsons, E. C., Folklore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina, New York, 1923. Patterson, Raymond, The Negro and His Needs, New York, 1911. Pershing, John J., Final Report, Commander-in-Chief American Expedi- tionary Forces, Washington, 1919. Pickens, William, The New Negro, His Political, Civil and Mental Status and Related Essays, New York, 1916. Pickett, William P., The Negro Problem, Abraham Lincoln’s Solution, New York, 1909. Popenoe, Paul, Applied Eugenics, New York, 1920. Proctor, H. H., Between Black and White, New York, 1925. Publications of the American Negro Academy. (Studies of the Race Prob- lem by representative Negroes.) Quillin, Frank, “The Negro in Cincinnati,’ Independent, Vol. 68, p. 399. Quillin, Frank, “Race Prejudice in a Northern Town,” Independent, Vol. 59, p- 129. Randle, E. H., Characteristics of the Southern Negro, New York, 19t0. Reid, G. Archibald, The Laws of Heredity. Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, Chicago, 1922. 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Race Distinctions in American Law, New York, Igto. Stoddard. Lothrop, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Su- premacy, New York, 1920. Stone, Alfred Holt, Studies in the American Race Problem, New York, 1908. Tannenbaum, Frank, Darker Phases of the South, New York, 1924. The Negro Problem, (symposium), New York, 1903. Thomas, William H., The American Negro, New York, Igot. Thomas, William I., “The Psychology of Race Prejudice,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 9, p. 593. Thomas, William I., “Race Psychology,’ American Journal of Sociology, Wom Zip. 725: Tozzer, Alfred M., Social Origins and Social Continuities, New York, 1925. Twain, Mark (Clemens, Samuel L.), Pudd’nhead Wilson. Twain, Mark (Clemens, Samuel L.), Tom Sawyer Abroad. Tylor, Edward B., Anthropology, New York, 1904. Washington, Booker T., The Future of the American Negro, Boston, 1899. Washington, Booker T., Up From Slavery, New York, 1900. Washington, Booker T., The Story of the Negro, New York, 1909. Washington, Booker T., Working with the Hands, New York, 1904. Washington, Booker T., Frederick Douglass, New York, 1907. Washington, Booker T., My Larger Education, New York, 1gII. Washington, Booker T., Character Building, New York, 1903. Weale, B. L., Putnam (pseud.), The Conflict of Color, New York, rgto. Weatherford, W. D., Negro Life in the South, New York, rgio. Weatherford, W. D., The Negro from Africa to America, New York, 1924. Weatherford, W. D., Present Forces in Negro Progress, New York, 1912. Westermarck, Edward, History of Human Marriage, New York, 1894. White and Jackson, Anthology of Negro Verse, Durham, N. C., 1924. Whittier, John Greenleaf, The Slave Ships. 600 THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN LIFE Willcox, Walter F., Part Two of Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem. Williams, George W., History of the Negro Race in America, New York, 1882. Wissler, Clark, Man and Culture, New York, 1923. Woodson, Carter G., History of the Negro Church, Washington, 1921. Woodson, Carter G., A Century of Negro Migration, Washington, 1918. Woodson, Carter G., The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, New York, 1915. Woodson, Carter G., The Negro in Our History, Washington, 1922. Wooiter, Thomas J., The Basis of Racial Adjustment, New York, 1925. Woofter, Thomas J., “The Negroes of Athens,” University of Georgia Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 4. , Woofter, Thomas J., Negro Migration Changes in Rural Organization and Population of the Cotton Belt, New York, 1920. Woofter and Fisher, Codperation in Southern Communities, Atlanta, 1921. Work, J. W., Folk Songs of the American Negro, Nashville, 1915 INDEX Adams, Charles Francis, on the differ- ence between the Negro and Cauca- sian, 385; on the unwisdom of con- ferring equal civil rights upon the Negro, 491 Esthetic Life of the Negro, 307, 325, 335, 347, 349, 350; suggestions as to developing, 590 7Esthetic Values, physiognomy, 362 Affinities. See Racial Affinities. Africa, the Negro in, 3 Agriculture, the Negro in, 86 Aldridge, Frederick, actor, 349 