second Negro bank. The first one has been in existence ten years.
Brown is a financier, and something more than that. For he encourages
the Negro theatres and is greatly helping his people along their way.
We also visited the polite edifice of the Tidewater Bank and Trust
Company, which has been built since the Armistice. “It was contracted
for by Negroes and built by Negroes alone,” said the treasurer
proudly—a blunt, bullet-headed, whimsical fellow, with an intense
desire to push business and to hustle. All the clerks and stenographers
were colored. Each teller sat in his steel cage for which he alone held
the key. All the latest banking machinery was in operation, including
the coin separator and counter and wrapper, and the adding machine. I
worked an imaginary account under colored direction, using the adding
machine, and gave assent to its infallibility. They showed me their
strong room, and I peeped at their cash reserves. The treasurer and
“Revrun” then took me up into a high mountain, namely, the Board Room,
which was in a gallery overlooking the whole of the working part of the
bank.
“My motto,” said the treasurer, “is, ‘Folks who only work for us as
long as they are paid will find they are only paid for what they have
done.’ We work here till we are through, be it eleven or twelve o’clock
at night. The man who isn’t hard is not for us.”
We talked about the Negro.
“He must win freedom,” said the banker. “It is never a bequest, but
a conquest. You can’t have redemption without the shedding of the
Precious Blood, can you, Reverend? I am fighting for the Negro by
succeeding in business. There’s only one thing that can bring him
respect, and that is achievement.”
These were his most impressive words. We walked out of the new bank.
“He has his knock-about car and his limousine and a finely appointed
house and a governess for his children,” said Rev. B——, as we footed
it once more in the sun-bathed street. “But of course you can be a
millionaire to-day and it won’t help you to marry even the poorest
white girl. Or you can be a Negro heiress, but no amount of wealth
will induce a white man to marry a colored girl. For the matter
of that, though, there are Negroes so white you couldn’t tell the
difference, and we’ve got plenty to choose from if our tastes lie that
way. If a Negro wants to marry a white, he can find plenty within his
own race.”
Rev. B—— was himself married to a woman who could pass as white, in
Southern Europe, and his children were little white darlings with curly
hair. We hailed a heavy “F and D” car. I will not mention the actual
name of the build. A young colored dandy was sitting in it. “You see
this car?” said Reverend. “It belongs to Dr. R——. It’s an ‘F and D.’
In many places the agents will not sell this build of car to a Negro,
even for cash down.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, it’s a fine type of car, and rich white men in a city don’t care
to see a colored man going about in one exactly the same. An agent
would lose business if he sold them to Negroes. What’s more, whether
he lost business or not, he wouldn’t do it. Here in Virginia, however,
there is not so much prejudice, but when you go further South you’ll
find it.”
We got into the car. The young dandy proved to be a doctor’s assistant,
a sort of apprentice to the great physician we were about to meet.
He had graduated at Fisk, which he called the Negro Athens. He was
dressed in a well-cut suit of gray, a rich necktie, and a felt hat
which was in excellent taste. His complexion was of the cocoa-brown,
highly-polished type, and his large eyes were quiet and reflective, as
if unawakened to the joy of life. Politely chatting to us, he guided
the beautiful car along some of the most terribly rutty and broken
streets.
“We pay equal taxes,” said he, “but because colored people live in
these streets the city won’t repair the roads. They are all rich people
living in these houses, all Negroes. Several of them own cars....
Now look on the other hand at this street. It’s a white street, all
smoothly repaired. What a beautiful surface; see the difference!” Rev.
B—— urged this point also. It was a striking example of inequality,
and one that makes a strong appeal.
Dr. R—— proved to be a rich practitioner living in a delightful villa
with polished floors and a French neatness and charm in the furniture
and decorations. The sun blinds were all down, and a pleasant creamy
light was diffused upon his books and pictures and silk-upholstered
divan. He was very busy, but said he could always spare a few moments
from his profession if it were a question of helping his race, and he
thought nothing could help the Negroes more than a dispassionate review
of their situation by a white man who could bring it not merely before
America, but before the world. He had more patients than he could deal
with, all Negroes, with the exception of a few Jews. The Jews have no
prejudice, and are ready to be attended by a good doctor, whatever the
color of his skin, which is a point in any case in favor of the Jews.
For a long while the Negroes distrusted their own doctors, and thought
that only a white man could possibly have the skill to treat them. But
a later generation has discovered that their own folk have an excellent
grasp of medicine. My further acquaintance with a considerable number
of colored doctors in the South has led me to the conclusion that
their temperament suits them admirably. They make good doctors. What
is more, they naturally understand the Negro’s body and constitution
and nervous system better than the white man, and the pathology of the
Negro is very different from that of the white man. The white doctor
as yet has not given much separate study to the Negro’s body—though
it is certainly very different from ours in many ways. He is inclined
perhaps to be a little brutal and offhand with Negro patients—and
they certainly are tiresome, with their superstitious fear of ill
health and evil eyes, and what not. This impatience has helped the
colored practitioner. Negroes, like other people, go where they are
best treated, and the medical attendance upon a hundred thousand people
could make many doctors rich.
