WHERE LIES THE NEGRO'S OPPORTUNITY?
The liberation and enfranchisement of four million of slaves in this
country fifty years ago brought into the body politic a situation that
has ever since been a bone of contention. Because of their ignorance,
most of these people were without the slightest idea of the proper use,
or the power, of the ballot, and but few could properly exercise this
new and high prerogative.
As long as the federal troops remained in the South and supervised and
controlled the elections, these newly-made citizens retained their
rights, but when, during President Hayes' administration, the troops
were withdrawn, the South immediately set to work to remedy this
condition. Starting with Mississippi in 1890, state after state
disfranchised the Negro. Other discriminating laws have been enacted
setting apart "Jim Crow" apartments for the Negro on all public
carriers, establishing "Jim Crow" schools, and, in fact, segregating the
two races in all public places wherever it is possible.
This action on the part of the South brought forth a storm of criticism
from the North. The North accused the South of treating the Negro
unjustly and taking from him his constitutional rights. The South
answered the North, not by claiming its policy towards the Negro to be
right, but by accusing the North of hypocrisy; but both sections agree
that the Negro should be made as useful as his capacities will permit,
and that he should seek the place where this usefulness can be best
secured.
This long and constant agitation has led thoughtful students of the race
problem to ask the question:
Are the conditions in the South more conducive to the social efficiency
of the Negro than those offered to him in the North? This is a vital
question and a just answer to it will have a far-reaching and lasting
effect upon the future welfare of the Negro race in this country. By
social efficiency we mean that degree of development of the individual
that will enable him to render the most effective service to himself,
his family and to society. As has been defined, all will agree that
social efficiency is the chief end of life.
In the North the Negro lives mostly in the large cities, while in the
South he lives mostly in the rural or country districts. Both the North
and the South will admit this fact; the opportunities offered in the
North then must be largely the opportunities such as large cities can
offer, those in the South must be largely such as country districts can
offer.
But before further considering this question let us note for a moment
the opportunities offered in the South and those offered in the North.
It is true that, in the South, the Negro is disfranchised. It is also
true that he suffers many other injustices in that section, but on the
other hand he has a wide field of labor.
First of all he has almost an unlimited opportunity to farm. He is
better adapted to farm work in that section than either the native
white man or the foreigner. He stands the heat better and can do more
work under a burning Southern sun.
In railroad construction the Negro is preferred. The coal of the South
is dug by Negro labor, the iron ore is picked from the bowels of the
earth by his brawny muscles. The Negro finds work at the foundries, the
great pipe furnaces, the rolling mills, car factories and other
industries in the mineral districts. He is eagerly sought for the
sawmills, the turpentine orchard, and in fact for almost every industry
of the South.
Though the white man in the South is beginning to enter the field of
industry, he has not entered to the extent that the Negro's place is, in
the least, in jeopardy. Such are the opportunities offered the Negro in
the South, though he is largely deprived of political and social rights.
These facts are admitted by both the North and the South.
Now what are the opportunities offered him in the North? First of all,
the Negro is a free man in a political sense. He has the same right to
vote that other citizens have and, too, he can vote according to the
dictates of his own conscience.
President Roosevelt in his speech at Tuskegee in 1905, said that the
colored people had opportunities for economic development in the South
that are not offered to them elsewhere.
In the large cities of the North, where the Negro mostly lives, the
chances for good health and the purchase of a home are not so good. The
man with little means, such as the Negro usually is, must live in
either filthy streets or back alleys, where the air is foul and the
environments are permeated with disease germs. For the lack of fresh
air, pure food and proper exercise, his children are mere weaklings
instead of strong and robust boys and girls.
Dr. Robert B. Bean of Ann Arbor, in his essay on "The Training of the
Negro" in _Century Magazine_ of October, 1906, said that in the large
cities the Negro is being forced by competition into the most degraded
and least remunerative occupations; that such occupations make them
helpless to combat the blight of squalor and disease which are
inevitable in these cities, and therefore many of them are being
destroyed by them.
Mr. Baker says:
"One of the questions I asked of Negroes whom I met both North and South
was this:
"'What is your chief cause of complaint?'
"In the South the first answer nearly always referred to the Jim Crow
cars or the Jim Crow railroad stations; after that, the complaint was of
political disfranchisement, the difficulty of getting justice in the
courts, the lack of good school facilities, and in some localities, of
the danger of actual physical violence.
"But in the North the first answer invariably referred to working
conditions.
"'The Negro isn't given a fair opportunity to get employment. He is
discriminated against because he is colored.'"
These conditions instead of promoting the social efficiency of the
Negro, tend to degrade and demoralize him. The argument that the
deprivation of the Negro's political and social rights in the South
tends to crush his ambition, warp his aspirations and distort his
judgment, is unsound, because his self-reliance, ambition and
independence in the South can be traced partly to this very deprivation.
By it he has been forced to establish his own schools, his own churches,
educate his own children and train his own ministers. All of these make
for self-reliance and independence and are therefore conducive to his
social efficiency.