ashore, picking up wild pecan nuts, talking to Negroes at their cabin
doors. One never sees a white man. This along the Mississippi is the
real black belt. According to the census, the Negro is in a clear
majority. This causes the Whites to be always apprehensive. The idea
prevails that the Black can only be kept in his place by terror.
As regards this point of view, the Whites prize above everything
solidarity of opinion. They hold that they cannot afford to discuss
the matter, and they will tolerate no cleavage. In politics all are of
course Democrats, and if the American Democratic party is on the whole
much less liable to “splits” than the Republican party, it is largely
due to the discipline of the black belt.
“They outnumber us ten to one,” says the agent for timber, exaggerating
characteristically. “It’s come to such a point hereabout that they’re
pulling the white women out of their houses. It’s done every day.”
I could not believe that.
“But if a Black attacks a white woman hereabouts he is certain to be
lynched, and knows it,” said I.
“Yes, it’s the only way.”
“But there is not a lynching every day?”
“No.”
“So there are not really so many attacks on the women.”
But the day-moth of his thought refused to be caught in a logical net.
“Did you ever see a man tarred and feathered?” I asked of the district
attorney.
“No, but I’ve seen one lynched, and helped to lynch him,” said he.
“But lynching isn’t very good for legal business,” I hazarded.
He at once felt ruffled.
“It doesn’t make any difference to the Negro,” said he. “He hasn’t got
a soul. They don’t go to heaven or hell.”
“How do you make that out?”
“They’re just animals,” said he. “They were never in the Garden of
Eden, for Adam and Eve were white. Consequently, as they had no part in
original sin, they have no share in our salvation either. Christ did
not come to save those who never fell from grace.”
“I never heard that before,” said I, and was so greatly amused I could
not help showing it.
The attorney sought me out afterwards with Biblical proof. The sons
of Cain, it appears, took themselves wives from the daughters of
men; these other men were not descended from Adam and were probably
Negroes—the attorney was perfectly serious. The judge, however,
to whom we referred the matter, was of a cynical turn of mind, and
chuckled heartily. “I am a subscriber to foreign missions,” said he.
“If they have not Adam for their father, why do we send missionaries to
Africa?”
One of the chief places which I wished to visit was the Negro city of
Mound Bayou, in the Mississippi Delta. In the blackest part of the
State of Mississippi this is a city which is entirely Negro, possesses
a Negro mayor, Negro policemen, and indeed is entirely without
accommodation for white men. I stayed there a night in a Negro hotel
where the old wall paper was in hundreds of peeling strips hanging on
the walls, and everything in the bedroom was broken. It is a musical
sort of city, all a-jangle with the banjo and the brassy clamor of
the gramophone. Places of amusement are many—the Lyceum, the Casino,
the Bon-Ton café (with jazzy music), the Luck Coles restaurant, etc.;
one sees many advertisements of minstrel shows. But it is a working
city, and at present, with the high cotton prices, it is tasting
real prosperity. It is situated in the rich land of the Delta, very
malarial and snake-haunted, and therefore not very suitable for white
men, but the district produces the highest quality of cotton in the
United States. It is in a way a one-man city, and owes most to Charles
Banks, who is one of those agreeable and talented African giants, who,
like Dr. Moton and others, seem to have an unexpected capacity for
greatness. His energy and calm foresight and his money guarantee the
gins and the cottonseed-oil factory and the Negro bank and probably the
local newspaper and one or other of the churches.
In Mound Bayou is no segregation and no racial trouble, and the
Negroes show how happily they can live when unmolested. It is a type
of settlement well worth encouraging. The chief interest of the city
just now is the building of a “consolidated school.” All the small
schools are to be pulled down, and the money has been subscribed for
the building of a handsome new school on modern lines. It will be put
up facing the Carnegie Library Building. I was sorry to see the latter
devoid of books, and used as a Sunday school, but the building was
given before the city was ready for the responsible work of organizing
and controlling a public library. I talked in the infants’ school to a
strange array of children with heads like marbles, and found a common
chord in interest and love for animals. We imitated together all the
animals we knew, and agreed that no one who did not love animals ever
came to anything in this world. But if they loved their animals, they
must love teacher too. I talked in the beautiful Wesleyan church on the
difference between _E pluribus unum_ and _E pluribus duo_, but that was
to grown-ups—and they were so dull, compared with the children. The
point was, however, that though the United States might fail to obtain
unity of race, her peoples, white and black and yellow, Teutonic and
Slav and the rest, could still be one in ideal.
