Diaries of A Black Man

Copyright 2014
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Diaries Of A Black Man All Rights Reserve By !ames " #ance 2014
Allen and Abraham make the case that the events of recent world history, from the Bolshevik Revolution forward, have been brought into being and controlled by a relatively small group of insiders, mostly international banking magnates and later on! the "ouncil on #oreign Relations. While it$s certainly conspiracy theory, Allen and Abraham have done a fine %ob of backing up their assertions with a huge amount of primary and secondary source material %ust looking up the titles in the bibliography took me the better part of two hours!. Whether you$re a fan of conspiracy theory or not, the facts presented, and the conclusions drawn, in this book, are thought&provoking
$20%00 "&ook 'or 'ree ("R")
*pcoming #e+ ,itle
'ore+or
By looking at the black youth of today you would never believe that %ust a short '( to )( years ago blacks stood together and marched on Washington under the leadership of *artin +uther ,ing. And fundamentally changed the most powerful country in the world at that time. -n the ./0($s and ./1($s there was very little black on black crime other than the gang violence in cities like +A or "hicago. -n the ./0($s and 1($s blacks had large families with many of the men at home there was still your dead beats but - can personally recall multiple families that - grew up with that had 1&.( kids and they all had fathers at home. - grew up in -nglewood "alifornia my *om moved me there in ./12 when was .. we lived off of *anchester and "renshaw - can vividly recall every business in our neighborhood was black owned the corner li3our store,the two gas stations on the corner, a hamburger %oint,hair saloons as well as Whitman *ayo the guy that played 4rady in 5anford 6 5on travel agency. 7he grocery chain stores and banks were all managed amd ran by local blacks. As bad as the ./1($s were characteri8ed for blacks in shows such as good times and sandford and son blacks were actually gaining ground in society after %ust going through a decade of segregation,discrimination and racism.
./1/ *cfadden and Whitehead a singing duo came out with the hit song. 9Aint No 5topping :s Now; and that was pretty much the national anthem for many middle class blacks it looked like the ./<($s would be a decade of opportunity and advancement for black people. But a ma%or event occurred roughly about three years into the decade and earth shattering event rocked the black commuinity and black families. A massive chemical attack wasperpetrated on black communities nation wide it came in the form of "rack "ocaine. "ocaine and free basing was discovered way before ./<' but prior to that "ocaine was a rich mans high at =.(( dollars or more per gram inner city black had no interest and could not afford the rich mans high of "ocaine. But in the early ./<(;s that all changed "ocaine went from =.(( per serving to =2.(( or less per serving the net result is "ocaine abuse spread like wild fire in black communities to the point that it became a real epidemic. 7he numbers of black familes effected by the ./<($s "ocaine epidemic could reach as high as millions,some locked up some dead some still walking around like living 8ombies to this very day.
America$s black communities have not been the same since,what were seeing today is the offspring of that generation that went through the ./<($s 4hetto "rack >olocaust. A vast ma%ority raised without a mother or father. 7oday the American black family has been broken down and blacks in general have been broken down. 7oday - dont have to think about marching on Washington because the ,lu ,lu? ,lan lynched somebody no - have to be worried more about not getting shot or killed by a black teenager my own people. 7here$s a a old saying if you dont know were you have been then you probably dont know were your going either and - think that so true of blacks in America today - strongly feel we need to turn to our history so that we can see clearly our destiny and future. 7he Authors highlighted in this book lived in era in America were they did not have .( percent of the freedom and opportunity black American$s have today so listen closely as they describe what being black in America was like in their day as we Cele&rate Black (istory Month 2014
7able of "ontents
"hapter .@ -ndustrial Aducation #or 7he Negro...................................... "hapter B@ 7he 7alented 7enth...............................................................B "hapter '@ 7he Cisfranchisement Df 7he Negro....................................' "hapter )@ 7he Negro And 7he +aw.......................................................) "hapter 2@ 7he "haracteristics Df 7he Negro Eeople...........................2 "hapter 0@ Representative American Negroes.......................................0 "hapter 1@ 7he Negro$s Elace -n American +ife At 7he Eresent Cay.....1
Chapter 1
-n .strial " .cation 'or ,he #egro
Booker , /ashington
Principal of Tuskegee Institute The necessity for the race's learning the difference between being worked and working. He would not confine the Negro to industrial life, but believes that the very best service which any one can render to what is called the "higher education" is to teach the present generation to work and save. This will create the wealth fro which alone can co e leisure and the opportunity for higher education.
Diaries Of A Black Man All Rights Reserve By !ames " #ance 0c1 2014
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!ne of the
ost funda ental and far"reaching deeds that has been
acco plished during the last #uarter of a century has been that by which the Negro has been helped to find hi self and to learn the secrets of civili$ation%to learn that there are a few si ple, cardinal principles
upon which a race
ust start its upward course, unless it would fail, and
its last estate be worse than its first. It has been necessary for the Negro to learn the difference between being worked and working%to learn that being worked while working eant degradation, to eans civili$ation& that all for s of labor are honorable,
and all for s of idleness disgraceful. It has been necessary for hi
learn that all races that have got upon their feet have done so largely by laying an econo ic foundation, and, in general, by beginning in a proper cultivation and ownership of the soil.
'orty years ago
y race e erged fro
slavery into freedo . If, in too
any cases, the Negro race began develop ent at the wrong end, it was largely because neither white nor black properly understood the case. Nor is it any wonder that this was so, for never before in the history of the world had (ust such a proble at the co ing of freedo been presented as that of the two races in this country.
'or two hundred and fifty years, I believe the way for the rede ption of the Negro was being prepared through industrial develop ent. Through all those years the )outhern white )outhern white an did business with the Negro in a ost cases if a echanic way that no one else has done business with hi . In
an wanted a house built he consulted a Negro
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about the plan and about the actual building of the structure. If he wanted a suit of clothes ade he went to a Negro tailor, and for shoes he went to a shoe aker of the sa e race. In a certain way every slave plantation in the )outh was an industrial school. !n these plantations young colored en and wo en were constantly being trained not only as far ers but as
carpenters, blacks iths, wheelwrights, brick laundresses, sewing wo en and housekeepers. I do not slavery I a
asons, engineers, cooks,
ean in any way to apologi$e for the curse of slavery, which si ply stating facts. This training was crude, and was given ental training in connection with the training of the
was a curse to both races, but in what I say about industrial training in for selfish purposes. It did not answer the highest ends, because there was an absence of white hand. To a large degree, though, this business contact with the )outhern an, and the industrial training on the plantations, left the Negro at on and skilled the close of the war in possession of nearly all the co
labor in the )outh. The industries that gave the )outh its power,
pro inence and wealth prior to the *ivil +ar were
ainly the raising of
cotton, sugar cane, rice and tobacco. ,efore the way could be prepared for the proper growing and these works the Negro did cultivating and dependence, but in the arketing of these crops forests had to be ost of the heavy work. In the planting, cleared, houses to be built, public roads and railroads constructed. In all arketing of the crops not only was the Negro the chief anufacture of tobacco he beca e a skilled and anufactories.
proficient work an, and in this, up to the present ti e, in the )outh, holds the lead in the large tobacco
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In
ost of the industries, though, what happened- 'or nearly twenty en and wo en
years after the war, e.cept in a few instances, the value of the industrial training given by the plantations was overlooked. Negro were educated in literature, in athe atics and in the sciences, with little
thought of what had been taking place during the preceding two hundred
and fifty years, e.cept, perhaps, as so ething to be escaped, to be got as far away fro as possible. /s a generation began to pass, those who had echanics in slavery began to disappear by death, and en educated in foreign tongues, but few in carpentry any were taken fro the
been trained as There were young or in far
gradually it began to be reali$ed that there were few to take their places. echanical or architectural drawing. 0any were trained in 1atin, and educated, but educated in everything but far ing. 'or this
but few as engineers and blacks iths. Too
reason they had no interest in far ing and did not return to it. /nd yet eighty"five per cent. of the Negro population of the )outhern states lives and for a considerable ti e will continue to live in the country districts. The charge is often brought against the e bers of y race%and too often (ustly, I confess%that they are found leaving the country districts
and flocking into the great cities where te ptations are
ore fre#uent the uch
and harder to resist, and where the Negro people too often beco e de orali$ed. Think, though, how fre#uently it is the case that fro first day that a pupil begins to go to school his books teach hi
about the cities of the world and city life, and al ost nothing about the country. How natural it is, then, that when he has the ordering of his life he wants to live it in the city.
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!nly a short ti e before his death the late 0r. *.P. Huntington, to whose e ory a agnificent library has (ust been given by his widow to the to e so wise that I want to #uote the here3 y Ha pton Institute for Negroes, in 2irginia, said in a public address so e words which see
"!ur schools teach everybody a little of al ost everything, but, in
opinion, they teach very few children (ust what they ought to know in order to 0any a ake their way successfully in life. They do not put into their any failures. other and sister have worked and slaved, living upon scanty
hands the tools they are best fitted to use, and hence so
food, in order to give a son and brother a "liberal education," and in doing this have built up a barrier between the boy and the work he was fitted to do. 1et the labor is e say to you that all honest work is honorable work. If on, you will have all the ore anual, and see s co
chance to be thinking of other things, or of work that is higher and brings better pay, and to work out in your inds better and higher duties and up to your own responsibilities for yourselves, and for thinking of ways by which you can help others as well as yourselves, and bring the higher level." )o e years ago, when we decided to ake tailoring a part of our training
at the Tuskegee Institute, I was a a$ed to find that it was al ost
i possible to find in the whole country an educated colored could teach the could teach astrono y, theology, 1atin or gra could instruct in the
an who who
aking of clothing. +e could find nu bers of the
ar, but al ost none who
aking of clothing, so ething that has to be used by
every one of us every day in the year. How often have I been
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discouraged as I have gone through the )outh, and into the ho es of the people of y race, and have found wo en who could converse ore poorly served intelligently upon abstruse sub(ects, and yet could not tell how to i prove the condition of the poorly cooked and still bread and eat which they and their fa ilies were eating three ti es a
day. It is discouraging to find a girl who can tell you the geographical location of any country on the globe and who does not know where to place the dishes upon a co wo an who knows on dinner table. It is discouraging to find a
uch about theoretical che istry, and who cannot
properly wash and iron a shirt. In what I say here I would not by any would li it or circu scribe the eans have it understood that I ind is awakened and ental ental
ental develop ent of the Negro"
student. No race can be lifted until its and head oral training, but the pushing of eans little.+e want
strengthened. ,y the side of industrial training should always go ore than the ere perfor ance of
ere abstract knowledge into the
gy nastics. !ur knowledge
ust be harnessed to the things of real life. I ental strength, all the athe atics, history, y science,
would encourage the Negro to secure all the ental culture%whether gleaned fro
language or literature that his circu stances will allow, but I believe ost earnestly that for years to co e the education of the people of race should be so directed that the greatest proportion of the ental
strength of the
asses will be brought to bear upon the every"day unity in which
practical things of life, upon so ething that is needed to be done, and so ething which they will be per itted to do in the co
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they reside. /nd (ust the sa e with the professional class which the race needs and successful ust have, I would say give the en and wo en of that class, to perfor in the ost too, the training which will best fit the
anner the service which the race de ands.
I would not confine the race to industrial life, not even to agriculture, for
e.a ple, although I believe that by far the greater part of the Negro race is best off in the country districts and ust and should continue to live ust be
there, but I would teach the race that in industry the foundation
laid%that the very best service which any one can render to what is called the higher education is to teach the present generation to provide a aterial or industrial foundation. !n such a foundation as this will grow habits of thrift, a love of work, econo y, ownership of property, bank accounts. !ut of it in the future will grow practical education, professional education, positions of public responsibility. !ut of it will grow oral and religious strength. !ut of it will grow wealth fro which alone can co e leisure and the opportunity for the en(oy ent of literature and the fine arts. In the words of the late beloved 'rederick 4ouglass3 "5very blow of the sledge ha er wielded by a sable ar is a powerful blow in support of an is a strong tower our cause. 5very colored echanic is by virtue of circu stances an
elevator of his race. 5very house built by a black
against the allied hosts of pre(udice. It is i possible for us to attach too uch i portance to this aspect of the sub(ect. +ithout industrial develop ent there can be no wealth& without wealth there can be no
leisure& without leisure no opportunity for thoughtful reflection and the
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cultivation of the higher arts." I would set no li its to the attain ents of the Negro in arts, in letters or states anship, but I believe the surest way to reach those ends is by laying the foundation in the little things of life that lie i ediately about one's door. I plead for industrial education and develop ent for the
Negro not because I want to cra p hi , but because I want to free hi . I want to see hi enter the all"powerful business and co ental, ercial world.
It was such co bined
oral and industrial education which the
late 6eneral /r strong set out to give at the Ha pton Institute when he established that school thirty yearsago. The Ha pton Institute has continued along the lines laid down by its great founder, and now each year an increasing nu ber of si ilar schools are being established in the )outh, for the people of both races. 5arly in the history of the Tuskegee Institute we began to co bine industrial training with ental and oral culture. !ur first efforts were ule. 'ro this s all beginning en of the in the direction of agriculture, and we began teaching this with no appliances e.cept one hoe and a blind we have grown until now the Institute owns two thousand acres of land, eight hundred of which are cultivated each year by the young way to the young %in school. +e began teaching wheelwrighting and blacks ithing in a s all en, and laundry work, cooking and sewing and housekeeping to the young wo en. The fourteen hundred and over en and wo en who attended the school during the last school thirty"three trades and industries, including carpentry, year received instruction%in addition to acade ic and religious training blacks ithing, printing, wheelwrighting harness aking, painting,
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achinery, founding, shoe aking, brick asonry and brick aking, plastering, dress aking, horticulture. Not only do the students receive instruction in these trades, but they do actual work, by eans of which ore than half of the pay so e part or all of their e.penses while re aining at the school. !f the si.ty buildings belonging to the school all but four were al ost wholly erected by the students as a part of their industrial education. 5ven the bricks which go into the walls are last year, they ade by students in the school's brick yard, in which, illion bricks. anufactured two saw illing, tins ithing, tailoring, echanical and attress architectural drawing, electrical and stea engineering, canning, sewing,
illinery, cooking, laundering, housekeeping,
aking, basketry, nursing, agriculture, dairying and stock raising,
+hen we first began this work at Tuskegee, and the idea got spread a ong the people of y race that the students who ca e to the Tuskegee school were to be taught industries in connection with their acade ic studies, were, in other words, to be taught to work, I received a great any verbal essages and letters fro parents infor ing e that they wanted their children taught books, but not how to work. This protest went on for three or four years, but I a glad to be able to say now that our people have very generally been educated to a point where they see their own needs and conditions so clearly that it has been several years since we have had a single protest fro parents against the teaching of for it. In fact, public industries, and there is now a positive enthusias
senti ent a ong the students at Tuskegee is now so strong for industrial training that it would hardly per it a student to re ain on the grounds who was unwilling to labor. It see s to e that too often ere book education leaves the Negro
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young
an or wo an in a weak position. 'or e.a ple, I have seen a
Negro girl taught by her
other to help her in doing laundry work at the public schools
ho e. 1ater, when this sa e girl was graduated fro
or a high school and returned ho e she finds herself educated out of sy pathy with laundry work, and yet not able to find anything to do which see s in keeping with the cost and character of her education. 7nder these circu stances we cannot be surprised if she does not fulfill the e.pectations see s to ade for her. +hat should have been done for her, it ethods of laundry work, so that e, was to give her along with her acade ic education uch skill and intelligence into it that the work the plane of drudgery8/9. The ho e ore
thorough training in the latest and best she could have put so would have been lifted out fro
which she would then have been able to found by the results of her work would have enabled her to help her children to take a still responsible position in life. /l ost fro the first Tuskegee has kept in ind%and this I think should unities. )o e years anner. +e opened ost scientific )outhern
be the policy of all industrial schools%fitting students for occupations which would be open to the )outh for young white young in their ho e co odern ago we noted the fact that there was beginning to be a de and in the en to operate dairies in a skillful, a dairy depart ent in connection with the school, where a nu ber of en could have instruction in the latest and en%for twice as ethods of dairy work. /t present we have calls% ainly fro
any dairy en as we are able to supply. +hat
is e#ually satisfactory, the reports which co e to us indicate that our en are giving the highest satisfaction and are fast changing and
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i proving the dairy product in the co
unities into which they go. I use
the dairy here as an e.a ple. +hat I have said of this is e#ually true of
any of the other industries which we teach. /side fro value of this work I cannot but believe, and in
the econo ic e
y observation confir s
y belief, that as we continue to place Negro
en and wo en of unity
intelligence, religion, co to
odesty, conscience and skill in every co
in the )outh, who will prove by actual results their value to the unity, I cannot but believe, I say, that this will constitute a solution any of the present political and social difficulties. to think that industrial education is eant to ake the Negro y conception ake the forces of
0any see
work as he worked in the days of slavery. This is far fro consists in teaching hi how not to work, but how to
of industrial education. If this training is worth anything to the Negro, it nature%air, stea , water, horse"power and electricity%work for hi . If it has any value it is in lifting labor up out of toil and drudgery into the plane of the dignified and the beautiful. The Negro in the )outh works and works hard& but too often his ignorance and lack of skill causes hi to do his work in the hi near the botto ost costly and shiftless anner, and this keeps of the ladder in the econo ic world.
I have not e phasi$ed particularly in these pages the great need of training the Negro in agriculture, but I believe that this branch of industrial education does need very great e phasis. In this connection I want to #uote so e words which 0r. 5dgar 6ardner 0urphy, of 0ontgo ery, /laba a, has recently written upon this sub(ect3 "+e ust incorporate into our public school syste a larger recognition
of the practical and industrial ele ents in educational training. !urs is an
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agricultural population. The school
ust be brought
ore closely to the
soil. The teaching of history, for e.a ple, is all very well, but nobody an
really know anything of history unless he has been taught to see things grow%has so seen things not only with the outward eye, but with the eyes of his intelligence and conscience. The actual things of the present are ore i portant, however, than the institutions of the past. 5ven to young children can be shown the si pler conditions and processes of growth%how corn is put into the ground%how cotton and potatoes should be planted%how to choose the soil best adapted to a particular plant, how to i prove that soil, how to care for the plant while it grows, how to get the crops, the land ay be ost value out of it, how to use the ele ents of ade to increase the annual value of its products waste for the fertili$ation of other crops& how, through the alternation of %these things, upon their ele entary side are absolutely vital to the worth and success of hundreds of thousands of these people of the Negro race, and yet our whole educational syste has practically ignored the .
")uch work will
ean not only an education in agriculture, but an
education through agriculture and education, through natural sy bols and practical for s, which will educate as deeply, as broadly and as truly as any other syste which the world has known. )uch changes will bring ere i prove ent of our Negroes. They will far larger results than the trained not away fro
give us an agricultural class, a class of tenants or s all land owners, the soil, but in relation to the soil and in intelligent dependence upon its resources." I close, then, as I began, by saying that as a slave the Negro was worked,
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and that as a free an he
ust learn to work. There is still doubt in
any
#uarters as to the ability of the Negro unguided, unsupported, to hew his
own path and put into visible, tangible, indisputable for , products and signs of civili$ation. This doubt cannot be argu ents, no uch affected by abstract er and winter, bought, an who is atter how delicately and convincingly woven together.
Patiently, #uietly, doggedly, persistently, through su industry, we
sunshine and shadow, by self"sacrifice, by foresight, by honesty and ust re"enforce argu ent with results. !ne far one house built, one ho e sweetly and intelligently kept, one church
the largest ta. payer or has the largest bank account, one school or aintained, one factory running successfully, one truck garden profitably cultivated, one patient cured by a Negro doctor, one ser on well preached, one office well filled, one life cleanly lived%these will tell su ore in our favor than all the abstract elo#uence that can be oned to plead our cause. !ur pathway ust be up through the soil,
up through swa ps, up through forests, up through the strea s, the rocks, up through co erce, education and religion:
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Chapter 2 ,he ,alente ,enth

