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 LIBRARY I 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP I 
 V S CAUFORNU/ 
 
THE TREND 
 OF THE RACES 
 
 GEORGE EDMUND HAYNES, Ph.D. (Columbia) 
 
 Secretary of the Commission on the Church and 
 
 Race Relations of the Federal Council of the Churches 
 
 of Christ in America. Recently Director of the Bureau of Negro 
 
 Economics, Department of Labor. Sometime Professor of 
 
 Sociology and Economics at Fisk University. 
 
 Author of: The Negro at Work 
 
 in New York City^ and Negro Newcomers 
 
 in Detroit, Michigan. 
 
 With an Introduction 
 BY JAMES H. DILLARD 
 
 Published jointly by 
 COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS 
 
 and 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 New York 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS 
 
 AND 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE 
 UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO MY WIFE AND SON 
 
 COMPANION AND FOLLOWER 
 
 IN THE PATHS OF PEACE 
 
 030 
 
A FOREWORD 
 
 Again a new home mission study book is added to the 
 lengthening series of such books issued by the Council 
 of Women for Home Missions and the Missionary Edu 
 cation Movement. Their purpose primarily is to lead 
 Christian people to the active practise of that cardinal 
 principle of Christ, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself." 
 
 Obviously, if our neighbor is to be loved, he must be 
 known. We must realize something of his racial mind 
 and spirit, his handicaps, his achievements, his capacities, 
 his horizon, his goals. Our seeking to know him must 
 be on the basis of the broadest sympathy. In the friend 
 liest and most helpful spirit we should sincerely desire 
 to understand him in the place where he is and to appre 
 hend something of the road by which he came and the 
 direction of his highest and best aspirations, that we 
 may, so far as we can, make it possible for him to attain 
 his best in our common civilization. We should at the 
 same time quite as earnestly seek to know ourselves in 
 respect to our limitations, achievements, and goals in the 
 building of the social order. 
 
 It is a valued privilege to have as the author of Tlie 
 Trend of the Races a gifted and honored representative 
 of the Negro people. The following summary of his 
 career appears in Who s Who in America: 
 
 "George Edmund Haynes, sociologist ; born Pine Bluff, 
 Ark., May n, 1880; A.B., Fisk University, Nashville, 
 Tenn., 1903; A.M., Yale, 1904; student University of 
 Chicago, summers 1906, 1907; graduate New York 
 School of Philanthropy, 1910; European travel, 1910; 
 Ph.D., Columbia University, 1912; Secretary Colored 
 
vi A FOREWORD 
 
 Men s Department International Committee Y.M.C.A., 
 1905-1908; professor of sociology and economics, Fisk 
 University, 1910-1920 (on leave, 1918-1920) ; Director 
 of Division of Negro Economics, U. S. Department of 
 Labor, May, 1918, to May, 1921. One of the founders 
 and formerly Executive Director, National League on 
 Urban Conditions among Negroes. Member American 
 Academy of Political and Social Science ; American Eco 
 nomic Association." 
 
 Dr. Haynes brings to his task, not only the results of 
 thorough study, but also the experience gained by resi 
 dence and investigation in communities of many different 
 types. Between 1912 and 1920 he traveled in the rural 
 districts of every Southern state and has visited all the 
 cities, North and South, in which there is any consid 
 erable Negro population. 
 
 It is the earnest hope of the publishing committee that 
 the book will create in all who use it a greater hunger 
 and thirst after righteousness in the relationships be 
 tween the races. 
 
 EDITH H. ALLEN, Chairman, 
 Joint Committee on Home Mission 
 Literature representing The Council 
 of Women for Home Missions and 
 The Missionary Education Movement. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A FOREWORD . . . . i . . . v 
 AUTHOR S PREFACE . ,*.;,.. . xi 
 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . xiii 
 
 CHAPTER I. WE FACE THE FUTURE ... 1 
 Typical pioneers in race relations. Two methods of 
 race adjustment Conditions surrounding America s 
 choice. White and Negro public opinion. The task 
 in racial relations. 
 
 CHAPTER II. SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS . . 23 
 Progress in economic relations. Development in in 
 dustrial relations. The progress of Negro farmers. 
 Growth of business enterprises. Progress in health. 
 Progress in mora 1 s. Development of homes. Ad 
 vance in community life. Progress in education. 
 Advance in inventions and scientific discovery. 
 Strength in Negro leadership. Progress in religious 
 life. Need for increased opportunities. 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 63 
 
 Types of mental and spiritual capacity. Evidence of 
 mental capacity. Feelings influence attitudes and 
 conduct. Humor and dramatic ability. Capacity for 
 music ; for poetry ; for art. Religious genius of the 
 Negro. Personal re -ations valued above property 
 possession. Self-forgetful loyalty of the Negro. 
 Tolerance and optimism under oppression. Rising 
 tide of race consciousness. Increasing resentment 
 and suspicion. The Negro as a contributor to 
 American social consciousness. Survival of super 
 stition and backwardness. The development of ra 
 cial self-respect. What the Negro wants. Growing 
 dependence of Negroes upon their own leaders. The 
 Negro and the interracial mind. 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 FACE 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE NEGRO S OFFERING TO THE 
 
 STARS AND STRIPES ... 99 
 
 In the War of the Revolution. In the conflict of 
 1812. In the Civil War. In the Spanish-American 
 War. Negro citizenship. Friction due to exercise 
 of the franchise. In the World War. Non-com 
 batant service. In agriculture and industry during 
 the War. Negro economics during the War. Negro 
 women and the World War. In Liberty Loan and 
 food campaigns. The Negro in the Army. Negro 
 troops in action. 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 136 
 Attitudes and ways of action due to conscience. 
 Influence of economic motives. Survivals from the 
 past. Attitudes due to ideas of race. Effects of 
 principles and ideals of democracy. The white race 
 and the interracial mind. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE . 158 
 
 Racial contacts lead to racial good-will. Church co 
 operation leads to better understanding. Efficient 
 cooperation in division of labor. Cooperative or 
 ganization may be general. Mutual economic and 
 life interests. Group interdependence between men 
 tal and social factors. Influence of race relations on 
 white and Negro homes. The Church an avenue o 
 racial cooperation. The Negro Church forced 
 through discrimination. Satisfactory racial contacts 
 through churches. Educational institutions may pro 
 mote cooperation. Cooperative contacts through 
 government. Voluntary organizations may coordi 
 nate interracial activities. Popular education 
 needed. Mutual inheritance of ideals. 
 
 APPENDIX . . . . / . . . 195 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY -.1 . 201 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A Southern university ..... Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Farm instruction 32 
 
 Negro women in industry 64 
 
 Negro regiment returning from France . . . 112 
 
 Negro shacks and new homes 144 
 
 A Negro city church . . . . > . . 160 
 
AUTHOR S PREFACE 
 
 Two score and nineteeen years have passed since the 
 Emancipation Proclamation set America free. Since that 
 time modern science and invention and world movements 
 have brought the questions of race relations and democ 
 racy to the forefront of public policy, both national and 
 international. 
 
 The records of the past have left mainly the experience 
 of conflict and conquest in the dealings of the strong with 
 the weak and the white with the black. Consequently, the 
 world faces the new situations and the rising tide of race 
 consciousness with quite as limited knowledge of whether 
 the principles of racial appreciation and cooperation can be 
 made practicable and how they may be achieved. 
 
 Experience in the adjustment of the relations of the 
 white and Negro peoples in America, therefore, has great 
 significance for the world-wide trend of the races. The 
 very issue of whether or not there will soon be a warless 
 world is involved because the problem of the twentieth 
 century is the problem of the contacts of the white and 
 colored races. With such interests involved, no student of 
 American race relations can well dogmatize or scold. 
 What is needed is more light and less heat. Truth has 
 only to be revealed to carry convictions ; it cannot be 
 permanently concealed. The light of knowledge and the 
 conviction of truth beget action in the spirit of the Ser 
 mon on the Mount. 
 
 There is now available a growing body of scientific and 
 religious ideas and principles to guide the feeling, thinking, 
 attitudes, and actions on such social questions. The au 
 thor has here attempted an introduction to the discussion 
 of the relations of the two races in America in the light 
 
 xi 
 
xii AUTHOR S PREFACE 
 
 of some of these ideas and principles. He trusts that the 
 reader will consider these pages with an open mind. Such 
 bias as probably a writer cannot divest himself of in mat 
 ters so vital is clear enough to be taken into account by 
 the impartial judge. There are, doubtless, errors that will 
 be apparent to the practised eye. There are repetitions 
 of some points which recur in more than one phase of dis 
 cussion. 
 
 Sources of evidence used have been noted in footnotes 
 wherever possible; much of that which has come from 
 leaflets, letters, clippings, and other sources cannot be ac 
 knowledged except in this general way. Special apprecia 
 tion is hereby expressed to many friends and to my wife 
 who have been generous in helpful criticism and encour 
 agement and through whom past personal experience has 
 made the book possible. Gratitude is offered to the Joint 
 Committee on Home Mission Literature representing the 
 Missionary Education Movement and the Council of 
 Women for Home Missions and the office staff of these 
 organizations for useful suggestions and unfailing cour 
 tesy. 
 
 The risks of criticism of this venture into popular 
 presentation of such a delicate and difficult question have 
 been taken in the hope of adding a useful line of thought 
 that may be of value in dealing with the problems of the 
 color line. 
 
 GEORGE EDMUND HAYNES 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 April, 1922. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 By James H. Dillard 
 
 The publishers have asked me to write a brief intro 
 duction to this book by Dr. George E. Haynes. Many 
 books are being issued, both in America and elsewhere, 
 on various phases of race questions, but there is a place 
 for this new volume. First let me say that I think Dr. 
 Haynes is correct in expressing the opinion that the 
 stirrings of race feelings and race issues throughout the 
 world will affect race relations in our own country. 
 There are plenty of people in the South who think of 
 the problem as existing nowhere else. This shows igno 
 rance of the facts, and yet those who think so are right 
 to a certain extent; for not even in the Northern states 
 is the problem quite the same as it is in the South, and 
 especially in the rural South, where the masses of the 
 colored population still live, and will probably continue 
 to live. But even in the backgrounds of the South it 
 will more and more be realized that a race question exists 
 throughout the world, and the effect of this knowledge 
 will be wholesome. For one of the needs of readjust 
 ment is the recognition of the fact, obvious of course 
 but too much disregarded, that the Negro is a member 
 of one of the great world races. What the author says 
 about this and about the history of the race is well worth 
 reading. 
 
 Dr. Haynes calls our attention to the fact that ihere 
 are two ways of settling race conflicts, wherever the 
 conflicts may be. One way is the way of force and 
 violence. This has been the common way. The other 
 way is the way of conciliation, understanding, and good 
 will. As to the present situation in our own country he 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 asks, "Shall mutual misunderstanding, suspicions, and 
 friction continue, growing more and more acute? Or 
 shall mutual understanding, tolerance and good-will re 
 place them?" This presents the issue perhaps rather too 
 strongly, for there is already more understanding, more 
 tolerance and good-will than the question would imply, 
 and yet his question is the question. In a later part 
 of the book he gives the desired answer in a quotation < 
 from the Univer sityJRace Commission wmchjsjivsj^No 
 fact is more clearly established by history than that 
 hatred and force only complicate race relations. The 
 alternative to this is counsel and cooperation among 
 men of character and good-will, and, above all, of intel 
 ligent and comprehensive knowledge of the racial prob- 
 
 In 1913 in Atlanta a section of the Southern Sociologi 
 cal Congress held a meeting which was the first of its 
 kind. White men and black men met together on the 
 same floor and spoke to one another with frankness and 
 without ill-temper. From that time down to the present, 
 with the many local groups organized by the fine efforts 
 of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, there 
 have been meetings of representatives of the two races 
 at which more and more the spirit of understanding and 
 cooperation has prevailed. When I think of this, and 
 when I think of the increasing influences of school and 
 church, in spite of lynchings and other evils of which 
 we hear, I confess myself to have the hopeful note. I 
 see too many good people who believe in what is right 
 and who want to see righteousness practised, not to 
 have the hope that the right alternative of the two ways 
 will prevail. And shall we not have faith in educa 
 tion and religion, both of which great forces are doing 
 their inevitable work? Our education is trying year by 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 year to touch life more closely. Our religion, calling it 
 self Christian, is realizing that it must be so in practise 
 as well as in name if it is to hold the allegiance of man 
 kind. There has never been a clearer challenge to re 
 ligion, as Dr. Haynes says, than exists to-day the world 
 over in this matter of interracial relations. It was a 
 question of the day in the time of Christ, and we know 
 how he met it. 
 
 Surely I think we may have the hopeful note, and 
 meanwhile do the thing which seems right for the day. 
 Dr. Haynes says : "A close observation of opinion among 
 all classes of Negroes discloses a slowly increasing spirit 
 of resistance to injustice and mistreatment." This is 
 true, and it heightens the challenge to .all who are wish 
 ing and working for good relations. There is no doubt 
 that disappointment has come, especially since the World 
 War. But, as a friend has pointed out, the white people, 
 as well as the colored people,, had expectations beyond 
 the realization. The world is still a long way from being 
 safe for democracy. The fact is that great permanent 
 changes, as readers of history know, take time, and are 
 not very much accelerated even by crises, (it is natural 
 that there should be disappointment and resentment, 
 ,and yet I have a profound belief in the practical common- 
 sense of the masses of the Negro people. 
 
 An underlying thought of the present volume is given 
 by the author himself. "Through all the chapters," he 
 says, "and implicit in every section is the theme that 
 the relations of the two races finally rest, not upon wealth 
 or poverty, not upon things or lack of them, but upon 
 the mental, moral, and spiritual attitudes and habits of 
 conduct of life that grow out of the experiences of the 
 two races as they have contact in agriculture, industry, 
 education, government, religion, and the like. The great 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 hope of the future is that the ideals of Jesus may deter 
 mine the conditions of these experiences and the condi 
 tions of these contacts." But this general statement is 
 by no means an indication of the contents. The book is 
 full of important facts and opinions. It is a timely and 
 useful book. Its author is a man of education and high 
 intelligence, whose peculiar opportunities of seeing all 
 conditions of life among his people, and of knowing their 
 thoughts, entitle him to be a spokesman and interpreter. 
 I should say that the chief value of the book lies in this, 
 that we have here, from such a man, a frank and philo 
 sophical statement and interpretation of "things as they 
 are," as he honestly sees them. 
 
THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 We Face the Future 
 
 SOUTH and west from Philadelphia, one may visit 
 here and there the open spaces and modest buildings of 
 boarding-schools, institutes, and a few colleges filled with 
 cheerful, buoyant youths whose smiling faces range in 
 complexion from the luster of ebony to the radiance of 
 polished ivory. Frequently one will find white teachers, 
 but year by year they become fewer in number, as com 
 petent men and women of color arise and racial separa 
 tion increases. A glance into the classrooms, the prayer 
 services, the dormitories, the laboratories, and work 
 shops, and an inspection of the play activities and student 
 organizations brings an impression of institutions similar 
 in kind to others in America, except that equipment in 
 buildings, apparatus, books, and so forth is much less, 
 efficiency from lack of funds is limited, and the recruits 
 have come largely from less advanced homes and com 
 munities. At important central locations in every state 
 of the South these institutions struggle on from year to 
 year on meager funds supplied mainly by church mis 
 sionary organizations. They send forth thousands of 
 young people with a view of things in our modern world 
 and with a larger purpose for the one life they have to 
 live. 
 
 Turning into Negro neighborhoods in Southern cities 
 such as Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, 
 Atlanta, or, in smaller places, such as Bowling Green, 
 Ky., Columbia, Tenn., Athens, Ga., Huntsville, Ala., 
 
 i 
 
2 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Jackson, Miss., or in rural districts, the traveler finds 
 scores of men and women of education, character, and 
 culture who have been prepared in these schools and 
 colleges for service as teachers, ministers of the gospel, 
 doctors, dentists, lawyers, editors, and business men. In 
 quiry among their neighbors about these men and women 
 especially such white neighbors as have taken time and 
 pains to know them will bring words of commendation. 
 
 Typical pioneers in race relations. Into a rural 
 school of a Virginia county entered a plain, little dark 
 Negro woman, sent out from one of the schools founded 
 by missionary zeal. She began lovingly to visit between 
 school hours the homes of the people and then to adapt 
 the teaching of the children who came from these homes 
 so that they might apply the knowledge she sought to 
 give them at school to their daily lives around their 
 country homes. Her work caught the eye and the ap 
 proval of the young white county school superintendent. 
 He encouraged her, studied the results of her work, and 
 soon sent her about his district to instruct other teach 
 ers. The state of Virginia and the Jeanes Foundation 
 then became interested. The same experiment was then 
 tried elsewhere in North Carolina, in Alabama, and in 
 other states with the result that to-day all the Southern 
 states have state supervisors of Negro rural schools and 
 many "traveling teachers" going over their counties to 
 do work similar to that which one Negro woman in Vir 
 ginia demonstrated. 
 
 The story, however, is getting somewhat ahead of it 
 self. The pioneer missionary institutes and colleges in 
 sending out educated leaders to schools, churches, and 
 communities made a profound impression on that part 
 of the white world which did not believe that the freed 
 slave could learn and develop into a full-fledged man. 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 3 
 
 Once this disbelief began to be dispelled, the movement 
 for general Negro education made faster headway. The 
 work drew the interest of the dean of an aristocratic 
 white university, who resigned to become the head, first 
 of one then of two funds for the promotion of Negro 
 education. He is a wise man in his generation. These 
 funds have been carefully distributed in two directions: 
 (i) Many of the struggling institutions for the better 
 training of teachers and leaders have been helped from 
 year to year, and (2) rural schools have been helped both 
 toward gaining better support from public funds and 
 toward better standards of teaching. Through the en 
 couragement and support of the John F. Slater Fund, 
 four county training-schools for better education of rural 
 Negro teachers were started in as many counties in 1912. 
 These schools plan to develop support from public funds 
 and to raise the grade of teachers as rapidly as possible. 
 To-day county training-schools have multiplied to the 
 number of one hundred and fifty-seven, and some have 
 become good county high schools. 
 
 When, in 1863, the emancipation of the Negroes was 
 proclaimed, among the white students in a missionary 
 seminary at Rockford, 111., was a young white woman of 
 about thirty, Miss Joanna P. Moore, who was preparing 
 to go as a missionary to China or India or, perhaps, to 
 Africa. In February of that year a call came from 
 Island Number Ten in the Mississippi River for a 
 woman to work among the Negro refugee mothers and 
 children. Miss Moore responded and began the mission 
 of love and service to the Negro working people in their 
 homes and churches and schools. She was practically 
 without salary, she lived on "government rations," and 
 was shunned by local white people. During succeeding 
 years she visited the homes of the lowly in Arkansas, 
 
4 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Mississippi, Louisiana, and other states, helping families 
 to find lost members, teaching cleanliness in person and 
 heart, and leading the people to learn and love the Bible. 
 In 1884 Miss Moore started a "Bible Band" and Tire- 
 side School" movement, a system of home religious in 
 struction and cheer for mothers and families, by means 
 of a little magazine called Hope, that grew to have a 
 circulation of thousands. 1 Before her passing away in 
 1916, her work had developed a staff of devoted Negro 
 women who follow in her footsteps. 
 
 A young clergyman, graduate of Oberlin college and 
 seminary, left his wife and young child to become a 
 Union army chaplain the second year of the Civil War. 
 He was in the battles of Franklin and Nashville. At the 
 latter place, after the war closed, in abandoned hospital 
 barracks turned over by General Fisk, the young clergy 
 man started a school for the hundreds of freedmen who 
 flocked to this army post. After planting several similar 
 institutions for a Northern missionary society, he re 
 turned to be the president of the one at Nashville. For 
 nearly forty years, in the face of ostracism, misunder 
 standing and prejudice, this pioneer laid the foundations 
 deep and broad for one of the leading Negro colleges, now 
 known throughout the world because it has fostered 
 Negro music and the most liberal culture. 
 
 A young white Southern college graduate accepted a 
 call in the early seventies to start a school for Negroes 
 in a small Georgia city. In the face of the belief on the 
 part of many white people that Negro boys and girls 
 could not learn, and suffering even insult and desertion 
 from white relatives and friends, including his fiancee, 
 he opened the school upstairs over a grocery store. 
 
 1 Account drawn mainly from Brawley, B. G., Social History 
 of the American Negro, pp. 281-86. 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 5 
 
 Later he moved it to a run-down estate in the sub 
 urbs and developed it year by year, winning support 
 from his own church and from individual friends, 
 until a good normal school course and the first years of 
 college instruction were supplied to the many students 
 who attended. Throughout a long life, George Williams 
 Walker lived and labored in Christian love for the Negro 
 people. He had the joy of seeing some of his pupils win 
 national recognition for their achievements and service. 
 
 In the late eighties, after clashes between the races in 
 Lowndes County, Alabama, two white women, one from 
 Massachusetts and one from Connecticut, came in re 
 sponse to a Macedonian call and started a rural school 
 about three miles from the railroad station and adjoining 
 large plantations. Thirty years have passed. People, 
 white and Negro, have changed; likewise, conditions. 
 Negro men and women now help conduct the school 
 which has grown to require a faculty of a score. One 
 of the plantations has been divided into small farms. 
 These have been bought on the installment plan by 
 Negro tenants, with the assistance of the former owner. 
 A second and larger plantation is now going through the 
 same process. Throughout the county many black peas 
 ant farm homes have been improved, churches have been 
 built or remodeled, roads improved, and the standards 
 of district schools have been raised. A local white 
 doctor, a close critic, admits that the morals of the people 
 have been greatly improved. There has not been another 
 "race war." 
 
 In 1912 a young white Southern clergyman from Van- 
 derbilt University, as a part of his work in Nashville, 
 Tenn., began to inquire into the condition of Negroes. 
 Associated with him were several white women who felt 
 that the lore of God and man which impelled their church 
 
6 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 to send missionaries to Africa beyond the seas should 
 also be applied to the descendants of Africa in their own 
 town. For eight years they developed a social service 
 movement which, not only helped the needy Negroes who 
 came within their influence, but created a new atmosphere 
 in race relations in Nashville and elsewhere. Later, that 
 young clergyman was transferred to Atlanta. When the 
 exciting and fearful days came with the return of the 
 Negro soldiers from France, he was among the few far- 
 seeing white men who came together and invited Negro 
 leaders to meet with them to try whatever might be done 
 to help common-sense, tolerance, appreciation of the 
 Negro and justice to him to prevail over prejudiced 
 propaganda and unfounded fears. The result was a series 
 of interracial committees to promote cooperative activi 
 ties that have prevented friction, counteracted inflamma 
 tory propaganda, and promoted constructive efforts for 
 mutual welfare. 
 
 The missionary schools and colleges, the self-sacrific 
 ing men and women who offer service to their needy 
 dark-skinned fellow-men, the interracial committees, and 
 cooperation of white and Negro leaders are all parts of 
 renewed efforts to make race adjustments on the basis 
 of brotherhood rather than by brutal force. These efforts 
 are based upon the conviction that good instincts, im 
 pulses, and feelings exist in men of all races and can be 
 aroused and used to advance the welfare of all wherever 
 races touch hands and the weaker may suffer or may be 
 in need. 
 
 Two methods of race adjustment. Generally prevail 
 ing opinion has regarded the conflict of interests of 
 classes, nations, and races as due solely to the personal 
 faults or human depravity of the opponents. Such be 
 lief in depraved human nature led logically to the idea 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 7 
 
 and habit of using physical force where interests differed 
 or views crossed. By blows of weapons or by hunger 
 produced from withholding supplies, obstreperous indi 
 viduals or groups were compelled to change their conduct 
 to suit their opponents, or they were killed and put out 
 of the running altogether. In -our day, a more humane 
 idea has gradually modified our view of human deprav 
 ity. We have come to see that, to a large extent, pre 
 vious experiences and present conditions breed the feel 
 ings, attitudes, and habits of action of the individuals of 
 the community. 
 
 Past action of individuals who sought individual gain 
 and advantage has often entailed harmful consequences 
 and hostile attitudes in whole communities. Many per 
 sons and families caught in the net of resulting habits 
 are prevented from developing better customs. This is 
 illustrated in American history. The early settlers 
 wanted cheap labor. They imported Africans when in 
 dentured servants from Europe could no longer meet 
 their requirements and when Indians succumbed to 
 disease or massacred their masters. They had little, if 
 any, of Jefferson s vision and anxiety for their country 
 when the issue between freedom and slavery could no 
 longer be postponed. The idealist who took the long 
 view of the general welfare and who opposed the system 
 as contrary to the best interests of all, especially after 
 the invention of the cotton gin had made cotton the king, 
 was a voice crying in the wilderness. The multitudes 
 heard, but heeded not. The advantages from exploited 
 labor soothed the qualms of conscience and blurred the 
 vision for the coming days of reckoning. Many individ 
 uals and families suffered the consequences, and to-day 
 we are wrestling with the problems which resulted. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, early in the nineteenth century, 
 
8 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 appealed to the people of America for a peaceful settle 
 ment of the slavery issue through the purchase and set 
 ting free of the slaves. Benjamin Lunday of Baltimore 
 proposed a system of gradual emancipation as a means 
 of peaceful settlement and a remedy for the evils of the 
 system. The theory of settlement by conflict, however, 
 gained headway. The clash and turmoil of w r ar followed. 
 Nearly a million lives and many billions of dollars, in 
 cluding pensions now being paid, were consumed. Deli 
 cate and difficult problems for which the present genera 
 tion is still seeking a remedy have come down the years 
 as a result of the appeal to force to settle these differ 
 ences of views and of interests. 
 
 Conditions surrounding America s choice. Again, 
 after sixty years, America has come to a place of choice 
 between cooperation, for the general welfare and perma 
 nent progress, and conflict that may give temporary re 
 lief. The nation has an opportunity to demonstrate prac 
 tically that race relations in community life can be thor 
 oughly settled through understanding, justice, and good 
 will. The contacts, or lack of them, between Negro and 
 white citizens, North and South, furnish the concrete 
 conditions which make our choices definite and clothe our 
 contributions to world problems of the color line in flesh 
 and blood and personality. 
 
 Among the many historical elements that have lingered 
 from the past and those that confront us now, the follow 
 ing are of prime importance to a present-day considera 
 tion of racial relations. 
 
 First, the slave was emancipated and started on the 
 road to freedom. 
 
 Second, the master was liberated and given an oppor 
 tunity to become an employer of free labor. 
 
 Third, the slave plantation crumbled. The tenant plan- 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 9 
 
 tation with its share croppers, its cash renters, its share- 
 cash tenants, and its large number of day laborers 
 "farm hands" has replaced the older system. The 
 struggling Negro farm owner has appeared and made re 
 markable advancement both in landholding and in meth 
 ods of farming. 
 
 Fourth, the movement of white people and Negroes to 
 urban centers has developed and increased. Large town 
 and city Negro populations dependent upon labor by the 
 day, week, or month grow steadily. ^ 
 
 Fifth, the relations between white and Negro races 
 began to undergo changes, especially in three aspects: 
 (a) The older generation for the most part retained the 
 mental attitude growing out of the relations of the past. 
 In the South to-day many individual Negroes put their 
 trust in their "white folks" as in no others. These white 
 people in turn believe in and have regard for "their 
 Negroes" as for no others, (b) A generation of Negroes 
 who know not slavery has grown up with an increasing 
 race consciousness and aspiration for American oppor 
 tunities, (c) The descendents of the non-slave-holding 
 white people now make up the majority of the population 
 of the Southern states and have come into power of two 
 kinds : they have acquired a large share in the increasing 
 industrial occupations and a large voice in civic and politi 
 cal matters. 
 
 Sixth, with the race consciousness of the Negro grad 
 ually rising like the tides of the sea, has come a restless 
 ness under the existing restrictions, limitations, and racial 
 discriminations. 
 
 Seventh, the races have been drawing apart : a cleavage 
 from the cradle to the grave. Separate neighborhoods in 
 cities and impersonal relations on large plantations and 
 in large industrial operations where both races are em- 
 
io THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ployed are only the larger outlines of a more detailed 
 segregation that ramifies in many directions. In city and 
 in country communities, Negroes and white people attend 
 different churches. In the last fifty years, Negroes have 
 built up national and international church organizations 
 managed and controlled by Negroes. Separation in 
 schools, public and private, except in most Northern 
 states, is well-nigh universal. There have grown up the 
 mission colleges and secondary schools for the Negro 
 youth, fostered by the Church educational and home mis 
 sion boards. In the Southern states, on all railroad trains 
 there are separate cars or compartments in cars for white 
 and colored passengers. State laws or local ordinances 
 require separation regulations on street-cars. The old 
 feeling of dependence of man upon master is rapidly dis 
 appearing on the Negro side, and the old feeling of pa 
 ternal protectiveness is disappearing on the white side of 
 the line. Many white people and Negro people, especially 
 women and children, spend weeks, months, and even 
 years without any personal contact with those of the op 
 posite race. In many places Negroes are buried in sepa 
 rate cemeteries. 
 
 The changed situation and the resulting feelings, atti 
 tudes, and habits were very concretely set forth in state 
 ments made by a Negro man and a white man in Missis 
 sippi. 1 The Negro was a man of mixed blood, a country 
 preacher, and he gave this account of the change as illus 
 trated in the three generations of his own family: "My 
 father was born and brought up as a slave. He never 
 knew anything else until after I was born. He was 
 taught his place and was content to keep it. But when 
 he brought me up, he let some of the old customs slip 
 
 1 U. S. Dept. of Labor, Negro Migration in 1916-1?, pp. 33-34, 
 report of R. H. Leavel, "The Negro Migration from Mississippi." 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE II 
 
 by. I know there are certain things that I must do, and 
 I do them, and it doesn t worry me; yet in bringing up 
 my own son, I let some more of the old customs slip by. 
 He has been through the eighth grade; he reads easily. 
 For a year I have been keeping him from going to Chi 
 cago ; but he teils me this is his last crop, that in the fall 
 he s going. He says : When a young white man talks 
 rough to me, I can t talk rough to him. You can stand 
 that ; I can t. I have some education, and inside I have 
 the feelin s of a ... man. I m going/ >! 
 
 Compare this account with that given by the white man, 
 a leading political thinker in Mississippi, of the changed 
 attitude in three generations of his own family: "My 
 father owned slaves. He looked out for them ; told them 
 what to do. He loved them, and they loved him. I was 
 brought up during and after the Civil War. I had a 
 black mammy and she was devoted to me and I to her; 
 and I played with Negro children. In a way I m fond of 
 the Negro; I understand him, and he understands me; 
 but the bond between us is not as close as it was be 
 tween my father and his slaves. On the other hand, my 
 children have grown up without black playmates and 
 without a black mammy/ The attitude of my children 
 is less sympathetic toward Negroes than my own. They 
 don t know each other! 
 
 One writer has called public opinion "one of the lieu 
 tenants of God." There is a white world of opinion con 
 cerning the Negro and how he should be treated. There 
 is a Negro world of public opinion about itself, about 
 white people, and about how Negroes should act toward 
 them. A look into those two worlds briefly will serve as 
 an introduction to the treatment of the subject. 
 
 White and Negro public opinion. The white world 
 of opinion in America still believes in the inferior ca- 
 
12 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 parity of the Negro and has a very limited knowledge of 
 Negro progress. This estimate was made a generation or 
 two ago. Probably the exhibitions of physical prowess 
 by the Negro soldiers, Negro athletes, and Negro labor 
 ers, and the Negro s ability to sustain himself as a free 
 man have dispelled some of the belief in physical in 
 feriority so long avowed in books and newspapers. 
 There still remains, however, the notion that the 
 Negro is of a lower order of the human species, that in 
 mental capacity and moral qualities he is inherently in 
 ferior, and that there is a chasm so fixed as to constitute 
 a "fundamental and inescapable difference" which may 
 prevent the Negro from achieving the highest in modern 
 civilization. 1 The theory prevails that such achievements 
 in pure science, art, literature, social ideals, and the like 
 are beyond the present capacity of the Negro. This view 
 of Negro incapacity is usually buttressed by appeals to 
 history to show that the Negro achieved nothing in Africa, 
 by efforts at scientific proof of inferior physical features, 
 skull form and brain structure, and recently by use of 
 comparative mental tests. This question will be treated 
 in later pages (Chapter V and Appendix). Here the 
 purpose is only to state the prevailing opinion of the white 
 world. 
 
 The white world as a whole has the view also that the 
 Negro is predominantly criminal and in other ways in 
 herently defective and delinquent to a greater degree than 
 other elements of our population. This popular notion 
 lies back of the usual setting of news by the greater part 
 of the press, which presents its reports and stories in 
 line with what some call the "conventional opinion." 
 
 1 Smith, William B., The Color Line, pp. 29-74. Page, Thomas 
 Nelson, The Negro: The Southerner s Problem, pp. 277-280. 
 Morse, John T., Jr., Thomas Jefferson, p. 53. 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 13 
 
 That there are criminal Negroes apprehended in prob 
 ably larger proportions than white, is true. The point 
 is not to argue these questions of fact, but to record the 
 known current of opinion which generalizes wholesale on 
 the few facts and regards a whole race as peculiarly 
 delinquent. 
 
 Modifying to some extent the two preceding currents 
 of opinion is the American use of free speech and re 
 sponse to the facts when disclosed. With increasing as 
 surance, thoughtful Negroes and their friends have used 
 the American tradition of free speech to put their case 
 before the tribunal of the American public. As a rule, 
 when the facts have been ably given publicity, the Ameri 
 can people have responded with a measure of fair play. 
 Abraham Lincoln knew this through all his work for the 
 Union and the Negro. Every successful effort for Negro 
 advancement and better race relations has consciously or 
 unconsciously utilized this response of white public 
 opinion. 
 
 Public opinion of the Negro world * during the present 
 generation has crystallized a belief among Negroes that 
 the race has something to be proud of ; that Negro cul 
 ture and achievement are substantial and worth while. 
 There is a growing Negro race pride. They have tried 
 to make this known to the world. Probably another sig 
 nificant manifestation of this opinion is its interpretation 
 of expressions from white newspapers. For example, 
 
 1 The use of "Negro" as a race designation is to take both 
 terms in their conventional, popular meaning. The terms are 
 not used in an ethnological sense based upon complexions, hair 
 forms, or head forms or upon cultural types, because all forms 
 are found in the group and because in language, literature, art, 
 religion, industry, and other items, Negroes have very largely 
 appropriated and assimilated the culture around them ; They 
 have, however, developed a solidarity and race consciousness 
 which make a group life and a Negro world of feeling, thought, 
 and attitude, 
 
14 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 reports in white newspapers of racial clashes are regarded 
 by Negroes as prepared to excuse the white participants 
 and to blame the black ones. 
 
 There may be discerned three shades or schools of 
 opinion among Negroes with reference to achievement 
 of their rights and with reference to their relations to 
 their white neighbors. In European terms they may be 
 called "the left wing," "the center," and "the right wing." 
 The left wing is of recent development. It has two di 
 visions. There is first a socialist group which is just be 
 ginning, since the World War, to secure recruits among 
 Negroes. 1 There is considerable evidence that it is being 
 fostered by white socialists. The chief organ of propa 
 ganda is The Messenger, a monthly magazine published 
 in New York and ably edited by two young, college-bred 
 Negro men. They have utilized the dissatisfaction which 
 Negroes have felt because of the evils of lynching, mob 
 violence, disfranchisement, and other things about which 
 the race has been restless. Probably from a fourth to a 
 third of their magazine has been given to reports and 
 editorials on such ills. Their propaganda has served to 
 draw strength from such publicity about ills more than 
 from the intellectual or emotional interest any consider 
 able number of Negroes have in the more general matters 
 of social and economic reconstruction. 
 
 Furthermore, a new division has sprung up in the "left 
 wing." It is popularly known as the "Garvey Move 
 ment," from the name of Marcus Garvey, its West Indian 
 founder. This is an organized movement, claiming in 
 1921 from two to three millions of dues-paying members 
 in divisions, branches, and chapters of a "Universal 
 
 1 Since this was written, an attack upon the Negro Church and 
 upon other Negro leaders has seemed to weaken greatly the 
 influence of their published organ and their speakers. 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 15 
 
 Negro Improvement Association and African Communi 
 ties League." Such divisions are advertised in the United 
 States, Canada, Central America, South America, the 
 West Indies, and in Africa. The "Garveyites" have a 
 newspaper, The Negro World, with substantial circula 
 tion in all these parts of the world. A traveler just re 
 turned from a year s extensive tour of Africa reported 
 that Garvey and his propaganda were known to the na 
 tives wherever he went. 
 
 The two ideas this movement is propagating are 
 "Africa for Africans" and the securing of recognition and 
 fair treatment of black people everywhere by organizing 
 the economic, political, intellectual, and moral force of 
 Negroes the world over into a sort of provisional African 
 empire to force recognition from the white world. Busi 
 ness enterprises, a "Black Star Line" to run steamships 
 to regions populated by Negroes, and industrial corpora 
 tions, are parts of the plans that have drawn during a 
 four-year development about a million dollars from trust 
 ing Negroes, to be wasted by visionary and impractical 
 ones. 1 The leaders raised in one year over $200,000 for 
 a Liberian Construction Loan and launched in August, 
 1921, an additional "African Redemption Fund." The 
 "Garvey Movement" may fail because of bad manage 
 ment, but the ideas which it is propagating have pro 
 foundly influenced the thinking and feeling of Negroes 
 in all parts of the United States, to say nothing of other 
 parts of the world. 
 
 The second school of Negro public opinion, "the 
 center," is composed of those who might be designated 
 as the spiritual descendants of the aggressive abolitionists 
 
 1 It is reported that Garvey amd some of his associates have 
 been indicted recently by a Federal Grand Jury in New York on 
 charges of using the mails to defraud investors in the Black 
 Star Line enterprise. 
 
16 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 of a previous generation. They are actively and hotly 
 protesting and agitating against all forms of color dis 
 criminations and injustices. Their slogan for years has 
 been to fight and continue to fight for citizenship rights 
 and full democratic privileges of American life. This 
 school comprises several more or less independent groups. 
 The principal one is the National Association for the 
 Advancement of Colored People. Its official organ, The 
 Crisis, is the leading and best edited Negro magazine in 
 the world. The Association undoubtedly has the hearty 
 endorsement of the largest number of intelligent Negroes 
 of America that know about it. Its 80,000 members are 
 scattered throughout forty-six states. The Association 
 includes in its membership many white people of promi 
 nence. Its annual conventions have presented upon their 
 programs many of America s foremost speakers, pub 
 licists, and humanitarians. They have fostered the Pan- 
 African Congress which is agitating for self-determina 
 tion of African natives. 
 
 The third school, "the right wing," believes in full 
 justice, manhood rights, and opportunities for Negroes, 
 but still clings to methods of conciliation and the preach 
 ing of cooperation and turns a deaf ear to militant meth 
 ods of agitation. There is apparently no organization 
 representing this school, but many informal groups and 
 Negro agencies have such an attitude. The ablest advo 
 cates of this school have centered at Tuskegee and Hamp 
 ton Institutes. As a matter of fact, the objectives of 
 "the center" and "the right wing" do not differ. The 
 difference comes only in method and strategy. The two 
 schools are seeking the same city of American oppor 
 tunity, but each is undertaking to reach it by somewhat 
 divergent roads. 
 
 Those of the third school are having difficulty, how- 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 17 
 
 ever, to hold their influence with the masses of Negroes, 
 not only because of the pressure from the other two 
 wings, but more especially because of the tardy response 
 of the white world in removing some of the outstanding 
 ills and allowing Negroes to share in those advantages 
 which make the name of America a synonym for oppor 
 tunity. 
 
 A close observation of opinion among all classes of 
 Negroes discloses a slowly increasing spirit of resistance 
 to injustice and mistreatment. The following are some 
 concrete illustrations from statements of Negroes : In 
 1919, at the time of the Washington (D. C.) riot, "a 
 most reliable Negro, a man of the rank and file of work 
 ers, said : During the riot I went home when through 
 with my work and stayed there, but I prepared to pro 
 tect my home. If a Negro had nothing but a fire poker 
 when set upon, he should use it to protect his home. I 
 believe all the men in my block felt the same way. I 
 know they stayed round home more than usual. An 
 other Negro, a porter, said : We are tired of bein picked 
 on and bein beat up. We have been through the War 
 and given everything, even our lives, and now we are 
 going to stop bein beat up. A third, commenting on 
 the Chicago riot, said: These things (meaning riots) will 
 keep on until we peaceable, law-abiding fellows will have 
 nothing to do but to prepare to defend our lives and 
 families. A Negro teacher said, The accumulated senti 
 ment against injustice to colored people is such that they 
 will not be abused any longer. " x Even Negro graduate 
 students are beginning academic analysis of these new 
 currents of thought. 2 
 
 1 "What Negroes Think of the Race Riots," George E. Haynes, 
 The Public, Aug. 9, 1919. 
 
