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MOTON PRINCIPAL-BLECT OF TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE ETiss .61 REPRINTED FROM THE "SOUTHERN WORKMAN" BY THE HAMPTON INSTITUTE PRESS 1916 It- noi'i r()iu:rt russa moton RAGE DEVELOPMENT * AMONG the most highly developed races we observe certain dominant characteristics, certain very essen- tial elements of character by which they have so influ- enced mankind and helped the world that they were en- abled to write their names indelibly in history. Your education, your observation, your occupation, have brought you into close touch and into personal and vital relations with the fundamental problems of life. We may call it the trust problem, the labor problem, the Indian problem, or perhaps the Negro problem. I like to call it the "Human Race Problem." The dawn of history breaks upon the world at strife, a universal conflict of man at war with his brother. The very face of the earth has been dyed in blood and its surface whitened with human bones in an endeavor to establish a harmonious and helpful adjustment between man and man. There can be no interest more funda- mental or of greater concern to the human family than the proper adjustment of man's relations to his brother. You and I belong to an undeveloped, backward race that is rarely for its own sake taken into account in the adjustment of man's relation to man, but is considered largely with reference to the impression which it makes upon the dominant Anglo-Saxon. The Negro's very existence is itself somewhat satellitious, and secondary only, to the great white orb around which he revolves. If by chance any light does appear in the black man's sphere of operations, it is usually assumed that it is re- 'Address delirered at Taskegee Commencemeat, May 19l2 4 RACIAL GOOD WILL black is generally projected against the white and usually to the disadvantage and embarrassment of the former. It becomes very easy, therefore, to see in our minds and hearts what is so apparent in our faces, "darkness there and nothing more." But you must keep in mind that the Negro is a tenth part of a great cosmopolitan commonwealth; he is a part of a nation to which God has given many very intricate problems to work out. Who knows but that this nation is God's great laboratory which is being used by the Cre- ator to show the rest of the world, what it does not seem thoroughly to understand, that it is possible for all God's people, even the two most extreme types, the black and the white, to live together harmoniously and helpfully. PROBLEM OF ADJUSTMENT The question which the American nation must face, and which the Negro as a part of the nation should so- berly and dispassionately consider, is the mutual, social, civic, and industrial adjustment upon common ground of two races, differing widely in characteristics and diverse in physical peculiarities, but alike suspicious and alike jealous, and alike more or less biased and prejudiced each toward the other. Without doubt the physical pe- culiarities of the Negro, which are perhaps the most superficial of all the distinctions, are nevertheless the most difficult of adjustment. While I do not believe that a man's color is ever a disadvantage to him, he is very likely to find it an inconvenience sometimes, in some places. We might as well be perfectly frank and perfectly honest with ourselves; it is not an easy task to adjust the relations of ten millions of people, who, while they may fleeted from his association with his white brother. The RACIAL GOOD WILL 5 be mature in passion and perhaps in prejudice, are yet to a large extent children in judgment and in experience, to a race of people, not only mature in civilization, but the principles of whose government were based upon more or less mature judgment and experience at the beginning of this nation. And when we take into account also the wide ethnic differences in the two races that are here brought together, the problem becomes one of the gravest intricacy that has ever taxed human wisdom and human patience for solution. This situation makes it necessary for the Negro as a race to grasp firmly two or three fun- damental elements — race consciousness, a high moral ideal, and intelligent industry. RACE CONSCIOUSNESS The Negro must play essentially the primary part in the solution of this problem. Since his emancipation he has conclusively demonstrated to most people that he possesses the same faculties and susceptibilities as the rest of human mankind; this is the greatest victory the race has achieved during its years of freedom. Having demonstrated that his faculties and susceptibilities are capable of the highest development, it must be true of the black race, as it has been true of other races, that it must go through the same processes and work out the same problems in about the same way as other races have done. We can and we have profited very much by the ex- amples of progressive races. This is a wonderful ad- vantage and we have not been slow to grasp it. But we must remember that we are subject to the same natural factors in the solution of this problem, and that it cannot be solved without considering these factors. The Negro O RACIAL GOOD WILL must first of all have a conscientious pride and absolute faith and belief in himself. He must not unduly depre- ciate race distinctions and allow himself to think that be- cause out of one blood God created all nations of the earth, brotherhood is already an accomplished reality. Let us not deceive ourselves, blighted as we are with a heritage of moral leprosy from our past history and hard pressed as we are in the economic world by foreign immi- grants and by native prejudice ; our one surest haven of refuge is in ourselves ; our one safest means of advance is our belief and implicit trust in our own ability and worth. No race that despises itself, that laughs at and ridicules itself, that wishes to God it were anything else but itself, can ever be a great people. There is no power under heaven that can stop the onward march of ten millions of earnest, honest, inspired, God-fearing, race- loving, and united people. HIGH MORAL IDEAL With a strong race consciousness and reasonable pru- dence, a people with a low, vacillating and uncertain moral ideal may, for a time, be able to stem the tide of outraged virtue, but this is merely transitory. Ultimate destruction and ruin follow absolutely in the wake of moral degeneracy ; this all history shows, this experience teaches. God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Not long ago I stood in the city of Rome amid its ruined foundations, crumbling walls, falling aqueducts, ancient palaces and amphitheatres, today mere relics of ancient history. One is struck with wonder and amaze- ment at the magnificent civilization which that people was RACIAL GOOD WILL able to evolve. It does not seem possible that the Roman people, who could so perfect society in its organic and civic relations and leave to the world the organic princi- ples which must always lie at the base of all subsequent social development, it does not seem possible that such a people should so decay as to leave hardly a vestige of its original stock, or that such cities as the Romans erected should so fall as to leave scarcely one stone upon another. Neither does it seem credible that a people who could so work out in its philosophical aspect man's relation to the eternal mystery, and come as near a perfect solution as is perhaps possible for the human mind to reach, that a people who could give to the world such literature, such art, such ideals of physical and intellectual beauty, as did the Greeks, could so utterly perish from the face of the earth; yet this