By 2RO'% /%"% B*R3(ARD, D.BO-4
A strong plea for the higher education of the Negro, which those who are interested in the future of the freedmen cannot afford to ignore. Prof. DuBois produces ample evidence to prove conclusively the truth of his statement that "to attempt to establish any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your money to the winds." 7he Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its e?ceptional men. 7he problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the 7alented 7enthF it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the *ass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own
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and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. -ts techni3ue is a matter for educational e?perts, but its ob%ect is for the vision of seers. -f we make money the ob%ect of man&training, we shall develop money&makers but not necessarily menF if we make technical skill the ob%ect of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. *en we shall have only as we make manhood the ob%ect of the work of the schoolsG intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to itGthis is the curriculum of that >igher Aducation which must underlie true life. Dn this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and 3uickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the ob%ect of life. -f this be trueGand who can deny itGthree tasks lay before meF first to show from the past that the 7alented 7enth as they have risen among American Negroes have been worthy of leadershipF secondly, to show how these men may be educated and developedF and thirdly, to show their relation to the Negro problem. ;ou is(udge us because you do not know us. 'ro the very first it has
been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the ass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race pre(udice& for whatis slavery but the legali$ed survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal leadership- Negro leadership, therefore, sought fro rid the race of this awful incubus that it ight the first to ake way for natural
selection and the survival of the fittest. In colonial days ca e Phillis
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+heatley and Paul *uffe striving against the bars of pre(udice& and ,en(a in ,anneker, the al anac aker, voiced their longings when he said to Tho as <efferson, "I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I a of the /frican race, and in colour which is natural to the , of the deepest dye& and it is under a sense of the under that state of tyrannical thraldo too any of ost profound gratitude to the not and inhu an captivity to which that free and the )upre e =uler of the 7niverse, that I now confess to you that I a
y brethren are doo ed, but that I have abundantly tasted
of the fruition of those blessings which proceed fro will willingly allow, you have i ediate hand of that ,eing fro perfect gift. ")uffer e to recall to your
une#ualled liberty with which you are favored, and which I hope you ercifully received fro who proceedeth every good and
ind that ti e, in which the ar s of the
,ritish crown were e.erted with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude& look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were e.posed& reflect on that period in which every hu an aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your tran#uility which you en(oy, you have peculiar blessing of heaven. "This, sir, was a ti e when you clearly saw into the in(ustice of a state of )lavery, and in which you had (ust apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that your abhorrence thereof was so e.cited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and re e bered in all succeeding ages3 '+e hold these iraculous and providential and ercifully received, and that a preservation, you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedo
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truths to be self evident, that all
en are created e#ual& that they are
endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that a ong these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'" Then ca e 4r. <a es 4erha , who could tell even the learned 4r. =ush so ething of edicine, and 1e uel Haynes, to who 0iddlebury ay call *ollege gave an honorary /.0. in >?@A. These and others we
the =evolutionary group of distinguished Negroes%they were persons of arked ability, leaders of a Talented Tenth, standing conspicuously a ong the best of their ti e. They strove by word and deed to save the color line fro beco ing the line between the bond and free, but all they could do was nullified by 5li +hitney and the *urse of 6old. )o they passed into forgetfulness. ,ut their spirit did not wholly die& here and there in the early part of the century ca e other e.ceptional of educated en. )o e were natural sons of en's rights. There unnatural fathers and were given often a liberal training and thus a race ulattoes sprang up to plead for black was Ira /ldridge, who all 5urope loved to honor& there was that 2oice
crying in the +ilderness, 4avid +alker, and saying3 "I declare it does appear to asleep, or that he e as though so e nations think 6od is
ade the /fricans for nothing else but to dig their an who has a heart, and is blessed with the
ines and work their far s, or they cannot believe history, sacred or profane. I ask every privilege of believing%Is not 6od a 6od of (ustice to all his creatures4o you say he is- Then if he gives peace and tran#uility to tyrants and per its the to keep our fathers, our others, ourselves and our children and their fa ilies, in eternal ignorance and wretchedness to support the and our children in the
would he be to us a 6od of <ustice- I ask, !, ye *hristians, who hold us ost ab(ect ignorance and degradation that ever a
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people were afflicted with since the world began%I say if 6od gives you peace and tran#uility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting us, and our children, who have never given you the least provocation%would He be to us a 6od of <ustice- If you will allow that we are en, who feel for urders each other, does not the blood of our fathers and of us, their children, cry aloud to the 1ord of )abaoth against you for the cruelties and with which you have and do continue to afflict us-" This was the wild voice that first aroused )outhern legislators in >?BC to the terrors of abolitionis . In >?D> there et that first Negro convention in Philadelphia, at which
the world gaped curiously but which bravely attacked the proble s of race and slavery, crying out against persecution and declaring that "1aws as cruel in the selves as they were unconstitutional and un(ust, have in any places been enacted against our poor, unfriended and unoffending brethren Ewithout a shadow of provocation on our partF, at whose bare recital the very savage draws hi self up for fear of contagion%looks noble and prides hi self because he bears not the na e of *hristian." )ide by side this free Negro strove until they ove ent, and the ove ent for abolition, erged into one strong strea . Too little notice has the very day that a Philadelphia colored
been taken of the work which the Talented Tenth a ong Negroes took in the great abolition crusade. 'ro when Negro soldiers an beca e the first subscriber to 6arrison's "1iberator," to the day ade the 5 ancipation Procla ation possible, en in a black leaders worked shoulder to shoulder with white
ove ent, the success of which would have been i possible without the . There was Purvis and =e ond, Pennington and Highland 6arnett, )o(ourner Truth and /le.ander *ru 4ouglass%what would the abolition el, and above all, 'rederick ove ent have been without
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the - They stood as living e.a ples of the possibilities of the Negro race, their own hard e.periences and well wrought culture said silently ore than all the drawn periods of orators%they were the said, fro en who ade / erican slavery i possible. /s 0aria +eston *hap an once the school of anti"slavery agitation "a throng of authors, editors, lawyers, orators and acco plished gentle en of color have taken their degree: It has e#ually i planted hopes and aspirations, noble thoughts, and subli e purposes, in the hearts of both races. It has prepared the white ade the black an for the freedo of the black an, and it has an scorn the thought of enslave ent, as does a white
an, as far as its influence has e.tended. )trengthen that noble influence: ,efore its organi$ation, the country only saw here and there in slavery so e faithful *ud(oe or 4inah, whose strong natures blosso ed even in bondage, like a fine plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the elevating and cherishing influence of the / erican /nti"slavery )ociety, the colored race, like the white, furnishes *orinthian capitals for the noblest te ples." +here were these black abolitionists trained- )o e, like 'rederick 4ouglass, were self"trained, but yet trained liberally& others, like /le.ander *ru ell and 0c*une ) ith, graduated fro fa ous en like foreign universities. 0ost of the rose up through the colored schools of en like Neau and
New ;ork and Philadelphia and ,oston, taught by college"bred =usswor , of 4art outh, and college"bred white ,ene$et.
/fter e ancipation ca e a new group of educated and gifted leaders3 1angston, ,ruce and 5lliot, 6reener, +illia s and Payne. Through political organi$ation, historical and pole ic writing and regeneration, these oral en strove to uplift their people. It is the fashion of
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to"day to sneer at the
and to say that with freedo
Negro leadership
should have begun at the plow and not in the )enate%a foolish and ischievous lie& two hundred and fifty years that black serf toiled at the plow and yet that toiling was in vain till the )enate passed the war a end ents& and twohundred and fifty years to"day ore the half"free serf of ay toil at his plow, but unless he have political rights and en know
righteously guarded civic status, he will still re ain the poverty"stricken and ignorant plaything of rascals, that he now is. This all sane even if they dare not say it. /nd so we co e to the present%a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide"voiced wrong and faint hearted co pro ise& of double" faced dallying with Truth and =ight. +ho are to"day guiding the work of the Negro people- The "e.ceptions" of course. /nd yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the /verage cry out in alar 3 "These are e.ceptions, look here at death, disease and cri e%these are the happy rule." !f course they are the rule, because a silly nation ade the the rule3 ,ecause for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped black wo en who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark"hued youth who dared to be a bitious, and encouraged and and aspiration fro ade to flourish servility and lewdness anhood and chastity and apathy. ,ut not even this was able to crush all
black folk. / saving re nant continually survives
and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. 5.ceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest pro ise& it shows the capability of Negro blood, the pro ise of black en. 4o / ericans ever stop to reflect that there are in this land a illion en of Negro blood, well"educated, owners of ho es, against en the honor of whose wo anhood no breath was ever raised, whose
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occupy positions of trust and usefulness, and who, (udged by any standard, have reached the full easure of the best type of odern 5uropean culture- Is it fair, is it decent, is it *hristian to ignore these facts of the Negro proble , to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership and seek to crush these people back into the ass out of which by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised the selves*an the asses of the Negro people be in any possible way ore #uickly the
raised than by the effort and e.a ple of this aristocracy of talent and character- +as there ever a nation on 6od's fair earth civili$ed fro botto upward- Never& it is, ever was and ever will be fro the top
downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of hu an progress& and the two historic progress were the thinking first that no down. How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the risen few strengthened- There can be but one answer3 The best and ost capable of their youth ust be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land. +e will not #uarrel as to (ust what the university of the Negro shouldteach or how it should teach it%I willingly ad it that each soul and each race"soul needs its own peculiar curriculu . ,ut this is true3 / university is a hu an invention for the trans ission of knowledge and culture fro through the training of #uick generation to generation, inds and pure hearts, and for this work no istakes which have hindered that ore could ever rise save the few
already risen& or second, that it would better the unrisen to pull the risen
other hu an invention will suffice, not even trade and industrial schools. /ll en cannot go to college but so e ust have its yeast, en ust& every isolated group
or nation
ust have for the talented few centers of
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training where
en are not so
ystified and befuddled by the hard and
necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no ai s higher than their bellies, and no 6od greater than 6old. This is true training, and thus in the beginning were the favored sons of the freed en trained. !ut of the colleges of the North ca e, after the blood of war, +are, *ravath, *hase, /ndrews, ,u stead and )pence to build the foundations of knowledge and civili$ation in the black )outh. +here ought they to have begun to build- /t the botto , of course, #uibbles the ole with his eyes in the of earth. /ye: truly at the botto , at the very botto & at the botto
knowledge, down in the very depths of knowledge there where the roots of (ustice strike into the lowest soil of Truth. /nd so they did begin& they founded colleges, and up fro fro the colleges shot nor al schools, and out the nor al schools went teachers, and around the nor al teachers athe atics, B,@@@ illions of iracle%the en& and these en trained full
clustered other teachers to teach the public schools& the college trained in 6reek and 1atin and G@,@@@ others in property. It was a it was all a strange hoes& afterward en the alphabet to nine century, and yet to"day orals and anners, and they in turn taught thrift and en, who to"day hold HD@@,@@@,@@@ of ost wonderful peace"battle of the >Cth of
en s ile at it, and in fine superiority tell us that istake& that a proper way to found a syste ay look about for teachers, if haply they spelling books and ay find
education is first to gather the children and buy the the & or again they would teach
en +ork, but as for 1ife%why, what
has +ork to do with 1ife, they ask vacantly. +as the work of these college founders successful& did it stand the test of ti e- 4id the college graduates, with all their fine theories of life, really live- /re they useful en helping to civili$e and elevate their less fortunate fellows- 1et us see. ! itting all institutions which have not
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actually graduated students fro
a college course, there are to"day in the
7nited )tates thirty"four institutions giving so ething above high school training to Negroes and designed especially for this race. Three of these were established in border )tates before the +ar& thirteen were planted by the 'reed en's ,ureau in the years >?IA">?IC& nine were established between >?J@ and >??@ by various church bodies& five were established after >??> by Negro churches, and four are state institutions supported by 7nited)tates' agricultural funds. In the college depart ents are s all ad(uncts to high and co work. /s a ost cases on school
atter of fact si. institutions%/tlanta, 'isk, Howard, )haw,
+ilberforce and 1eland, are the i portant Negro colleges so far as actual work and nu ber of students are concerned. In all these institutions, seven hundred and fifty Negro college students are enrolled. In grade the best of these colleges are about a year behind the s aller New 5ngland colleges and a typical curriculu students fro the gra is that of /tlanta 7niversity. Here ar grades, after a three years' high school odern languages&
course, take a college course of >DI weeks. !ne"fourth of this ti e is given to 1atin and 6reek& one"fifth, to 5nglish and one"eighth to one"si.th, to history and social science& one"seventh, to natural science& athe atics, and one"eighth to philosophy and pedagogy.
In addition to these students in the )outh, Negroes have attended Northern colleges for fro any years. /s early as >?BI one was graduated that ti e till to"day nearly every year et ,owdoin *ollege, and fro
has seen elsewhere, other such graduates. They have, of course, the
uch color pre(udice. 'ifty years ago very few colleges would ad it at all. 5ven to"day no Negro has ever been ad itted to Princeton, and at so e other leading institutions they are rather endured than encouraged. !berlin was the great pioneer in the work of blotting out the
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color line in colleges, and has other Northern college.
ore Negro graduates by far than any
The total nu ber of Negro college graduates up to >?CC, Eseveral of the graduates of that year not being reportedF, was as follows3
Negro White
"olleges. "olleges. Before $10 $12&<( $<(&<2 $<2&/( $/(&/2 $/0&// "lass :nknown 7otal .'1 .)' B2( ).' )02 )12 21 .,/.) 12 BB '. )' 00 << 0) '/(
!f these graduates B,@JC were Northern"born college
en and BGB were wo en& G@ per cent. of asses of
en co e )outh to work a ong the
their people, at a sacrifice which few people reali$e& nearly C@ per cent. of the )outhern"born graduates instead of seeking that personal freedo and broader intellectual at osphere which their training has led the , in so e degree, to conceive, stay and labor and wait in the black neighbors and relatives. The ost interesting #uestion, and in any respects the crucial #uestion, idst of their
to be asked concerning college"bred Negroes, is3 4o they earn a livingIt has been inti ated ore than once that the higher training of Negroes
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has resulted in sending into the world of work, of a colored college an working at
en who could find
nothing to do suitable to their talents. Now and then there co es a ru or enial service, etc. 'ortunately, returns as to occupations of college"bred Negroes, gathered by the /tlanta conference, are #uite full%nearly si.ty per cent. of the total nu ber of graduates. This enables us to reach fairly certain conclusions as to the occupations of all college"bred Negroes. !f >,D>B persons reported, there were3
7eachers, 2'.) "lergymen , Ehysicians, etc., 5tudents, 2.0 +awyers, ).1 -n 4ovt. 5ervice, -n Business,'.0 #armers and Artisans, B.1 Aditors, 5ecretaries and "lerks, *iscellaneous..2 B.) ).( .0.<
0.'
!ver half are teachers, a si.th are preachers, another si.th are students and professional en& over I per cent. are far ers, artisans and erchants, and A per cent. are in govern ent service. In detail the occupations are as follows3
Occupations of College-
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Bred Men. 7eachers@ Eresidents and Ceans, 7eacher of *usic, Erofessors, Erincipals and 7eachers, "lergymen@ Bishop, "haplains :.5. Army, *issionaries, Eresiding Alders, Ereachers, Ehysicians, Coctors of *edicine, Cruggists, Centists, 5tudents, +awyers, "ivil 5ervice@ :.5. *inister Elenipotentiary, :.5. "onsul, :.5. Ceputy "ollector, :.5. 4auger, . . . . 10 ) ' 1) 0B 7otal <' . B / .B ./1 7otal BB. ./ 1 012 7otal 1(.
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:.5. Eostmasters, :.5. "lerks, 5tate "ivil 5ervice, "ity "ivil 5ervice, Business *en@ *erchants, etc., *anagers, Real Astate Cealers, #armers, "lerks and 5ecretaries@ 5ecretary of National 5ocieties, "lerks, etc., Artisans, Aditors, *iscellaneous,
B )) B . 7otal 2'
'( .' ) B0 7otal )1
1 .2 / / 2 7otal BB
These figures illustrate vividly the function of the college"bred Negro. He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the the co an who sets the ideals of unity where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads its social ore than ost groups& that they have no traditions to fall ust be slowly and painfully
ove ents. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership back upon, no long established custo s, no strong fa ily ties, no well defined social classes. /ll these things evolved. The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this
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preacher was ignorant and often i the older type by better educated
oral, and the proble
of replacing
en has been a difficult one. ,oth by
direct work and by direct influence on other preachers, and on congregations, the college"bred preacher has an opportunity for refor atory work and overesti ated. It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has found its peculiar function. 'ew persons reali$e how vast a work, how ighty a revolution has been thus acco plished. To furnish five ore of ignorant people with teachers of their own race and illions and oral inspiration, the value of which cannot be
blood, in one generation, was not only a very difficult undertaking, but a very i portant one, in that, it placed before the eyes of al ost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the contact with co odern civili$ation, ade black asses of the blacks in en the leaders of their
unities and trainers of the new generation. In this work college"
bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. /nd here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its wider eaning, has been the point of the Negro's deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been si ply for bread winning, but also for hu an culture, has been of inesti able value in the training of these en.
In earlier years the two occupations of preacher and teacher were practically the only ones open to the black college graduate. !f later years a larger diversity of life a ong his people, has opened new avenues of e ploy ent. Nor have these college en been paupers and spendthrifts& GGJ college"bred Negroes owned in >?CC, H>,DAB,?IB.G@ worth of real estate, Eassessed valueF or HB,A>> per fa ily. The real value of the total accu ulations of the whole group is perhaps about
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H>@,@@@,@@@, or HG,@@@ a piece. Pitiful, is it not, beside the fortunes of oil kings and steel trusts, but after all is the fortune of the there's the rub. The proble of training the Negro is to"day i ensely co plicated by atter of illionaire the any, and only sta p of true and successful living- /las: it is, with
the fact that the whole #uestion of the efficiency and appropriateness of our present syste s of education, for any kind of child, is a active debate, in which final settle ent see s still afar off. *onse#uently it often happens that persons arguing for or against certain syste s of education for Negroes, have these controversies in real #uestion at issue. The concerned, is3 +hat under the present circu stance, ind and iss the of ain #uestion, so far as the )outhern Negro is ust a syste
education do in order to raise the Negro as #uickly as possible in the scale of civili$ation- The answer to this #uestion see s to hi e clear3 It ust strengthen the Negro's character, increase his knowledge and teach to earn a living. Now it goes without saying, that it is hard to do all these things si ultaneously or suddenly, and that at the sa e ti e it will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others& we could give black boys trades, but that alone will not civili$e a race of e."slaves& we ight si ply increase their knowledge of the world, but this would ake the wish to use this knowledge honestly& we of education is not ere atter not necessarily
ight seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this people have nothing to eat or to wear- / syste of schools. 5ducation is that whole syste without the school house walls, which bad habits, our syste of training one thing, nor does it have a single definite ob(ect, nor is it a olds and develops
of hu an training within and en. If then
we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of ust set before itself two great ai s%
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the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for hi by the opening of the co to earn a living under the present circu stances. These ob(ects are acco plished in part on schools on the one, and of the industrial ust also be trained those schools on the other. ,ut only in part, for there culture and technical skill who understand
who are to teach these schools% en and wo en of knowledge and odern civili$ation, and have the training and aptitude to i part it to the children under the . There ust be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to atte pt to establish any sort of a syste of co on and industrial school training, oney without first Eand I say first advisedlyF without first providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is si ply throwing your ortar and to the winds. )chool houses do not teach the selves%piles of brick and achinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living akes the hu an soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and hu an, whether they be black or white, 6reek, =ussian or / erican. Nothing, in these latter days, has so da pened the faith of thinking Negroes in recent educational ove ents, as the fact that such ade the ove ents have been acco panied by ridicule and denounce ent and decrying of those very institutions of higher training which Negro public school possible, and ake Negro industrial schools
thinkable. It was 'isk, /tlanta, Howard and )traight, those colleges born of the faith and sacrifice of the abolitionists, that placed in the black schools of the )outh the D@,@@@ teachers and ore, which so e, who depreciate the work of these higher schools, are using to teach their own new e.peri ents. If Ha pton, Tuskegee and the hundred other industrial schools prove in the future to be as successful as they deserve to be, then their success in training black artisans for the )outh, will be due
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pri arily to the white colleges of the North and the black colleges of the )outh, which trained the teachers who to"day conduct these institutions. There was a ti e when the / erican people believed pretty devoutly that a log of wood with a boy at one end and 0ark Hopkins at the other, represented the highest ideal of hu an training. ,ut in these eager days it would see that we have changed all that and think it necessary to add er to this outfit, and, at a pinch, to a couple of saw" ills and a ha
dispense with the services of 0ark Hopkins. I would not deny, or for a see o ent see to deny, the para ount necessity
of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully& or to depreciate in the slightest degree the i portant part industrial ust play in the acco plish ent of these ends, but I dosay, and drunk with its vision of success, to schools
insist upon it, that it is industrialis training of broadly cultured
i agine that its own work can be acco plished without providing for the en and wo en to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public schools. ,ut I have already said that hu an education is not si ply a schools& it is uch ore a atter of
atter of fa ily and group life%the training
of one's ho e, of one's daily co panions, of one's social class. Now the black boy of the )outh oves in a black world%a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own ideals. In this world he gets by far the larger part of his life training, and through the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. +ho guides and deter ines the education which he receives in his world- His teachers here are the group"leaders of the Negro people%thephysicians and clergy en, the trained fathers and others, the influential and forceful en about hi of all kinds& here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools.
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*an such culture training of group leaders be neglected- *an we afford to ignore it- 4o you think that if the leaders of thought a ong Negroes are not trained and educated thinkers, that they will have no leaders- !n the contrary a hundred half"trained de agogues will still hold the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busy"bodies will ultiply. ;ou have no choice& either you within its own ranks with thoughtful ust help furnish this race fro en of trained leadership, or you isguided rabble.
ust suffer the evil conse#uences of a headless Ia an earnest advocate of
anual training and trade teaching for black
boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that ne.t to the founding of Negro colleges the ost valuableaddition to Negro education since the ake en carpenters, it is to aking the carpenter a war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the ob(ect of all true education is not to ake carpenters co en& there are two eans of
an, each e#ually i portant3 the first is to give the group and unity in which he works, liberally trained teachers and leaders to and his fa ily what life eans& the second is to give hi ake hi an efficient teach hi
sufficient intelligence and technical skill to
work an& the first ob(ect de ands the Negro college and college"bred en%not a #uantity of such colleges, but a few of e.cellent #uality& not too any college"bred en, but enough to leaven the lu p, to inspire the of co on schools, well"taught, conveniently asses, to raise the Talented Tenth to leadership& the second ob(ect de ands a good syste located and properly e#uipped. The )i.th /tlanta *onference truly said in >C@>3 "+e call the attention of the Nation to the fact that less than one of the three illion
illion Negro children of school age, are at present regularly
attending school, and these attend a session which lasts only a few
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onths. "+e are to"day deliberately rearing illions of our citi$ens in ignorance,
and at the sa e ti e li iting the rights of citi$enship by educational #ualifications. This is un(ust. Half the black youth of the land have no opportunities open to the for learning to read, write and cipher. In the discussion as to the proper training of Negro children after they leave the public schools, we have forgotten that they are not yet decently provided with public schools. "Propositions are beginning to be already on resisting, as ade in the )outh to reduce the any illions it
eagre school facilities of Negroes. +e congratulate the )outh uch as it has, this pressure, and on the
has spent on Negro education. ,ut it is only fair to point out that Negro ta.es and the Negroes' share ofthe inco e fro school syste indirect ta.es and endow ents have fully repaid this e.penditure, so that the Negro public has not in all probability cost the white ta.payers a single cent since the war. "This is not fair. Negro schools should be a public burden, since they are a public benefit. The Negro has a right to de and good co not in position to pay for this hi self." +hat is the chief need for the building up of the Negro public school in the )outh- The Negro race in the )outh needs teachers to"day above all else. This is the concurrent testi ony of all who know the situation. 'or the supply of this great de and two things are needed%institutions of higher education and turning out so oney for school houses and salaries. It is usually ore institutions for Negro training are to"day en that the race is assu ed that a hundred or on school training at the hands of the )tates and the Nation since by their fault he is
any teachers and college"bred
threatened with an over"supply.This is sheer nonsense. There are to"day
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less than D,@@@ living Negro college graduates in the 7nited )tates, and less than >,@@@ Negroes in college. 0oreover, in the >IA schools for Negroes, CG per cent. of their students are doing ele entary and secondary work, work which should be done in the public schools. !ver half the re aining B,>GJ students are taking high school studies. The ass of so"called "nor al" schools for the Negro, are si ply doing ele entary co on school work, or, at ost, high school work, with a little instruction in ethods. The Negro colleges and the post"graduate
courses at other institutions are the only agencies for the broader and ore careful training of teachers. The work of these institutions is ha pered for lack of funds. It is getting increasingly difficult to get funds for training teachers in the best the )outh, fro odern ethods, and yet all over )tate )uperintendents, county officials, city boards and inded of all white )outherners, /tticus
school principals co es the wail, "+e need T5/*H5=):" and teachers ust be trained. /s the fairest 6. Haygood, once said3 "The defects of colored teachers are so great as to create an urgent necessity for training better ones. Their e.cellencies and their successes are sufficient to (ustify the best hopes of success in the effort, and to vindicate the (udg ent of those who invest ents of ake large oney and service, to give to colored students
opportunity for thoroughly preparing the selves for the work of teaching children of their people." The truth of this has been strikingly shown in the arked i prove ent
of white teachers in the )outh. Twenty years ago the rank and file of white public school teachers were not as good as the Negro teachers. ,ut they, by scholarships and good salaries, have been encouraged to thorough nor al and collegiate preparation, while the Negro teachers have been discouraged by starvation wages and the idea that any training
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will do for a black teacher. If carpenters are needed it is welland good to train en as carpenters. ,ut to train en as carpenters, and then set the en as teachers and to teaching is wasteful and cri inal& and to train then refuse the nonsense. The 7nited )tates *o issioner of 5ducation says in his report for
living wages, unless they beco e carpenters, is rank
>C@@3 "'or co parison between the white and colored enroll ent in secondary and higher education, I have added together the enroll ent in high schools and secondary schools, with the attendance on colleges and universities, not being sure of the actual grade of work done in the colleges and universities. The work done in the secondary schools is reported in such detail in this office, that there can be no doubt of its grade." He then akes the following co parisons of persons in every illion
enrolled in secondary and higher education3

