The Reconstruction Period
The years from 1867 to 1878 I think may be called the period of
Reconstruction. This included the time that I spent as a student at
Hampton and as a teacher in West Virginia. During the whole of the
Reconstruction period two ideas were constantly agitating in the minds
of the coloured people, or, at least, in the minds of a large part of
the race. One of these was the craze for Greek and Latin learning, and
the other was a desire to hold office.
It could not have been expected that a people who had spent generations
in slavery, and before that generations in the darkest heathenism,
could at first form any proper conception of what an education meant.
In every part of the South, during the Reconstruction period, schools,
both day and night, were filled to overflowing with people of all ages
and conditions, some being as far along in age as sixty and seventy
years. The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and
encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one
secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free
from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live
without manual labour. There was a further feeling that a knowledge,
however little, of the Greek and Latin languages would make one a very
superior human being, something bordering almost on the supernatural. I
remember that the first coloured man whom I saw who knew something
about foreign languages impressed me at the time as being a man of all
others to be envied.
Naturally, most of our people who received some little education became
teachers or preachers. While among those two classes there were many
capable, earnest, godly men and women, still a large proportion took up
teaching or preaching as an easy way to make a living. Many became
teachers who could do little more than write their names. I remember
there came into our neighbourhood one of this class, who was in search
of a school to teach, and the question arose while he was there as to
the shape of the earth and how he could teach the children concerning
the subject. He explained his position in the matter by saying that he
was prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round,
according to the preference of a majority of his patrons.
The ministry was the profession that suffered most—and still suffers,
though there has been great improvement—on account of not only ignorant
but in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were “called to
preach.” In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who
learned to read would receive “a call to preach” within a few days
after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia the process of
being called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually the
“call” came when the individual was sitting in church. Without warning
the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and
would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news
would spread all through the neighborhood that this individual had
received a “call.” If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would
fall or be made to fall a second or third time. In the end he always
yielded to the call. While I wanted an education badly, I confess that
in my youth I had a fear that when I had learned to read and write very
well I would receive one of these “calls”; but, for some reason, my
call never came.
When we add the number of wholly ignorant men who preached or
“exhorted” to that of those who possessed something of an education, it
can be seen at a glance that the supply of ministers was large. In
fact, some time ago I knew a certain church that had a total membership
of about two hundred, and eighteen of that number were ministers. But,
I repeat, in many communities in the South the character of the
ministry is being improved, and I believe that within the next two or
three decades a very large proportion of the unworthy ones will have
disappeared. The “calls” to preach, I am glad to say, are not nearly so
numerous now as they were formerly, and the calls to some industrial
occupation are growing more numerous. The improvement that has taken
place in the character of the teachers is even more marked than in the
case of the ministers.
During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the
South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a
child looks to its mother. This was not unnatural. The central
government gave them freedom, and the whole Nation had been enriched
for more than two centuries by the labour of the Negro. Even as a
youth, and later in manhood, I had the feeling that it was cruelly
wrong in the central government, at the beginning of our freedom, to
fail to make some provision for the general education of our people in
addition to what the states might do, so that the people would be the
better prepared for the duties of citizenship.
It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have been done, and
perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in charge of
the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the
time. Still, as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom,
I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could
have been put in operation which would have made the possession of a
certain amount of education or property, or both, a test for the
exercise of the franchise, and a way provided by which this test should
be made to apply honestly and squarely to both the white and black
races.
Though I was but little more than a youth during the period of
Reconstruction, I had the feeling that mistakes were being made, and
that things could not remain in the condition that they were in then
very long. I felt that the Reconstruction policy, so far as it related
to my race, was in a large measure on a false foundation, was
artificial and forced. In many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance
of my race was being used as a tool with which to help white men into
office, and that there was an element in the North which wanted to
punish the Southern white men by forcing the Negro into positions over
the heads of the Southern whites. I felt that the Negro would be the
one to suffer for this in the end. Besides, the general political
agitation drew the attention of our people away from the more
fundamental matters of perfecting themselves in the industries at their
doors and in securing property.
The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came
very near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from doing so by
the feeling that I would be helping in a more substantial way by
assisting in the laying of the foundation of the race through a
generous education of the hand, head, and heart. I saw coloured men who
were members of the state legislatures, and county officers, who, in
some cases, could not read or write, and whose morals were as weak as
their education. Not long ago, when passing through the streets of a
certain city in the South, I heard some brick-masons calling out, from
the top of a two-story brick building on which they were working, for
the “Governor” to “hurry up and bring up some more bricks.” Several
times I heard the command, “Hurry up, Governor!” “Hurry up, Governor!”
My curiosity was aroused to such an extent that I made inquiry as to
who the “Governor” was, and soon found that he was a coloured man who
at one time had held the position of Lieutenant-Governor of his state.
