THE NEGRO AND THE WAR
[While the war lasted those of us who saw unpalatable truths were
compelled to do one of two things: either tell the truth as we saw it
and go to jail, or camouflage the truth that we had to tell. The present
writer told the truth for the most part, in so far as it related to our
race relations; but, in a few cases camouflage was safer and more
effective. That camouflage, however, was never of that truckling quality
which was accepted by the average American editor to such a nauseating
degree. I was well aware that Woodrow Wilson’s protestations of
democracy were lying protestations, consciously and deliberately
designed to deceive. What, then, was my duty in the face of that fact? I
chose to pretend that Woodrow Wilson meant what he said, because by so
doing I could safely hold up to contempt and ridicule the undemocratic
practices of his administration and the actions of his white countrymen
in regard to the Negro. How this was done is shown in the first two
editorials of the following chapter.]
_Is Democracy Unpatriotic?_
The present administration is all right. But it has its obstacles to
success. As usual some of the worst of these are its injudicious
“friends.” For instance, there are the people who are trying their best
to “queer” us in the eyes of civilized Europe. These silly souls, when
Negroes ask that the principle of “Justice in War Time”: be applied to
Negroes as well as whites, reply, in effect that this should not be;
that Negroes should not want Justice—in war time—and that any such
demand on their part is “disloyalty.” On the contrary, it is the fullest
loyalty to the letter and spirit of the President’s war-aims. To say
that it isn’t is to presume to accuse the President of having war-aims
other than those which he has set forth in the face of Europe.
Besides, no one can deny that freedom from lynching and disfranchisement
and the ending of discrimination—by the Red Cross for instance—will
strengthen the hand of the administration right now by strengthening its
hold on the hearts of the Negro masses and will make all
Negroes—soldiers as well as civilians—more competent to give effective
aid in winning the war.
Let us assume that we consent to being lynched—“during the war”—and
submit tamely and with commendable weakness to being Jim-crowed and
disfranchised. Very well. Will not that be the proof of our spirit and
of its quality? Of course. And what you _call_ that spirit won’t alter
its quality, will it? Now, ask all the peoples of all the world what
they call a people who smilingly consent to their own degradation and
destruction. They call such a people cowards—because they _are_ cowards.
In America we call such people “niggers.”
Is anyone unpatriotic enough to pretend that “cowards” can lick “Huns”?
No, this great world-task can be accomplished only by men—English men,
French men, Italian men, American men. Our country needs men now more
than it ever did before. And those who multiply its reserve of men are
adding to its strength. That is why the true patriots who really love
America and want it to win the war are asking America to change its
Negroes from “niggers” into men. Surely this is a patriotic request; and
any one who says that it isn’t must be prepared to maintain that
lynching, Jim-crow and disfranchisement are consistent with patriotism
and ought to be preserved. Reading the President’s proclamations in
reverent spirit, we deny both of these monstrous conclusions; and we
believe that we have on our side the President of America, the world’s
foremost champion of democracy who defined it as “the right of all those
who submit to authority to have a VOICE in their own government”—whether
it be in Germany or in Georgia. And we believe that the splendid spirit
of our common country, which has buckled on its sword in support of
“democracy” will support us in this reasonable contention. —July, 1918.
_Why Is the Red Cross?_
The Red Cross, or Geneva Association, was the product of a Swiss
infidel. He saw how cruel to man were those who loved God most—the
Christians—and, out of his large humanity and loving kindness, he
evolved an organization which should bring the charity of service to
lessen the lurid horrors of Christian battlefields.
A love that rose above the love of country—the love of human kind: this
was the proud principle of the Red Cross. Its nurses and its surgeons,
stretcher-bearers and assistants were supposed to bring relief to those
who were in pain, regardless of whether they were “friends” or
“enemies.” Discrimination was a word which did not exist for them: and
it is not supposed to exist now even as against the wounded German
aviator who has bombed a Red Cross hospital.