 2 Edward Franklin Frazier, a graduate of Howard University 
 and a former teacher at Tuskegee Institute, submitted as his 
 
i8 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 The task in racial relations. These two worlds of 
 opinion outlined in the preceding paragraphs have grown 
 up as the two races have developed life more and more 
 separately. They do not now know each other, as in the 
 past. Here, then, is the task in racial relations: to find 
 ways through which the present and future generations 
 of the two races may know each other as friends and 
 work out their problems together as American citizens. 
 The old relations of master and man, mistress and maid 
 are gone, never to return. The memories of "Marse 
 Clair," of "Miss Eva," and "Uncle Tom," and the "black 
 Mammy" remain as the recollections of sweet but bygone 
 days. 1 In these new times of stress and strain the grand 
 children of these cherished ancestors of both races have 
 a challenge to find that gentleness and tenderness of heart 
 and strength of mind which will enable them to correct 
 the hostile feelings, attitudes, and customs growing out of 
 past mistakes and present evils and to build up friendly 
 relations. 
 
 The crucial question is, Will the Negro, growing in 
 population, be enabled and permitted to stand upon his 
 feet as a man and to take a citizen s place in the onward 
 marching army of American life at the same time that 
 his white neighbor increases in numbers and advances in 
 the ranks of progress ? As indicated above, there are two 
 points of view, either of which may gain headway. White 
 Americans number about ninety millions, Negro Ameri 
 cans, about ten millions ; we face a crucial racial situation. 
 Shall mutual misunderstanding, suspicions, and friction 
 
 M.A. thesis at Clark University an unpublished manuscript on 
 "New Currents of Thought Among the Colored People of 
 America." It gives an appreciation of what is termed in this 
 text the "left wing" of Negro opinion. He concludes that 
 "America faces a new race that has awakened." 
 
 1 See Thomas Nelson Page, work cited, pp. 163-165, 173-204. 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 19 
 
 continue, growing more and more acute ? Or shall mutual 
 understanding, tolerance, and good-will replace them? 
 Shall common sense or brutal force prevail ? 
 
 The machinery of government and law can do a great 
 deal. Attitudes and the habits of thought and action of 
 both individuals and groups, however, lie back of govern 
 ment and control the machinery of the law. While regu 
 larly looking to the law, therefore, the two races have 
 to establish those relations which crystallize into law and 
 which make customs and governments. Many individuals 
 of a national or racial group, as they have struggled with 
 nature or among themselves, have chosen ways of acting 
 in the face of their surroundings which they have found 
 to result in pleasurable experiences. They have avoided 
 or tried to avoid ways of acting which would lead to 
 painful or unsatisfactory experiences. The former be 
 come approved as the right ways to act, and the latter are 
 disapproved as the wrong ways to act, and out of these 
 approvals and disapprovals grow up group attitudes, laws, 
 and customs of conduct. The approved and disapproved 
 ways of acting become fixed as conventional "public opin 
 ion," "folkways" and "mores" if you please, some 
 helpful, and some harmful. The mental background of 
 the individuals is made up of such ideas from which each 
 new situation is met and handled. 1 These attitudes and 
 customs are spread from community to community and 
 from one generation to another. The opportunity, then, 
 that individuals and groups and races have to learn to 
 avoid the ways, attitudes, and feelings that have proven 
 harmful and to cultivate those that have proven truly 
 pleasurable and helpful, will largely determine their abil- 
 
 1 For the theory of folkways and mores, see Societal Evolution, 
 A. G. Keller, pp. 30-38; for the idea of milieu see Race Prejudice, 
 Jean Finot, pp. 129-132, 172-175. 
 
20 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ity to meet the demands of modern life. These experi 
 ences from the past might be called the mental property 
 of the nation. To find ways and means for both races 
 to share in this mental property so that better feelings, 
 attitudes, and ways of acting under present conditions 
 may become the approved ways, is the problem of pro 
 moting better racial relations. The people must learn 
 good- will, tolerance, justice, and cooperation by such 
 means when the sky is clear, or they will find it too 
 late when the lightning of mobs and lynching flashes and 
 the thunder of riot rolls. In the past, the white man has 
 helped the Negro survive and develop in America, and 
 the Negro has largely thought of his development for the 
 white man s use. A fear has come to the white man that 
 painful experience may come to him when the Negro is 
 no longer to be merely a servant, and this is tending to 
 increase friction between the races. Humanitarian and 
 Christian forces have the task of teaching that the fear 
 is unfounded and that the white people and the Negro 
 people can and should work together for mutual. advance 
 ment. 
 
 This great task is intertwined in the many problems of 
 the so-called "race problem." They may be summarized 
 as the problems of Negro progress economic, educa 
 tional, social, and religious, the problems of Negro citi 
 zenship, and the problem of attitudes and habitual action 
 of the white world. These fundamental problems lie 
 back of and produce that public opinion of the two 
 groups, briefly described in this chapter. The question 
 of Negro progress is dealt with in Chapter II, followed 
 by a discussion in Chapter III of the Negro s capacity for 
 achievement as further shown by his internal response 
 to the world without him. The problems of Negro citi 
 zenship are taken up in Chapter IV from the standpoint 
 
WE FACE THE FUTURE 21 
 
 of the Negro s devotion to and sacrifice for the Stars 
 and Stripes, the symbol of the common man s opportunity 
 to determine his governors. The problem of the attitude 
 and habitual action of the white world is treated in 
 Chapter V. The closing chapter undertakes to analyze 
 the fundamental principles and ideals which underlie the 
 theory that cooperation rather than conflict should de 
 termine race relations of the future. In this chapter, also, 
 the attempt is made to point out the principal organiza 
 tions and institutions, the home, the school, the state, the 
 church, and auxiliary organizations, besides the economic 
 institutions, through which the friendly and pleasurable 
 contacts of the two races are to be made. 
 
 Through all the chapters and implicit in every section 
 of this book is the theme that the relations of the two 
 races finally rest, not upon wealth or poverty, not upon 
 things or lack of them, but upon the mental, social, and 
 spiritual attitudes and habits of conduct of life that grow 
 out of the feeling experiences of the two races as they 
 have contact in agriculture, industry, education, govern 
 ment, religion, and the like. The great hope of the future 
 is that the ideals of Jesus may determine the conditions 
 of these experiences and the conditions of these contacts. 
 
 The new world problems are problems of the color line. 
 Peoples and races are struggling in Europe, Asia, Africa, 
 and the Americas to-day to find peaceful relations. 
 The ups and downs of their struggles are before us as 
 we watch the dealings of the strong with the weak, the 
 wealthy with the poor, the white with the black the world 
 over. Everywhere, white and black, yellow and brown 
 are seeking happiness which all crave. All these peoples 
 are weary from the tumult and the shouting of the last 
 and greatest of wars and long for peace and prosperity 
 and perhaps a warless world. As with other questions, 
 
22 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 so with this, the means of getting what they want in 
 America, at least, may be close at hand if they open 
 their eyes and see them. Concrete demonstration in many 
 localities in our country where white and Negro Ameri 
 cans reside that two races can live peaceably together 
 and develop may be one of the greatest contributions we 
 can make to the world problems of color. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 Sixty Years of Progress 
 
 VISCOUNT BRYCE is reported to have said that the 
 American Negro in the first thirty years of his liberation 
 made greater advance than was ever made by the Anglo- 
 Saxon in a similar period. Twice thirty years have now 
 passed, producing rapid changes in Negro life. It is 
 fitting to inquire into the signs of that progress. The 
 progress of a people cannot be set down in figures. 
 We may reckon their wealth, but we cannot measure 
 the struggles that secured their possessions. As one 
 counts their schoolhouses and the children who go into 
 them, as one works out the percentages of illiteracy and 
 considers their alertness in learning to read, to write, 
 and to figure, he may remember that these are only a 
 part of their struggles upward from the dark caverns 
 of ignorance. Counting the offices they hold, the votes 
 they cast, and the participation they take in civic affairs 
 is a very meager means of reckoning their progress in 
 the habits of self-government. It is also impossible to 
 picture the development from slave cabins to homes and 
 families of culture and refinement. 
 
 These are positive signs, however, of the onward march 
 of a people struggling up from serfdom towards freedom, 
 from ignorance towards intelligence, from poverty 
 towards competence, and from degradation towards the 
 place where one of the world s great statesmen acknowl 
 edges that the rapidity of their progress has outstripped 
 that of his own people. The circumstances have, of 
 course, been unique. Negroes have lived among most 
 aggressive and progressive neighbors. The strongest 
 political power was thrown into the scales to raise them 
 
 23 
 
24 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 from the status of slaves to that of legal freedmen. As 
 Negroes had been the main labor dependence of the 
 South, when slave labor was no longer legal, their labor 
 was then in demand on a wage basis. It is true that the 
 wages were often meager, and the conditions of life on 
 the plantation were sometimes little removed from previ 
 ous conditions. It cannot be denied, furthermore, that 
 the freedmen were shut out from many of the higher 
 avenues of employment and that discriminations of many 
 kinds were practiced against them. But ere the smoke 
 of the Civil War had cleared away, missionary teachers, 
 evangels they were, opened schoolhouses and set before 
 the freedmen, not only the rudiments of knowledge, but 
 examples of clean living, high thinking, and brotherly 
 cooperation. There is no brighter page in the history 
 of Christian missions than the work and devotion of 
 these teachers. 
 
 But no matter what the surroundings were or what 
 encouragement they have had, unless there had been 
 inherent in the Negro people large capacities, unbounded 
 aspirations and a willingness to work, there never would 
 have been such progress in sixty years. Starting as they 
 did with meager resources in wealth and in intelligence, 
 they entered the paths of freedom with their faces set 
 toward the rising sun of progress and their hearts singing 
 hopeful songs of reward. To paraphrase what Frederick 
 Douglass once said of himself, Negroes should be con 
 sidered, not by the heights they have reached, but by the 
 depths from which they have come. 
 
 Progress in economic relations. In support of the 
 statement that the Negroes are a wage-earning people, 
 four important facts meet us at the threshold : 
 
 (i) In 1910 there were 71 per cent of Negroes in the 
 United States and 87.6 per cent of those in the South 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 25 
 
 ten years of age and over gainfully employed. Many 
 married women were helping to earn the daily bread for 
 the family. The percentage of Negro married women 
 gainfully employed was about three times as large as the 
 percentage of white women so employed. At that time 
 Negroes constituted about one seventh of the total work 
 ing population in the United States. 
 
 (2) Nearly all of these Negro wage-earners were em 
 ployed by white people. Furthermore, in both agricul 
 ture and industry these Negro workers were engaged in 
 the same occupations, often on the same jobs, as white 
 workers. 
 
 (3) While the overwhelming majority of Negro work 
 ers to-day are in the unskilled, lower paid, industrial 
 occupations, in domestic and personal service, or in 
 agriculture, they have shown marked increase in indus 
 trial occupations, in distinction from the agricultural, and 
 from domestic and personal service. In manufacturing 
 and mechanical pursuits in the 20 years between 1890 
 and 1910, Negroes increased about 165.3 P er cent. In 
 trade and transportation during the same period, they 
 increased about 129.5 per cent. 
 
 The proportion of Negro male persons engaged in 
 agriculture remained practically the same between 1890 
 and 1910. Negro female persons engaged in agriculture 
 increased from about one sixth to nearly one third of 
 those gainfully employed. The gain for both sexes was 
 about 66.6 per cent in 20 years, between 1890 and 1910. 
 In domestic and personal service the gain was about 65 
 per cent in 20 years, between 1890 and 1910. 
 
 In short, during the twenty years ending in 1910 Negro 
 workers showed a very slow increase in domestic and 
 personal service, a slightly higher increase in agri 
 culture, a still higher increase in trade and transports- 
 
26 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 tion, and the highest increase in manufacturing and 
 mechanical pursuits. These figures cover a period pre 
 ceding the World War and the heavy Negro migration 
 North. The greatest increase of Negroes in industrial 
 occupations has taken place since, as a consequence of 
 the high wages during the World War and the demand 
 for their labor, so that there are probably larger numbers 
 in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits than shown by 
 the available figures up to 1910. 
 
 (4) Previous to the World War and the entrance of 
 Negroes in large numbers, mainly migrants from the 
 South, into Northern industrial plants, many local unions 
 of white workmen, except in a few localities like New 
 Orleans, La., Birmingham, Ala., and Chicago, 111., either 
 excluded Negroes from their organizations or did not 
 encourage their joining, even in the face of their national 
 constitutions and the liberal statements of policy by the 
 American Federation of Labor. 
 
 Development in industrial relations. The first field 
 o,f occupations in historical importance is employment in 
 Southern agriculture, principally in the raising of cotton, 
 of corn, of sugar-cane, and of tobacco. 
 
 The second field is in Southern industry which has 
 grown by leaps and bounds since iSSo. 1 Southern rail 
 roads, mills (except cotton mills), mines, and other in 
 dustries are mainly supplied by Negro workers. The 
 railroads of the South have Negro section gangs, sta 
 tion and terminal employees, Negro firemen, train porters, 
 Pullman porters, and dining-car waiters. The coal and 
 iron mines of the district centering at Birmingham, Ala., 
 would stop at least for a time if deprived of their Negro 
 
 1 Haynes, George E., The Negro at Work in New York City, 
 pp. 19-23; also Murphy, Edward G., Problems of the Present 
 South, pp. 97-125. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 27 
 
 laborers. Steel mills, iron foundries, shipyards, saw 
 mills and lumber camps, cotton compresses and oil mills 
 of the South look upon Negro brawn and sometimes the 
 brain as their mainstay. 
 
 The third large field of Negro labor, Northern industry, 
 has undergone a great change during the past ten years. 
 In 1910 the overwhelming majority of Negro wage earn 
 ers in Northern industrial centers were restricted to per 
 sonal and domestic service occupations. In a study of 
 the "Negro at Work in New York City" in 1 908-1910 x 
 it was found that about 70 per cent of Negro men and 
 about 89 per cent of Negro women gainfully employed 
 were working as elevator operators, porters, janitors, gen 
 eral houseworkers, cooks, maids, and as other domestic 
 and personal servants. Such occupations for women as 
 pressers, bushelers, and operators of power machines in 
 clothing factories, and such, among men, as carpenters, 
 bricklayers, and other workers in the erection of build 
 ings w r ere almost completely closed to Negroes. The 
 World War brought a great change in this respect. 
 
 The tide of European immigrants who formerly sup 
 plied a large part of the unskilled and semiskilled labor 
 during the W^ar ceased to flow because many workers 
 were called to the defense of their native lands. The 
 captains of Northern industry looked South and beheld 
 a surplus of Negro workers. 2 Besides the normal excess 
 of workers in proportion to jobs, thousands were un- 
 
 1 Haynes, G. E., work cited, pp. 72-77. 
 
 2 For a full discussion of Negro migration, see United States 
 Department of Labor report, Negro Migration in 1916-1?, made 
 from investigations on the ground in several states by R. H. 
 Leavel, T. R. Snanely, T. J. Woofter, Jr., W. T. B. Williams, 
 and Francis D. Tyson. See also articles by G. E. Haynes in 
 Survey for Jan. 4 and May 4, 1918. Also "The Negro Migration 
 of 1916-1918" by Henderson H. Donald, in Journal of Negro 
 History, Vol. VI, No. 4, pp. 383-485. 
 
28 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 employed in 1915 because of floods and droughts in sev 
 eral farming districts, because of the drop in cotton 
 prices, and because of the depression in many Southern 
 industries. Agents of industrial plants and railroads 
 the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the New York Central, and 
 other railroads went South to solicit laborers. The 
 Negroes responded by the thousands. Census figures 
 for 1920 show a net gain in the North and West of 
 about 400,000 over 1910. 
 
 At the meeting of the Home Missions Council x in 
 January, 1918, an official of the New York Central Rail 
 road told his experiences in bringing Negro workers from 
 the South : 
 
 "The early summer of 1916 the Chief Engineer found 
 that the road was short five hundred track laborers and 
 had been for two months. He called on me to study the 
 matter and answer two questions: (i) Why can we not 
 get men this year as in former years for our track work ? 
 (2) What must I do to get five hundred more men on our 
 track at once? 
 
 "For a good many years we had been employing for 
 eigners who had quite recently come from the south of 
 Europe. Our track supervisors had generally a poor 
 opinion of the American hobo. We had never used any 
 Mexicans, Negroes, Japanese, or Chinese. I found out 
 soon that our best city from which to secure these for 
 eigners from the south of Europe was Chicago. I placed 
 an order there with three of our most reliable labor 
 agencies for fifty men each. They got for us but fifteen 
 men in all in two weeks. I also visited Indianapolis, 
 Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. I got reliable 
 knowledge of the labor situation in Buffalo, Detroit, Kan 
 sas City, and Cairo. 
 
 "I then reported to the Chief Engineer as follows : 
 You cannot get men this year as in former years be 
 cause the kind of men you have hired heretofore have 
 
 1 See Annual Report. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 29 
 
 gone back to fight the battles of their mother countries 
 in Europe. You are running your head against a stone 
 wall. You must go where men can be hired in order to 
 get five hundred men at once. There are two such places. 
 One is the Pacific Coast, where American-born white men 
 are now looking for work. But it is far to go. The 
 other place is at the Ohio River and south of it. But 
 in that southland the common laborer is the Negro. You 
 have never had Negro labor on the tracks. Our foremen 
 do not know how to handle Negroes. There are possible 
 race problems. Do you want Negroes? . . . 
 
 "In a few days he said to me : Go and get the Negroes/ 
 We got five hundred Negroes on our track within thirty 
 days. We continued in 1916 until we had brought fifteen 
 hundred Negroes. We housed them in temporary houses, 
 in the main. Some were in camp cars. 
 
 "No complaint of thieving or disorder or any mis 
 conduct was ever made by the citizens on our lines. The 
 Negro was more orderly than the hobo or the Italian. 
 He was cleaner than the Greek or Austrian. One of our 
 veteran supervisors of track said : The Negro eats the 
 Italian does not. The Negro is big, he is good natured, 
 and he speaks my language. I can get along with him/ 
 At the close of the working season I asked the Chief 
 Engineer how we had got along with Negro labor. He 
 replied : How could we have got along without it ? . . . 
 
 "The Negro is a gang worker. He is not a soloist. He 
 is superstitious, lacks initiative, and, taken alone, is scared 
 even of the dark. He is not a man for work requiring 
 risk. He is strong, reliable, peaceable, American, for he 
 came here with us and has been copying us ever since. 
 The black man wants work at better pay. He is quite 
 moral, very religious, and several times more an Ameri 
 can than the other laborer with whom he has come here 
 to enter into competition. He is a hopeful, industrial 
 asset, not a menace, no anarchist, no plotter." 
 
 There were four classes of Negro migrants. The first 
 was composed of the floating Negro casual laborers 
 largely produced by the past system of economy under 
 
30 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 which they have worked and lived. The second, the 
 majority, were the thrifty, middle-class, honest, hard 
 working, semiskilled, and unskilled workers who sought 
 better wages, better conditions of labor, and better living 
 conditions. The third class comprised a considerable 
 number of skilled artisans such as carpenters, brick 
 masons, and tailors. These three classes were accom 
 panied and followed by a fourth class, a number of en 
 terprising Negro business men, such as small retail shop 
 keepers, insurance agents and solicitors, and a number 
 of professional men doctors, lawyers, and ministers. 
 The wives and children, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other 
 members of families completed the number that made 
 up nearly half a million or so migrants who moved North 
 between 1915 and 1920. 
 
 The effect on the South of this wholesale movement 
 of Negroes was widespread. A shortage of labor both 
 in agriculture and industry was created. Wages were 
 increased to unprecedented levels. Treatment of the 
 workers and plantation tenants improved. City councils, 
 chambers of commerce, and business men s organizations, 
 county officials, and even state officials and legislatures 
 took steps to meet the situation. Some repressive meas 
 ures were attempted to stop the movement in different 
 places, but, for the most part, the migrants moved as 
 they were inclined. 1 Humanitarian, religious, and eco 
 nomic motives began to run in the same direction. Social 
 agencies found the business interests now actively con 
 cerned in plans for better schools, better housing, more 
 nearly even-handed justice in the courts, and other im 
 provements. 
 
 The effect in the North was also far-reaching. For 
 
 1 Donald, Henderson H., work cited, pp. 425-431. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 31 
 
 example, the Negro population of Chicago more than 
 doubled, increasing 148 per cent between 1910 and 1920; 
 that of Detroit increased from about 6,000 to more than 
 30,000 in four years, that of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Phila 
 delphia, and New York increased from 50 to 70 per cent. 
 Smaller cities and towns increased in similar proportion. 
 In six or eight of the basic industries in some of the 
 Northern industrial cities, Negroes filled the gap in semi 
 skilled and unskilled labor. A partial investigation of 
 the Department of Labor in 1919-20, the only data of 
 its kind available, showed 4,260 white men and 2,222 
 Negro men engaged in 194 occupations in 23 establish 
 ments of the six basic industries; namely, foundries, 
 slaughtering and meat-packing, automobiles, iron and 
 steel and their products, and glass manufacturing. In 
 the slaughtering and meat-packing plants of Chicago, 
 where one Negro was employed in 1915, from four to 
 five were employed in 1919-20. The foundries and hard 
 ware factories of Cleveland, Youngstown, and other 
 Ohio centers either increased their Negro workers or 
 employed Negroes for the first time. The steel mills in 
 and around Pittsburgh rivaled in complexion those of 
 Birmingham, Ala. In the six basic industries where 
 Negroes were employed in considerable numbers, com 
 parison with white workmen in the same establishments 
 indicated that black men made a good record as to labor 
 turnover, absenteeism, and quantity and quality of work 
 done. It is no exaggeration to say that during the war 
 the industrial plants that employed Negro workers for 
 the first time were well pleased. These workers proved 
 themselves adaptable, teachable, and able to get along in a 
 very cooperative way with white fellow-workmen both 
 North and South. Negro women entered the clothing 
 
32 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 factories of New York by the hundreds. These are 
 only some of the changed conditions that arose. 
 
 The progress of Negro farmers. Although many 
 Negroes migrated North during the World War, yet 
 the large majority are still in the South, and since the 
 majority are engaged in agriculture, their farm opera 
 tions are of prime importance in considering the changed 
 conditions in race relations. In 1920 over 920,000 more 
 farms were operated by Negroes than in 1860, and more 
 than one third of them were owned in whole or in part 
 by Negroes. In a single decade, 1900-1910, the number 
 of Negro farm owners increased about 17 per cent. 
 About three out of every four Negro farm operators in 
 1910 were tenants on rented land. The fourth operator 
 was an owner or a part owner. Negro farm operators 
 increased between 1900 and 1910 about 19.6 per cent, 
 while the rate of increase of Negro population was 11.2 
 per cent. There was a slight decrease between 1910 and 
 1920 in the number of owners, doubtless due to migra 
 tion and other changes during the War. There was, how 
 ever, an increase of 3.1 per cent in Negro farm operators 
 for the decade. White farm operators during the period 
 1900-1910 increased only 9.5 per cent in comparison 
 with the increase of the white population of 22.3 per 
 cent, and there was also a slight decrease in the number 
 of white farm owners. For both races there was a 
 marked increase of managing operators of farms. Ne 
 groes in 1920 owned a farm area about the size of New 
 England, omitting Maine. 1 The average value of Negro 
 farms increased from $669 in 1900 to $1,278 in 1910 or 
 about 91 per cent. 2 
 
 1 Stokes, Anson Phelps, Southern Workman, March, 1922, pp. 
 114-116. 
 
 2 These figures were furnished by Charles E. Hall, U. S. Census 
 Bureau. 
 
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SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 33 
 
 Growth of business enterprises. Next to the num 
 ber of farms owned and operated, the operation of busi 
 ness enterprises is a clear sign of economic progress and 
 prosperity. 1 In 1860 Negroes were estimated to have 
 owned 2,100 business enterprises. In 1910 it was esti 
 mated that they operated 45,000 business enterprises 
 and in 1920 more than 55,000 enterprises. A compara 
 tive enumeration in New York City showed that in 
 1908-09 there were less than 400 Negro business enter 
 prises in the borough of Manhattan, ten of them being 
 corporations. In 1921, there were probably more than 
 700 Negro enterprises in this borough, including more 
 than 59 corporations. 2 
 
 Many of these Negro enterprises are, of course, small 
 one-man enterprises, but a few of them are corporations 
 owning and controlling millions of dollars worth of prop 
 erty. Life insurance companies, mainly industrial, and 
 savings banks have been the outstanding, large business 
 developments. It is estimated that the business of Negro 
 insurance companies exceeds $60,000,000 with annual 
 income of more than $6,000,000 and with disbursements 
 of a like amount. The largest of the life insurance com 
 panies in 1920 reported more than $35,000,000 worth of 
 insurance in force, and daily receipts exceeding $4,000 
 in 1919. This is the North Carolina Mutual Life Insur 
 ance Company, which was founded by John Merrick, a 
 barber, Dr. A. M. Moore, a physician, and Charles C. 
 Spaulding, who was the first business manager. The 
 company began about twenty-five years ago on the in 
 dustrial plan and paid its first death claim of $40 by 
 making up the amount from the resources of its three 
 
 1 Negro Year-book, edited by Monroe N. Work, p. i. 
 
 2 Data furnished partly by Trotter s Negro Blue Book Direc 
 tory of New York and partly from investigations of the author. 
 
34 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 officers. Its office at that time consisted of desk space 
 at two dollars a month in a corner of the doctor s office. 1 
 
 The second largest insurance company is the Standard 
 Life Insurance Company. It is less than ten years old 
 and has to-day outstanding policies of about $20,000,000 
 of insurance. Its development reads like a romance 
 and represents the work largely of one man, Herman E. 
 Perry. He first canvassed to raise $100,000 which was 
 necessary in order to deposit required bonds with the 
 Insurance Commissioner of Georgia. Perry failed to 
 secure this amount in his first attempt, covering a period 
 of about two years, and returned to the subscribers to 
 the stock of the proposed company all the money which 
 had been paid on deposit, less ten per cent for expenses, 
 agreed upon in the original plans. Perry started im 
 mediately upon his second effort which took him two 
 years more, and this time he secured the necessary 
 $100,000. He began an old line legal reserve business in 
 1913. The company is now doing business in thirteen 
 states and the District of Columbia. 
 
 Besides saving and investing in insurance companies, 
 Negroes are actively interested in banks, in building and 
 loan associations, grocery stores, clothing stores, drug 
 stores, shoe stores, bakeries, steam-laundries, hotels, 
 barber shops, tailor shops, pleasure parks, moving pic 
 ture theaters, and many other lines of small business. 
 There were 250 or more Negro newspapers and periodi 
 cals. A dozen of these have a wide national circulation 
 from 10,000 to more than 75,000. 
 
 In 1920 there were listed 76 Negro banks with a re 
 ported capitalization exceeding $2,750,000 and doing an 
 annual business of about $35,000,000. This is a very 
 
 1 Andrews, Robert McCants, John Merrick, a Biographical 
 Sketch, pp. 75-120. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 35 
 
 small sum compared with even one of the nation s great 
 banks and gives no account of money deposited by 
 Negroes in banks organized by white men; but these 
 small Negro institutions represent the strivings of the 
 race. They are distributed from Philadelphia, Pa., to 
 Jacksonville, Fla., and Memphis, Tenn. In Virginia 
 there are fourteen Negro banks, in Georgia there are nine, 
 and in North Carolina there are nine. None of them 
 are national banks or large metropolitan banking institu 
 tions. They are small undertakings. But they represent 
 the accumulated savings and thrift of thousands of 
 Negro depositors and stockholders who have not only 
 gathered their small savings together, but who have to 
 this extent expressed their confidence in the financial 
 leadership and management of men of their own race. 
 Progress in health. The progress of the Negro in 
 health can barely be indicated from available figures of 
 mortality or statistics of the defective classes. The reg 
 istration area for mortality before 1900 embraced 10 
 states and 153 cities, practically all of which were out 
 side of the territory where the bulk of the Negroes re 
 side. "During the entire period 1900-1915," says the 
 census report, "the great mass of the Negro population 
 has been resident in the non-registration area. The pro 
 portion living in the registration area was 13.5 per cent 
 in 1900, 19.7 per cent in 1910 and 30.4 per cent in 1915." 
 The proportion of deaths of Negroes was about station 
 ary during the first two of these five-year periods and 
 showed slight increase during the last period. An esti 
 mate based on such incomplete mortality statistics for 
 the Negro population as are available indicates that the 
 aggregate decrease of numbers by death in the Negro 
 population between 1900 and 1910 was about 16 per cent. 
 For the native white population in the same period the 
 
3* THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 figure was 9.9 per cent. The annual average deaths per 
 1,000 population for the five-year periods, 1901-1905, 
 1906-1910 in 81 cities having at least ten per cent Negro 
 population show a decreasing death-rate for both races, 
 with a slightly larger decrease for the white population. 
 
 One of the most definite signs of progress in Negro 
 health and sanitation is the growing number of hospi 
 tals, trained nurses, physicians, and surgeons within the 
 race itself. In many of the city hospitals there is now 
 provision for the care of Negro patients. In 25 states 
 and the District of Columbia in 1920, there were reported 
 119 hospitals, nurses training-schools, and sanitaria 
 especially for Negroes, many of them conducted by 
 Negroes. All except about ten of these are verj poorly 
 equipped and very inadequate in size to meet the needs 
 of the communities they serve. They represent, how 
 ever, a substantial advance. In 1910, there were 478 
 dentists, 26 of them women, 3,409 physicians and sur 
 geons, 524 of them women, and 2,433 trained nurses. 
 There is a National Negro Medical Association, hav 
 ing its own well-edited journal, and there are about 
 53 district, state, and local medical, dental, and pharma 
 ceutical associations of Negroes. There is a National 
 Association of Colored Graduate Nurses which meets 
 annually and a struggling "Blue Circle" working along 
 the lines similar to the Red Cross. Many of the pro 
 fessional men and women have received their training 
 in missionary colleges and in the best institutions for 
 professional study in the land and are highly appreciated 
 by white fellow-members of their professions. 
 
 Progress in morals. In the matter of Negro crime 
 there are several considerations in dealing with figures 
 of arrests, commitments to prison, or other evidences of 
 crime. It is a well-known fact that the Negro suffers 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 37 
 
 a large amount of injustice in the courts and that they 
 suffer especially in those localities where the fee system 
 is still used. Officers who make the arrests, the petty 
 magistrates, and other officials get a portion of fines as 
 sessed. The temptation to make unwarranted arrests 
 and unjustified convictions is obvious. 
 
 Illiteracy and poverty, greater among Negroes than 
 among whites, and previous condition of servitude, with 
 its degradation, are undoubtedly bearing fruit in delin 
 quency and crime. 
 
 Public opinion also has had a great deal to do with 
 Negro crime. The ordinary Negro has it continually 
 dinned into his ears that he is a nobody, that he is 
 inferior and criminal. This breaks down group morale, 
 removes self-respect. If a man is made to believe that 
 he is a citizen like anybody else, will be held account 
 able for what he does like anybody else, and is expected 
 to stand up to the standards of a man, it goes a long 
 way in deterring him from delinquent conduct. 
 
 Furthermore, crime is partly a matter of delinquent 
 communities which have neglected to provide care and 
 training for their children and young people. This is 
 true of all delinquent classes. Crime is a community 
 disease, and the individual is affected by contagion of 
 vice and neglect. The Negroes, burdened with poverty, 
 are crowded into segregated districts of our cities. The 
 respectable persons and families among them have diffi 
 culty in protecting themselves from the vicious and 
 criminal, both those of their own race and those of the 
 white race, who prey upon the residents of such districts, 
 especially upon the children and youths. 
 
 We may take the census figures of crime with allow 
 ances because of variations in collecting them. That the 
 crime-rates of Negroes in the North exceed those in the 
 
38 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 South, is partly accounted for by the fact that the large 
 majority of the Negroes in the North are migrants, that 
 a larger proportion are above ten years of age, and that 
 more than three fourths of them live in the larger cities 
 where commitments to prison for all classes are greater 
 in number than in rural districts. Migrants are under 
 going readjustments to new conditions and surroundings. 
 
 According to the census of 1910, the percentage of 
 Negroes receiving sentences of one year or more was 
 33.8 per cent of all Negroes sentenced to prison in that 
 year, while the whites receiving such sentences was 10.2 
 per cent of all whites sentenced ; that is, the proportion 
 of Negroes receiving such sentences was three times as 
 large as the proportion of whites. This is partly due to 
 heavier sentences being imposed upon Negroes for of 
 fenses similar to those of the white race, to different 
 practises of states in imposing heavier or lighter fines 
 for crimes as distinguished from misdemeanors, and to 
 a larger number of white prison sentences for lighter 
 offenses, with shorter terms, such as drunkenness and 
 disorderly conduct. It may be of importance in this 
 connection to compare prison sentences of Negroes for 
 rape with those of other national elements of our popu 
 lation. Sentences for rape per 100,000 of the population 
 in the United States in 1904 were: Colored 1.8, Italians 
 5.3, Mexicans 4.8, Austrians 3.2, Hungarians 2, French 
 1.9, Russians i.g. 1 If all the Negroes who are charged 
 with rape and lynched were added to these figures, the 
 Negro rate would probably still be less than that of all 
 the nationalities except the French and the Russians. 
 
 In commenting on its own figures of crime, the census 
 report says that the figures 
 
 1 Negro Year Book, 1918-1919, pp. 37 J -72. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 39 
 
 "will probably be generally accepted as indicating that 
 there is more criminality and lawbreaking among 
 Negroes than among whites. While that conclusion is 
 probably justified by the figures, it is a question whether 
 the difference shown by the ratios may not be to some 
 extent the result of discrimination in the treatment of 
 white and Negro offenders on the part of the commun 
 ity and the courts as well as the framing of some laws, 
 such as those making non-payment of debts a crime in 
 stead of a civil liability. 
 
 "An offense committed by a Negro is perhaps more 
 likely to be punished than the same offense committed 
 by a white man, especially if the victim of the offense 
 committed by the Negro is white, while in the other case 
 the victim is Negro. It is probable that, as compared 
 with the white man, the Negro when brought to trial 
 on a criminal charge is in fewer instances able to em 
 ploy expert counsel to defend his case and assist him in 
 taking advantage of any technicality in the law which 
 may be in his favor. 
 
 "Moreover, in the case of those offenses for which 
 the penalty may be a fine or imprisonment as the alterna 
 tive if the fine is not paid, it is probable that the Negro 
 is more often unable to pay the fine than the white man 
 and is therefore more likely to be sent to jail ; but, of 
 course, this consideration has little weight in connection 
 with more serious offenses which are seldom penalized 
 by fines only/ 
 
 When the whole range of crime is taken into view, it 
 is a striking fact that a Negro has never been accused 
 of treason to his country, has never attempted to assas 
 sinate a president or other high public official, or has 
 ever organized any kind of revolt against the Union, 
 although the race has suffered from oppression during 
 many generations. 
 
 The testimony of police and court authorities in New 
 York, Chicago, Cincinnati, and other cities of the North 
 
40 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 was that crime had decreased among Negroes during 
 the prosperity of war wages and during the first months 
 following the Armistice. The same is probably true 
 elsewhere and indicates the influence of the Negro s pov 
 erty upon his crime and that increase in home ownership 
 and better wages will decrease crime. Here again is the 
 opportunity for the message of Him who sought to help 
 the delinquent and neglected. 
 
 There seems to have been in the last twenty-five or 
 thirty years a considerable increase in juvenile delin 
 quency among Negroes. Whether or not this is due 
 to the increased efficiency in gathering data and the 
 handling of juvenile Negro delinquents or whether it is 
 really an increase in the delinquency is hard to say. If 
 it is the latter, it is partly explainable by the growing 
 readjustments in Negro family life. It is to be borne 
 in mind that the present generation of Negro children 
 is the first that has had family control by parents born 
 in freedom. The aftermath of slavery and all the ttfr- 
 moil of transition from serfdom to freedom and from 
 country life to city life is still heavy upon the Negro 
 family, childhood, and youth. Here lies the great hope 
 and the great need for religious education and commun 
 ity service as a challenge to the Church to care for 
 these lambs of the fold. 
 
 The figures for defectives, showing the number and 
 percentage of the insane, feeble-minded, and blind, are 
 of very little value because the bulk of the Negro popu 
 lation is in the South where there is very little provision 
 made for and there are few authentic records of these 
 defective classes of Negroes. 
 
 Significant evidence of moral progress of Negroes 
 may be cited from the experience with the 500,000 or 
 more Negroes who migrated from the South to the 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 41 
 
 North during the World War and the months since the 
 Armistice. They have been often in great congested 
 crowds in many of the largest cities of the North; they 
 have been separated from their old surroundings, 
 friends, and home ties and have settled among a strange 
 people in a strange land. While there are no figures 
 available, and while newspaper headlines about Negro 
 crime may create the other impression, the statements 
 made by social workers, police officers, and citizens will 
 bear ample testimony to their orderliness, their suscepti 
 bility to guidance, their respectful submission to author 
 ity, and their eagerness to adapt themselves to the order 
 and routine of industry and life of the communities into 
 which they come. Their desires and efforts to "better 
 their condition, take "hold of and use the greater oppor 
 tunities for education, the facilities for home life, and 
 the community opportunities in the freer atmosphere of 
 the Northern clime are eloquent tributes to their adaptive 
 capacity and their power of achievement and a powerful 
 appeal to the Christian forces of these communities to 
 reach out helping hands to them. 
 
 Development of homes. Another evidence of Negro 
 progress may be seen by looking at the thousands of 
 Negro homes. 
 
 Much has been written about the homes of white 
 people. Many a Sunday photographic supplement of 
 white newspapers has pictured the homes, large and 
 small, palatial and modest, of the white American. The 
 advantages, sanctity, culture, and problems of white 
 homes have been the subject of tongue and pen of able 
 orators and writers. The homes of Negro people, how 
 ever, have had songs from few poets and pictures from 
 few pens. A venture in description of its development, 
 its problems, sanctity, and culture is a tempting theme 
 
42 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 for an essay, difficult of performance and is made not 
 without a feeling of its inadequacy. 
 
 Such a portrayal of Negro homes necessarily begins 
 with the ante-bellum plantation cabin. During slavery 
 there were three general classes of Negroes whose home 
 life varied : x ( i ) the field hands who comprised the ma 
 jority; (2) the domestic and personal servants, who 
 were in daily contact with the master and his family, 
 together with a few slave artisans both on the plantation 
 and in the towns and cities; (3) the free Negroes, who 
 were considerable in numbers in localities like New 
 Orleans, Charleston, Richmond, Nashville and Louis 
 ville, Philadelphia, and New York. The "field hands" 
 lived in one-room cabins usually placed together in 
 "slave quarters" at a distance from "the big house." 
 Problems of sanitation and health had the supervision 
 of overseer or master. The servant class lived in or 
 near "the big house," so as to be within call day or 
 night. The family ties of all slaves were made and 
 broken without legal or moral barrier above the will 
 of the owner. Slave parents had no legal rights over 
 their children, and children followed the status of their 
 mothers. On plantations having a number of slaves, 
 while the mothers worked, the children too small to work 
 were usually kept by some slave woman too old to be 
 of service in the field. Such nurture and training as 
 children received often came from others than their 
 parents. 2 
 
 Free Negroes had legal sanction for marriage, had 
 title to their children, except in cases of a free father 
 and slave mother. They set up homes of their own 
 
 1 For graphic description see Coppin, Levi, J., Unwritten His 
 tory (autobiography), pp. 17-94. 
 
 2 Haynes, Elizabeth Ross, Unsung Heroes, pp. 11-21. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 43 
 
 patterned after the best homes of neighboring whites. 
 In some cases they owned slaves. Many of these homes 
 in their housing, furniture, culture, and purity ranked 
 among the best in the community. In North Nashville, 
 Tenn., upon a terrace, stands an imposing eight-room 
 brick residence, surrounded by a lawn and trees, which 
 was built and occupied by a free man of color and his 
 family in the late fifties. This instance can be matched 
 in a number of other places. When emancipation came 
 it was estimated that not less than 12,000 Negro families 
 owned their homes. 
 