Alexander, Will W., leader in inter- racial cooperation, 558 Allen, James Lane, in reference to the Negro, 289 Altruism, consistent with the social separateness of races, 443 Amalgamation, racial, 362; as a factor in evolution, 424; extent of, in the United States, 445; sentiment of whites and blacks as to, 453; futility of advocating, 453 Angell, James R., on racial differences, 376 Antipathies, racial, as related to sex intercourse, 419, 420. See Racial Affinities and Antipathies. Archer, William, on Negro schools, 68; on Jim Crow laws, 113; on Negro preachers, 181; on the inferiority of the Negro, 384; on race fusion, 455; on the colonization of the Negro, 484; on the Negro’s losing favor among whites, 518; on the desire of mulattoes for white society, 570 applied to race Baker, Ray Stannard, on the color line in the North, 6, I0, 20, 23; on the 601 Negro in politics, 46; on race preju- dice, 75; on race contact in the North, 39; on Negro traits, 401; on race feeling North and South, 441; on race segregation in the South, 113; contrasting DuBois and Booker Washington, 520; as author, 270 Beecher, Henry Ward, views of, on the mixture of white and black blood, 454 Biological Principles, applied to races, 410-416, 525 Birth-rate of the Negro, 527, 530 Bishoff, on the relation of brain weight to intelligence, 389 Black, idea of, associated with evil, 363 Black Belt, in the South, possible future domination of, by the Negro, 481-485; as favorable to Negro in- crease, 530; in Chicago, 31 Blending of Cultures, consequences of, 424 Blind Tom, Negro musical genius, 346 Blumenbach, on race equality, 365 Boaz, on race equality, 370 Bonner, Sherwood, authoress depicting Negro character, 291 Brain, size and form of, as indicative of intelligence, 389; of Negro and white compared, 390 Braithwaite, William S., literary works of, 316 Brawley, Benjamin, Negro quoted, 6; writings of, 326 Bryant, A. T., mental contrast between the Negro and Caucasian, 383 Bryce, James, on race intermixture in the United States, 452; on the inter- marriage of whites and Negroes, 454; on race segregation, 476 author 602 INDEX Biicher, on the effect of civilization on primitive peoples, 432 Buchner, Ludwig, on the extinction of backward peoples, 542 Buckle, Thomas, on race equality, 366 Bullard, General, report of, on Negro troops in France, 224, 226, 227, 232 Burke, Edmund, quoted, 362 Burmeister, on Negro traits, 397-398, 401, 408 Burr, Clinton S., on the colonization of the Negro, 462 Caldwell, Colonel, on the service of © Negro troops in France, 235 California, race problem in, 490, 495, 569, 586 Carlyle, on punishment of criminals, 147; on the inferiority of the Negro, 382; on the right of a people to possess territory, 495 Carr-Saunders, on the inferiority of the Negro, 382; on the relation of puberty to mental growth, 393; on Negro traits, 407; on the relative importance of temperament and in- tellect in inheritance, 408; on cross- breeding, 411; on the factor of tradi- tion in progress, 428; on culture con- tact, 436 Carver, T. N., on the effect of contact of high and low standards, 438, 430. Chain-gangs. See Negro Convicts. Chamberlain, D. H., on race intermix- ture, 454 Chesnutt, Charles W., novels of, 325; views of, on the race issue, 507 Chicago, the Negro in, 31; as crime center, 51 Children, Negroes likened to, 401 Civil Equality, as a solution of the race problem, 486-492; difficulty of, under conditions of racial diversity, 488; failure of, where whites and blacks are massed together, 489 Civilization, influence of, on primitive peoples, 431, 527 Civil Justice, in the North, 54; in the South, 137-142 Civil Privileges, of the Negro, in the Northern states, 39, 46, 494; in the Southern states, 103, I10 Class Distinctions, among Negroes, 96, 97, 472 Clay, Henry, on the colonization of the Negro, 459 Clergymen, Southern, on lynching, 559 Climate, influence of, on culture, 6, 11 Cohen, O. R., stories of, relating to the Negro, 302 Coleridge, on the marriage of whites and blacks, 456 Colonization, of the Negro, schemes for, 458; as a solution of the race question, 458-469; aptitude of the Negro for, 466 Colored Free State, as