DEMOCRACY AND RACE FRICTION
_The East St. Louis Horror_
This nation is now at war to make the world “safe for democracy,” but
the Negro’s contention in the court of public opinion is that until this
nation itself is made safe for twelve million of its subjects the Negro,
at least, will refuse to believe in the democratic assertions of the
country. The East St. Louis pogrom gives point to this contention. Here,
on the eve of the celebration of the Nation’s birthday of freedom and
equality, the white people, who are denouncing the Germans as Huns and
barbarians, break loose in an orgy of unprovoked and villainous
barbarism which neither Germans nor any other civilized people have ever
equalled.
How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign
barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands?
so long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb
in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their
tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium,
Ireland or Galicia?
And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with
enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose
pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let
there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do
and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down. Unbeknown to the
white people of this land a temper is being developed among Negroes with
which the American people will have to reckon.
At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill
unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defense of their
lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.
The press reports declare that, “the troops who were on duty during the
most serious disturbances were ordered not to shoot.” The civil and
military authorities are evidently winking at the work of the
mobs—horrible as that was—and the Negroes of the city need not look to
them for protection. They must protect themselves. And even the United
States Supreme Court concedes them this right.
There is, in addition, a method of retaliation which we urge upon them.
It is one which will hit those white men who have the power to prevent
lawlessness just where they will feel it most, in the place where they
keep their consciences—the pocket-book. Let every Negro in East
St. Louis and the other cities where race rioting occurs draw his money
from the savings-bank and either bank it in the other cities or in the
postal savings bank. The only part of the news reports with which we are
well pleased is that which states that the property loss is already
estimated at a million and a half of dollars.
Another reassuring feature is the one suppressed in most of the news
dispatches. We refer to the evidences that the East St. Louis Negroes
organized themselves during the riots and fought back under some kind of
leadership. We Negroes will never know, perhaps, how many whites were
killed by our enraged brothers in East St. Louis. It isn’t the
news-policy of the white newspapers (whether friendly or unfriendly) to
spread such news broadcast. It might teach Negroes too much. But we will
hope for the best.
The occurrence should serve to enlarge rapidly the membership of The
Liberty League of Negro-Americans which was organized to take practical
steps to help our people all over the land in the protection of their
lives and liberties. —July 4th, 1917.
_“Arms and the Man”_
In its editorial on “The East St. Louis Horror” _The Voice_ said:
How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign
barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands?
So long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb
in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their
tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium,
Ireland or Galicia?
And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with
enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders
whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s
gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled
by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down.
_Unbeknown to the white people of this land a temper is being
developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to
reckon._
_At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill
unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defence of their
lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis
massacre._
To this, the New York _Age_ makes reply in two ways. Its editor, in an
interview given to the _Tribune_, declares that:
The representative Negro does not approve of radical socialistic
outbursts, such as calling upon the Negroes to defend themselves
against the whites.
And in its editorial of last week it insists that:
No man, or woman either, for that matter, is a friend to the race, who
publicly advises a resort to violence to redress the wrongs and
injustices to which members of the race are subjected in various
sections of the country at the present time.
The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging
tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect
upon the whole race. … The unruly tongues should not be allowed to
alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed.
Now, although _The Voice_ seeks no quarrel with _The Age_, we are forced
to dissent from this cringing, obsequious view which it champions. And
we do this on the ground that cringing has gone out of date, that _The
Age’s_ view does not now represent any influential or important section
of Negro opinion. The group which once held that view went to pieces
when Dr. Washington died. The white papers in their news items of last
week gave instance after instance showing that Negroes not only
counselled self-defense, but actually practiced it. (And _The Age_, by
the way, was the only _Negro_ paper in New York City which excluded
these items from its news columns.) If the press reports are correct,
then _The Voice_ told the simple truth when it spoke of the new temper
which was being developed “unbeknown to the white people of this land.”
And an outsider might conclude that _The Voice_ was a better friend to
the white people by letting them know this, than The Age was by trying
to lie about it.
But the controversy goes much deeper than the question of candor and
truthfulness. _The Age_ and _The Voice_ join issue on this double
question: Have Negroes a right to defend themselves against whites?
Should they defend themselves? (And this, of course, means violence.)
_The Voice_ answers, “Yes!” _The Age_ answers “No!” Who is to decide?