In the old slavery days the Negroes were just a broad base where
all were equal. To-day the “race” has lifted up an intelligent and
professional class. The working Negro population of Norfolk could lift
up its intellectual apex of minister, doctor, and banker, and make
them comparatively rich men, and give them all the show of luxury
and culture which would have been the lot of white men in similar
positions. So the broad base of slavery grows to be a pyramid of
freedom.
Dr. R—— was a shrewd, capable, little human mountain. He said, “I
think the time has come for the Negro to amass wealth; it’s the only
thing that counts in America.” He thought the League of Nations might
help the Negro if its representatives ever met at Washington. There
would be Frenchmen and Englishmen and Italians, and, being so near to
the South, it would be a shame to America if lynchings took place while
they were sitting. As it was, the Negro South was a sort of skeleton
cupboard which must not be exposed.
From him I learned first that the Negro had not access to the Carnegie
libraries in the South. I was surprised. Up at Baltimore, in the North,
I was talking to a librarian, and he averred that the Negroes used the
public library much more than white people, and that there were so many
darkies that Whites did not care to go. But I travel such a very short
distance South, and I find no Negro admitted at all.
“Surely that is contrary to the spirit of the Carnegie grants,” said I.
“Yes, for Carnegie was a good friend to the Negro. But so it is,” said
Dr. R——. “And I do not think Negroes should agitate about it. It
would be better for Negroes to build their own libraries. We shall have
to do so. But we don’t want to intrude where we’re not wanted.”
He told me what he considered the most thrilling moment of his life.
He was out with a friend at midnight watching the posting of election
results, when suddenly a “lewd woman” came out of a house door,
screaming and waving her arms. She made right for them, and they were
in terror lest she should fall down at their feet or start reviling
them. Fortunately, they had the presence of mind not to run away from
her, or they might have been lynched by the crowd.
The worthy doctor took us out and drove us all over the city, heartily
apologizing that he could not ask me to have any meal with his wife and
himself. “For, although you may have no prejudice, it would not be safe
for either of us if it were known.” Which was indeed so. Throughout the
whole of the South it is impossible to eat or drink with a colored man
or woman.
My chief way of finding people to whom I had introductions was by
reference to the city directory. Here I found that all colored people
were marked with a star—as much as to say, “Watch out; this party’s
colored.” White women were indicated as “Mrs.” or “Miss,” but colored
women always as plain “Sarah Jones” or “Betty Thompson,” or whatever
the name might be, without any prefix. This I discovered to be one of
many small grievances of the Negro population, akin to that of not
having their roads mended though they pay taxes, and being obliged to
take back seats behind a straw screen in the trolley cars.
It was a novel impression in the Negro church on Sunday morning. I came
rather early, and found an adult Bible class discussing theology in
groups. One man near me exclaimed, “It says ‘He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved,’ doesn’t it, brother? Well, then, I believe,
so why argufy? I an’t a-goin’ to take no chances. No, sir, I an’t
a-goin’ to do it”—a serene black child of forty years or so.
In the full congregation were all types of Negroes. The men were
undistinguished, but the women were very striking. One lady wore a
gilded skirt and a broad-brimmed, black straw hat. Two Cleopatras
sat in front of me—tall, elegant, graceful, expensively dressed as
in Mayfair, one in chiffon, the other in soft gray satin, tiny gold
chains about their necks, pearl earrings in their ears. They had
smooth, fruit-like cheeks, curving outward to perfect bell mouths.
When they sang they lifted their full, dusky throats like grand birds.
They were evidently of the élite of Norfolk. On the other hand, there
were numbers of baggy and voluminous ladies with enormous bosoms,
almost visibly perspiring. They thronged and they thronged, and all
the red-cushioned seats filled up. There were men of all types, from
the perfect West African Negro to the polished American Arab, yellow
men, brown men, lots with large tortoise-shell spectacles, all with
close-cropped hair which showed the Runic lines of their hard heads.
Fans were provided for every worshipper, and noisy religious and family
talk filled the whole chapel.
We began with some fine singing—not deep and harmonious and complex
as that of the Russians, but hard, resonant, and breezy, followed by
conventional prayers and the reading of the Scriptures. The pastor then
sent someone to ask me if I would come forward and give them Christian
greeting in a few words. I was much astonished, as I did not know one
ever broke into the midst of Divine Service in that way. However, I
came forward and confronted the strange sea of dusky, eager faces and
the thousand waving paper fans, and I said: “Dear brothers and sisters,
I am an Englishman and a white man, but before these I am a Christian.