a solution of the race problem, 481-485 | Color Line, in Harlem, 30; in Northern schools, 19, 66-71; in Northern churches, 74, 75; in America and Eu- rope, 566-568; in New York and Georgia contrasted, 568; reasons for a, 508 Commission on Inter-race Cooperation, work of, 555 Competition, of whites and Negroes as affecting the survival of the latter, 541 Conklin, E. G., on race-crossing, 413; on segregation, 471 Conquest, not the chief means of cul- ture diffusion, 428 Consciousness of Kind, as a factor in race-crossing, 364; as a guide to social contacts, 364, 417, 418, 419, 420, 568; as affecting political control, 489, 490, 494, 497 Contact of Races. See Race Contacts. Contacts, between whites and_ blacks, diminishing, 548 Contrasts, between the Negro and Cau- casian, 503 Cooley, C. H., on faith as a factor in progress, 592 Cooper, James Fenimore, the Negro in works of, 263 Cooperation, need of, between whites and blacks, 554; efforts towards in- terracial, need of inter- racial, 566 Corrothers, James D., relating his ex- pervence as pastor, 75; on Negro preachers, 79; on race separation in travel, 111; on the Southern white man, 135; poems of, 315, 320; auto- biography of, 331 Cotton gin, as affecting slavery in the South, 12 Cox, Ernest, plea of, for racial integ- rity, 302; favors Negro colonization, 467 Crimes, of the Negro, in the Northern states, 49-53; in the Southern states, 115-120 Crimes of the whites, against the Negro, in Northern states, 54-65; in Southern states, 128-131. See Lynch- ing, Mobs. Cromwell, J. W., as author, 333 Cross-breeding, consequences of, 410- 416; function of, 414; as unimportant for progress, 427, 428 Crozier, John B., on culture and race mixture, 436 Cullen, Countee, poetry of, 318 Culture, conditions favoring the de- velopment of, 425; infusion of, the means of progress, 428; possible ren- ascence of, under different conditions, 431, 434; conditions which favor the ripening of, 436; clash of, within the same race and nation, 432-440 Culture Contacts, influence of, upon people of different levels of culture, 430; influence of, within the same race and nation, 432-438; example of injurious, 430, 431, 432, 434, 435 Culture Levels, as determining the value of race mixture, 430 547-565 ; Darwin, on race equality, 372; on cross-breeding, 410 Davenport, C. B., on uneugenic mar- Tiages, 382 Death-rate, of the Negro, 527, 528, 529 Demagogues, mischief of white, in the North and South due to the Negro vote, 587, 588; cure for, 588 Demolins, on race differences, 373 Dendy, Arthur, on the biological as- pects of race-crossing, 415 De Tocqueville, on religious ‘excesses in America, 180; on the impossibility of civil equality in the South, 487 Dillard, James H., promoter of better Negro schools, 165, 177, and of inter- racial coOperation, 551 Disfranchisement. See Civil Rights, Civil Equality. Dixon, Roland B., on racial inequali- ties, 375; on head-form and intelli- gence, 390 Dixon, Thomas, novels of, relating to the Negro, 285 Domestic Life of the Negro in the North, 24; in the South, 96-102. See Family Life. Domestic Service. ants. Donations to Negro Education, by white philanthropists, 164-166; by Negro philanthropists, 167 Douglass, Fred, as editor, 351 Dramatic Art, the Negro in, 349 Drummond, Henry, on the acuteness of sense in man and animals, 399 DuBois, W. E. B., on race prejudice, 18; on Negro camp-meetings, 179; as author, 330; criticism of, 377; on Negro traits, 402; view of, on the race question, 506; on the diminish- ing contact of Negroes and whites, 520 Dunbar, Paul Laurence, poetry of, 307, 323; novels of, 325; on the face problem, 510 Dunham, R. L., novel of, relating to the Negro, 302 Dunn, L. C., on race-crossing, 414 See Negro Serv- 604 East, Edward M., on race inequalities, 376; on the mental capacity of the Negro, 391; on cross-breeding, 410, 412 Economic Status of the Negro, in the North, 17; in the South, 85; at close of the Civil War, 534, 535; as bear- ing upon his survival, 532; means of improving the, 577 Education of the Negro, in the North, 66; in the South, 149-177; as solu- ion of the Negro question, 498-501 ; plea for better, 553, 578, 