stop lynching. He does not believe the Negro wishes “social equality,”
the right to mix indiscriminately with white people, in schools, in
trains, in marriage. He thinks the Negro prefers to be separate as
long as there is no implied dishonor. He made a special study of the
Frederick Douglass School at Cincinnati, an all black school which is
admirably conducted, and found that by themselves the Negroes progress
more than when mixed with Whites. As Cincinnati is a city on the
northern fringe, with northern institutions, the Negroes had the choice
to go to mixed schools with white children if they desired, but they
preferred to be by themselves, and indeed did better by themselves. As
regards Jim Crow cars, Smith said he would give equal comfort and equal
facilities in colored cars and in colored waiting rooms. He does not
think the Negro desires to be in a Pullman car where there are white
women. It works without scandal in the North, but there is too much
risk of the woman going into hysterics in the South, and the Negro
getting lynched at a wayside station. He believes in abandoning “the
policy of pin pricks,” and, above all, in suppressing lynching and race
riot.
He was, however, strongly opposed to Du Bois and the National
Association. He considered that Du Bois was leading the Negroes
wrongly, leading them in fact to a worse calamity than any which had
yet overtaken them. “If the Negro resorts to force,” said Mr. Smith to
me, “he will be destroyed. In peace and in law the white man fails to
understand how to handle the Negro, but if it comes to force, the issue
becomes quite simple for the white man, and the Negro stands little
more chance than a savage. Christianity alone can save the Negro, and
the leaders of the National Association are leading the people away
from Christianity.” He wished all Negroes could see how fatal it is for
them to abandon Christianity.
“If it were not for the lynchings, the National Association and its
newspaper would shrink to very small proportions. Every time a Negro is
lynched it adds a thousand to the circulation of the _Crisis_, and a
burning adds ten thousand,” said he.
“Hell would soon lose its heat should sin expire,” said I. I was
inclined to agree that the only way was through Christianity. But there
is such a thing as the wrath of God, and it is not incompatible with
Divine Fatherhood and all-merciful Providence. John Brown has been
greatly condemned, but he was not outside Christianity—surely he was a
child of God. He used to think that without much shedding of blood the
crimes of this guilty land could be purged away, but now....
I do not think the white South will be able to avert the wrath of God
by machine guns, nor will it quell the Negro by force once the Negro
moves from the depths of his being. Better than believe in meeting the
great wrath is to be advised betimes and mend one’s ways. Was not the
Civil War a sufficient bloodletting? Could not the lesson be learned?
It is certainly in vain to work directly against Du Bois when his
power as a leader of revolt could be removed utterly by stopping the
lynching. The U. S. Postmaster General refused postal facilities to
one number of his newspaper because it was going too far in stirring up
sedition, but it was ineffectual, and was, on the contrary, a useful
advertisement for the paper. And then, is it not known there are far
more advanced groups of Negroes than that of the association of which
Dr. Du Bois is president? There are those who laugh Du Bois to scorn as
a Moderate. There are those who have sworn that for every Negro done
to death by the mob two white men shall somehow perish. An eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth is the gospel—or rather, two eyes for one.
Something is being started which will not cease with a recital of the
Beatitudes. If America does not cast out the devil of class hate from
the midst of her she will again be ravished by the Angel of Death as
in the Civil War. The established peaceful routine of a country like
America is very deceptive. All seems so permanent, so unshakable.
The new refinement, the new politeness and well-lined culture, and
vast commercial organization and press suggest that no calamity could
overtake them. The force that makes for disruption and anarchy is
generated silently and secretly. It accumulates, accumulates, and one
day it must discharge itself. Its name is resentment, and its first
expression is revenge.
XIII
NEGRO LEADERSHIP
Dr. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, as the leader of the militant movement, is
the greatest force among the Negroes to-day. Light of skin, short of
stature, square-headed, he would pass easily in Southern Europe or in
Russia as a white man. He looks rather like a highly polished Jewish
professor. Considered carefully, however, it will be realized that
behind an impassive mask-like face is an emotional and fiery nature.
There is a white heat of resentment in him, and a decision _not to
forgive_. Possibly his devotion to the cause and the race drags him
down a little. For he is possessed of an unusual literary genius. The
fire that ran in the veins of Dumas and of Pushkin is in him also, and
as a master of the written word he stands entirely without rival in
the American Negro world. In that respect he is altogether a greater
man than Booker T. Washington. The latter was a practical genius, and
what is gall and wormwood in the bosom of Du Bois was the milk of
human kindness in his more sooty, natural breast. “I’m going to shout
‘Glory!’ when this world is afire, and I don’t feel noways tired,”
he used always to be saying. “Booker T.,” as he is affectionately
called, was the wonderful colored baby of the first days of freedom.