Whole Country. .<<( ./(( ),'0B .(,1)' Negroes . .,B</ B,(0.
/nd he concludes3 "+hile the nu ber in colored high schools and colleges had increased so ewhat faster than the population, it had not kept pace with the average of the whole country, for it had fallen fro D@ per cent. to BA per cent. of the average #uota. !f all colored pupils, one E>F in one hundred was engaged in secondary and higher work, and that ratio has continued substantially for the past twenty years. If the ratio of colored population in secondary and higher education is to be e#ual to the average for the whole country, it ust be increased to five ti es its
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present average." /nd if this be true of the secondary and higher education, it is safe to say that the Negro has not one"tenth his #uota in college studies. How baseless, therefore, is the charge of too training: +e need Negro teachers for the Negro co work of higher Negro education and it ust be done. uch on schools, and
we need first"class nor al schools and colleges to train the . This is the
'urther than this, after being provided with group leaders of civili$ation, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the carpenter, in order to be a an, needs technical skill. This calls for trade schools. Now trade schools are not nearly such si ple things as people once thought. The original idea was that the "Industrial" school was to furnish education, practically free, to those willing to work for it& it was to "do" things%i.e.3 beco e a center of productive industry, it was to be partially, if not wholly, self"supporting, and it was to teach trades. /d irable as were so e of the ideas underlying this sche e, the whole thing si ply would not work in practice& it was found that if you were to use ti e and aterial to teach trades thoroughly, you could not at the ercial basis and ake the pay. sa e ti e keep the industries on a co
0any schools started out to do this on a large scale and went into virtual bankruptcy. 0oreover, it was found also that it was possible to teach a boy a trade echanically, without giving hi the full educative benefit of the process, and, vice versa, that there was a distinctive educative value in teaching a boy to use his hands and eyes in carrying out certain physical processes, even though he did not actually learn a trade. It has happened, therefore, in the last decade, that a noticeable change has co e over the industrial schools. In the first place the idea of co ercially re unerative industry in a school is being pushed rapidly to the back"ground. There are still schools with shops and far s that
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bring an inco e, and schools that use student labor partially for the erection of their buildings and the furnishing of e#uip ent. It is co ing to be seen, however, in the education of the Negro, as clearly as it has been seen in the education of the youths the world over, that it is the boy and not the aterial product, that is the true ob(ect of education. *onse#uently the ob(ect of the industrial school ca e to be the thorough training of boys regardless of the cost of the training, so long as it was thoroughly well done. 5ven at this point, however, the difficulties were not sur ounted. In the first place odern industry has taken great strides since the war, and the atter. 0achinery and long ust be to" eet this teaching of trades is no longer a si ple
processes of work have greatly changed the work of the carpenter, the ironworker and the shoe aker. / really efficient work an day an intelligent thorough co an who has had good technical training in addition to
on school, and perhaps even higher training. To
situation the industrial schools began a further develop ent& they established distinct Trade )chools for the thorough training of better class artisans, and at the sa e ti e they sought to preserve for the purposes of general education, such of the si pler processes of ele entary trade learning as were best suited therefor. In this differentiation of the Trade )chool and anual training, the best of the industrial schools si ply followed the plain trend of the present educational epoch. / pro inent educator tells us that, in )weden, "In the beginning the econo ic conception was generally adopted, and everywhere anual training was looked upon as a anual training has a eans of preparing the children of the co and one, indeed, on people to earn their living. ,ut gradually it ore elevated purpose, eaning of the ter . It ca e
ca e to be recogni$ed that
ore useful in the deeper
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to be considered as an educative process for the co plete and intellectual develop ent of the child." Thus, again, in the anning of trade schools and
oral, physical
anual training schools
we are thrown back upon the higher training as its source and chief support. There was a ti e when any aged and wornout carpenter could teach in a trade school. ,ut not so to"day. Indeed the de and for college" bred en by a school like Tuskegee, ought to ake 0r. ,ooker T. +ashington the fir est friend of higher training. Here he has as helpers the son of a Negro senator, trained in 6reek and the hu anities, and graduated at Harvard& the son of aNegro congress an and lawyer, trained in 1atin and athe atics, and graduated at !berlin& he has as his with wife, a wo an who read 2irgil and Ho er in the sa e class roo
e& he has as college chaplain, a classical graduate of /tlanta 7niversity& as teacher of science, a graduate of 'isk& as teacher of history, a graduate of ) ith,%indeed so e thirty of his chief teachers are college graduates, and instead of studying 'rench gra helping hi ars in the idst of weeds, or buying pianos for dirty cabins, they are at 0r. +ashington's right hand in a noble work. /nd yet one of the effects of 0r. +ashington's propaganda has been to throw doubt upon the e.pediency of such training for Negroes, as these persons have had.
0en of / erica, the proble you like it or not the do not lift the
is plain before you. Here is a race
transplanted through the cri inal foolishness of your fathers. +hether illions are here, and here they will re ain. If you up, they will pull you down. 5ducation and work are the ust not si ply teach ust be
levers to uplift a people. +ork alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. 5ducation work%it ust teach 1ife. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race
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ade leaders of thought and
issionaries of culture a ong their people. ust train en for it. The
No others can do this work and Negro colleges en.
Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its e.ceptional
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Chapter 5
The Disfranchisement of the Negro By CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
In this paper the a thor presents a straightfor!ar" statement of facts concerning the "isfranchisement of the Negro in the So thern States. #r. Chesn tt$ !ho is too !e%% &no!n as a !riter to nee" any intro" ction to an American a "ience$ p ts the case for the Negro to the American peop%e 'ery p%ain%y$ an" spares neither the North nor the So th.
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The right of / erican citi$ens of /frican descent, co
only called
Negroes, to vote upon the sa e ter s as other citi$ens of the 7nited )tates, is plainly declared and fir ly fi.ed by the *onstitution. No such person is called upon to present reasons why he should possess this right3 that #uestion is foreclosed by the *onstitution. The ob(ect of the elective franchise is to give representation. )o long as the *onstitution retains its present for , any )tate *onstitution, or statute, which seeks, by (uggling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair representation, is a clear violation of the funda ental law of the land, and a corresponding in(ustice to those thus deprived of this right. 'or thirty"five years this has been the law. /s long as it was respected, the colored people easurably
ade rapid strides in education, wealth, anhood and
character and self"respect. This the census proves, all state ents to the contrary notwithstanding. / generation has grown to wo anhood under the great, inspiring freedo degree by the co conferred by the
*onstitution and protected by the right of suffrage%protected in large ere naked right, even when its e.ercise was hindered or eans. They have developed, in every )outhern denied by unlawful
unity, good citi$ens, who, if sustained and encouraged by (ust laws
and liberal institutions, would greatly aug ent their nu ber with the passing years, and soon wipe out the reproach of ignorance, unthrift, low orals and social inefficiency, thrown at the therefore un(ustly, and indiscri inately and ade the e.cuse for the e#ually undiscri inating the institutions of higher en hold their own, and
conte pt of their persons and their rights. They have reduced their illiteracy nearly G@ per cent. 5.cluded fro learning in their own )tates, their young
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occasionally carry away honors, in the universities of the North. They have accu ulated three hundred illion dollars worth of real and have ac#uired substantial personal property. Individuals a ong the
wealth, and several have attained to so ething like national distinction in art, letters and educational leadership. They are nu erously represented in the learned professions. Heavily handicapped, they have ade such rapid progress that the suspicion is (ustified that their advance ent, rather than any stagnation or retrogression, is the true secret of the virulent )outhern hostility to their rights, which has so influenced Northern opinion that it stands people, upon who ute, and leaves the colored ercies of the North conferred liberty, to the tender
those who have always denied their fitness for it. It ay be said, in passing, that the word "Negro," where used in this ore than any who
paper, is used solely for convenience. ,y the census of >?C@ there were >,@@@,@@@ colored people in the country who were half, or half, white, and logically there race proble ust be, as in fact there are, so
share the white blood in so e degree, as to (ustify the assertion that the in the 7nited )tates concerns the welfare and the status of a ore sacred because of this ind that i.ed race. Their rights are not one whit the
fact& but in an argu ent where in(ustice is sought to be e.cused because of funda ental differences of race, it is well enough to bear in the race whose rights and liberties are endangered all over this country by disfranchise ent at the )outh, are the colored people who live in the 7nited )tates to"day, and not the low"browed, an"eating savage who the )outhern white likes to set upon a block and contrast with )hakespeare and Newton and +ashington and 1incoln. 4espite and in defiance of the 'ederal *onstitution, to"day in the si. )outhern )tates of 0ississippi, 1ouisiana, /laba a, North *arolina,
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)outh *arolina and 2irginia, containing an aggregate colored population of about I,@@@,@@@, these have been, to all intents and purposes, denied, so far as the )tates can effect it, the right to vote. This disfranchise ent is acco plished by various ethods, devised with uch transparent ingenuity, the effort being in each instance to violate the spirit of the 'ederal *onstitution by disfranchising the Negro, while see ing to respect its letter by avoiding the ention of race or color.
These restrictions fall into three groups. The first co prises a property #ualification%the ownership of HD@@ worth or ore of real or personal property E/laba a, 1ouisiana, 2irginia and )outh *arolinaF& the pay ent of a poll ta. E0ississippi, North *arolina, 2irginiaF& an educational #ualification%the ability to read and write E/laba a, 1ouisiana, North *arolinaF. Thus far, those who believe in a restricted suffrage everywhere, could perhaps find no reasonable fault with any one of these #ualifications, applied either separately or together. ,ut the Negro has ade such progress that these restrictions alone would of effective representation. Hence the second ust be
perhaps not deprive hi
group. This co prises an "understanding" clause%the applicant
able "to read, or understand when read to hi , any clause in the *onstitution" E0ississippiF, or to read and e.plain, or to understand and e.plain when read to hi , any section of the *onstitution E2irginiaF& an e ploy ent #ualification%the voter ust be regularly e ployed in so e lawful occupation E/laba aF& a character #ualification%the voter ust be a person of good character and who "understands the duties and obligations of citi$ens under a republican E:F for E/laba aF. The #ualifications under the first group it will be seen, are capable of e.act de onstration& those under the second group are left to the of govern ent"
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discretion and (udg ent of the registering officer%for in these are all re#uire ents for registration, which
ost instances
ust precede voting.
,ut the first group, by its own force, and the second group, under i aginable conditions, ight e.clude not only the Negro vote, but a large part of the white vote. Hence, the third group, which co prises3 a ilitary service #ualification%any an who went to war, willingly or ale persons who unwillingly, in a good cause or a bad, is entitled to register E/la., 2a.F& a prescriptive #ualification, under which are included all were entitled to vote on <anuary >, >?IJ, at which date the Negro had not yet been given the right to vote& a hereditary #ualification, Ethe so"called "grandfather" clauseF, whereby any son E2a.F, or descendant E/la.F, of a soldier, and EN.*.F the descendant of any person who had the right to vote on <anuary >, >?IJ, inherits that right. If the voter wish to take advantage of these last provisions, which are in the nature of e.ceptions to a general rule, he beco es a ust register within a stated ti e, whereupon he e ber of a privileged class of per anently enrolled voters
not sub(ect to any of the other restrictions. It will be seen that these restrictions are variously co bined in the different )tates, and it is apparent that if co bined to their declared end, practically every Negro ay, under color of law, be denied the right to an accorded that right. The vote, and practically every white
effectiveness of these provisions to e.clude the Negro vote is proved by the /laba a registration under the new )tate *onstitution. !ut of a total, by the census of >C@@, of >?>,AJ> Negro " ales of voting age," less than D,@@@ are registered& in 0ontgo ery county alone, the seat of the )tate capital, where there are J,@@@ Negro is per itted to e.ercise the franchise. ales of voting age, only AJ have been allowed to register, while in several counties not one single Negro
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These
ethods of disfranchise ent have stood such tests as the 7nited for ad(udication. These
)tates *ourts, including the )upre e *ourt, have thus far seen fit to apply, in such cases as have been before the include a case based upon the "understanding" clause ofthe 0ississippi *onstitution, in which the )upre e *ourt held, in effect, that since there was no a biguity in the language e ployed and the Negro was not directly na ed, the *ourt would not go behind the wording of the *onstitution to find a eaning which discri inated against the colored voter& and the recent case of <ackson vs. 6iles, brought by a colored citi$en of 0ontgo ery, /laba a, in which the )upre e *ourt confesses itself i potent to provide a re edy for what, by inference, it acknowledgesmaybe a "great political wrong," carefully avoiding, however, to state that it is a wrong, although the vital prayer of the petition was for a decision upon this very point. Now, what is the effect of this wholesale disfranchise ent of colored en, upon their citi$enship. The value of food to the hu an organis not is easured by the pains of an occasional surfeit, but by the effect of its
entire deprivation. +hether a class of citi$ens should vote, even if not always wisely%what class does-% ay best be deter ined by considering their condition when they are without the right to vote. The colored people are left, in the )tates where they have been disfranchised, absolutely without representation, direct or indirect, in any law" aking body, in any court of (ustice, in any branch of govern ent% for the feeble re nant of voters left by law is so inconsiderable as to be without a shadow of power. *onstituting one"eighth of the population of the whole country, two"fifths of the whole )outhern people, and a a(ority in several )tates, they are not able, because disfranchised where ost nu erous, to send one representative to the *ongress, which, by
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the decision in the /laba a case, is held by the )upre e *ourt to be the only body, outside of the )tate itself, co petent to give relief fro a great political wrong. ,y for er decisions of the sa e tribunal, even *ongress is i potent to protect their civil rights, the 'ourteenth / end ent having long since, by the consent of the sa e *ourt, been in any respects as co pletely nullified as the 'ifteenth / end ent is now sought to be. They have no direct representation in any )outhern legislature, and no voice in deter ining the choice of white election of (udges or other public officials, to who rendered careful, no sheriff diligent, for fear that he constituency& the contrary is prete.t, grows longer and en who ight be friendly to their rights. Nor are they able to influence the are entrusted the ay offend a black protection of their lives, their liberties and their property. No (udge is ost la entably true& day after day the ore appalling. The country stands face to o ent of this writing a federal of peonage established
catalogue of lynchings and anti"Negro riots upon every i aginable face with the revival of slavery& at the under cover of law. 7nder the )outhern progra it is sought to e.clude colored en fro
grand (ury in /laba a is uncovering a syste
every grade of the public service& not only fro functions, to which few of the aspire, but fro the lowest as well. / Negro
the higher ad inistrative ay not be a constable or a
wouldin any event, for a long ti e any degrading discri inations. inns and places of public
police an. He is sub(ected by law to He is re#uired to be separated fro cars, and, by custo , debarred fro
white people on railroads and street
entertain ent. His e#ual right to a free public education is constantly threatened and is nowhere e#uitably recogni$ed. In 6eorgia, as has been shown by 4r. 4u,ois, where the law provides for a pro rata distribution
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of the public school fund between the races, and where the colored school population is A? per cent. of the total, the a ount of the fund devoted to their schools is only B@ per cent. In New !rleans, with an i ense colored population, any of who are persons of eans and culture, all colored public schools above the fifth grade have been abolished. The Negro is sub(ected to ta.ation without representation, which the forefathers of this =epublic ade the basis of a bloody revolution.
'lushed with their local success, and encouraged by the ti idity of the *ourts and the indifference of public opinion, the )outhern whites have carried their ca paign into the national govern ent, with an o inous degree of success. If they shall have their way, no Negro can fill any federal office, or occupy, in the public service, any position that is not enial. This is not an inference, but the openly, passionately avowed senti ent of the white )outh. The right to e ploy ent in the public service is an e.ceedingly valuable one, for which white struggled and fought. / vast ar y of to colored en have en are e ployed in the
ad inistration of public affairs. 0any avenues of e ploy ent are closed en by popular pre(udice. If their right to public e ploy ent is recogni$ed, and the way to it open through the civil service, or the appointing power, or the suffrages of the people, it will prove, as it has already, a strong incentive to effort and a powerful lever for advance ent. Its value to the Negro, like that of the right to vote, be(udged by the eagerness of the whites to deprive hi of it. ay
Not only is the Negro ta.ed without representation in the )tates referred to, but he pays, through the tariff and internal revenue, a ta. to a National govern ent whose supre e (udicial tribunal declares that it cannot, through the e.ecutive ar , enforce its own decrees, and,
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therefore, refuses to pass upon a #uestion, s#uarely before it, involving a basic right of citi$enship. 'or the decision of the )upre e *ourt in the 6iles case, if it foreshadows the attitude which the *ourt will take upon other cases to the sa e general end which will soon co e before it, is scarcely less than a reaffir ation of the 4red )cott decision& it certainly a ounts to this%that in spite of the 'ifteenth / end ent, colored respect. To say this uch is to say that all the privileges and i en in the 7nited )tates have no political rights which the )tates are bound to unities which Negroes henceforth en(oy, ust be by favor of the whites& they are that the country is uch, when so ay look for
notrights. The whiteshave so declared& they proclai uch ore ight be withheld fro
theirs, that the Negro should be thankful that he has so than any alien& he has no govern ent to which he protection.
hi . He stands upon a lower footing
0oreover, the white )outh sends to *ongress, on a basis including the Negro population, a delegation nearly twice as large as it is (ustly entitled to, and one which *ongress every ay always safely be relied upon to oppose in easure which seeks to protect the e#uality, or to enlarge
the rights of colored citi$ens. The grossness of this in(ustice is all the ore apparent since the )upre e *ourt, in the /laba a case referred to, has declared the legislative and political depart ent of the govern ent to be the only power which can right a political wrong. 7nder this decision still further attacks upon the liberties of the citi$en ay be confidently e.pected. /r ed with the Negro's sole weapon of defense, the white )outh stands ready to s ite down his rights. The ballot was first given to the Negro to defend hi against this very thing. He needs it now far ore to defend than the D,@@@,@@@ ore than then, and for even stronger reasons. The C,@@@,@@@ free colored people of to"day have vastly
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hapless blacks who had (ust e erged fro aintain that it was a in the that to deprive hi anner in which it was given, let the
slavery. If there be those who take to heart this reflection3 utterly
istake to give the Negro the ballot at the ti e and
of it to"day, or to so restrict it as to leave hi istake so
defenseless against the present relentless attitude of the )outh toward his rights, will prove to be a no less than a cri e, fro uch greater than the first, as to be ust which not alone the )outhern Negro
suffer, but for which the nation will as surely pay the penalty as it paid for the cri e of slavery. *onte pt for law is death to a republic, and this one has developed alar ing sy pto s of the disease. /nd now, having thus robbed the Negro of every political and civil right, the white )outh, in palliation of its course, akes a great show of agnani ity in leaving hi , as the sole re nant of what he ac#uired through the *ivil +ar, a very inade#uate public school education, which, by the present progra , is to be directed ainly towards aking hi a better agricultural laborer. 5ven this is put forward as a favor, although the Negro's property is ta.ed to pay for it, and his labor as well. 'or it is a well settled principle of political econo y, that land and achinery of the selves produce nothing, and that labor indirectly pays its fair proportion of the ta. upon the public's wealth. The white )outh see s to stand to the Negro at present as one, who, having been reluctantly co pelled to release another fro bondage, sees hi stu bling forward of speech, of and upward, neglected by his friends and scarcely yet conscious of his own strength& sei$es hi , binds hi , and having bereft hi sight and of friend Ia anhood, "yokes hi with the ule" and e.clai s, with a
show of virtue which ought to deceive no one3 ",ehold how good a of yours: Have I not left you a sto ach and a pair of ar s, e with the one, that and will I not generously per it you to work for
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you
ay thereby gain enough to fill the other- / brain you do not need. ight see to de and
+e will relieve you of any responsibility that such an organ."
The argu ent of peace"loving Northern white suppressed by unlawful eans, his right to vote is a
en and Negro ere paper right, of
opportunists that the political power of the Negro having long ago been no real value, and therefore to be lightly yielded for the sake of a hypothetical har ony, is fatally short"sighted. It is precisely the attitude and essentially the argu ent which would have surrendered to the )outh in the si.ties, and would have left this country to rot in slavery for another generation. +hite en do not thus argue concerning their own en see rights. They know too well the value of ideals. )outhern white
too clearly the latent power of these une.ercised rights. If the political power of the Negro was a nullity because of his ignorance and lack of leadership, why were they not content to leave it so, with the pleasing assurance that if it ever beca e effective, it would be because the Negroes had grown fit for its e.ercise- !n the contrary, they have not rested until the possibility of its revival was apparently headed off by new )tate *onstitutions. Nor are they satisfied with this. There is no doubt that an effort will be educated Negro, who ade to secure the repeal of the 'ifteenth enace / end ent, and thus forestall the develop ent of the wealthy and the )outh see s to anticipate as a greater than the ignorant e."slave. However i probable this repeal ay see , it
is not a sub(ect to be lightly dis issed& for it is within the power of the white people of the nation to do whatever they wish in the pre ises% they did it once& they can do it again. The Negro and his friends should see to it that the white a(ority shall never wish to do anything to his hurt. There still stands, before the Negro"hating whites of the )outh, the
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specter of a )upre e *ourt which will interpret the *onstitution to what it says, and what those who enacted it
ean
eant, and what the nation,
which ratified it, understood, and which will find power, in a nation which goes beyond seas to ad inister the affairs of distant peoples, to enforce its own funda ental laws& the specter, too, of an aroused public opinion which will co pel *ongress and the *ourts to preserve the liberties of the =epublic, which are the liberties of the people. To wilfully neglect the suffrage, to hold it lightly, is to ta per with a sacred right& to yield it for anything else whatever is si ply suicidal. 4ropping the ele ent of race, disfranchise ent is no and poorly taught, that they ore than to say to the poor ust relin#uish the right to defend
the selves against oppression until they shall have beco e rich and learned, in co petition with those already thus favored and possessing the ballot in addition. This is not the philosophy of history. The growth of liberty has been the constant struggle of thepoor against the privileged classes& and the goal of that struggle has ever been the e#uality of all en before the law. The Negro who would yield this right, deserves to be a slave& he has the servile spirit. The rich and the educated can, by virtue of their influence, co protection& the poor and any votes& can find other eans of an has but one, he should guard it as a sacred
treasure. 1ong ago, by fair treat ent, the white leaders of the )outh ight have bound the Negro to the selves with hoops of steel. They have not chosen to take this course, but by assu ing fro now seek by foul eans to control. I have spoken of the effect of disfranchise ent upon the colored race& it is to the race as a whole, that the argu ent of the proble is generally the beginning an attitude hostile to his rights, have never gained his confidence, and eans to destroy where they have never sought by fair
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directed. ,ut the unit of society in a republic is the individual, and not therace, the failure to recogni$e this fact being the funda ental error which has beclouded the whole discussion. The effect of it& I disfranchise ent upon the individual is scarcely less disastrous. I do not speak of the any every oral effect of in(ustice upon those who suffer fro refer rather to the practical conse#uences which an to try, and for every properly #ualified unity life ay be appreciated by an to attain whatever
ind. No country is free in which the way upward is not open for ay offer. )uch a condition does not e.ist, at an of color. In no career can such a ust not only fairly, he is eet et en upon e#ual ter s. He
of good the co
the )outh, even in theory, for any an co pete with white co
the pre(udice of the individual, not only the united pre(udice of the white unity& but lest so e one should wish to treat hi at every turn with so e legal prohibition which says, "Thou shalt not," or "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." ,ut the Negro race is viable& it adapts itself readily to circu stances& and being thus adaptable, there is always the te ptation to "*rook the pregnant hinges of the knee,+here thrift He who can ay follow fawning."
ost skilfully balance hi self upon the advancing or en of dark skins. There are
receding wave of white opinion concerning his race, is surest of such easure of prosperity as is per itted to Negro teachers in the )outh%the privilege of teaching in their own schools is the one respectable branch of the public service still left open to the %who, for a grudging appropriation fro a )outhern legislature, will decry their own race, approve their own degradation, and laud their oppressors. 4eprived of the right to vote, and, therefore, of any power to de and what is their due, they feel i pelled to buy the tolerance of the
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whites at any sacrifice. If to live is the first duty of
an, as perhaps it is ay be right. ,ut
the first instinct, then those who thus stoop to con#uer responsibility for this abase entI shall say nothing about the whites is a
is it needful to stoop so low, and if so, where lies the ulti ate
oral effect of disfranchise ent upon the ade of the )outhern
white people, or upon the )tate itself. +hat slavery opportunity to e erge fro
atter of history. The abolition of slavery gave the )outh an barbaris . Present conditions indicate that
the spirit which do inated slavery still curses the fair section over which that institution spread its blight. /nd now, is the situation re ediless- If not so, where lies the re edy'irst let us take up those re edies suggested by the disfranchise ent, though they regret the necessity. Ti e, we are told, heals all diseases, rights all wrongs, and is the only cure for this one. It is a cowardly argu ent. These people are entitled to their rights to"day, while they are yet alive to en(oy the & and it is poor states anship and worse orals to nurse a present evil and thrust it ore forward upon a future generation for correction. The nation can no responsibility for slavery. It had to eet this one. 5ducation has been put forward as the great corrective%preferably industrial education. The intellect of the whites is to be educated to the point where they will so appreciate the blessings of liberty and e#uality, as of their own otion to enlarge and defend the Negro's rights. The ake the , not ark: this would be Negroes, on the other hand, are to be so trained as to e#ual with the whites in any way%6od save the en who approve of ethod, or ay so eti es deplore the
honestly do this than it could thrust back upon a past generation the eet that responsibility& it ought to
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unthinkable:%but so useful to the co the so far as to
unity that the whites will protect
rather than to lose their valuable services. )o e few enthusiasts go aintain that by virtue of education the Negro will, in ti e, ay be said, is a strictly Northern view.
beco e strong enough to protect hi self against any aggression of the whites& this, it