 From the free families, North and South, from the 
 favored domestic and personal servants, and from the 
 slave mechanics and town and city workers arose Negro 
 professional and business classes during the first decades 
 of freedom. A number of farmers owned their land; 
 other thrifty ones began to buy. As soon as freedom 
 came those who had been united as slaves sought legal 
 and ecclesiastical sanction in marriage and reestablished 
 their family hearths upon the ashes of the slave cabin. 
 The families which had been previously blessed by legal 
 protection renewed their security. Out of these vicis 
 situdes the Negro home has grown in stability, in purity, 
 in culture, and in its power to mold a potential people. 
 Generalizations about ten million people so widely dis 
 tributed over the nation are risky writing. Classified 
 types are only suggestive and only define the lines within 
 which the variations range. The following descriptions 
 of Negro homes, therefore, may be viewed with such 
 allowances in mind. 
 
 The country Negro home is of three types. First, 
 there is the cabin of the tenant, usually a one-room, 
 squatty structure with open fireplace, sometimes with a 
 "lean-to" kitchen. 
 
44 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Second, there is the two-room cabin, usually set on 
 either side of a wide porch like the two rooms of a 
 little log schoolhouse set on either side of an open pas 
 sageway. The house is often built of lumber instead of 
 logs and is unpainted. Window openings are covered 
 with wooden shutters. The cooking is frequently done 
 in the fireplace or in an adjoining shed. There are no 
 modern conveniences such as running water and indoor 
 toilet. The rooms are bare for the most part. Often 
 pictures cut from newspapers or magazines are posted 
 upon the wall, a cheap mirror may hang over the fire 
 place, and a Bible of some kind usually lies upon a shelf 
 overhanging the fireplace or upon a plain table. Beds, 
 white and fat with straw and "feather-ticks," and a few 
 plain, "split-bottom" chairs, including one or two rock 
 ing chairs, make up the remainder of the furniture. 
 
 Third, the more prosperous Negro farmer usually 
 builds a modern house with four or more rooms and 
 some of the present-day conveniences. Paint on the out 
 side, paper on the walls within, rugs and pictures, a few 
 books, and usually a "race newspaper" show how far 
 the conditions have improved. In nearly all these homes 
 there is usually some kind of musical instrument an 
 accordion, a "fiddle," an organ, or sometimes a piano. 
 
 In all three types, mother and father form the center 
 of the life, and some form of religious observance is the 
 rule. One of the striking things about the country Negro 
 home is that everybody works. The typical family is 
 always in a struggle with poverty or for economic se 
 curity. During the "cropping season," before the sun 
 rises all hands are in the field, the children being kept 
 from school if there is a school. Long after the sun 
 has set, they labor on. 
 
 The Negro in the town and city has to face a situa- 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 45 
 
 tion somewhat different. Here there are two main types 
 of home. First, there is- the tenement, either a single 
 building of two or three rooms arranged in a line, the 
 gun-barrel tenement, grouped with others, sometimes 
 facing a front street, side street, or an alley ; or a com 
 bination building of a number of crowded apartments 
 the ark type of tenement. Second, the substantial 
 dwelling, usually comprising four to eight rooms, some 
 times more, which has ample provision for health and 
 privacy. If in a city that provides sanitary connections 
 in Negro neighborhoods, such houses usually have run 
 ning water, baths, and inside toilets. In Southern cities 
 a yard, with space on front and sides, often containing 
 shrubbery and a garden, gives a homelike appearance to 
 the place. The public facilities of Negro neighborhoods, 
 such as well-paved, lighted, and cleaned streets, prop 
 erly collected garbage, sewage connections, and police 
 and fire protection, are, as a rule, more striking by their 
 absence than by their presence. The red light districts 
 of whites, in cities that have them, are often allowed to 
 locate within or near the Negro neighborhood, and the 
 heads of the Negro homes cannot prevent their prox 
 imity. 
 
 The Negro family in the city has a no less intense 
 struggle to make both ends meet than the family in the 
 country. Migrating by the thousands during the past 
 thirty years, from the small towns and rural districts, 
 the large majority of Negroes are able to fill only un 
 skilled and domestic service jobs, which are the lowest 
 paid occupations. They are making the great adjust 
 ments both from serf labor to wage freedom and from 
 rural work to city labor. Their chances for training 
 in semiskilled and skilled occupations are restricted. 
 In occupations where they are admitted, except under 
 
46 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 conditions af labor shortage such as happened during 
 the War, they often retain their places because they 
 can be paid less than white workers for the same work 
 and, when understood, are more easily managed. 
 Negro men, therefore, find themselves heavily handi 
 capped in getting support for their families. They die 
 out more rapidly than white men in the struggle. Negro 
 women, especially mothers, go out to work to help keep 
 the wolf from the door, and Negro children, girls and 
 boys, must usually cut short their growth and education 
 to share the breadwinning of the family. 
 
 One of the startling facts of the struggle for home 
 life is that the Negro s standard of living is rising 
 faster than the returns from his occupational efficiency 
 and opportunity. The standard of the houses required 
 in the cities, the standard of food and clothing, wants 
 in household furnishings and in other things are rising 
 faster than the Negro s wage scale. War wages helped 
 to even up the score and enabled many more Negro 
 married women to stay at home and care for their 
 own families. Now that the high wage period is past, 
 however, the battle of the Negro home is renewed 
 against low wages, absentee wage-earning mothers, the 
 lure of wealth to its girls, and the helpless position in 
 which its men often find themselves when they seek 
 opportunities for better training, for better jobs, and 
 chances to get and hold jobs with pay adequate to sup 
 port their families. 
 
 Advance in community life. In thinking of homos 
 one naturally looks out into the community. Evidences 
 of Negro progress in the neighborhoods where they 
 live, in city, town, and country, may be noted by any 
 one who will take the time and the pains to form ac 
 curate and unbiased judgment. Development of Negro 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 47 
 
 community life, the participation in the many organi 
 zations and agencies for community and national ad 
 vancement, and the development of a social conscious 
 ness and responsibility are no less marks of the prog 
 ress of the Negro in the past sixty years than the ma 
 terial and statistical evidence which has just been re 
 viewed. 
 
 In community life and citizenship, Negroes have 
 made four steps in progress. They have learned to 
 develop effective organizations of their own. They 
 have grown rapidly in community consciousness and 
 consciousness of social responsibility. They have come 
 to a conviction of their unity with other parts of the 
 community. They are asking, not that they be segre 
 gated in community organization, but that where their 
 interests are affected, they be represented at the common 
 council table by leaders of their own. They seek the 
 opportunity to contribute their share to the common cause 
 and to bear their part of the common responsibility. They 
 have shown a readiness to cooperate and contribute 
 which leaves no doubt about their attitude and desires 
 in this matter, and white and Negro churchmen are set 
 ting the examples of new ways in their cooperative 
 dealings. 
 
 Progress in education. While there can be no abso 
 lute measure of the increase in intelligence of a people, 
 fair indications, without doubt, are furnished by the 
 facts about progress in provision for education and by 
 evidences of the results among the people. 
 
 Gradual gains have been made in developing common 
 schools for the Negro in the South. The initiative for 
 this has been very largely due to church and other pri 
 vate funds. The pioneer church missionary teachers 
 laid the foundations. Probably the greatest step for- 
 
48 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ward has been the gradual change in the attitude of 
 Southern white people toward Negro education. In 
 1920 it was reported that $13,000,000 was appropriated 
 from public funds for Negro schools in Southern states. 1 
 
 The attitude of county and state officers in several 
 states controlling the distribution of school funds has 
 been changing toward a larger and more equitable ap 
 portionment of public funds. This change of sentiment 
 has been fostered by the Jeanes and Slater Funds, and 
 by the state supervisors of Negro rural schools sup 
 ported by the General Education Board and operating 
 under state boards of education. 2 There is still, how 
 ever, a long way to go. One leading Negro educator 
 in a Southern state said: "The thing hardest for me to 
 understand about some of my white friends, men whom 
 I know intimately to be men who are square and liberal 
 in all my dealings with them, is their willingness to go 
 into a meeting and agree to take public school funds 
 rightfully belonging to Negroes and appropriate them 
 for schools for white children. How those men can 
 square their action with their conscience is more than 
 I can square with my belief in their integrity." 
 
 That there will continue to be improvement is shown 
 by the action of the state of North Carolina in making 
 liberal appropriations for Negro education from 1919 
 to 1922 of between one and two millions of dollars for 
 high school, normal school, vocational, and agricultural 
 education. It was a broad, liberal-minded, statesman 
 like step. The state of Oklahoma has recently restored 
 about a million dollars of public funds to education 
 
 1 Stokes, Anson Phelps, Southern Workman, March, 1922, pp. 
 114-116. 
 
 2 Annual Report of the General Education Board, pp. 84-86. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 49 
 
 of Negroes of the state. The provisions for secondary 
 and higher educational institutions are probably in 
 creasing more slowly than those for the elementary 
 schools. The higher institutions have to furnish the 
 teachers, principals, supervisors, and superintendents for 
 the elementary schools. They have the responsibility also 
 of giving the academic training to all the other profes 
 sional classes. The ministers, doctors, teachers, law 
 yers, writers, editors, and artists among the ten millions 
 of Negroes in the United States should have the most 
 thorough, advanced training. 
 
 Special mention may be made of the need of provision 
 for training ministers. The majority of those now serv 
 ing nearly 40,000 Negro churches have had very limited 
 training. Besides, the ranks must be kept closed as many 
 become superannuated, leave the profession, or pass 
 away. A recent estimate showed an annual need of 
 1,200 men with only about 100 being prepared in existing 
 religious-training institutions. 
 
 In 1920 a most careful accounting showed probably 
 not more than one hundred real public high schools for 
 Negroes in the towns and cities of the sixteen Southern 
 states. There were none in the rural districts, except 
 ing probably a few county training-schools that may be 
 so rated. 
 
 In 1917-18, according to the state superintendents, 
 there were in the sixteen Southern states and the Dis 
 trict of Columbia 3,076,482 Negro children of school 
 age. Of those, 2,039,706 or 66 per cent were enrolled in 
 public schools. There were 36,585 Negro public school 
 teachers and 64 public high schools. Negroes who could 
 not read and write in 1860 were estimated at more than 
 90 per cent. In 1920 they were estimated at less than 
 
5 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 25 per cent. There were two normal schools and col 
 leges for Negroes, probably no higher than secondary 
 grade, in 1860; in 1920 there were more than 500 insti 
 tutions of secondary, normal, and college grades. 
 
 The percentages of the Negro children in the schools 
 in comparison with all those of school age range from 
 88 per cent in the District of Columbia, 83 per cent in 
 Oklahoma, 75.3 per cent in North Carolina, 53 per cent 
 in Florida to a little over 60 per cent in Alabama, Mary 
 land, and South Carolina, 43.6 per cent in Louisiana. 
 The inadequate provision for Negro schools from public 
 funds is illustrated by the meager salaries paid. Be 
 tween 1910 and 1915 for 15 states and the District of 
 Columbia the per capita salary for each white child was 
 $10.32, and $2.89 for each Negro child. 1 
 
 In the South, where practically all the schools for 
 Negroes are located, about 18 per cent of the total ex 
 penditure for education in 1910 was for Negroes, al 
 though they made up about 30 per cent of the popula 
 tion. There has doubtless been considerable improve 
 ment during the twelve succeeding years, but figures are 
 not available. The result is that a very large propor 
 tion of Negro children are not in school in spite of the 
 eagerness and willingness of their parents. More than 
 30 per cent of the Negro children six to twenty years 
 of age in the South and more than 40 per cent in the 
 North in 1910 were not in school, while more than 35 per 
 cent of the white children in the South were not in 
 school. The disparity between Negro children not in 
 
 1 Figures given are taken from the Negro Year Book, edited 
 by lylonroe N. Work; from the Report on Negro Education by 
 U. S. Bureau of Education edited by Dr. T. J. Jones ; from 
 Census Report, Negro Population in the United States 1790-1915; 
 and from the Negro section of the World Survey, American 
 Volume, Interchurch World Movement, prepared by the author. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 51 
 
 school and white children not in school was greatest in 
 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi 
 ana, and Florida. 
 
 It is inevitable that the majority of the people must 
 depend upon public funds for their common school edu 
 cation, consequently a larger proportion of funds should 
 come from the public treasury than from private sources. 
 The productive private funds for institutional education 
 of white people in the United States were estimated in 
 1915 as more than fifty-three times as large as similar 
 funds for Negro education, although the white popula 
 tion is less than ten times as large. 
 
 This situation is growing better, however. There are 
 818 counties of the South where Negroes made up one 
 eighth or more of the total population in 1910. In 1921, 
 there were 272 county supervising teachers paid partly 
 by the counties and partly through the Jeanes Fund in 
 269 of these counties in 13 states. These "traveling 
 teachers/ supervised by the county superintendents and 
 the state supervisor of Negro rural schools, help rural 
 teachers, add to the teaching of the elementary branches 
 in rural schools, encourage home industries, give sim 
 ple lessons in cleanliness and sanitation, promote im 
 provement of schoolhouses and grounds, and organize 
 clubs for school and neighborhood improvement. The 
 supervisors that year visited regularly 8,976 country 
 schools for Negroes. The amount of money paid 
 through the Jeanes Fund for salaries was $94,287, and 
 from the public funds, $119,746. These workers raised 
 $394,737 for school improvements largely from local 
 Negro citizens, although there is no means of knowing 
 exactly how much came from contributions of local 
 Negro patrons. 
 
 The Rosenwald School Building Fund given by Julius 
 
52 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Rosenwald, a Hebrew merchant of Chicago, provides 
 money for erecting good school buildings in rural com 
 munities. Up to the end of 1921 there had been erected 
 1,005 f these school buildings at a total cost of 
 $3,179,803. Of this amount, Negro patrons contributed 
 more than one fourth, the Rosenwald aid nearly one fifth, 
 and the remainder came mainly from public funds. 1 The 
 General Education Board had appropriated up to July, 
 1921, for endowment and operation of Negro schools of 
 all types, $2,291 ,737.50.* 
 
 There is a crying need for adequate secondary and 
 normal schools in more than 700 counties and cities of 
 the South to provide teachers for the elementary schools. 
 The great need for institutions of higher learning is in 
 dicated in that the most liberal estimates 3 for higher 
 institutions for Negro American youth show that there 
 are not more than two institutions with the equipment, 
 endowment, students, and teaching force required by 
 the recent standard for an "efficient" college set by the 
 Association of American colleges. Not more than thirty- 
 six institutions can be reckoned as either first, second, or 
 third grade in the second rank of colleges. Only two in 
 stitutions offer courses in medicine, pharmacy, and den 
 tistry sufficient to be rated by the Association of Medical 
 Schools. In this connection there is no more heroic and 
 unselfish story of the Christian Church written than that 
 of the relation of the missionary agencies to the begin 
 ning and development of Negro education. The very 
 foundations of Negro education, both public and private, 
 were laid and supported by the Home Mission Societies 
 with their money, their teachers, their vision and en- 
 
 1 Almanac and Year Book, Chicago Daily Neivs, p. 750. 
 
 2 Annual Report, 1919-20, pp. 78-88. 
 
 3 See World Survey, Interchurch World Movement, American 
 Volume, pp. 95-98. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 53 
 
 thusiasm, in the days before there was any sentiment for 
 education of the Negro or any belief in his general ca 
 pacity for achieving that education. 
 
 A conference of white and Negro educators having to 
 do with the operation of the church boards of education 
 of Negro denominations and with the missionary socie 
 ties fostering educational work among Negroes set forth in 
 1920 the following as their judgment of the necessary 
 minimum to be developed immediately from existing in 
 stitutions: "( T ) three University Centers with well- 
 equipped medical, religious, and graduate schools; (2) 
 eleven institutions of standard college grade; (3) twenty- 
 one institutions of junior college grade," and at least three 
 hundred four-year high and secondary schools with ade 
 quate academic and vocational courses. ... At least two 
 hundred of these should be located in rural districts. In 
 many institutions supported by missionary funds there is 
 joint white and Negro management and joint support. If 
 one ever doubts that the idealism and the Christian en 
 thusiasm of America can bridge the color line, he has only 
 to read the story of the development of Negro education, 
 beginning with the pioneer teachers from the North who 
 went among the freedmen and lived and taught all that 
 learning and character had to offer. 
 
 Probably the first man of color to graduate from a col 
 lege in the United States was Lemuel Haynes, who was a 
 soldier throughout the Revolutionary War. He after 
 ward graduated from Yale and became a Congregational 
 minister. He served white churches at Torrington, 
 Conn., and Manchester, N. H., was a pioneer in home 
 missions, and won international recognition for his ser 
 mon against "Universalism." John Brown Russworm 
 received a degree from Bowdoin College in 1826. Theo 
 dore S. Wright graduated from Princeton Theological 
 
54 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Seminary, and Edward Jones, from Amherst College the 
 same year. The total number of Negro college graduates 
 is now estimated to be more than 7,000, showing conclu 
 sively the capacity of these people. Additional educa 
 tional progress of the Negro is also indicated by achieve 
 ments in literature, music, and art. 1 
 
 Advance in inventions and scientific discovery. In 
 ventions and a few scientific discoveries are clear evi 
 dences of the progressive use Negroes are making of their 
 educational opportunities. 
 
 Among the foremost things that have promoted the 
 progress of America and the world are inventions, the 
 product of thought and patient experiment. The cotton 
 gin, the steam-boat, machinery for the cheap manufacture 
 of garments and of shoes, the telegraph, the telephone, 
 electric light, and numerous electrical appliances are sam 
 ples of the thousands of inventions which have made our 
 lives so safe, healthful, and comfortable. In this field, the 
 Negro has made notable achievements which can be con 
 clusively proven, to say nothing of hundreds of cases 
 claimed that cannot be conclusively determined. Besides, 
 there have been many inventions by Negroes that, like 
 Benjamin Banneker s famous clock in the i8th century, 
 were never patented. The United States Patent Office 
 keeps a record of the nationality of inventors, but not of 
 their race. In recent years, however, that office through 
 the initiative of Mr. Henry E. Baker, 2 a Negro official 
 there for forty-five years, has made a commendable effort 
 to ascertain the patents secured by Negroes. About 800 
 
 1 See Hammond, L. H., In the Vanguard of a Race. 
 
 2 See "The Colored Inventor, a Record of Fifty Years," by 
 Henry E. Baker, pamphlet, privately printed. By the same au 
 thor, "The Negro in the Field of Invention," Journal of Negro 
 History, Vol. II, pp. 21-36, Jan., 1917. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 55 
 
 patents have been definitely verified as issued to Negro 
 patentees since the first two patents of corn harvesters 
 granted to Henry Blair, a Negro, in 1834 and 1836, down 
 to Elijah McCoy s well-known lubricating cups for ma 
 chinery in motion, the last patent issuing to him in 1912. 
 This number does not represent more than one half of 
 the patents granted Negro inventors. The credit for the 
 others "must perhaps lie forever hidden in the unbreak 
 able silence of official records." 
 
 The importance of some of these inventions may be 
 gathered from a few examples. Granville T. Wood sold 
 several of his patents, one reported to have brought 
 $10,000, to the General Electric Company and the Ameri 
 can Bell Telephone Company. The lubricating cups of 
 Elijah McCoy have been famous for more than thirty- 
 five years as a "necessary equipment in all up-to-date 
 machinery," most machinists probably never dreaming 
 about the race of the inventor. One of the most out 
 standing achievements is the machine known as the 
 "nigger-head laster" invented by Jan Matzeliger, a Negro 
 shoemaker in a factory at Lynn, Mass. This machine 
 does "automatically all the operations involved in attach 
 ing soles to shoes." The patent was purchased from 
 Matzeliger by Sidney Winslow and the promotion of this 
 machine laid the foundation for the United Shoe Ma 
 chinery Company and the great wealth of its owners and 
 promoters. 1 
 
 In the field of scientific discovery, the work of Dr. 
 Elmer S. Imes in magnetic physics has received recog 
 nition by the leading scientists in America and Europe. 
 Dr. Ernest E. Just, Dr. Charles H. Turner, and Dr. 
 George Turner are names well known among biolo- 
 
 1 See statements in Munsey s Magazine, August, 1912, p. 722. 
 
56 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 gists. Industrial and agricultural chemistry are debtors 
 to several Negroes, the most noted of whom is Pro 
 fessor George W. Carver. The science of history knows 
 well the name of W. E. B. DuBois and is beginning to 
 acknowledge the work of Dr. C. G. Woodson and Pro 
 fessor Charles H. Wesley. With the larger educational 
 opportunity fostered by Christian support, greater results 
 will follow than have already been attained. 
 
 Strength in Negro leadership. Another factor in the 
 progress of the last sixty years has been the remarkable 
 leaders among the Negroes. Many of these Negro lead 
 ers have been men and women of such outstanding ability 
 and character that they have been recognized, not only 
 as Negroes, but as among the great American citizens. 
 Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. 
 Dubois, Harriet Tubman, Blanche K. Bruce, John M. 
 Langston, Alexander Crumwell, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, 
 James Varick, Richard Allen, Bishop Alexander Walters, 
 and Bishop Daniel A. Payne are some of the more nota 
 ble characters whose names are known in both the white 
 and Negro world. Besides these, there sleep under the 
 million stars a corps of others who have worked for the 
 advancement of the masses with devotion, with power, 
 and with large success. 
 
 Moreover, if one goes over the list of Negroes in many 
 walks of life in different communities, he is impressed 
 by the fact that the majority of these people have been 
 trained in the mission schools established by the several 
 denominations. This is not only testimony to the po 
 tency of the training they received, but a clarion call to 
 the churches to supply secondary and higher institutions 
 of learning within the reach of the masses of the Negroes 
 of the South, that in the future there may be a better 
 trained leadership. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 57 
 
 Progress in religious life. The highest expression of 
 Negro life both in individuals and in groups is through 
 their churches. Religious expression has been the very 
 life blood of the Negro heart. Shut out from many of 
 the civic activities of the communities and the nation, 
 restricted from much of its great business development, 
 limited in the enjoyment of its surging intellectual life, 
 the Negro has found an outlet for his great self-expres 
 sion through the organizations of his churches and their 
 activities. Some indications of this religious life and 
 progress should be mentioned. 
 
 The Negro loves his Church and pours into its organi 
 zation and life enthusiasm, money, and energy, all largely 
 increased because other avenues for group expression are 
 closed to him. In 1860 there were probably about 1,000 
 edifices and about 700,000 Negro church members in the 
 United States. In 1920, about five out of every eleven 
 Negroes in the United States were church members. 
 They had about 37,773 church edifices and about 3,618 
 parsonages in 1916 with an estimated value of more than 
 $73,681,668 and an estimated indebtedness of more than 
 $16,175,559. The distinctly Negro denominations of ex 
 clusively Negro churches had about 3,205,047 members 
 in 1906 and about 4,083,278 members in 1916. The de 
 nominations consisting of white and Negro members had 
 about 439,545 Negro members in 1906 and 480,771 Negro 
 members in 1916. In the Negro denominations alone 
 there were about 31,624 ministers in 1906 and about 
 34,962 in I9I6. 1 
 
 The average Negro country church comprises usually 
 a rectangular frame structure, often unpainted outside 
 and in, with plain benches, and a platform and pulpit for 
 
 1 World Survey, American volume, Interchurch World Move 
 ment, section on Negro Americans prepared by the writer. 
 
58 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the preacher. Sometimes there are special enclosures for 
 the choir and a reed organ. Services are held once or 
 twice a month with Sunday-school as a seasonal activity 
 controlled by the weather and condition of the roads. 
 Financial support is inadequate for a resident pastor, and 
 he usually lives in a near-by town or city and visits two 
 or more churches on successive Sabbaths. City churches 
 are better supplied, as a rule, in both building and other 
 equipment. The structures quite frequently are brick or 
 stone with modern improvements, musical instruments, 
 and other aids to worship. They are served by full-time 
 ministers. Sunday-schools and other auxiliary organiza 
 tions are better organized and led than in country 
 churches. 
 
 One of the great factors, if not the greatest, in the 
 development of Negro religious life has been the Negro 
 minister. Although he has often been severely censured, 
 he has, nevertheless, been a real leader of his people. 
 Even if he has appealed to their emotions, he has also 
 soothed their sorrows. If he has played upon their 
 imagination, he has also given them inspiration and hope 
 in the face of discouragement and earthly trials. If he 
 has unduly stirred their feelings, he has also preached to 
 them patient forbearance in the face of provocations. It 
 may be true that he has not generally been equipped with 
 adequate knowledge of the Bible, of church history, and 
 of the duties and requirements of ministers or priests, 
 yet he has often preached with a natural eloquence that 
 has lifted his hearers out of the commonplace; he has 
 ministered to them with a spontaneous grace that has sent 
 them on their way with rejoicing in the hope of a brighter 
 future and with power to live a better daily life. When 
 all is said, scattered here and there among the ministers 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 59 
 
 of the Negro people there have been and are men of 
 character and knowledge who have gone about their work 
 with an unselfish devotion which will bear comparison 
 with the ministers of the Cross anywhere. 
 
 One significant index of Negro religious advancement 
 has been the growth of the Young Men s Christian Asso 
 ciation and Young Women s Christian Association. 
 Among the men, 45 city associations were reported in 
 1920. Of these, 10 were in Southern and border cities. 
 There were 15 additional industrial associations con 
 nected with plants where Negroes were employed. There 
 were 7 international secretaries, 100 local secretaries, 
 20,000 members, and property valued at more than 
 $2,000,000. Among the women, were reported 49 asso 
 ciations and 4 affiliated clubs of colored women, 12 na 
 tional and 85 local workers, and a membership of 23,683. 
 The Negro takes his religion as the dominating fact and 
 factor in his life. If, therefore, Christian America can 
 rise with enthusiasm to meet these aspirations of a people 
 struggling to reach the higher things of life, the churches 
 can be made a most powerful factor in the advancement 
 of the people and the promotion of brotherly cooperation 
 between the races. Here, then, in the changed conditions 
 of the Negro in agriculture, in industry, in business, and 
 in the professions; in his educational achievements, in 
 his homes, churches, and the community, we have new 
 situations calling for a new set of feelings, attitudes, and 
 habits of action in race relations. 
 
 Need for increased opportunities. It should be 
 pointed out in closing that, as a result of experiences 
 North and South, the development of these people and 
 the development of leadership to carry them forward 
 during the coming years call for opportunities larger 
 
60 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 than they have had in the past. They need the following 
 essential elements in the economic relations of Negro 
 workers, white workers, and employers : 1 
 
 1 I ) A fair chance in industry ; to get work and to hold 
 it upon the same terms of tenure and of wage as white 
 workers. 
 
 (2) The opportunity for Negro workers to be trained 
 for and to be advanced to the more skilled and highly 
 paid occupations, as they show equal ability to fill them. 
 This is a reasonable, fair, and American principle which 
 in practise will not jeopardize the white workman nor 
 retard industry. 
 
 (3) The adjustment of the conditions of Negro tenants 
 and farm laborers of the South, so that those whose 
 hands produce the crops may share equitably in their 
 bounty. This will benefit all those whose interests rest 
 upon Southern agriculture. A fairly treated, more ef 
 ficient Negro farmer and farm laborer will give more 
 lint to the cotton mills, more seed to the oil mills, more 
 corn for the miller, more peanuts and tobacco for the 
 factories, more prosperity for the merchant, the indus 
 trial captain, and the banker. 
 
 (4) With the entrance of Negro women into industry, 
 and in their relations to domestic and personal service, 
 better treatment, training, and wages will have an effect 
 upon every industrial plant where they are employed and 
 upon every home where they serve. 
 
 (5) The improvement of the housing and neighborhood 
 conditions where Negro workers live will not only help 
 the Negro workers, but add to the health and happiness 
 of every person in the community. 
 
 1 The substance of some of these points is drawn from a De 
 partment of Labor report prepared by the author, entitled "The 
 Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruc 
 tion," Government Print, Washington, 1921. 
 
SIXTY YEARS OF PROGRESS 61 
 
 (6) The white employer of Negro labor, the white 
 worker engaged in the same occupation with the Negro, 
 and the Negro worker himself, the interests of all three 
 are involved. Friendly adjustment of the labor situation 
 will be most far reaching in bringing just and coopera 
 tive race relations. Because of his cheerful, non-militant 
 temperament, the Negro worker can help the white em 
 ployer and white worker to see that all are engaged in a 
 joint enterprise. This may help to lead all away from the 
 policy and theory of class war now widespread in the 
 industrial field. 
 
 (7) The Negro wage earners furnish the backbone, 
 economically speaking, of the progress of the whole group 
 because the business and professional men must draw 
 their patronage from them. They also are the main labor 
 dependence of many communities. Color should no 
 longer weigh in the opportunities for entrance into indus 
 trial occupations, especially the higher and skilled occu 
 pations. Race should no longer play a part in the con 
 ditions of tenantry and the opportunities to take advan 
 tage of federal farm loans, for the purchase of land and 
 the improvement of farm homes. The application of the 
 Golden Rule to them would work wonders in race rela 
 tions and show that the principle is truly golden. 
 
 Not only opportunities in the agricultural and indus 
 trial field, but opportunities in the intellectual, civic, 
 moral, and spiritual fields are required if the prophecy 
 of achievement shown by the remarkable progress of 
 the last sixty years is to be fulfilled. The time has 
 arrived when the color of a man s skin should no 
 longer be an excuse for any kind of injustice to him, 
 or a cloak for a denial of the full measure of protection, 
 justice, and opportunity guaranteed to every American 
 by the very fundamental law of our republic. These 
 
62 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 people need schools, set and developed upon the stand 
 ards of the best that America has in its vision. They need 
 churches, and guidance in those churches, that shall be 
 marked by the highest type of equipment, of policy, of 
 plans, programs, and personnel that shall make them the 
 par of any similar facilities for the development of the 
 moral and spiritual life of America. They ask Christian 
 America for a new spirit, a new attitude and a new way 
 of acting toward them in better keeping with the ideal of 
 Christian brotherhood. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Trend of the Negro World 
 
 THE practical test of human capacity, physical, mental, 
 and spiritual, is the struggle of life. After all the dis 
 cussion about the capacity of the Negro, his struggles and 
 achievements under the conditions that have met him in 
 American life are the evidences of his capacity. During 
 the hearings of a committee of the United States House 
 of Representatives on the Fordney Emergency Tariff 
 Bill, a short, thin, coal-black man, a professor from one 
 of the Negro institutions of the South, was ushered be 
 fore the committee. The chairman announced with em 
 phasis that the gentleman would be given ten minutes to 
 talk about southern peanuts and their need of protection 
 by the tariff. In a high, tenor voice and with a smile 
 on his face, the speaker began. As he neared his time 
 limit, one of the congressmen on the committee arose to 
 ask that his time be extended some minutes more. He 
 continued, giving more information about his researches 
 into the many uses to be made of the "ground pea," from 
 a substitute for cow s milk made of its fat to polishing 
 powder to be made from its hulls and to ink and dyes 
 from its skin. 
 
 The members of the committee leaned toward the 
 swarthy speaker with wide-open eyes and plied him with 
 questions. Presently the chairman said, "Go ahead, 
 brother ; your time is unlimited." * He closed after about 
 an hour, declaring that, from his study and experiments, 
 he believed that with the sweet potato and the peanut, the 
 
 1 Hearings before the Committee on Ways and Means, House 
 of Representatives, Sixty-sixth Congress, No. 14, January 21, 
 1921. 
 
 63 
 
64 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 South, if necessary, could feed itself, grow fat, and have 
 a surplus for other parts of the country. When he had 
 finished, the chairman and committee gave him a vote of 
 thanks, and the white Southern peanut promoters who 
 had brought him to Washington as their spokesman went 
 out elated. 
 
 When, during the World War, Hudson Maxim made 
 the confidential experiments for the United States on the 
 use of magnetism with torpedoes, he had as his assistant 
 a young Negro man, a graduate of one of the Southern 
 missionary colleges, and a Ph.D. in physics from the 
 University of Michigan, who is an authority on mag 
 netics, and who now holds a position with a leading firm 
 of consulting engineers. 
 
 During the War, the employment superintendent of one 
 of the largest foundries in the country, employing white 
 and Negro molders and workmen, was a stalwart Negro, 
 a technical graduate of a state university. 
 
 One of the preachers whom Methodists send for to 
 speak at their conferences is a minister of a Negro con 
 gregation who did not have an opportunity for an educa 
 tion until he was nearly a man. And one of the special 
 sermons recently given large space in a leading homiletic 
 magazine was prepared by a minister of one of the Negro 
 denominations. 
 
 From one of the missionary schools there went out 
 in the early eighties to the uninviting sand hills of cen 
 tral Alabama a quiet Negro man who began a work 
 which has not only influenced the Negro of America but 
 which has contributed to the educational practise of the 
 South, the nation, and the world. Some of his students 
 have gone to various other out-of-the-way places in rural 
 districts and towns and have set up schools which have 
 
be 
 <u 
 
 X 
 
 co S 
 
 < rt 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 65 
 
 been beacons to the oppressed and neglected. Recently 
 white and Negro citizens from every section of the nation 
 gathered and unveiled a monument to the memory of 
 Booker T. Washington and vied with each other in 
 praising his name. 
 
 These examples may introduce the reader to the types 
 of mental and spiritual capacity which Negroes of educa 
 tion and character are showing in America. Twenty-two 
 such Negroes have received the degree of Doctor of 
 Philosophy, the highest university recognition earned in 
 residence, from the most representative institutions in 
 cluding Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Chi 
 cago. Three of these are full-blood Negroes who can 
 trace their lineage back to Africa, and three are women. 
 More than seven hundred Negroes have surmounted the 
 obstacles and have been graduated from the best North 
 ern colleges. Over six thousand others have been grad 
 uated from missionary colleges of the South. 
 
 Evidence of mental capacity in the Negro. The test 
 of mental capacity and temperamental efficiency is the use 
 of the mind. 1 The evidence of such capacity and effi 
 ciency in the Negro is the acquisition and use of such 
 education as the surrounding opportunities offer and the 
 success he has achieved in the struggle of life in Amer 
 ica. The weight of evidence and the best authorities to 
 day along this line point to the conclusion that it is not 
 the lack of mental capacity and temperamental efficiency 
 of the Negro, but the poverty in mental property, the ac 
 cumulated knowledge of our times and freedom to use it, 
 which has made a great difference between the Negro 
 
 1 See Appendix for a brief summary of the principal scientific 
 opinions on the question of Negro mental capacity. The text 
 here deals with the life experience aspects. 
 
66 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 group and other races. 1 In spite of the effects of servi 
 tude, of the grievously inadequate school facilities, and of 
 the restrictions of the adult population from participation 
 in much of the great stream of economic, intellectual, and 
 civic life, most authoritative testimony agrees that the 
 Negro in America has made substantial progress in edu 
 cation, in acquisition of wealth, in production of litera 
 ture, art and music, and in other evidences of such ca 
 pacity and temperament. 
 
 Furthermore, hundreds of native Africans have gone to 
 Europe and America and have been successful, some of 
 them winning distinction, in pursuing courses of study at 
 the best colleges and universities. Many of them have 
 later used their knowledge and skill effectively in Amer 
 ica, Europe, and Africa. A native African from the Gold 
 Coast, having been educated in a Southern missionary 
 college and Columbia University, and having spent nearly 
 twenty years as a professor and officer in a Southern 
 Negro college, is preparing to return to Africa to lead 
 an educational movement. On a recent tour of that con 
 tinent he convinced Europeans of his learning and cul 
 ture in their critical contact with him. Another native 
 African is now studying at Columbia University for a 
 similar purpose. These two are typical examples of 
 scores. An American Negro graduate of a Baptist mis 
 sion college of North Carolina sailed last year to become 
 National Secretary of the Y.M.C.A. in South Africa. 
 During the World War he served as a secretary in East 
 Africa, India, and Europe. 
 
 Where Negroes have come in considerable numbers 
 into communities in which some of the handicaps and 
 
 1 See Thomas, W. I., Source Book for Social Origins; 
 Deniker, The Races of Man, pp. 60-64; Ratael, History of Man 
 kind, Vol. II, pp. 317 ff.; Finot, Jean, Race Prejudice, pp. 
 S7-io8, 129-132, 201-215. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 67 
 
 restrictions upon their free participation in the life about 
 them have been removed, individual achievements have 
 often been such that those who made them were regarded 
 as prodigies rather than as concrete illustrations of the 
 capacity of a people. Examples of these results are at 
 hand in many communities as a result of the missionary 
 activities of the past sixty years. The opportunity of 
 Negroes to use the intellectual property in such mission 
 ary college centers as Nashville, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., Mar 
 shall, Tex., Tuskegee, Hampton, and Richmond, Va., 
 Wilberforce, Ohio, and other places has brought to the 
 surface hundreds of Negro men and women with minds 
 and spirits that have not only demonstrated their capacity 
 to acquire such intellectual property of our modern world, 
 but to use this material for substantial achievements. 
 
 The question, then, of our further search among the 
 Negro people in America is a study in characteristic men 
 tal feelings, attitudes, and habits as indications of mental 
 capacity and efficiency. This chapter is an attempt to 
 analyze the results of the mental experience of a large 
 proportion of Negroes, in order to understand their part 
 in making the public opinion which controls race rela 
 tions. There is no attempt here at an academic study of 
 group psychology. The existence and possession of the 
 acquisitive, sex, and other human instincts, as well as the 
 fundamental emotions, by the white and Negro people 
 are taken for granted. 
 
 Feelings influence attitudes and conduct. When 
 we turn to feelings, attitudes, and habits of action 
 of Negroes, two lines of facts are before us. First, 
 there are certain mental feelings, attitudes, and habits 
 that have resulted in definite contributions to science, 
 the arts, and to community life, which records show 
 Negroes to have made. This may be termed the cur- 
 
68 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 rent of the interior Negro World. Second, there are 
 feelings, thoughts, and action which have affected Negro 
 individuals and groups as they have responded to the 
 feelings, attitudes, and habits of acting of the larger white 
 world. These are currents from the outer white world 
 that have been bent by the mind of the Negro, according 
 to its own genius. The first type of mental results is 
 here indicated in the discussion of Negro contributions in 
 humor, drama, music, literature, art and religion. The 
 second type is treated in the other sections of the chapter. 
 Humor and dramatic ability. It is not an accident 
 that three of the leading American comedians of the 
 past decade were Negroes, Ernest Hogan, George 
 Walker, and Bert Williams, and that two of the leading 
 ones to-day are F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. One of 
 the popular dramatic actors is Charles Gilpin, a Negro. 
 The power to see the cheerful, humorous side of life has 
 made the smiling Negro face a characteristic one. 
 Williams said, in an article in the American Magazine on 
 "The Comic Side of Trouble," that much of his material 
 was drawn from the Negro life he observed daily about 
 him. He described humor as the power of seeing one 
 self in a difficult or embarrassing situation and of being 
 ready to smile with others in spite of one s own predica 
 ment; as, for example, when one slips on the ice and 
 tumbles. These dramatic artists are examples of what 
 may develop in the case of many other Negroes of his 
 trionic capacity if favorable chances enable them to 
 break through the barriers that have thwarted the aspi 
 ration of many a black artist. Ira Aldridge, an American 
 Negro, a great Shakespearean tragedian, sought the stage 
 in England, Germany, and Russia because he could not 
 get a chance in the American theater. Recently a popu 
 lar moving picture star whose face had become a film 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 69 
 
 feature was dismissed by a well-known producing firm 
 when it was discovered she had Negro blood. When 
 more of such talent gets a chance, it will make a sub 
 stantial contribution to America. 
 
 This characteristic humor overflows in popular Negro 
 poetry and music and is present at almost every gathering 
 of Negroes. As one travels in the South, this cheerful 
 ness of heart may be seen reflected in the faces of the 
 Negroes gathered at the railroad stations. This overflow 
 ing good feeling smiles at trouble, mocks at restrictions, 
 and makes the Negro able to take neither himself, his 
 race, nor the world too much as Atlas took the burden 
 upon his shoulders. It enables him to help the world for 
 get its sorrows. 
 
 Some may misjudge this Negro trait as a happy-go- 
 lucky attitude. Far from it; the Negro loves his home, 
 his family, and his friends ; but he appreciates too much 
 of the cheerful and dramatic in life to worry himself sick 
 over its "passing show." For instance, a Negro poet 
 sings: 
 
 We have fashioned laughter 
 Out of tears and pain, 
 But the moment after 
 Pain and tears again. 
 
 Capacity for music. For the expression of musical 
 feeling and conception in past generations, the Negroes 
 have not been dependent upon theatrical audiences and 
 technical equipment. When music welled up in their 
 souls, they opened their mouths and sang. In the cotton 
 fields of the slave plantation they could hear the tunes 
 of GabriePs harp, and they responded with vibrant, tune 
 ful voices. In the forests about these fields they could 
 detect the "brush of angels wings." They burst forth 
 in notes commanding the heavenly chariots to "swing 
 
7 o THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 low" and carry them home from a humdrum life of harsh 
 toil and harsher treatment. 
 