His, “Up from Slavery,” which he wrote, and the vocational institute of
Tuskegee, Alabama, are the chief monuments which he left behind him.
But his portrait is almost as common in Negro cabins as pictures of
the Tsar used to be in Russian _izbas_. “Our Booker T.,” the Negroes
say lovingly and possessingly, looking upon the first of their number
who rose from the dark depths of servitude, first fruits of them that
slept. Freedom and Hope raised Booker T. Washington, but now he is dead
a new time needs a new leader. Fain would the Whites have “Booker T.”
back. The amenable Negro leader is much more to their taste than the
militant one.
Many years ago Du Bois wrote “Souls of Black Folk,” which is a
fascinating personal study. It has a true literary quality which raises
it from the ruck of ephemeral publications to an enduring place. It is,
however, immature. There is an emphasis of personal culture, and a note
of self-pity, which a more developed writer would have been at pains to
transmute. But the gift is unmistakable. You perceive it again and in
better measure in “Darkwater,” published this year.
It has taken the war and the recent increased persecution of the Negro
people to bring out the real power of Du Bois. As a labor leader said
to me, “He is first of all a statesman and a politician. He is leading
the Negroes. I wonder where he will lead them to?”
Certainly no other Negro in the United States is regarded by so many
others as his leader. No doubt most of the quiet, cautious, and
traditionally religious Negroes fight shy of him. But they, for their
part, have no leader. Dr. Moton, the lineal descendant of Booker
Washington at Tuskegee Institute, is only a leader in the sense that
Dr. Arnold of Rugby might be considered a leader. He is there in his
place. He is a great light, and is taken for granted.
In August, 1919, Dr. Moton wrote to the President, warning him of the
growing tension:
“I want especially to call your attention to the intense feeling on the
part of the colored people throughout the country toward white people,
and the apparent revolutionary attitude of many Negroes, which shows
itself in a desire to have justice at any cost. The riots in Washington
and Chicago and near riots in many other cities have not surprised
me in the least. I predicted in an address several months ago, at
the fiftieth anniversary of the Hampton Institute, on the second of
May—ex-President Taft and Mr. George Foster Peabody were present at
the time—that this would happen if the matter was not taken hold of
vigorously by the thoughtful elements of both races.
“I think the time is at hand, and I think of nothing that would have a
more salutary effect on the whole situation now than if you should in
your own wise way, as you did a year ago, make a statement regarding
mob law; laying especial stress on lynching and every form of injustice
and unfairness. You would lose nothing by specifically referring to the
lynching record in the past six months; many of them have been attended
with unusual horrors, and it would be easy to do it now because of the
two most recent riots in the North, notably, Washington and Chicago.
The South was never more ready to listen than at present to that kind
of advice, and it would have a tremendously stabilizing effect, as I
have said, on the members of my race.
“You very probably saw the account of the lynching in Georgia of an old
colored man seventy years of age, who shot one of two intoxicated white
men in his attempt to protect two colored girls who had been commanded
to come out of their home in the night by these two men. The colored
man killed the white man after he had been shot by one of the white men
because he had simply protested.
“I am enclosing the lynching record for the past six months and an
editorial from the Atlanta _Constitution_, which strongly denounces mob
violence.
“With all kind wishes, and assuring you of no desire to add to your
burdens, but simply to call attention to what seems to me vital not
only for the interest of the twelve millions of black people, but
equally as important for the welfare of the millions of Whites whom
they touch, I am,
“Very sincerely and gratefully,
“R. R. MOTON.”
In reply to this letter, President Wilson wrote Dr. Moton as follows:
“My dear Dr. Moton:
“Thank you sincerely for your letter of August eighth. It conveys
information and suggestions, the importance of which I fully realize
and for which I am sincerely obliged. I will take the suggestions you
make under very serious consideration, because I realize how critical
the situation has become and how important it is to steady affairs in
every possible way.
“Again thanking you for your public-spirited co-operation,
“Cordially and sincerely yours,
“WOODROW WILSON.”
With this conventional reply the matter closes, and things in America
became steadily worse in the months which followed. The twilight peace
of Tuskegee has been in contrast with the loud, clamorous denunciations
from Dr. Du Bois. For Du Bois gives forth new words of leadership each
month. He has a voice like a trumpet and must be heard. Therefore, he
is the leader.
Associated with him are many brilliant men of whom the most powerful
is the poet and orator, James Welldon Johnson, a darker man than Du
Bois, slender and taller. He is energetic, and may constantly be heard
from platforms in New York and elsewhere. I heard him speak. I was not
moved by him as by Dean Pickens, but he is more intense and has the
reputation of extraordinary brilliance at times.