“We are trying here to understand the beauty of being black,” said one
of the audience edifyingly. “Solomon’s bride herself was black,” said
he.
Mound Bayou is the pride of Mississippi, as far as the black part of it
is concerned. The crowds that appear when a train comes in remind one
of similar pictures in Africa. America seems to have disappeared and
Africa to have been substituted. An entirely black South, or even one
State entirely black, is, however, unthinkable. The white man has shed
too much blood for his ideals there. He can never easily abandon any
part of it. He must rise to the standard of his sacrifices. To my eyes,
Mound Bayou was a little pathetic—like the sort of small establishment
of a woman who has been separated from a rich husband through
estrangement or desertion. It is not quite in the nature of things, and
is more like a courageous protest than the beginning of something new.
It stands, however, as a symbol of incompatibility of temperament.
There are many who say that when left to himself the Negro slips back
from civilization into a primitive state of laziness or savagery, and
they instance life in Haiti and the supposed failure of Liberia. It
is said that he does not keep up the white man’s standard, he is not
so strenuous, he is not a good organizer, nor dependable. That is not
entirely true, but there is some truth in it. Mound Bayou is situated
in a highly malarial region, unfitted for white habitation, but being
surrounded with the best cotton-growing land in America it ought to
be exceedingly prosperous. The best that can be said is that the
local planters are in a better plight than their neighbors who are
intermingled with Whites. Complete financial failure has threatened
the little city in the past, and if it were not for the founder, Mr.
Montgomery, and its financier, Mr. Banks, most of the proprietorship
must have passed over into white hands. To all appearances, the Negro
needs decent white co-operation in business, and mixed commercial
relationships are better than segregated ones. The difficulty is to
find conscientious business Whites who realize that the prosperity of
the Negro is worth while. The fixed idea of the white business man is
to fool the Negro and exploit him to the last penny.
Mound Bayou has its own Negro cotton buyers, who give a fair price
for the cotton. But it is with the greatest difficulty that a Negro
planter can obtain from a white buyer the true market price, and it is
rare that a landlord who receives cotton bales as rent will take into
consideration the enhanced price of cotton, even though the enhancement
is supposed to be primarily due to the smallness of the harvest.
Where the white man is in control it is true the Negro produces more
because he has to in order to live, but he is nevertheless the victim
of a systematized swindling, and he knows it. It is causing a growing
discontent among the black peasantry, and I was continually told about
it.
One of the worst riots of 1919 took place on the other side of the
river—in the State of Arkansas, at Elaine. It is also in this
so-called Delta region. The origin of the riot was rooted in the
economic problem. The white buyers and landlords had been consistently
defrauding the Negro countryside by overlooking the enhanced value of
cotton. Cotton had risen in price from a pre-war average of ten cents a
pound to twenty-eight cents in 1917 and actually to forty cents in the
current year. Formerly it was generally represented to the Negro that
he was always deep in debt for his “rations” or his rent. The white
policy was to keep the Negro in debt. It was never the custom to render
him accounts or to argue with him when he claimed more than was handed
him.
“You had a fine crop—you’re just about straight,” was a common
greeting in the fall of 1919.
But with the prolific Delta crop of cotton and a quadruple price,
the discontent of the Negro can be imagined. It was intense, and was
growing.
There are two versions of the outcome of it. One is that a firm of
white lawyers approached some of the Negro planters with an idea
of taking the matter to court and seeing what could be obtained in
redress. The other is that the Negroes “got together,” organized a body
called “The Farmers’ Progressive Union,” which then approached the
firm of lawyers on its own account. I incline to think that the former
is the more probable. The white firm thought there was money to be made
from fighting Negro claims. Some of the Negroes were actually agreed
to take the matter to a Federal Grand Jury, and charge the Whites with
frustration of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The Negroes were undoubtedly daring, and held public meetings and used
sufficient bravado to alarm the local white population. The rumor flew
from farm to farm that the Negroes were plotting an insurrection.