In Christ, as you know, there is neither white nor black, neither
inferiority nor superiority of race, unless it is that sometimes the
first shall be last and the last first. We know little about the
American Negro in England, but I have come to find out. I have not been
sent by anybody, but was just prompted by the Spirit to come out here
and make your acquaintance, and so bring tidings home to England. I
hope you will take that as an assurance of loving interest in you, and
a promise for the future. I am glad to see you have made such progress
since slavery days and have in Norfolk fine houses and churches and
banks and a theatre and restaurants and businesses, and that you have
such a large measure of happiness and freedom. I believe you have
great gifts to offer on the altar of American civilization, and so far
from remaining a problem you will prove a treasure.” And I told some
touching words of my friend Hugh Chapman, of the chapel of the Savoy,
in London: “Mankind is saved, not by a white man, or by a black, but by
one who combines both—the little brown Man of Nazareth.”
It was a strange sensation, that of facing the Negro congregation. I
could find no _touch_, no point of contact, could indeed take nothing
from _them_. The spiritual atmosphere was an entirely different one
from that of a gathering of Whites. I should have been inclined to say
that there was no spiritual atmosphere whatever. For me it was like
speaking to an empty room and a vast collection of empty seats. But I
know there was something there, though I could not realize it.
After the service there came up to me a purely delightful creature,
full of an almost dangerous ardor for what I had said. She was the
leading spirit at the Liberty Club for colored soldiers and jack tars.
In the afternoon I listened to some wonderful singing at another
church. The little black organist woman sang at the top of her voice
while she bent over the keys, and waved the spirit into her choir by
eager movements with the back of her hand.
“Take me, shake me, don’t let me sleep,” they sang, and it was
infinitely worth while. I felt that in the great ultimate harmony we
could not do without this voice, the voice of the praise of the dark
children.
Next week I went over to Newport News. On a wall in Norfolk I read: “T.
Adkins, Newport News,” and underneath someone had written, “You could
not pay me to live there: Robert Johnson, Norfolk.”
That might possibly explain the relativity of the two places.
Newport News is a ramshackle settlement on the sands across the
water from Norfolk. It has a nondescript, ill-dressed, well-paid,
wild, working-class population, with all manner of cheap shops and
low lodging houses. On every fifth window seems to be scrawled in
whitewash, “HOT DOG 5 cents.” It was explained to me that this is
sausage of a rather poor quality. I had never seen the article so
frankly named elsewhere. For the rest, a good deal of manifest
immorality strolls the streets at night or is voiced on dark verandas.
The police station is a place of considerable mystery and glamour,
and I should say Newport News at this season would have proved an
interesting research for the vice raker. I paid three dollars for
a room whose lock had been burst off, and one of whose windows was
broken, a mosquito-infested hovel, but the only room obtainable.
A very interesting young colored trainer took me over the shipbuilding
yards the next day. He was an enthusiastic boxer, and I asked him the
cause of Negro excellence in this sport. For there are at least three
Negro boxers whom no white boxers have been able to beat, and this
excellence has caused the championship rules to be altered so as to
disqualify colored champions.
He said it was due to quicker eye and greater aggressiveness, above
all to greater aggressiveness. The Negro is a born fighter. It is true
he has greater endurance and a much harder skull, but he has also
remarkable aptitude.
“Has the Negro boxer more science?” I asked.
“No, perhaps not so much. He has fighting blood, that’s what it is. His
ancestors fought for thousands of years.”
I remarked that the red Indians fought also, but they were poor boxers.
He put that down to slight physique.
“I got tired of watching boxing matches in the army,” said I. “The
bulkier and more brutal types always seemed to get the better of those
who were merely skillful. I expect that is why we don’t like watching
a Negro and a white man boxing, it is too much a triumph of body over
mind.”
“There’s no finer sight than to watch two Negroes well matched,” said
the trainer, with a smile.
I thought good boxing showed more the animal side of a man, and I
recalled a reported saying of Jack Johnson—“I’se ready to fight mos’
any man that they is, an’ if ye cahn find any man, why, just send me
down a great big black Russian bear....”
“It jarred the white folk terrible bad that Jack Johnson was the real
champion of the world,” said the trainer. “When the news came through
of Jack Johnson beating Jeffries so far away as Denver, Colorado, the
white folk began pulling the Negroes off the street cars in Norfolk,
Virginia, and beating them, just to vent their rage, they were so sore.”
I thought that rather amusing, but the trainer took a gloomy view.
However, in we went to the shipbuilding yard and looked at many great
vessels in dry dock. Out came a motley crowd of men, blacker than their
nature through the dirt of their work. The ship painters were splashed
from head to foot with the characteristic red paint of ships, and
looked like some new tribe; the blue-shirted rivetters and chippers
were all frayed and ragged from contact with sharp edges and iron.
