_Black and White in the Southern States_. By Maurice S. Evans,
C.M.G.--Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1915. Pp. 209.
This book cannot be considered an historical work. Yet when the author
makes a survey of the slavery and reconstruction periods with a view to
estimating what the Negro has been, what has been done for him, and what he
himself has accomplished it claims the attention of historians. From this
historic retrospect the author approaches such questions as the Negroes'
grievances, their political rights and wrongs, blood admixture, race
hostility and grounds for hope and the like.
The author has had experiences in South Africa and traveled in the United
States with a view to studying the condition of the descendants of the
African race in this country. His effort seems to be to write such a work
as some of those of Sir H. H. Johnson or W. P. Livingstone. He justifies
the writing of this work on the grounds that "the partisan spirit, partial
to one race or other, permeates most of the writings on this subject."
Feeling that the issues involved are too great, he hoped to avoid this
"that no preconceived ideas or partiality should be allowed to cloud
clarity of view, or warp the judgment."
Yet although the author speaks well of his good intentions it is apparent
that he did not live up to this profession. In the first place, the work is
not scientific, facts are not "observed and noted with scrupulous care,"
and conclusions are drawn without warranted data to support them. On the
whole then, one must say that this work fails to unravel some "knots in
this tangled skein of human endeavor and error." When after a survey of the
history of the Negro during the last fifty years an investigator concludes
that the Negro has shown an incapacity for commerce and finance, and that
he must not struggle to equip himself in the same way that the white man
has, one must believe that the writer has not the situation thoroughly in
hand. The great difficulty of the author seems to be that he did not remain
in the country long enough to know it, did not give sufficient time to the
study of conditions, and based his conclusions largely on information
obtained from persons who were either too prejudiced or had neither the
scientific point of view nor adequate mental development to describe
social conditions.
It is not surprising therefore that the author asserts that the record of
the Negro during the last fifty years shows that they are chiefly valuable
as laborers in drudgery, or weak in foresight and thrift, and unfit for
city life. Yet he believes that there is some hope for the blacks, since
they can get work and buy land and thereby become economically independent.
He calls attention to such injustices as miscegenation, lynching,
unfairness of the courts, and discrimination in traveling.