579 Eliot, Charles W., on opportunities for = the Negro, 19; on race segregation, 71; on the intermarriage of whites and blacks, 456 Environment, influence of, on races, 4, I1; on the crime of the Negro, 116; on the distribution of culture, 425, 426 Equality of Races. See Race Equal- ity. Evans, Maurice, on the sights of Har- lem, 29; on race segregation, III; on Negro education, 161, 174; on Negro religion, 185; comparing the Zulu and American Negro, 383; criticizing Finot, 387; on Negro traits, 403; on race segregation in Africa, 473, and in the United States, 475; on the radical school of Negro leaders, 519; on the protection of colored women, 583; on opportunities for the Negro in the South, 588 Faith, need of, problem, 590 Family Life of the Negro, in Africa, 5; in the North, 37; in the South, 96- 101 Family Ties, among Negroes, 99 Fanatics, as inciters of race troubles, 588 Federal Council of Churches of Christ, as promoting interracial codperation, 560 Fine Arts, in facing the race Negroes distinguished in INDEX the, 307-350; opportunity in the, for Negroes, 578 Finot, Jean, on race equality, 366, 387 Folk Songs. See Negro Songs. Franchise Laws, in the South, 496-584. See Civil Rights. French, the, in St. Domingue, 8, 9 Future of the Negro, views concerning the, 525-543 105, Galton, on race differences, 372 Garvey, Marcus, on the reclamation of Africa for the Negro, 465 Giddings, on consciousness of kind as the basis of social relations, 417 Gobineau, on race inequalities, 373; on Negro aptitude for art, 390 Goldenweiser, on race equality, 370 Gonzales, Ambrose, on Negro dialect stories, 284 Gordon, A. C, writer of Negro dialect, 295 Grant, Madison, on race differences, 379; views of, referred to, 395 Greenfield, Elizabeth, concert singer, 345 Greenough, Major, on Negro troops, ZION 237 Gregory, J. W., on a possible Free Negro State in the South, 481 Grimké, Archibald H., as author, 327 Haiti, history of, 7; Negro coloniza- tion in, 7; desperate struggle of whites in, 8, 495; intervention of United States in, 10 Hammond, Mrs. L. H., book by, on the race problem, 303 Hampton Institute, 171 Harding, President, on the social sepa- rateness of white and colored races, 512 Harlem, the Negro capital, 24 Harris, Joel Chandler, on the Negro, 283 Hart, A. B., on the inferiority of the Negro, 382; on race segregation, 473 Hawkins, W. E., poetry of, 314 INDEX Hearn, Lafcadio, on Negro dances, 341, 347 Henry, O., novel of, relating to the Negro, 301 High Schools, for Negraes, 158 Hoffman, F., on Negro sex morals, 3116; on the intermarriage of whites and blacks, 446-447, 450; on bad Negro leadership, 521; on the hope- lessness of the Negro problem, 525; on the mortality of the Negro as unfavorable to his survival, 528; on the probable extinction of the Negro, 528, 533; on the economic inefficiency of the Negro, 532; as author, 270 Holmes, Samuel J., on race inequality, 380; on race-crossing, 415 Holtzclaw, William, as author, 333 Housing Problem, of the Negro, in the Northern states, 24, 31; in the Southern states, 87, 96; suggestions for improving, 581. See Negro Quarters. Humphrey, Seth K., on the superiority of the mulatto to the Negro, 386; on the flowering of culture, 436 Hunt, James, on race mixture, 453 Huntington, on the origin of the Negro, 3; on the influence of climate on the Negro, 6; on race differences, 374; on brain-size and intelligence, 390 Industrial Education, of the Negro, 171-174 Industrial Efficiency, of the Negro, Gyo at sclose uot Civil. “War, 1534: essentials of, 536; of the Negro, in- creased after 1896, 536; means of in- creasing the, 577 Industrial Life, of the Negro, in Africa, 4; in the Northern states, 17; in the Southern states, 85-95 Ingalls, John J., on race intermixture, 454 Intermarriage of whites and blacks, ex- tent of, 43, 484; character of the parties to, 43, 447; consequences of, 449; contrast of Northern and South- 605 ern mulattoes in reference to, 453, 503, 570 Irving, Washington, the Negro in works of, 263 Jamison, Roscoe C., poem by, 321 Jefferson, Thomas, on the inferiority of the Negro, 382; on the coloniza- tion of the Negro, 458-459 Jim Crow laws, I10 