 When opportunity for training in technical skill has 
 been offered and the appreciation of a supporting public 
 has furnished favorable conditions, this well-spring of 
 musical feeling has poured forth a finished work on a 
 plane to compare favorably with that of the musicians 
 of any race. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 1 born of an Afri 
 can father in England, was fortunate in finding a bene 
 factor who opened the doors of the Royal College of 
 Music and other opportunities for him, until the British 
 public began to know and appreciate. His music to Long 
 fellow s "Hiawatha" is a notable contribution. While 
 this composition deals with a story of Indian life, many 
 a strain of African melody, crystallized in the vocal and 
 orchestral score, is a delight to the musical world. Among 
 his compositions are his great "Tale of Old Japan" and 
 his musical settings for Stephen Phillips "Herod," 
 "Ulysses," and "Nero." What a loss there might have 
 been, had he lived under the restrictions of America ! 
 
 Some American Negroes in recent years have been 
 sounding forth melody of song and string of a high 
 quality. Harry T. Burleigh, for many years a soloist at 
 St. George s Episcopal Church in New York, has ar 
 ranged the tunes of many of the old Negro plantation 
 songs, "the spirituals," to the enjoyment of all who have 
 heard them. His arrangement of "Deep River," "I stood 
 on de Ribber of Jordan," and "Bye-and-bye Coin* to Lay 
 Down my Heavy Load" have their places now in many 
 a musical repertoire. Besides work in this direction, 
 Mr. Burleigh has a number of original art compositions 
 which display a wide range of emotion and a thorough 
 
 1 Haynes, Elizabeth Ross, Unsung Heroes, pp. 127-149. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 71 
 
 grasp of musical knowledge and technical skill. He is 
 now editor for Ricordi, the music publisher. 
 
 Rosamond Johnson, who published a number of com 
 positions in the Ladies Home Journal in years past, was 
 not generally known to its readers as a man of color. 
 He was born in Florida and trained in a missionary 
 school in Atlanta, Georgia. Later he enjoyed the free 
 dom of art in New York. His brother, mentioned below, 
 wrote the words of many of his songs. R. Nathaniel 
 Dett in recent years has been developing themes and 
 melodies from the Negro folk songs. One of his com 
 positions, "Listen to the Lambs," has put into imperish 
 able score the plantation melody which recites the story 
 of Christ s testing of Peter. His "Juba Dance," woven 
 out of the rhythm of a Negro dance, has been played and 
 enjoyed in almost every land. His "Chariot Jubilee" has 
 enlarged the simple melody of "Swing low, Sweet 
 Chariot" into a motet for voices and orchestra. With 
 the larger opportunities growing out of his position as 
 Musical Director of Hampton Institute, later years will 
 doubtless see more and greater expression of the music 
 singing in the soul of his people. 
 
 During the past ten years Roland Hayes, a black boy 
 from Tennessee, has given evidence by his tenor voice 
 of the "flowers of purest ray serene" which lie hidden in 
 the "dark, unfathomed caves" of Negro life. Hayes was 
 "discovered" by a friend who sent him to a missionary 
 college at Nashville, Tenn., established and supported 
 by one of the Northern missionary associations. Some 
 friends found further openings with one of the best 
 music teachers of Boston. Hayes has a tenor voice which 
 musical critics declare has possibilities for grand opera. 
 His face is black, and therefore no American manager 
 has dared to take him. Two years ago he went to Eng- 
 
72 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 land. There he has been received by leading musical 
 artists and critics. Recently he was invited by His Maj 
 esty to sing at Buckingham Palace. Not only did he 
 sing the Negro "spirituals," to the delight of the royal 
 family, but his rendition of some of the great classical 
 works called forth praise from the King, who, as a token 
 of appreciation, presented him with a diamond pin bear 
 ing the royal insignia. 
 
 Space does not permit a description of the work of 
 other singers such as Mrs. Florence Cole Talbert, a 
 soprano praised by the best judges, Madam Azalea Hack- 
 ley, who delighted many American audiences, and Albert 
 Greenlaw, whose bass voice a vocal expert called the 
 most nearly perfect voice he had ever heard. Raymond 
 Augustus Lawson, Helen Hagan, and Hazel Harrison 
 as pianists ; Clarence Cameron White, Joseph Douglass, a 
 grandson of Frederick Douglass, and Kemper Harrold 
 as violinists ; Will Marion Cook and James Reese Europe 
 as orchestral leaders, are examples chosen from a number 
 of promising persons of color who have made commend 
 able records, even under the tremendous color handicaps 
 in America. No claim is here made that Negroes out 
 strip other people in music. We recall, however, that 
 many leading musical authorities have declared that the 
 Negro has produced in his folk-songs the only original 
 American music. We may surmise what a musical con 
 tribution many members of this race will make to America 
 and to the world when full-fledged opportunity is given 
 them. 
 
 This music of the Negro soul has a rhythm which pul 
 sates in his muscular movement even when he walks 
 and works. Any one who wishes may observe a gang 
 of Negro laborers keeping time at their work while a 
 strawboss or "caller" sings some rhythmic, syncopated 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 73 
 
 tune. A similar rhythm may be observed among Negro 
 stevedores trotting in and out of a vessel they are load 
 ing, or among freight handlers in large warehouses. 
 Khrebiel, the noted critic, says that this rhythm with a 
 pristine, plaintive melody is the dominant characteristic 
 of native African music. McMaster, in describing the 
 slaves of the early eighteenth century, says: "Of music 
 and the dance they were passionately fond. With frag 
 ments of a sheep s rib, with a cow s jaw or a piece of 
 iron, with an old kettle or a bit of wood, with a hollow 
 gourd and a few horse hairs, they would fabricate instru 
 ments of music and play the most plaintive airs." The 
 "cake walk" which Negroes perform for the amusement 
 of white patrons at pleasure resorts is a rhythmical ex 
 pression of harmony between supple muscles and musical 
 minds. The "rocking" and "shouting" of popular church 
 gatherings among Negroes are responses through motion 
 to the waves of rhythmic emotion sweeping through brain 
 and nerve. 1 Many of the "spirituals" are improvised at 
 such meetings as vocal expressions by means of which 
 the members of the congregation keep time in their move 
 ments. 
 
 Capacity for poetry. Music, probably, has always 
 been the companion art of poetry as the highest expres 
 sion of spiritual life of a nation or a race as it has 
 striven to give voice to its deepest feelings, desires, and 
 profoundest attitudes toward the world. 2 Professor Rob 
 ert Kerlin, a Southern white man, formerly of Virginia 
 Military Institute, says: "A people s poetry affords the 
 most serious subject of study to those who would under 
 stand that people that people s soul, that people s status, 
 
 1 Coppin, Levi J., Unwritten History, p. 106. 
 
 2 Cf . Mecklin, John M., Democracy and Race Friction, pp. 
 
 55-57- 
 
74 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 that people s potentialities. There has been in these years 
 a renaissance of the Negro soul, and poetry is one of its 
 expressions . . . perhaps the most potent and significant 
 expression of the re-born soul of the Negro in this our 
 day." 
 
 Citing several selections from different authors to il 
 lustrate his points, Professor Kerlin continues : "In other 
 races, oratory and poetry have been accepted as the 
 tokens of noble qualities of character, lofty spiritual 
 gifts. Such they are in all races. They spring from 
 mankind s loftiest aspirations the aspirations for free 
 dom, for justice, for virtue, for honor, and for distinc 
 tion. That these impulses, these aspirations, and these 
 endowments are in the American Negro and are now 
 exhibiting themselves in verse it is this I wish to show 
 to the skeptically minded." * 
 
 From colonial days, the American Negroes have had 
 their poets. In the eighteenth century was the poetess, 
 Phillis Wheatley. Born of native parents in an African 
 jungle, brought to America when a child, and sold as a 
 slave to a Boston family, she was educated and wrote 
 poetry which was appreciated in America and England. 
 How many potential poets who never found expression 
 were lost in those years cannot be told. Certain it is there 
 were others, for many of the old plantation songs were 
 composed by them. Prof. Thomas W. Talley of Fisk 
 University, himself a Negro, brought out a book of 
 "Negro Folk Rhymes" that contains a number of stanzas, 
 gathered from the lips of the people, that critics say 
 portray real poetic qualities. In .1829 a benefactor pub 
 lished a volume of poems of James M. Morton, a North 
 
 1 Kerlin, Robert T., "Contemporary Poetry of the Negro," 
 Hampton Bulletin, February, 1921. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 75 
 
 Carolina slave, hardly able to read, who sang plaintively : x 
 
 Come, melting pity from afar. 
 And break this vast, enormous bar 
 Between a wretch and thee ; 
 Purchase a few short days of time, 
 And bid a vassal soar sublime 
 On Wings of Liberty. 
 
 Here and there, during the early nineteenth century, in 
 Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, lines of Negro 
 versifiers found their way into print. Negro bards had 
 sung their songs before William Dean Howells heard 
 Paul Lawrence Dunbar and brought him to the notice 
 of the American public. The work of Dunbar and of 
 William Stanley Braithwaite show evidence of poetic 
 vision, emotion, and skill of a very high order. They 
 are only, however, the brighter stars in a firmament il 
 lumined by many others. 
 
 Every race has its bards. The thing of far reaching 
 significance in the case of the American Negro to-day is 
 that these poets show distinctly and uniquely the possi 
 bilities of Negroes. They are only the forerunners of 
 other prophets of deeper insight into life and of broader 
 vision of its meaning who will some day speak forth. 
 The verses of James Weldon Johnson, Charles Bertram 
 Johnson, Joseph Cotter, Jr. and Sr., Leslie P. Hill, 
 Georgia Douglass Johnson, and many others clearly show 
 latent genius longing for greater opportunity. These 
 singers, with more cultivated art than the slave could put 
 into his "spirituals," lead Professor Kerlin to say: "Some 
 lyrical drama like Prometheus Bound/ but more touch 
 ing and more human ; some epic like Paradise Lost/ but 
 nearer to the common heart of man ; some Divine Com- 
 
 1 Quoted in E. A. Johnson s School History of the Negro Race 
 in America, p. 43, from the Raleigh (N. C.) Register, July 2, 
 1829. 
 
76 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 edy, that shall be the voice of those silent centuries of 
 slavery as Dante s poem was the voice of the long-silent 
 epoch preceding it, is not the improbable achievement of 
 some descendent of the slaves." 1 
 
 Not alone in poetry, but in other forms of literature is 
 there promise of production. The stories of Uncle Remus 
 collected and told by Joel Chandler Harris were made 
 around the cabin firesides of Negroes.. Alexander Dumas 
 was a mulatto. Charles W. Chesnutt wrote short stories 
 and novels that had their day of general popularity. A 
 West Indian Negro reared in France won the Goncourt 
 prize in 1921 for the best novel describing native condi 
 tions in Central Africa. The "Quest of the Silver Fleece" 
 and the prose poems in "Souls of Black Folk" and 
 "Darkwater" will win for W. E. B. DuBois a place as a 
 writer long after the controversies over the "race prob 
 lem" are ended. The orations of Frederick Douglass 
 almost touch the scale of eloquence of Edmund Burke. 
 Booker Washington s autobiography, "Up From Slavery," 
 has become classic, with translations into many languages. 
 Prose writers of greater ability may yet arise. 
 
 Capacity for art. The world of painting and sculpture 
 yields evidence of fruitful expressions of Negro mind. 
 Experiments tried with several groups of Negro children 
 without previous instruction in water coloring showed a 
 surprising "feeling tone" for harmony in color combina 
 tions. Frequently exercises in free-hand drawing and 
 clay modeling taken at random from grammar school 
 Negro children show a sense of form and proportion be 
 yond that which had been taught them. Henry O. Tanner 
 had to go abroad to get full opportunity to study. He 
 remained abroad permanently to do the work which has 
 classed him among the masters. His "Daniel in the 
 
 1 Kerlin, Robert T., work cited. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 77 
 
 Lion s Den," his "Washing the Disciples Feet," "The 
 Walk to Emmaus," "The Annunciation," and several 
 other masterpieces have been accepted in the Louvre and 
 other leading art galleries. He has won fame especially 
 for wonderful harmony of light and color. 
 
 E. M. Bannister, Richard Lonsdale Brown, Mary 
 Howard Jackson, Edmonia Lewis, Meta Warwick Fuller, 
 and John Henry Adams are prophetic of the many prom 
 ising recruits to art when the sum of full American op 
 portunity beams upon this people. 
 
 Religious genius of the Negro. In quite another di 
 rection, that of religious fervor and faith, we may study 
 characteristic attitudes and expressions of Negro mind 
 as it reacts to the currents of the surrounding world. 
 This is not a claim that the Negro has any monopoly 
 upon the religious expression of mankind. Frequently, 
 observers of Negro religious meetings have been led to 
 regard the emotional expression lightly or humorously. 
 Such people have seldom considered the serious mean 
 ing of these outbursts of religious enthusiasm in terms 
 of social sanction, group control, and racial genius. Fur 
 thermore, through his emotional ecstasy the Negro s 
 spirit has often been relieved from the deadening effects 
 of toil and restricted liberty. Shut out from participation 
 as a citizen in the full sense of the word in the general 
 activities of the community and the nation, the Negro 
 found in religious activity an avenue through which his 
 personality has found relief and outlet. 
 
 This religious life has other aspects. The faith of the 
 slave, especially during the later years of his bondage, 
 that the God to whom he cried in moaning and longings 
 that could not be uttered, would some day, somehow, 
 bring liberty and opportunity to him and his children, 
 gave him forbearance to endure. Buoyed up by their re- 
 
78 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ligious confidence, thousands of slaves remained at home 
 and cared for the wives and children of many masters 
 who were away fighting battles that decided the destiny 
 of those slaves. 1 
 
 In the years that followed, when thousands of the 
 white men never returned, many of these same fervent 
 "followers of the Lamb" voluntarily remained on the 
 farm and the plantation to provide for the women and 
 the children of the white families. In numerous cases 
 this meant arduous toil and personal privation through 
 a large part of a lifetime. This conduct was due not to 
 weakness or cowardice, nor was it due to the uninformed 
 inertia of ignorance, as the crowds that moved to Union 
 Army posts and urban centers between 1865 and 1870 
 showed. But it was because of personal attachments 
 to those whom they served, because of fidelity to family 
 trusts often definitely committed to them by departing 
 masters, and because of a deep religious sympathy for 
 helpless children and bereaved women. 
 
 It may be asked how we can reconcile the numbers 
 of mean, vicious, and criminal characters among Negroes 
 with this opinion of religious capacity and innate good 
 ness. That the savage instincts of some, as among other 
 people, were never subdued is not peculiar. The slave 
 pen and auction block, the deadened hope from denied 
 reward of honest toil, the one-room cabin and the gun- 
 barrel shanty of the towns and cities, devoid of sanita 
 tion and privacy, the dirty Negro neighborhood neglected 
 by police, fire, and health authorities and preyed upon 
 by the vicious and criminal classes of both races have 
 left their wrecks in Negro life. Yet the soul of this 
 people still vibrates with its pristine fervor of fellow- 
 feeling, with its music and its poetry, with its loud out-- 
 
 1 Coppin, Levi J., work cited, pp. 72-93. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 79 
 
 bursts of religious ecstasy, and with its free flow of 
 unsolicited service, a devotion which love alone lavishes 
 and which money cannot buy. 
 
 Personal relations valued above property possession. 
 The first of these characteristic states of mind of the 
 Negro in reaction to the white world may be termed a 
 philosophy of everyday relations. From the Negro point 
 of view the basis of communication is that of personal 
 relations rather than economic connections. For exam 
 ple, the Negro worker often remains on the job because 
 he likes "the boss" more than because he values the pay. 
 The sympathetic understanding and treatment by the em 
 ployer determine his likes and dislikes. Some employers 
 who have recognized this fact have had large suc 
 cess in the management of Negro workers. One 
 of the officials of the Newport News Shipbuilding 
 and Drydock Company once said, "We have our quar- 
 termen and foremen understand that one of the first 
 requisites in dealing with these men is the kindly word 
 and the personal touch and interest." On another occa 
 sion, when a ship was being launched, a number of men 
 from other jobs were standing around or upon the hull 
 of the vessel enjoying the sight as the ship slid off the 
 ways into the water. In reply to a question about the 
 freedom of these men to watch the ceremonies, a fore 
 man said, "Oh, they are free to do that if they like ; these 
 men feel at home here." For years that shipbuilding 
 plant has had excellent response from its Negro work 
 ers ; and among the Negroes of the community, the presi 
 dent of the Company is the most popular white man. 
 
 This feeling about personal relations is one of the un 
 derlying mental factors in Negro migration from the 
 South. The economic call of better wages in the North 
 has been strong, but there have been other reasons than 
 
80 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 purely economic opportunity. Many left because the old 
 personal relations between boss and workman, landlord 
 and tenant, have been disappearing. Many Negroes no 
 longer feel that there are those among their white neigh 
 bors who have a personal interest in their problems and 
 who will see that they have more opportunities for a 
 better, freer life. They have the tradition of finding these 
 things in the North, in "God s Country," as some of them 
 call it. 1 Conversations with thousands of them in all 
 walks of life, examination of their songs, their sayings 
 of wit and wisdom, their letters, 2 all bear out the fact 
 that this feeling for friendly personal relations is a large 
 factor in their migration to the North. They believe that 
 their opportunities for obtaining such interest are better. 
 Whether or not they find it is another matter; they be 
 lieve they will, and so they move. 
 
 Self -forgetful loyalty of the Negro. The self-forget 
 ful loyalty to the interests and cause of others even 
 where it conflicts with self-interest has been shown re 
 peatedly as a characteristic attitude of Negroes. Expres 
 sion of this loyalty has been given in many directions 
 through centuries of association, not only with the white 
 man, but with other races and between African tribes. 
 In South Africa, natives must be employed on terms that 
 allow periodic visits to their ancestral tribes. Other 
 wise, the employer often finds his servants have departed 
 anyway because of the call of the native kraal and the 
 requirements of tribal ceremony. Loyalty to persons has 
 led to the selection of Negroes for almost every great 
 historic exploring expedition, from the voyages of 
 
 1 See "Four Open Letters to the College Men of the South," 
 issued by the University Race Commission, 1916-20. 
 
 2 See collection of letters of Negro migrants published in 
 Journal of Negro History, Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 291-340, July, 1919; 
 No. 4, pp. 412-465, Oct., 1919. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 81 
 
 Columbus to America, of Balboa on the Pacific, to the 
 days when Matthew Henson, a Negro, was sole com 
 panion of Admiral Peary on the final lap of his jour 
 ney to the North Pole. 
 
 This attitude of loyalty has been shown remarkably in 
 the Negro s relation to the American flag, the symbol of 
 our "land of the free and home of the brave." An ac 
 count of his offerings for the liberty of our country is 
 illustrative of his loyalty. Hundreds of Negro soldiers 
 joined the Revolutionary Army and suffered all the pri 
 vations of that struggle, including the winter with Wash 
 ington at Valley Forge. Many Negroes made the su 
 preme sacrifice in the War of 1812. The story of Negro 
 heroes during the Civil War is well known. The ac 
 counts of the engagements at Fort Picket and Fort Wag 
 ner, at Petersburg, at Fredericksburg, at Gettysburg, and 
 elsewhere would be very incomplete without the story 
 of their exploits. In the Spanish-American War the 
 charge at El Caney and the capture of its block house 
 was one of the strategic battles of that war. In the 
 Philippines and in Mexico at Carrizal many Negro 
 troopers made records of heroism that should be given 
 their merited setting in our historical skies. Many dem 
 onstrations of the Negro s loyalty during the World War 
 are described in Chapter IV. 
 
 The crowning feature of this loyalty, however, was 
 greater than the tasks performed and the sacrifices made. 
 Many who fought for American liberty in the revolu 
 tionary period were themselves slaves knowing that the 
 Declaration of Independence did not secure the emanci 
 pation of their race. Negro soldiers of the Civil War 
 did have hopes that their blood might wash away their 
 bondage. But by the time of the Spanish-American War 
 and the World War, Negroes of America knew that they 
 
82 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 had not received security of person, property, and liberty, 
 and that in other ways their part in American democracy 
 was less than that of other citizens. Mobs and lynch 
 ing, miscarriage of justice in the courts, disfranchise- 
 ment at the polls, and other restrictions and discrimina 
 tions had driven deep into their consciousness the knowl 
 edge that as yet they were not in fact full-fledged Ameri 
 can citizens. 
 
 With this condition so plainly stamped upon their 
 minds, yet more than a third of a million of Negroes 
 during these two wars went forward in loyal devotion to 
 dare and to do and to die to preserve the very liberty and 
 democracy from the full enjoyment of which they knew 
 that they and the majority of their race would be ex 
 cluded by their white fellow-citizens. In the face of 
 restrictions and humiliations, thousands of these men, 
 sometimes fresh from camps where discriminations had 
 been forced upon them, went "over the top" with other 
 Americans to meet the enemies of their country. Many 
 of them are sleeping their long, last sleep in the Philip 
 pines and on the fields of France, that America and the 
 world may be "safe for democracy." The muse of his 
 tory will search her archives for records that match or 
 outstrip these annals of unselfish loyalty of a people! 
 Why, then, can Justice withhold from the least of these 
 full enjoyment of her protection? Christian America 
 should give the answer. 
 
 Tolerance and optimism under oppression. Another 
 characteristic expression of Negro mind in race relations 
 may be called its attitude of patient tolerance and sus 
 tained optimism. These are illustrated in Negro forbear 
 ance under opposition, restriction, and oppression, in his 
 method of meeting difficult problems and situations, and 
 in the hopefulness and loving kindliness of his folk-songs 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 83 
 
 and in his enthusiasm. The tolerance can best be illus 
 trated by contrast with corresponding reactions of other 
 racial groups under similar conditions. For instance, the 
 people of southern Ireland for nearly seven hundred and 
 fifty years have been under conditions of restriction less 
 irksome and with less limitation upon liberty and prop 
 erty of the individual than the Negro under American 
 slavery and partial freedom during more than three hun 
 dred years. The difference in the action of the two 
 groups is too well known to need recounting. The Irish 
 have argued, conspired, and fought with tongue and pen 
 and sword and fire. The Negroes have worked and 
 prayed and awaited "times and seasons." 
 
 The American Indian confronted the same white men 
 in America under many conditions similar to those of 
 the African Negro. But besides being a poor worker 
 under compulsion and succumbing quickly to the white 
 man s diseases, the Indian often used the tomahawk and 
 scalping knife. The Negroes who survived the battles of 
 the slave raids in Africa and the suicide, disease, and 
 cruelty of the slave ships, learned to use the hoe, the 
 plow, and the white men s ways of living and working. 
 They bowed their bodies to the toil, they survived, they 
 multiplied, they achieved. 
 
 Carping critics have said that this action of the Negro 
 was due to a lack of courage. A mass of evidence shows 
 the contrary to be true. For illustration, South African 
 Boer and Briton know the prowess and courage in war 
 of the Zulus. 1 The story is told of the cry of the Ashantis 
 in their disastrous uprising against the British who were 
 pushing them from their native territory: "To go back 
 
 1 Compare also accounts of slave insurrections in America 
 between 1712 and 1832; Brawley, B. G., Social History of the 
 American Negro. 
 
84 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 is to die, to go forward is to die: we will go forward 
 and die." 
 
 Patient tolerance is shown also by Negroes in the face 
 of difficult situations. Anglo-Saxon nerves under similar 
 conditions try either to remove the obstacle, to go through 
 it, or to smash either it or themselves in the attempt. 
 The Negro does not have the smashing attitude of mind. 
 He tries to find a path around the obstacle, to climb over 
 it, or tolerantly to sit down and wait until time or tide 
 removes it. His attitude of mind enables him "to labor 
 and to wait" and to achieve his ends by "indirect ap 
 proach" rather than by "feverish pursuit." It has en 
 abled him to succeed alongside of the white man, from 
 the scorching heat of Africa to the Arctic climate of 
 North America. The Negro has worked and waited and 
 got what he has gone after from the days before the 
 Egyptian pyramids were built. 
 
 Their optimism and kindliness shine through their 
 songs. Prof. Work of Fisk University says the "spir 
 ituals" that "grew" during the generations under slavery 
 and serfdom breathe hope, love, faith, triumph, sorrow, 
 but no word or note of despair, malice, or revenge. The 
 hopefulness of the slaves for freedom in the darkest days 
 is equaled by the enthusiasm of their descendents for 
 opportunity to achieve. One Southern white man has 
 aptly expressed what many are seeing: "It is not possible 
 to work with these people and not feel for them sym 
 pathy, admiration, and respect. The sacrifices they are 
 making for the education and enlightenment of their peo 
 ple, their kindly disposition, and the sincere appreciation 
 they show for the smallest service rendered them, their 
 patience, the philosophical way they generally take dis 
 courtesy and brusque treatment, their cheerfulness even 
 in adversity all of these things make it a source of 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 85 
 
 never-ceasing wonder to me that for so many years I 
 lived among these people and knew them not, that for 
 so many years I saw in them only the faults that are 
 bred of ignorance, depravity, and neglect and not the 
 inherent good qualities with which our Almighty Creator 
 has endowed them." 1 
 
 Rising tide of race consciousness. In addition to 
 these characteristic reactions, the Negro has acquired 
 certain other feelings and attitudes, especially during the 
 last fifty years, that should be noted in considering the 
 Negro mind in relation to American life. In the first 
 place, there is a rising tide of race consciousness, the 
 manifestation of a people becoming aware of its own in 
 trinsic worth. Less than a generation ago the Negro 
 physician in competition with white doctors had uphill 
 work to secure patients. To-day the Negro doctor has 
 almost an exclusive monopoly because his people prefer 
 him. A few years ago the white agents of insurance com 
 panies boasted about the ease with which they handled 
 Negro clients in competition with Negro companies and 
 their agents. To-day, with three Negro insurance com 
 panies writing whole life policies and two score selling the 
 small industrial policies, the Negro agent, if he chose, 
 might boast of his advantage over his white competitor. 
 A large Southern insurance company catering to Negroes 
 so fully recognized this change in the situation that it 
 is employing a Negro field executive, and he is building 
 up a Negro agency force. Negro policemen are now rec 
 ognized as a distinct asset in preserving law and order 
 in Negro neighborhoods. 
 
 This race consciousness has further manifested itself 
 in an increasing appreciation Negroes have of their pro 
 ductions, Negro music folk-songs, other songs, anthems, 
 
 1 L. M. Favrot, quoted in Fisk University News. 
 
86 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 and orchestral scores composed by Negroes are sung, 
 played, and enjoyed by Negroes. They are praising and 
 patronizing their players, playwrights, and poets, and 
 are rehearsing the stories of their "unsung heroes" to 
 their children. Negro scholars are now beginning to dig 
 from the archives of history the records of Negro culture 
 and civilization in Africa when Egypt was young and be 
 fore Babylon was built. Out of all this are coming faith 
 in themselves, visions of their possibilities, and efforts to 
 cultivate their unique powers and gifts to produce what 
 other people may some day gladly receive. 
 
 With the consciousness of racial worth comes the 
 recognition of racial restrictions in the denial of the 
 rights and opportunities accorded other Americans. This 
 is producing resentment and the first signs of spreading 
 vindictive feeling seen after nearly three hundred years 
 under the yoke of American serfdom. This feeling has 
 been showing itself in a belief among Negroes that they 
 must fight and contend to secure citizenship rights. They 
 recite many incidents leading to their belief when they 
 discuss their experience. To what extent contention in 
 stead of cooperation is a necessary part of their struggle 
 for increasing American opportunities is yet to be deter 
 mined. It is evident, in any case, that they believe that 
 they are being forced to fight and contend, and there is 
 growing up in the minds of many a belief in the neces 
 sity and the efficacy of the methods of contention and 
 fighting to attain the chances of free Americans. Here 
 issues the call to those who believe in brotherly coopera 
 tion to reach out hands as did the Man of Galilee to 
 even the lowliest and thus let them understand that the 
 children of God are the peacemakers among the races. 
 
 Increasing resentment and suspicion. To paint only 
 the bright and sunny side, however, would not give a 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 87 
 
 complete picture of the feeling and thought among 
 Negroes. There are shadows in the background. One 
 of these is the Negro s increasing distrust and suspicion 
 of white people. Negroes generally, from field hands to 
 professors, from porters to preachers, have ceased to 
 speak their inner feelings and thoughts to white people, 
 except to the few who, they believe, listen with full sym 
 pathy. Certain Negro men and women when seeking 
 favors or when terrorized by intimidation are led to share 
 partially with white people their real feelings and atti 
 tude. This dissimulation is the sequel of the suppression 
 of free speech and freedom of action. Daily commerce 
 between the races has many of the outward marks of 
 amity and peace because the Negro is not militant minded. 
 He makes no direct attack upon those he distrusts or 
 fears. At the first opportunity, however, "he folds his 
 tent like the Arab" and as silently moves away. 
 
 Of late years, especially during the World War, the 
 statements of white people in newspapers, periodicals, 
 and patriotic addresses on the blessings of a safe democ 
 racy have been weighed by Negroes in the light of their 
 effect upon the restricted conditions of daily life sur 
 rounding them. The result is a questioning of the sin 
 cerity of those professions and the professors. Edu 
 cated Negro idealists are not the only ones who have been 
 inclined to regard these pronouncements as "gestures." 
 In the Negro world, such opinions and feelings travel 
 rapidly by means of the "grape-vine telegraph." That 
 informal, unorganized, wireless system by means of which 
 ideas, facts, and feelings travel like electric currents from 
 one Negro neighborhood to another, still functions to-day 
 as in past generations. It carries from the most intelli 
 gent the essence of feelings and attitudes from both inside 
 and outside the Negro world to the illiterate, even to the 
 
88 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 most remote Negro cabin and community. The Negro 
 is a genius as a listener and a past master in the ancient 
 and effective art of talking. 
 
 It is a step backward for America, by its pressure upon 
 Negroes, to allow them to conclude that they should adopt 
 the dying doctrine of settlement of race relations and in 
 terests by force, either the brutal force of physical power 
 or the inhuman force of economic and political pressure. 
 Such a step is a failure to embrace the new spirit which 
 rises out of the hearts of men, which enters into economic 
 relations, into political and legal relations, into intellectual 
 relations, and which sets men free because it baptizes 
 them with the consciousness that each man is his brother s 
 helper. It is a challenge to Christians to show concretely 
 that comity and cooperation are the methods by means of 
 which the relations of men may be adjusted so that all in 
 America may have "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi 
 ness." To this "new emancipation," as expressed by the 
 author in another place, 1 the Negro can make "a contribu 
 tion of the heart, of emotion, of passion, of song, of 
 music. Laughter and a light heart, patience and good 
 cheer, enthusiasm and faith these are the priceless 
 things this old world has longed for and the new age 
 will prize." 
 
 The Negro as a contributor to American social con 
 sciousness. America may create the mental atmosphere 
 in which the Negro may go on growing in social and 
 spiritual consciousness and thus retain his hold upon and 
 develop such traits of mind and spirit as have been out 
 lined above, or she may repress him until he loses much 
 of them in the pain and sweat of a circumscribed, half- 
 free, hunted life. If stimulated, he may develop the 
 
 1 "The New Emancipation," Southern Workman, Oct., 1920. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 89 
 
 friendly feelings and attitudes which will contribute to 
 the spirit of social responsibility being born anew into 
 America and into the world. 
 
 The development of such social consciousness among 
 Negroes may be easier than among other elements of 
 our varied population. Negroes have no past history in 
 America of social castes based upon birth or bank ac 
 count. All classes of Negroes are yet closely bound to 
 gether by the bonds of common sufferings. There are 
 among them no wealthy capitalists. The professional 
 classes are relatively small in proportion to the total 
 Negro population. Ministers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, 
 and all others numbered less than seventy thousand in 
 1910 amid a population of nearly ten millions. They are, 
 however, very influential with the entire people and keenly 
 conscious of their obligations to serve and guide their 
 people. There are no wide gulfs of education, wealth, 
 or birth fixed between the lowliest laborer and the high 
 est leader. And the descriptions of their mental achieve 
 ment just recited show deep fellow-feeling, friendly atti 
 tudes, and cooperative ways of acting. 
 
 It seems very practicable, therefore, before any such 
 fixed differences of class arise among Negroes, to save 
 them from many of the shortcomings of other parts of 
 our nation, and so to organize and to stimulate them that 
 the business and professional classes may develop their 
 present sense of responsibility to the wage-earning classes 
 and spread a group solidarity, a feeling of social respon 
 sibility, throughout the whole people. If white America 
 in city and country, North and South, shall catch a vision 
 of the possible development through neighborliness and 
 justice extended to these people and will cooperate with 
 Negroes who for three centuries have shown themselves 
 able to cooperate, such a development of community 
 
90 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 helpfulness among Negroes in local communities through 
 out many states will undoubtedly bring a distinct and 
 rich contribution to the larger life of America. In addi 
 tion to the overflow of their music, their poetry, their 
 religious faith and fervor, their loyalty, their tolerance, 
 and their cheerfulness and humor, what an enrichment 
 to the higher thinking and feeling of the world may be 
 bfought to pass ! The deep emotional and mental fervor 
 of the Negro may show America and the world a new 
 meaning of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 Survival of superstition and backwardness. An un 
 favorable symptom of Negro life in contact with current 
 American opinion is the continuance of many of the old 
 superstitions among the rank and file, such as are com 
 mon to other ignorant people in America and elsewhere. 
 The majority of these people, because of the tardy de 
 velopment of public schools for them, are still denied 
 the view of the noble scroll of knowledge. In the past 
 half century the Negro has struggled hard to free him 
 self from ignorance and her twin offspring superstition 
 and poverty, but to many, the "rabbit foot" or voodoo bag 
 about the neck or in the pocket is still a good luck token 
 to ward off enemies and disease and to bring prosperity. 
 Malaria and typhoid are still attributed to exposure to 
 "night air." The paralyzing fear of beliefs in ghosts 
 and haunted houses and places is still a millstone to 
 progress. 
 
 Lack of thrift and industry is also a shortcoming which 
 cannot be denied. Where lie the cause and the remedy? 
 Mrs. Hammond, a discerning white woman, aptly says : 1 
 "The two great assets of any country are the land and 
 the people; and the people necessarily include those en 
 gaged in agriculture. ... In cities and factories we are 
 
 1 Hammond, L. H., In Black and White, pp. 56, 58 ff. 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 91 
 
 finding that it pays, in dollars and cents, to care for the 
 (white) human end of the machine. It will pay in the 
 country, too, and when the human end is black. Christ s 
 law of brotherhood is universal in its workings, or it is 
 no law at all." 
 
 The development of racial self-respect. Another 
 shortcoming has frequently been placed at the door of 
 the Negro. Enemies and some friends complain that 
 Negroes show a lack of belief in their own race; that 
 apparently their highest ambition is to be white. These 
 criticisms apparently have basis in fact. They overlook, 
 however, three cardinal conditions which Negroes con 
 front. First, Negroes are surrounded by white people, 
 ten to one, whose idea of physical beauty is a white 
 skin, sharp features, and straight hair. By a well known 
 principle of group psychology the individuals in the 
 minority tend to conform to the ideas and habits of the 
 majority. David Livingstone, Dan Crawford, in his 
 book, Thinking Black, and many other missionaries have 
 testified that Africans regard Europeans as sickly, un 
 natural, and ugly, and in some tribes the devil is repre 
 sented by white images. Black skin and native features 
 are to them beautiful. Stanley said he blushed at his 
 repulsion to the pale color of Europeans when he came 
 out of the African forests where he had seen only dark 
 skins and the "richer bronze color." x It is significant 
 that with the growing color consciousness among Ameri 
 can Negroes, they are even buying Negro dolls for their 
 children and are setting up race ideas of beauty in 
 America. 
 
 In the second place, whoever has observed and re 
 flected upon facts open to everyday inspection knows 
 
 1 Stanley, Henry M., Through the Dark Continent, Vol. II, pp. 
 462-65. 
 
92 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 that, on the one hand, to have a white skin or to be 
 known as a white man or woman is to have an open 
 door to whatever ability and effort can achieve. On 
 the other hand, to be dark-skinned or to be known as 
 a Negro, is to be looked down upon and to be dis 
 counted by those who hold the key to the American king 
 dom of achievement. This was a barrier to advance 
 ment of Negroes which even such superior achievements 
 as those of Booker Washington did not remove. It does 
 not take a Negro philosopher to conclude that the world 
 of advantage in America is on the side of him who ap 
 proaches the appearance of the accepted white type. 
 Negroes have had many of their attempts to set up their 
 own standards blown to the winds by derision. The 
 wonder is not that a few of them want to be white, but 
 rather, that the race has so persistently clung to racial 
 ideas and excellencies through so many generations. 
 
 Finally, much of the white man s notion of what the 
 Negro aspires to be is either an imaginative white man s 
 construction of what he conjectures he would strive for, 
 were he a Negro, or it is what some Negro has let the 
 white gather in response to leading questions. The hu 
 man mind is habitually seeing the thoughts and feelings 
 of others in terms of its own. The Negro is a master 
 in responding to the white man according to the latter s 
 wishes. The Negro already has a feeling for his own 
 kind which draws the thousands together and holds them, 
 just as similar feeling does Italians, Jews, Greeks, and 
 others. What will give the Negro most impetus to a 
 racial "self -sufficiency" is no longer to make a white 
 skin the passport to free American opportunity, but to 
 accord merit in a dark skin its just rewards. 
 
 What the Negro wants. There have been among 
 the Negro people those men of intelligence and vision, if 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 93 
 
 not always of learning, who have not bowed the knee 
 to Baal, to the popular superstitions and whims, personal 
 lust of wealth, or the conflicting currents of interracial 
 confusion. Often they have gathered up and expressed 
 the desires of their people for some of the substantial 
 things of American life. These expressions of desire 
 come from Negroes of all occupations and walks of life 
 workers in mines and factories, porters in stores and 
 hotels, drivers, hackmen, and trucksters, farmers, ten 
 ants, and farm hands, tradesmen, business men, doctors, 
 lawyers, teachers, housewives, and ministers. 
 
 First, Negroes have a yearning for education, a desire 
 profound in its reach, appealing in its sacrifices, and 
 tragic in its blighted opportunities. The story of their 
 struggles to get an equitable share of public school funds, 
 their willingness to contribute out of their poverty to 
 their private educational institutions and to supplement 
 what they get from the public treasury for school build 
 ings and the lengthening of school terms is an epic await 
 ing its Homer. They feel keenly when blamed for not 
 having what they have never had a chance to secure. 
 Day-schools, night-schools, vacation schools, summer 
 schools, and their limited colleges are always over 
 crowded. There is a perennial cry, "To know, to know; 
 to do, to do; to achieve, to achieve." 
 
 Second, Negroes have demonstrated, especially when 
 changes like the World War have pushed ajar the doors 
 of equal opportunity to work at just wages and under 
 fair conditions, that they desire a chance to get work 
 and to hold it upon the same terms as other workers. 
 They ask to be freed from the system of debt peonage 
 fri its differing forms, both that by which the courts are 
 accustomed to farm out prisoners to private employers 
 who pay their fines, and that by which workers cannot 
 
94 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 leave one plantation for another so long as any debt 
 remains unpaid. They ask for an armistice in the tacit 
 arrangement of lower wages for the same work, restric 
 tion to advancement in occupation, etc., by means of 
 which they are denied the legitimate fruit which other 
 men are given for their labor. 
 
 Third, they want a chance to play, too, when the day s 
 work is done; to play unmolested by law officers seek 
 ing by "framed up" gaming bouts to fatten upon fees 
 and fines, "arrestin fifty fer what one of us done." They 
 want play places where, in recreation and amusement, 
 they and their children may stretch their legs as well 
 as their spirits in wholesome mirth and music. Like 
 other workers they want sufficient wages, reasonable 
 hours and a standard of living which will leave mind 
 and body in vigor. They want good houses in which to 
 live, good roads, well-paved streets, sanitation, fire and 
 police protection, and other facilities which every mod 
 ern neighborhood now considers necessary to wholesome 
 living. 
 