But, alack and alas! The splendid spirit of the Swiss infidel is
seemingly too high for Christian race-prejudice to reach. Where he would
not discriminate even against enemies, the American branch of his
international society is discriminating against most loyal friends and
willing helpers—when they are Negroes. Up to date the American Red Cross
Society, which receives government aid and co-operation to help win the
war, cannot cite the name of a single Negro woman as a nurse. True, it
says that it has “enrolled” some. This we refuse to believe. But even if
that were true, a nurse “enrolled” cannot save the life of any of our
soldiers in France.
The Red Cross says that it wants to win the war. What war? A white
people’s war, or America’s and the world’s? It this were a white
people’s war, as some seem to think, colored troops from Senegal, India,
Egypt, America and the West Indies would have been kept out of it. But
they were not, and we are driven to conclude that this is a world war.
Then why doesn’t the American Red Cross meet it in the spirit of the
President—of world democracy? The cry goes up for nurses to save the
lives of soldiers; yet here are thousands of Negro nurses whom the Red
Cross won’t accept. They must want to give Europe a “rotten” opinion of
American democracy. For we may be sure that these things are known in
Europe—even as our lynchings are. And anyone who would give Europe a
“rotten” opinion of America at this time is no friend of America.
The American Red Cross must be compelled to do America’s work in the
spirit in which America has entered the war. There need be no biting of
tongues: it must be compelled to forego Race Prejudice. If the
N.A.A.C.P. were truly what it pretends instead of a National Association
for the Advancement of Certain People, it would put its high-class
lawyers on the job and bring the case into the United States courts. It
would charge the American Red Cross with disloyalty to the war-aims of
America. And if it does not (in spite of the money which it got from the
“silent” protest parade and other moneys and legal talent at its
disposal) then it will merit the name which one of its own members gave
it—the National Association for the Acceptance of Color Proscription.
Get busy, “friends of the colored people”! For we are not disposed to
regard the camouflage of those who want nurses but do not want Negro
nurses in any other light than that of Bret Harte’s Truthful James:—
Which I wish to remark—
And my language is plain—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain
The Heathen Chinee is peculiar:
Which the same I am free to maintain.
_A Hint of Our Reward_
The wisdom of our contemporary ancestors, having decided that “We
Negroes must make every sacrifice to help win the war and lay aside our
just demands for the present that we may win a shining place on the
pages of history,” it must be cold comfort to learn that the first
after-the-war schoolbook of American history is out, that it is written
by Reuben Gold Thwaites and Calvin Noyes Kendall, that it devotes
thirty-one pages to the war and America’s part in the war, and that _not
one word is said of the Negro’s part therein._
Of course, sensible men should feel no surprise at this, for they will
realize how little the part played by the Negro in the Civil War is
known by the millions of white school children who read the school
histories. Yet, if there is a spark of manhood left in the bosoms of our
“white men’s niggers” who sold us out during the war they must feel
pained and humiliated when the flood of after-the-war school histories,
of which this is the first, quietly sink the Negro’s contributions (as
chronicled by Mr. Emmett Scott and others) into the back waters of
forgetfulness.
The times change, but we don’t change with them.
_The Negro at the Peace Congress_
Now that they have helped to win the war against Germany, the Negro
people in these United States feel the absurdity of the situation in
which they find themselves. They have given lavishly of their blood and
treasure. They have sent their young men overseas as soldiers, and were
willing to send their young women overseas as nurses; but the innate
race-prejudice of the American Red Cross prevented them. They have
contributed millions of dollars to the funds of this same Red Cross and
scores of millions to the four Liberty Loans; and they have done all
this to help make the world “safe for democracy” even while in sixteen
States of the south in which nine-tenths of them reside, they have no
voice in their own government. Naturally they expect that something will
have to be done to remove their civil and other disabilities. This
expectation of theirs is a just and reasonable one. But— —
Now that the world is getting ready for the Peace Congress which is
expected to settle _the questions about which the war was fought_ our
Negroes want to know if the Peace Congress will settle such questions as
those of lynching, disfranchisement and segregation. IT WILL NOT! And
why? Simply because the war was not fought over these questions. Even a
fool can see that. Lynching, disfranchisement and Jim-crowing in America
are questions of American domestic policy and can be regulated only by
American law-making and administrative bodies. Even a fool should be
able to see this. And, since it was only by the military aid of the
United States that the Allies were able to win the war, why should our
people be stupid enough to think that the allied nations will aim a slap
at the face of the United States (even if such things were customary) by
attempting to interfere in her domestic arrangements and institutions?