is the case, not only with Rome and Greece, but with a score or more of nations which were once masters of the world. The Greeks, Romans, Per- sians, Egyptians, and even God's chosen people, allowed corruption and vice to so dwarf their moral sense that there was, according to the universal law of civilization, nothing left for them but death and destruction. It is no reproach to the Negro to say that his history and environment in this country have well-nigh placed him at the bottom of the moral scale. This must be re- medied if the Negro is ever to reach the full status of civil- ized manhood and womanhood. It must come through the united efforts of the educated among us, united not for spoils, not to disgrace religion with immoral practices, nor yet to merely protest and pass resolutions. No one can beat us solving the race problem by reso- lutions. Educated Negroes a thousand miles away from Alabama have been kind enough to settle every question and solve every problem affecting the race, by beautiful 8 RACIAL GOOD WILL resolutions which are seldom read outside the immediate community and often affect no one, not even the people who pass them. We must unite to stop the ravages of disease among our people ; unite to keep black boys from idleness, vice, gambling, and crime ; unite to guard the purity of black womanhood, and, I might add, black man- hood also. It is not enough to simply protest that ninety- five out of every hundred Negroes are orderly and law- abiding. The ninety-five must be banded together to re- strain and suppress the vicious five. Though it is sad to relate, there is a widening chasm between the educated Negro and his less fortunate brother. This may be natural but it is nevertheless very disastrous. This chasm must be bridged by more practi- cal sympathy and a more friendly and vital personal contact. The people must be impressed with the idea that a high moral character is absolutely essential to the highest development of every race, white quite as much as black. There is no creature so low and contemptible as he who does not seek first the approval of his own conscience and his God, for, after all, how poor is human recognition when you and your God are aware of your inward integrity of soul. If the Negro will keep clean hands and a pure heart, he can stand up before all the world and say, "Doubtless Thou, O Lord, art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us and Israel acknowl- edge us not." INTELLIGENT INDUSTRY Slavery taught the Negro many things for which he should be profoundly thankful— the Christian religion, the English language, and, in a measure, civilization, and these have placed him a thousand years ahead of his African ancestors. RACIAL GOOD WILL Slavery taught the Negro to work by rule and rote but not by principle and method. It did not and, per- haps, could not teach him to love and respect labor, but left him, on the contrary, with the idea that manual industry is a thing to be despised and gotten rid of, if possible ; that to work with one's hands is a badge of in- feriority. A tropical climate is not conducive to the de- velopment of practical energy. Add to the Negro's natural tendency his unfortunate heritage from slavery and we see at once that the race needs especially to be rooted and grounded in the underlying scientific principles of concrete things. The time when the world bowed be- fore mere abstract, impractical knowledge has well-nigh passed ; the demand of this age and hour is not so much what a man knows (though the world respects and reveres knowledge and always will, I hope.) What the world wants to know is what a man can do and how well he can do it. We must not be misled by high-sounding phrases as to the kind of education the race should receive, but we should remember that the education of a people should be conditioned upon their capacity, social environment, and the probable life which they will lead in the immedi- ate future. We fully realize that the ignorant must be taught, the poor must have the gospel, and the vicious must be restrained, but we also realize that these do not strike the "bedrock" of a permanent, lasting citizenship. If the Negro will add his proportionate contribution to the economic aspect of the world's civilization, it must be done through intelligent, well-directed, conscientious, skilled industry. The primary sources of wealth are agri- culture, mining, manufacturing, and commerce. These are the lines along which the thoughtful energy of the black race must be directed. I mean by agriculture, lO RACIAL GOOD WILL farming — the raising of corn, cotton, peas, and potatoes^ pigs, chickens, horses, and cows. Land may be bought practically anywhere in the South almost at our own price. Twenty years hence, with the rapidly developing Southern country and the stren- uous efforts to fill it up with foreign immigrants, it will be difficult if not impossible for us to buy land. Don't get the idea that because land is cheap today it will always remain cheap. Don't be misled either with the notion that because work is plentiful for the colored man, that it will always be plentiful. God gave the children of Israel the "Land of Canaan" but what a life and death struggle they had had to take possession of it and hold on to it! God has given to the Negro here in this Southern country two of the most fundamental necessities in his develop- ment — land and labor. If you don't possess this land and hold this labor, God will tell you, as He has often told other races, "to move on." The Creator never meant that this beautiful land should be forever kept as a great hunting ground for the Indian to roam in savage bliss, but he intended that it should be used. The Indian, having for scores of gener- ations failed to develop this land, God asked the Anglo- Saxon to take possession and dig out the treasures of wheat, corn, cotton, gold and silver, coal and iron, and the poor Indian was told "to move on." The Negro in Africa sits listlessly in the sunshine of barbarous idleness while the same progressive, indomi- table, persevering, white man is taking possession of his country ; the same edict has gone forth to the native African — he is being told "to move on." RACIAL GOOD WILL I I BEYOND THE COLOR LINE Whatever question there may be about the white man's part in this situation, there is no doubt about ours. Don't let us fool ourselves, but keep in mind the fact that the man who owns his home, cultivates his land, and lives a decent, self-respecting, useful, and helpful life is no problem anywhere. We talk about the "color line." You know and I know that the blackest Negro in Ala- bama or Mississippi 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 of the white hus- bandman. Wind, wave, heat, steam, and electricity are absolutely blind forces, see no race distinction, and draw no "color line." The world's market does not care and it asks no questions about the shade of the hand that pro- duces 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 has 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 that he is engaged in honest, useful work. Let no one of us ever be ashamed or humiliated when we are called workmen ; let us be proud of the distinction. Remember always that building a house is quite as impor- tant as building a poem ; that the science of cooking is as useful to humanity as the science of music ; that the thing most to be desired is a harmonious and helpful adaptation of all the arts and sciences to the glory of God and good of humanity ; that whether we labor with muscle or with brain, both need divine inspiration- Let us consecrate 12 RACIAL GOOD WILL our brain and muscle to the highest and noblest service, to God and humanity. COMMONPLACE VIRTUES I wish, first of all, to congratulate you, the members of the graduating class, upon the fact that you have come thus successfully to the culmination of your career in this institution. 