Someone discovered a heap of rifles stacked where they had been left
and forgotten when the Armistice had interrupted drilling. This gave
the necessary color to the idea. Besides the rusty rifles, the Negroes
were seen to be not without firearms of one kind or another. The Negro
loves weapons, as an Oriental loves jewelry. Shotguns and revolvers in
plenty are to be found in the cabins of the colored country folk. The
Whites put up a _provocateur_ as before a pogrom in Russia. He started
firing on Negroes at random in the Elaine streets. Then two white
officials attempted to break into a Negro meeting, resorted to arms,
and were met by firing in return. One of the Whites was killed, the
other wounded. This started the three days of destruction in Phillips
County. The whole Negro population was rounded up by white troops
and farmers with rifles. Machine guns were even brought into play
against an imaginary black army. A great number of Negroes were put in
a stockade under military arrest, many were killed, many wounded. And
three hundred were placed in jail and charged with riot and murder.
No Whites were arrested. The governor, a Mr. Brough, was largely
responsible for this method of investigating the alleged conspiracy
of the Negroes to make an insurrection. The whole occurrence was
astonishingly ugly, and it was followed by ten-minute trials before
exclusively white juries, and swift sentences to electrocution for
some Negro prisoners, and to long terms of penal servitude for others.
The riot and the trials so exasperated Negroes throughout the United
States that there is no doubt a Federal Commission of impartial men
might well have been appointed to investigate the whole affair, both
as regards its inception and as regards its military culmination and
its aftermath of trial and punishment. As it is, though Governor Brough
says to the Negroes, “You _did_ plan an insurrection,” and though the
Whites of Elaine may feel happier and more secure, it is an obvious
truism that the white population of other States cannot be feeling
more secure because of it, and that the Negroes in other districts
feel less secure—they feel the need to arm. It has caused a great
increase in public insecurity. Perhaps because of this the riot has
been more discussed than other riots. Somewhat shocked and fretful, the
governor, who is probably a brisk business man, and in no way like one
of those more neurotic governors of Russian provinces which occur in
Aùdreyev’s tales, called a meeting. Some four hundred Whites and tamed
Negroes were brought together to see what could be done to improve race
relationship. This was a month after these events.
The _Commercial Appeal_ of Memphis reports the governor’s remarks:
“This meeting has been called for the purpose of a heart-to-heart
discussion of the relations between the white people and the Negroes
of the State. These relations have become strained, especially by the
recent rebellion in Phillips County. I say ‘rebellion’ advisedly and
without qualifications, for it was an insurrection, and a damnable one.
“And I want to say in the beginning that Arkansas is going to handle
her own problems. I do not intend to go to New York City or to Topeka,
Kansas. When I want advice from Negroes I shall ask it from Arkansas
Negroes, and when I want similar advice from white people, I shall get
it from the white people of Arkansas.
“I also wish to say that I do not intend to be intimidated by any
publications or any letters I may receive. I have already received
several letters which said that if I permitted the execution of
these twelve Negroes from Phillips County to go through, I would be
assassinated. One of the letters contained a crude drawing of a coffin,
represented to be my own in case the Negroes were electrocuted. I
received one letter to-day which stated that the entire city of Helena
would be burned if these Negroes went to their death. But I repeat that
I will not be intimidated by any outside influence in this question.
Our own questions must be settled within the boundaries of our State,
and I believe that there are not enough representative Negroes in the
State to do this.”
So said the governor, but it is rather a question whether in these days
of Leagues of Nations and Alliances and “sympathies” one State like
Arkansas, washed partly by a great river, can live entirely within its
own boundaries and without outside consideration.
The mighty Mississippi rolls onward, bearing the spars and the sands
of half the States of America to the sea. And after the massacre at
Elaine, for some days, dead bodies of Negroes were washed up on other
shores. Doleful messengers, these, on the river of Time.