Let us appeal to the courts. Every law-book and statute-book, every
court in the civilized world and in the United States agree that every
_human_ being has the legal as well as moral right to kill those who
attack and try to kill him. Then the question for _The Age_ to decide,
is whether Negroes are human beings. To call our view “socialistic” is
to call the courts “socialistic,” and displays an amazing ignorance both
of Socialism and of human nature.
Before we leave this question, it is proper to consider the near and
remote consequences of the radical view. _The Age_ says that unruly
tongues will alienate public sympathy from the oppressed. Good God!
Isn’t it high time to ask of what value is that kind of sympathy which
is ready to be alienated as soon as Negroes cease to be “niggers” and
insist on being men? Is that the sort of sympathy on which _The Age_ has
thrived? Then we will have none of it.
And, as to the remoter consequences: neither we nor _The Age_ has a
lease on the future. We can but prophesy. But intelligent people reach
the unknown via the known, and prophesy the future from the known past
and present. And we do know that no race or group of people past or
present ever won to the status of manhood among men by yielding up that
right which even a singed cat will not yield up—the right to defend
their lives. If _The Age_ knows of any instance to the contrary in the
history of the past seven thousand years, let it mention that instance.
But _The Age_ may ask:
“What will self defense accomplish?” Let us see first what the absence
of self-defense accomplishes. In its news account of the St. Louis
massacre, the _Amsterdam News_ shows that whenever the white mobs found
a group of Negroes organized and armed, _they turned back_; while _The
Age_ itself had this significant and pathetic sentence:
Since the massacre, which will go down in history alongside the
atrocities committed in Brussels and Rheims, a delegation of Negroes
has held a conference with Governor Lowden at Springfield, _but the
outcome of this meeting will not bring back the lives of those who,
for no valid reason, were struck down and murdered in cold blood._
Taking the two things together the answer seems clear enough. When
murder is cheap murder is indulged in recklessly; when it is likely to
be costly it is not so readily indulged in. Will _The Age_ venture to
deny this? No? Then we say, let Negroes help to make murder costly, for
by so doing they will aid the officers of the city, state and nation in
instilling respect for law and order into the minds of the worst and
lowest elements of our American cities. And we go further: We say that
it is not alone the brutality of the whites—it is also the cowardice of
Negroes and the lickspittle leadership of the last two decades which,
like _The Age_, told us to “take it all lying down”—it is this which has
been the main reason for our “bein’ so aisily lynched,” as Mr. Dooley
puts it.
Whatever _The Age_ may say, Negroes will fight back as they are already
fighting back. And they will be more highly regarded—as are the
Irish—because of fighting back.
We are aiming at the white man’s respect—not at his sympathy. We cannot
win that respect by any conspicuous and contemptible cowardice; the only
kind of sympathy which we may win by that is the kind of sympathy which
men feel for a well-kicked dog which cringes while they kick it.
“Rights are to be won by those who are ready and willing to fight, if
necessary, to have those rights respected.”
Who says this? Theodore Roosevelt. So does President Wilson. So does the
U. S. Government. That is why we went to war with Germany. Our country
always acts upon the best and highest principle and we Negroes have just
begun to see that our country is quite right. Therefore, we are willing
to follow its glorious example. That is all.
_The Negro and the Labor Unions_
There are two kinds of labor unionism; the A.F. of L. kind and the other
kind. So far, the Negro has been taught to think that all unionism was
like the unionism of the American Federation of Labor, and because of
this ignorance, his attitude toward organized labor has been that of the
scab. For this no member of the A.F. of L. can blame the Negro. The
policy of that organization toward the Negro has been damnable. It has
kept him out of work and out of the unions as long as it could; and when
it could no longer do this it has taken him in, tricked him, and
discriminated against him.
On the other hand, the big capitalists who pay low wages (from the son
of Abraham Lincoln in the Pullman Co. to Julius Rosenwald of the Sears
Roebuck Co.) have been rather friendly to the Negro. They have given
their money to help him build Y.M.C.A.’s and schools of a certain type.
They have given him community help in Northern cities and have expended
charity on him— and on the newspapers and parsons who taught him. Small
wonder, then, that the Negro people are anti-union.
Labor unions were created by white working men that they might bring the
pressure of many to bear upon the greedy employer and make him give
higher wages and better living conditions to the laborer. When they, in
turn, become so greedy that they keep out the majority of working
people, by high dues and initiation fees, they no longer represent the
interests of the laboring class. They stand in the way of this class’s
advancement—_and they must go_. They must leave the way clear for the
20th century type of unionism which says: “To leave a single worker out
is to leave something for the boss to use against us. Therefore we must
organize in One Big Union of all the working-class.” This is the type of
unionism which organized, in 1911, 18,000 white and 14,000 black timber
workers in Louisiana. This is the I.W.W. type of unionism, and the
employers use their newspapers to make the public believe that it stands
for anarchy, violence, law-breaking and atheism, because they know that
if it succeeds it will break them.