 Fourth, another Negro want has probably been well 
 expressed by an unlettered Southern Negro farmer. 
 Speaking before a large audience of Negroes who were 
 in conference with some of their representative white 
 neighbors, he said, in answer to a question from a promi 
 nent white business man who was the presiding officer: 
 "And, sir, we wants to help say who governs us." The 
 officer replied that the liberal-minded white men of his 
 state proposed that their desire should be satisfied. In an 
 open letter to the Constitutional Convention of Louisiana 
 in 1898, Booker T. Washington said: "Any law con 
 trolling the ballot, that is not absolutely just and fair 
 to both races, will work more permanent injury to the 
 whites than to the blacks. The Negro does not object 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 95 
 
 to an education or property test, but let the law be so 
 clear that no one clothed with state authority will be 
 tempted to perjure and degrade himself by putting one 
 interpretation upon it for the white man and another for 
 the black man." 
 
 Fifth, through painful years of experience Negroes 
 have come to feel as one man that they want to be more 
 secure in their persons and their property and be free 
 from the discriminations and restrictions that seem to 
 them so unnecessary and to have no foundation in right 
 or reason. Burnings and lynchings of innocent persons 
 leave the average Negro with an uneasy feeling that a 
 mob may perchance take him during any excitement. 
 Experience has taught many that in a legal controversy 
 with a white man he and his property are at great 
 disadvantage. 
 
 Sixth, Negroes are beginning to ask for the removal 
 of the habitual thought and action which regards and 
 treats them as something less than men and women. 
 They do not phrase it in just those words, but their ac 
 tions speak louder than words. Experience with and 
 observation of thousands of domestic workers, unskilled 
 and semiskilled laborers in employment placement work 
 has heightened the author s estimation of these people s 
 belief in their own personality : their belief that they are 
 ends in themselves and, along with other people, should 
 have a chance to eat, dress, and live and enjoy some of 
 the happiness which they work to furnish to others. In 
 the upper grades of intelligence these feelings and atti 
 tudes express themselves in demands for schools, libra 
 ries, newspapers, art, music, and many other means of 
 self -development. 
 
 Finally, the Negro wishes to be at peace with all men. 
 He is a man of peace. He has learned war only when 
 
96 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 taught or when forced to defend himself. He sooner 
 submits to oppressive force than he inflicts it. And he 
 asks, as a citizen, to be left free to laugh and to sing, to 
 play and to pray, to work and to talk, to love and to live 
 with other Americans. 
 
 Growing dependence of Negroes upon their own 
 leaders. The separation of the races has more and more 
 left Negroes in a group isolation. They have thus been 
 thrown back upon their own leaders for knowledge and 
 guidance. Negroes, too, both as individuals and in their 
 organizations, are beginning to insist upon the privilege 
 to choose their own leaders. They say only leaders of 
 their choice can voice their wishes. Many of these lead 
 ers have been without the opportunity for training in the 
 best and deepest things of our civilization. There is, 
 however, an increasing number of consecrated Negro 
 men and women of character who have a following of 
 their own people and who are serving them faithfully. 
 There are, of course, some without a well developed 
 social conscience, who have more ability and shrewdness 
 than character. White men have too frequently either 
 used them for their own purposes or have been deceived 
 by them as mediators between the races. The Negro 
 needs leaders, sane and unselfish and trained in all the 
 learning of the Egyptians, the Europeans, and the Ameri 
 cans, and in all the ideals of the Christ. For they not 
 only lead ten millions of Negro Americans, they not only 
 may become ambassadors to the black millions of Africa, 
 but they are and will be among the mediators of the 
 white and darker races in the most difficult problems 
 mankind has to face in the future. The Christians of 
 America have an unyielding obligation to open avenues 
 of training for these leaders of the future. 
 
 The Negro and the interracial mind. The preced- 
 
THE TREND OF THE NEGRO WORLD 97 
 
 ing discussion has tried to set before the view some of 
 the habitual feelings, attitudes, and ways of acting of 
 the Negro mind. Connected with these goes another 
 racial characteristic of supreme significance in race rela 
 tions. The long centuries of concentration by Negroes 
 upon personal relations rather than property possessions, 
 the responsiveness of their minds to "other regarding" 
 impulses rather than the "self-regarding," have produced 
 temperaments eminently ready to enter with unconscious 
 self-forgetfulness into the purposes, plans, and aspira 
 tions of other peoples. Negro people readily subordinate 
 their own economic and material cultural advantage to 
 their pleasure in helping to advance other groups that 
 have won their confidence, affection, and admiration. 
 The rank and file of Negroes seem to have come to this 
 spontaneously. The Negro has a self and a soul, of the 
 depth and mystery of which a white observer becomes 
 aware only once in a great while. 1 
 
 It was upon such fertile soil as this that the seed of 
 the missionary education of the past sixty years with 
 its ideals of high thinking and unselfish living fell and 
 brought forth fruit. A type of Negro has developed 
 with an interracial mind and soul passionately responsive 
 to ideals beyond the bartering commercialism of the hour. 
 Most of his idealistic missionary teachers were far ahead 
 of their times in practical application of ideals of inter 
 racial brotherhood and service. The Negro student whom 
 they inspired is now trying, sometimes with heart-break 
 ing rebuffs to his sincerity, to apply ideals imbibed from 
 his teachers. He values truth more than tact and places 
 downright honesty of dealing above diplomacy. He 
 
 1 Murphy, E. G., Basis of Ascendency, pp. 79-81 ; Stribling, 
 T. S., "West Indian Nights," New York Evening Post, March 
 25 and 31, 1922. 
 
98 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 eschews the oldtime Negro s dissimulation and the white 
 man s method of "gesturing" toward one thing when he 
 intends to do another. 
 
 Many times this type of Negro finds himself in the 
 Garden, his sometime fellow-workers gone, and the co 
 horts of the enemy or pseudo friends led by some Judas 
 of his own race coming with the swords hidden behind 
 fair words and friendly greetings that do not disguise 
 to the penetrating soul the real purpose of the posse. 
 Only those who have prayed while drops of sweat ran 
 down, emerge from such experiences still calm of mind 
 and possessed of soul. Some of them, like Peter of old, 
 curse and swear and retaliate with the use of the sword. 
 Others either die spiritually in despair or, in disgust, 
 quit the quest for the higher achievements and become 
 mere seekers after the lesser things offered by the ma 
 terial god, Money. 
 
 There is still such spontaneous altruism in the souls 
 of black folk, in spite of the centuries of exploitation, 
 that America may have a demonstration of the demo 
 cratic cooperation the future holds for peoples and races 
 which can share the purposes and aspiration each of the 
 other. White Christians who long and strive for that 
 better day will find allies among these dark skinned dis 
 ciples. America, however, has to awake and remove the 
 barriers to the development of the interracial mind of 
 the Negro and the Caucasian. The Spirit that became 
 flesh will then live reincarnate among them. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 The Negro s Offering to the Stars and Stripes 
 
 IF one goes to Boston Common he sees there a monu 
 ment bearing the name of Crispus Attucks, the first 
 martyr of the American Revolution. He was a Negro, 
 a former slave. From the time of the controversies with 
 the French in Colonial days to the latest exploits of the 
 World War, besides all other types of devotion in Amer 
 ica, Negroes have paid the supreme price of liberty. If 
 any one doubts the devotion to country and the love of 
 liberty of the Negro, he has only to spend a few hours 
 in searching the records of American history to be con 
 vinced that his doubts are ill -founded and that these 
 people, although denied the full boon themselves, have 
 given themselves in full measure for the justice and 
 liberty which America promises to all who seek her 
 shores. 
 
 In the War of the Revolution. Negroes were in 
 practically every white regiment during the Revolutionary 
 War. A Hessian officer after marching through Massa 
 chusetts said, "No regiment is to be seen in which there 
 are not Negroes in abundance." Bancroft, the historian, 
 says that there were names of men of color on the 
 rolls of the army at Cambridge from its first formation, 
 that Negroes stood in the ranks with the white soldiers 
 in the militia of different colonies, and that black men 
 were retained in the service under the Continental Con 
 gress. 
 
 Under General Washington s immediate command, in 
 August, 1778, there are reported to have been 775 
 Negroes, and it is estimated that there were 4,000 in the 
 Continental Army. A company of Negroes fought at 
 
 99 
 
ioo THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the Battle of Bunker Hill. Peter Salem, a Negro, when 
 other patriots stood dismayed, fired the shot that mor 
 tally wounded Major Pitcairn, leader of the British 
 forces, and thus turned the tide of battle. Solomon Poor 
 during the same engagement won the commendation of 
 the principal officers, who later entered a petition in the 
 Massachusetts Assembly asking recognition for him. A 
 regiment of free men of color fought courageously at the 
 battle of Rhode Island in August, 1778. The Black 
 Legion, a contingent of soldiers from Santo Domingo, 
 by covering the retreat and repulsing the British at 
 Savannah, Ga., October 9, 1779, saved the American 
 and French Armies from defeat. 1 
 
 At the commencement of the Revolutionary War the 
 question of using Negroes for service was one of no 
 small moment. At first the Continental Congress voted 
 that no slaves or free Negroes should be enlisted. A 
 council of war consisting of General Washington and 
 Major Generals Ward, Lee, and Putnam and six Briga 
 dier Generals after full discussion decided, October 8, 
 1775, "unanimously to reject all slaves, and by a great 
 majority to reject Negroes altogether." During the same 
 month a committee met in conference at Cambridge to 
 consider the reorganization of the army. This committee 
 decided that free Negroes and slaves were to be "re 
 jected altogether." 
 
 The action of the Earl of Dunmore, Governor General 
 of Virginia, however, in a proclamation of November 7, 
 1775, offering freedom to all indentured servants, 
 Negroes, and others able and willing to bear arms if 
 they should join His Majesty s troops, caused the 
 
 1 Williams, G. W., History of the Negro Race in America, 
 (2 vols.) is the main source of facts for the first ten pages of 
 this chapter, except where others are cited. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 101 
 
 Colonial leaders to change their policy. Alarmed at the 
 British action, and without waiting for the action of the 
 Continental Congress, on December 30, 1775, General 
 Washington issued general orders authorizing the enlist 
 ment of free Negroes. The Continental Congress took 
 no further action when notified by General Washington 
 of what he had done. This new policy met immediate 
 response from Negroes. 
 
 The attitude of the Southern colonists changed. Alex 
 ander Hamilton sent Colonel Laurens to John Jay, Presi 
 dent of the Continental Congress, with a letter dated 
 March 14, 1779, urging the organization of an army of 
 Negro slaves in South Carolina, who should be emanci 
 pated upon completion of their service. He said, "It 
 should be considered that if we do not make use of 
 them in this way, the enemy probably will, and that the 
 best way to counteract the temptations they hold out will 
 be to offer them ourselves." 1 Free Negroes were al 
 lowed to enlist in Virginia regiments, and the temptation 
 to slaves to declare themselves freedmen in order to 
 enlist was so great that the Virginia legislature passed a 
 law prohibiting recruiting officers from enrolling Negroes 
 without certificates of freedom. James Armistead, a 
 slave, was a scout for Lafayette in his Virginia cam 
 paign. Along with their white compatriots these black 
 heroes fought and died for American independence, 
 showing heroism at Bunker Hill, valor at Brandywine, 
 fortitude at Valley Forge, and courage, enthusiasm, and 
 endurance in every engagement down to Saratoga and 
 Yorktown, where Cornwallis surrendered. Can justice 
 in America deny their descendants the full meed of their 
 sacrifices ? 
 
 1 Johnson, E. A., School History of the Negro Race in America, 
 pp. 58-60. 
 
102 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 In the conflict of 1812. In the War of 1812 Negroes 
 were used in both the land and naval forces. The 
 achievements of the Negro in the Revolutionary War 
 and the lack of troops left no room for debate as to the 
 utility of Negro troops in this second encounter. Com 
 mander Nathaniel Shaler praised the heroism of black 
 tars on his armed schooner, and Perry praised their 
 heroism on Lake Erie. New York passed an act au 
 thorizing the raising of two regiments of Negro troops 
 October 24, 1814, and 2,000 men of color were enlisted 
 and sent to the army at Brackett s Harbor. The most 
 notable service was performed by Negro troops under 
 Major General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. Jack 
 son commanded the Eighth Military District with head 
 quarters at Mobile, Alabama. He issued an appeal to 
 the free Negro inhabitants, confessing a mistaken policy 
 in heretofore depriving them of participation in the 
 "glorious struggle for national rights in which our coun 
 try is engaged." He promised the same bounty in money 
 and land as to white soldiers, and that while he would 
 select white commissioned officers for them, non-com 
 missioned officers would be chosen from their ranks. 
 
 On Sunday, December 18, 1814, just before the Battle 
 of New Orleans, General Jackson reviewed his Negro 
 contingent and delivered to them an address which is 
 such a remarkable statement that it demands full quota 
 tion here: 
 
 "To the men of color : Soldiers ! From the shores of 
 Mobile I collected you to arms ; I invited you to share 
 in the perils and to divide the glory of your white coun 
 trymen. I expected much from you, for I was not un 
 informed of those qualities which must render you so 
 formidable to an invading foe. I knew that you could 
 endure hunger and thirst and all the hardships of war. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 103 
 
 I knew that you loved the land of your nativity, and 
 that, like ourselves, you had to defend all that is most 
 dear to man. But you surpass my hopes. I have found 
 in you, united to these qualities, that noble enthusiasm 
 which impels to great deeds. 
 
 "Soldiers ! The President of the United States shall 
 be informed of your conduct on the present occasion, 
 and the voice of the representatives of the American 
 nation shall applaud your valor as your general now 
 praises your ardor. The enemy is near. His sails cover 
 the lakes. But the brave are united; and if he finds us 
 contending among ourselves, it will be for the prize of 
 valor and fame, its noblest reward." 
 
 In the Civil War. The service of the Negroes in this 
 struggle is so well known that only a brief statement is 
 necessary. It is estimated that more than 180,000 Negro 
 soldiers were enlisted in the Union Army and that thou 
 sands of slaves and some free Negroes were drafted as 
 non-combatants on the Confederate side, with a promise 
 of freedom to those slaves who survived. The Confed 
 erate Congress passed a law February 7, 1864, requiring 
 that all male free Negroes and other persons of color 
 then resident in the Confederate States, between the ages 
 of 1 8 and 50, except those who were free under the 
 treaty of Paris, 1803, and under the treaty of Spain, 1819, 
 should be liable for duty in the army in connection with 
 building of military defenses, work upon fortifications, 
 in military hospitals, and in other work. Provision was 
 made in the law for exemption by the Secretary of State 
 for such as he thought needed it on grounds of "justice, 
 equity, or necessity." The use of Negroes as soldiers, 
 however, was debated by Confederate leaders. Finally, 
 on March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed an 
 Act to use Negroes "to perform military service in what 
 ever capacity he (the President) may direct." But the 
 
104 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 close of the conflict came before the plan could be car 
 ried out. 1 
 
 During the first two years of the war, President Lin 
 coln declined to use Negroes as soldiers. He held to this 
 policy under strong pressure. General Butler was about 
 the first to use Negro troops, drawn from the free 
 Negroes of New Orleans who volunteered. There were 
 many colored Creoles in New Orleans whose forbears 
 had been free. Some were descendants of soldiers who 
 had fought under General Andrew Jackson. Some of 
 the officers of these militiamen accepted an invitation to 
 visit the General. The result was that they readily agreed 
 to form regiments of free Negroes. Two weeks later, 
 August 22, 1862, when General Butler went down to the 
 place where he had ordered the troops to gather, a unique 
 sight struck his eyes: "2,000 men ready to enlist as re 
 cruits, not a man of them who had not a white biled 
 shirt on." 2 In less than a month s time, a full regiment 
 of free Negroes entered the army of the United States; 
 another was accepted October 12, 1862, a third regiment 
 of infantry, November 24, and a regiment of heavy artil 
 lery was mustered in November 29, 1862. They were 
 called the First, Second, and Third Infantry Corps 
 d Afrique, respectively, and the First Regiment Heavy 
 Artillery Corps d Afrique. 
 
 The state of Kansas, however, organized the first 
 regiment of Northern Negro troops. The first Kansas 
 colored volunteers were mustered in January 4, 1863, at 
 Fort Scott. The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 
 was completed April 12 of that year. Frederick Douglass 
 
 1 Wesley, Charles H., "Employment of Negroes as Soldiers in 
 the Confederate Army," Journal of Negro History, Vol. IV, No. 
 3, July, 1919. 
 
 2 Washington, Booker T., Story of the Negro, Vol. I, p. 322. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 105 
 
 and a number of other prominent colored men assisted 
 in the recruiting work. 
 
 The raising of the first regiments was not without 
 much misgiving on the part of many of the friends of 
 the Negro, and not without opposition on the part of 
 those who did not favor the use of Negroes as soldiers. 
 The experiment was started, however, and theoretical ob 
 jections had to await the test of experience. The first 
 large experience came with the South Carolina Negro 
 volunteers under the noted Colonel Higginson who was 
 sent upon an expedition to occupy Jacksonville, Florida. 
 Some of the hostile newspapers prophesied that the 
 Negro troops would burn the city and outrage the in 
 habitants. They landed quietly, however, marched 
 through the city streets in perfect order, committed no 
 excesses of any kind. In writing of his Florida expedi 
 tion Colonel Higginson said, "In every instance my 
 troops came off with unblemished honor and undisputed 
 triumph." 
 
 The Negro troops saw their first real fighting at the 
 battle of Fort Hudson, May 27, 1863. These troops were 
 the first and second Louisiana Native Guards, recruited 
 under General Butler. After an all night s march and an 
 hour s rest they were ordered to take a place on the right 
 of the charging line. From early morning until three- 
 thirty in the afternoon, amid hideous carnage, they 
 charged six or seven times in trying to take a fortified 
 bluff beyond a deep ravine. A correspondent of the New 
 York Times, on the ground, said : "The deeds of heroism 
 performed by these colored men were such as the proud 
 est white men might emulate. Their colors were torn to 
 pieces by shots and literally bespattered with blood and 
 brain." 
 
 The teachable nature of the Negro, his endurance, his 
 
io6 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 hopefulness, his enthusiasm, his songs when marching, 
 his quick imitative powers in learning military drill and 
 discipline, and his cheerfulness, which knew no discour 
 agement, made him an asset. In less than six months 
 after the first regiments were mustered in, he had taken 
 part in five engagements and, as the New York Times 
 said, "In some instances they acted with distinguished 
 bravery, and in all they acted as well as could be expected 
 of raw troops." The effect upon the country of such 
 conduct of Negro troops in these engagements was so 
 electrical that it settled the question of ability as a soldier 
 and of their employment in the Union Army. 
 
 Another illustration will indicate the character of their 
 services for liberty. The action of the 54th Massa 
 chusetts at Fort Wagner has been recounted in song and 
 story. After two days marching through marshes, swol 
 len streams, rain and darkness, with one day s rest, the 
 regiment was thrown into line. As darkness fell on the 
 1 8th of July, 1863, they were ordered to make double 
 quick time in the charge upon the fort. They planted 
 their flag upon the ramparts, held it there half an hour, 
 and with their beloved Colonel Robert Gould Shaw cold 
 in death upon the field, retired only when relieved by a 
 second division. Corporal Carney, the Negro color 
 bearer, though wounded severely in the thigh and shoul 
 ders, held his flag upon the parapet until his regiment 
 was relieved. It was after this exploit that he made 
 the famous remark, when returning to the hospital nearly 
 exhausted from the loss of blood, "Boys, the old flag 
 never touched the ground." With similar heroism and 
 enthusiasm, from Petersburg and Nashville, down to the 
 end of the struggle, Negro soldiers bore the burden in 
 the heat of the battle and demonstrated by their sacri 
 fices that they and theirs deserved a place as free citizens. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 107 
 
 In the Spanish-American War. Among the first 
 troops who went forward in the Spanish-American War 
 in 1898, were the famous Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and 
 the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantries, all Negro 
 troops of the Regular Army. The Tenth Cavalry dis 
 tinguished itself at the first battle in Cuba by coming to 
 the rescue of Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. 
 The Colonel publicly expressed his appreciation of their 
 valor. In this famous battle of El Caney the Negro 
 troops, as they went up the hill to the Spanish block 
 house, sang, "There ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town 
 To-night." A Negro officer of the Twenty-fourth In 
 fantry was the first man to enter the blockhouse. It was 
 he who hauled down the Spanish flag. 
 
 Colonel Leonard Wood, when Chief of Staff in 1914, 
 wrote: "I served with the Tenth Cavalry years ago as 
 a junior officer, and have had it with me in various parts 
 of the world, including the United States, Cuba, and the 
 Philippines . . . the discipline and general performance 
 of duty by these regiments have been very creditable." * 
 Besides those of the regular army, there were a number 
 of volunteer regiments from Indiana, Illinois, and other 
 states. Following the Spanish-American War, two col 
 ored regiments with colored captains and lieutenants, 
 went to the Philippines and did valiant service. 
 
 Negro citizenship. By the time of the Spanish- 
 American War, the experience of a generation of freed- 
 men had thrown the light of the years upon the question 
 of Negro citizenship. Before the outbreak of the World 
 War the country was beginning to be fully conscious of 
 the national problem in race relations. Therefore, before 
 entering the new period ushered in by the World War, 
 
 1 From letter quoted in The Black Soldier by Mary Curtis, 
 P. 34- 
 
io8 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the question of the citizenship of the Negro may well 
 be reviewed as it then stood. 
 
 Under Federal laws any distinction defined on the basis 
 of race is also a legal discrimination because Federal law 
 theoretically knows no race, color, or creed. In the 
 words of the Supreme Court, 1 "The Constitution of the 
 United States in its present form forbids, so far as civil 
 and political rights are concerned, discrimination by the 
 general government, or by the states, against any citizen 
 because of his race. All citizens are equal before the 
 law. The guarantees of life, liberty, and property are 
 for all persons within the jurisdiction of the United 
 States, or of any state, without discrimination against 
 any because of their race." 
 
 The civic status of the Negro has gradually grown 
 up through the years. It has been a long, long way from 
 the status of the slave to that of freedman. The old 
 legal status of the Negro slave can probably be best illus 
 trated by the celebrated case of Dred Scott. It was 
 Scott s contention that Sanford, his Missouri master, 
 could not restrain him as a slave in Missouri when he at 
 tempted to return to the free soil of Illinois. In deciding 
 the case, the United States Supreme Court declared that 
 persons of African descent were not constituent members 
 of the Sovereign people and "that they are not included, 
 and were not intended to be included, under the word 
 Citizen in the Constitution and can therefore claim none 
 of the rights and privileges which that instrument pro 
 vides for and secures to citizens of the United States." 
 
 The Court held further that citizenship conferred by 
 states after the adoption of the Constitution did not carry 
 with it citizenship in the United States or any of the 
 rights, privileges, or immunities of citizens of other 
 
 1 Case of Strauder vs. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 103. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 109 
 
 states, should a person move from one state to another. 
 Some of the Justices of the Court both dissented from 
 the law and challenged the facts of the majority opinion 
 of the Court; but the majority prevailed. This decision 
 of the United States Supreme Court was soon followed 
 by fugitive slave laws which permitted slave owners to 
 go into free territory, claim persons as their runaway 
 slaves, and carry them back to slave territory. With 
 some alterations of details this was the status of the 
 Negro slave until the Emancipation Proclamation. 
 
 Free persons of color in slave states were better off 
 to a limited extent than slaves. By 1860, there were 
 434,000 free Negroes in the United States, 260,000 of 
 them in the South. They were exempt from involun 
 tary servitude. They could go freely from place to place 
 within most states, provided they had their free papers 
 to present to any one who questioned them. But the 
 restrictions increased following the Nat Turner insurrec 
 tion in 1832, particularly as to free assemblage. The 
 free person of color had more legal right of protection 
 of his person from injury under the law than a slave 
 had. In practise, however, the slave had protection 
 through his master. Free Negroes in Northern states 
 gradually achieved the right to hold property, to move 
 freely from place to place, to protection in the courts and, 
 in some states, to free exercise of the franchise. 
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation and the thirteenth, 
 fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Federal Con 
 stitution made enslavement no longer legal, giving the 
 Negro legal rights as a citizen and making him legally 
 a man instead of a thing. In practical operation, how 
 ever, it has been a long process to get the old habits of 
 daily life changed and to introduce the legal principles 
 into the practises of everyday relations. 
 
no THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Friction due to exercise of the franchise. The exer 
 cise of the franchise guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amend 
 ment has been one of the factors of the Negro s status 
 as a citizen which has brought the most discussion, con 
 troversy, and friction. Whatever may have been the mis 
 takes of the past, we cannot avoid facing the conditions 
 of the present which are laden with the issues of the 
 future. A leading Southerner has said in print: "We are 
 agreed that there ought to be a limit on the right to 
 vote and hold office; but we ought also to agree that 
 whatever limitation is imposed should appeal to the 
 sense of exact justice and fairness to all the persons 
 involved." The most thoughtful citizens have expressed 
 the view that any control of the franchise which does 
 not administer its exercise justly without regard to race 
 or sex will do more injury to the white citizens than to 
 the black ones. Taxation without representation is as 
 dangerous and as unjust now as ever. 
 
 The relation of the Negro to the constabulary and the 
 courts is also vital for all. The ignorant, the weak, and 
 thoughtless of any national or racial group in America 
 probably suffers much injustice when in the hands of the 
 average police and lower courts. To this is added, in 
 the case of the Negro, suspicion which falls upon him 
 because of his race. A murder, an assault, a burglary, 
 or a robbery is committed in a community. A general 
 presumption is that some one from among the Negroes 
 did it. Upon the slightest suspicion a Negro may be 
 arrested, lodged in jail, and, if he lacks influential white 
 friends or the means to employ an able lawyer, 
 held for weeks and months. 1 He is sometimes taken 
 and lynched without trial. The fee system, with its jus- 
 
 1 Hammond, L. H., In Black and White, pp. 46-52. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES in 
 
 tices of the peace, petty magistrates, and constables, de 
 pendent for their pay upon their part of the fines and 
 fees levied upon defendants, have been a source of con 
 tinued abuse for many years in many communities. 
 Added to this has been a widespread custom of handing 
 over those convicted in trials before such petty courts, to 
 planters, farmers, and others who pay their fines and 
 court costs. They are allowed to hold the prisoners until 
 they "work out" the amount paid for them often with the 
 addition of the "keep" of the prisoner. Such a system 
 leads to peonage and other evils. 
 
 In some of the states the right of jury service irrespec 
 tive of race is accorded citizens, but in others the ques 
 tion had not been settled in practise. In 1879, the right 
 of Negro male citizens to serve on juries was fully estab 
 lished by the Supreme Court of the United States. A 
 Negro named Strauder appealed for the removal of his 
 case to the United States Circuit Court on the ground 
 that he had been denied a trial by a freely chosen jury 
 of his peers, because he had been convicted of murder 
 by a jury from which colored men had been excluded. 
 In deciding this case in favor of Strauder, the Supreme 
 Court of the United States held that the Fourteenth 
 Amendment secures among other civil rights to colored 
 persons charged with criminal offenses an impartial trial 
 by jurors indifferently selected without discrimination 
 against such jurors because of their color. The court 
 held: 
 
 "That where the state statute secures to every white 
 man the right of trial by jury selected from, and with 
 out discrimination against, his race, and at the same time 
 permits or requires such discrimination against the col 
 ored man because of his race, the latter is not equally 
 protected by law with the former. . . . 
 
112 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 "The guarantees of life, liberty, and property are for 
 all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States, 
 or of any state, without discrimination against any be 
 cause of their race. These guarantees, when their viola 
 tion is properly presented in the regular course of pro 
 ceedings, must be enforced in the courts, both of the 
 nation and of the state, without reference to considera 
 tions based upon race." 1 
 
 Another matter of transcending civic importance to 
 every citizen is that of mob violence. This evil has 
 grasped victims of other races in its clutches and has 
 marked Negroes for particular attention. Mobs and lynch- 
 ings, with the development of race riots, in later years, 
 constitute a very great danger to all American life. In 
 thirty years ending in 1920, 691 white men and n white 
 women, 2,472 Negro men and 50 Negro women were 
 lynched without trial. Less than one fifth of the Negro 
 men were not even under suspicion of any kind of crime 
 against women. Many of the Negroes were not charged 
 with any crime at all. In a magazine article in 1912, 
 Booker T. Washington said : 2 "In short, it is safe to say 
 that a large proportion of the colored persons lynched 
 are innocent. ... In other cases it is known that where 
 Negroes have committed crimes, innocent men have been 
 lynched, and the guilty ones have escaped and gone on 
 committing more crimes." The very foundations of law 
 and government are challenged by this evil which makes 
 the life and limb of Negro citizens unsafe. With such a 
 citizenship status, the Negro arrived at the period of the 
 World War. 
 
 1 Strauder vs. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303. 
 
 2 Quoted in Scott and Stowe, Booker T. Washington, Builder 
 of a Civilization, pp. 92-93. 
 
Underwood. 
 
 NEGRO REGIMENT, RETURNING FROM FRANCE, MARCHING ON FIFTH 
 AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 The readiness and promptness of the Negro s response to the 
 call of liis country showed that he was filled with the same feel 
 ing of patriotism and was ready to make the same sacrifices as 
 his white fellow-citizens in the cause of world freedom. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 113 
 
 In the World War. The story of the Negro in the 
 army during the World War may be described first in 
 four phases besides the fighting to which Negroes con 
 tributed so largely; namely, Negro music in the camps 
 and in the army ; the remarkable work done by the .Negro 
 labor battalions, particularly stevedore battalions, who 
 were the marvel of the French in their loading and un 
 loading of vessels ; the cooperation of Negro agricultural 
 and industrial workers at home in what was called the 
 fourth line of defense; and the active participation in 
 Red Cross work, Food Conservation and Health Cam 
 paigns, and in the buying of Liberty Bonds. 
 
 Non-combatant service. Wherever the Negro has 
 gone, he has carried his music and his song. The plain 
 tive melody and romping rhythm, the simple harmony 
 and rollicking, syncopated "jazz" gained the attention 
 of soldiers, black and white, everywhere, and set many a 
 regiment moving its feet, exercising its lungs, and en 
 livening its spirit. The Negro folk-songs, the war songs, 
 and the Negro band set many a community and camp 
 agog with excitement. It is said that some of the high 
 est officials of the French Army and government eagerly 
 listened to Negro "jazz" music. Especially noteworthy 
 in this connection was the band of Lieutenant James 
 Reese Europe, a part of the 369th Infantry, the "Old 
 Fifteenth New York." As soon as the regiment landed 
 at Brest, France, Europe s band began to play and the 
 populace began to dance. From there, wherever the band 
 went during its stay in France, it gave joy and amuse 
 ment to all who heard it. So popular was such music 
 that some one coined the phrase, "Jazz won the war." 
 The singing of Negro songs by Sergeant Noble Sissle, 
 the drum major of the band, attracted attention on every 
 
H4 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 occasion, and he was effective in helping to interpret 
 the music to French audiences. 1 
 
 The first Negro stevedore battalion went to France in 
 June, 1917, and before the end of the War there were 
 about 50,000 in this branch of the army. They received 
 the usual routine training of infantry. At the five French 
 ports, Brest, St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, Havre, and Mar 
 seilles, the Negro stevedore regiments, working often 
 amid the mud and the rain, sometimes in twenty-four 
 hour shifts, laughing, frolicking, and singing all the time, 
 became a sight for all who beheld them and won the ad 
 miration and praise of all who appreciated that they were 
 holding the "third line of defense" behind the men in the 
 trenches. 
 
 The story is told that when a French officer was 
 asked about the unloading of vessels at Bordeaux, he 
 estimated the amount of time in weeks. The American 
 army, however, with its labor battalions and its steve 
 dores working in shifts, night and day, built extensive 
 docks and often unloaded vessels in from thirty-six to 
 forty-eight hours. One observer reported that a com 
 pany of Negro stevedores unloaded 1,200 tons of flour 
 in nine and a half hours, setting a record for the A.E.F. ; 
 that the same group of stevedores for five days dis 
 charged an average of 2,000 tons a day for one shift of 
 workers. Mr. Ralph Tyler, who was in France repre 
 senting the Committee on Public Information at the 
 time, wrote that in September, 1918, there were handled 
 at the American base ports in France 767,648 tons, or a 
 daily average of 25,588 tons, an increase of nearly ten 
 per cent over August, and that the larger part of this 
 
 1 Scott, E. J., History of the Negro in the World War, pp. 300- 
 310. This work furnished considerable documentary data for this 
 account of the Negro in the army during the World War. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 115 
 
 material was handled by Negro stevedores. He remarked 
 that "one who sees the (Negro) stevedores work notes 
 with what rapidity and cheerfulness they work and what 
 a very important cog they are in the war machinery." * 
 Through all the long hours of toil the Negro stevedores 
 went about their work with cheerfulness, with jokes and 
 laughter, with singing and music and with all the high 
 enthusiasm of Negro disposition. 
 
 An account of the non-combatant service would be in 
 complete without a statement about the unselfish, de 
 voted, but far-reaching work of the Negro men and 
 women who went overseas in the service of the Y.M.C.A. 
 to give entertainment and encouragement and physical 
 comfort to Negro soldiers, to inspire them with religious 
 and patriotic guidance, and thus to keep up their morale. 
 This organization maintained about fifty-five centers at 
 various cantonments in the United States. Three hun 
 dred and fourteen Negro Secretaries served at home and 
 sixty, including five women, went overseas. Their work 
 comprised religious meetings, Bible classes, educational 
 classes, in which thousands of illiterate recruits learned 
 to read and write, athletic activities, moving picture and 
 social entertainments, supplying suitable reading, station 
 ery, stamps, and refreshments. 
 
 In agriculture and industry during the War. The 
 Negro workers, men and women, in agriculture and in 
 dustry, North and South, also took their part in the 
 work of producing the food, the supplies, and the ships 
 to win the war. They were among those who may be 
 called the fourth line of defense. 2 In many parts of the 
 South the cotton crop from which fabrics and explosives 
 
 1 Quoted in Scott, E. J., work cited, p. 323. 
 
 2 A report of "The Negro at Work During the World War and 
 During Reconstruction" was issued by the U. S. Department of 
 Labor, Division of Negro Economics. 
 
ii6 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 were made depended upon the labor of Negro men, 
 women, and children. They were engaged in the manu 
 facture of ammunition and of iron and steel products, 
 in meat packing, in the production of automobiles and 
 trucks for army purposes, and in many other lines of 
 labor required by the necessities of our task at the front 
 in France. Negroes were called upon to supply about 
 one fifth of the war laborers in the meat packing plants 
 of Chicago and in several other places. There were 
 24,648 Negroes in forty-six of the fifty-five occupations 
 incident to shipbuilding under the United States Shipping 
 Board. 
 
 A Negro, Charles Knight, at the plant of the Bethle 
 hem Steel Corporation at Sparrow s Point, Maryland, 
 broke the world s record for driving rivets in building 
 steel ships. He drove 4,875 three-quarter inch rivets 
 during one nine-hour day. A Negro pile-driving crew 
 in building ship-ways at Hog Island, near Philadelphia, 
 Pa., broke the world s record for driving piles. Negro 
 miners in Alabama, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
 West Virginia, probably more than 75,000 strong, con 
 tributed in large measure toward supplying the fuel for 
 factories and railroads and ships. Probably an addi 
 tional 150,000 were actively assisting in the operation of 
 the railroads, and still another 150,000 were serving to 
 keep up other means of communication so vital to war 
 production. 
 
 Negro women, besides their work in homes, in do 
 mestic service, and in providing for their men at their 
 own homes, entered the lists of industrial war production 
 workers. The Department of Labor, Women s Bureau 
 (then the Women in Industry Service), with the coopera 
 tion of the Division of Negro Economics, sent special 
 agents to visit 152 typical industrial plants employing 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 117 
 
 Negro women during the War. The facts showed x 
 21,547 Negro women employed in these plants in ap 
 proximately 75 specific processes. 
 
 The Secretary of War drafted men, trained them as 
 army officers, planned and sent them wherever he deemed 
 wise. They had to obey. The Secretary of Labor had 
 to mobilize our agricultural and industrial army, but he 
 had no authority to draft workmen or compel them to 
 stay upon any task. He had to depend upon their con 
 fidence and their enthusiasm for the cause. Yet, Ameri 
 can men and women by the millions responded heartily 
 to the call of the Secretary of Labor for full labor co 
 operation. 
 
 Negro economics during the War. In dealing with 
 the matter of the cooperation of Negro workers, the 
 Secretary recognized that, since they constituted about 
 cne seventh of the working army, their enthusiasm, con 
 fidence, and cooperation would be developed best by 
 giving them representation at the council table where 
 matters affecting them were being considered. 
 
 He therefore created the Division of Negro Economics 
 in the office of the Secretary of Labor and appointed as 
 Director of Negro Economics Dr. George E. Haynes, 
 then Professor of Social Science at Fisk University, 
 Nashville, Tennessee. This step and appointment met 
 with hearty endorsement of white and Negro citizens and 
 organizations, North and South. The work of this of 
 ficial was to advise the Secretary and the heads of the 
 several bureaus and divisions of the Department of 
 Labor on policies and plans for improving the conditions 
 of Negro workers and for securing their full cooperation 
 
 1 Department of Labor Report, "The Negro at Work," etc., pp. 
 124-133- 
 
n8 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 with white workers and employers for maximum pro 
 duction. 
 
 The Secretary of Labor, with the advice of the Di 
 rector of Negro Economics, adopted a plan for local 
 county, city, and state Negro Workers Advisory Com 
 mittees composed of cooperating white employers, Negro 
 workers, and, wherever possible, white workers, in order 
 to develop racial understanding and good-will. These 
 committees in counties and cities in eleven states were 
 effective in preventing friction, antagonisms, and sus 
 picions, in promoting the welfare of Negro workers, and 
 in promoting cooperation for greater production. Negro 
 officials known as Supervisors of Negro Economics un 
 der the general direction of the Director of Negro Eco 
 nomics were appointed in each state to assist the local 
 citizens committees. As the racial-labor problems which 
 had to be met were local, the task was to get the local 
 communities organized to meet them and at the same 
 time to recognize the larger national needs and standards 
 in dealing with local situations. State Conferences, ar 
 ranged by the Director of Negro Economics through the 
 cooperation of Governors, state directors of the United 
 States Employment Service, and local employers and 
 workers, and composed of representative white and 
 Negro citizens, were held in twelve states. 
 
 Negro Workers Advisory Committees were established 
 in eleven states and did work that had a far-reaching 
 effect. For example, operations at an important port of 
 debarkation for soldiers and for war supplies seemed to 
 be facing a serious labor shortage due to the lethargy of 
 workers. Local white citizens and officials adopted a 
 plan to compel all men either to go to work or to jail. 
 The chairman of the local Negro Workers Advisory 
 Committee sought out the leaders of the work-or-jail 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 119 
 
 program. He proposed, instead of the jail program, a 
 ten-day publicity and educational campaign by the Ad 
 visory Committee with appeals to Negro workers to rally 
 to the labor needs of the occasion. One result from this 
 campaign was applications for work from more Negro 
 laborers than were needed. Other results gave a per 
 manent city-wide racial cooperation on matters of com 
 mon interest. 
 
 After listening to the report of a year s work of the 
 Negro Workers Advisory Committee of North Carolina, 
 the late Governor Bickett said, "If every man, white and 
 black, in the United States could read and digest this 
 report, it would go a great way toward solving all our 
 race questions." White and Negro newspapers, small 
 and large, North and South, carried many articles and 
 editorials recounting and commending the results of this 
 work fostered by the Department of Labor. 
 
 Negro women and the World War, Negro women 
 were also in the volunteer work for war relief and other 
 activities. Their spirit during the War is illustrated in 
 what was said by the President of the National Asso 
 ciation of Colored Women s Clubs, in a circular letter 
 sent to all her co-workers: "It becomes our duty, first 
 to renew the spirit of patriotism and loyalty in the hearts 
 of our brave boys, who will, without doubt, be called to 
 the front, and to comfort those whom they leave at 
 home. ... I shall urge you to do your best in the matter 
 of food conservation, realizing that a great bulk of con 
 servation lies in the kitchens of our country, where a 
 million of our women are being called to service. I 
 shall urge you to buy as many Liberty Bonds as possible, 
 even if you are cramped in doing so. I shall urge mem 
 bers of our fraternal organizations to lend the Govern 
 ment any money that may be lying dormant in their 
 
120 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 treasuries. I shall urge our women s organizations to 
 watch over colored girls and women near camps, so that 
 the social evil, so common in these camps, shall not be 
 attributed to our women in any way." 
 
 Records of what the women did are very incomplete 
 as many of their organizations were more intent upon 
 doing the work than upon keeping statistics of it. The 
 American Red Cross kept no separate records of Negro 
 auxiliaries, of which there were many. The Negro 
 women in their clubs, in the Red Cross, and Councils of 
 Defense, with the white women in their organizations 
 throughout the United States, carried through the regis 
 tration for war work when a nation-wide enumeration 
 was made at the call of the Council of National Defense, 
 and shared in all the other remarkable work of women 
 during the War period. 
 