1 congratulate you also upon the peculiar character of the education you have received and upon the efficient and conscientious corps of instructors you have had. May I briefly remind you of three very commonplace virtues that may perhaps help you as you enter a broader, and I hope, more useful life. Simplicity Simplicity is a quality that is hardly likely to be over- worked ; certainly it is a very safe and sane side on which you may profitably err. It is charged that the educated Negro is greatly inclined towards the superficial and showy, that he is much given to " putting on airs." Don't be afraid or ashamed to be even criticized because of natural unaflfectedness, of extreme simplicity in dress, in speech, in conduct, and in character. It is said that the " Bushman," dressed in the latest Parisian fashion, struts proudly through the streets of London in the firm belief that in a few short months he has compassed all the vast distance between African bar- barism and modern civilization ; but, as a matter of fact, he has grasped only the foam and froth of civilization with out considering the living water upon which they float. As I understand this institution, the object has not been to make of you mere farmers and mechanics, nor yet cooks and dressmakers. It has not even tried to make RACIAL GOOD WILL I3 mere teachers and preachers, although it has accomph'shed that task most effectively ; but these vocations, how- ever well they may have been learned, are subsidiary to the great object that lies at the base of Tuskegee Institute. It has tried, and I hope it has succeeded, in making of of you men and women with strong, robust, generous, courageous, simple, Christ-like characters ; that, my friends, is the "bed rock" upon which this institution was founded and upon which it stands, and that is the meaning of this magnificent gathering, this commencement. This school, therefore, stands for real rational simplicity. Self-respect I want to ask you young people always to keep your self-respect. Self-respect does not mean fanning, cring- ing, nor truckling. No one detests a fanning, truckling, or cringing Negro more than the aristocratic Southern white man, and no one respects the honest, law-abiding, straight- forward Negro more than the aristocratic Southern gentle- man. You will be careful, I am sure, not to confuse self- respect with self-conceit; they are sometimes woefully mixed, even by educated Negroes ; that is, Negroes who have received diplomas from reputable institutions. I am not unmindful of the conditions under which we live. It is very easy for a race to accept the valuation which others set upon it ; to conclude that it is after all "good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of man," but there is no excuse for your going through the world with a sort of self-depreciatory demeanor as if you owed the rest of mankind an apology for existing. Remember that you are creatures of God's most perfect handiwork and that any lack of appreciation on your part is a reflection on the God who made you. Remember also that though a Negro, and black, and though belonging '4 RACIAL GOOD WILL to a backward and somewhat undeveloped race, that God meant that you should be as honest, as industrious, as law-abiding, as intelligent, as cultivated, as polite, as pure, as Christ-like, and as godly as any human being who walks on the face of God's green earth. Courage Tliere is no reason why any Negro should become discouraged or morbid. We believe in God ; His provi- dence is mysterious and inscrutable ; but His ways are just and righteous altogether. Suffering and disappointment have always found their place in the divine economy. It took four hundred years of slavery in Egypt and a sifting process of forty years in the "Wilderness " to teach the children of Israel to respect their race and to fit them for entrance into the " Promised Land." The black man has not as yet thoroughly learned to have the respect for his race that is so necessary to the making of a great peo- ple. I believe the woes that God has sent him are but the fiery furnace through which he is passing, that is sep- arating the dross from the pure gold, and is welding the Negroes together as a great people for a great purpose. There is every reason for optimism and hopefulness. The outlook was never more encouraging than today. The Negro never had more the respect and confidence of his neighbors, black and white, than he has today. Neither has he because of his real worth deserved that respect more than he does today. Could anybody, amid the inspiration of these grounds and buildings, be dis- couraged about the future of the Negro? The race prob- lem in this country, I repeat, is simply a part of the prob- lem of life. It is the adjustment of man's relation to his brother, and this adjustment began when Cain slew Abel. Race prejudice is as much a fact as the law of gravitation. RACIAL GOOD WILL 15 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 baby 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 towards the other ; living together as "brothers in Christ without being brothers- in-law," each making its contributions to the wealth and culture of our beloved country. You are soon to join the ranks of the great army of graduates who have gone out from this institution. They have set the standard very high ; they have rendered excellent service for their people, their country, their God. Not a white boy or girl in all America has such a chance to mould, to fashion, to help, to lead his people as is given to you. Not a white boy in all the world has had before him as his teacher and constant inspiration so unique, so picturesque, so heroic, so devoted, so sublime an example of simplicity, of courage, of patient industry, of self-sacrificing devotion to duty, as you have had in the person at the head of this institution. A PRICELESS LEGACY For nearly a quarter of a century I have had the honor and the pleasure of the acquaintance and confidence of your Principal ; I have been with him amid the varying circumstances and conditions under which the American Negro lives and moves. I have heard him day after day, at the point of exhaustion, plead the cause of his race, the cause of his country, the cause of the black man, the cause l6 RACIAL GOOD WILL of the white man. I give this as my deliberate and care- ful observation, that I have never heard him say an un- charitable, an ungenerous word against white man, against Northern man, or against Southern man. I have never seen him do or even countenance a small or a mean, unkind act. I have never known him to be too busy or too tired to render service with voice or pen or even means, where a human need demanded. In all my experience I have never met a more simple, patient, sympathetic, judicious, courageous, generous, helpful character. What a wonderful inspiration this must be to this class, what a peerless legacy you have, what a beautiful heritage is yours. I thank God for you and for myself, that in His infinite wisdom and goodness He has given you and the Negro race such a leader, and to this nation such a beautiful character. I close with these lines from an anonymous poet on " The Water Lily ": O star on the breast of the river, marvel of bloom and grace. Did you fall straight down from heaven. Out of the sweetest place? You are white as the thought of the angel, Your heart is steeped in the sun, Did you grow in the golden city, My pure and radiant one? Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven, None gave me my saintly white ; It slowly grew in the blackness, Down in the dreary night. From the ooze of the silent river, 1 won my glory and grace ; White souls fall not, O my poet, They rise to the sweetest place. THE NEGRO IN INDUSTRY * THE Census of 1910 shows that two out of every five persons engaged in gainful occupations in the sixteen Southern states are Negroes. Of the entire Negro popula- tion in those sixteen Southern states, 63 per cent are in some form of industrial occupation, while only 47 per cent of the white people are thus engaged. Of all the Negroes who are engaged in industrial activities 60 per cent are agricultural workers. The large majority of in- dustrial workers in the South are on the land ; and this is especially hopeful so far as the Negro is concerned. It is also significant that the number of Negroes engaged as agricultural laborers is about the same as it was fifty years ago, though the Negro population has increased nearly 150 per cent during that period. Something like a million Negroes have developed from agricultural laborers to farmers, there being, according to the Census of 1910, something like 890,000 in this class. After all of the efforts which have been made to induce foreign immigrants to settle in the South, less than five per cent have so far availed themselves of the opportunity offered, and a large portion of that five per cent has set- tled in the cities of the South. The Negro must be very largely depended upon to supply all the demands for labor in agricultural as well as domestic lines. According to reliable statistics, the Negro has not only hitherto done this more or less acceptably, but he has also gone rapidly into the fields of skilled and semi-skilled laborers. He is, therefore, an indisputable factor in the present and future development of our Southern states. * An address delivered before the Southern Sociological Congress in Memphis, Tenn., May 9, 1914 1 8 RACIAL GOOD WILL One reasonably familar with the situation does not doubt that the South, within the next few decades, be- cause of its splendid soil and climate, its abundant rainfall, its special adaptation to the raising of cotton, its new and growing spirit of enterprise which demands modern scien- tific methods of agriculture, will become one of the most important agricultural sections of the nation and the world. It is, therefore, not only important that labor and capital should work in harmony, but it is even more important that there should be inter-racial sympathy and co-operation along all lines of economic and civic endeavor. NEFD OF TRAINED WORKERS Thoughtful Negroes as well as thoughtful white men are agreed that the South offers the largest opportunity for the Negro, economically, socially, and morally. It is also agreed by thoughtful people, black and white, that the rural districts in the South offer the greatest opportunity for the masses of colored people. It is fair to assume, then, That, for the present at least, the South cannot de- pend on foreign immigrants for its farm operatives, its domestic and personal service, or its unskilled and semi- skilled labor; That it must depend on the Negro for the present and also the very distant future to recruit the ranks of this form of labor ; That, if the Negro is to constitute the mass of indus- trial operatives of the South, it is imperative for the com- mon good that there should be sympathetic co-operation with the white workers engaged in similar forms of in- dustry ; That every effort should be exerted on the part of the South to make these laborers, black and white, more re- liable, more skillful, and more efficient ; RACIAL GOOD WILL IQ That the laborer can be kept efficient and skillful only as his environment is wholesome and strengthening and not weakening and demoralizing ; That it is the duty of every patriotic Southerner to use every possible means for the practical, sympathetic training of these workers and their children through a thorough, well-regulated school system. It is frequently asserted by careless and thoughtless speakers and writers that all Negroes are lazy, shiftless, and inefficient; but the people who say this are not only out of accord with the facts of the case, but they often do not believe what they themselves are saying. What they mean to say is that some Negroes in every community are lazy, shiftless, and inefficient ; but in practi- cally every district where Negroes are employed, whether as farm laborers or as mechanical laborers, the verdict is that the large majority of Negro workers are reliable, many of them are skillful and very efficient, and not a few are almost indispensable. There are very few places in the South where the employer would be willing to dis- pense with the services of his Negro employes. The South has made marvelous strides in industries within the past forty years, but this would have been well- nigh impossible without its docile, cheerful, and willing Negro population. Notwithstanding the much discouraging talk and the more discouraging, not to say unfair and un- just legislation, there cannot be found, even where the ruling and the laboring classes are both of the same race, as much real, helpful sympathy and co-operation as exist at the present time between the Negro and the Southern white man. The relationship is one that is difficult to de- fine, yet it is no less real. There are some individual white men who like individual Negroes, though they may think they hate the race. Individual white men will do any 20 RACIAL GOOD WILL reasonable thing to help individual Negroes. Yet a single white man, here and there, may say any unreasonable thing against the Negro race. There are Negroes who are equally as inconsistent in their feelings and expres- sions regarding the white race. The white South, for its own self-interest, if for no other reason, should strive to make the individual rela- tionship which exists between the races a more general relationship, and the large mass of Negro workers con- tented and happy. It should encourage Negroes to live on the farm and to buy up the waste and undeveloped lands of the South; it should offer every possible inducement for Negroes to remain in the South and on the land, where they can rear their children amid physical and moral sur- roundings conducive to their highest development and greater usefulness to themselves and to the state. VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE AND CONFIDENCE The two races in the South truly deserve to be con- gratulated, the Negro, because, notwithstanding all of the laws and all of the discussions regarding the various forms of circumscription and segregation, he has not become embittered and has not grown to hate the white race ; and the white people, because, in spite of all that has been said and done, they have not lost confidence in and respect for and desire to help the Negro. Few white people know the Negro's real feeling on the question of segregation. The Negro rarely discusses this question frankly, for the reason that he does not think that because he is black he is cursed and that the Creator has limited his possibilities so that he is unfit for associa- tion with other human beings. But, as a matter of fact, ninety-nine per cent, I should say, of the Negro race, if they should tell what they really feel, would say that they RACIAL GOOD WILL 21 have no desire to be with white people because they are white; that, so far as enforced segregation and separation are concerned, they are entirely in accord with it, not be- cause of unfitness but because of racial incompatibility. One can observe this attitude in every Southern com- munity and in most Northern communities where there is any