Johnson, Charles Bertram, poem by, 319 Johnson, Charles S., editor, 352 Johnson, Fenton, poetry of, 317 Johnson, Mrs. G. D., poem by, 321 Johnson, James Weldon, poetry of, 311 Johnston, Sir Harry H., on the Negro rural South, 87, 89, 91; on the in- feriority of the Negro, 381; on the preference of Negroes for marrying their own kind, 421; on opportunities for the Negro in America, 589 Johnston, ‘Mary, novel of, relating to the Negro, 301 Jones, Charles C., writer of Negro dia- lect, 285 Jones, Joshua H., poem by, 320 Keane, on race differences, 372; on the inferiority of the Negro, 381; on the diminishing area of the Negro race, 526 Kennedy, R. Emmet, book of, relating to the Negro, 301 Krehbiel, Henry E., on Negro folk songs, 335, 341, 342, 343 Ku Klux Klan, of the present day, 129 Labor organizations and the Negro, 19, 20 Lane, Winthrop D., on the Negro in Harlem, 27, 29 Le Bon, Gustav, on race differences, a73 Leroy-Beaulieu, on the essence of edu- cation, 579 Lewis, Edmonia, sculptor, 350 Lewis, Ethyl, poem by, 219 606 INDEX Liberty, meaning of, 593 Libraries, public, for Negroes, 174 Lily White Party, in the South, 47, 104 Lincoln, Abraham, on the colonization of the Negro, 460; on the impossibil- ity of equal civil rights for blacks and whites, 488 Lindsay, Vachel, poem by, Negro, 268 Literacy of the Negro, under slavery, 13; in 1920, 150 Literature, in the North as influenced by the Negro, 263-282; in the South as influenced by the Negro, 283-3060. See Negro Literature. Livingstone, W. P., on the amalgama- tion of whites and blacks, 455 Locke, Alain, as author, 333 Locke, John, on race equality, 365 Lombroso, on the inferiority of the Negro, 381 London, Jack, reference of, to the Negro, 268 Louverture, Toussaint, leader in Haiti, 9 Lowell, writings of, relating to the Negro, 264 Lowie, R. H., on race equality, 368 Lugard, Sir F. D., on the social sepa- rateness of white and colored races, 512 Lynching, in the South, 121-127; efforts to repress, 552; evil of, 583 on the great Negro Macaulay, on the decline of poetry as civilization advances, 324; on racial intermarriage, 365 Majette, Vara A., novel of, relating to the Negro, 302 Marett, on race differences, 372 Mark Twain, as delineator of the Negro, 267 Marriage, as influenced by the sex in- stinct, 419; as influenced by love of distinction, 421 McBlair, Robert, novel of, relating to the Negro, 301 McDougall, on race differences, 378; on brain-size and intelligence, 390; on the traits of tropical people, 406; on race temperaments, 408; on race- crossing, 411; on the aptitude of races for colonization, 467 McKay, Claude, poetry of, 310 McNeill, John Charles, poems of, re- lating to the Negro, 299 Means, Sterling 'M., poetry of, 314 Mecklin, J. M., book by, on the race problem, 303; on race differences, 380; on the psychology of the Negro, 401; on the reasoning power of the Negro, 405; on Negro imitativeness, 407 ; on race segregation, 474; on the probable extinction of the Negro, 542; on the Negro’s feeling for the Mongolian, 490 Melting Pot, danger of the, 434-440 Mental Tests, comparing the Negro and mulatto, 391; comparing Negroes and whites, 391-393 Merriam, George S., on the Negro problem, 273, 500 Mexican Immigration, possibility of, supplanting the Negro, 482, 483 Middle Class, lack of, among Negroes at end of Civil War, 535; as an aim of Booker Washington, 540; evidence of a Negro, 541 Migration, Negro and white contrasted, 247, 248, 251. See Negro ‘Migration. Miles, P. L., observations of, on Negro troops in France, 208 Mill, John Stuart, on race equality, 365; on the impossibility of two races en- joying equal rights in the same gov- ernment, 491 Miller, Kelly, writings of, 333 Mims, Edwin, promoter of law and order, 125, and of interracial co- operation, 557 Mitchell, P. C., on the future of amal- gamation, 440 Mobs, need of suppressing, 583. See Lynching, Race Riots. Moss, Colonel, comment of, on Negro soldiers, 236 — Ss INDEX Moton, R. R., as author, 333; as Negro leader, 504; views of, on the race question, 509; on the social question, 513; attitude of, toward Southern whites, 504 Mountain Region, of the South, as af- fecting the slavery