We learn that various bodies of Negroes, who do not seem to understand
the modern system of political government under which they live, are
seeking to get money from the unsuspecting masses of our people “for the
purpose of sending delegates to the Peace Congress.” The project is
sublimely silly. In the first place, the Peace Congress is not open to
anybody who chooses to be sent. A peep into any handbook of modern
history would show that Peace Congresses are made up only of delegates
chosen by the heads of the governments of the countries which have been
at war, and never by civic, propaganda, or other bodies within those
nations. Only the President of the United States has power to designate
the American delegates to the Peace Congress.
Of course, if any body of people wish to send a visitor to Versailles or
Paris _at their expense_, the government of the United States has
nothing to do with that and would not prevent it. But such visitor,
lacking credentials from the President, could not get within a block of
the Peace Congress. They can (if they read French) get from the papers
published in the city where the Congress meets so much of the
proceedings as the Congress may choose to give to the press. But that is
all; and for that it is not necessary to go to France. Just send to
France for copies of _Le Temps_ or _Le Matin_ and prevent a useless
waste of the money of poor people who can ill afford it in any case.
“But,” we are told, “such person or persons can make propaganda (in
France) which will force the Peace Congress to consider American
lynching, disfranchisement and segregation,” Passing over the argument
that such person or persons would have to be able to write French
fluently, we wish to point out that the public sentiment of even one
French city takes more than a month to work up; that the sentiment of
one French city can have but slight weight with the Congress, and that,
if it could rise to the height of embarrassing them, the French
authorities would sternly put it down and banish the troublesome
persons. Karl Marx, Prince Kropotkin, Malatesta and Lenine are cases in
point as showing what France has done under less provoking
circumstances.
Let us not try to play the part of silly fools. Lynching,
disfranchisement and segregation are evils HERE; and the place in which
we must fight them is HERE. If foolish would-be leaders have no plan to
lay before our people for the fighting HERE, in God’s name, let them say
so, and stand out of the way! Let us gird up our loins for the stern
tasks which lie before us HERE and address ourselves to them with
courage and intelligence.
_Africa and the Peace_
“This war, disguise it how we may, is really being fought over African
questions.” So said Sir Harry Johnston, one of the foremost authorities
on Africa, in the London Sphere in June, 1917. We wonder if the Negroes
of the Western world quite realize what this means. Wars are not fought
for ideals but for lands whose populations can be put to work, for
resources that can be minted into millions, for trade that can be made
to enrich the privileged few. When King Leopold of Belgium and Thomas
Fortune Ryan of New York joined hands to exploit the wealth of the Congo
they did it with oiled phrases on their lips. They called that land of
horrors and of shame “The Congo FREE State!”
And, so, when Nations go to war, they never openly declare what they
WANT. They must camouflage their sordid greed behind some sounding
phrase like “freedom of the seas,” “self-determination,” “liberty” or
“democracy.” But only the ignorant millions ever think that those are
the real objects of their bloody rivalries. When the war is over, the
mask is dropped, and then they seek “how best to scramble at the
shearers’ feast.” It is then that they disclose their real war aims.
One of the most striking cases in point is the present peace congress.
Already President Wilson has had to go to look after democracy himself.