XVI
AT VICKSBURG
I suppose not many make the pilgrimage of America; land in New England
with the Puritans or sail up the James River with the Cavaliers, linger
reflectively at Mt. Vernon, consider Boston Harbor and the tax on tea,
pause at Bunker Hill, and so on—or visit Sumter, where the Stars and
Stripes were hauled down by the South, and then make the tour of the
war which followed. It would be worth while—to think a little at
Gettysburg and think again in Georgia, walking perchance to the sea
after General Sherman. No such pilgrimage would be complete without
riding the great mother river of America, and it occurred to me that
a fitting place in which to end a pilgrimage, as far as the South is
concerned, might be Vicksburg, with its vast National Cemetery of the
dead of the Civil War. It is one of the most remarkable war shrines
in any land. But, more than that, it is a solemn reminder of all the
brothers’ blood that can be shed out of pride and vainglory of heart,
and an obstinate refusal on the part of one section of a nation to
follow the guiding star of the whole.
Vicksburg is a beautiful city, built on a steep cliff, continually in
sight of the broad, brown, passive streams of the Delta and the strips
of forest which break up the waters. Above it all are the beautiful
lawns and terraces of the National Cemetery rising from the Mississippi
shore, and the dead lie in view, as it were, of the broad loveliness of
the river. Sixteen thousand Americans hallow the soil. They are mostly
of Grant’s army, but over and above there is another burying ground
with many of his enemies. No vulgar notice warns you not to pick the
flowers. Pick them if you will. But poems and prayers are scattered
everywhere, and still as you go you pause and read, and pause and read
again—
On Fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
Tiny cubes of white marble give the soldiers’ numbers and names and
regiments. It reminds one now somehow of the great cemeteries of France.
The mighty troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle’s stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din, the shout, are past,
says the next notice board. And yet, are they past? Are they not always
going on—as long as the cause for which the soldiers fought remains?
They fought for unity. They fought also for freedom. They had to do
what fanatical old John Brown set out to do at Harper’s Ferry, try to
release the land from that which was abominable in the sight of the
Lord. They strove to do it by righteous force. They were martyrs on
the altar of their country. And there is no doubt their country loved
them for their devotion. No land honors more its heroic dead than does
America. It is no mean thing to have died for America. The smoke still
rises to heaven where her men were slain, and it will rise until their
cause is completely vindicated.
Down below in the city, at the corner of Clay and Farmer Streets, last
year they burned a Negro to death, suspending him from a tree over
a slow fire. According to the evening paper, “The flesh on the body
began to crinkle and blister. The face of the Negro became horribly
distorted with pain. He assumed an attitude of prayer, raising his
palms together.”
When the victim was dead the leader of the mob cried out: “Have you had
enough fun, boys?” And they cut him down.
That Negro is with John Brown and the repentant thief and many another
such, in Paradise. But those who did the deed are damned. The Negroes
have been fleeing from Vicksburg ever since this terrible day. But the
dead of the old war remain in these great cemeteries. Something has
been effected: the children of the slaves are become free, but the
children of those who used to be masters still take a Negro now and
then and burn him to death.
I sat on a pyramid of lawn and looked down to the river. There was a
din of sawmills. The Memphis train went howling past, and then with a
petty rush on the road below an electric trolley car from Vicksburg.
The world went on in seeming peace. A throng of Negro workmen holding
on to one another came singing along the way. They were not slaves,
anyway. They had life, the beginnings of new life. Though fraught
with grave dangers, impeded by prejudice and hate and a thousand
difficulties—nevertheless it was new life that they had. And those
who died to give it them lie in these quiet graves while the river of
life goes past. They did not mean that the gift of freedom should be
tarnished. Most of them would be ready to die again to complete the
gift they gave. And John Brown himself if he should reappear would
not be sweetened by what he saw happening in the world. His soul goes
marching on, but it is still the soul of vengeance and wrath.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Best men, 18-25 $1,200-$1,300
Fair men 950- 1,050
Boys 375- 950
Young women 800- 1,000
Girls, 5 ft. 750- 850
” 4 ft. 9 ins. 700- 750
” 4 ft. 350- 450
—“A Journey Through the Seaboard
Slave States,” by F. L. Olmsted.
[2] “Two Years on a Georgian Plantation,” by Frances Kemble.
[3] “Sherman’s Memoirs.”
[4] Field Orders 119 and 120, abbreviated.
[5] “Negro Migration in 1916-17,” Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1919.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Soul of John Brown, by Stephen Graham