NOTE: This article and the next were contributed to the International
Socialist Review in 1912 while the author was a member of the
Socialist Party. He has since left it (but has joined no other party)
partly because, holding as he does by the American doctrine of "Race
First," he wished to put himself in a position to wont among his
people along lines of his own choosing.
Providence, according to Mr. Kipling, has been pleased to place upon
the white man's shoulders the tremendous burden of regulating the
affairs of men of all other colors, who, for the purpose of his
argument, are backward and undeveloped—"half devil and half child."
When one considers that of the sixteen hundred million people living
upon this earth, more than twelve hundred million are colored, this
seems a truly staggering burden.
But it does not seem to have occurred to the proponents of this
pleasant doctrine that the shoe may be upon the other foot so far as
the other twelve hundred million are concerned. It is easy to maintain
an =ex parte= argument, and as long as we do not ask the other side to
state their case our own arguments will appear not only convincing but
conclusive. But in the court of common sense this method is not
generally allowed, and a case is not considered closed until =both=
parties have been heard from.
I have no doubt but that the colored peoples of the world will have a
word or two to say in their own defense. In this article I propose to
put the case of the black man in America, not by any elaborate
arguments, but by the presentation of certain facts which will
probably speak for themselves.
I am not speaking here of the evidences of Negro advancement, nor even
making a plea for justice. I wish merely to draw attention to certain
pitiful facts. This is all that is necessary—at present. For I believe
that those facts will furnish such a damning indictment of the Negro's
American over-lord as must open the eyes of the world. The sum total
of these facts and of what they suggest constitute a portion of the
black man's burden in America. Not all of it, to be sure, but quite
enough to make one understand what the Negro problem is. For the sake
of clarity I shall arrange them in four groups: political, economic,
educational and social.
I—Political.
In a republic all the adult male natives are citizens. If in a given
community some are citizens and others subjects, then your community
is not a republic. It may call itself so. But that is another matter.
Now, the essence of citizenship is the exercise of political rights;
the right to a voice in government, to say what shall be done with
your taxes, and the right to express your own needs. If you are denied
these rights you are not a citizen. Well, in sixteen southern states
there are over eight million Negroes in this anomalous position. Of
course, many good people contend that they may be unfit to exercise
the right of suffrage. If that is so, then who is fit to exercise it
for them? This argument covers a fundamental fallacy in our prevailing
conception of the function of the ballot. We think that it is a
privilege to be conferred for "fitness." But it isn't. It is an
instrument by which the people of a community express their will,
their wants and their needs. And all those are entitled to use it who
have wants, needs and desires that are worth consideration by society.
If they are not worth considering, then be brutally frank about it;
say so, and establish a protectorate over them. But have done with the
silly cant of "fitness." People vote to express their wants. Of
course, they will make mistakes. They are not gods. But they have a
right to make their own mistakes—the Negroes. All other Americans
have. That is why they had Ruef in San Francisco, and still have
Murphy in New York.
But the American republic says, in effect, that eight million
Americans shall be political serfs. Now, this might be effected with
decency by putting it into the national constitution. But it isn't
there. The national constitution has two provisions expressly
penalizing this very thing. Yet the government—the President,
Congress, the Supreme Court—wink at it. This is not what we call
political decency. But, just the same, it is done. How is it done? By
fraud and force. Tillman of South Carolina has told in the United
States Senate how the ballot was taken from Negroes by shooting
them—that is, by murder. But murder is not necessary now. In certain
southern states in order to vote a man must have had a grandfather who
voted before Negroes were freed. In others, he must be able to
interpret and understand any clause in the Constitution, and a white
registration official decides whether he does understand. And the
colored men of states like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi and Louisiana who meet such tests as those states provide
are disfranchised by the "white primary" system. According to this
system only those who vote at the primaries can vote at the general
elections. But the South Carolina law provides that: "At this election
only white voters … and such Negroes as voted the Democratic ticket in
1876 and have voted the Democratic ticket continuously since … may
vote." Of course, they know that none of them voted that ticket in
1876 or have done so continuously since. In Georgia the law says that:
"All white electors who have duly registered … irrespective of past
political affiliations are hereby declared qualified and are invited
to participate in said primary election."
Under the new suffrage law of Mr. Booker T. Washington's state of
Alabama. Montgomery county, which has 53,000 Negroes, disfranchises
all but one hundred of them. In 1908 the Democrats of West Virginia
declared in their platform that the United States Constitution should
be so amended so as to disfranchise all the Negroes of the country. In
December, 1910, the lower house of the Texas legislature, by a vote of
51 to 34, instructed its federal Senators and Congressmen to work for
the repeal of the two amendments to the national constitution which
confer the right of suffrage upon Negroes. But the funniest proposal
in that direction came from Georgia, where J. J. Slade proposed an
amendment to the state constitution to the effect that colored men
should be allowed to vote only if two =chaste= white women would swear
that they would trust them in the dark. But, however it has been
effected, whether by force or fraud, by methods wise or otherwise, the
great bulk of the Negroes of America are political pariahs to-day.
When it is remembered that they once had the right of suffrage, that
it was given them, not upon any principle of abstract right, but as a
means of protection from the organized ill-will of their white
neighbors, that that ill-will is now more effectively organized and in
possession of all the powers of the state,—it can be seen at a glance
that this spells subjection certain and complete.