If the persecution were lifted from off the Negro race there would
doubtless be room for quiet educational leadership, and flamboyancy
would fail. White sympathizers such as Mr. Bolton Smith of Memphis
emphasize the value of the quieter, more unobtrusive work done in
places like Piney Woods School, the Frederick Douglass School, by
Laurence Jones and Principal Russell. But of course peaceful growth
is impossible until the mass of the people are guaranteed against the
present terrifying mob violence and general social injustice.
On the other hand, it does not follow that Du Bois is a new Moses
leading his people to a Promised Land. He may be leading them to
terrific bloodshed and slaughter. He may be leading them to a complete
racial fiasco, not because he wants to do so or can do otherwise, but
because perhaps that fiasco is written on the American Negro’s card of
destiny.
The Negroes are arming themselves. They are more ready to retaliate—to
quote a letter from Memphis: “There is an increased determination
on the part of great numbers of Negroes to defend their rights by
force.... The Negro is emotional, and the masses of them are quite
ready to think they are oppressed in matters in which they are
not oppressed at all, and therefore to use force on unjustifiable
occasions. This shows itself in the increased use of firearms by
petty thieves against the police. A Negro was arrested here recently
on the charge of selling stolen chickens. His home was known. It was
inconceivable that the ordinary white petty thief would shoot officers
of the law in order to prevent an arrest which probably would have
resulted in a comparatively small punishment, but this man murdered an
officer and is to be hung. The same thing has occurred here several
times. Under these circumstances it is difficult to induce the police
to hold the proper attitude toward the Negro. They never know when he
is going to shoot, and so it is natural that they should shoot a Negro
much quicker than they would a white man. This begets in its turn a
feeling of resentment which makes the relations between the Negro and
the police more difficult. I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact
that when a minority tries to protect itself—although it may use
only the weapons which the majority in the past has been accustomed
to use in defending itself against tyranny, the minority is apt to
find itself condemned in the eyes of the public. Take the attitude
which the mass of Americans are occupying with reference to the Reds
and their deportation.... A small number of the Reds have appealed to
force—the whole crowd are more or less outlawed by American public
opinion. What I am apprehensive of if the Negroes continue to follow Du
Bois is just such an embitterment of relations between the two races.
I do not believe that the race relation in Chicago is the better for
the race riot. On the other hand, in Europe, every revolution usually
resulted sooner or later in greater freedom even where the revolution
was suppressed. My experience with Negro uprisings has been precisely
the reverse. Such progress as the Negro has made has been by education
and the awakening of the conscience of the white man.
“To put the matter in a few words, the problem that I would like
immensely to emphasize to you, is the wholly abnormal position of
the minority seeking its rights. We are apt to think that the Negro
can achieve these rights in the way that our ancestors achieved
theirs against the aristocracy, but unless I am utterly wrong, that
view is doomed to failure and if followed will result in embittering
the relations between the races so that segregation or deportation
or extermination must result. Personally I do not believe that we
will fail, but if we succeed it will be in spite of Du Bois and of
the attitude of armed resistance. Never was a better illustration
of the wisdom under certain conditions of the Tolstoi attitude of
non-resistance.”
That of course is nicely deduced, but events are not ruled by wisdom
and logic. It might very well have been said to the Israelites during
the long period of the Plagues. It is such a period in the history of
the Negroes.
XIV
THE WORLD ASPECT
The American Negroes are the aristocrats of the Negro world. It may be
a paradox to assume that a proletariat can become an aristocracy, but
an aristocracy is the best a race can produce in culture and manners.
No doubt African Negrodom is made up of a great number of races, but
all seem to have one common interest and to yield more homage to the
name of Africa itself than to any constituent part, kingdom, or state
or pasture. The American Negro is beginning to lead Africa as he is
leading the Indies. The reason is that the children of the American
slaves have made the greatest cultural progress of all Negroes.
Though persecution has been less in some parts of Africa and on the
West Indian islands, opportunity has also been less. In 1863 America
committed herself to the task of raising her millions of black slaves
to the cultural level of white citizenship. But no one has ever essayed
to raise the savage masses of Africa much higher than the baptismal
font. It is always pointed out to the American Negro that his good
fortune is prodigious. The Negro retorts that if he has good fortune
his fathers paid for it in the sufferings of slavery, and he still pays
in the price of lynching. Yet, of course, the Negroes in Africa have
suffered greatly, and their fathers suffered greatly. No Negro can deny
that he owes America much. And Africa owes, or will owe, more still.