question, 13 Mulattoes, in the West Indies, 8; rea- son for increase of, in the United States, 97; problem of, reflected in prose, 275, and in poetry, 322; reason for the superiority of, 387; question of their superiority to the pure Negroes, 386; traits of, 408; number of, 450; percentage of, 450; in the North and South contrasted, 451, 503, 512; at close of Civil War, 534; of the North and South differ on the social question, 570 Murphey, E. G., books by, relating to the Negro, 302 Napoleon, attempt of, to restore French rule in St. Domingue, 9. National Association for the Advance- ment of Colored People, program of, La a) Natural Selection, a factor of race dif- ferentiation, 375 Negro, the, origin of, 3, 526; geograph- ical distribution of, 3; in business, 22, 94; in the professions, 22, 578; in politics, 46; in public service, 23, 48; in domestic service, 92 Negro Artisans, 17, 19 Negro Characteristics, physical, 397, 400; psychological, 401-409; influenc- ing the white man, 593 Negro Children, care of, 98 Negro Churches, in the North, 73; in the South, Io, 184 Negro Colleges and Universities, 69, 162 Negro Common Schools, 149; cost of, compared to white, I51 Negro Convicts, in the South, 143-148 Negro Crime, in the Northern states, 49; in the Southern states, 115; 607 cause of, 116; in the World War, 232, 233 Negro. Dance, 347 Negro Domestic Servants, in the North- ern states, 17; in the Southern states, Q2 Negro Domination, question of, 104 Negro Dramatists, 349. See Dramatic Art. Negro Farmers, 86 Negro Folk Songs, 335-344 Negro Fraternal Orders, Io1 Negro Free State, as a possible out- come of the Negro problem, 481 Negro Funeral Songs, 341 Negro Home Owners, in Chicago, 32; in the South, 86 Negro Inventors, 22 Negro Labor, in agriculture, 91; in the fishing industry, 92; in sundry indus- tries, 93, 94 Negro Leadership, in New York City, 28; examples of, 90, 328-334; in the North and South, contrasted, 503, 513, 570; shift of, from preachers and politicians to educators and busi- ness men, 541; need of, in future, 543 Negro Migration, 245-260; from coun- try to town, 247; to the West in 1879, 247; during and after the World War, 249; extent of, 250; North and South, 250; interstate, 251; causes of, 252; effects of, 258 Negro Music, 335, 345; in the World War, 241; influence of, on the music of the whites, 346; possibilities of, 591 Negro Normal Schools, 162 Negro Novelists, 325-327 Negro Painters, 349 Negro Periodicals, 351, 352 Negro Poetry, cause of rancor in, 323 Negro Population, in the United States, 103; in the World, 547; distribution of the, in the South, 86, 103 Negro Preachers, in the Northern states, 72-75; in the Southern states, 181; need of better, 590 608 Negro Press, 351-354 Negro Problem, nature of, 358; as viewed by the Negroes, 502; varies in each state, 592 Negro Professional Schools, 167, 170 Negro Proprietors, in agriculture, 86, 89; in business, 22, 94; in manufac- turing, 94 Negro Quarters, in the Northern states, 24, 32, 36, 37; in the Southern states, 96, 99; need of improving, 581 Negro Radicalism, consequences of, 573, 578 Negro Religion. See Religious Life. Negro Rule, in the Southern states, 495 Negro Schools, elementary, 149; com- parative cost of, 151-153; of higher learning, 162-168, 169-175; general estimate of, 176-177 Negro Sculptors, 350 Negro Servants, number of, 92; char- acter of, 93, 94 Negro Slavery, 6, 12 Negro Soldiers, causing trouble in camps, 190-192; general estimate of, 231-240. See Negro Troops. Negro Teachers, pay of, 159 Negro Tenants, in the South, 90 Negro Theological Schools, need of im- proving, 170 Negro Troops, in the Civil War, 13; in the World War, 199-242 Negro Women, as wives and mothers, 97, 98; virtue of, 100 Neo-Amalgamationists, 395 Neo-Gobineaus, 395 Newbold, N. C,, schools, 156 Nordic Race, question of superiority of the, 395; as bearer of American cul- ture, 439; jealousy of the, respecting property rights, 494 on Negro rural Oakesmith, John, on race equality, 368; on culture contact as the means of progress, 429 INDEX Occupations, of the Negro, in the North, 17; in the South, 86 Odum, H. W., on Negro family ties, 