 Perhaps no finer piece of work was done by Negro 
 women during the war than that under the auspices of 
 the Young Women s Christian Association. The War 
 Work Council of the National Board of the Y.W.C.A. 
 set aside $400,000 of its $5,000,000 fund for war work, 
 for work among Negro women. Fifteen hostess houses 
 managed by Negro women were erected at different 
 camps where Negro soldiers were in training. They 
 enabled the wives, mothers, daughters, and friends of 
 Negro soldiers to visit them under wholesome conditions. 
 The Y.W.C.A. also carried out provisions to protect 
 women and girls in communities near the camps. They 
 put on a National Industrial Secretary who developed 
 clubs of working girls to deal with their problems as 
 wage earners and as members of the home life of the 
 community. The work of war nursing and war relief 
 was a phase that appealed especially to Negro women. 
 They had one of their greatest trials to get the oppor- 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 121 
 
 tunity to serve as nurses. It is to be regretted that 
 nursing divisions of the American Red Cross never saw 
 fit to utilize the service of Negro women to serve over 
 seas, where they might have rendered invaluable service 
 among the thousands of sick and wounded Negro sol 
 diers. In June, 1918, the Secretary of War did admit 
 Negro nurses for service in the army camps at home. 
 Many months before, the President of the National Asso 
 ciation of Graduate Nurses had reported and offered to 
 the Government the services of a thousand Negro women 
 nurses. 
 
 In Liberty Loan and food campaigns. It is impos 
 sible to get the figures for an exact estimate of the total 
 amount of subscriptions of Negroes to Liberty Bonds. 
 From individual records like those which follow, it has 
 been estimated that Negroes contributed to the Liberty 
 Loans and War Work Drives more than $250,000,000, 
 an average of about $25 for every Negro man, 
 woman, and child in the United States. Secretary 
 McAdoo of the United States Treasury made public ac 
 knowledgment of the whole-souled cooperation of the 
 Negro people throughout the country 1 in connection with 
 the effort of raising liberty loans. 2 There were many 
 Negroes of small means whose gifts, though not large in 
 amounts, represented the spirit of readiness to give their 
 all for liberty and democracy for which they believe their 
 country stands. Mary Smith, a Negro cook in Memphis, 
 Tenn., was approached by her mistress with a request to 
 buy a $100 bond. She replied: "I don t want no little 
 hundred dollar bond, I want a thousand dollar bond and 
 I ll pay cash for it." This sum represented her lifetime 
 savings. Richard Priestly, a Negro farmer in Georgia 
 
 1 See Scott, E. J., work cited, p. 358. 
 
 2 Figures taken mainly from the Negro Year Book, pp. 45-50. 
 
122 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 who had sent two sons to the War, bought a thousand 
 dollar bond and thus put fresh spirit into the local 
 campaign. 
 
 Thomas Brown, an ex-slave, living in Texas, seventy- 
 five years old, accumulated $50 as a wood chopper and 
 doing chores and invested in a Liberty Bond. A nine 
 year old boy of San Antonio, Texas, saved more than five 
 thousand pennies and invested them in a Liberty Bond. 
 Negro women in a tobacco factory in Norfolk, Va., were 
 reported to have subscribed $91,000 to Liberty Bonds. 
 
 The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company 
 purchased over $300,000 of bonds and thrift stamps. 
 The Standard Life Insurance Company of Atlanta in 
 vested $50,000 in bonds; the Atlanta Insurance Com 
 pany, $52,000, and the United Insurance Company of 
 New Orleans, $10,000. 
 
 Following the Third Liberty Loan Drive, the United 
 States Treasury Department awarded first place among 
 all the banks of the United States to a Negro bank, the 
 Mutual Savings Bank, Portsmouth, Va., which was given 
 a quota of $5,700 to raise, but raised a total of over 
 $100,000 or nearly twenty times the stipulated amount. 
 
 The importance of the Negro people in helping to 
 conserve food was recognized by Mr. Herbert Hoover, 
 Director of the Food Administration. The Negro Di 
 vision was organized in his Educational Department, first 
 under Mr. A. U. Craig and later under Mr. Ernest T. 
 Atwell. These gentlemen succeeded in lining up 10,- 
 000,000 Negroes in the United States who responded 
 heartily to the call to conserve and save food. In every 
 state where there was a considerable Negro population, 
 there were Negro assistants associated with the state 
 food directors. 
 
 The Negro in the Army. There were 342,277 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 123 
 
 Negroes accepted for full military service, a larger per 
 centage of Negro men than of white men, for of white 
 men there were 26.8 per cent accepted, and of Negro 
 men, 31.7 per cent. It is significant that on March 25, 
 1917, even before war was declared against Germany by 
 the United States, the First Separate Battalion, District 
 of Columbia, National Guard, was called into service. 
 This battalion was placed in charge of watching the 
 water supply and the various power plants of the Dis 
 trict of Columbia to prevent any possible attack by 
 inimical aliens. The Negro Guardsmen were chosen be 
 cause, as one newspaper expressed it, there were no 
 hyphenates among these Americans. 
 
 High positions of responsibility, honor, and trust in 
 the army did not come without a determined struggle 
 by Negro Americans. This is illustrated by the cam 
 paign that Negroes and their friends had to make to 
 secure training for capable Negro men who wanted to 
 become officers and serve their country in these responsi 
 ble positions. They were denied opportunity to get train 
 ing at Plattsburg and the Government Training Camps 
 established by Congress for white officers. Prominent 
 citizens took up the question of provision for the training 
 of Negro officers. Negro students also were deeply in 
 terested in the matter. A Central Committee of Negro 
 Colleges, with headquarters at Howard University, in a 
 short time obtained the names of 1,500 competent Negro 
 men who stood ready to enroll at an Officers Training 
 Camp. 
 
 An appeal was made to the War Department for such 
 a camp. Congressmen were interviewed and some sena 
 tors and representatives gave their approval. Negro 
 churches and national leaders ga/e their endorsement, 
 the Negro press furnished its support, although some of 
 
124 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the Negro people themselves criticized the effort as a 
 move to establish a "J* m " crow " camp. After about three 
 weeks campaigning in this way, the War Department on 
 May 12, 1917, gave notice that a camp to accommodate 
 about 1,250 men would be established at Fort Dodge, 
 Iowa, on June 15. The committee of Negro college 
 men then turned their efforts to see that the young Negro 
 men throughout the country, capable of passing the 
 examination to enter the camp, would now volunteer. 
 A circular which they sent out said, "No one who has 
 not been in the fight knows what a struggle we have had 
 to obtain the camp. . . . Let us not mince matters; the 
 race is on trial. It needs every one of its red-blooded, 
 noble men." 1 
 
 On June 15, 1917, Negro men assembled at Des Moines 
 expecting to be trained for a period of three months. 
 At the end of that time, however, the War Department 
 decided to continue the training another month. So 
 dubious had been the men about the intentions of the 
 Government to commission Negro officers that some of 
 them lost hope and dropped out of the camp. The great 
 majority, however, remained, and on October 14, 1917, 
 officers commissions were issued to 639 : 106 as captains, 
 329 as first lieutenants, and 204 as second lieutenants. 
 These officers were sent to seven different camps where 
 the widely distributed units of the 92d Division, the 
 Negro Division of the Army, were in training. 
 
 While these men were in training at Des Moines, a 
 regrettable clash took place in August, 1917, between the 
 Negro soldiers and the citizens of Houston, Texas. This 
 incident aroused intense feeling among the Negro people 
 and great fears and hostile feeling among the white 
 people when Negro troops should be placed in a number 
 
 1 Quoted in Scott, E. J., work cited, p. 89. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 125 
 
 of the Southern camps for the training of soldiers. On 
 May 18, 1917, Congress had enacted the Selective Service 
 Act, popularly called the "Draft Law." This was to be 
 applied to black and white alike, and it was evident that 
 if the Negro soldiers were drafted, they would have to be 
 trained somewhere. 
 
 So aroused were some of the white people in some of 
 the states about the matter, however, that officials and 
 citizens presented many protests to the Government at 
 Washington. The War Department first took the posi 
 tion that the Negro and white troops of the National 
 Guard Divisions should be stationed at such posts as the 
 exigencies of the service made necessary. After consid 
 erable conference, however, the Secretary of War modi 
 fied the policy to the extent that while Southern states 
 might take exception to camps of Negroes recruited from 
 Northern states, they could not well object to the Negro 
 draftees from the several districts of their own states. 1 
 This worked hardships upon some of the draftees from 
 states like Alabama, which had only a camp for Na 
 tional Guardsmen. It did work out, however, that 
 Negroes from states like Georgia and Arkansas were 
 thrown into cantonments with draftees from the North 
 and West, and it soon developed that white and Negro 
 men could get on together in the same camps without 
 much friction. 
 
 There had been much agitation in the newspapers and 
 considerable question raised as to what would be the 
 action and attitude of the Negroes, especially those in the 
 South, when called upon to respond to the "Draft Law." 
 There was undoubtedly dissatisfaction among the Negro 
 people about evils from which they had suffered for so 
 many years. Official testimony also from the Department 
 1 Scott, E. J., work cited, pp. 72-77. 
 
126 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 of Justice and from the Military Intelligence Bureau of 
 the War Department showed that the Germans had really 
 tried to incite the Negroes against the Government. 
 
 Some of the white newspapers greatly exaggerated the 
 amount of this German propaganda and created the im 
 pression that it was gaining a great headway among 
 Negroes and that they would be likely to take exception 
 to the draft or become deserters. The Patriotic Educa 
 tion Society of Washington sent out several stories about 
 relations of German agents to Negro unrest in the South. 
 The facts were that mistreatment in America was at the 
 bottom of such unrest among Negroes and not German 
 agents. Some sentiment, too, was expressed by one or 
 two Southern newspapers that Negroes should not be 
 drafted at all because they had not equally shared in the 
 benefits of the government. 1 During the entire period 
 of the World War, however, the Negro people of Amer 
 ica showed an elevated spirit in rising above the wrongs 
 and injustices they have suffered at the hands of their 
 white neighbors and rallied unselfishly to the support 
 of the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 The momentous registration day, June 5, 1917, came. 
 It should be borne in mind that in only a few localities 
 were Negro citizens allowed to serve as selective service 
 registrars. Even with this racial enticement removed, 
 the Negro men subject to the draft went without 
 hesitation to the places of registration and listed their 
 names as those who were ready to obey the law and to 
 respond to the call of their country. In fact, some of 
 the Southern newspapers said that the Negro had out 
 stripped his white fellow-citizen in his readiness and 
 promptness in responding to the call of his country. In 
 many well established cases, Negro men who had ample 
 
 1 Scott, E. J., work cited, p. 350. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 127 
 
 ground for exemption, such as dependent families, did 
 not claim it. Under the selective service regulations, the 
 official reports show that 51.6 per cent of the Negro 
 registrants were placed in Class I subject to first call, 
 and only 32.5 per cent of the white registrants were so 
 classified. 1 It appears that Negroes formed nearly 8 per 
 cent of the entire registration. Of the draftees certified 
 for service, the first official report of the Provost 
 Marshal General states that of every 100 Negro citizens 
 called in the draft, 36 were certified for service and 64 
 rejected, exempted, or discharged, while for every 100 
 white citizens called, 25 were certified for service and 75 
 were rejected, exempted, or discharged. 
 
 The action of the Negro draftees in responding so 
 heartily settled once for all the question as to whether 
 German propaganda, mistreatment and denial of the 
 rights, immunities and privileges of full citizenship, or 
 any other cause would so affect the unalterable loyalty of 
 Negro American citizens to the Stars and Stripes, the 
 symbol of our democracy, as to cause them to hesitate 
 when there was need that they offer themselves in its 
 defense. 
 
 The Provost Marshal General in his second annual re 
 port to the Secretary of War commented on the situation 
 thus : 2 "Some doubt was felt and expressed, by the best 
 friends of the Negro, when the call came for a draft 
 upon the man power of the nation, whether he would 
 possess sufficient stamina to measure up to the full duty 
 of citizenship and would give to the Stars and Stripes 
 that had guaranteed for him the same liberties now 
 sought for all nations and all races the response that was 
 its due. And on the part of the leaders of the Negro 
 
 1 Scott, E. J., work cited, pp. 67-69. 
 
 2 Quoted in Scott, E. J., work cited, pp. 69-70. 
 
128 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 race, there was apprehension that the sense of fair play 
 and fair dealing, which is so essentially an American 
 characteristic, would not, nay, could not, in a country of 
 such diversified views, with sectional feelings still slum 
 bering but not dead, be meted out to the members of the 
 colored race. . . . 
 
 "How groundless such fears, how ill considered such 
 doubts, may be seen from the statistical records of the 
 draft with relation to the Negro. His race furnished 
 its quota, and uncomplainingly, yes, cheerfully. History, 
 indeed, will be unable to record the fullness of his spirit 
 in the War, for the reason that opportunities for enlist 
 ment were not open to him to the same extent as to 
 the whites. But enough can be gathered from the records 
 to show that he was filled with the same feeling of 
 patriotism, the same martial spirit that fired his white fel 
 low-citizens in the cause for world freedom." In the 
 cheerful words of a Negro poet : 1 
 
 . . . And they went in at all detractors smiling; 
 They learned as quick as anyhow to shoot, 
 They took the prize at loading ships, and riveting and piling, 
 And trained a thousand officers to boot. 
 
 The many other problems that the War Department 
 was facing in handling this work showed the great need 
 of some representative Negro of ability as a special ad 
 viser to the War Department who could give them in 
 formation and council from within the Negro world. 
 Consequently, Dr. R. R. Moton, principal of Tuskegee 
 Institute, in August, 1917, called upon the Secretary of 
 War and pointed out to him the necessity of having in 
 the War Department such a Negro. 2 He pointed out 
 
 1 Hill, Leslie Pinckney, "The Black Man s Bit," in The Wings 
 of Oppression. 
 
 2 Scott, E. J., work cited, p. 41. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 129 
 
 also the encouragement such a step would give the 
 Negroes of the nation. After consideration of the mat 
 ter, the Secretary of War, October 5, 1917, announced 
 that he had appointed Dr. Emmett J. Scott, secretary of 
 Tuskegee Institute, and "assigned him the post of duty in 
 the War Department as confidential adviser." Dr. Scott s 
 wide experience as private secretary to Booker T. Wash 
 ington caused representative white and Negro citizens in 
 all parts of the country to endorse this action by the 
 Secretary. 
 
 There were many complaints of difficulties, and dis 
 criminations and race friction in the camps. The Secre 
 tary of War, with the advice of his special assistant, did 
 everything he could to correct these abuses, but many con 
 tinued, nevertheless. Dr. Scott s fine work in promoting 
 the training of officers and in stimulating action in the 
 camps and among Negroes of the nation is well set forth 
 in his Official History of the American Negro in the 
 World War. 
 
 The following are some of the complaints that were 
 thoroughly investigated and certified to by a Committee 
 on Welfare of Negro Troops of the Wartime Com 
 mission of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
 in America: unfair treatment, oftentimes on the part of 
 the military police; inadequate provision for recreation; 
 restrictions upon educated Negroes in their attempt to 
 rise above non-commissioned officers in labor bat 
 talions ; unreasonable confinement in the guard house 
 and unreasonably heavy penalties ; lack of proper medical 
 treatment; insufficient number of hostess houses; slow 
 discharges of labor battalions after the Armistice; 
 abusive language used to colored soldiers by white of 
 ficers ; inadequate supply of clothing, overcoats, bedding, 
 and tent flooring at points where winter was hard upon 
 
130 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the men. At one or two camps Negro soldiers were pro 
 vided with no sanitary conveniences, bathing facilities, or 
 Y.M.C.A. service during the War period, until after 
 white soldiers had left the station. 
 
 During the course of the War many stories of unfair 
 treatment and discrimination against colored soldiers in 
 France came by way of letters and reports of soldiers 
 who returned as the War went on. The suggestion was 
 made by a committee of the Federal Council of the 
 Churches that the Government send a delegation of three 
 Negroes to investigate these complaints and make a re 
 port. This recommendation was approved, but the short 
 ness of time between the suggestion and the end of the 
 War, as well as the slow-working machinery in such 
 matters, did not permit this suggestion to be carried 
 out. 
 
 Negro troops in action. The Q2d Division, com 
 posed entirely of Negro units which had been trained at 
 seven different camps, was ordered overseas in May, 
 1918. Following eight weeks of training there in the 
 new war tactics, the Division took up its first fighting 
 responsibilities in the St. Die sector and received its first 
 baptism of fire. It held this sector for four weeks, re 
 pelling all attacks of the enemy, taking a number of 
 prisoners and a quantity of war material. Later the 
 Division was withdrawn from this sector and ordered to 
 Marbache, directly south of Metz, one of the most 
 strongly fortified positions of the Germans and most 
 completely connected with the rear by means of railroads 
 and other forms of communication. The enemy was 
 not falling back here as he was doing along the Hinden- 
 burg line; he was entrenched in positions prepared for 
 more than four years and was supported by artillery 
 that had had plenty of time to get the range of all area 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 131 
 
 before it. The Negro troops, facing such defenses, were 
 constantly on the offensive and had made repeated gains 
 and territory when the order with the signing of the 
 Armistice closed their operations. This Division suffered 
 heavy losses in its various operations, the total of casual 
 ties and missing being 103 officers and 1,543 men. 1 
 
 In reporting the conduct of the 92d Division, one of 
 the Brigadier Generals said, "We took complete posses 
 sion of No Man s Land. After the first few days we 
 were unable to find any German patrols outside of their 
 lines." The commanding general in making a report of 
 the first day s operation said that undoubtedly the enemy 
 considered the Q2d Division an "uncomfortable neighbor 
 with whom he intends to avoid close relations in the fu 
 ture." A major of one of the battalions in making a 
 report said: "I desire especially to call to the attention 
 of the division commander the fact that the handling of 
 their units by their company and battalion commanders 
 was all that could be expected of the most experienced 
 officers." 2 In reviewing the troops in January, just be 
 fore they reembarked for home, General Pershing said 
 to the men of the g2d Division: "You stood second to 
 none in the record you have made since your arrival in 
 France." 
 
 All the regiments of the 92d Division were vying for 
 greatest achievement in service. It was said, however, 
 that the 367th regiment, popularly known as "the Buf 
 faloes," probably made the outstanding record. The en 
 tire first battalion was cited for bravery and awarded the 
 Croix de Guerre, entitling every officer and man in the 
 battalion to wear this insignia of valor. Colonel James 
 A. Moss, the white commanding officer of this regiment, 
 
 1 Scott, E. J., work cited, pp. 130-162. 
 
 2 From documents in Scott, E. J., work cited, pp. 148-167. 
 
I 3 2 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 born and bred in the South, learned to appreciate these 
 Negroes as real men and received their confidence and 
 affection. Speaking of his soldiers, he says, "Treat and 
 handle the colored man as you would any other human 
 being out of whom you would make a good soldier, out 
 of whom you would get the best there is in him, and 
 you will have as good a soldier as history has ever 
 known a man who will drill well, shoot well, march 
 well, obey well, fight well." * 
 
 There have been charges and countercharges about the 
 failure of some Negro troops in battle. As with some 
 of the white troops unused to the ordeal of this con 
 flict, mistakes were probably made by some troops, but 
 the testimony is universal that whatever happened these 
 cases were exceptions and that the Negro soldiers in the 
 fighting in France won honor for themselves and glory 
 for their flag and country. 
 
 A Negro regiment, popularly known as "The Old Fif 
 teenth" of the New York National Guard, had an inter 
 esting record. After some weeks of training in France, 
 the regiment, unassisted by the French, was given a 
 sector in the Bois D Hauze in Champagne. They served 
 here a few weeks, and after a period of rest were trans 
 ferred to a French Division in which there were French 
 Moroccan troops. On September 26, they were sent into 
 action. The entire regiment deported itself with such 
 gallantry and courage that 171 officers and enlisted men 
 were cited for the French Croix de Guerre and their 
 colonel for the Legion of Honor. This regiment was 
 the first contingent of Negro American soldiers to enter 
 the trenches and was the first unit of the allied armies 
 to reach the Rhine. The regiment held a trench many 
 days without relief, and was under such service at one 
 
 1 Scott, E. J., work cited, pp. I94-IQ5- 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 133 
 
 period for 191 days. It is said of this regiment that it 
 "never lost a trench, a foot of ground, or a man cap 
 tured." 
 
 Colonel Hayward, now United States District Attor 
 ney, County of New York, who commanded the regi 
 ment, in commenting on whether or not the American 
 Negro would stand up in battle under the terrific shell 
 and other fire in the World War as he had always stood 
 up under rifle fire in other wars, said, "They are posi 
 tively the most stoical and mysterious men I have ever 
 known. Nothing surprises them, and French officers say 
 they are entirely different from their own African troops 
 and the Indian troops of the British, who are so excitable 
 under fire." 1 When twelve volunteers were called from 
 one company of the regiment for a raiding party, the 
 whole company fell in line. All wanted to go, and their 
 captain had to pick twelve men. 
 
 A Negro regiment, the Eighth Illinois National Guard, 
 was mustered into the National Army as the 37Oth United 
 States Infantry. This regiment had Negro officers from 
 the colonel down. Colonel Franklin T. Dennison, com 
 mander of the regiment, and later Colonel Otis C. Dun 
 can, who succeeded him, helped to demonstrate to the 
 world that Negro soldiers could fight heroically and suc 
 cessfully under the command of Negro officers. There 
 were two other regiments, the 37ist and 372d, composed 
 of Negro troops that saw active service with a French 
 Division. In a farewell order as these regiments took 
 leave of France, General Coybet, of the 15 7th (French) 
 Division, said, "Never will the I57th Division forget 
 the indomitable dash, the heroic rush of the American 
 regiments (Negro) up the observatory ridge and into 
 
 1 From a letter of Colonel Hayward, quoted in Scott, E. J., 
 work cited, pp. 204-206. 
 
134 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the Plains of Monthois . . . These crack regiments over 
 came every obstacle with a most complete contempt for 
 danger. Through their steady devotion, the Red Hand 
 Division* for nine whole days of severe struggle was con 
 stantly leading the way for the victorious advance of the 
 Fourth Army." x The 1 57th Division erected a monu 
 ment near Monthois, Ardennes, in honor of the dead of 
 the 371 st and 372d infantry who fought and died with 
 them. 
 
 The first American soldiers, black or white, to receive 
 the French Croix de Guerre, were Needham Roberts, of 
 Trenton, N. J., and Henry Johnson, of Albany, N. Y., 
 both members of "The Old Fifteenth" of New York, 
 then the 369^ Infantry, A.E.F. The recital of their 
 exploits in beating off a dozen or more Germans, after 
 both had been wounded, was one of the first stories of 
 heroism to be flashed over the wires and printed in news 
 papers throughout the country in the early days of our 
 expedition to France. In speaking of the incident, the 
 New York Times said, "If the good and the great who 
 have preceded the heroes of the present are privileged to 
 read the citations for conspicuous bravery that mark their 
 honorable successors, how must the shade of Robert 
 Gould Shaw rejoice." These exploits of regiments and 
 individual heroes explain why the Germans were so 
 afraid of the black troops and why they bestowed upon 
 them the nickname of "Afro-American Devil Dogs." 
 General Pershing cabled Secretary Baker, "I cannot com 
 mend too highly the spirit shown among the colored com 
 batant troops who exhibit fine capacity for quick train 
 ing and eagerness for the most dangerous." 2 
 
 When Negroes have given so much for their country, 
 
 1 Quoted in The Crisis, March, 1919. 
 
 2 Quoted in newspaper dispatches, June 21, 1918. 
 
OFFERING TO THE STARS AND STRIPES 135 
 
 will not their country make safe for them that democ 
 racy for which so many have sacrificed and died? The 
 Negro soul has dreamed democracy. The Negro heart 
 has panted for the waterbrooks of liberty. Whenever 
 the paths have led toward that immortal stream, the 
 Negro has been willing and eager to go. If those have 
 been paths of peace, of patient toil, of daily drudgery in 
 field or forest, or of vaulting thought and boiling feel 
 ing, his feet have uncomplainingly sought the way. 
 When these paths have led to war, to sacrifice, and to 
 death, his bleeding footprints have been among those of 
 the many left upon the sands of time. The Negro has 
 been a man of peace, but whenever the issue of democ 
 racy has forced its devotees to battle and to death, he 
 has not hesitated to offer himself and all he possesses. 
 These services in agriculture, in industry, in volunteer 
 relief, the giving of their means for loans and of them 
 selves for duty even unto death show the feelings, the 
 attitudes, and the habits of action toward their country 
 and their flag of the first generation of freemen. They 
 have caught and are bearing on the torch from the hands 
 of those of the past. Thousands of them have shown 
 the greatest love one human being can show others in 
 laying down their lives like other Americans. Theirs 
 is a challenge to other Americans to dedicate them 
 selves to the principles of Jesus that are essentially those 
 of democracy. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 The Trend of the White World 1 
 
 WITHIN human life two impulses press forward to 
 control the affairs of men. One is self-assertive, self- 
 centered, and dominating, considering only gain in wealth 
 and power. The other is self-denying, seeking justice and 
 mercy, ever ready to consider the interest of the other 
 fellow, the other group, or the other race. There are 
 varying shades of motives between these two impulses, 
 and both are active in American life to-day. One wants 
 abolition of war ; the other seeks, foreign trade even if it 
 involves war. One is after money and has few scruples 
 about when or how it is got so long as it is obtained and 
 there is little publicity. The other seeks the brother- 
 liness of the Kingdom, knowing that these things will be 
 added. 
 
 Both these currents of the common life touch and work 
 within the Negro s life and his world. With the drawing 
 apart of the two races, the Negro sees and feels less and 
 less of the kindlier side and knows less of the ideal side 
 of the white world. The races do not meet as much as 
 formerly in home and church and school, where altruistic 
 service flows. Their contacts now are more in the rough 
 and tumble of work and trade, where mainly profits are 
 sought, or in the affairs of government, where struggles 
 for power are waged. It is necessary, then, for a clear 
 view of the whole situation to sketch the sides of the 
 white world that touch the Negro world, however in- 
 
 1 The author is indebted to Mr. Will W. Alexander for assist 
 ance in gathering some of the material in this chapter and for 
 suggestions as to certain points contained in it. Mr. Alexander 
 should not, however, be held responsible for the treatment of 
 the subject. 
 
 136 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 137 
 
 complete and inadequate such a description and analysis 
 may be. At the outset it should be pointed out that it 
 is difficult to summarize the ideas and arguments involved 
 without seeming to argue debated points. The purpose 
 here is not to argue and render judgments on these ideas, 
 attitudes, and ways, but to set them forth clearly and to 
 set over against them the facts that should be weighed 
 with them as an exposition of a national situation. 
 
 Attitudes and ways of action due to conscience. 
 From under the door-posts of the house of Negro 
 bondage flow waters that come from the two different 
 springs described in the opening paragraph. The hu 
 manitarian and religious impulses of conscience have 
 struggled with those of econon.ic cravings. Benjamin 
 Lunday, the father of "gradual abolition," was a Ken- 
 tuckian, as was Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipator. 
 Thomas Jefferson, the great Virginian, commenting on 
 slavery, said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect 
 that God is just ; that his justice cannot sleep forever." 1 
 In the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1834, the 
 delegates from the eastern counties contended for a pro 
 vision for the emancipation of the slaves. At one time 
 the setting free of slaves became so frequent in Virginia 
 that the legislature placed barriers in the way. 2 The 
 Negro free populations of southern Illinois, Indiana, and 
 Ohio bear testimony to the conscience of the masters who 
 became actively convinced that slavery was wrong. Be 
 fore the invention of the cotton gin, anti-slavery societies 
 grew and flourished, not only in the more advanced east 
 ern states, but in .the then pioneer states. By 1792, there 
 were abolition societies in all the states from Massachu- 
 
 1 Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on Virginia, writings edited by 
 P. L. Ford, Vol. Ill, p. 267. 
 
 2 Brawley, B. G., work cited, pp. 63, 76. 
 
138 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 setts to Virginia, and two years later the American Con 
 vention of Abolition Societies was formed at Philadel 
 phia by nine of these societies. 1 It was in one of these 
 frontier communities that Owen Love joy laid down his 
 life for his convictions against the system. 
 
 American history would lose many of its illustrious 
 names if its records omitted those who have spent for 
 tune, given life, and become acquainted with grief, that 
 the dispossessed children of color might be free and be 
 admitted to the brotherhood. From William Penn, Gar 
 ret Hendricks, and Benjamin Franklin, from Lord Ogle- 
 thorpe, Roger Williams, and Cotton Mather, from John 
 Woolman and Anthony Benzenet, from St. George Tucker 
 of William and Mary College, Hezekiah Niles, editor of 
 Niles s Register, Lorenzo Dow, the Methodist preacher, 
 and Henry Clay, the statesman, down to Owen Lovejoy, 
 John Brown, Charles Sumner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
 Samuel C. Armstrong, Bishop Capers, Bishop Atticus G. 
 Haygood, Bishop Charles B. Galloway, Robert C. Ogden, 
 James H. Dillard, and John J. Eagan, there has been an 
 unbroken line of those who have given themselves to stop 
 the mouths of the lions of prejudice and exploitation. 
 
 The present-day attitudes arising from conscience may 
 best be expressed in the words of individuals and organi 
 zations mainly of white men and women, many of whom, 
 North and South, have joined with Negroes in coopera 
 tive efforts to help America save its soul in racial rela 
 tions. Resolutions of the Woman s Missionary Council, 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1913 deplored 
 mob violence and stated "that, as women engaged in 
 Christian social service for the full redemption of our 
 social order, we do protest in the name of outraged jus- 
 
 1 Brawley, B. G., A Social History of the American Negro, 
 p. 60. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 139 
 
 tice, against the savagery of lynching." They called 
 "upon lawmakers and enforcers of law and upon all who 
 value justice and righteousness to recognize their duty to 
 the law and to the criminal classes." x 
 
 In August, 1920, at Blue Ridge, North Carolina, sev 
 enty white leaders in conference, representing all the 
 larger church denominations working in the South, called 
 "upon our fellow-Christians of both races throughout the 
 South to unite in a sincere and immediate effort to solve 
 our interracial problems with the spirit of Christ, accord 
 ing to the principles of the gospel and for the highest 
 interest and benefit of all concerned." 
 
 The National Association for the Advancement of Col 
 ored People, which organization was pioneered and is 
 now supported by many conscientious white people, stated 
 as its objective from the outset: "To uplift the colored 
 men and women of this country by securing to them the 
 full enjoyment of their rights as citizens, justice in all 
 courts, and equality of opportunity everywhere. ... It 
 has no other belief than that the best way to uplift the 
 colored man is the best way to aid the white man to peace 
 and social content." 
 
 The Georgia State Committee on Race Cooperation, 
 composed of white women representing women s organi 
 zations of that state, said, in 1921 : "We realize that the 
 race question is one of the causes of lawlessness, strife, 
 and unrest. Therefore, we propose to face it squarely, 
 honestly, and without prejudice, that righteousness and 
 justice may be secured for all the people." The women 
 expressed their belief that "no falser appeal can be made 
 to Southern manhood than that mob violence is necessary 
 for the protection of womanhood; that the brutal prac 
 tise of lynching and burning of human beings is an ex- 
 
 1 Quoted in Hammond, In Black and White, p. 65-66. 
 
I 4 o THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 pression of chivalry." They declared themselves "for the 
 protection of all womanhood of whatever race." Gov 
 ernor Dorsey of Georgia, in 1921, while citing instances 
 of outrages upon Negroes in that state, said he believed 
 that "the better element" of white people "of the whole 
 state, who constitute the majority of our people, will 
 condemn such conditions and take the steps necessary to 
 correct them." Doctor Edwin Mims of Vanderbilt Uni 
 versity, Secretary of the Law and Order League of 
 Tennessee, reported in 1919 that public opinion in that 
 state had been "crystallized against lynchings, riots, and 
 all other forms of lawlessness." 
 
 However much Negroes and white people, North and 
 South, may take exception to some points of President 
 Harding s speech at Birmingham, Ala., October, 1921, it, 
 nevertheless, marks a growing courage of conscience when 
 such a speech by a president of the United States was 
 given and received in the heart of the South. After 
 arguing for educational, political, and economic equality 
 for the Negro, President Harding declared, "Unless our 
 democracy is a lie, you must stand for that equality." x 
 The University Race Commission, composed of represen 
 tatives from the State Universities of the South, has is 
 sued annually for five years open letters to the college 
 students of the South. Each letter has dealt in a liberal 
 way with some question of the hour. In 1922 the letter 
 discussed "interracial cooperation," saying, in part: "No 
 fact is more clearly established by history than that hatred 
 and force only complicate race relations. The alternative 
 to this is counsel and cooperation among men of character 
 and good-will, and, above all, of intelligent and compre 
 hensive knowledge of the racial problem." 
 
 In 1920 the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
 
 1 Reported in the Literary Digest, Nov. 19, 1921, p. 7. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 141 
 
 in America, officially representing thirty of the strongest 
 Protestant denominations, set forth the conviction of that 
 body in these words : "Racial understanding and coopera 
 tion furnish the only sure basis of race adjustment in a 
 democracy. The root of the matter is the failure to rec 
 ognize the Negro as a man. . . . Respect for Negro man 
 hood and womanhood is the only basis for permanent 
 racial peace. If we talk democracy, let us act democ 
 racy." In 1921 this same Council formed its Commission 
 on the Church and Race Relations, "to assert the suf 
 ficiency of Christianity as the solution of race relations in 
 America" and to promote constructive activities to that 
 end. 
 
 Influence of economic motives. Negroes were 
 brought to America as labor recruits when indentured 
 servants from Europe and Indian slaves could no longer 
 meet the growing demands. From the first there were 
 those who sought to prevent or overcome the evils of 
 Negro slavery, but Americans were seeking cheap labor, 
 and Europeans found profit in capturing, shipping, and 
 selling Africans into the country. With the rise of cot 
 ton culture on a large scale, the profits made out of the 
 business silenced or warped the humanitarian and the 
 religious conscience of the majority and led many men 
 to seek to defend the system. With the decline of to 
 bacco and rice culture, slave labor would have brought 
 diminishing returns except for the invention of the cotton- 
 gin in 1792, the spinning jenny, and the power loom. 
 These inventions enabled cotton and cotton fabrics to be 
 produced in large quantities. Slave labor rapidly rose in 
 productivity in Southern cotton fields, and slavery 
 changed from a personal patriarchal institution to a wide 
 agricultural system. Negro labor thus largely contributed 
 to the building up of an agricultural and industrial en- 
 
142 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 terprise that has since been one of the bases of American 
 prosperity. Cotton mills in New and Old England brought 
 increasing wages to thousands of white workers and mil 
 lions of dollars profit to mill owners, merchants, and 
 traders. These economic motives soon became strong 
 enough to challenge the religious and humanitarian im 
 pulses, seeking freedom for the slave through the eman 
 cipation organizations and activities mentioned in the 
 preceding section. The issue then became a tense one 
 between the flowering ideals of the young democracy and 
 the system of enforced labor of the "Cotton Kingdom." 
 Before the settlement of the question, native communities 1 
 of a large part of the African continent were destroyed, 
 whole regions were depopulated, native organizations were 
 disrupted, African jungles were lined with bleached hu 
 man bones, millions of souls were snatched from Africa, 
 many of them to die in the "middle passage" of the slave- 
 trade, a bloody, fratricidal war broke upon America, and 
 a difficult race situation resulted, to perplex the present 
 generation. Conscience, for the sake of humanity and re 
 ligion, paid the price in blood and treasure and is to-day 
 trying to control the situation through mission institu 
 tions, publicly supported schools, and in other constructive 
 ways. 
 
 The present industrial relationship between employer 
 and employee is perhaps the greatest problem of brother 
 hood among white men. The Negro in America is, to a 
 large extent, a common laborer employed by white em 
 ployers and cooperating or competing with white work 
 men. Between him and his white employer are many 
 of the barriers which divide white employers and em 
 ployees plus racial mistrust on the one hand and lack of 
 appreciation on the other. It is very difficult, if at all 
 possible, to divide the problems of race from the economic 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 143 
 
 problems. As many a European lord thought of his peas 
 ant laborers, and some industrial employers think of their 
 "hands," so, many white men think of Negroes as filling 
 their ends in life by contributing to production. 1 Many 
 of the plantations of the Southern United States, of the 
 West Indies, and of parts of South and East Africa are 
 conducted upon such an assumption. 2 
 
 Some of the most intense race friction may be found 
 where the races come in contact in the field of industry. 
 Any one who is familiar with the circumstances leading 
 up to the riots in East St. Louis, Chicago, Coatesville, 
 and Springfield will recognize the menace which disjointed 
 labor conditions hold for race relations. Local labor 
 unions have, themselves, not always been guiltless of us 
 ing race prejudice to restrict Negroes in industry. The 
 unemployed Negro is often assessed with an excessive 
 share of the crime wave which accompanies general un 
 employment, and the Negroes who are employed are some 
 times targets for jealous unemployed white men. Broth 
 erly contact and understanding sometimes enable both 
 sides to see that there is a common interest between 
 them, that hunger is neither white nor black and that fair 
 play requires all to share alike the pinch or prosperity 
 of general conditions. In agriculture, also, friction some 
 times arises. Under ante-bellum conditions there were 
 two main economic classes, planter and slave, in the black 
 belt s richer regions. To-day white people and Negro 
 people are divided into owners, tenants, and farm labor- 
 
 1 These statements may seem dogmatic, but they summarize 
 considerable evidence. See Stone, Alfred H., The American 
 Race Problem; Olivier Sydney, White Capital and Coloured La 
 bor, and others. 
 
 2 Evans, Maurice, Black and White in South East Africa, pp. 
 26-183; Black and White in the Southern States, pp. 224-230; 
 Woofter, T. J., Negro Migration, Changes in Rural Organisation 
 and Population of the Cotton Belt, pp.. 29-42, 82-91. 
 
144 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ers. 1 The difficulties increase from the fact that Negroes, 
 as well as Caucasians, are either farm owners, many of 
 whom are prosperous, or farm tenants. Friction between 
 the white population and prosperous Negroes or those 
 struggling toward high economic standing often manifests 
 itself, 2 sometimes going to such extremes that it leads to 
 murder and to the burning of Negro homes, churches, and 
 schools. 
 
 Attitudes toward education have been greatly influenced 
 by such economic motives. It is an open secret that some 
 of the favor shown to agricultural and industrial educa 
 tion for Negroes was on the assumption that it made 
 better servants or more profitable workers. This has, at 
 times, greatly confused the Negro people themselves and 
 often led them to overlook the intrinsic worth of such 
 training and to oppose it from fear that it would in some 
 way keep them in subjection. Opposition of white people 
 to other forms of education sometimes arose from the 
 feeling excited by economic fears that to educate a Negro 
 was to spoil a field hand, a servant, or a laborer. 
 
 Survivals from the past. Although nearly sixty years 
 have passed since the emancipation of the Negro, there 
 is still in American thinking much that was brought down 
 from slavery. However kindly disposed individual own 
 ers may have been, that institution denied full personality 
 to the slave. As Murphy says : "This bondage fixed in 
 stinctively a limit beyond which the Negro must not as 
 cend; it fixed a limit below which the Negro must not 
 fall." 3 This attitude bore especially heavily upon the 
 aspiring Negro, pierced through as it often was with 
 the fear that if a Negro were admitted to the treasures of 
 
 1 See Woofter, T. J., work cited, pp. 52-73. 
 
 2 Murphy, Edward G., Problems of the Present South, pp. 
 154-157. 
 
 3 Murphy, E. G., work cited, p. 163. 
 
SHACKS ix A TYPICAL NECRO CITY COLOXY AND A COMM.UXITY OF 
 NEW HOMES OF NECRO WORKERS IN A SOUTHERN CITY 
 
 Improvements in housing and neighborhood conditions help 
 not only the Negro workers, but add to the health and happiness 
 of every person in the community. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 145 
 
 knowledge and liberty, the day might come when, because 
 of his knowledge, he might no longer submit. Denmark 
 Vesey in revolt in South Carolina in 1822, Nat Turner in 
 Virginia in 1831, to say nothing of other insurrections and 
 of thousands of individuals who resisted punishment and 
 ran away to free territory, gave ground for such appre 
 hensions. 
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation did not destroy this 
 idea. It persists to-day among many white Americans, 
 North and South, who denounce the injustices to the 
 Negro and personally may show him great kindness and 
 consideration, yet who do not think of him in terms of 
 capacity for full personality. Thus, men and women who 
 think of themselves as good Americans will argue that 
 the Negro is all right, but that it was ordained of God 
 that he should be a "hewer of wood and drawer of 
 water." Or again, they may grant that the Negro must 
 be given opportunities, but declare at the same time that 
 he must be made "to know his place." Such attitudes 
 were often not consciously chosen. They were absorbed 
 by the individual as he grew up, just as he absorbed his 
 other feelings and prejudices. Consciously or uncon 
 sciously, however, these people have adopted attitudes 
 which survive from a past condition and system of servi 
 tude. 
 