It is not #uite clearly apparent how education alone, in the ordinary eaning of the word, is to solve, in any appreciable ti e, the proble of all kinds for both races is wofully apparent. ,ut of the relations of )outhern white and black people. The need of education en and nations have been free without being learned, and there have been educated slaves. 1iberty has been known to languish where culture had reached a very high develop ent. Nations do not first beco e rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first beco e free and then rich and learned, and oftenti es fall back into slavery again because of too great wealth, and the resulting lu.ury and carelessness of civic virtues. The process of education has been going on rapidly in the )outhern )tates since the *ivil +ar, and yet, if we take superficial indications, the rights of the Negroes are at a lower ebb than at any ti e during the thirty"five years of their freedo , and the race pre(udice ore intense and unco pro ising. It is not apparent that educated )outherners are less rancorous than others in their speech concerning the Negro, or less hostile in their attitude toward his rights. It is their voice alone that we have heard in this discussion& and if, as they state, they are liberal in their views as co pared with the the Negro: I was told, in so any words, two years ago, by the )uperintendent of odern ore ignorant whites, then 6od save
Public )chools of a )outhern city that "there was no place in the
world for the Negro, e.cept under the ground." If gentle en holding
Eage 2)
such opinions are to instruct the white youth of the )outh, would it be at all surprising if these, later on, should devote a portion of their leisure to the i prove ent of civili$ation by putting under the ground as this superfluous race as possibleThe sole e.cuse ade in the )outh for the prevalent in(ustice to the any of
Negro is the difference in race, and the ine#ualities and antipathies resulting therefro . It has nowhere been declared as a part of the )outhern progra that the Negro, when educated, is to be given a fair ake of hi anything representation in govern ent or an e#ual opportunity in life& the contrary has been strenuously asserted& education can never trusted with any degree of power. / syste but a Negro, and, therefore, essentially inferior, and not to be safely of education which would tend to soften the asperities and lessen the ine#ualities between the races would be of inesti able value. /n education which by a rigid separation of the races fro the kindergarten to the university, fosters this racial ight easily have disastrous, rather than ore powerful to antipathy, and is directed toward e phasi$ing the superiority of one class and the inferiority of another, beneficial results. It would render the oppressing class
in(ure, the oppressed #uicker to perceive and keener to resent the in(ury, without proportionate power of defense. The sa e assi ilative education which is given at the North to all children alike,whereby native and foreign, black and white, are taught side by side in every grade of instruction, and are co pelled by the e.igencies of discipline to keep their pre(udices in abeyance, and are given the opportunity to learn and appreciate one another's good #ualities, and to establish friendly relations which ay e.ist throughout life, is absent fro the )outhern syste of education, both of the past and as proposed for the future. 5ducation is in a broad sense a re edy for all social ills& but the disease we have to deal
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with now is not only constitutional but acute. / wise physician does not si ply give a tonic for a diseased li b, or a high fever& the patient ight be dead before the constitutional re edy could beco e effective. The evils of slavery, its in(ury to whites and blacks, and to the body politic, was clearly perceived and acknowledged by the educated leaders of the )outh as far back as the =evolutionary +ar and the *onstitutional *onvention, and yet they ade no effort to abolish it. Their re edy was the sa e%ti e, education, social and econo ic develop ent&%and yet a bloody war was necessary to destroy slavery and put its spirit te porarily to sleep. +hen the )outh and its friends are ready to propose a syste proble of education which will recogni$e and teach the e#uality of all will be ore clearly apparent. en, who wish to educate the Negroes, the none too eager white )outh, they en before the law, the potency of education alone to settle the race
/t present even good Northern
feel i pelled to buy this privilege fro
by conceding away the civil and political rights of those who
would benefit. They have, indeed, gone farther than the )outherners the selves in approving the disfranchise ent of the colored race. 0ost )outhern en, now that they have carried their point and disfranchised the Negro, are willing to ad it, in the language of a recent nu ber of the Charleston Evening Post, that "the attitude of the )outhern white an toward the Negro is inco patible with the funda ental ideas of the republic." It re ained for our *levelands and /bbotts and Parkhursts to assure the the that their unlawful course was right and (ustifiable, and for upon ost distinguished Negro leader to declare that "every revised
*onstitution throughout the )outhern )tates has put a pre iu penitentiary sentence put a pre iu
intelligence, ownership of property, thrift and character." )o does every upon good conduct& but it is poor
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consolation to the one un(ustly conde ned, to be told that he
ay
shorten his sentence so ewhat by good behavior. 4r. ,ooker T. +ashington, whose language is #uoted above, has, by his e inent services in the cause of education, won deserved renown. If he has see ed, at ti es, to those (ealous of the best things for their race, to decry the higher education, it can easily be borne in which he ay put upon that branch of education ind that his career is bound up in the success of an industrial school& hence any undue stress ay safely be ascribed to the natural $eal of the pro oter, without detracting in any degree fro the essential value of his teachings in favor of anual training, thrift and character"building. ,ut 0r. +ashington's pro inence as an educational leader, a ong a race whose pro inent leaders are so few, has at ti es forced hi , perhaps reluctantly, to e.press hi self in regard to the political condition of his people, and here his utterances have not always been so wise nor so happy. He has declared hi self in favor of a restricted suffrage, which at present eans, for his own people, nothing ooted& and he has less than co plete loss of representation%indeed it is only in that connection that the #uestion has been seriously advised the white en rights, which, in effect, to go slow in seeking to enforce their civil and political eans silent sub ission to in(ustice. )outhern ay applaud this advice as wise, because it fits in with their
purposes& but )enator 0c5nery of 1ouisiana, in a recent article in the Independent, voices the )outhern white opinion of such ac#uiescence when he says3 "+hat other racewould have sub itted so any years to slavery without co plaint-What other race would have submitted so quietly to disfranchisement?These facts sta p his Ethe Negro'sF inferiority to the white race." The ti e to philosophi$e about the good there is in evil, is not while its correction is still possible, but, if at all, after all hope of correction is past. 7ntil then it calls for nothing but
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rigorous conde nation. To try to read any good thing into these fraudulent )outhern constitutions, or to accept the as an acco plished it cri e fact, is to condone a cri e against one's race. Those who co applaud the robber. )ilence were better. It has beco e fashionable to #uestion the wisdo of the 'ifteenth
should bear the odiu . It is not a pleasing spectacle to see the robbed
/ end ent. I believe it to have been an act of the highest states anship, based upon the funda ental idea of this =epublic, entirely (ustified by conditions& e.peri ental in its nature, perhaps, as every new thing ust be, but (ust in principle&a choice between ost (ust, bearing in ethods, of which it see ed to the great states en of that epoch the wisest and the best, and essentially the ind the interests of the freed en and the Nation, as well as the feelings of the )outhern whites& never fairly tried, and therefore, not yet to be (ustly conde ned. Not one of those who conde n it, has been able, even in the light of subse#uent events, to suggest a better ethod by which the liberty and civil rights of the freed en and their descendants could have been protected. Its abandon ent, as I have shown, leaves this liberty and these rights frankly without any guaranteed protection. /ll the education which philanthropy or the )tate could offer as asubstitutefor e#uality of rights, would be a poor e.change& there is no defensible reason why they should not go hand in hand, each encouraging and strengthening the other. The education which one can de and as a right is likely to do than the education for which one ust sue as a favor. ore good
The chief argu ent against Negro suffrage, the insistently proclai ed argu ent, worn threadbare in *ongress, on the platfor , in the pulpit, in the press, in poetry, in fiction, in i passioned rhetoric, is the reconstruction period. /nd yet the evils of that period were due far ore
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to the venality and indifference of white
en than to the incapacity of
black voters. The revised )outhern *onstitutions adopted under reconstruction reveal a higher states anship than any which preceded or have followed the , and prove that the freed voters could as easily have been led into the paths of civic righteousness as into those of isgovern ent. *ertain it is that under reconstruction the civil and political rights of all en were ore secure in those )tates than they have ever been since. +e will hear less of the evils of reconstruction, now that the bugaboo has served its purpose by disfranchising the Negro, it will be laid aside for a ti e while the nation discusses the political corruption of great cities& the scandalous conditions in =hode Island& the evils attendingreconstruction in the Philippines, and the scandals in the postoffice depart ent%for none of which, by the way, is the Negro charged with any responsibility, and for none of which is the restriction of the suffrage a re edy seriously proposed. =hode Island is indeed the only Northern )tate which has a property #ualification for the franchise: There are three tribunals to which the colored people public opinion. /t present all three see the *ourts enacts a erely follow public opinion, seldo ay (ustly appeal
for the protection of their rights3 the 7nited )tates *ourts, *ongress and ainly indifferent to any lead it. *ongress never #uestion of hu an rights under the *onstitution. Indeed, *ongress and easure which is believed to oppose public opinion&%your
*ongress an keeps his ear to the ground. The high, serene at osphere of the *ourts is not i pervious to its voice& they rarely enforce a law contrary to public opinion, even the )upre e *ourt being able, as *harles )u ner once put it, to find a reason forevery decision it wish to render& or, as e.perience has shown, a ay ethod to evade any
#uestion which it cannot decently decide in accordance with public
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opinion. The art of straddling is not confined to the political arena. The )outhern situation has been well described by a colored editor in =ich ond3 "+hen we seek relief at the hands of *ongress, we are infor ed that our plea involves a legal #uestion, and we are referred to the *ourts. +hen we appeal to the *ourts, we are gravely told that the #uestion is a political one, and that we ust go to *ongress. +hen ight *ongress enacts re edial legislation, our ene ies take it to the )upre e *ourt, which pro ptly declares it unconstitutional." The Negro finding any relief. ;et the *onstitution is clear and une#uivocal in its ter s, and no )upre e *ourt can indefinitely continue to construe it as until it eaning anything but what it says. This *ourt should be bo barded with suits akes so e definite pronounce ent, one way or the other, on the broad #uestion of the constitutionality of the disfranchising *onstitutions of the )outhern )tates. The Negro and his friends will then have a clean" cut issue to take to the foru *onstitution. The case fro of public opinion, and a distinct ground /laba a was carried to the )upre e *ourt upon which to de and legislation for the enforce ent of the 'ederal e.pressly to deter ine the constitutionality of the /laba a *onstitution. The *ourt declared itself without (urisdiction, and in the sa e breath went into the erits of the case far enough to deny relief, without ight with absolute (ustice passing upon the real issue. Had it said, as it chase his rights round and round this circle until the end of ti e, without
and perfect propriety, that the /laba a *onstitution is a bold and i pudent violation of the 'ifteenth / end ent, the purpose of the lawsuit would have been acco plished and a righteous cause vastly strengthened. ,ut public opinion cannot re ain per anently indifferent to so vital a
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#uestion. The agitation is already on. It is at present largely acade ic, but is slowly and resistlessly, forcing itself into politics, which is the ediu through which republics settle such #uestions. It cannot uch longer be conte ptuously or indifferently elbowed aside. The )outh itself see s bent upon forcing the #uestion to an issue, as, by its arrogant assu ptions, it brought on the *ivil +ar. 'ro that section, too, there co e now and then, side by side with tales of )outhern outrage, e.cusing voices, which at the sa e ti e are accusing voices& which ad it that the white )outh is dealing with the Negro un(ustly and unwisely& that the 6olden =ule has been forgotten& that the interests of white en alone have been taken into account, and that their true interests as well are being sacrificed. There is a silent white )outh, uneasy in conscience, darkened in counsel, groping for the light, and willing to do the right. They are as yet a feeble folk, their voices scarcely audible above the cla or of the en of who they ob. 0ay their convictions ripen into wisdo , and ay their nu bers and their courage increase: If the class of )outhern white <udge <ones of /laba a, is so noble a representative, are ay then supported and encouraged by a righteous public opinion at the North, ay, in ti e, beco e the do inant white )outh, and we look for wisdo and (ustice in the place where, so far as the Negro is well"nigh strangers. ,ut even these gentle en ind that so long as they discri inate in any way
concerned, they now see will do well to bear in
against the Negro's e#uality of right, so long do they set class against class and open the door to every sort of discri ination. There can be no iddle ground between (ustice and in(ustice, between the citi$en and the serf. It is not likely that the North, upon the sober second thought, will per it the dearly"bought results of the *ivil +ar to be nullified by any change
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in the *onstitution. /s long as the 'ifteenth / end ent stands, therightsof colored citi$ens are ulti ately secure. There were would"be despots in 5ngland after thegranting of 0agna *harta& but it outlived the all, and the liberties of the 5nglish people are secure. There was ortal docu ent. )o slavery in this land after the 4eclaration of Independence, yet the faces of those who love liberty have ever turned to that i would seek to overthrow it. +hat colored or in the i en of the )outh can do to secure their citi$enship to"day, ediate future, is not very clear. Their utterances on political en by suggesting that the will the *onstitution and its principles outlive the pre(udices which
#uestions, unless they be to concede away the political rights of their race, or to soothe the consciences of white proble is insoluble e.cept by so e slow re edial process which will
beco e effectual only in the distant future, are received with scant respect%could scarcely, indeed, be otherwise received, without a voting constituency to back the up,%and ust be cautiously ade, lest they en at the eet an actively hostile reception. ,ut there are There every honest an has a vote, which he any colored
North, where their civil and political rights in the
ain are respected.
ay freely cast, and which
is reasonably sure to be fairly counted. +hen this race develops a sufficient power of co bination, under ade#uate leadership,%and there are signs already that this ti e is near at hand,%the Northern vote can be wielded irresistibly for the defense of the rights of their )outhern brethren. In the eanti e the Northern colored en have the right of free speech,
and they should never cease to de and their rights, to cla or for the , to guard the senti ent to (ealously, and insistently to invoke law and public aintain the . He who would be free ust learn to protect
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his freedo . 5ternal vigilance is the price of liberty. He who would be respected ust respect hi self. The best friend of the Negro is he who illion free illion cringing serfs would rather see, within the borders of this republic one citi$ens of that race, e#ual before the law, than ten
e.isting by a conte ptuous sufferance. / race that is willing to survive upon any other ter s is scarcely worthy of consideration. The direct re edy for the disfranchise ent of the Negro lies through political action. !ne scarcely sees the philosophy of distinguishing between a civil and a political right. ,ut the )upre e *ourt has recogni$ed this distinction and has designated *ongress as the power to right a political wrong. The 'ifteenth / end ent gives *ongress power to enforce its provisions. The power would see / end ent ight involve difficulty, they to be inherent in govern ent itself& but anticipating that the enforce ent of the ade the superorogatory declaration. 0oreover, they went further, and passed laws by which they provided for such enforce ent. These the )upre e *ourt has so far declared insufficient. It is for *ongress to colored en and for white ake ore laws. It is for en who are not content to see the blood"
bought results of the *ivil +ar nullified, to urge and direct public opinion to the point where it will de and stringent legislation to enforce the 'ourteenth and 'ifteenth / end ents. This de and will rest in law, in orals and in true states anship& no difficulties attending it could be worse than the present ignoble attitude of the Nation toward its own laws and its own ideals%without courage to enforce the , without conscience to change the , the 7nited )tates presents the spectacle of a Nation drifting ai lessly, so far as this vital, National proble upon the sea of irresolution, toward the aelstro is concerned, of anarchy.
The right of *ongress, under the 'ourteenth / end ent, to reduce
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)outhern representation can hardly be disputed. ,ut *ongress has a si pler and whether any ore direct ethod to acco plish the sa e end. It is the e bers, and the sole (udge of et those a e ber who co es fro its decision. sole (udge of the #ualifications of its own #ualifications. It can refuse to seat any
e ber presenting his credentials has
district where voters have been disfranchised3 it can (udge for itself whether this has been done, and there is no appeal fro
If, when it has passed a law, any *ourt shall refuse to obey its behests, it can i peach the (udges. If any president refuse to lend the e.ecutive ar of the govern ent to the enforce ent of the law, it can i peach the president. No such e.tre e easures are likely to be necessary for the entioned as showing enforce ent of the 'ourteenth and 'ifteenth / end ents%and the Thirteenth, which is also threatened%but they are )enate indirectly, fro that *ongress is supre e& and *ongress proceeds, the House directly, the the people and is governed by public opinion. If the reduction of )outhern representation were to be regarded in the light of a bargain by which the 'ifteenth / end ent was surrendered, then it ight prove fatal to liberty. If it be inflicted as a punish ent and a warning, to be followed by ore drastic easures if not sufficient, it would serve a useful purpose. The 'ifteenth / end ent declares that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of color& and any easure adopted by *ongress should look to that end. !nly as the easures it power to in(ure the Negro in *ongress is reduced thereby, would a reduction of representation protect the Negro& without other would still leave hi safely be trusted to ake hi pay for their hu iliation. in the hands of the )outhern whites, who could
'inally, there is, so ewhere in the 7niverse a "Power that works for righteousness," and that leads en to do (ustice to one another. To this
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power, working upon the hearts and consciences of
en, the Negro can anhood and
always appeal. He has the right upon his side, and in the end the right will prevail. The Negro will, in ti e, attain to full citi$enship throughout the 7nited )tates. No better guaranty of this is needed than a co parison of his present with his past. Toward this he ust do his part, as lies within his power and his opportunity. ,ut it will be, after all, largely a white an's conflict, fought out in the foru of the public conscience. The Negro, though eager enough when opportunity offered, had co paratively little to do with the abolition of slavery, which was a vastly ore for idable task than will be the enforce ent of the 'ifteenth / end ent.
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Chapter 4 The Negro an" the La! By WIL()RD H. S#ITH
The law and how it is dodged by enact ents infringing upon the rights guaranteed to the freed en by constitutional a end ent. / powerful plea for (ustice for the Negro.
The colored people in the 7nited )tates are indebted to the beneficent provisions of the >Dth, >Ath and >Gth a end ents to the *onstitution of the 7nited )tates, for the establish ent of their freedo and citi$enship,
Eage 00
and it is to these
ainly they
ust look for the
aintenance of their
liberty and the protection of their civil rights. These a end ents followed close upon the 5 ancipation Procla ation issued <anuary >st, >?ID, by President 1incoln, and his call for volunteers, which was answered by ore than three hundred thousand negro soldiers, who, ilitary service, helped the 7nion ar s to victory during three years of
at /ppo atto.. )tanding in the shadow of the awful cala ity and deep distress of the civil war, and grateful to 6od for peace and victory over the rebellion, the / erican people, who upheld the 7nion, rose to the subli e heights of doing (ustice to the for er slaves, who had grown and ultiplied with the country fro looked like an effort to pay the unre#uited toil, by not only the early settle ent at <a estown. It back for their years of faithfulness and free but placing the on e#ual
aking the
footing with the selves in the funda ental law. *ertainly, they intended at least, that they should have as the nations of 5urope. The >Dth a end ent provides that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, e.cept as a punish ent for cri e, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall e.ist in the 7nited )tates or any place sub(ect to their (urisdiction. The >Ath a end ent provides in section one, that all persons born or naturali$ed in the 7nited )tates and sub(ect to the (urisdiction thereof, are citi$ens of the 7nited )tates, and of the )tate wherein they reside. No )tate shall i ake or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or unities of citi$ens of the 7nited )tates, nor shall any )tate deprive any rights under the *onstitution as all are given to white naturali$ed citi$ens who co e to this country fro
any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its (urisdiction the e#ual protection of the law.
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The >Gth a end ent provides that the right of citi$ens of the 7nited )tates to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the 7nited )tates, or by any )tate on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. *hief <ustice +aite, in the case of the 7nited )tates vs. *ruikshank, CBnd 7.). GAB, said3% "The >Ath a end ent prohibits a )tate fro denying to any person
within its (urisdiction the e#ual protection of the law. The e#uality of the rights of citi$ens is a principle of republicanis . 5very =epublican govern ent is in duty bound to protect all its citi$ens in the en(oy ent of this principle if within its power." The sa e *hief <ustice, in the case of the 7nited )tates vs. =eese, CBnd 7.). B>A, said3 "The >Gth a end ent does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone. It prevents the )tates or the 7nited )tates fro giving preference in this particular to one citi$en of the 7nited )tates over another, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. ,efore its adoption this could be done. It was as uch within the power of a )tate to e.clude voting on account of race and color, as citi$ens of the 7nited )tates fro
it was on account of age, property or education. Now it is not." Notwithstanding the reinforce the anifest eaning of e#uality of citi$enship
contained in the constitutional a end ents, it was found necessary to by a civil rights law, enacted by the *ongress of the 7nited )tates, 0arch >st, >?JG, entitled, "/n /ct To Protect /ll *iti$ens In Their *ivil and 1egal =ights." Its prea ble and first section are as follows3%Prea ble3 "+hereas, it is essential to (ust govern ent we recogni$e the e#uality of all en before the law, and hold that it is the ete out e#ual and duty of govern ent in its dealings with the people to
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e.act (ustice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color or persuasion, religious or political, and it being the appropriate ob(ect of legislation to enact great funda ental principles into law, therefore, ",e it enacted that all persons within the (urisdiction of the 7nited )tates shall be entitled to the full and e#ual en(oy ent of the acco odations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theatres and other places of public a use ent, sub(ect only to the conditions and li itations established by law, and applicable alike to citi$ens of every race and color, regardless to any previous condition of servitude." The )upre e *ourt of the 7nited )tates has held this salutary law unconstitutional and void as applied to the )tates, but binding in the 4istrict of *olu bia, and the Territories over which the govern ent of the 7nited )tates has control.%*ivil =ights cases >@C 7.). ID. )ince the )upre e *ourt's ruling, any Northern and +estern )tates have enacted si ilar civil rights laws. 5#uality of citi$enship in the 7nited )tates suffered a severe blow when the civil rights bill was struck down by the )upre e *ourt. The colored people looked upon the decision as unsound, and pro pted by race pre(udice. It was clear that the a end ents to the *onstitution were adopted to secure not only their freedo , but their e#ual civil rights, and by ratifying the a end ents the several )tates conceded to the 'ederal govern ent the power and authority of aintaining not alone their freedo , but their e#ual civil rights in the 7nited )tates as well. The 'ederal )upre e *ourt put a narrow interpretation on the *onstitution, rather than a liberal one in favor of e#ual rights& in arked contrast to a recent decision of the /ppellate 4ivision of the )upre e *ourt of New ;ork in a civil rights case arising under the statute of New
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;ork, ,urks vs. ,osso, ?> N.;. )upp, D?A. The New ;ork )upre e *ourt held this language3 "The liberation of the slaves, and the suppression of the rebellion, was supple ented by the a end ents to the national *onstitution according to the colored people their civil rights and investing the with citi$enship. The a end ents indicated a clear ust control, and that ay be gathered fro purpose to secure e#ual rights to the black people with the white race. The legislative intent circu stances inducing the act. +here that intent has been unvaryingly anifested in one direction, and that in the prohibition of any discri ination against a large class of citi$ens, the courts should not hesitate to keep apace with legislative purpose. +e the slightest trace of /frican blood places a ust re e ber that ay be, he an under the ban of
belonging to that race. However respectable and whatever he
is ostraci$ed socially, and when the policy of the law is against e.tending the prohibition of his civil rights, a liberal, rather than a narrow interpretation should be given to enact ents evidencing the intent to eli inate race discri ination, as far as that can be acco plished by legislative intervention." The statutory enact ents and recent *onstitutions of ost of the for er as
slave"holding )tates, show that they have never looked with favor upon the a end ents to the national *onstitution. They rather regard the war of those )tates lately in rebellion. +hile in the easures designed by the North to hu iliate and punish the people ain they accept the >Dth
a end ent and concede that the negro should have personal freedo , they have never been altogether in har ony with the spirit and purposes of the >Ath and >Gth a end ents. There see s to be a distinct and positive fear on the part of the )outh that if the negro is given a chance, and is accorded e#ual civil rights with white an's en on the (uries,
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on co
on carriers, and in public places, that it will in so e way lead to
his social e#uality. This fallacious argu ent is persisted in, notwithstanding the well"known fact, that although the <ews are the leaders in the wealth and co )outhern whites. Holding these views the )outhern people in >?JG, found overco e the =epublican eans to erce of the )outh, their civil e#uality has never, e.cept in rare instances, led to any social inter ingling with the
a(orities in all the re"constructed )tates, and
practically drove the negroes out of the law" aking bodies of all those )tates. )o that, now in all the )outhern )tates, so far as can be ascertained, there is not one negro sitting as a representative in any of the law" aking bodies. The ne.t step was to deny the *o issioners, who e.cluded the fro the panels. representation on the grand and petit (uries in the )tate courts, through <ury
To be ta.ed without representation is a serious in(ustice in a republic whose foundations are laid upon the principle of "no ta.ation without representation." ,ut serious as this phase of the case infinitely likewise e.cluded fro ust appear, ore serious is the case when we consider the fact that they are the grand and petit (uries in all the )tate courts,
with thefewest and rarest e.ceptions. The courts sit in (udg ent upon their lives and liberties, and dispose of their dearest earthly possessions. They are not entitled to life, liberty or property if the courts should decide they are not, and yet in this all"i portant tribunal they are denied all voice, e.cept as parties and witnesses, and here and there a negro lawyer is per itted to appear. !ne vote on the grand (ury vote on the petit (ury ight save a life or a ter ight prevent an indict ent, and save disgrace and the risk of public trial& while one of i prison ent, for an innocent person pursued and persecuted by powerful ene ies.
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+ith no voice in the
aking of the laws, which they are bound to obey, of legal enact ents intended to of <i "*row
nor in their ad inistration by the courts, thus tied and helpless, the negroes were proscribed by a syste wholly nullify the letter and spirit of the war a end ents to the national organic law. This crusade was begun by enacting a syste fro car laws in all the )outhern )tates, so that now the <i "*row cars run the 6ulf of 0e.ico into the national capital. They are called, odations ")eparate *ar 1aws," providing for separate but e#ual acco