In America the door at least stands open for Negro progress. In Africa,
and especially in South Africa, it is not quite certain that the door
is not closed. If the door remains ajar it is not because the white
man wills it, but because the American Negro has got his foot in. A
low Commercial-Imperial idea reigns. The native is, “the labor on the
spot.” An unfailing supply of cheap native labor is considered the
great desideratum. Attempts on the Negro’s part to raise himself by
education or by technical skill are looked upon with suspicion, and one
must remember that as far as the British Empire or French or Belgian
mandatorial regions are concerned there are no institutions in Africa
comparable to Tuskegee and Hampton. If the labor unions in the United
States are foolishly antagonistic to the progress of Negro skilled
labor, they are twice more so in South Africa. If there is peonage in
America there is an abundance of pseudo slavery in Africa, and while
the American trolley car has its Jim Crow section the South African one
often has not even that, and the Negro must walk unless accompanied by
white employer. An open hostility has arisen between Black and White
which much resembles that of the Southern States of America. If it
were not for the leadership of the American Negroes it would not be
promising for Negrodom as a whole.
Of course there is a vital difference between the British Empire and
the United States; the people of the empire are subjects, and of
the republic they are citizens. While Britain technically rules her
four hundred million colored subjects _from above downward_ America
theoretically holds that all her people are free and equal. The
American ideal is higher, the British more practical.
There is another difference, and it is that our Blacks, except in
the Indies, are mostly indigenous, and have not been transplanted
from their native wilds. They have not been slaves and have not the
slave psychology. In Africa the white man is in contact with masses
of natives in a primitive condition; in the United States the Negro
has been definitely cut off from his kith and kin. The American Negro
was set free in a land rampant with democratic ideals and possessed
of a sublime belief in human progress. But Africa has been and is
increasingly a commercial domain whose only function from the modern
white man’s point of view is the making of material fortune. The white
man in Africa is much more exclusively a dollar hunter than the
American. And though Britain has been much praised for letting South
Africa govern herself it does not seem as if the Union was mating much
progress in ideals and culture. The King of England was a better friend
to the native than the local government is proving itself to be.
A blatant anti-nigger tendency is growing throughout the British
Empire, and it is very vulgar, very undignified, and at the same time
disgraceful. It applies to India and Egypt as much as to Africa. It
is due perhaps to a general deterioration in education and training.
One may remark that those who complain of the ways of their servants
are generally unfitted to have servants, and it is characteristic
of _parvenus_ to ill treat those beneath them, and I would say if a
white man cannot get on well with a Negro it is a sign that he is not
a gentleman. But the genuine type of English gentleman is passing.
To think that the race of Livingstone and Stanley and Harry Johnston
should be pitifully complaining about the Negroes, as if God had not
made them aright!
The British people used to be able to manage native races well—in
the age of the Victorian, when the Englishman could treat his native
servant as if he were a gentleman also, never doubting that in God’s
sight an equal dignity invested both master and man. Read the memoirs
and letters of colonial people of time past, and then compare with
the current noisy prejudice in India and Africa. The falling away is
appalling. And the “natives” know the change which has been coming
about—the new type of officer and employer, the man with the whisky
brain, the mind stocked with music-hall funniosity and pseudo cynicism,
the grumbler, the man who expects everything to have been arranged
for his comfort and success beforehand. Astonishing to hear young
officers calling even Hindoos and Syrians and Arabs niggers! The native
instinctively knows the man of restraint and good manners and human
dignity and properly trained unselfishness. The lowest coolie can tell
the difference between a gentleman and a cad; and the educated colored
man, while he respects in the deepest way the nation of Shakespeare and
Burke and Wellington and Gordon, is puzzled to find a common spirit in
the English-speaking people of to-day.
“I was reared in an atmosphere of admiration—almost of veneration—for
England,” says Dr. Du Bois. “I had always looked on England as the best
administrator of colored peoples, and laid her success to her system of
justice,” but he wavers in that faith now, having heard the new story
of Hindoos and Arabs and the Negroes of South Africa and Negroes of
West Africa.
In converse with Professor Hoffmann in New Orleans, a British subject
formerly in the service of the British Government in Northern Nigeria,
an extremely capable and enlightened Negro, now head master of a
colored school, I found confirmation of this. His impression of the
change of spirit in the empire was similar to that expressed by Du
Bois, and I found admiration of British rule giving way to doubt in
many Negro minds. Indeed it has been possible for American Anglophobes
to do a good deal of propaganda among the Negroes by representing
how badly the natives now fare under British rule. There is some
exaggeration in this respect, but it makes an important impression on
the mind of the American Negro. He has begun to feel a care and an
anxiety for the condition of his brethren overseas. The educated Negro
of the United States now feels a responsibility toward the African
Negro, and also toward all dark-skinned people whatsoever.
The assumption by the Negro of a common ground with the natives of
India is somewhat surprising and amusing. There is no ethnological
common ground. But the color bar of the British Empire applies almost
as stringently to the Indians as to the Negroes. “We’ll smash them all
to hell,” says a bellicose Negro stranger to a young Hindoo student
at Washington, much to the astonishment of the latter. The advanced
Negroes of America place the liberation of the peoples of India and
Egypt in the very foreground of their world policy. They say also that
the natives of South Africa must be delivered from the Union of South
Africa.