considerable number of Negroes. In Southern communities, long before segregation was ever spoken of, there were Negro sections in almost all towns.where the Negro lived happily, and there was practi- cally no trouble or feeling of unpleasantness because of it. The only persons who presumed to disregard the unwrit- ten law were certain white men who opened grocery stores, drygoods stores, and bar rooms which very fre- quently carried with them the lowest and most subtle sort of vices and degradation which would not be tolerated in white residential sections. What is true in urban com- munities is very much the same in rural communities. There were many counties in Virginia and in other states also where one could travel for miles on land owned by colored people, and this happened without any law forcing white and colored people to separate. The Negro enjoys the companionship of his race and never loses a chance to be with them, everything else be- ing equal. Like every other human being, he enjoys being with his friends whether they are black or white. But because a few Negroes here and there in the cities and in the country have bought property alongside of white people ; because the Negro traveling on the railroad wishes to ride in the Pullman car ; because at the railroad station he applies at the only restaurant for a meal ; be- cause a few Negroes here and there go to Northern white universities ; and because the Negro protests against the " jim crow " car (which almost invariably means inferior 22 RACIAL GOOD WILL accommodations), and the separation on street cars, the feeling in the mind of the average white person is, per- haps, that the Negro wants to be white and that he wants to be with white people because they are white. There is absolutely no foundation in fact for this feeling. NEED OF MORE PROTECTION The Negro has long since learned that property along- side of white people in the cities and towns is more valu- able ; that his wife and children have more protection ; that the streets are better and cleaner ; and that he gets better fire protection, greater police protection ; and that for such a section there are more adequate sanitary arrange- ments. The Negro has discovered that if his land adjoins a white man's land the county roads are better cared for. The roads in the Negro sections, especially where the county roads are infrequently used by white people, as is often the case, are generally neglected, and it is often difficult to get the road master to pay any attention to that section of the public highway. In many cases it is never touched. The fence and stock laws are much more rigidly enforced by county officials and more carefully observed by both black and white wherever white people's property is concerned. The truth is simply this. The white people are the ruling, controlling, dominating, directing element of this country, and they have the best of everything— the best parts of the cities, the best hotels and restaurants, the best cars, and as a rule, the best schools, colleges, and univer- sities. When a Negro shows an inclination to be with white people, it is not because he wants to be with white people as such, but because he wants to get the best as to land, position, education, comforts, conveniences, and protection. RACIAL GOOD WILL 23 It is self-evident that the Negro has practically no share in the making or the execution of the laws. He knows when he is segregated that underneath the segrega- tion is the idea that he is inferior and unfit for association with decent people of any other race. He knows that in his section of the city the streets are not paved ; that criminals of his own race and often of other races are al- lowed to run at large and prey on the ignorant and inno- cent ; that in his section the health boards are not so par- ticular as they should be regarding sanitary surroundings; that street sweepers, who are often white, give little or no attention to sections where Negroes live ; and that Negro sections, because they are Negro sections, are almost in- variably neglected by city as well as county officials. WHAT SEPARATION HAS MEANT Separation, so far as I have been able to observe, has never meant equal treatment or equal accommodations on railroads or steamboats, in restaurants, on street cars, or anywhere else. Sometimes an effort has been made to make the public service equal for both races, but those who have the su- pervision of it, because of lack of interest, or lack of sym- pathy, or perhaps lack of appreciation of the necessity of careful supervision, have allowed the accommodations to degenerate into places inferior and, in most cases, abso- lutely unfit for human beings of any race. In many cases, these places are as menacing to the health and lives of the white race as they are demoralizing and degrading, as well as menacing, to the health and lives of the colored people. The Southern conscience ought to be aroused to the point of action where the white South will demand abso- lutely equal accommodations for both races in all places 24 RACIAL GOOD WILL where there is local segregation. In many places, if there were Negro constables, magistrates, and policemen in Negro sections, there would be far less criminality on the part of Negroes, because these officials would ferret it out and locate the vicious criminals of their race. They would, nine times out of ten, see that the offender was brought to justice. Negro street cleaners would be more zealous in their duties in their own sections. The crim- inality of the South, as far as the Negro is concerned, would be reduced fifty per cent if the authorities would call colored men into service as constables and policemen. The white officers would, in this case, receive a surpris- ing amount of co-operation. No leader, either black or white, can give skillful, efficient, conscientious service when he is surrounded day and night by all that tends to lower his health, distort his mind, weaken his morals, embitter his spirit, and shake his faith in his fellow-men. The South's growth can come only when its laboring class is well housed, well fed, and surrounded by all that tends to make it strong mentally, morally, and physically. Under the system of segregation which is at present being agitated and practiced in many quarters, it is impossible for the Negro to grow normally, either in his physical, mental, or moral life. To that ex- tent he is inefficient and unsatisfactory as a laborer. I much fear he will grow more so. JUDGING A RACE BY ONE CLASS The next largest group of Negro industrial workers, according to the Census of 1910, are the 1,324,150 of Ne- groes who are engaged in domestic and personal service. These have little personal contact and almost nothing in common, so far as actual occupation is concerned, with a RACIAL GOOD WILL 2 5 similar though very much smaller group of white people. Nevertheless, because of the very intimate relationship which they sustain toward the dominant and law-making element, they are in many ways a most important factor in inter-racial problems. These domestic and personal-service workers have been for more than a generation very largely the " ministers-extraordinary and plenipotentiaries of the Negro race at the court of Southern white public opinion." Their indiflference, their laziness, their shiftless- ness, their carelessness, their inefficiency, their immorality and criminality, have played no inconsiderable part in shaping the mental attitude of most Southern white people towards the Negro. Their interpretation of the sermons, lectures, lawyers' briefs, physicians' prescriptions, the conduct, character, feelings, sentiments, and longings of all the Negroes in the South, educated and otherwise, has been the infallible foundation upon which the reputation of the whole Negro race, to a very large extent, has been based. Not all of this class are inefl&cient, shiftless, or crim- inal ; but the domestic- and personal-service element in any race, important as it is that they be efficient and sat- isfactory and able to hold their jobs, are not the best rep- resentatives of a race of people. They are apt to mis- interpret and misrepresent the intelligent, well-mean- ing, property-owning, and progressive class. It is unfair to the white race that it should shape its opinion of the entire Negro race by the Negro cook or butler who may or may not be satisfactory. It is even more unfair to the Negro that the decision as to his morality, his intelligence, his ability, and his industrial efficiency should be deter- mined merely by this element. 