for whites and negroes. Though fair on their face, they are everywhere known to discri inate against the colored people in their ad inistration, and were intended to hu iliate and degrade the . )etting apart separate places for negroes on public carriers, is (ust as repugnant to the spirit and intent of the national *onstitution, as would be a law co pelling all <ews or all =o an *atholics to occupy co part ents specially set apart for the on account of their religion. If these statutes were not especially ai ed at the negro, an arrange ent of different fares, such as first, second and third classes, would have been far ore (ust and preferable, and would have enabled the refined and ore e.pensive fare. )till these laws have been upheld e.clusive of both races to avoid the presence of the coarse and vicious, by selecting the by the 'ederal )upre e *ourt, and pronounced not in conflict with the a end ents to the *onstitution of the 7nited )tates. *ity ordinances providing for separate street cars for white and colored passengers, are in force in /tlanta, New !rleans, and in nearly all the cities of the )outh. In all the principal cities of /laba a, a certain portion of the street cars is set apart and passenger belongs, and arked for negroes. The conductors are clothed with the authority of deter ining to what race the ay arrest persons refusing to obey his orders. It
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is often a very difficult task to deter ine to what race so e passengers belong, there being so person. In the )tate of 6eorgia, a negro cannot purchase a berth in a sleeping car, under any circu stances, no atter where his destination, owing to the following statute enacted 4ece ber B@th, >?CC3 ")leeping car co panies, and all railroads operating sleeping cars in this )tate, shall separate the white and colored races, and shall not per it the to occupy the sa e co part ent& provided, that nothing in this act shall be construed to co pel sleeping car co panies or railroads operating sleeping cars, to carry persons of color in sleeping or parlor cars& provided also, that this act shall not apply to colored nurses or servants travelling with their e ployers." The violation of this statute is a isde eanor. /rticle AG, section IDC of the statutes of 6eorgia, >?CG, to chain the together going to and fro akes it a any dark"white persons that ight be istaken for negroes, and persons known as negroes who are as fair as any white
isde eanor to keep or confine white and colored convicts together, or work. There is also a statute in 6eorgia re#uiring that a separate ta. list be kept in every county, of the property of white and colored persons. ,oth races generally approve the laws prohibiting inter" arriages between white and colored persons, which see to be unifor throughout the )outhern )tates.
'lorida see s to have gone a step further than the rest, and by sections BI>B and BI>D, =evised )tatutes, >?CB, it is white ade a isde eanor for a an and a colored wo an, and vice versa, to sleep under the sa e aking arriages between white and colored
roof at night, occupying the sa e roo . 'lorida is entitled to credit, however, for a statute persons prior to >?II, where they continue to live together, valid and
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binding to all intents and purposes. In addition to this forced separation of the races by law, "fro to the grave," there is yet a sadder and the cradle
ore deplorable separation, in the
al ost universal disposition to leave the negroes wholly and severely to the selves in their ho e life and religious life, by the white *hristian people of the )outh, distinctly religious develop ent. In 6eorgia and the *arolinas, and all the 6ulf )tates Ee.cept Te.as, where the far by a syste labor is ostly whiteF the negroes on the far s are held fro leaving the plantations, by fine and i prison ent for of laws which prevents the anifesting no concern in their oral and
and enables the landlord to punish the are virtually
any alleged breach of contract. In the ad inistration of these laws they ade slaves to the landlord, as long as they are in debt, and in debt. ade it is wholly in the power of the landlord to forever keep the
,y section DGG, of the *ri inal *ode of )outh *arolina, >C@B, it is a to a fine of not less than five dollars, and ade a e ployer. isde eanor to e ploy any far
isde eanor to violate a contract to work and labor on a far , sub(ect ore than one hundred dollars, ore than thirty. It is also laborer to leave his laborer while under contract
or i prison ent for not less than ten days, or with another, or to persuade or entice a far
The 6eorgia laws are a little stronger in this respect than the laws of the other )tates. ,y section >B>, of the *ode of 6eorgia, >?CG, it is provided, "that if any person shall, by offering higher wages, or in any other way entice, persuade or decoy, or atte pt to entice, persuade or decoy any far laborer fro his e ployer, he shall be guilty of a isde eanor." /gain, by act of 4ece ber >Jth, >C@>, the 6eorgia 1egislature passed a law aking it an offense to rent land, or furnish
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land to a far
laborer, after he has contracted with another landlord,
without first obtaining the consent of the first landlord. The presence of large nu bers of negroes in the towns and cities of the )outh and North can be accounted for by such laws as the above, ad inistered by ignorant country pliant tools of the landlords. The boldest and ost open violation of the negro's rights under the agistrates, in nearly all cases the
'ederal *onstitution, was the enact ent of the grand"father clauses, and understanding clauses in the new *onstitutions of 1ouisiana, /laba a, the *arolinas, and 2irginia, which have had the effect to deprive the great body of the of the right to vote in those )tates, for no other reason of his vote, and all his property is than their race and color. /lthough thus depriving hi
voice in the )tate govern ents at the )outh, in all of the hi
ta.ed to pay pensions to *onfederate soldiers, who fought to continue in slavery. The fact is, the franchise had been practically taken fro ethods and the negroes in the )outh since >?JI, by ad itted fraudulent
inti idation in elections, but it was not until late years that this nullification of the a end ents was enacted into )tate *onstitutions. This brings e to the proposition that it is ainly in the enforce ent, or ay appear
the ad inistration of the laws, however fair and e#ual they and treat ent are denied, not only in the )outh but in
on their face, that the constitutional rights of negroes to e#ual protection any Northern )tates. There are noble e.ceptions, however, of high"toned honorable gentle en on the bench as trial (udges, and )upre e *ourt (ustices, in the )outh, who without regard to conse#uences have stood for fairness and (ustice to the negro in their courts. +ith the population of the )outh distinctly divided into two classes, not the rich and poor, not the educated and ignorant, not the oral and
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oral, but si ply whites and blacks, all negroes being generally atter to obtain fair and (ust results, ense disadvantage when he is forced atters, and uch ore so when he
regarded as inferior and not entitled to the sa e rights as any white person, it is bound to be a difficult this, and knows that he is at an i to litigate with a white an in civil when there is any sort of conflict between the races. The negro reali$es
is charged with a cri e by a white person. The (uries in the )outh al ost always re(ect the testi ony of any nu ber of negroes if given in opposition to that of a white witness, and this is true in any instances, no atter how unreasonable or inconsistent the ay be. <urors in the )outh have been testi ony of the white witness
heard to ad it that they would be socially ostraci$ed if they brought in a verdict upon colored testi ony alone, in opposition to white testi ony. Perhaps it can be best e.plained how the negro fares in the courts of the )outh by giving a few cases showing how (ustice is ad inistered to hi 3 / negro boy was brought to the bar for trial before a police agistrate, in
a )outhern capital city, charged with assault and battery on a white boy about the sa e age, but a little larger. The testi ony showed that the white boy had beat the negro on several previous occasions as he passed on his way to school, and each ti e the negro showed no disposition to fight. !n the to cut hi white boy's orning of the charge he attacked the negro and atte pted other had reported to the other the previous assaults, and asked her to chastise hi . being cut was co pelled to fight, with a knife, because the negro's
The colored boy in trying to keep fro eyes. The The
and got the advantage and threw the white boy down and blacked his agistrate on this evidence fined the negro twenty"five dollars. agistrate, other of the negro having once been a servant for the
found courage to rise, and said3 "<edge, yo Honer, can I speak-" The
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agistrate replied, ";es, go on." )he said, "+ell, <edge, tellin' e about dis white boy eddlin' hi would not let y boy fight, 'cause I 'tole hi
y boy is ben
on his way to school, but I he couldn't git no (estice in fust a po' e, and
law. ,ut he had no other way to go to school 'ceptin' gwine dat way& and den (edge, dis white chile is bigger an with a knife for nothin', befo' can't raise all dat y chile and (u ped on hi y boy tetched hi . <edge I a a
wo an, and washes fur a livin', and ain't got nobody to help oney. I think dat white boy's
y ought to pay
half of dis fine." ,y this ti e her voice had beco e stifled by her tears. The (udge turned to the other of the white boy and said, "0ada , are you willing to pay half of this fine-" )he answered, ";es, ;our Honor." /nd the (udge changed the order to a fine of H>B.G@ each, against both boys. / celebrated case in point reported in the books is, 6eorge 0aury vs. The )tate of 0iss., I? 0iss. I@G. I reproduce the court's state ent of the case3%"This is an appeal fro /ppellant was convicted of !ne, Nicholson, a white old, was driving an o. tea the *ircuit *ourt of Ke per *ounty. urder and sentenced to i prison ent for
life. He appears in this court without counsel. The facts are briefly these3 an, acco panied by his little son seven years along a public road& he had occasion to stop et
and the o.en were driven by his son& defendant, a negro, also in an o. wagon, was going along the road in an opposite direction, and the wagons Nicholson's wagon in charge of the little boy. It was after dark, and when et, according to the testi ony of Nicholson, the defendant insultingly de anded of the boy to give the way, and cursed and abused hi . Nicholson, hearing the collo#uy, hurried to the scene and a fight ensued between hi and 0aury, in which the latter got the advantage, inflicting severe blows upon Nicholson. This occurred on Thursday, and
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on the following )unday night, Nicholson, in co pany with eleven or twelve of his friends, rode to the far of 0aury, and after sending several of their nu ber to ascertain if he was at ho e, rode rapidly into his yard and called for hi . Not finding hi , they proceeded to search the pre ises, and found several colored en shut up in the s oke house, the door of which so e of the searching party had broken open. 0aury, the accused, was not found there, and about that ti e so e one called out, "Here is 6eorge." )o e of the party then started in the direction of the cotton house fro fired fro which the voice proceeded, when a volley was it, and two of the searching party were killed, one of who e bers of the raiding party testified erely to ediately after
was the son of the for er owner of the defendant, and the other a brother"in"law of Nicholson. The that their purpose in going to the ho e of the defendant was arrest hi . It was, however, shown that Nicholson, i )unday night collected the warrant, or
the fight on Thursday, infor ed *obb, and *obb between Thursday and en who (oined in the raid. No affidavit for ade, and none of the party had any the arrest of 0aury had been
ade any announce ent to the defendant or his fa ily, of the
ob(ect of their visit. The accused who testified in his own behalf, denied that he was at ho e at the ti e of the shooting, and says he fled before the raiding party arrived. He also contradicted Nicholson in his account of the difficulty with hi , and denies that he spoke harshly to the child." *hief <ustice *a pbell, in delivering the opinion of the court said, "It is inconceivable that the cri e of urder is predicable of the facts disclosed by the evidence in this case. The ti e and place and circu stances of the killing forbid any such conclusion as a verdict of guilty of urder." The (udg ent of the trial court was reversed.
This sa e *hief <ustice, in the case of 0onroe vs. 0ississippi, J> 0iss.
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B@>, where a negro was convicted of rape, insufficiency of the evidence3 "+e
akes use of the following
brave and noble language, reversing the case on the ground of the ight greatly lighten our labors by deferring in all cases to the verdict approved by the presiding (udge as to the facts, but our duty is to ad inister (ustice without respect of persons, and do e#ual right to the poor and the rich. Hence the disposition, which we are not asha ed to confess we have, to guard (ealously the rights of the poor and friendless and despised, and to be astute as far as we properly ay, against in(ustice, whether proceeding fro wilfulness or indifference." The country has produced no abler (urist, nor the )outh no greater an
than 5."*hief <ustice *a pbell of 0ississippi. If the counsel of such en as he and *hief <ustice 6arret of the *ourt of *ivil /ppeals of Te.as, could obtain in the )outh, there would be no proble the whites and blacks alike. In the ad inistration of the suffrage sections under the new *onstitutions of the )outh by the partisan boards of registrars, the sa e discri ination against negroes was practiced. Their e.cluding a single white ethods are of ore or less interest. The plan was to e.clude all negroes fro the electorate without between the races. /ll would be contented because (ustice would be ad inistered to
an. 7nder the /laba a *onstitution, a soldier
in the *ivil +ar, either on the 'ederal or *onfederate side, is entitled to #ualification. +hen a negro goes up to register as a soldier he is asked for his discharge. +hen he presents it he is asked, "How do we know that you are the two white an whose na e is written in this discharge- ,ring us we know and who will swear that you have not to have been." This, of en who
found this paper, and that they know that you were a soldier in the co pany and regi ent in which you clai
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course, could not be done, and the e."soldier who risked his life for the 7nion is denied the right to vote. The sa e *onstitution provides that if not a soldier or the legal descendant of one, an elector ust be of good character and understand of the duties and obligations of citi$enship under a =epublican for
govern ent. +hen a negro clai s #ualifications under the good character and understanding clauses he is put through an e.a ination si ilar to the following3 "+hat is a republican for "+hat is a li ited of govern ent-
onarchy-
"+hat islands did the 7nited )tates co e into possession of by the )panish"/ erican +ar"+hat is the difference between <effersonian 4e ocracy and *alhoun principles, as co pared to the 0onroe 4octrine"If the Nicaragua *anal is cut, what will be the effect if the Pacific !cean is two feet higher than the /tlantic-" )hould these #uestions be answered satisfactorily, the negro ust still produce two white en known to the registrars to testify to his good character. / re arkable e.ception in the treat ent of negroes by the registrars of 4allas county, /laba a, is shown in the following account taken fro the 0ontgo ery /dverti$er3% "/n old negro barber by the na e of 5dward 5. Harris, stepped in before the registrars, hat in hand, hu ble and polite, with a kindly s ile on his face. He respectfully asked to be registered. He signed the application and waited a few of the board co inutes until the registrars had disposed of so e other e ber enced to ask a few #uestions. The old an told his atters, and being i pressed with his respectful bearing, so e
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story in a straight forward be a pretty old young 1ee
anner. He said3 "6entle en, I a
getting to y
an. I was born here in the )outh, and I followed
aster through all of the ca paigns in 2irginia, when 0as' ,ob ade it so war for the ;ankees. ,ut our luck left us at 6ettysburg. y leg before I got out of that scrape. ,ut I was not y young aster, 0r. e ber of the ,ur =ifles, >?th 0ississippi. He
The ;ankees got around in our rear there, and I got a bullet in the back of y head, and one in hurt uch, and y greatest an.iety was about
<ohn Holly, who was a
was a private and enlisted at <ackson, 0iss. "He could not be found the first day& I looked all a ong the dead on the battle field for hi and he was not there. Ne.t day I got a per it to go y young aster. /fter any hours of searching I through the hospitals, and I looked into the face of every soldier closely, in the hope of finding found hi , but he was dangerously wounded. I stayed by his side, wounded as I was, for three long weeks, but he gradually grew worse and then he died. I went out with the body and saw it buried as decently as I could, and then I went back to <ackson and told the young how brave he was in battle, how good he was to That is give istress e, and told her all the
words he had sent her, as he lay there on that rude cot in the hospital. y record as a *onfederate soldier, and if you gentle en care to uch obliged to you." It e a certificate of registration, I would be
is needless to say that old 5d. Harris got his certificate. It is insisted upon by the leaders of public opinion at the )outh, that negroes should not be given e#ual political and civil rights with white en, defined by law and enforceable by the courts& but that they should be content to strive to deserve the good wishes and friendly feeling of the whites, and if the )outh is let alone, they will see to it that negroes get beco ing treat ent.
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+hile there is a large nu ber of the high"toned, chivalrous ele ent of the old per it hi aster class yet living, who would stand by the negro and not to be wronged if they could prevent it, yet they are powerless ass of the poor whites who are ost bitter in their ind that the old
to control the great
pre(udices against the negro. They should also bear in
aster class is rapidly passing way, and that there is constantly an influ. of foreigners to the )outh, and in less than fifty years the Italians, or so e other foreign nationality, ay be the ruling class in all the )outhern ercy of a people without )tates& and the negro, deprived of all political and civil rights by the *onstitution and laws, would be wholly at the sy pathy for hi . In order to show the fallacy and the wrong and in(ustice of this doctrine, and how helplessly e.posed it leaves the negro to the pre(udices of the poor whites, I relate a tragedy in the life of a friend of ine, who was well known and respected in the town of =ayville, 1ouisiana. )ewall ) ith, for white any years ran the leading barber shop for whites in
the town of =ayville, and was well"liked and respected by the leading en of the entire parish. /t the suggestion of his custo ers he bought 1ouisiana state lands while they were cheap, before the railroad was put through between 2icksburg and )hreveport& and as the road passed near his lands he was thereby ade a rich an, as wealth goes in those parts. His good fortune, however, did not swell his head and he re ained the sa e to his friends. He beca e so useful in his parish that there was never a public gathering of the leading white business levee or river conventions sent fro places by white fro en that he was not invited to it, and he was always on the delegations to all the his parish. He was chosen to such an. en e.clusively& and in his own town he was as safe
wrong or in(ury, on account of his race or color, as any white
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/fter the trains began to run through =ayville, on the )hreveport road, he had occasion to visit the town of =uston, in another parish so e asked to carry his satchel. ) ith was a fine looking well, and could have easily been taken for a white iles in the interior, and as he got off at the depot, a barefoot, poor white boy ulatto, dressed an, and the boy
ight not have known at the ti e he was a negro. +hen he arrived at his stopping place he gave the boy such a large coin that he asked per ission to take his satchel back to the train on the following day when he was to return. The ne.t day the boy ca e for the satchel, and they had nearly reached the depot about train ti e, when they passed a saloon where a crowd of poor whites sat on bo.es whittling sticks. The sight of a negro having a white boy carrying his satchel #uite enraged the , and after cursing and abusing ) ith and the boy, they undertook to kick and assault ) ith. ) ith defended hi self. The result was a shooting affair, in which ) ith shot two or three of the and was hi self shot. The train rolled up while the fight was in progress, and without in#uiring the cause or asking any #uestions whatever, fully a hundred white en (u ped off the train and riddled ) ith with bullets. That was the end of it. Nobody was indicted or even arrested for killing an insolent "nigger" that did not keep his place. That is the way the affair was regarded in =uston. !f course, the people of =ayville very defend the rights of a negro against white and the atter dropped. ention the nu erous ways and any instances uch regretted it, but they could not do anything, and could not afford to en under such circu stances,
I have preferred not to co
in which the rights of negroes are denied in public places, and on the on carriers in the )outh, under circu stances very hu iliating and degrading. Nor have I cared to refer to the barbarous and inhu an prison
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syste s of the )outh, that are worse than anything the i agination can conceive in a civili$ed and *hristian land, as shown by reports of legislative co ittees.
If the negro can secure a fair and i partial trial in the courts, and can be secure in his life and liberty and property, so as not to be deprived of the e.cept by due process of law, and can have a voice in the aking and ad inistration of the laws, he shall have gone a great way in the )outh. It is to be hoped that public opinion can be awakened to this e.tent, and that it ay assist hi to attain that end.
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Chapter 6
The Characteristics of the Negro *eop%e
By H.T. +EALIN,
A frank statement of the virtues and failings of the race indicating very clearly the evils which must be overcome and the good which must be developed if success is really to attend the effort to uplift them! "he characteristics of the #egro are of two kinds$the inborn and the inbred! As they reveal themselves to us this distinction may not be seen but it e%ists! Inborn qualities are ineradicable& they belong to the blood&
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they constitute individuality& they are independent or nearly so of time and habitat! Inbred qualities are acquired and are the result of e%perience! "hey may be overcome by a reversal of the process which created them! "he fundamental or inborn characteristics of the #egro may be found in the African as well as the American #egro& but the inbred characteristics of the latter belong to the American life alone! There is but one hu an nature, sa e in all ade up of constituent ele ents the
en, and racial or national differences arise fro
the predo inance of one or another ele ent in this or that race. It is a #uestion of proportion. The Negro is not a *aucasian, not a *hinese, not an Indian& though no psychological #uality in the one is absent fro other. The sa e the oral sense, called conscience& the sa e love of
har ony in color or in sound& the sa e pleasure in ac#uiring knowledge& the sa e love of truth in word, or of fitness in relation& the sa e love of respect and approbation& the sa e vengeful or benevolent feelings& the sa e appetites, belong to all, but in varying proportions. They for indicia to a people's creating us. They constitute the the ission, and are our best guides to 6od's purpose in aterial to be worked on in educating a
race, and suggest in every case where the stress of civili$ation or education should be applied in order to follow the lines of least resistance. ,ut there are also certain anifestations, the result of training or neglect, characteristics to ust
which are not inborn. /s they are inculcable, so they are eradicable& and it is only by a loose ter inology that we apply the ter the without distinction between the and the inherent traits. In
considering the characteristics of the Negro people, therefore, we sy pathy and at first hand, the black
not confuse the constitutional with the re ovable. )tudied with an of / erica will be seen to
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possess certain predo inant idiosyncrasies of which the following for a fair catalogue3 'e is intensely religious! True religion is based upon a belief in the supernatural, upon faith and feeling. / people deeply superstitious are apt to be deeply religious, for both rest upon a belief in a spiritual world. )uperstition differs fro higher life& while the latter, haply," it religion in being the untrained and ysteries of the ore or less enlightened, "feels after 6od, if aster, in the days of slavery, while unenlightened gropings of the hu an soul after the
ay find Hi . The Negro gives abundant evidence of both
phases. The absolute inability of the church
successfully vetoing all other kinds of convocation, to stop the Negro's eetings, as well as the al ost pheno enal influence and growth inistrations of the *reator, are things aster class reposed ore faith in their uch of of his churches since& and his constant referring of every event, adverse or favorable, to the personal uni#ue and persistent. /nd the
slaves' religion oftti es than they did in their own. 4oubtless that of all other nations, is the result of the Negro loyalty to 6od. 'e is imaginative! This is not evinced so in poetical, a
the reverential feeling that pervades the / erican ho e to"day, above y's devotion and
uch in creative directions as
usical, co binatory, inventional and what, if coupled with ost unlettered slave abounded in tropes and ind is seen in all his natural efforts when the
learning, we call literary i agination. Negro elo#uence is proverbial. The crudest ser on of the the poetic #uality of his glowing tongue pictures of apochalyptic visions all his own& and, indeed, self"consciousness of education does not stand guard. The staid religious use of Phillis +heatley and the rollicking, so ewhat (ibing, verse of 4unbar show it e#ually, unpre editated and spontaneous.
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I have heard by the hour so e ordinary old uneducated Negro tell those ini itable ani al stories, brought to literary e.istence in "7ncle =e us," with such #uaint hu or, delicious conceit and conventional rating of /esop's 'ables could put the Then, there are a good asterly delineation of plot, character and incident that nothing but the in the sa e class. ore Negro inventors than the world supposes. This
faculty is i possible without a well"ordered i agination held in leash by e ory and large perception.
'e is affectionate and without vindictiveness! He does not nurse even great wrongs. 0ercurial as he is, often furiously angry and fre#uently in urderous ood, he co es nearer not letting the sun go down upon his an I know. 1ike ,rutus, he ay be co pared to anger than any other the flint which, "0uch enforced, shows a hasty spark,/nd straight is cold again." His affection is not less towards the *aucasian than to his own race. It is not saying too white in so uch to re ark that the soul of the Negro yearns for the an's good will and respect& and the old ties of love that subsisted any instances in the days of slavery still survive where the e." iles to see and
slave still lives. The touching case of a Negro ,ishop who returned to the )tate in which he had been a slave, and rode twenty alleviate the financial distress of his for er concerned. I know of another case of a aster is an e.ception to
nu erous other si ilar cases only in the pro inence of the Negro an whose tongue see s dipped in hyssop when he begins to tell of the wrongs of his race, and who will not allow anyone to say in his presence that any good ca e out of slavery, even incidentally& yet he supports the widowed and aged wife of his for er aster. /nd, surely, if these two instances are not sufficient
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to establish the general proposition, none will gainsay the patience, vigilance, loyalty and helpfulness of the Negro slave during the *ivil +ar, and of his good old wife who nursed white children at her breast at a ti e when all ties save those of affection were ruptured, and when no protection but devoted hearts watched over the "great house," whose head and aster was at the front, fighting to perpetuate slavery. +as it posted as well as the stupidity on the Negro's part- Not at all. He was well infor ed as to the occurrences of the ti es. / free asonry kept hi battle. +as it fear that kept hi whites were the selves on the course of the war and the issue of each at the old ho e- Not that, either. 0any any other thousands EB@@,@@@F thousands did cross the line to freedo &
fought in the ranks for freedo , but none of the %those who went and those who stayed%those who fought and those who worked,%betrayed a trust, outraged a fe ale, or rebelled against a duty. It was love, the natural wellings of affectionate natures. 'e has great endurance both dispositional and physical! )o true is the first that his patience has been the any, regarding this trait but arvel of the world& and, indeed, anifested in such an unusual degree, doubted
the Negro's courage, till the splendid record of the 'I@'s and the e#ual, ore recent, record of the 'C@'s, wrote forbearance as the real anly spirit. e.planation of an endurance see ingly so at variance with
!f his physical powers, his whole record as a laborer at killing tasks in the ost trying cli ate in / erica speaks so elo#uently that nothing but the statistics of cotton, corn, rice, sugar, railroad ties and felled forests can add to the praise of this burden"bearer of the nation. The census tables here are ore ro antic and thrilling than figures of rhetoric.
'e is courageous! His page in the war record of this country is without blot or ble ish. His co anders unite in pronouncing hi ad irable for
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courage in the field, co
endable for obedience in ca p. That he as a citi$en, is
should e.hibit such e.cellent fighting #ualities as a soldier, and yet e.ercise the forbearance that characteri$es hi re arkable. 'e is cheerful! His ivories are as fa ous as his songs. That the )outh is "sunny" is largely due to the brightness his rollicking laugh and unfailing good nature bring to it. Though the udsill of the labor world, he ar whistles as he hoes, and no dark broodings or whispered conspirings of his good cheer things that have crushed and cadence, he ight suppose the
the cheerful acceptance of the load he bears. /gainst the rubber bu per addened others rebound inor elancholy people. without da age. +hen one hears the #uaint (ubilee songs, set to the e.pressions of a
They are not to be so interpreted. =ather are they the e.pression of an e.perience, not a nature. 1ike the subdued voice of a caged bird, these songs are the coinage of an occasion, and not the free note of nature. The slave sang of griefs he was not allowed to discuss, hence his songs. This cheerfulness has enabled the Negro to live and increase under circu stances which, in all other instances, have deci ated, if not e.ter inated, inferior peoples. His plasticity to resiliency against crushing ones co e fro eats. The above traits are inborn and funda ental, belonging to the race everywhere, in /frica as well as / erica. )trict correctness re#uires, however, that attention be called to the fact that there are tribal differences a ong /frican Negroes that a ount al ost to the national variations of 5urope& and these are reflected in / erican Negroes, who are the descendants of these different tribes. There is as uch difference oulding forces and his a Thalian philosophy, funeral
unconscious and unstudied, that e.tracts 5picurean delights fro
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between the 0andingo and the Hottentot, both black, as between the Italian and the 6er an, both white& or between the ,ush an and the Lulu, both black, as between the =ussian and the 5nglish an, both white. )cientific e.actness, therefore, would re#uire a closer analysis of racial characteristics than an article of this length could give& but, speaking in a large way, it confor ity soul te.ture. If, now, we turn to consider his inbred traits, those the result of e.perience, conditions and environ ents, we find that they e.ist ainly as deficiencies and defor ities. These have been superi posed upon the native soul endow ent. )lavery has been called the Negro's great school aster, because it took hi took hi a heathen and released hi released hi the a savage and released hi a *hristian& took hi civili$ed& an idler and ay be said that in whatever outward ay co e to the race in / erica by reason of training or