But not all the coloured people who were in office during
Reconstruction were unworthy of their positions, by any means. Some of
them, like the late Senator B.K. Bruce, Governor Pinchback, and many
others, were strong, upright, useful men. Neither were all the class
designated as carpetbaggers dishonourable men. Some of them, like
ex-Governor Bullock, of Georgia, were men of high character and
usefulness.
Of course the coloured people, so largely without education, and wholly
without experience in government, made tremendous mistakes, just as
many people similarly situated would have done. Many of the Southern
whites have a feeling that, if the Negro is permitted to exercise his
political rights now to any degree, the mistakes of the Reconstruction
period will repeat themselves. I do not think this would be true,
because the Negro is a much stronger and wiser man than he was
thirty-five years ago, and he is fast learning the lesson that he
cannot afford to act in a manner that will alienate his Southern white
neighbours from him. More and more I am convinced that the final
solution of the political end of our race problem will be for each
state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the
franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without
opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike. Any
other course my daily observation in the South convinces me, will be
unjust to the Negro, unjust to the white man, and unfair to the rest of
the state in the Union, and will be, like slavery, a sin that at some
time we shall have to pay for.
In the fall of 1878, after having taught school in Malden for two
years, and after I had succeeded in preparing several of the young men
and women, besides my two brothers, to enter the Hampton Institute, I
decided to spend some months in study at Washington, D.C. I remained
there for eight months. I derived a great deal of benefit from the
studies which I pursued, and I came into contact with some strong men
and women. At the institution I attended there was no industrial
training given to the students, and I had an opportunity of comparing
the influence of an institution with no industrial training with that
of one like the Hampton Institute, that emphasizes the industries. At
this school I found the students, in most cases, had more money, were
better dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of clothing, and in
some cases were more brilliant mentally. At Hampton it was a standing
rule that, while the institution would be responsible for securing some
one to pay the tuition for the students, the men and women themselves
must provide for their own board, books, clothing, and room wholly by
work, or partly by work and partly in cash. At the institution at which
I now was, I found that a large portion of the students by some means
had their personal expenses paid for them. At Hampton the student was
constantly making the effort through the industries to help himself,
and that very effort was of immense value in character-building. The
students at the other school seemed to be less self-dependent. They
seemed to give more attention to mere outward appearances. In a word,
they did not appear to me to be beginning at the bottom, on a real,
solid foundation, to the extent that they were at Hampton. They knew
more about Latin and Greek when they left school, but they seemed to
know less about life and its conditions as they would meet it at their
homes. Having lived for a number of years in the midst of comfortable
surroundings, they were not as much inclined as the Hampton students to
go into the country districts of the South, where there was little of
comfort, to take up work for our people, and they were more inclined to
yield to the temptation to become hotel waiters and Pullman-car porters
as their life-work.
During the time I was a student at Washington the city was crowded with
coloured people, many of whom had recently come from the South. A large
proportion of these people had been drawn to Washington because they
felt that they could lead a life of ease there. Others had secured
minor government positions, and still another large class was there in
the hope of securing Federal positions. A number of coloured men—some
of them very strong and brilliant—were in the House of Representatives
at that time, and one, the Hon. B.K. Bruce, was in the Senate. All this
tended to make Washington an attractive place for members of the
coloured race. Then, too, they knew that at all times they could have
the protection of the law in the District of Columbia. The public
schools in Washington for coloured people were better then than they
were elsewhere. I took great interest in studying the life of our
people there closely at that time. I found that while among them there
was a large element of substantial, worthy citizens, there was also a
superficiality about the life of a large class that greatly alarmed me.
I saw young coloured men who were not earning more than four dollars a
week spend two dollars or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and
down Pennsylvania Avenue in, in order that they might try to convince
the world that they were worth thousands. I saw other young men who
received seventy-five or one hundred dollars per month from the
Government, who were in debt at the end of every month. I saw men who
but a few months previous were members of Congress, then without
employment and in poverty. Among a large class there seemed to be a
dependence upon the Government for every conceivable thing. The members
of this class had little ambition to create a position for themselves,
but wanted the Federal officials to create one for them. How many times
I wished then, and have often wished since, that by some power of magic
I might remove the great bulk of these people into the county districts
and plant them upon the soil, upon the solid and never deceptive
foundation of Mother Nature, where all nations and races that have ever
succeeded have gotten their start,—a start that at first may be slow
and toilsome, but one that nevertheless is real.
In Washington I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living by
laundrying. These girls were taught by their mothers, in rather a crude
way it is true, the industry of laundrying. Later, these girls entered
the public schools and remained there perhaps six or eight years. When
the public school course was finally finished, they wanted more costly
dresses, more costly hats and shoes. In a word, while their wants have
been increased, their ability to supply their wants had not been
increased in the same degree. On the other hand, their six or eight
years of book education had weaned them away from the occupation of
their mothers. The result of this was in too many cases that the girls
went to the bad. I often thought how much wiser it would have been to
give these girls the same amount of maternal training—and I favour any
kind of training, whether in the languages or mathematics, that gives
strength and culture to the mind—but at the same time to give them the
most thorough training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and
other kindred occupations.