26 RACIAL GOOD WILL PROTECTION OF NEGRO WOMEN A great difficulty that faces Negro girls who are en- gaged in domestic service is the lack of attention and care on the part of their employers. This has had more to do with the moral degradation of Negro women than any other single phase of Southern life. Little or no interest is taken in these girls so long as they attend to their duties. Where they go, with whom they associate, the life they live, the environment in which they spend their off hours — these facts receive little or no consideration. This is perhaps natural, but it is certainly unfair, not only to the Negro domestic servant, but also to the white employer of the Negro servant. What is worse, it has made many a Negro woman ashamed of her job. Many well-meaning white people take it for granted that the Negro will be lazy, dishonest, and immoral. That very attitude, benevolent as it is, perhaps, is in itself most unfortunate and dangerous. It is most unfortunate for the Negro that the white man should set for him a lower standard, either industrially, morally, or intellectually, than for himself, and should too easily offer a sort of half apology for Negro weaknesses, failures, and inefficiencies. EDUCATION THE SOLUTION This leads me to emphasize the very great necessity of education for the Negro. There has been much crit- icism and some ridicule of educated Negroes, by per- haps well-meaning people. But, after all is said and done, the most successful, the most reliable, and the most influ- ential element in the Negro race, as in every race, is the educated class — the men and women who have done most to cement cordial and sympathetic relations between the races ; who have had the greatest influence for caution RACIAL GOOD WILL 2/ and conservatism upon the reckless, radical Negroes ; who have been most patient and most persistent in their efforts to fit the whole Negro race for freedom and citizen- ship, in the broadest sense of the words, by practical, Christian education and by sane, wholesome advice. It seems to me that the best means of cementing a more cordial, sympathetic, and helpful relationship between the two races is thorough, systematic training, and practical education for both races, which means loyalty and efi5- ciency, and especially for the more backward of the two races— the Negro. Our struggle, then, to bring all the laborers of the South to the point where they can make of this Southland, where cotton still remains the economic king, what it should eventually become, must be, first, to feed, clothe, and house them properly. For this they must be trained intellectually, morally, and spiritually; and for this training the white people, the direct- ing class, must see that all labor, black as well as white, has full and complete opportunity to get the very best, broadest, deepest, and highest that the Creator has given to all mankind. I plead for the continued co-operation and backing of the South in the efforts and achievements of such second- ary and higher educational institutions as Hampton, Tus- kegee, Howard, Atlanta, Fisk, and Virginia Union Uni- versity, with a dozen other worthy institutions, not only for the training they give the Negro, but also for what this train- ing has meant to the South and to the nation. It is only by broadening his horizon, enlarging his vision, increasing his ambition, deepening his pride in himself and in his race, and thereby increasing his respect for himself and otherselves, that the Negro will be made truly efficient— a permanent benefit to himself, to his race, and to his coun- try. And this should be the Christian duty and patriotic obligation of every true citizen, black and white alike. SIGNS OF GO-OPERATION* AT a meeting held recently in Virginia an old colored preacher in opening the service prayed thus: "O God of all races, will you please, Sir, come in and take charge of de min's of all dese yere white people and fix dem so dat dey'll know and understan' dat all of us col- ored folks is not lazy, dirty, dishones', an' no 'count ; and help dem. Lord, to see dat most of us is prayin', workin', and strivin', to get some land, some houses, and some ed'cation for ourselves an' our chillun, an' get true 'ligion an' dat mos' every Negro in Northampton County is, doin' his lebel bes' to make frien's an' get along wid de white folks. Help dese yere white folks, O Lord, to understan' dis thing. Lord, while you is takin' charge of de min's of dese white people, don' pass by de colored folks, for dey is not perfec'— dey needs you as much as de white folks does. Open de Negro's blin' eyes dat he may see dat all of de white folks is not mean an' dishones' an' prejudice' ag'inst the colored folks, dat dere is hones', hard-workin', jus', an' God-fearin' white folks in dis yere community who is tryin' de bes' dey know how, wid de circumstances ag'inst dem, to be fair in dere dealin's wid de colored folks, an' help dem to be 'spectable men an' women. Help us, Lord, black an' white, to under- stan' each other more eve'y day." The prayer of this old colored man expresses, in a crude but effective fashion, the feeling and desire of the best Negroes and the best white people of the South. The sentiment of this prayer is becoming more and more universal, and it is influencing as never before the best *An ■ddreii delivered before the Negro Chriitian Studenti' Convention held in Atlanta. May 6-10. 1914 RACIAL GOOD WILL 29 thought and highest aspirations of our Southern people. This, then, is the first fundamental sign of growing co-op- eration in our Southland. One who is reasonably familiar with Southern conditions cannot but see on every hand unmistakable evidences that the two races are growing more and more to understand and sympathize with each other in the common life which they now lead and must of necessity continue to lead. It is comparatively easy for a person to become dis- couraged regarding the situation, especially if he is gov- erned by the reports which he sees in the average daily paper. There seems to be a popular desire, on the part of press dispatches, to emphasize the unsavory side of Negro life. How often one sees in a paper — front page, first col- umn—in glaring headlines, a report of some crime alleged to have been committed by a black man ; whereas, in the very same paper, on the last page, and often in a most insignificant place on that page, with very modest head- lines, one finds a report of a white man charged with the same sort of crime ! If there is a misunderstanding be- tween black and white people in any community, often in cases where there are less than a half-dozen in the dis- turbance, the papers will report a "race riot" and give the impression that practically all the Negroes and white people in the community are up in arms against each other. This sort of propaganda, which has been indulged