This type of unionism wants Negroes—not because its promoters love
Negroes—but because they realize that they cannot win if any of the
working class is left out; and after winning they cannot go back on them
because they could be used as scabs to break the unions.
The A.F. of L., which claims a part of the responsibility for the East
St. Louis outrage, is playing with fire. The American Negro may join
hands with the American capitalist and scab them out of existence. And
the editor of _The Voice_ calls upon Negroes to do this. We have stood
the American Federation of Labor just about long enough. Join hands with
the capitalists and scab them out of existence—not in the name of
scabbery, but in the name of a real organization of labor. Form your own
unions (the A.C.E. is already in the field) and make a truce with your
capitalist enemy until you get rid of this traitor to the cause of
labor. Offer your labor to capitalism if it will agree to protect you in
your right to labor—and see that it does. Then get rid of the A.F. of L.
The writer has been a member of a party which stood for the rights of
labor and the principle of Industrial Unionism (the 20th century kind).
He understands the labor conditions of the country and desires to see
the working man win out. But his first duty, here as everywhere, is to
the Negro race. And he refuses to put ahead of his race’s rights a
collection of diddering jackasses which can publicly palliate such
atrocities as that of East St. Louis and publicly assume, as Gompers
did, responsibility for it. Therefore, he issues the advice to the
workers of his race to “can the A.F. of L.” Since the A.F. of L. chooses
to put Race before Class, let us return the compliment.
_Lynching: Its Cause and Cure_
Last week we had occasion to comment on the resignation of Mr. John R.
Shillady from the secretaryship of the N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Shillady’s
statement accompanying his resignation contains these significant
words:—
“I am less confident than heretofore of the speedy success of the
association’s full program and of the probability of overcoming within a
reasonable period the forces opposed to Negro equality by the means and
methods which are within the association’s power to employ.”
That the N.A.A.C.P. is not likely to affect the lynchings in this land
can be seen with half an eye by any one who will note that Governor J.
A. Burnquist of Minnesota “is also president of the St. Paul branch of
the association and one of the staunch supporters of its work”; that the
Minnesota lynching of last week was one of the most cynically brutal
that has occurred North or South in the last ten years, and that the
association has offered and is offering to give the Governor all the
assistance possible.
In most of the other cases of lynchings it is assumed that all the
officials were in collusion with the forces of violence, or were at any
rate in acquiescence. In the present case, however, the Governor of the
State is himself a high officer of the association. Yet we venture to
prophesy that no more will be done in the case of the Minnesota
lynchings than in the case of lynchings further south.
This leads us to a front face consideration of the problem of lynching.
Why do white men lynch black men in America? We are not dealing here
with the original historical cause; nor even with its present social
application. We are considering merely the efficient cause. White men
lynch black men or any other men because those men’s lives are
unprotected either by the authorities of the commonwealth or by the
victims themselves. White men lynch Negroes in America because Negroes’
lives are cheap. So long as they so remain, so long will lynching remain
an evil to be talked about, written about, petitioned against and
slobbered over. But not all the slobber, the talk or the petitions are
worth the time it takes to indulge in them, so far as the saving of a
single Negro life is concerned.
What, then, is the cure? The cure follows from the nature of the cause.
Let Negroes determine that their lives shall no longer be cheap; but
that they will exact for them as high a price as any other element in
the community under similar circumstances would exact. Let them see to
it that their lives are protected and defended, if not by the State,
then certainly by themselves. Then we will see the cracker stopping to
take counsel with himself and to think twice before he joins a mob in
whose gruesome holiday sport he himself is likely to furnish one of the
casualties.
“Let Negroes help to make murder costly, for by so doing they will aid
the officers of the city, State and nation in instilling respect for law
and order into the minds of the worst and lowest elements of our
American cities.” The law of every State says explicitly that killing in
defense of one’s own life is strictly proper, legal and justifiable.
Therefore, if Negroes determine to defend themselves from the horrible
outrage of lynching they should have the support of every official and
every citizen who really believes in law and order and is determined to
make the law of the land stand as a living reality among the people that
made it. —July, 1920.