99; on Negro crime, 116; on Negro traits, 404 Olmsted, books of, Negro, 267 Opportunities for the Negro, 588 Osborn, Henry F., on the importante of race, 375; on the relation of race- crossing to progress, 426, 427 relating to the Page, Thomas Nelson, on the Negro, 285 Patterson, Raymond, on the Negro problem, 270; on race intermixture in the South, 452; on education as the solution of the Negro problem, 498 Pearl, Raymond, on the probable ex- tinction of the Negro, 530 Peonage, in the South, 132-136 Pershing, General, on the operation of American troops in France, 193-198; on the service of the 92nd Division, 230 Peterkin, Julia, novel of, relating to the Negro, 301 Pickens, William, books by, 333 Piedmont Region, in the South, as af- fecting the slavery question, 12 Politics, the Negro in, in the North, 46, and in the South, 103-109, 182 Price, Charles, Negro leader, 183, 504 Proctor, H. H., on the color line, 566 Psychological Aspects, of amalgama- tion, 417 Psychological Characteristics, of the Negro, 401 Psychological Laws, applicable to race- crossing, 417 Public Opinion, organization of, needed in the South, 583 Quatrefages, on the diminishing area of the Negro race, 526 Quillin, Frank, on race friction in Ohio, 43; on the color line, 45 INDEX 609 Race, definition of, 350 Race Contact, problem of, 359, 560 Race-Crossing, effects of, 410-416 Race Culture, as influenced by race contact, 424 Race Difference, the basis of the race problem, 396; physical, 389 Race Equality, question of, 364; mean- ing of, 393 Race Friction, in the North, 32, 43, 54, 66-71; in the South, 110, 121; in training camps, 190; in the American army, 231 Race Hatred, cause of, 548 Race Prejudice, in reference to the housing problem, 33; various phases of, 33, 40, 517 Race Progress, as influenced by race- crossing, 415. See Culture of Races. Race Riots, in the Northern states, 54; in the Southern states, 129-131 Race Segregation, in the North, 39; in the South, 110-114; tendency towards, 470, 575, 577 Racial Affinities and Antipathies, 441 Religion of the Negro, need of elevat- ing the, 590. See Negro Church. Religious Dance, among Negroes, 347 Religious Life, of the Negro, in Africa, 5; in the Northern states, 28, 72-81; in the Southern states, 178-185 Reuter, Edward B., on reasons for the superiority of the mulatto, 387; on the intermarriage of whites and blacks, 445; on the desire of the mu- latto to be white, 570; contrasting mulattoes of the North and South on the social question, 570 Revolution in St. Domingue, 8 Richards, John, observations of, on Negro soldiers, 200, 237 Richey, W. R., observations of, on Negro soldiers, 211, 212, 237 Right to Govern, principle determining the, 495 Riis, Jacob, on the color line, 24; on Negro traits, 25 Romanes, on racial differences, 372 Roosevelt, views of, criticized by Ne- groes, 513, 517 Ross, on race inequality, 380 Rural Life, of the Negro, 87 Ruskin, on Nature’s abhorrence of equality, 457 Russell, Irwin, Negro dialect poem by, 300 Scarborough, Dorothy, story by, relat- ing to the Negro, 302 Scott, Emmett J., service of, in the World War, 190; as author, 327; on Negro music, 241 Scott, E. W., painter, 350 Segregation. See Race Segregation. Selika, Madame, concert singer, 345 Sense Acuteness, of Negro and Cau- casian, 308 Seward, William H., on the unassimila- bility of the Negro, 488 Sex Instinct, as related to interracial marriage, 420 Sex Intercourse, decline of, between whites and blacks, 452; evil of, be- tween whites and blacks, 582 Sex Morality, need of, 584 Shaler, N. S., on the absence of friend- ship ties among Negroes, 99; on Negro rape, 118; on the inferiority of the Negro, 382; on the superiority of the mulatto to the Negro, 386; on Negro types, 400; on Negro traits, 404; on the economic inefficiency of the Negro, 533; on the Negro prob- lem in the South, 586, 587 Shands, Herbert, novel of, relating to the Negro, 302 Sinclair, William A., Negro author, 333 Slaves, treatment of, 12; distribution of, in North America, 12 Slave Trade, 6 Smith, Albert, painter, 350 Smith, G. Elliot, on the inferiority of primitive races, 384 Smith, W. B., book of, on the color line, 302 