in for several decades and with increasing exaggeration, can- not but prejudice many people of both races against the Negro, and cause the casual observer to wonder if it is possible after all for the black and white races, whom God in His infinite wisdom and goodness has seen fit in His own way to place side by side in large numbers on 30 RACIAL GOOD WILL Southern soil, to live helpfully and harmoniously together. But there is no real reason for discouragement. The apparent hostility is more or less superficial and far from the actual facts of the situation, for, on sober second thought, there come to mind the rank and file of the Negro race— the law-abiding citizens who keep out of courts and out of the papers ; the earnest, thoughtful, growing numbers who are working side by side with the best white people for the solution of the race problem. INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Immediately after the war there was naturally a cer- tain sort of paternal relation that existed between the white man and the Negro, but this was of rather a patronizing sort. This relationship exists even now to some extent, but it cannot long continue. There must come a different and more lasting, and, in the long run, a more wholesome relationship. The younger generations of the white and black races have now come on the stage of action. Their dealings are less cordial and less patronizing, and are more cold and businesslike. The Negro stands on his manhood. Few favors are asked except such as may be reduced to a dollars-and-cents basis. There was developed during the days of slavery a spirit of suspicion on the part of the Negro against white people which the reconstruction period did not by any means lessen, and which has hampered the Negro, perhaps, more than it has the white man. This the Negro is rapidly outliving, and that is encouraging. Notwithstanding all that has been said against the Negro from the press and platform, the real situation was never more hopeful and encouraging than it is at present. Even the casual ob- server must see that there is growing a spirit of real co- RACIAL GOOD WILL 3^ operation and sympathy between the races, and that never before has there been a more earnest and sincere effort on the part of both races for mutual help and co-operation. There is a growing and genuinely honest disposition on the part of Negroes everywhere to seek the advice as well as the assistance and co-operation of white people in every movement for the uplift of the Negroes. There is an increasingly strong feeling on the part of Negro laborers and mechanics for unity and co-operation with similar groups of white artisans, and the white unions are seeing more and more the necessity for a closer union of the various classes of skilled workers. This feeling will con- tinue to grow as men become better trained, better educated, and better Christians. EDUCATIONAL CO-OPERATION In educational matters there is also growing sym- pathy and co-operation between whites and blacks. The Negro is calling on school officials for a fair and equitable distribution of school funds. He is asking for better schools, longer terms, better pay for teachers, and better equipment; in many cases the Negroes, out of their own earnings, are buying land for the schools and often putting up the schoolhouses, sometimes supplementing the pay of the teacher, this generally being done with the advice and approval of the local school officials, who are making appropriations for school purposes with a liber- ality such as was never before witnessed. Hampton Institute, through its Principal, Dr. Hollis B. Frissell, and its trustees, notably the late Robert G. Ogden, and through the institutions that have grown out of Hampton, has done more than perhaps any other single institution in making possible the sort of co-operation that 3- RACIAI, GOOD WILL counts for most in the development of the two races here in the South. Hampton Institute has established a plat- form upon which Northern men, Southern men, black men, and white men can work together for the good of humanity and the glory of God. Men and women from more spheres of life, of more creeds and colors, are con- stantly meeting at Hampton for the discussion of vital questions and inspiration for larger work than in any other place, perhaps, in America. Dr. Booker T. Washington has done more than any other single man to bring the colored people to realize the wisdom and absolute necessity of calling on the white people for advice and aid, and I need not say that the re- sponse in most cases has been helpful and gratifying ; this attitude on the part of colored people has encouraged the white people to take more interest in what is going on among colored people in almost every line of endeavor. We all know of the work of the Jeanes Board, through which Dr. James H. Dillard has accomplished suqh splendid service for God and humanity ; and we all know also of the work of the state supervisors of rural schools, of whom Mr. Jackson Davis was the pioneer. These two agencies are not only linking together the common rural schools in the communities in which they are at work, but are doing what is to me more important — they are linking the two races together on the ground of common brother- hood,common needs, and common sympathy, in the cities as well as in the country. Here is a great forward move- ment toward the co-operation of the races. In Savannah» for example, organizations like the National Negro Busi- ness League arc co-operating with the white people for a greater and better city The same is true in Nashville, as well as here in Atlanta and in other Southern cities. RACIAL GOOD WILL 33 KNOWING AND WINNING THE SOUTH Dr. Washington, usually under the auspices of the National Negro Business League, with other prominent colored men, has made what he calls "educational tours" through almost all of the Southern states, where thousands of people, white and black, have gathered to listen to him. These thousands have received from the distinguished Negro leader frank, yet sane, advice as to the best methods of real co-operation and a more helpful relationship. These addresses have had as cordial a response from white as from black people. It would be difficult to estimate the value of such trips in cementing more cordial, sympathic feeling between the two races in these states. The unstinted thanks of the Negroes of the South are due Dr. James H. Dillard, who brought into being, at the right time, the University Commission on Race Questions, a commission composed of representatives of all the South- ern state universities— men who, without sentiment, are getting at the real facts regarding the Negro, with a view to helping, not merely the Negro, but the white South and the nation as well. The Negro is perfectly willing to be judged on his merits by unbiased men, especially when they have before them the actual facts. In Memphis there was recently held what was in some ways the most remarkable gathering I have ever wit- nessed. There came together a large body of Southern men representing all phases of Southern life, and an equally interesting and representative body of Negroes. These men expressed frankly, dispassionately, and in a kindly way their views on the race situation, offering sane, helpful suggestions as to adequate remedies therefor. Is it not a hopeful sign when black men and white men can thus counsel together on common problems ? 