These Negro workers were very happy and jolly. They seemed nearly all
to be on piecework and earned in most cases ten dollars a day, and in
some exceptional cases and upon occasion twenty or twenty-five dollars.
The rivetters, according to the scale of pay, seemed to be capable
of earning huge wages, and many of them were comparatively well off,
possessing their homes, and giving their children a good education. The
trainer pointed out to me his athletic pets. He was employed by the
company to organize competitions and races and baseball teams and the
like. The strongest Negroes seemed among the gentlest. The heavyweight
champion was a large and beautiful child. He never lost his temper in
the ring, because, as I was told, he never needed to. His ears were not
turned to “cauliflower” and his nose was not flattened out—as yet.
The lunch hour was remarkable for the swarms of men belched forth by
the works. A twenty-cent lunch was ready for all. Wives and mothers
also were allowed to come and bring food to supplement what was served
at the stands. Lunch over, the men formed into groups, and in some
places there were Bible discussions, in others sporting competitions.
Despite high wages, I noticed some Negroes going about picking up
crusts and putting them into paper bags, presumably to feed the
chickens with when they got home. My guide said this was due to the
“Save” propaganda which had been carried on. Y. M. C. A. work was very
much to the fore, an industrial “Y” having been financed by the owners
of the yard. I was told that a little while ago the company found
it difficult to keep the young Negro boys—the heaters and passers,
on whose work the rivetter depends, for one boy heats the rivet and
another passes it, and the rivetter strikes it home. They found so
little in the place to interest them that they drifted away from the
works. It was this that had determined the firm to embark on a program
of physical culture and games. There was also a Y. M. C. A. hut and its
usual appurtenances. A long list of evening classes was being arranged.
A large building had been promised to the “Y” if it made good.
I could not find any man who belonged to a genuine trade-union
affiliated to the American Federation of Labor, though most belonged
to “Colored People’s Brotherhoods.” The Whites with whom they worked,
and with whom they have upon occasion great rivetting competitions,
were presumably non-union also, but that is common; labor in America
is poorly organized, compared with labor in Great Britain. Almost the
whole of Negro labor is at present outside the recognized unions, and
for that reason can almost always be used to break strikes. This
is, of course, unfortunate for the Negro, who is thus branded as a
“blackleg” in addition to being black by nature, which was reproach
enough.
I met a strange character in the evening, one of the colored
organizers, a friend of the white men, and _in_ with the bosses of the
yards. He was possibly a descendant of the type of Negro who in slavery
days acted as agent for the slave merchants, and was to be found on the
West African shore lording it over the batches of poor savages who with
hands tied up were being hustled on to the slave ships. It used to be
a recognizable type. When they themselves were brought over to America
they became overseers or field drivers, and brutal enough they were to
their fellow men of color. To-day they are foremen or speeders up of
Negro gangs, or you find them under the auspices of “Welfare.”
This was a lazy Negro, fat and heavy, with a confused non-thinking
mind, great sooty lips, and bloodshot eyes. He told me he put on a wig
at night and prowled about the town, spying on vice. The great numbers
of black soldiers embarking or disembarking had attracted sharps and
bad women of all kinds. The streets were infested with sin, and he
knew which boarding houses were disreputable and which were properly
kept. He knew where there was drink, and who was organizing the
“bootlegging” business, and what graft the police took. Though sluggish
by nature, this gloomy soul evidently got full of life at night—spying
on the people.
He told me the richest colored man in Newport News was a dentist who
charged as much as six dollars an hour for stopping teeth. The example
of this dentist’s success had caused several fathers to educate their
children for dentistry rather than the Church or the Law. “But we
Negroes don’t want to rise,” said he. “We want to show off. We are
great imitators of swagger. They’ll come wearing a forty-dollar suit
and a clean collar, and brandish a cigar in your face when that is all
they have in the world. We’re a crude people, sir.”
There was on the one hand in Newport News a nucleus of prosperous Negro
families, and on the other hand the many gambling places and dancing
dens where health and ambition and money, and everything else which can
help a man to rise could be squandered. In time to come, when society
takes root, Newport News should become a Negro stronghold. Already
there are so many Negroes no white man dare start a riot.
Not far from Newport News is Hampton Institute, the “Negro Eton,” which
produces the Curzons and the Cecils of the colored race, as someone
amusingly expressed it. It is the crown of Northern effort to educate
the Negro. Endowment and instruction are mostly by Whites. Everyone is
engaged in vital self-support, and the students plough the fields, make
boots, build wagons, print books, and learn all manner of practical
lessons in life. Above all, they are made ready to teach and help
others of their race. It is the show place of the Negro world, and
rightly so, as most of those who lead Negrodom hail as yet from Hampton.