contact, these traits will lie at the base, the very warp and woof of his
a laborer. 7ndoubtedly it did these things superficially, but
one great defect is to be charged against this school%it did not teach hi eaning of ho e, purity and providence. To do this is the burden of freedo . The e ancipated Negro struggles up to"day against any obstacles, the any
entail ent of a brutal slavery. 1eaving out of consideration the
who have already e erged, let us apply our thoughts to the great body of sub erged people in the congested districts of city and country who present a real proble , and who develop ent3 (hiftlessness! He had no need to devise and plan in bondage. There was no need for an enterprising spirit& conse#uently, he is lacking in ust be helped to higher things. +e note so e of the heritages under which they stagger up into full
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leadership and self"reliance. He is inclined to stay in ruts, and applies hi self listlessly to a task, feeling that the directive agency should co e fro without.
Incontinence! It is not to the point to say that others are, too. 7ndoubtedly, e.a ple has as uch to do with this la.ity as neglect. +e si ply record the fact. / slave's value was increased by his prolificacy. ,egetting children for the auction block could hardly sanctify fa ily ties. It was not nearly so necessary for a slave to know his father as his owner. /dded to the pro iscuity encouraged and often forced a ong this class, was the dreadful license which cast lustful *aucasian eyes upon "likely" Negro wo en. Indolence! 0ost ac#uired en are, especially in a war cli ate3 but the Negro as a bond an
ore than the natural share, because to hi
la$iness was great gain, for he had no pecuniary interest in his own labor. Hence, holidays were ore to be desired than whole labor days, and he ight, be e.cused as often as he could, and learned to do as little as he
hail )aturday as the oasis in a desert week. He hails it yet. The labor efficiency of the Negro has greatly increased since the e ancipation, for self"interest is a factor now. In >?IG, each Negro produced two"thirds of a bale of cotton& now he produces an average of one whole bale to the an. ,ut there is still woful waste of productive energy. / calculation showing the co parative productive capacity, an for an, between the Northern8,9 and )outhern laborer would be very interesting. Improvidence and E%travagance! He will drop the ost i portant (ob to
go on an e.cursion or parade with his lodge. He spends large su s on e.pensive clothing and lu.uries, while going without things necessary to a real ho e. He will cheerfully eat fat bacon and "pone" corn"bread all the week8*9 in order to indulge in unli ited soda"water, elon and fish
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at the end. In the cities he is oftener seen dealing with the pawn"broker than the banker. His house, when furnished at all, is better furnished that that of a white an of e#ual earning power, but it is on the install ent anage large concerns& but organs, plan. He is loath to buy a house, because he has no taste for responsibility nor faith in hi self to pianos, clocks, sewing" achines and parlor suits, on ti e, have no terrors for hi . This is because he has been accusto ed to think in s all nu bers. He does not regard the )cotch an's " ickle," because he does not stop to consider that the end is a " uckle." He has a assed, at full valuation, nearly a billion dollars' worth of property, despite this, but this is about one"half of what proper providence would have shown. )ntidiness! Travel through the )outh and you will be struck with the general fro isfit and dilapidated appearance of things. Palings are issing the fences, gates sag on single hinges, houses are unpainted,
window panes are broken, yards unke pt and the appearance of a s#ualor greater than the real is seen on every side. The inside of the house eets the suggestions of the outside. This is a pro(ection of the slave's "#uarters" into freedo . The cabin of the slave was, at best, a place to eat and sleep in& there was no thought of the esthetic in such places. / #uilt on a plank was a lu.ury to the tired far "hand, and paint was nothing to the poor, sun"scorched fellow who sought the house for shade rather than beauty. Habits of personal cleanliness were not inculcated, and even now it is the e.ception to find a in a )outhern ho e. *ishonesty! This is the logic, if not the training, of slavery. It is easy for the unre#uited toiler in another's field to (ustify reprisal& hence there arose a ong the Negroes an a ended *o and ent which added to "Thou shalt not steal" the clause, "e.cept thou be stolen fro ." It was no odern bath"roo
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great fault, then, according to this code, to purloin a pig, a sheep, a chicken, or a few potatoes fro )ntruthfulness! This is seen gossip and ake a aster who took all fro the slave.
ore in innocent and childish e.aggeration inds to run to atter"of"fact. The Negro also tells uch easier and pleasanter to say
than in vicious distortion. It is the vice of untutored iracles of the falsehoods fro
e.cess of good nature. He pro ises to do a piece of
work on a certain day, because it is so ;es, and stay away, than it is to say No. +usiness )nreliability! He does not
eet a pro ise in the way and at the
ti e pro ised. Not being accusto ed to business, he has s all conception of the place the pro ise has in the business world. It is only recently he has begun to deal with banks. He, who has no credit, sees849 no loss of it in a protested note, especially if he intends to pay it so e ti e. That chain which links one payer when he owes a white of the an's obligation to another an's solvency he has not considered. He is really as good and safe a debt" an as the latter can have, but the ethods odern bank, placing a ti e li it on debts, is his detestation. He
uch prefers the laisse,-faire of the )outhern plantation store. .ack of Initiative! It was the policy of slavery to crush out the co bining instinct, and it was well done& for, outside of churches and secret societies, the Negro has done little to increase the social efficiency which can co bine any en into an organic whole, sub(ect to the corporate ade so e hopeful beginnings. will and direction. He has, however,
(uspicion of his own race! He was taught to watch other Negroes and tell all that they did. This was slavery's native detective force to discover incipient insurrection. 5ach slave learned to distrust his fellow. /nd added to this is the knowledge one Negro has that no other has had half sufficient e.perience in business to be a wise counsellor, or a safe
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steward of another
an's funds. /l ost all Negroes who have ac#uired anage ent to white en.
wealth have entrusted its
Ignorance! The causes of his ignorance all know. That he has thrown off one"half of it in forty years is a wonderful showing& but a great incubus re ains in the other half, and it de ands the nation's attention. +hat the census calls literacy is often very shallow. The cause of this shallowness lies, in part, in the poor character and short duration of )outhern schools& in the poverty that snatches the child fro for bread& in the ultitude of ushroo school pre aturely to work colleges and get"s art"#uick
universities scattered over the )outh, and in the gla our of a professional education that entices poorly prepared students into special work. /dd to this, too, the co ercialis of the age which regards each day in
school as a day out of the
arket. ,oys and girls by scores learn the
echanical parts of type"writing and stenography without the basal culture which gives these callings their greatest efficiency. They copy a anuscript, *hinese"like, istakes and all& they take you phonetically in akes it hard to sense as well as sound, having no reserve to draw upon to interpret a learned allusion or unusual phrase. Thus while pre(udice secure a place, auto"deficiency loses any a one that is secured.
+e have discussed the leading characteristics of the Negro, his inborn e.cellencies and inbred defects, candidly and as they are to be seen in the great ass whose place deter ines the status of the race as a whole. It would, however, be to s all purpose if we did not ask what can be done to develop the innate good and correct the bad in a race so puissant and nu erous- This ass is not inert& it has great reactionary force, odifying and influencing all about it. The Negro's e.cellences have entered into / erican character and life already& so have his
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weaknesses. He has brought cheer, love, e otion and religion in saving easure to the land. He has given it wealth by his brawn and liberty by his blood. His self"respect, even in abase ent, has kept hi kept hi of fro struggling upward& his confidence in his own future has infected his friends and nursing despondency or planning anarchy. ,ut he has laid, and does lay, burdens upon the land, too3 his ignorance, his low average orality, his low standards of ho e, his lack of enterprise, his lack of ust be cured. self"reliance%these
5vidently, he is to be "solved" by educational processes. 5veryone of his inborn traits ust be respected and developed to proper proportion. ust not be carelessly dealt with, for they 5.cesses and e.crescences tilled it. His religion
ark the fertility of a soil that raises rank weeds because no gardener has ust beco e "ethics touched with feeling"%not a ust be given a rudder to ust be pedestaled arch. His affection paro.ys , but a principle. His i agination
guide its sails& and the first fruits of its proper e.ercise, as seen in a 4unbar, a *hesnutt, a *oleridge"Taylor and a Tanner, along the /ppian +ay over which others are to ust be
et with larger love& his patience rewarded with privilege& his within the best efforts of good
courage called to defend the rights of others rather than redress his own wrongs. Thus shall he supple ent fro en without. To cure the evils entailed upon hi by an unhappy past, he ust be
educated to work with skill, with self"direction, in co bination and unre ittingly. Industrial education with constant application, is the slogan of his rise fro that e.ceptional ones, who racial pauperis to productive anliness. Not inds should not have e.ceptional opportunities Eand a(ority of awkward and unskilled
they already e.istF& but that the great
ust work so ehow, so ewhere, all the ti e, shall have their
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opportunities for training in industrial schools near the who
and with
courses consonant with the lives they are to lead. 1et the ninety and nine ust work, either with trained or fu bling hands, have a chance. ore than any schools are now doing, in orals%to speak Train the Negro to accept and carry responsibility by putting it upon hi . Train hi , the truth, to keep a pro ise, to touch only his own property, to trust the trustworthy a ong his own race, to risk so ething in business, to strike out in new lines of endeavor, to buy houses and subordinate safe ake ho es, to regard beauty as well as utility, to save rather than display. In short, let us ere knowledge to the work of invigorating the will, oral vision. 1et us ake ountebanks& let us put deftness in daily on sense, well trained, ultitude but butter no energi$ing productive effort and clarifying en rather than vociferous labor above sleight"of"hand tricks, and co above classical s atterings, which awe the parsnips. If we do this, / erica will have enriched her blood, ennobled her record and shown the world how to deal with its 4ark =aces without reproach.
7e?t here.
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Chapter 7
Representati'e American Negroes
,y P/71 1/7=5N*5 47N,/= /n enu eration of so e of the noteworthy / erican Negroes of to"day and yesterday, with so e account of their lives and their work. In this paper 0r. 4unbar has turned out his largest and ost successful picture of the colored people. It is a noble canvas crowded with heroic figures.
In considering who and what are representative Negroes there are circu stances which co pel one to #uestion what is a representative an of the colored race. )o e en are born great, so e achieve greatness and others lived during the reconstruction period. To have achieved so ething for the better ent of his race rather than for the aggrandi$e ent of hi self, see s to be a ethods or even through skillful (anitorship of the *ourt House, "representative," but is heI have in to e is ind a young an in ,alti ore, ,ernard Taylor by na e, who an's best title to be called representative. The street corner politician, who through #uestionable anipulation, succeeds in securing the ay be written up in the local papers as
ore truly representative of the race than half of the "<udges,"
"*olonels," "4octors" and "Honorables" whose stock cuts burden the pages of our negro (ournals week after week. I have said that he is
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young. ,eyond that he is #uiet and unobtrusive& but #uiet as he is, the worth of his work can be so ewhat esti ated when it is known that he has set the standard for young population in the world. It is not that as an individual he has ridden to success one enterprise after another. It is not that he has shown capabilities far beyond his years, nor yet that his personal energy will not let hi i portance of hi all for good, and in a large co stop at one triu ph. The lies in the fact that his influence upon his fellows is unity of young Negroes the worth of that striving is worth en in a city that has the largest colored
this cannot be over"esti ated. He has taught the he stands out fro the
while, and by the very force of his e.a ple of industry and perseverance, ass. He does not tell how to do things, he ore to his success than his ust be, ore closely followed by his observers, its worship of the political en." does the . Nothing has contributed alertness, and nothing has been
and yet I so eti es wonder when looking at hi , how old he how world weary, before the race turns fro (anitor and says of hi , "this is one of our representative This, however, is a
atter of values and neither the negro hi self, his
friends, his ene ies, his lauders, nor his critics has grown #uite certain in appraising these. The rabid agitator who goes about the land preaching the independence and glory of his race, and by his very retarding both, the saintly sins of the world and fro the issionary, whose only who "Pooh ,ah," to be insulted& the outhings ission is like that of
an of the cloth who thunders against the honest wo en draw away their skirts,
an who talks te perance 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 attain ent and achieve ent.
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7nder the pure light of reason, the ignorant carpet bagger (udge is a person and not a personality. The illiterate and inefficient black who not representative. )o the peculiar conditions of the days i after the war have ade it necessary to draw fine distinctions. an, circu stance put into *ongress, was "a representative" but was ediately
+hen =obert ) alls, a slave, piloted the *onfederate ship Planter out of *harleston Harbor under the very guns of the en who were e ploying hi , who owned hi , his body, his soul, and the husk of his allegiance, and brought it over to the 7nion, it is a #uestion which forty years has not settled as to whether he was a hero or a felon, a patriot or a traitor. )o uch has been said of the old Negro's fidelity to his so ething different asters that ight have been e.pected of hi . ,ut take the
singular conditions3 the first faintstreaks of a long delayed dawn had (ust begun to illu ine the sky and this black pilot with his face turned toward the 5ast had no eye for the darkness behind hi . He had no ti e to analy$e his position, the right or wrong of it. He had no opportunity to #uestion whether it was loyalty to a union in which he aspired to citi$enship, or disloyalty to his asters of the despised confederacy. It was not a ti e to argue, it was a ti e to do& and with rare power of decision, skill of action and with indo itable courage, he steered the good ship Planter past 'ort <ohnson, past 'ort )u ter, past 0orris Island, out where the flag, the flag of his hopes and fears floated over the federal fleet. /nd =obert ) alls had done so ething, so ething that ade hi loved and hated, praised and ade hi anhood. a far cry fro =obert ) alls, the pilot of the Planter, to aligned, revered and despised, but so ething that sturdy Negro It ay see representative of the best that there is in
,ooker T. +ashington, Principal of the Institute at Tuskegee, /laba a.
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,ut
uch the sa e traits of character have
ade the success of the two
en& the knowledge of what to do, the courage to do it, and the following out of a single purpose. They are both pilots, and the waters through which their hel s have swung have been e#ually stor y. The ethods of both have been #uestioned& but singularly neither one has stopped to #uestion hi self, but has gone straight on to his goal over the barriers of criticis , alice and distrust. The secret of 0r. +ashington's power is organi$ation, and organi$ation after all is only a concentration of force. This concentration only e.presses his own personality, in which every trait and #uality tend toward one definite end. They say of this that he is a an of one idea, but that one is a great one and he has an erely
concentrated all his powers upon it& in other words he has organi$ed hi self and gone forth to gather in whatever about hi was essential.
Pilot he is, steadfast and unafraid, strong in his own belief,%yes strong enough to ake others believe in hi . +ithout doubt or skepticis , hi self he has confounded the skeptics. 1ess states anlike than 4ouglass, less scholarly than 4u,ois, less elo#uent than the late <.*. Price, he is yet the fore ost figure in Negro national life. He is a great educator and a great not always agree with hi , one produced no an, and though one ay ust always respect hi . The race has ost astute
ore adroit diplo atist than he. The state ent is broad but
there is no better proof of it than the fact that while he is our
politician, he has succeeded in convincing both hi self and the country that he is not in politics. He has none of the #ualities of the curb"stone politician. He is bigger, broader, better, and the highest co pli ent that could be paid hi is that through all his ups and downs, with all he has seen of hu anity, he has kept his faith and his ideals. +hile 0r. +ashington stands pre"e inent in his race there are other na es that
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ust be
entioned with hi
as co"workers in the education of the world, entioned and passed.
na es that for lack of ti e can be only
+.H. *ouncil, of Nor al, /laba a, has been doing at his school a good and great work along the sa e lines as Tuskegee. =.=. +right, of the )tate *ollege of 6eorgia, "+e'se a"risin' +right," he is called, and by his own life and work for his people he has was his essage fro ade true the boyish prophecy we'se a"risin," and by so" ever since. The which in the old days inspired +hittier's poe . Three decades ago this the lowly )outh, "Tell 'e elted into the essage fro thought, by word, by deed, he has been "Tellin' e old )outhern school has
isty shades of an unregretted the heart of the )outhland to artyred President did not
past. / new generation, new issues, new conditions, have replaced the old, but the boy who sent that blush to call hi )o friend. aking of teachers y part, there are the North's heart of hearts has risen, and a
uch of the Negro's ti e has been given to the ore than usually forceful. 'or
that it is difficult to stop when one has begun enu erating so e of those who have stood out two ore who I cannot pass over. Kelly 0iller, of Howard 7niversity,
+ashington, 4.*., is another instructor far above the average. He is a athe atician and a thinker. The world has long been convinced of what the colored an could do in usic and in oratory, but it has always been skeptical, when he is to be considered as a student of any e.act science. 0iller, in his own person, has settled all that. He finished at <ohns Hopkins where they will re e ber hi . He is not only a teacher but an author who writes with authority upon his chosen the es, whether he is always known as a Negro writer or not. He is endowed with an accurate, analytical ind, and the ost engaging blackness, for which so e of us thank 6od, because there can be no argu ent as to the source of his
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ental powers. Now of the other, +illia 5.,. 4u,ois, what shall be said- 5ducator an against a
and author, political econo ist and poet, an 5astern
)outhern back"ground, he loo s up strong, vivid and in bold relief. I say loo s advisedly, because, intellectually, there is so ething so distinctively big about the *ru Harvard gave hi about hi an. )ince the death of the aged 4r. ell, we have had no such ripe and finished scholar. 4r. 4u,ois, to us, and there he received his Ph.4., i presses one of certain power, whether as a searcher
as having reduced all life and all literature to a perfect syste . There is a fascinating cal after econo ic facts, under the wing of the 7niversity of Pennsylvania, or defying the "powers that be" in a Negro college or leading his pupils along the way of light, one always feels in hi conscious, restrained, but assured force. )o e years ago in the course of his researches, he took occasion to tell his own people so e plain hard truths, and oh, what a howl of protest and denunciation went up fro disturbed his for a single their asse bled throats, but it never once agnificent cal . He believed what he had said, and not o ent did he think of abandoning his position. this sa e sense of
He goes at truth as a hard"riding old 5nglish s#uire would take a difficult fence. 1et the ditch be beyond if it will. 4r. 4u,ois would be the first to disclai style, his fancy, his i agery, all bid hi the na e of poet but of his
everything outside of his statistical work convicts hi . The rhyth
bide with those whose souls go
singing by a golden way. He has written a nu ber of notable pa phlets and books, the latest of which is "The )oul of the ,lack 'olk," an invaluable contribution to the discussion of the race proble who knows whereof he speaks. by a an
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4r. 4u,ois is at /tlanta 7niversity and has had every opportunity to observe all the phases of / erica's great #uestion, and I wish I write at length of his books. It ay be urged that too uch ti e has already been taken up with the ust ight
educational side of the Negro, but the reasonableness of this ost helpful en of the race have co e fro
beco e apparent when one re e bers that for the last forty years the the ranks of its teachers, ay have and few of those who have finally done any big thing, but have at so e ti e or other held the scepter of authority in a school. They changed later and grown, indeed they ca e largely fro ust have done so, but the fact
re ains that their poise, their discipline, the i pulse for their growth their work in the school roo . ore notable e.a ple of this phase of Negro life
There is perhaps no
than the Hon. =ichard Theodore 6reener, our present *onsul at 2ladivostok. He was, I believe, the first of our race to graduate fro Harvard and he has always been regarded as one of the ost scholarly en who, through the touch of Negro blood, belongs to us. He has been historian, (ournalist and lecturer, but back of all this he was a teacher& and for years after his graduation he was a distinguished professor at the ost fa ous of all the old Negro colleges. This institution is now a thing of the past, but the of the en who knew it in its pal y days speak of it still the na es and #ualities or possessed a better with longing and regret. It is clai ed, and fro the black e#uipped or an has furnished a finer curriculu
en, not without (ustice, that no school for the higher education of ore efficient faculty. / ong these, =ichard T. 6reener was
a bright, particular star. /fter the passing of the school, 0r. 6reener turned to other activities. His highest characteristics were a fearless patience and a hope that
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buoyed hi
up through days of doubt and disappoint ent. /uthor and
editor he was, but he was not satisfied with these. ,eyond their scope were higher things that beckoned hi . Politics, or perhaps better, political science, allured hi , and he applied hi self to a course that brought hi and black. / of events he into inti ate contact with the leaders of his country, white an of wide infor ation, great knowledge and close grasp ade hi self invaluable to his party and then with his usual
patience awaited his reward. The story of how he ca e to his own cannot be told without (ust a shade of bitterness darkening the s ile that one for which he had worked triu phed. The gained their goal and now, 6reener ust give to it all. The cause en for who he had striven
ust be recogni$ed, but% ariti e
2ladivostok, your dictionary will tell you, is a sea"port in the
Province of )iberia, situated on the 6olden Horn of Peter the 6reat. It will tell you also that it is the chief =ussian naval station on the Pacific. It is an out of the way place and one who has not the world"circling desire would rather hesitate before setting out thither. It was to this post that 0r. 6reener was appointed. "5.ile," his friends did not hesitate to say. "+hy didn't the 6overn ent ake it a sentence instead of veiling it in the guise of an appoint ent-" asked others sarcastically. "+ill he go-" That was the general #uestion that rose and fell, whispered and thundered about the new appointee, and in the idst of it all, silent and dignified, he kept his council. The ne.t thing +ashington knew he was gone. There was a gasp of astonish ent and then things settled back into their for er state of onotony and 6reener was forgotten.
,ut in the eastern sky, darkness began to arise, the warning flash of
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danger swept across the heavens, the thunder dru 'or a
of war began to roll.
o ent the world listened in breathless suspense, the suspense of
horror. 1ouder and louder rose the thunder peal until it drowned every other sound in the ears of the nation, every other sound save the cries and wails of dying wo en and the shrieks of tortured children. Then 'rance, 5ngland, 6er any, <apan and / erica arshalled their forces and swept eastward to save and toavenge. The story of the ,o.er uprising has been told, but little has been said of how 2ladivostok, "/ sea"port in the ariti e Province of )iberia," beca e one of the of co fre#uently to be heard fro had wished to get hi ost i portant points unication with the outside world, and its *onsul ca e by the )tate 4epart ent. /nd so 6reener
after years of patience and toil had co e to his own. If the govern ent out of the way, it had reckoned without *hina.
/ new order of things has co e into Negro"/ erican politics and this an has beco e a part of it. It atters not that he began his work under an eighty years of age, but he, the old regi e. )o did <udge 6ibbs, a
too, has kept abreast of the ti es, and although the re iniscences in his delightful autobiography take one back to the ha$y days when the land was young and politics a ore strenuous thing than it is even now, when ind is still active, there was anarchy in 1ouisiana and civil war in /rkansas, when one shot first and #uestioned afterward& yet because his because he has changed his influence over young ethods with the changing ti e, because his
en is greatly potent still& he is, in the race,
perhaps, the best representative of what the old has brought to the new. ,eside hi strong, forceful, co anding, stands the figure of 6eorge H.
+hite, whose farewell speech before the 'ifty"si.th *ongress, when through the disfranchise ent of Negroes he was defeated for re"election, stirred the country and fired the hearts of his brothers. He has won his
place through honesty, bravery and aggressiveness. He has given so ething to the nation that the nation needed, and with such but a en as Pinchback, 1ynch, Terrell and others of like ilk, acting in concert, it is atter of ti e when his worth shall induce a repentant people, with a (ustice builded upon the foundation of its old pre(udice, to ask the Negro back to take a hand in the affairs of state. /dd to all this the facts that the Negro has his representatives in the co ercial world3 0c*oy and 6ranville T. +oods, inventors& in the his own railway siding seventy"two thousand five ilitary, with *apt. *harles /. edicine, he an, is one of agricultural world with <.H. 6roves, the potato king of Kansas, who last year shipped fro hundred bushels of potatoes alone& in the
;oung, a +est Pointer, now stationed at the Presidio& that in surgeons of the country& that 5dward H. 0orris, a black the walk of life he has race proble
possesses in 4aniel H. +illia s, of *hicago, one of the really great ost brilliant lawyers at the brilliant *ook *ounty bar& that in every en and wo en who stand for so ething definite e that there can be little doubt that the
and concrete, and it see s to
will gradually solve itself. ust not be
I have spoken of " en and wo en," and indeed the wo en forgotten, for to the i pulse that drives the upon the platfor the en look for
uch of the inspiration and
forward to success. 0rs. 0ary *hurch Terrell
speaking for Negro wo anhood and 0iss )arah
,rown, her direct opposite, a little wo an sitting up in her aerie above a noisy New ;ork street, stand for the very best that there is in our others, wives and sisters. The one fully in the public eye, with learning and elo#uence, telling the hopes and fears of her kind& the other in suffering and retire ent, with her knowledge of the hu an heart and her gentleness inspiring all who eet her to better and nobler lives. They are
both doing their work bravely and grandly. ,ut when the unitiate ask who is "la Petite =eine," we think of the #uiet little wo an in a New ;ork fifth floor back and are silent. )he is a patron of all our literature and art and we have both. +hether it is a new song by +ill 0arion *ook or a new book by 4u,ois or *hestnut, than who no one has ever told the life of the Negro ore accurately and convincingly, she knows it and has a kindly word of praise or encourage ent. In looking over the field for such an article as this, one (ust begins to reali$e how two Tanners. 'ro ti e i e orial, =eligion and /rt have gone together, but it in the persons of these two en, in the any Negroes are representative of so ething, and now it see s that in closing no better na es could be chosen than those of the
re ained for us to place the
relation of father and son. ,ishop ,en(. Tucker Tanner, of the /.0.5. *hurch, is not only a theologian and a priest, he is a dignified, polished an of the higher world and a poet. He has succeeded because he was prepared for success. /s to his writings, he will, perhaps, think respecting this, will turn fro ost highly of "His /pology 'or /frican 0ethodis &" but so e of us, while it to the poe s and hy ns that have sung the selves out of his gentle heart. Is it any wonder that his son, Henry !. Tanner, is a poet with the brush or that the 'rench 6overn ent has found it out- 'ro co e the the father ust have an's artistic i pulse, and he carried it on and on to a golden
fruition. In the 1u.e bourg gallery hangs his picture, "The =aising of 1a$arus." /t the /cade y of 'ine /rts, Philadelphia, I saw his "/nnunciation," both a long way fro of hi his ",an(o 1esson," and thinking I began to wonder whether, in spite of all the industrial tu ult, it
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were not in the field of art,
usic and literature that the Negro was to erely
ake his highest contribution to / erican civili$ation. ,ut this is a #uestion which ti e will answer. /ll these of who advance ent of I have spoken are
en who have striven and achieved
and the reasons underlying their success are the sa e that account for the en of any other race3 preparation, perseverance, bravery, patience, honesty and the power to sei$e the opportunity. It is a little dark still, but there are warnings of the day and so ewhere out of the darkness a bird is singing to the 4awn.
The Negro-s *%ace in American Life at the *resent Day