Social Life, of the Negro in the North- 610 ern states, 36, 75; in the Southern states, 96, 100, 184 Sociological Laws, applicable to race amalgamation, 430 Southern Clergymen, on the race prob- lem, 558 Southern Sociological Congress, on the race problem, 550 Southern White Women, work of, in behalf of Negro uplift, 562 Spencer, Herbert, sense acuteness in races, 399; on sex attraction, 419 Spiller, G., on race equality, 367 Standards, Social, effect of competing, 438, 439 | Stanley, H. M., on the colonization of the Negro, 461 Stoddard, Lothrop, on race differences, 380 Stone, A. H., on the rural Negro, 90; on Negro traits, 403, 405; on amal- gamation in the South, 452; on rad- ical Negro leadership, 318; on the economic inefficiency of the Negro, 533 Stowe, Mrs., her novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 267 Survival of the Negro, question of the, 525; lines of effort favoring, 577-593 Taft, President, writes foreword to book on the Negro, 270; on educa- tion as the solution of the Negro problem, 499 Taine, on race differences, 373 Tannenbaum, Frank, on lynching in the South, 124 Tanner, Henry O., painter, 349 Temperament of Races, 408 Thomas, William H., on Negro traits, 98, 401, 404; on Negro franchise, 107; on Negro colonization, 466; on Negro leadership, 521; on the future of the Negro, 534 Tidewater Region, as affecting the slav- ery question, 12 Toomer, Jean, novel of, on the Negro, 326 INDEX Topinard, on cross-breeding, 411 Tozzer, on race equality, 370 Tradition, as more important than race- crossing for progress, 429; ripening of, necessary to the flowering of cul- ture, 436 Tupes, Colonel, report of, on Negro troops in France, 215, 217, 220, 221 Tuskegee Institute, 173 Tylor, on race differences, 372 University Commission on Race Rela- ~ tions, work of, 551 Vogt, Carl, on the psychology of the Negro, 401 Warrick, Meta, sculptor, 350 Washington, Booker T., on opportuni- ties for the Negro, 19; on the race problem, 508, 509; on race segrega- tion, 474; attitude of, towards South- ern whites, 504; on the social ques- tion, 512; onslaught upon, by radical Negroes, 511; on the writings of, 328-3290; on the Negro’s progress, 535; promoter of Negro progress, 536; on the relation of industry to higher culture, 538; effort of, in be- half of common schools, 539; as or- ganizer of business men, 540; views of, on the social question, 511; com- mendation of, 499 Weale, Putnam, on the segregation of races of the world, 470 Weatherford, W. D., books by, on the Negro, 302; on rural segregation in the South, 473; as leader of inter- racial cooperation, 550 Webster, Daniel, on the colonization of the Negro, 459 Westermarck, on the color of ruling classes, 363; on race-crossing, 418 West Indian Negro, compared to the North American, 28 White skin, racial value of, 362 INDEX White Supremacy, in the dependencies of the United States and of European states, 495; as a solution of the race problem, 493-497 White, Walter E., novel of, on the Negro, 326 Whitman, poem of, relating to the Negro, 266 Whittier, poems of, relating to the Negro, 263 Willcox, Walter F., on the economic in- efficiency of the Negro, 533; on the race problem, 522, 587 Williams, George W., book of, on the Negro, 326 Winsborough, Mrs. W. C., leader of welfare work for Negroes, 563 Wissler, Clark, on race differences, 380; 611 on culture rights, 425, and culture diffusion, 428; on the importance of protecting American culture, 439 Wood, Clement, novel of, relating to the Negro, 302 Woodson, Carter G., as author and edi- Tey UE HIRI SD 3 Woofter, Thomas J., book by, on race relations, 306; promoter of interra- cial cooperation, 556 World War, record of American troops in, 189-242 Y. M. C. A., work of concerning race relations, 550, 554 Zamenhof, on race equality, 367 Hy? gh: Me ae Pi a ay ti by ah Ny Ped Ay < ce spe ad if Wee? ‘ Ki F i ar: ate La i pea Me e *) ; hy tay ray is “a i WA WS on iat " a tteame ent ae - hy on i gi OTe Re ‘ore Date Due E185 -61.D74 € Negro in American life. Princeton Theological Seminary Th ~—Speer Librar | = Ssise5 == pecaaes poe ee SiS sr ist Soe =: Lee ene HR eta { finan am _ Maar ee aayye 5,