 The legal protection guaranteed to slaves varied in the 
 different states. The courts dealt with the most serious 
 crimes committed by Negroes, such as murder, riots, and 
 uprisings, but most of the crimes of slaves were dealt with 
 by master or overseer without reference to the courts. 
 The habit of dealing with public conduct of Negroes by 
 other than legal procedure has not passed away but is 
 becoming recognized as an outworn method of racial 
 contacts. At the present time in many communities the 
 
I 4 6 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Negro is still dealt with by vigilantes, by self-appointed 
 groups, or by individuals who chastise without court pro 
 cedure as alleged misdemeanors or crimes seem to the 
 executioners to merit. White men of influence often in 
 tercede with the courts and secure "their Negroes" such 
 consideration as white influence commands. Courts are 
 not unknown in which accused Negroes escape punish 
 ment, not in proportion to their guilt or innocence, but in 
 accordance with the standing of the white men who ap 
 peal to the courts in their behalf. 1 Many "Black Laws" 
 were passed between 1865-1868 to deal with occupations, 
 labor contracts, apprenticeship, and vagrancy of Negroes. 
 These statutes attempted to fix by law after emancipa 
 tion the conditions, largely with reference to labor, not 
 far removed from the previous system in the belief that 
 compulsion was necessary to make the newly emancipated 
 people work. To many Negroes, freedom did at first, of 
 course, mean ceasing from labor ; but the stern commands 
 of hunger and cold were stronger than legal codes or 
 court orders. Vagrancy was made a part of the com 
 pulsory labor system by such devices as, for example, 
 the laws of one state which provided that the sheriff 
 should hire to the person who paid his fine and costs any 
 Negro who did not pay the fine imposed for vagrancy. 
 Similar penalties were legal for breach of contract and 
 for other offenses. 2 
 
 Survivals of this view of Negro labor have persisted 
 in some plantation sections in the customary way of 
 settlement between landlord and tenant. One white man 
 said that some of the landlords in his district regarded 
 
 1 For graphic description of this, see Hammond, L. H., In 
 Black and White, pp. 46-55. 
 
 2 See Stephenson, Gilbert T., Race Distinctions in American 
 Law, pp. 46-63 ; Merriam, George S., The Negro and the Na 
 tion, pp. 367-393. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 14? 
 
 any surplus handed Negro tenants as "tips" rather than 
 wages due. Many plantation tenants work year in and 
 year out with little knowledge of what they produce. 
 There are often no written contracts. The landlord keeps 
 the books and at the end of the year settlement is made 
 according to his accounts, thus there is no check upon 
 error or subterfuge. In many cases this means that the 
 Negro gets only his meager food, clothing, and shelter. 
 If the landlord desires exorbitant profits or encourages 
 thriftless tenants, the end of the year finds the Negro with 
 a sufficient debt to make it possible to prevent his leav 
 ing, since in some localities it is against the law or custom 
 for Negroes to leave a plantation if they are in debt. 1 
 There are many plantations where fairness is shown the 
 tenant, even shiftless ones being dealt with leniently, and 
 the bad conditions are passing away, but public opinion, 
 colored by the surviving customs of the past, has been 
 slow to change them. In other fields of labor, this sur 
 viving idea serves to keep wages down on the erroneous 
 theory that Negroes do not need the same standards of 
 pay as other workers because they can live more cheaply 
 or because, as other workers, some of them will loaf if 
 they get more pay than their bare creature needs require. 
 On the other hand, some employers have adopted a pro 
 gressive policy of stimulating the wants and standards of 
 living of Negroes to give them incentives to regular work. 
 Attitudes due to ideas of race. The people whose an 
 cestors lived in Northwestern Europe along the North 
 Sea and on the rivers, many of which flow into the sea, 
 have made a conquest, military and economic, of much of 
 
 1 Woofter, T. J., work cited, pp. 85-88 ; Twenty-second Annual 
 Report Commissioner of Labor, pp. 129, 133-135, 146-147; Ham 
 mond, L. H., In Black and White, pp. 52-58. The writers should 
 add that many personal visits have been made to plantation dis 
 tricts. 
 
148 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 the rest of the world. They govern several hundred mil 
 lions directly and control by mandates and "spheres of in 
 fluence" a large part of the remainder. Out of this group 
 or racial experience, and the power and prestige flowing 
 from it, has developed the popular idea of racial superi 
 ority. This increase of power and prestige of a people 
 who hold "dominion over palm and pine" has naturally 
 bred pride in their courage, knowledge, wealth, and cul 
 ture that led them into such influence over the world. 
 This idea of superiority of Caucasian stocks has been 
 made a popular standard by which other groups are meas 
 ured. 1 The white people of this age, of course, have not 
 been the only ones to hold such an idea and there are 
 among them many who see its limitations. Kipling, the 
 great modern prophet, has pointed out in his "Reces 
 sional" the great responsibilities and dangers to the strong 
 who hold controlling world power. The view of racial 
 superiority has been held by peoples from the Assyrians 
 and Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans, when they 
 achieved success and wielded great power over subject 
 peoples. 2 Writers and others who express this idea argue 
 that the governments of self-governing white men can 
 neither be the possession of another race, nor share their 
 responsibility of control with other races. In other words, 
 as it relates to the Negro in America, he is to be perma 
 nently a sub-citizen. 8 This kind of an attitude is back 
 
 1 Kennedy, Sinclair, The Pan-Angles; a consideration of the 
 Federation of the Seven English Speaking Nations; Stoddard, 
 Lothrop, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Su 
 premacy. 
 
 2 This idea is known in sociology as "ethnocentrism," Keller, 
 A. G., Societal Evolution, pp. 57-59. 
 
 3 Hammond, L. H., work cited, pp. 19-20 ; Murphy, E. G., The 
 Basis of Ascendency, Chapters II, III, VIII; Mecklin, John M., 
 Democracy and Race Friction, pp. I, 247-270; and popular maga 
 zine discussions on America, Western civilization, and world af 
 fairs. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 149 
 
 of such remarks as that of an attorney, prominent in his 
 local community, who said, "We give the Negro as much 
 justice as it is safe for him to have." 
 
 In two states and two hundred and forty-eight counties 
 of the South in 1910 the Negro population outnumbered 
 the white. In the minds of many white citizens in these 
 states and counties as well as elsewhere, there is always 
 present the possibility that Negroes may seek to come 
 into control of public affairs. Many feel about the Negro 
 in politics in terms of the newly freed slaves of recon 
 struction days, although some see that this older policy 
 cannot meet conditions of the new day. 1 On the whole, 
 however, there is fear of the large Negro population re 
 tarded 2 in ignorance and poverty, which the lack of public 
 means of education and development has continued from 
 decade to decade. Thus a solid political organization has 
 been produced and even the intelligent Negro who asks 
 for the exercise of political rights and privileges on terms 
 such as are offered to all is often barred. This fear, 
 sometimes incited by unscrupulous leaders, has been en 
 couraged by the fact that the Negro vote has usually 
 been a "bloc" vote. Conditions have made it so that 
 Negro and white voters largely divide by race, with little 
 division among themselves on issues and candidates. 
 
 There are thoughtful white people who believe that the 
 Negro can develop into the higher things of civilization, 
 but they hold, however, that America is designed for 
 white people; that to allow Negroes to share fully in 
 American life is to imperil American institutions and to 
 lay upon the Negro responsibilities which, as a race, he 
 is unprepared to sustain. The choice, as they see it, is for 
 the Negro either to go to some other part of the world 
 
 1 Murphy, E. G., The Basis of Ascendency, pp. 57-61. 
 
 2 Murphy, E. G., work cited, pp. 51-54. 
 
150 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 or accept in America those limitations and restrictions 
 upon his opportunities which they regard as necessary to 
 keep America a "white man s country." A writer re 
 cently concluded a discussion of such racial exclusiveness 
 as follows : "We all know how unreasoning and unyield 
 ing race prejudice is. The individual finds himself swal 
 lowed up and swept on by the swift-flowing currents of 
 racial hatreds and class animosities. Herein lie the deep- 
 seated causes of war, whether it be between the Teuton 
 and Anglo-Saxon in Flanders Field, or between Ethiopian 
 and Caucasian in Tulsa, Oklahoma." 1 
 
 Corollary to the notion of superiority of the white race 
 is that of inferiority of other races. Here, a distinction 
 between superiority and inferiority of circumstances in 
 contrast with potential capacity should be pointed out. 
 No candid views of the facts can dispute that the Cau 
 casian race is now dominant in power through military 
 and naval force, in wealth through possession of the 
 world s riches, and in intelligence through the opportu 
 nity to assimilate and develop the mental experience and 
 property of all who have gone before. From the experi 
 ence in these advantages the white group mind passes 
 to the doctrine of superior capacity, although the scientific 
 and philosophic writer may or may not do so. 2 Other 
 races, especially the Negro, not now so favored in cir 
 cumstances are usually regarded by public opinion of 
 the white world as lacking in potential power of commen 
 surate achievement. The Japanese in California on ac 
 count of difference in color, types of feelings and habits 
 of action, economic competition, and other things are 
 
 1 Pritchard, N. C, "Analyzing the Race Problem," Christian 
 Century, August n, 1921. 
 
 2 Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, pp. 47-82 ; Smith, 
 William B., The Color Line, pp. 29-74, I TI -I57; Johnston, Harry 
 H., The Negro in the New World, preface. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 151 
 
 judged from this standpoint by the average white man. 1 
 While Lothrop Stoddard in his Rising Tide of Color has 
 failed to adhere to good science in his facts and argu 
 ments, he has, nevertheless, voiced the attitude of a great 
 many white people toward other races. The lack of es 
 teem in which Negroes in America are held is forcibly 
 shown by the fact that in some states the courts have 
 decided that to call a white person a Negro is such an 
 injury that action for slander may be taken and damages 
 recoverable on the ground that this word is damaging to 
 such white person is his trade, business, or profession. 2 
 In 1888 the Supreme Court of Louisiana said, "It cannot 
 be disputed that charging a white man with being a Negro 
 is calculated to inflict injury or damage." In Georgia in 
 1904 a court rendered a decision with the same import. 
 The other side of the matter has recently come to the sur 
 face in a court complaint brought by one Negro against 
 another who had charged him with being a white man. 
 This disparagement finds increased expression because of 
 the long experience with the Negro slaves in America, 
 separated from their African culture and ethnic con 
 tacts. Inferiority of the Negro is argued from history 
 on the theory that natives in Africa had neither political 
 organization, industrial or artistic development, religious 
 systems, nor ethical inspiration. 
 
 It is interesting to note in this connection the informa 
 tion brought to light by explorers, travelers, and mis 
 sionaries, and by a number of natives educated in Europe 
 and America who are beginning to interpret their people 
 to the world. They are showing that prior to the slave 
 
 1 Millis, H. A., The Japanese Problem in the United States, 
 pp. 197-250; Gulick, Sidney L., The American Japanese Prob 
 lem, pp. 53-76. 
 
 2 Cases and facts cited in Stephenson, Gilbert T., Race Dictinc- 
 tions in American Laiv, pp. 26-33. 
 
152 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 trade begun by the Portuguese, continued by the Dutch 
 and Spanish, and brought to its culmination by the Eng 
 lish, there was an African civilization in Nigeria, Gold 
 Coast, Benin, Mossiland, Timbuctu, and in other areas. 
 Space does not allow review here of the increasing evi 
 dence and arguments of such authorities as Leo Fro- 
 benius, Ling Roth, Dr. George A. Reisner of Harvard, 
 Flinders Petrie, and others that there was a very high 
 type of culture in North and Central Africa, possibly in 
 pre-classical and very probably pre-Christian times. Any 
 one wishing to learn about the past achievements of 
 Negroes in Africa will be well rewarded in his search 
 by the evidence of original steps, such as the earliest 
 smelting of iron, and of arts and culture adapted from 
 Arabian origins. Writers give accounts of ancient Afri 
 can rulers, governments, religions and customs, architec 
 ture, tomb-building, production of arts and crafts, such 
 as carved elephant tusks, ivory armlets, stone images, 
 etc., glass and porcelain objects, remarkable terra cottas, 
 and exquisite metal castings. 1 There is also a well-sifted 
 set of facts that Negroes from the Guinea Coast, West 
 Africa, had made visits to America before Christopher 
 Columbus. 2 
 
 With reference to the Negro in America to-day in rela 
 tion to this point, Edgar Gardner Murphy, a discerning 
 white Southerner, expresses his impression from an exam 
 ination of some of the facts : 3 "Seeing the Negro loafer 
 
 iprobenius, Leo, The Voice of Africa; "The Material Cul 
 ture of Ancient Nigeria," by Wm. L. Hansberry, Journal of 
 Negro History, Vol. VI, No. 3, pp. 261-295; Brawley, Benjamin, 
 Social History of the American Negro, pp. 1-9; and works of 
 other authorities mentioned above. 
 
 2 Wiener, Leo, Africa and the Discovery of America, Vol. I, pp. 
 34, 178, 191-196. 
 
 3 Murphy, Edgar Gardner, Problems of the Present 
 pp. 167-168. 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 153 
 
 on the streets, the Negro man or woman in domestic 
 service, the Negro laborer in the fields, is not seeing the 
 Negro. It is seeing the Negro on one side. It is seeing 
 the Negro before achievement begins, often before 
 achievement the achievement which the world esteems 
 is possible. Knowing the white man under these condi 
 tions would not be knowing the white man. Yet this side 
 of the Negro is usually the only side of which the white 
 community has direct and accurate knowledge. It is the 
 knowledge of industrial contact upon its lower plane. It 
 is not the knowledge of reciprocal obligations. And at 
 the point where this lower contact ceases, at the point 
 where the Negro s real efficiency begins and he passes 
 out of domestic service or unskilled employment into a 
 larger world, the white community loses its personal and 
 definite information the Negro passes into the unknown. 
 As the Negro attains progress, he, by the very fact of 
 progress, removes the tangible evidence of progress from 
 the immediate observation of the white community. 
 
 "The inadequacy of the picture is due to subjective 
 as well as to objective causes. A partly mistaken con 
 ception of the Negro has resulted from the fact that the 
 white world which now sees the Negro habitually, which 
 judges him and speaks of him most constantly, is not 
 infrequently the white world at its worst. How large a 
 number of the white world, upon its educated side, has 
 ever really seen the life of a Negro home, or the life 
 of the Negro school, or the life of the saner Negro 
 church?" 
 
 The philosophy of racial relations that arose out of 
 world power and slave degradation led logically to strong 
 customs and laws against intermixture of the two races. 
 This is the point at which it is most difficult for Negroes 
 to understand the attitude of white people and for white 
 
154 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 people to understand the attitude of Negroes. The white 
 people usually suspect that the Negroes very greatly de 
 sire to be white, and that they will avail themselves of 
 any opportunity that is offered of losing their racial 
 identity. In the extremity of their views such white 
 persons interpret every effort of Negroes to increase their 
 advantages as an expression of a desire on their part to 
 become white. To them the desire of a Negro to be a 
 man is the desire to be a white man. 
 
 On the other hand, the closest observation shows that 
 the tendency among Negroes, high and low, has been in 
 the opposite direction, increased in recent decades by 
 growing wealth, intelligence, racial consciousness, and 
 racial self-respect. If white people should to-day ask 
 Negroes whether they want racial intermixture, they 
 would receive an emphatic denial from nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine out of every thousand Negroes. There is now 
 a mass movement in America and elsewhere among 
 Negroes expressing itself in several organizations to 
 esteem things Negroid and to pursue ends racial and 
 African. This has even found extremes in hostile anti- 
 white propaganda and activities such as "Africa for the 
 Africans," "The African Blood Brotherhood" and the 
 like. Negroes feel a growing pride of race. What they 
 are contending for is that men shall not be despised and 
 restricted in opportunity because they are black, and that 
 achievement and character shall be the basis of admission 
 to the benefits of American life. 
 
 Here arises one of the anomalies of race relations for 
 which Negroes do not find any excuse for the past or in 
 the present. In practically all states where there have 
 been Negroes in any considerable numbers, mulattoes 
 have multiplied since the early days. The law and custom 
 even now give no protection to the wronged Negro 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 155 
 
 mother and, as was the slave custom from colonial days, 
 count the half-breed offspring by kinship to her and not 
 to their father. 1 Twenty-six states had such laws in 
 1910, many of them antedating emancipation. 2 So far 
 as facts can be ascertained, Negroes have not sought or 
 argued for amalgamation, but what they are clamoring 
 against is that law and custom shall not render black 
 women and girls defenseless with nameless offspring, 
 while the white fathers escape. 
 
 Effects of principles and ideals of democracy. From 
 the Declaration of Independence to the proclamation of 
 America s entrance into the World War, there have been 
 gradually evolving certain principles which Americans 
 consider fundamental to our developing democracy. 
 \Vhenever the issue of Negro welfare has been squarely 
 faced in its relation to these principles, white Americans 
 have acceded to the attitude that they should accord to 
 Negro Americans a share in the rights based upon these 
 fundamental principles. Professing such principles, they 
 have been led by a strong urge for consistency to the 
 view that these principles must apply to all or they are 
 true for none. Among the principles so regarded in 
 America are equality of all citizens before the law, free 
 dom of assembly, freedom of speech, the right to trial 
 by a jury of peers, the right to vote, and freedom of 
 movement from place to place. Abraham Lincoln, to 
 express the relation of the races to the welfare of the 
 nation, quoted, "A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand/ applying the axiom to mean that unless the free 
 dom of white America was extended to the black part 
 of the nation, liberty for the white part would not be se- 
 
 1 Brawley, B. G., work cited, pp. 24-31. 
 
 2 Stephenson, Gilbert T., Race Distinctions in American Law, 
 pp. 78-89. 
 
156 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 cure. During the years that have followed, this view 
 has gained larger and larger place in the settlement of 
 the relations of the two races in industry, in education, 
 in government, and in other phases of our common life. 
 Although sometimes in the minority, there has been, in 
 season and out, a body of Americans who have labored 
 to keep this view and attitude before the nation. They 
 have urged that the general welfare cannot be attained 
 for some unless its benefits and responsibilities are shared 
 by all. 
 
 The white race and the interracial mind. With such 
 feelings and attitudes about their own race, and ways 
 of acting toward the Negro race, white Americans face 
 the future and seek world leadership, economic, political, 
 and spiritual. As a part of the movement for world lead 
 ership, a larger appreciation of other races has been de 
 veloping slowly but surely in the minds of many Ameri 
 cans. The presence of the Japanese and Chinese at the 
 Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament, 
 sharing rights and responsibilities with other races, was 
 a step toward that appreciation of other peoples by the 
 white race, which is becoming the groundwork of good 
 will for the future peace and prosperity of the world. 
 The relation of Negro and white Americans is being 
 affected by these world movements. 
 
 The idea that the American Negro is a person and an 
 end in himself, to be educated and developed and to be 
 come a participant in all that makes life and liberty glori 
 ous in America will, although gradually, replace the idea 
 of the Negro as only a servant. One step toward this 
 end is the growing appreciation and recognition of the 
 qualities of mind and heart which the Negro people have 
 shown and which, when further developed, will make 
 them a greater asset to America. In agriculture and in- 
 
THE TREND OF THE WHITE WORLD 157 
 
 dustry the human elements which include the Negro work 
 ers are gaining the front of the stage. In the field of 
 government, self-determination, now a matter of discus 
 sion, is gradually becoming a principle of action applied 
 to non-white groups and races. As white men learn by 
 experience, as in the case of the results of equality for 
 women, the fears of harmful effects resulting from their 
 change of ways and attitude toward Negroes begin to 
 disappear. Then the idea of the interdependence of all 
 men, the weak and the strong, begins to penetrate the 
 mind of all. The principle of the Golden Rule is be 
 coming a code of practical, everyday affairs, the wild 
 tongues of boasting and prejudice are being silenced, and 
 there is developing a revaluation of the Divine require 
 ment to do justly and to love mercy. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 A Way to Interracial Peace 
 
 THE preceding chapters have attempted to define the 
 task and to describe present conditions and relations of 
 the two races in the main ways of life where they meet 
 and where adjustment is necessary. It now remains to 
 discuss the fundamental principles of amicable adjust 
 ment, to point out the method of personal contacts and 
 the agencies through which they may be made for the 
 advancement of both races together, to describe lines of 
 educational publicity needed, and to outline the ideals 
 toward which they travel. The ideals of justice, of law 
 and order, of American freedom of speech, press, and 
 representation, of courtesy, of the obligation of the strong 
 to help the weak, of respect for all personality, and of 
 constructive cooperation on the basis of the brotherhood 
 of mankind comprise the goal. Besides the economic 
 forces described in Chapter II, the school as the avenue 
 of education, the church as the avenue of religion, the 
 home as the avenue of the family, the state as the avenue 
 of government, and the voluntary agencies auxiliary to 
 those organizations are the highways through which the 
 present and succeeding generations must pass toward 
 that goal. It will not suffice that the Few of each race 
 see the goal; they and the Many must also know the 
 road. 
 
 Racial contacts lead to racial good-will. In Nash 
 ville, Tenn., in 1914, a disastrous fire destroyed the homes 
 of hundreds of families, white and Negro, the latter con 
 siderably in the majority. Led by the Commercial Club, 
 the strongest organization of white business men, and 
 by the Negro Board of Trade, with similar irfluence 
 
 158 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 159 
 
 among Negro business men, the representatives of many 
 white and Negro organizations rallied together to meet 
 the emergency. They formed cooperative committees of 
 white and Negro members and a joint staff of white 
 and Negro investigators and visitors. The city govern 
 ment through the charities commission and the police 
 department joined hands with the cooperating citizens. 
 
 Families in distress were visited by investigators who 
 carefully ascertained their needs. Household goods and 
 supplies were bought in car-load lots with money con 
 tributed liberally by hundreds of donors of both races. 
 .Working zealously together for about two months, these 
 cooperating neighbors reestablished about five hundred 
 white and Negro families in houses, provided them with 
 necessities for starting housekeeping again, and, finally, 
 visited each reestablished household to see that all had 
 been well done and to deliver a parting message of good 
 cheer and good-will. 
 
 This and other community activities were parts of 
 nearly ten years of racial cooperation in meeting com 
 munity needs. Starting in one of the needy Negro neigh 
 borhoods with a little settlement house, prophetically 
 called "Bethlehem House/ founded and fostered through 
 the joint efforts of Southern white women of the Wom 
 an s Missionary Council, Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, who had been interested by "Mother" Sawyer, a 
 saintly Negro woman, and of the Social Science Depart 
 ment of Fisk University, a leading Negro college founded 
 and supported by Northern churches and philanthropists, 
 such racial cooperation had grown until it had spread its 
 influence into many avenues of the city s life. Begun as 
 the earnest effort of a few men and women of the two 
 races to serve the needs of their neglected Negro neigh 
 bors, it spread to include white and Negro colleges, five 
 
160 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 white and Negro church denominations, white and Negro 
 commercial organizations, and departments of the city 
 government. They cooperated in efforts for better hous 
 ing, wholesome recreation, vocational instruction, employ 
 ment placement, home improvement, and for protection 
 of neglected Negro districts. This cooperation developed 
 until in 1920 a committee of white citizens met a similar 
 committee of Negro citizens, thus representing the entire 
 city, and adopted plans and undertook activities for the 
 welfare of the whole city and the betterment of race rela 
 tions. Thus, by gradual steps, led by philanthropic and 
 Christian-minded men and women, through sudden mis 
 fortune of fire and the appeal of its victims and through 
 joint effort to soften the lot of the neglected, the whole 
 community became conscious of the mutual interests of all 
 classes and both races. 
 
 Church cooperation leads to better understanding. 
 In Atlanta, in 1916, a Committee on Church Coopera 
 tion was formed composed of representatives from the 
 ministry and laity of white evangelical denominations. 
 Among several "standing committees" was one on "race 
 relationship." This committee occasionally held joint 
 meetings with the Negro ministers. In February, 1919, a 
 regional conference of the Interchurch World Movement 
 was held under the auspices of this Committee on Church 
 Cooperation. Among the "findings" or declarations of 
 the conference was a statement about the obligation of 
 white churchmen to Negroes. It said, "Loyalty to our 
 lofty ideal of democracy and to our Master . . . demands 
 that we shall not pause until the Negro in America shall 
 have justice equal to that of the white man and an op 
 portunity for the full development of the highest possi 
 bilities of his personality." The conference specified the 
 
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A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 161 
 
 following obligations: that "full justice be done the 
 Negro" in the courts; that a "radical change for the 
 better" be made in Negro housing and neighborhood con 
 ditions ; that safe and comfortable provisions be made for 
 Negroes in public travel ; and that adequate provision be 
 made for Negro education. 
 
 Following this conference and pronouncement, these 
 white men called some leading Negro ministers of At 
 lanta to a meeting and proposed a parallel Negro Com 
 mittee on Church Cooperation. These two parallel gen 
 eral committees have since held meetings, weekly sepa 
 rate meetings and monthly joint meetings. Some results 
 have flowed from their joint efforts : rumors of race 
 clashes have been run down and allayed; a junior high 
 school and better grammar schools for Negroes have 
 been promised by the city; a tract of land for a Negro 
 park has been bought and given to the city; and other 
 things have been done to improve conditions and race 
 relations. The plan has fostered mutual understanding 
 and has offered "the Negro the privilege of cooperating 
 with the white man in a work of common concern, which 
 work hitherto has been done by the white man for the 
 Negro. 1 
 
 These efforts led to the proposal of "The Christian 
 Council of Atlanta," composed of two counselors from 
 the laity and the pastor of each church, white and Negro, 
 in the city. Through proposed conferences, surveys, and 
 programs which may be adopted by the churches upon 
 recommendation of their ambassadors in council, those 
 who have led this movement believe they will see a new 
 day for race relations in Atlanta. 
 
 1 "The Atlanta Plan of Interracial Cooperation" (pamphlet), 
 by James Morton, published by the Commission on Interracial 
 Cooperation, Atlanta, Ga. 
 
162 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 Efficient cooperation in division of labor. In Cin 
 cinnati, about four years ago, a young Negro 1 trained 
 in social science at Fisk University and the Yale Grad 
 uate School, during leisure hours from his teaching in a 
 public school, began a survey of the Negro life and race 
 relations in that city along lines he had been taught. With 
 some charts, graphically setting forth some of the facts 
 he had found, and the cooperative plans he proposed, he 
 gained the interest of the Secretary of the Young Men s 
 Christian Association of the city and the Executive Sec 
 retary of the Council of Social Agencies. Impressed by 
 the plans outlined for a cooperative welfare association, 
 through these two men arrangements were made for the 
 full-time service of the young man to work out his pro 
 gram. After three years of constructive work, with rep 
 resentatives selected by active organizations and agencies 
 including churches and general societies and with informal 
 attendants from departments of the city government, a 
 Negro welfare association is functioning with large re 
 sults. More than a score of organizations and agencies 
 have agreed to an efficient cooperative division of activi 
 ties. The executives of the cooperating agencies meet in 
 a common conference for planning their work together. 
 All cooperate through the Council of Social Agencies. 
 The Negroes took part in 1921 in raising the money for 
 the "Community Chest/ They astonished everybody by 
 the number of givers among them and the amount of 
 money they contributed. 
 
 Cooperative organization may be general. One of 
 the white men from Nashville and one from Atlanta, 
 who had been active in the cooperative movements de- 
 
 1 See descriptive article by James H. Robinson who developed 
 the plan, "Proceedings of the Conference of Social Work, At 
 lantic City," Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference, 1919, 
 pp. 524-53L 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 163 
 
 scribed above, saw the tense racial situation, especially in 
 the South, following the Armistice and the return of 
 Negro soldiers from France. They called a few "inter- 
 racially-minded" white and Negro citizens together and 
 formed the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. This 
 Commission, with finances drawn mainly from the War 
 Work Council, Y.M.C.A., has developed interracial 
 committees in more than seven hundred cities and coun 
 ties in eleven Southern states. Large results in prevent 
 ing race clashes, educating public opinion through the 
 press and pulpit, conferences and efforts to improve 
 Negro education, and along other lines have been ob 
 tained. 
 
 On October 6-7, 1920, under the auspices of this com 
 mission, about one hundred representative white women 
 from all parts of the South met in conference at Mem 
 phis, Tenn., following a preliminary conference of two 
 white women with ten Negro women of the National 
 Association of Colored Women s Clubs, at Tuskegee, 
 Alabama. Four Negro women met with them and dis 
 cussed the experiences, feelings, and attitudes of Negro 
 women. 1 This Women s Interracial Conference called 
 attention to possible causes of friction in domestic ser 
 vice, in child welfare, sanitation and housing, education, 
 travel, justice in the courts and the public press in the 
 desire "that everything which hinders the establishment 
 of confidence, peace, justice, and righteousness in our land 
 may be removed," and "that there shall be better under 
 standing and good-will in our midst." The white women 
 present have carried the message to be endorsed by other 
 groups of white women all over the South. A perma- 
 
 1 The Negro women were Mrs. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Ross Haynes, Mrs. Robert R. Moton, and Mrs. 
 Booker T. Washington. 
 
164 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 nent interracial committee has been formed, and the 
 Southeastern Federation of Colored Women s Clubs has 
 adopted a corresponding statement of cooperative prin 
 ciples. 
 
 In the foregoing descriptions of practical experience 
 we have clear accounts of types of activities through the 
 Church, the school, the home, the State, and the spon 
 taneous, voluntary associations, that illustrate the new 
 world into which the two races are emerging and the 
 new way of adjusting their interests in that world. With 
 the discoveries of science and the inventions of genius 
 during the past century, our civilized world should no 
 longer be one in which there is not enough food, shelter, 
 clothing, and comforts to go around. Steamships, rail 
 roads, and automobiles, electric lights, telephones, and 
 telegraph, and thousands of other conveniences are mak 
 ing all groups, nations, and races near neighbors. Our 
 new world has made class and racial contacts less and 
 less physical and biological, but more and more mental 
 and cultural. 1 The success or failure of the American 
 Negro in assimilating and using the knowledge and cul 
 ture of his day has been mainly determined by whether 
 or not he has been shut out of the occupations and ex 
 periences in school, Church, and State. Through these 
 avenues to a very great extent, the feeling, thinking, and 
 acting of the civilized world find expression, and indi 
 viduals and groups appropriate and make their own the 
 "mental property" of that world. 
 
 Mutual economic and life interests. We have passed 
 from a "deficit economy" of the past when no group had 
 enough to go around to a "surplus economy" of the pres 
 ent when, if fairly distributed, there may be enough and 
 
 1 Commons, John R., Races and Immigrants in America, pp. 
 19-21. 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 165 
 
 to spare. Furthermore, the good treatment of one s 
 neighbor which will help him to develop and prosper is of 
 great advantage to oneself. Truly it blesses him that 
 gives and him that takes. 
 
 In race relations in America the old feelings, attitudes, 
 and habits of action, developed under the pioneer days, 
 and its "deficit economy," have left a system of thinking 
 and acting from the past as though we were still on a basis 
 of classes of bond and free, when we are in the new day 
 of freemen and plenty. The slave system was, in truth, 
 a "deficit economy." The "Seaboard Slave States" x and 
 other books by Olmsted, the descriptions of earlier trav 
 elers, as well as the statistics given in DeBow s Review 
 and Helper s Impending Crisis, give positive evidence 
 that the system was economically unsound. Woodrow 
 .Wilson 2 says, "The system of slave labor condemned 
 the South to prosecute agriculture at the cost of a tre 
 mendous waste of resources." Gradually free labor in 
 free states became alarmed for its own future. The 
 slave system also ran counter to the Christian conscience 
 of many, both within and without the states where it 
 prevailed. From the earliest days the opposition to Chris 
 tianizing slaves because Christian baptism carried with 
 it the idea of freedom 3 aroused those who saw the ulti 
 mate danger to the general religious welfare. When 
 missionaries worked among the slaves they found such a 
 response as to increase the concern about the develop 
 ment of these persons. In other fields besides the eco 
 nomic and the religious, men gradually awoke to the 
 
 1 Olmsted, Frederick Law, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave 
 States, New York, 1856; A Journey in the Back Country; A 
 Journey Through Texas; The Cotton Kingdom, New York, 1861, 
 reprinted by G. P. Putnam s Sons. 
 
 2 Division and Reunion, pp. 127-128. 
 
 3 Woodson, C. G., History of the Negro Church, pp. 4, 6. 
 
166 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 common interdependence of all upon the condition of a 
 part of the population. 
 
 After the coming of Negro emancipation and the re 
 adjustment of the first few decades following, America 
 became absorbed in other affairs, the tariff, free silver, 
 the Spanish-American War, the Philippines, and the 
 world struggle for democratic governments. The prob 
 lems of domestic race relations assumed a smaller place 
 in public thinking; but the old ways and attitudes and 
 frictional contacts continued. There grew up the prin 
 ciple of dealing with the questions somewhat as though 
 the two races inhabited separate countries and were dis 
 tinct in interests and ideals, instead of viewing their rela 
 tions as mutual and their interests and ideals as inter 
 dependent. In later years, as the inevitable connection of 
 interests and obligations and the effects of keeping the 
 Negro down 1 have begun to dawn upon the mind of 
 America, a new basis of relations is beginning to receive 
 recognition from the leaders of both races, and a new 
 basis of friendly contacts is felt and begins to operate. 
 
 Their joint interest in labor, trade, government, health, 
 education, morals, and religion are so inextricably inter 
 woven that they cannot be separated so long as the two 
 races inhabit the same soil. 2 Their hopes and fears, their 
 ambitions and their ideals rise or fall together. Their 
 common welfare makes action together in harmony the 
 only sure basis of progress. The impulse toward such 
 mutual action is as fundamental in nature and in human 
 nature as the tendency to struggle in conflict against each 
 other. The theory of the "struggle for the life of others" 
 is as scientifically sound as that of the "struggle for exist- 
 
 1 Murphy, Edward Gardner, The Basis of Ascendency, pp. 
 
 I54-I7L 
 
 2 Compare Jefferson, Thomas, work cited, pp. 266-268. 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 167 
 
 ence." The belief that physical force is the guiding prin 
 ciple for setting things right in social groups grows partly 
 out of the scientific idea that life is a struggle, where 
 nature is "red in tooth and claw." That idea has been 
 applied to human society ; it has been accepted that "the 
 survival of the fittest" in human life meant in the main 
 the survival of the strongest. For example, Bernhardi 
 and others in Germany, while counting the value of in 
 telligence in national life, ridiculed the idea of mercy and 
 kindness and gave the nation a popular philosophy of 
 brutal force. This idea was not absent from other peo 
 ples. It ended in the great nightmare of the World War. 
 
 During the past fifty years, so loud and dominant has 
 been this view that the equally sound idea of the struggle 
 for the existence of others has received little attention. 
 The "mutual aid principle" is wide-spread among lower 
 animals. It has been one of the greatest factors in man s 
 achieving his position as "king of living creatures." 
 Man s higher social virtues have their roots in this factor 
 of "otherism." * Group feelings, attitudes, and habits 
 based upon mutual aid emotions elaborated out of "the 
 struggle for the life of others" have become so ingrained 
 in some human beings as to dominate brute emotions and 
 traits. In others, the mutual aid habits soon break down 
 under changing conditions. 
 
 Group interdependence between mental and social 
 factors. The growing knowledge of group psychology 
 indicates how readily one national or racial group reacts 
 
 1 The biological basis of mutual aid or cooperation has been 
 treated by several writers of scientific standing. Henry Drum- 
 mond in his Ascent of Man was one of the first Kropotkin, 
 the Russian, has written extensively on cooperation among lower 
 animals. Vernon Kellogg has recently stated this idea admirably 
 in an article, "The Biologist Speaks of Death," in the Atlantic 
 Monthly, June, 1921. The writings of many others have given 
 us ample biological ground for our view of human mutual aid. 
 
168 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 to the feelings and attitudes of another. 1 All our sociol 
 ogy teaches that races and classes living upon the same 
 soil are inseparably linked one with another in labor, 
 trade, government and culture, 2 to say nothing of the 
 interaction of tribes and nations in different lands. 
 
 Race prejudices, frictions, fears, suspicions, and an 
 tagonisms cannot be attacked in the abstract and in gen 
 eral. They die and decay in the face of pleasant experi 
 ence during the contacts of individuals and groups of the 
 two races as they strive in "the regular go of things" of 
 daily life. In factories and in the fields where produce 
 follows labor; in the schools and colleges where children 
 and youths are trained; in the courts and other depart 
 ments of the commonwealth where citizens adjust their 
 differences ; in the home where parents and children nur 
 ture the common heritage of personal habits, traditions, 
 and customs; in the Church, where justice, mercy, and 
 communion with Jehovah are visioned ; in the contacts and 
 experiences, pleasurable or painful, in the routine of life, 
 hostile feelings, prejudiced beliefs and attitudes, un 
 founded fears and groundless suspicions are aroused and 
 nourished or are removed and replaced by pleasant sen 
 sations, by friendly feeling, by mutual understanding, and 
 by cooperative good-will. The appreciation of the like 
 nesses in each race on both sides of the racial line and 
 friendly habits of action come in this way. 
 
 Fair play and friendly action will follow the conscious 
 ness of common likeness just as friction and fear have 
 been the results of emphasis on racial differences. No 
 reasonable person will deny that racial fears, prejudices, 
 
 1 McDougall, William, An Introduction to Social Psychology. 
 Section II, pp. 271-358; Pillsbury, W. B., The Psychology of 
 Nationality and Internationalism, pp. 21-62, 186-223, 278-309. 
 
 2 Ross, E. A., Principles of Sociology, pp. 96-120, 194-268; 
 Maciver, R. M., The Elements of Social Science, pp. i-u. 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 169 
 
 and suspicions are founded upon either real differences, 
 upon misapprehension born of the imagination or are pro 
 duced by ignorance. These differences, real or unreal, 
 reside either in the conflicting interests of individuals, 
 races, and groups or within the people themselves. Racial 
 differences between groups have so far been proved only 
 in outward appearances, like the different national styles 
 of dress or color of skin. If fundamental, there are group 
 differences of interest like the competition of nations for 
 political power that has led to war between nations, or 
 the conflict of merchants for trade that has led to trade 
 war. 1 
 
 Slowly the telephone, the telegraph, the steamship, and 
 many other inventions are bringing people together in 
 such wise that men and women are finding that they are 
 fundamentally in themselves very much alike. They are 
 born, they hunger, they love, they hate, they cooperate; 
 they fight, they propagate, they grow old, and they die. 
 As the means of communication have been multiplied, 
 conflicts of interests also have been emphasized. So 
 long as groups and races retain the old ideas, notions, atti 
 tudes, and ways, they remain apart. And just so long 
 will old fears, prejudices, and suspicions keep alive. 
 Truly the avenues through which pleasurable contacts 
 may be made that create new attitudes and ways, give the 
 spirit of brotherhood the opportunity to operate. A 
 rapid description of the avenues comprised in our prin 
 cipal organizations and types of volunteer agencies will 
 make clear their utility for such contacts. 
 
 The family and home as avenues of pleasurable con 
 tacts. The Negro home as discussed in Chapter II 
 showed the long march to the present Negro home life 
 
 1 See Appendix for the question of mental capacity of the 
 Negro. 
 
i;o THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 from the slave cabin family, the members of which could 
 be separated at any moment by the wish or the death or 
 the business failure of the owner. It is viewed in this 
 chapter from the side of the family circle as a source of 
 good-will in race relations. 
 