34 RACIAL GOOD WILL CO-OPERATION AMONG WOMEN Our Negro women have shown consummate wisdom and tact in securing the co-operation and help of leading white women in their civic movements. The Women's Civic League of Baltimore, and all of our Virginia move- ments have been and are now headed by the most promi- nent and aristocratic white women. And here in Atlanta, Mrs. John Hope could not have accomplished what she has so successfully achieved had she not asked the help and co-operation of the white women of the city. The fact that the Negroes are themselves becoming better organized and are willing to accept the advice and leadership of their own race for racial betterment and civic improvement, makes it all the easier for the leaders of these organizations to throw the weight of their influence on the side of sane co-operation with the best element of our Southern white people. Few private schools are started in any community without the Negroes asking cer- tain of the leading white people to become members of the board of trustees. If they do not wish to make them real trustees, which means owners of the property, they will devise some kind of an advisory board, so as to link white people to the movement, and thus secure their ad- vice and counsel, perhaps their financial assistance, and often their influence with the county school officials. BUSINESS CO-OPERATION There are in the South today about seventy Negro banks owned, controlled, and operated by Negroes, also numerous building and loan associations In many of these banks the presidents or cashiers of the white banks have not only given advice to their Negro competitors as to the best methods of banking, but have opened up their first RACIAL GOOD WILL 35 books and started them off, in many places overlooking their methods and work until the Negro banks could get on their feet. Only recently a Negro bank in Richmond came near having a "run" on it because of some erroneous report that was circulated in the community to the effect that the bank was in trouble, and several of the leading white banking institutions, through their presidents, told the Negro bank to pay all claims promptly, and that they would furnish the necessary money if it did not have the available cash. These banks knew that the Negro bank was absolutely safe and solid and they had absolute faith in the honesty and integrity of its black president. In almost every community the Negro and white business men are on terms of harmony and co-operation, loaning and borrowing and crediting as if both were white or both were black. This spirit of business co-operation must and certainly will continue to grow. CO-OPERATION FOR BETTER HEALTH It is perhaps along lines of health and sanitation that one finds the heartiest co-operation between the white and colored people. It is quite as important for white people that Negroes should be clean and healthy, physically, mentally, and morally, as it is for colored people. White people see and understand this and are willing and glad to lend assistance and to co-operate as perhaps in no other movement. Disease is common to all, and though germi- nated in the Negro cabin, is very apt to find its way to the white mansion. Disease, like vice and crime, knows no color line. As a result of the very important meeting re- cently held in the city of New Orleans to start a health campaign throughout the South, the white people are urging the Negroes to enter into this movement and have met with a very general response. 36 RACIAL GOOD WILL THE NEGRO ORGANIZATION SOCIETY There grew out of the Hampton Negro Conference a movement which we have called the Negro Organization Society of Virginia. This movement has for its object the federation of all existing organizations in the State of Vir- ginia of whatever kind or character, whether religious, be- nevolent, or secret societies, social orbusiness conventions, farmers' conferences, or what not, for the common purpose of general improvement of conditions among Negroes throughout the Old Dominion. Its motto is, "Better schools, better health, better homes, better farms" among colored people. The Negro Organization Society seems to have federated about all of these organizations, for never in the history of the race has any movement taken hold of the various phases of Negro activity as this movement has done; and though it is only about three years old, it has inspired the erection of some twenty-five graded schools in the state, to say nothing of improving the equipment and surroundings of two score more. We have just closed what we call in Virginia a "clean- up week." A year ago we had a "clean-up day," but we made it a clean-up week this year for the reason that it was not convenient in many localities in the state, because of storms, etc., to clean up on the day appointed. We asked the State Board of Health, as well as the county boards, for their co-operation and help. We prepared a special bulletin giving instructions in simple language that could easily be understood by Cc/lored people, as to the best methods of preserving their health, which we call the "Negro Health Handbook." The State Board of Health published, at no expense to the Organization Society, about thirty thousand of these books, which were put into the hands of the school-teachers and preachers as well as pD 1.0.4 RACIAL GOOD WILL 37 Other Negro leaders throughout the state; and special ser- mons and health talks and lectures were delivered throughout Virginia. We asked the white people who employed colored people to excuse their employes and encourage them as far as possible to clean up their premises; and while we have not the facts for the present year, we know that last year 130,000 people devoted a day to a general cleaning up of their premises, disposing of rubbish, whitewashing their houses, outhouses, and fences, and destroying breeding places for flies and mosquitoes. The most significant thing accomplished in this healthjmovement is that we got absolutely the co-operation and the backing of the leading papers and leading white people of Virginia. The new " Handbook " has just been published and forty thousand copies distributed, with results even more far-reaching than those of a year ago. Last November, in Richmond, six thousand people gathered to hear the reports of the year's work of this society. Something like a thousand of these were white and they represented the leading people of the City of Richmond and the State of Virginia. There were present and on the platform, the Governor of the State, the Presi- dent of the Richmond Medical College, the Principal of Hampton Institute, and many leading Negroes, among them Mrs. Maggie L. Walker, and such men as Dr. Charles S. Morris and Dr. Booker T. Washington. Mrs. B. B. Munford, one of the leading white ladies of Virginia and president of the Virginia Co-operative Education Association, was asked to speak on the subject "What white people can do to help colored people." Mrs. Munford opened her address with these words: "The best way," she said, "for white people to help colored people is for white people to believe in colored people." In my opin- ion the best way for colored people to help white people 3^ RACIAL GOOD WILL is for colored people to believe in white people. It seems to me, then, that if we live up to the spirit of the colored minister whom I quoted in the beginning of my talk, and accept the equally sincere and earnest advice of Mrs. Munford, we shall have a clue to the maze of race prejudice and race misunderstanding, and a key to the door of Christian co-operation and brotherhood, which is the spirit and purpose of this Negro Students' Christian Federation. ,0^ c^-- -^o^ ^<^^ -', <*>. ,0^ C-- -^o >' ■ % "°^ ... - / \ • . - y^ %^ ••...• / \ •...■■ y' . /\ •. ^'% V , .. ,•■ /\ V .. . V^^% V " » , ^ s* -> '''- 0' •, ^ * ' ' " .0 .. * * • ' > .V •.\ ^^^ V ^'-'^^^ c^o^ ^'■y. A '^^ ..^^"^ ^ '■' H DOBBS BROS * LIBHABY BINDING m\ %> o . » * .G o ' . . , ,'\ .^ ^^'^^ ,^ '^ ^- J*