Already responsible heads of the Allied governments are making it known
that “freedom of the seas” means a benevolent naval despotism maintained
by them, and that “democracy” means simply the transfer of Germany’s
African lands to England and the others. Africa at the peace table
constitutes the real stakes which the winners will rake in. We may read
in headlines the startling item “Negroes Ask For German Colonies,” but
Negroes of sense should not be deluded. They will not get them because
they have no battleships, no guns, no force, military or financial. They
are not a Power.
Despite the pious piffle of nice old gentlemen like Professor Kelly
Miller, the King-word of modern nations is POWER. It is only Sunday
school “kids” and people of child-races who take seriously such fables
as that in the “Band of Hope Review” when we were children that “the
secret of England’s greatness is the Bible.” The secret of England’s
greatness (as well as of any other great nation’s) is not bibles but
bayonets—bayonets, business and brains. As long as the white nations
have a preponderance of these, so long will they rule. Ask Japan: she
knows. And as long as the lands of Africa can yield billions of
business, so long will white brains use bayonets to keep them—as the
British government did last year in Nigeria.
_Africa is turning over in her sleep, and this agitation now going on
among American Negroes for the liberation of Africa is a healthy sign of
her restlessness. But it is no more than that._ Africa’s hands are tied,
and, so tied, she will be thrown upon the peace table. Let us study how
to unloose her bonds later. Instead of futile expectations from the
doubtful generosity of white land-grabbers, let us American Negroes go
to Africa, live among the natives and LEARN WHAT THEY HAVE TO TEACH US
(for they have much to teach us). Let us go there—not in the
coastlands,—but in the interior, in Nigeria and Nyassaland; let us study
engineering and physics, chemistry and commerce, agriculture and
industry; let us learn more of nitrates, of copper, rubber and
electricity; so will we know why Belgium, France, England and Germany
want to be in Africa. Let us begin by studying the scientific works of
the African explorers and stop reading and believing the silly slush
which ignorant missionaries put into our heads about the alleged
degradation of our people in Africa. Let us learn to know Africa and
Africans so well that every educated Negro will be able at a glance to
put his hand on the map of Africa and tell where to find the Jolofs,
Ekois, Mandingoes, Yorubas, Bechuanas or Basutos and can tell something
of their marriage customs, their property laws, their agriculture and
systems of worship. For, not until we can do this will it be seemly for
us to pretend to be anxious about their political welfare.
Indeed, it would be well now for us to establish friendly relations and
correspondence with our brothers at home. For we don’t know enough about
them to be able to do them any good at THIS peace congress (even if we
were graciously granted seats there); but fifty years from now—WHO
KNOWS?
_“They Shall Not Pass!”_
When heroic France was holding the Kaiser’s legions at bay her
inflexible resolution found expression in the phrase, “Ils ne passeront
pas!”—they shall not pass! The white statesmen who run our government in
Washington seem to have adopted the poilu’s watchword in a less worthy
cause. The seventy-odd Negro “delegates” to the Peace Congress who have
got themselves “elected” at mass-meetings and concerts for the purpose
of going to France are not going—unless they can walk, swim, or fly. For
the government will not issue passports for them.
Of course, the government is not telling them so in plain English. That
wouldn’t be like our government. It merely makes them wait while their
money melts away. Day after day and week after week, they wearily wend
their way to the official Circumlocution Office where they receive a
reply considered sufficient for their child-minds: “Not yet.”
It is many weeks since Madam Walker, Mr. Trotter, Judge Harrison and
other lesser lights were elected, but “They shall not pass!” says the
government with the backing of Emmett Scott. THE VOICE holds no brief
for these people: in fact it has taken the trouble to tell them more
than once how silly their project was. But it is not out of order to
inquire why the government will not let them go, and to find an answer
to that question.