BY . !"#A$ %"& 'N( *onsidering the two hundred and forty"five years of his slavery and the co paratively short ti e he has en(oyed the opportunities of freedo , his place in / erican life at the present day is creditable to hi and pro ising for the future.
. !"#A$ %"& 'N(. There can be no healthy growth in the life of a race or a nation without a self"reliant spirit ani ating the whole body& if it a ounts to opti is , devoid of egotis and vanity, so uch the better. This spirit necessarily ay be, and carries with it intense pride of race, or of nation, as the case
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ra ifies the whole conditions of which en" to
ass, inspiring and shaping its thought and effort, ay be,%as it takes "all sorts and ake up a social order, instinct with the a bition ost powerful illustration
however hu ble or e.alted these
and the activity which work for "high thinking and right living," of odern evolution in all directions is the in history. If pride of ancestry can, happily, be added to pride of race and nation, and these are re"enforced by self"reliance, courage and correct oral living, the possible success of such people ay be accepted, without e#uivocation, as a foregone conclusion. I have found all of these re#uire ents so finely blended in the life and character of no people as that of the <apanese, who are (ust now e erging fro of ages" into the vivifying sunlight of odern progress. "the double night
+hat is the Negro's place in / erican life at the present dayThe answer depends entirely upon the point of view. 7nfortunately for the /fro"/ erican people, they have no pride of ancestry& in the few of the "daughter of an hundred earls" of who there are probably ain, can trace their parentage back four generations& and the any, is
unconscious of her descent, and would profit nothing by it if this were not true. The blood of all the ethnic types that go to ten not illion of the ore than four ake up / erican citi$enship flows in the veins of the /fro"/ erican people, so that of the in this country, accounted for by the 'ederal census, illion are of pure negroid descent, while so e four
illion of the , not accounted for by the 'ederal census, have escaped into the ranks of the white race, and are re"enforced very largely by such escape ents every year. The vitiation of blood has operated irresistibly to weaken that pride of ancestry, which is the foundation"stone of pride of race& so that the /fro"/ erican people have been held together rather by the segregation decreed by law and public opinion than by ties of
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consanguinity since their
anu ission and enfranchise ent. It is not ass, that there is as a ong easure,
because they are poor and ignorant and oppressed, as a
no such sy pathy of thought and unity of effort a ong the
Irish en and <ews the world over, but because the vitiation of blood, beyond the honorable restrictions of law, has destroyed, in large that pride of ancestry upon which pride of race ust be builded. In
no other logical way can we account for the failure of the /fro"/ erican people to stand together, as other oppressed races do, and have done, for the righting of wrongs against the authori$ed by the laws of the several ore noticeable states, if not by the 'ederal *onstitution, and sanctioned or tolerated by public opinion. In nothing has this radical defect been since the +ar of the =ebellion than in the unifor courts of law and in the foru guaranteed to the failure of the people
to sustain such civic organi$ations as e.ist and have e.isted, to test in the of public opinion the validity of organic of the civil and political rights are the laws of )tates intended to deprive the
by the 'ederal *onstitution. The two such
organi$ations of this character which have appealed to the
National /fro"/ erican 1eague, organi$ed in *hicago, in >?C@, and the National /fro"/ erican *ouncil, organi$ed in =ochester, New ;ork, out of the 1eague, in >?C?. The latter organi$ation still e.ists, the strongest of its kind, but it has never co anded the sy pathy and support of the en of the race asses of the people, nor is there, or has there been, substantial agree ent and concert of effort a ong the thoughtful petty along these lines. They have been restrained by selfish, personal and otives, while the constitutional rights which vitali$e their citi$enship have been "denied or abridged" by legislation of certain of the )tates and by public opinion, even as Nero fiddled while =o e burned. If they had been actuated by a strong pride of ancestry and of race, if they had felt that in(ury to one was in(ury to all, if they had hung
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together instead of hanging separately, their place in the civil and political life of the =epublic to"day would not be that, largely, of pariahs, with none so poor as to do the honor, but that of e#uality of right under the law en(oyed by all other alien ethnic forces in our citi$enship. They who will not help the selves are usually not helped by others. They who ake a loud noise and courageously contend for what is theirs, usually en(oy the respect and confidence of their fellows and get, in the end, what belongs to the , or a reasonable odification of it.
/s a conse#uence of inability to unite in thought and effort for the conservation of their civil and political rights, the /fro"/ erican Negroes and colored people have lost, by funda ental enact ents of the old slave"holding )tates, all of the civil and political rights guaranteed the by the 'ederal *onstitution, in the full en(oy ent of which they the adoption of the +ar / end ents up to >?JI"J, when they were fro
were sacrificed by their =epublican allies of the North and +est, in the alienation of their )tate govern ents, in order to save the Presidency to 0r. =utherford ,. Hayes of !hio. Their reverses in this slave"holding )tates, coupled with a vast atter in the old ass of class legislation,
odelled on the slave code, have affected the /fro"/ erican people in their civil and political rights in all of the )tates of the =epublic, especially as far as public opinion is concerned. This was inevitable, and follows in every instance in history where a race ele ent of the citi$enship is set aside by law or public opinion as separate and distinct fro its fellows, with a fi.ed status or caste.
It will take the /fro"/ erican people fully a century to recover what they lost of civil and political e#uality under the law in the )outhern )tates, as a result of the re"actionary and bloody ove ent begun in the =econstruction period by the )outhern whites, and cul inating in >?JJ,
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%the e.cesses of the =econstruction govern ents, about which so and corruption of Northern carpet"baggers, who were the
uch
is said to the discredit of the Negro, being chargeable to the weakness aster and responsible spirits of the ti e and the situation, rather than to the weakness, the ignorance and venality of their Negro dupes, who, very naturally, followed where they led, as any other grateful people would have done. 'or, were not these sa e Northern carpet"baggers the direct representatives of the 6overn ent and the /r y which crushed the slave power and broke the shackles of the slave- 5ven so. The Northern carpet"baggers planned and got the plunder, and have it& the Negro got the credit and the odiu , and have the history, that the innocent dupes are cri es of the guilty. The recovery of civil and political rights under the *onstitution, as "denied or abridged" by the constitutions of the )tates, ore especially those of the old slave holding ones, will be a slow and tedious process, and will co e to the individual rather than to the race, as the reward of character and thrift& because, for reasons already stated, it will hardly be possible in the future, as it has not been in the past, to unify the ass of the /fro"/ erican people, in thought and conduct, for a proper contention in the courts and at the ballot"bo. and in the education of public opinion, to acco plish this purpose. Perhaps there is no other instance in history where everything depended so largely upon the individual, and so little upon the ass of his race, for that develop ent akes ore surely for an in the religious and civic virtues which enact ents built upon the . ,ut even fro this point of view, I a disposed to believe that the yet. It often happens that way in ade to suffer for the isdeeds and
honorable status in any citi$enship than constitutions or legislative
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Negro's civil and political rights are everything relating to hi
ore fir ly fi.ed in law and public
opinion than was true at the close of the =econstruction period, when was unsettled and confused, based in legislative guarantees, sub(ect to approval or disapproval of the do inant public opinion of the several )tates, and that he will gradually work out his own salvation under the *onstitution,%such as *harles )u ner, Thaddeus )tevens, ,en(a in '. ,utler, 'rederick 4ouglass, and their co" workers, hoped and labored that he ight en(oy. He has lost nothing by en in like under the funda ental law& such of these restrictions, as apply to hi the law of certain of the )tates, necessarily apply to white
circu stances of ignorance and poverty, and can be overco e, in ti e, by assiduous courtship of the school aster and the bank cashier. The e.tent to which the individual restrictions e bers of the race are overco ing the ade a bar to their en(oy ent of civil and political rights
under the *onstitution is gratifying to those who wish the race well and who look beyond the present into the future3 while it is disturbing the drea s of those who spend ost of their ti e and thought in abortive an or race could ake for efforts to "keep the 'nigger' in his place"%as if any
have a place in the world's thought and effort which he did not
hi self: In our grand =epublic, at least, it has been so often de onstrated as to beco e proverbial, that the door of opportunity shall be closed to no an, and that he shall be allowed to have that place in akes for hi self. )o it is with the Negro in the future as a race- To our national life which he
now, as an individual. +ill it be so with hi
answer that we shall first have to deter ine that he has a race. However he ay be lacking in pride of ancestry and race, no one can
accuse the Negro of lack of pride of Nation and )tate, and even of county. Indeed, his pride in the =epublic and his devotion to it are a ong
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the
ost pathetic phases of his pathetic history, fro
<a estown, in
>IB@, to )an <uan Hill, in >?C?. He has given everything to the =epublic, %his labor and blood and prayers. +hat has the =epublic given hi , but blows and rebuffs and cri inal ingratitude: /nd he stands now, ready and eager, to give the =epublic all that he has. +hat does the =epublic stand ready and eager to give hi - 1et the answer co e out of the of the future. It is a fair conclusion that the Negro has a fir er and =econstruction period, parado.ical as this ore assured civil any, despite outh
and political status in / erican life to"day than at the close of the ay appear to the adverse legislation of the old slave"holding )tates, and the tolerant favor shown such legislation by the 'ederal )upre e *ourt, in such opinions as it has delivered, fro ti e to ti e, upon the sub(ect, since the adoption of the +ar a end ents to the 'ederal *onstitution. Technically, the Negro stands upon e#uality with all other citi$ens under this large body of special and class legislation& but, as a atter of fact, it is so fra ed that the greatest ine#uality prevails, and was intended to prevail, in the ad inistration of it by the several )tates chiefly concerned. /s long as such legislation by the )tates specifies, on the face of it, that it shall operate upon all citi$ens e#ually, however une#ually and un(ustly the legislation ay be interpreted and ad inistered by the local courts, the 'ederal )upre e *ourt has held, ti e and again, that no hardship was worked, and, if so, that the aggrieved had his recourse in appeal to the higher courts of the )tate of which he is a citi$en,%a recourse at this ti e precisely like that of carrying coal to New *astle. 7nder the circu stances, there is no alternative for the Negro citi$en but to work out his salvation under the *onstitution, as other citi$ens have done and are doing. It will be a long and tedious process before the
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e#uitable ad(ust ent has been attained, but that does not
uch
atter, as uch ti e
full and fair en(oy ent of civil and political rights re#uires
and patience and hard labor in any given situation, where two races co e together in the sa e govern ental environ ent& such as is the case of the Negro in / erica, the Irish an in Ireland, and the <ew everywhere in 5urope. It is (ust as well, perhaps, that the Negro will have to work out his salvation under the *onstitution as an individual rather than as a race, as the <ew has done it in 6reat ,ritain and as the Irish an will have to do it under the sa e 5 pire, as it is and has been the tendency of our law and precedent to subordinate race ele ents and to e.alt the individual citi$ens as indivisible "parts of one stupendous whole." +hen this has been acco plished by the law in the case of the Negro, as in the case of other alien ethnic ele ents of the citi$enship, it will be ore gradually, but assuredly, acco plished by society at large, the indestructible foundation of which was laid by the reckless and brutal prostitution of black wo en by white which a vast ar y of gradually, by honorable en in the days of slavery, fro ulattoes were produced, who have been and are, arriage a ong the selves, changing the
alleged "race characteristics and tendencies" of the Negro people. / race ele ent, it is safe and fair to conclude, incapable, like that of the North / erican Indian, of such a process of eli ination and assi ilation, will always be a thorn in the flesh of the =epublic, in which there is, ad ittedly, no place for the integrality and growth of a distinct race type. The /fro"/ erican people, for reasons that I have stated, are even now very far fro being such a distinct race type, and without further e that this view of the atter has not ad i.ture of white and black blood, will continue to be less so to the end of the chapter. It see s to the selves up as past grand received the consideration that it deserves at the hands of those who set asters in the business of "solving the race
proble ," and in accurately defining "The Negro's Place in / erican 1ife at the Present 4ay." The negroid type and the /fro"/ erican type are two very distinct types, and the sociologist who confounds the , as is very generally done, is bound to confuse his sub(ect and his audience. It is a debatable #uestion as to whether the Negro's present industrial position is better or worse than it was, say, at the close of the =econstruction period. /s a ass, I a inclined to the opinion that it is ost worse, as the laws of the )tates where he is congregated
nu erously are so fra ed as to favor the e ployer in every instance, and he does not scruple to get all out of the industrial slave that he can& which is, in the ain, vastly ore than the slave aster got, as the latter edical ade a was at the e.pense of housing, feeding, clothing and providing trouble. Prof. +.5.,. 4u,ois, of /tlanta 7niversity, who has industrial phase of the 'olk," pp. DC"A@F3 "'or this iles, he uch all en know3 4espite co pro ise, war and struggle, the iles and to an
service for his chattel, while the for er is relieved of this e.pense and critical study of the rural Negro of the )outhern )tates, su s up the atter in the following E"The )ouls of ,lack
Negro is not free. In the backwoods of the 6ulf )tates, for
ay not leave the plantation of his birth& in well"nigh the whole which the only escape is death or the
rural )outh the black far ers are peons, bound by law and custo econo ic slavery, fro penitentiary. In the
ost cultured sections and cities of the )outh the
Negroes are a segregated servile caste, with restricted rights and privileges. ,efore the courts, both in law and custo , they stand on a different and peculiar basis. Ta.ation without representation is the rule of their political life. /nd the result of all this is, and in nature been, lawlessness and cri e." ust have
It is a dark and gloo y picture, the substitution of industrial for chattel slavery, with none of the legal and selfish restraints upon the e ployer which surrounded and actuated the aster. /nd this is true of the entire ass of the /fro"/ erican laborers of the )outhern )tates. !ut of the ass have arisen a large nu ber of individuals who own and till their own lands. This ele ent is very largely recruited every year, and to this source ust we look for the gradual under ining of the industrial ass of the people. Here, too, we have a long and tedious slavery of the
process of evolution, but it is nothing new in the history of races circu stanced as the /fro"/ erican people are. That the Negro is destined, however, to be the landlord and aster agriculturist of the )outhern )tates is a probability sustained by all the facts in the situation& not the least of which being the tendency of the poor white class and s all far ers to abandon agricultural pursuits for those of the factory and the ine, fro which the Negro laborer is e.cluded, partially in the ine and factory ine and wholly in the factory. The develop ent of the ost re arkable in industrial history. ost of the
industries in the )outhern )tates in the past two decades has been one of
In the skilled trades, at the close of the +ar of the =ebellion,
work was done by Negroes educated as artisans in the hard school of slavery, but there has been a steady decline in the nu ber of such laborers, not because of lack of skill, but because trade unionis not allow the Negro to work alongside of the white there vital has gradually taken possession of such e ploy ents in the )outh, and will an. /nd this is the rule of the trade unions in all parts of the country. It is to be hoped that ay be a gradual broadening of the views of white laborers in this atter and a change of attitude by the trade unions that they atters now stand, it is the
do inate. *an we reasonably e.pect this- /s
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individual Negro artisan, often a
aster contractor, who can work at his
trade and give e ploy ent to his fellows. 'ortunately, there are a great any of these in all parts of the )outhern )tates, and their nu ber is increasing every year, as the result of the rapid growth and high favor of industrial schools, where the trades are taught. / very great deal should be e.pected fro this source, as a Negro contractor stands very nearly on as good footing as a white one in the bidding, when he has established a reputation for reliability. The facts obtained in every )outhern city bear out this view of the the skilled proble atter. The individual black an has a fighting chance for success in the skilled trades& and, as he succeeds, will draw ass after hi . The proper solution of the skilled labor is strictly within the power of the individual Negro. I believe
that he is solving it, and that he will ulti ately solve it. It is, however, in the arvellous building up of a legal, co fortable and
happy ho e life, where none whatever e.isted at the close of the +ar of the =ebellion& in the no less stupendous develop ent of the church life, with large and puissant organi$ations that co ad iration of illions of dollars& in the #uenchless thirst of the and the respect and ass of the people for ankind, and owning splendid church property valued at
useful knowledge, displayed at the close of the +ar of the =ebellion, and abating nothing of its intense keenness since, with the re arkable reduction in the illiteracy of the ass of the people, as is elo#uently disclosed by the census reports%it is in these results that no cause for co plaint or discourage ent can be found. The whole race here stands on i proved ground over that it occupied at the close of the +ar of the =ebellion& albeit, even here, the individual has outstripped the ass of the race, as it was but natural that he should and always will. ,ut, while this is true and gratifying to all those that hope the /fro"/ erican people
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well, it is also true, and e#ually gratifying that, as far as the
ass is
concerned, the ho e life, the church and the school house have co e into the life of the people, in so e sort, everywhere, giving the whole race a character and a standing in the esti ation of ankind which it did not have at the close of the war, and presaging, logically, unless all signs fail, a develop ent along high and honorable lines in the future& the results fro which, I predict, at the end of the ensuing half century, builded upon the foundation already laid, being such as to confound the prophets of evil, who never cease to doubt and shake their heads, asking3 "*an any good thing co e out of Na$areth-" +e have the answer already in the social and ho e life of the people, which is so vast an i prove ent over the conditions and the heritage of slavery as to stagger the understanding of those who are infor ed on the sub(ect, or will take the trouble to infor If we have the selves. oral living, it is not sanctioned by the ass,
uch loose
wedlock being the rule, and not the e.ception& if we have a vast volu e of illiteracy, we have reduced it by forty per cent. since the war, and the school houses are all full of children eager to learn, and the schools of higher and industrial training cannot acco at their doors for ad ission& if we have vast odate all those who knock ore than our share of
cri inality, we have also churches in every ha let and city, to which a a(ority of the people belong, and which are insistently pointing "the way, the light and the truth" to higher and nobler living. 0indful, therefore, of the Negro's two hundred and forty"five years of slave education and unre#uited toil, and of his thirty years of partial freedo and less than partial opportunity, who shall say that his place in / erican life at the present day is not all that should be reasonably e.pected of hi , that it is not creditable to hi , and that it is not a
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sufficient augury for better and nobler and higher thinking, striving and building in the future- )ocial growth is the slowest of all growth. If there be signs of growth, then, there is reasonable hope for a healthy There are plenty of such signs, and he who runs will. aturity. ay read the , if he
And Ciaries
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Diaries Of A Black Man All Rights Reserve By !ames " #ance 0c1 2014 Eage .BB

Diaries of A Black Man

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ost funda ental and far"reaching deeds that has been

upon which a race

ust start its upward course, unless it would fail, and

and all for s of idleness disgraceful. It has been necessary for hi

'orty years ago

y race e erged fro

slavery into freedo . If, in too

an wanted a house built he consulted a Negro

asons, engineers, cooks,

pro inence and wealth prior to the *ivil +ar were

ainly the raising of

been trained as There were young or in far

but few as engineers and blacks iths. Too

and flocking into the great cities where te ptations are

ore fre#uent the uch

"!ur schools teach everybody a little of al ost everything, but, in

at the Tuskegee Institute, I was a a$ed to find that it was al ost

aking of clothing. +e could find nu bers of the

ar, but al ost none who

aking of clothing, so ething that has to be used by

uch about theoretical che istry, and who cannot

ental develop ent of the Negro"

ere abstract knowledge into the

gy nastics. !ur knowledge

asses will be brought to bear upon the every"day unity in which

anner the service which the race de ands.

elevator of his race. 5very house built by a black

leisure& without leisure no opportunity for thoughtful reflection and the

It was such co bined

oral and industrial education which the

illinery, cooking, laundering, housekeeping,

aking, basketry, nursing, agriculture, dairying and stock raising,

an or wo an in a weak position. 'or e.a ple, I have seen a

Negro girl taught by her

other to help her in doing laundry work at the public schools

ho e. 1ater, when this sa e girl was graduated fro

any dairy en as we are able to supply. +hat

i proving the dairy product in the co

unities into which they go. I use

y belief, that as we continue to place Negro

odesty, conscience and skill in every co

of the practical and industrial ele ents in educational training. !urs is an

agricultural population. The school

ore closely to the

")uch work will

ean not only an education in agriculture, but an

and that as a free an he

ust learn to work. There is still doubt in

#uarters as to the ability of the Negro unguided, unsupported, to hew his

Patiently, #uietly, doggedly, persistently, through su industry, we

Chapter 2 ,he ,alente ,enth

selection and the survival of the fittest. In colonial days ca e Phillis

y brethren are doo ed, but that I have abundantly tasted

ind that ti e, in which the ar s of the

truths to be self evident, that all

en are created e#ual& that they are

to"day to sneer at the

and to say that with freedo

black folk. / saving re nant continually survives

ust have for the talented few centers of