The government will not let them go to France, because the government’s
conscience is not clear. And the government ordered that ludicrous
lackey, Mr. R. R. Moton, to go—for the same reason. In fact, the
creation of sinecures for Mr. Scott and the other barnacles is due
largely to an uneasy conscience. How would it look to have Negroes
telling all Europe that the land which is to make the world “safe for
democracy” is rotten with race-prejudice; Jim-crows Negro officers on
ships coming over from France and on trains run under government
control; condones lynching by silent acquiescence and refuses to let its
Negro heroes vote as citizens in that part of the country in which
nine-tenths of them live. This wouldn’t do at all.
Therefore: They shall not pass! And if, finally, the government, nettled
by such criticisms, should lift the ban when the Peace Congress is
practically over, the Negroes of America may be sure that those
permitted to go will be carefully hand-picked.
But what is the matter with America as a land for pioneer work in
planting democracy? Are these Negro _emigrés_ afraid to face the white
men here in the Republican Party or any other and raise Hades until the
Constitution is enforced? Is cowardice the real reason for their running
to France to uncork their mouths? It looks very much like it. Ladies and
gentlemen: don’t run. The fight is here, and here you will be compelled
to face it, or report to us the reason why.
_A Cure for the Ku-Klux_
It was in the city of Pulaski in Giles County, Tennessee, that the
original Ku-Klux Klan was organized in the latter part of 1865. The war
had hardly been declared officially at an end when the cowardly
“crackers” who couldn’t lick the Yankees began organizing to take it out
of the Negroes. They passed laws declaring that any black man who
couldn’t show three hundred dollars should be declared a vagrant; that
every vagrant should be put to work in the chain-gang on the public
works of their cities; that three Negroes should not gather together
unless a white man was with them, and other such methods were used as
were found necessary to maintain “white supremacy.” When the national
Congress met in December, 1865, it looked upon these light diversions
with an unfriendly eye and, noting that nothing short of the
re-enslavement of the Negroes would satisfy the “crackers,” it kept them
out of Congress until they would agree to do better. Finding that they
were stiff-necked, Congress passed the 14th and 15th amendments and put
the “cracker” states under military rule until they accepted the
amendments. The result was that the Negro got the ballot as a protection
from “the people who know him best.”
In the meanwhile, the Ku-Klux after rampaging around under the
leadership of that traitor, General Nathaniel B. Forrest, was put
down-for good, as it was thought. Today, after the Negro has been
stripped of the ballot’s protection by the connivance of white
Republicans in Washington and white Democrats at the South, the Ku-Klux
dares to raise its ugly head in its ancestral state of Tennessee. This
time they want to increase that fine brand of democracy which every
coward editor knows that Negroes were getting when they were bidding
them to be patriotic. The Ku-Klux means to shoot them into submission
and torture them into terror before they get to showing their wounds and
asking for the ballot as a recompense.
In this crisis what have the Negro “leaders” got to say on their
people’s behalf? Where is Emmett Scott? Where are Mr. Moton and Dr. Du
Bois? What will the N.A.A.C.P. do besides writing frantic letters? We
fear that they can never rise above the level of appeals. But suppose
the common Negro in Tennessee decides to take a hand in the game?
Suppose he lets it be known that for the life of every Negro soldier or
civilian, two “crackers” will die? Suppose he lets them know that it
will be as costly to kill Negroes as it would be to kill real people?
Then indeed the Ku-Klux would be met upon its own ground. And why not?
All our laws, even in Tennessee, declare that lynching and white-capping
are crimes against the person. All our laws declare that people singly
or in groups have the right to kill in defense of their lives. And if
the Ku-Klux prevents the officers of the law from enforcing that law,
then it is up to Negroes to help the officers by enforcing the law on
their own account. Why shouldn’t they do it? Lead and steel, fire and
poison are just as potent against “crackers” as they were against
Germans, and democracy is as well worth fighting for in Tennessee as
ever it was on the plains of France. Not until the Negroes of the south
recognize this truth will anybody else recognize it for them.
“Hereditary bondmen, know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?”