 The home is the abiding place of the family and the 
 bulwark of the highest and dearest in modern life. The 
 family institution and its castle, the home, require that 
 the marriage bond of the two whom law and religion 
 unite as one for better or for worse even unto death, be 
 protected by both the Church and the State in their most 
 sacred obligation. The husband and father has the re 
 sponsibility of providing support for the family accord 
 ing to a standard of living in keeping with the relation 
 of the family to the general welfare. The feelings and 
 customs of the community and the nation should make 
 it possible for him to get work, to hold it, and to be ad 
 vanced in position and pay unhampered by creed or color. 
 The handicaps of the Negro family in this respect have 
 been touched upon in Chapters II and III. The wife 
 and mother should have support and shelter, that she 
 may bear and bless with loving hands and heart-throbs the 
 little ones who pass that way into the work-a-day world. 
 Her time and mind should be entirely freed from bread- 
 winning, that she may have strength, leisure, and re 
 newal of spirit for the nurture of the young. The Negro 
 mother has the heaviest burden to bear of any mother in 
 America. Three times as many Negro married women 
 as white women were gainfully employed in 1910. 
 
 The children need food and clothing, plenty of each, 
 and the shelter that protects both health and morals. They 
 require freedom from premature toil, affording time to 
 grow, chances to learn, places to play, opportunity to feel 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 171 
 
 obedience to the authority of parents, to sense the ideals 
 of clean living, and to catch the traditions of truth and 
 beauty and goodness as anchors when the storms of 
 passion rise and the billows of selfishness and preju 
 dice roll. 
 
 The majority of Negro children in America to-day 
 live in houses either on plantation or farm, in town or 
 in the city, that are grossly deficient in ordinary sanitary 
 conveniences. Many of these homes are one or two- 
 room shanties or crowded tenements where the most in 
 timate acts of life cannot have the privacy which mod 
 esty demands. Before the tender years of the early teens 
 are past, more of these children than any others in coun 
 try, town, and city are loaded with toil. In cities they 
 are largely deprived of places to stretch their bodies in 
 play, and in the South there are inadequate schools in 
 which to develop their minds and spirits. Mother and 
 father, when the latter has not been snatched away by 
 injustice or exploitation or has not decamped, usually go 
 out to work in the gray hours of the morning and return 
 in the dim darkness, after a long, laborious day. The 
 little children are frequently locked indoors with food and 
 water within reach like dumb animals, and older children, 
 if not at work, are free to roam the streets or country 
 side until parents come home. 
 
 Influence of race relations on white and Negro 
 homes. The home is probably the greatest avenue of 
 pleasurable daily contacts between the races. In thou 
 sands of white homes to-day the touch of Negro servants 
 influences feelings and attitudes of white people more than 
 many realize. After long experience in placement of 
 Negro servants in thousands of white homes, and observa 
 tion of conditions in small towns and cities, Mrs. Haynes 
 
172 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 says : x "The white woman who employs the Negro woman 
 in her home to-day usually asks how much work she can 
 get out of her and how cheaply, while the Negro woman 
 usually figures how little she can give in return. The 
 personal interest of each in the other as cooperators in 
 the greatest of enterprises, the home, seems to be a di 
 minishing part of their bargain, quickly made and easily 
 broken." 
 
 Few white women know that there are many Negro 
 residences not far from their own, where women of edu 
 cation and refinement hold sway by all the intangible 
 forces that flow out from the hearthside to uphold civi 
 lization. Whether white women recognize it or not, these 
 women and these homes play an indispensable part in 
 making life livable and lovable in their communities and 
 in the nation. Furthermore, white people cannot neglect 
 their relation to these homes if racial peace is to reign. 
 More than seventy-five out of every one hundred Negro 
 homes are supported by workers practically all of whom 
 have white employers. How many white employers con 
 cern themselves about the homes of their Negro em 
 ployees? How many white men who think and speak 
 about protecting, even with lynch law, their own homes 
 and women ever give serious consideration to the inroads 
 made by white men upon Negro homes and the pressure 
 put upon defenseless Negro women and girls? The 
 mulatto asks an answer to this question. How many 
 white housewives know the surroundings or see the in 
 side of the homes of their faithful servants upon whose 
 health and skill the comfort of their own families de 
 pends ? 
 
 1 Unpublished manuscript ; see also Haynes, Elizabeth Ross, 
 "Three Million of Negro Women at Work/ Southern Workman, 
 February, 1921. 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 173 
 
 The Church an avenue of racial cooperation. The 
 
 Church doubtless ranks next to the home as the conserva 
 tor of our ideals of brotherhood and justice. In all ages 
 and in all climes men have looked to religion for assist 
 ance in their life problems. Out of their efforts to find 
 God and to secure His help have grown their doctrine 
 and ritual to guide religious activities. The Christian 
 Church is the institution that brings down to us the ideals 
 of her Founder and the experience and ritual of those 
 who have followed in His train. Pagan elements some 
 times crept in and caused many to misjudge her work and 
 her mission, but as time passes, the Church shakes these 
 off and moves on toward the goal of the Fatherhood of 
 God and the universal brotherhood of man. 
 
 Churches in America have had New World problems 
 to deal with from the founding of the colonies. The 
 same year the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock in 
 New England, twenty Africans were sold into slavery in 
 Virginia under the shadow of the English Church, and 
 human slavery, the stumbling-block for hundreds of years 
 to come, was placed upon our shores. In the years which 
 followed, the vested economic interest in land, in slaves, in 
 slave-trade and its profits so blurred the vision of many 
 churchmen that the humanitarian and religious recogni 
 tion of personality in all humankind and the abolition of 
 slavery was postponed. 
 
 When agricultural, industrial, and commercial mo 
 tives could no longer silence conscience, many church de 
 nominations split on the question of holding human be 
 ings in bondage, and they are still struggling to bridge 
 the chasm which the controversy created. To-day a 
 stumbling-block is the question of admitting the dark- 
 skinned former slave into the reorganized brotherhood. 
 So long as white churchmen regard Negro churchmen as 
 
174 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 anything less than human beings, full fairness in thought 
 about them and brotherly action toward them are improba 
 ble dreams. To deny their full personality and at the 
 same time give equality in industry, politics, and educa 
 tion are impracticable. So long as Negro churchmen 
 meet white churchmen with distrust and dissimulation, 
 genuine good-will and cooperative action are remote ex 
 pectations. 
 
 The white church has the resources in men and money 
 to do what it wills in America. The success in securing 
 prohibition legislation is only one illustration of what it 
 can do when it wills. The clergy have the ear of the 
 people, and they can tell them that their religious profes 
 sions and their democratic pronouncements must bring 
 peace and good-will into the relations of white people and 
 Negro people in America in order to convince a waiting 
 world of American sincerity in promoting cooperation in 
 international relations. 
 
 The Negro Church forced through discrimination. 
 A description of the Negro Church and its progress has 
 been sketched in Chapter II. For our purpose here it is 
 important to point out that the Negro Church arose 
 mainly out of the denial to Negro churchmen of full fel 
 lowship in mixed organizations, reenforced by a very 
 human desire on the part of Negroes for self-determina 
 tion. 1 The Negro Church is one of the two organizations 
 the race can call its own. The other is the secret so 
 ciety. Schools, theaters, and business enterprises are 
 partly under white control or competition. The Negro 
 Church, except for its property titles and the general 
 laws, needs to consult no white people about its pur 
 poses, plans, organizations, or leaders. A white person 
 rarely visits a Negro church. In a recent survey of 
 
 1 Wright, R. R., The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 113-14; 166-67. 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 175 
 
 Negro churches of seven rural counties in three Southern 
 states, white persons were unknown in the Sunday- 
 schools, and less than a score of churches out of a total 
 of 247 reported that a white minister ever preached for 
 them or that a white person ever paid them a visit. 
 Such visits might remove a world of suspicion. Only an 
 occasional Negro darkens the doors of a white congrega 
 tion. How different from a past generation! The sep 
 arate Negro organizations have provided openings for 
 development of church leaders, ministers, and laymen, 
 who may experiment in molding their following along 
 lines of their own feelings. That this has led to grave 
 mistakes at times is not to be denied, but many excel 
 lencies have been achieved that would not have 
 been obtained. These prophesy great prospects for 
 real interracial cooperation. Those denominations that 
 have both white and Negro members can also contribute 
 a powerful influence in that direction through according 
 full standing among laity and clergy to their Negro mem 
 bers who achieve the best in character and zeal. 
 
 Satisfactory racial contacts through churches. This 
 avenue for satisfactory racial contacts which will remove 
 prejudices and suspicions and restore confidence and 
 good-will has not been utilized to a great extent. Min 
 isters conferences, laymen s conferences, and the ex 
 change of speakers would promote action on common 
 interests, involving thousands of both races, and inevita 
 bly would lead to better feeling and understanding, to 
 tolerance, and to cooperative action. Religious education 
 in Sunday-school, in Bible schools, in conferences and 
 institutes are additional means for the exchange of 
 services. Community service through settlements, sur 
 veys, and through trained workers carrying out joint pro 
 grams of community betterment, especially for Negro 
 
176 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 neighborhoods, opens up a vision of cooperative service 
 which will bless each race whether it gives or receives. 
 The good beginnings already made by several denomina 
 tions and individual churches have spread widening waves 
 of good feeling and new attitudes of friendliness. The 
 recent action of the Federal Council of the Churches of 
 Christ in America in creating a Commission on the 
 Church and Race Relations made up of churchmen of 
 both races opens almost unlimited opportunity for pro 
 moting racial cooperation. When thus welcomed in co 
 operation, as men and women and fellow-followers of 
 the lowly Nazarene, Negro churchmen will respond in 
 kind, and one of the greatest strokes for interracial peace 
 will have been made. 
 
 Educational institutions may promote cooperation. 
 The school, meaning the educational institutions of all 
 grades, is the means of conserving and passing on to each 
 succeeding generation the intellectual and moral experi 
 ence and heritage of our civilization. Schools for white 
 children and youths are liberally supported either by 
 public funds or private generosity. 
 
 Many public schools and practically all the private 
 schools for Negroes are teaching Negroes ideals and hab 
 its of sanitation, health, order, law, obedience to author 
 ity, home and family manners, many things which schools 
 generally leave to parents at home. The mission schools 
 and colleges for Negroes in the South for the past fifty 
 years have been practically training-homes for the thou 
 sands who have lived on their campuses and in their 
 dormitories. In this connection one of the greatest 
 pieces of interracial cooperation has been carried out 
 almost unheralded. The white teachers who have lived 
 among these Negroes have been among the most power 
 ful means of understanding between the races and of as- 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 177 
 
 surance to Negroes. It is a striking fact, usually over 
 looked by those who fan racial fears, that with the 
 thousands of white teachers in contact with Negroes for 
 fifty years, no records of intermarriages or amalgamation 
 have found soil upon which to grow. 
 
 Now that hostile legislation, growing antagonism, and 
 other influences are breaking up these relationships of 
 white teachers and Negro students, thousands of the best 
 young minds of Negroes will never see the better soul of 
 white folk, and hundreds of white persons will no longer 
 be able to interpret to their own people a sympathetic 
 understanding of the soul of black folk. Where sep 
 arate schools exist, through school boards, supervising 
 committees, and the contact of white and Negro teachers 
 in auxiliary organizations of the school, through study 
 groups and educational conferences, opportunities for 
 amicable racial contacts may be increased in dealing with 
 common educational interests and meeting educational 
 problems vital to both races. 
 
 Cooperative contacts through government. Touch 
 ing our every-day lives at even more points than the 
 Church and the school, and most profoundly affecting the 
 home, is the organized machinery of the government. 
 Through its arms of city, county, and local community, 
 the national and state governments fix the conditions 
 surrounding all our activities in work time and leisure 
 time. Public school support is determined by government. 
 The safeguards of the family, the home, and the Church 
 are made by it. So far as concerns the Negro, the of 
 ficers of the law policemen, constables, school boards, 
 health inspectors, judges of the courts, and the like, all 
 white men as a rule, embody for him the meaning of 
 the State and the law. And there can be no getting 
 around the fact that this contact for the Negro in Amer- 
 
i;8 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ica is not, as a rule, a pleasant experience. When in 
 cities like Atlanta, Chicago or Washington, the nation s 
 capitol, Negroes did not get proper protection from the 
 police during the bombing of their homes or the mobbing 
 of their men and had to resort to arms in their own de 
 fense, when they did not get reparation in the courts after 
 the trouble, one sees not isolated atrocities that just "hap 
 pened," but extreme examples of a tacit procedure which 
 has failed to place Negro Americans fully within the 
 law. 
 
 This cannot continue with safety to white men and 
 women. If Negroes are not eligible to police forces and 
 are not given equal standing in the courts, the white 
 community pays the penalty from the inability of white 
 officers to prevent crime and apprehend criminals.- So 
 long as the state and Federal governments regard Ne 
 groes as persons to be taxed but not to be represented 
 by those of their own free choice, racial cooperation will 
 be hobbled, and democracy cannot function. The Negro 
 people comprise about one-tenth of the nation. In dif 
 ferent localities they range from one to fifty per cent of 
 the population. May any community or its leaders ex 
 pect general and permanent progress in health and morals, 
 in law and order, or in other public matters until the 
 Negro neighborhood is recognized as an integral part of 
 the community, and its citizens are given an opportunity 
 freely to participate? 
 
 Voluntary organizations may coordinate interracial 
 activities. Let us look now at the voluntary agencies 
 that have grown up more or less spontaneously to sup 
 plement the work of the home, the school, the Church, 
 and the State. The examples described earlier in the 
 chapter illustrate what an effective coordinating force 
 such organizations may be. In almost every Negro lo- 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 179 
 
 cality there are one or more secret societies that wield a 
 wide influence. Almost every community, white and Ne 
 gro, has its women s club, men s club, commercial or 
 ganizations, labor organizations, farmers organizations, 
 Christian Associations, and welfare or social service so 
 cieties. These are most valuable avenues for amicable 
 relations by means of joint committees of the two races, 
 exchange of speakers, and councils and conferences to 
 plan and to work for mutual ends. The interracial or 
 ganizations that may be built up from these separate 
 group agencies are most effective when made up of re 
 sponsible representatives of agencies as are described in 
 this chapter. The exact form of such interracial organ 
 izations or committees may vary to meet local conditions. 
 There is now enough information from experiments of 
 the past years in such cities as Nashville, Atlanta, Balti 
 more, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and other cities, and such 
 rural localities as Calhoun, Ala., Adams County, Miss., 
 and Nottaway County, Va., to serve as suggestions for 
 almost any community. 
 
 Some cardinal principles have already come to the 
 surface out of past experience. First, constructive plans 
 and work to meet some definite needs of a part or all the 
 community, rather than lengthy discussions of "the race 
 problem," are the surest way to develop interest and to 
 hold it. The American impulse is to act. Discussion that 
 aims toward action is the only kind which does not soon 
 kill interest and enthusiasm. 
 
 Second, it is not sufficient merely to fight evils and to 
 cure community sores. Treatment for typhoid and 
 tuberculosis are certainly needed when those ills appear. 
 Opposition to mobs and lynchers are needed, God knows. 
 An ounce of prevention, however, is worth ten pounds of 
 cure. Constructive social betterment to improve condi- 
 
i8o THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 tions of Negroes and promote friendly race relations on 
 the farms, in the factories, schools, trains, streets, mar 
 ket-places, and elsewhere and thus prevent racial clashes, 
 is far more important and effective than social medicine 
 to palliate the eruptions that break out from chronic com 
 munity evils. 
 
 Third, any community that attempts such preventive 
 efforts may well map out a definite program of work. It 
 may not be exhaustive or wide in scope, but it should 
 be definite, be aimed at specific needs, and calculated to 
 bring results which all the people may see. Where 
 vision, patience, and financial support are available, a 
 careful survey of the field may well be made, and a pro 
 gram of work be prepared from the facts obtained, before 
 other activities are undertaken. The time is not far 
 away, let us hope, when those with money will see the 
 need of some national interracial effort for a cooperative 
 clearing house to promote such local cooperation. The 
 churches have here the opportunity to serve America 
 and the world. 
 
 Fourth, the personnel of such community organization 
 is of two types : the community-minded citizens, white 
 and Negro, with interracial tolerance, and the executive, 
 specially trained in social work. The first type of per 
 sons should come into mutual council or organizations 
 as representatives of agencies or organized group and 
 racial interests. They are the ones, and the only ones, 
 competent to adopt plans and settle policies which will 
 affect the daily lives of all. Professional social service 
 agents or experts can do no more than get these groups 
 together and lay facts and ideas before them. The peo 
 ple of both races can be led to the waters of wisdom, 
 but they themselves must decide to drink. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, too, that the representa- 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 181 
 
 tives should, as far as possible, be chosen by their own 
 group or agency and that there should be a Negro ex 
 ecutive on the Negro side of the equation. There are so 
 many details requiring constant attention if success is to 
 be assured, that, in all but the least populous communi 
 ties, executives should be paid, and service consequently 
 required. Executives on both sides of the racial divide 
 in such delicate and difficult relations should be persons 
 who can act promptly when action is necessary and who 
 can wait patiently when action may best be deferred. 
 
 Fifth, to insure satisfactory contacts as members of the 
 two races strive together toward mutual ends, there is 
 need of some appreciation of distinctive racial attitudes, 
 impulses, and habits of thought and action as indicated in 
 Chapters III and V. The Negro representatives come 
 into such councils possessing, among other things, a keen 
 response to personalities, with pleasure in friendly con 
 versation, with a warmth of cheerfulness, and a play of 
 wit. The white representatives have a sharp perception 
 of the economic values and relations and less of the 
 humorous and more of the aggressive, executive cast of 
 mind. On the Negro side, indirect approach or patient 
 waiting is the method of action with difficult problems, 
 while on the white side there is strenuous pursuit that 
 overrides the difficulty or smashes it. 
 
 It frequently happens, therefore, that the white mem 
 bers of such organizations become impatient at the slower 
 moving methods of Negroes. Negroes, on the other 
 hand, often chafe because of the pushing, executive 
 methods of white members. Understanding and insight 
 into such variations in reactions may forestall much 
 friction and smooth the path for many negotiations. Of 
 course, there are Negroes who have so far absorbed the 
 American idea of haste and efficiency that many of the 
 
182 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 human equations on the Negro side are overlooked. 
 These persons, however, are often not as successful in 
 dealing with their own as they would have others be 
 lieve. Many more cooperative efforts of the two races 
 would succeed in their purpose if those promoting them 
 would take more care that their minds meet. 
 
 Finally, real cooperation means operating together, 
 each mindful of the full interest of the other or ready to 
 give and take for the sake of reaching a common goal. 
 Where one race or the other thinks more highly of itself 
 or of its interests than it ought to think, such joint opera 
 tion is practically unworkable. As the American ideals 
 propagated in our homes, our schools, churches, govern 
 ment, and voluntary agencies impress themselves upon 
 Negroes, it is no longer possible to treat them as less than 
 freemen or as children. They may not know all the 
 American ways of doing things, but they are now awake 
 to what it means to be free. Negro progress in agri 
 culture, industry, art, literature, science, and religion is 
 now a fact recognized by all fair-minded observers. 
 White Americans are gradually coming to see that race 
 relations in the future require that they work not simply 
 for, but with Negroes. 
 
 The ideas that the welfare of one race is bound up with 
 the welfare of the other, that what helps one helps the 
 other and what injures one cannot help the other, and 
 that cooperative action and friendly contact are the way 
 of progress for both races is slowly but surely being 
 carried over to the people. 
 
 Popular education needed. Popular educational ac 
 tivity among Negroes and white people to inform each 
 race about the other and about race relations is impera 
 tive for such purposes. This might be called propaganda. 
 If so, it is the kind of propaganda that, instead of ad- 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 183 
 
 vertising differences, fears, suspicions, and frictions, lays 
 stress upon racial likenesses, points out instances of 
 good- will in deeds, stimulates justice by publicity of ex 
 amples of it more than the accounts of injustice, and 
 informs each race of the better sides of the other race. 
 The value of such efforts has been illustrated by the work 
 of such newspapers as the Columbia State, the Nash 
 ville American, the New York Evening Post, the New 
 York World, by the Southern University Commission on 
 the Race Question, by the Southern Publicity Committee, 
 and by propaganda activity of the Commission on Inter 
 racial Cooperation, the War Work Councils of the 
 Y.M.CA. and of the Y.W.C.A., the Home Missions 
 Council, the Council of Women for Home Missions, and 
 the Commission on the Church and Race Relations of the 
 Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 
 and other organizations the past few years. 
 
 On the whole, Negroes know the life among white 
 people better than the latter know the inner side of life 
 among Negro people. Negroes, especially in the South, 
 prepare the food for most of the middle and upper classes 
 of white people; they clean their homes, wash their 
 clothing, care for their children, nurse their sick, assist 
 at their marriages and in the last sad rites of their dead. 
 Night and day, from season to season, they are closely 
 associated with white people in their homes, in their of 
 fices, and on their pleasure trips. White people are so 
 absorbed in their own affairs and so readily assume that 
 they have understood the simple folk who serve them, 
 that much that goes on among the Negro people is un 
 known to them. 
 
 These contacts of domestic servants with white em 
 ployers have been the means of the Negro s learning and 
 gaining much from white people, who, in turn, have 
 
i84 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 gathered considerable from the Negro. Times have 
 changed. Domestic and personal servants no longer form 
 Negro opinion to the extent they did formerly. Much 
 of the feeling and thinking of Negroes are stimulated by 
 the Negro platform, pulpit, and press. The personnel 
 of these agencies knows little of and sees nothing now of 
 the inner life of white people in home and office. The 
 men and women of color, on the one hand, who largely 
 influence Negro life to-day get their impressions and 
 knowledge of the white world from casual contacts on 
 the streets, from the people they meet in the courts or in 
 the stores, from the white policeman on the beat, and 
 fromjthe white newspaper, ;wr^chjusually "plays up" con 
 ventional ideas about Negroes and speaks editorially 
 about them without knowing much of the best among 
 them. 
 
 On the other hand, white men and women, except an 
 occasional workman or salesman, rarely enter the better 
 types of Negro homes, as mentioned above. White peo 
 ple are accustomed to draw their impressions about Ne 
 groes from the crime accounts of white newspapers, 
 from conversations, from observations of and reports 
 from their Negro servants, and from what they see of 
 the idle loafers about the streets. In many cases, these 
 apparent idlers on the streets are waiters, porters, and 
 other domestic and personal service employees who have 
 "time off." 
 
 The first and most influential avenue of popular edu 
 cational propaganda is the press, white and Negro. The 
 newspapers of our land hold the feelings and attitudes 
 of the people in the hollow of their hands. In the past 
 this has not been as true of the Negro press as the 
 white, but the Negro s "fourth estate" is gradually com 
 ing into a place of power and responsibility, as Professor 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 183 
 
 Kerlin s compilation of Negro editorial opinion very well 
 shows. 1 Lynchings have been fostered, mobs and riots 
 have been precipitated largely through the sinister pro 
 paganda of certain white newspapers. The Grand Jury 
 fixed a part of the blame for the Atlanta riots of 1906 
 upon a local newspaper. The Washington riot of 1919 
 was partly due to the false reports published by a lead 
 ing newspaper. On the other hand, many cities have been 
 saved from racial clashes by timely news and editorials 
 of their high-class dailies. 
 
 The next agency of popular education for spreading 
 the truths of mutual interests of the two races is the 
 American pulpit. Several of the larger white denomina 
 tions divided on Negro slavery. Large sections of the 
 white pulpit have been silent in later years when inter 
 racial problems have assumed serious aspects. Large 
 sections of the Negro pulpit often have been ignorant, 
 although friendly, and thus limited in power for a better 
 interracial program. They have, nevertheless, always ex 
 tended a welcome to the white minister when infrequently 
 he chose to come and break the bread of life to his black 
 brethren. When the very homes, government, and com 
 munities of all are at stake in the opportunity or lack of 
 it for even the weakest, can the apostles of Him who 
 came to seek the least of these be silent? 
 
 A third means of popular education is the lecture 
 platform. In the past, white men and women have been 
 occasional speakers in Negro schools and colleges. There 
 is a larger Negro world that looks for enlightenment 
 Its churches are the main channels for such activity. 
 The avenue here opened to white speakers is endless. 
 The by-product will be better feeling and understanding 
 between the races. The white world has its church lec- 
 
 1 See Kerlin, R. T., The Voice of the Negro. 
 
186 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 ture platform, its open forums, its Chautauquas, and 
 similar places of popular education. Rarely is a Negro 
 lecturer, musician, or singer thought of for these places. 
 Many of them would be highly acceptable to white audi 
 ences. In North Carolina and South Carolina in 1920-21, 
 Negroes spoke to white students in a number of colleges. 
 These experiments proved popular. They can be multi 
 plied with profit. 
 
 The moving picture has come as the greatest instru 
 ment for stimulating intelligence since the invention of 
 the printed page. In most instances where it has touched 
 the matter of race relations, it has been used to arouse 
 and inflame prejudice instead of allaying and removing it. 
 Moving pictures can be used to bring to each race views 
 of the better side of the life of the other race. 
 
 Another type of agency for popular education in mu 
 tuality of race relations is such gatherings as conferences, 
 Sunday-school conventions, Christian Endeavor conven 
 tions, Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. meetings, educational and 
 community conferences and associations, business and 
 fraternal organizations. Negroes have not usually felt 
 a full welcome to such gatherings organized and di 
 rected by white people. One Negro who has had much 
 experience in such work expressed it thus: "A welcome 
 is extended to everybody to come ; but of course, every 
 body does not include us Negroes." 
 
 Newspapers, the pulpit, the organizations and agencies 
 that hold conferences and conventions, cannot ignore 
 matters so vital to the future of democracy in America. 
 The ignorance of the two races in regard to each other 
 and to the oneness of their interests is oftentimes aston 
 ishing and is of most serious moment to a nation which 
 calls itself intelligent and Christian. Race hatred, lawless 
 ness, and disorder are usually caused by the self-willed, 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 187 
 
 ignorant Many led by the selfish Few. When we gaze 
 upon the results of their follies and their crimes in dis 
 rupted communities, destroyed homes, and murdered citi 
 zens, America should no longer tolerate the lethargy of 
 some of her leaders and the weakness of her means of 
 popular education. The forces of greed, of war, and mis 
 taken self-interest have held the front of the stage too 
 long. The press, the pulpit, the platform, and confer 
 ences need to teach people that their greatest advance 
 ment will come through treating their neighbors as they 
 would wish their neighbors to treat them. 
 
 Mutual inheritance of ideals. As America looks out 
 upon a war-torn world, she hears the Macedonian cry of 
 the nations. Peace conferences and disarmament con 
 ferences may set up the framework; only the good-will 
 of the Master can create the spirit of neighborliness and 
 regard for common rights. If America is to contribute 
 a large part to the new spirit of the times, she must come 
 into the concert of nations with a basic harmony among 
 her own racial and national groups and classes. Her 
 physical, economic, political, social, and spiritual health 
 is inseparably bound up with the welfare of all her citi 
 zens, especially her Negro citizens, who constitute one 
 out of every ten of her people and who have shared in 
 all the toil and sacrifice of her past progress. 
 
 The present problems and future prospects make it 
 imperative that all work together for mutual ends. We 
 need, as never before in our national history, to cherish 
 our mutual inheritance of common ideals. The first of 
 these is justice in law and in everyday dealing among 
 all, especially between white and Negro peoples. This is 
 the special responsibility of the white people, as the mak 
 ing of the law, and custom, as well as the control of 
 community life, are more largely in their hands. In the 
 
188 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 many daily dealings between tenant farmer, farm hand 
 and planter; between landlord and tenant; between em 
 ployer and employee; and between man and man, there 
 are many painful experiences for the ignorant and the 
 defenseless of all classes and races. They fall most 
 painfully upon the Negro, who stands at the margin of 
 our democracy. A higher ideal of practical justice is 
 one of the greatest needs of the whole situation. 
 
 In the assurance of justice to Negroes is involved the 
 whole question of respect for law and order. All Ameri 
 cans need more and more to learn that their only safe 
 guard for democracy is profound respect for and obedi 
 ence to the organized methods of government which they 
 and their ancestors have established. He who takes the 
 law into his own hands to avenge what he considers a 
 violation of law is himself the greater law-breaker. 
 Those who because of race or wealth or "pull" think 
 they can violate the law with impunity and who under 
 take to do so are undermining the very structure that 
 assures them protection and liberty. For, underlying the 
 ideal of justice is the ideal of American democracy. 
 Taxation without representation applied to black men in 
 1921 is dangerous to democracy and as unjust as when 
 applied to white men in 1775. Government by consent of 
 the governed as a just principle includes Negro Ameri 
 cans, or it is not just. Freedom of speech, of the press, 
 and of assembly must apply to all, or they are secure for 
 none. The full right to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness has to be assured for all, even the humblest 
 and blackest, or none are safe. 
 
 Closely related to the ideals of justice and of law 
 and order is that of courtesy. Until white newspapers 
 and persons learn to place the ordinary appellations be 
 fore the names of Negro men and women, one of the 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 189 
 
 first steps in practical ideals of courtesy between the 
 races will not have been made. Furthermore, the use 
 of disparaging names such as "little Africa," "dark- 
 town," and "black bottom," to describe neighborhoods 
 where Negroes live and the common habit of applying 
 the name "darkey," "nigger," "boy," and "auntie" to 
 Negro men and women belong to a past generation and 
 have no place in courteous intercourse to-day. "What s 
 in a name?" some one asks. All the feelings and atti 
 tudes associated with past ways of acting. 
 
 Courtesy requires that Negro girls and women, as well 
 as other women, be given due consideration from all gen 
 tlemen. The blight of race prejudice presses upon them 
 as upon no others. Their own men are often powerless to 
 protect them, and white men seem often to act upon the 
 assumption that Negro women have no bars which a 
 white man is bound to regard. Negro women and girls 
 go out to work, largely in domestic and personal service. 
 Both the homes from which they come and the homes into 
 which they go demand that they shall not be overborne 
 by designing men. The modern community which allows 
 the youth, the beauty, and the honor of these sable women 
 to be blasted with impunity can no longer find excuse 
 in their susceptibility, when neither law nor custom of 
 fers them protection or redress. And other women reap 
 the whirlwind of what is sown among them. In the Day 
 when the Searcher of Hearts shall ask an accounting, 
 He will regard as His own the treatment which white 
 men and women have given to the least of these. 
 
 A word needs to be said also for the Negro man of 
 refined sensibilities who spontaneously shows deference to 
 white women in street cars and other places with no 
 thought other than the gentlemanly consideration which 
 all men should show to womankind. On the other hand, 
 
igo THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 white men and women who show courtesy and respect 
 for character and culture in color should be able to do 
 so without the condemnation from their own group that 
 they are Negrophiles. 
 
 Another ideal that needs mutual inculcation is the obli 
 gation of the strong to the weak. If Christian principles 
 are to have practical application in American life, this 
 ideal so strongly set forth by Paul is a corner-stone. The 
 world is just awaking from the horror of a war brought 
 on by a repudiation of this ideal. In the long turn of 
 the years, America may find her salvation in the strength 
 of the strong ministering to the weakness of the weak. 
 
 Finally, probably as big a problem as any other is to 
 cultivate the ideal of respect of each race for human 
 personality no matter what happens to be the color of 
 the covering. Most social and racial friction the world 
 over grows out of the disregard of persons based upon 
 superficial sight of the complexion. Negroes, even the 
 humblest of them, do not want to be treated as nobodies. 
 They never did. Many of them unconsciously cry out 
 for their outraged personalities because of the limitations 
 placed upon them more than because of the discomforts 
 they undergo. Men undergo untold discomforts and 
 difficulties with fortitude when their morale is unaffected. 
 On the other hand, the effect of present restrictions often 
 leads Negroes to disregard the depths of human sym 
 pathy in the bosoms of white people. 
 
 In the conclusion of the matter, whether we ac 
 knowledge it or not, the inseparable inheritance of the 
 two races binds their welfare to-day and determines their 
 progress to-morrow. We have tried the ways of war, of 
 repression by force at great cost and increasing turmoil. 
 .Where progress and development of the two races is 
 
A WAY TO INTERRACIAL PEACE 191 
 
 impartially studied, it becomes very clear that improve 
 ment in the intelligence and wealth of the one race has 
 been bound up with the advancement of the other. Is 
 it not time to capitalize this constructive, cooperative ex 
 perience in the way of good-will? The task of amicable 
 race relations at home and abroad involves the finding of 
 ways of discovery and expression in action of this good 
 will. White and Negro Americans work together as 
 men and women facing common problems in the same 
 land problems of economic adjustment, problems of 
 education, problems of civic and political justice, prob 
 lems of public opinion as they strive toward national 
 ideals. There have been and doubtless will continue to 
 be conflicting interests. Deeper than these surface waves, 
 however, there are doubtless greater cooperative impulses 
 and interests for those who are settled upon the same 
 soil. Experience has shown that brutal force only in 
 creases the evils and postpones just settlement. 
 
 Patiently, persistently, with a smile on his face, the 
 Negro has borne a large part of the heat of the furnace 
 fires of friction. Here and there through the centuries 
 of his trials he has touched the friendly hand of the 
 Caucasian who has loved truth and goodness better than 
 wealth or power. As the world struggles forward toward 
 peace, it is not simply to get back to where we were 
 before the World War, but far beyond to where we may 
 control our wealth and our intelligence to develop the 
 beauty, usefulness, goodness, and truth in all people. 
 The development of the Negro and the experiment of 
 wholesome race relations in America have a potential con 
 tribution of experience to make, setting examples and 
 illustrating principles that will affect race relations in 
 [Africa, South America, and Asia. The sincerity and the 
 
192 THE TREND OF THE RACES 
 
 resultant power of our religious profession of brother 
 hood are being tested as by fire ere America goes forth 
 to carry the message to other lands. 
 
 As history and science open the scroll of the centuries, 
 we see that the course of human progress has time after 
 time been modified by religious impulses and ideals that 
 have changed the feelings, the attitudes, and the actions 
 of tribes and nations and races. Among the peasants 
 of Palestine, came in the course of time, the Man of 
 Galilee preaching that in their relations peoples and races 
 should understand that they were children of a common 
 Father. His life and work have changed the trend of 
 the races by continuously moving the world toward an 
 application of the principles of the Prince of Peace. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Supplementary to Chapters HI and V 
 
 On the Question of Mental Capacity of the Negro 
 
 It is well to have at hand a brief summary of the principal 
 scientific opinions on the question of mental capacity of the 
 Negro. Scientific data to-day which would be a basis for 
 drawing conclusions about the mind capacity and power or for 
 attributing inherent inferiority to this or that branch of the 
 human race are not available. As Retzel says, 1 "At present the 
 Negro in Africa no doubt appears to us uncivilized, but that 
 means undeveloped, not incapable of development. . . . The dif 
 ficulty of forming a judgment about races increases where it 
 has only been possible to observe them closely either in the 
 abnormal state of slavery or under conditions which cannot 
 be compared with ours. . . . He who would judge of them 
 (Africans) should avoid adding to their unfavorable circum 
 stances his own unfavorable prejudices." 
 
 Woodworth, the well-known psychologist, has the same view. 
 He says : 2 "One thing the psychologist can assert with no fear 
 of error . . . starting from the various mental processes, which 
 are recognized in the text-books, he can assert that each of 
 these processes is within the capabilities of each group of man 
 kind. All have the same senses, the same instincts and emo 
 tions. All can remember the past and imagine objects not 
 present to sense. All discriminate, compare, reason, and invent. 
 . . . Statements to the contrary, denying to the savage powers 
 of reasoning or abstraction or inhibition or foresight, can be 
 dismissed at once." 
 
 At different times there have been popular types of opinion 
 about the capacity of the Negro which attempted to prove his 
 inferiority first through signs of subnormal physical character 
 istics such as length of arms and body and shape of head. 
 Then came efforts at scientific tests of brain weights and struc 
 ture and skull capacity to prove inferiority. For full discussion 
 of such questions of ethnology, the reader may consult such 
 books as Deniker s Races of Man. The best authorities conclude 
 that there is too slender a body of scientific fact to serve as 
 a basis of determining the mental rank of races. 3 As Wood- 
 
 1 Retzel, Friedrich, History of Mankind, Vol. II, pp. 319-329. 
 
 2 Woodworth, R. S., "Racial Differences in Mental Traits," 
 Science, New Series, Vol. 31, p. 174, 
 
 3 Woodworth, R. S., work cited, pp. 172-173. 
 
196 APPENDIX 
 
 worth says : "Whites and Negroes, though differing markedly 
 in complexion and hair, overlap very extensively in almost every 
 other trait; as, for example, stature. Even in brain weight, 
 which would seem a trait of great importance in relation to 
 intelligence and civilization, the overlapping is much more im 
 pressive than the difference. ... If they should be jumbled 
 together, we should never be able to separate the Negroes from 
 the whites by aid of brain weights." 
 
 In later discussion, mental tests and observations have gained 
 considerable attention. On this point Ferguson remarks : 1 
 "There has been no settled body of doctrine concerning the 
 vastly important matter of the mental capacity of the Negro. 
 One man has held that the Negro is equal to the white in intel 
 lect. Another has held that a great intellectual gulf separates 
 the two races. And there have been many varieties of views 
 between these two extremes." Professor Miller says, "In 
 stead of drawing a line between races, psychological comparison 
 demonstrates by the overlapping (of individual cases) simi 
 larity instead of difference." 2 
 
 To-day, the scientific material is taking the form of psycho 
 logical analyses through methods of objective tests. These 
 comparative tests will eventually bring us very valuable results, 
 but present data are far too meager for conclusions. These 
 tests are usually in the form of exercises to try the powers of 
 perception, memory, color discrimination, etc. Dr. Mayo 3 at 
 tempted to determine the comparative intellectual capacity of 
 the white and Negro pupils of the high schools of New York 
 City by the scholastic marks given them by teachers. Aside 
 from the small number of cases he used, about 150 of each 
 race, he assumed that (i) they worked under nearly identical 
 conditions; (2} they pursued the same studies; (3) they were 
 measured by the same standards ; (4) they had received like 
 elementary and grammar school training; and (5) that there 
 is a close correspondence between scholastic efficiency and intel 
 lectual capacity. 
 
 To those who know the conditions of life of Negro youth 
 and those of other youth in New York it is evident that the 
 neighborhood and home conditions differ radically and that all 
 the opportunities for use in occupations and other walks of life 
 of high school training, which so largely determines student 
 morale, is very different. Again, probably many of the Negroes 
 
 1 Ferguson, George Oscar, "The Psychology of the Negro," 
 Archives of Psychology, No. 36, April, 1916, Vol. XXV, No. i, 
 p. i. 
 
 2 Miller, Herbert A., "The Myth of Racial Inferiority," The 
 World To-morrow, March, 1922. 
 
 3 Mayo, Marion J., "The Mental Capacity of the American 
 Negro," Ph.D. thesis, reprinted from the Archives of Psychol 
 ogy, No. 28. 
 
APPENDIX 197 
 
 who reached the high schools in New York had a part of their 
 grammar school work in the South where schools are very much 
 below those of New York or other Northern cities. To say 
 that the scholastic efficiency of New York high schools is a 
 measure of intellectual capacity carries evident limitations. 
 With these and the two other assumptions, the results showed 
 only "a difference of four points in average class standing be 
 tween (the) two (racial) groups," a difference that the investi 
 gator himself counts as of little significance. 
 
 After a quantitative study 1 of white and Negro school chil 
 dren of the public schools of Richmond, Fredericksburg and 
 Newport News, Virginia, while admitting that the groups 
 studied are not typical of the white and Negro populations in 
 general, Ferguson still reaches a conclusion that while there is 
 practically no difference in the two races in "the so-called lower 
 traits," . . . motor capacity, sense capacity, perceptive and dis 
 criminative ability, "the simpler receptive and discharging func 
 tions, ... it is in the central elaborate powers upon which 
 thought more directly depends that differences exist." He does 
 not produce sufficient data to show that there are such and what 
 they are so as to warrant such a conclusion. 
 
 The Virginia Educational Commission, composed of some of 
 the nation s ablest educational experts, who studied the public 
 schools of that state, conducted mental tests of about 20,000 
 pupils, white and colored, in city and non-city schools, "pro 
 ducing a body of information," as the report says, "never before 
 approached in this country or any other. This material is con 
 sidered by competent judges to be the most satisfactory body of 
 measurement data which has ever been collected." Commenting 
 on the results, from the median scores for colored children 
 compared with those for white children for the tests in addi 
 tion, spelling, reading, and handwriting in school grades III to 
 VII inclusive, the Commission says : 2 "An examination shows 
 that the apparent differences are not very great between the 
 achievements of colored children and those of white children. 
 It must be remembered, however, that in almost every grade 
 considered colored children are on the average a year or more 
 older and have attended school on the average a year longer 
 than white pupils." 
 
 1 Ferguson, work cited. 
 
 2 Report to the General Assembly of Virginia of the Virginia 
 Public Schools Education Commission, Richmond, 1919, p. 131. 
 
A SELECT READING LIST 
 
A SELECT REIADING LIST 
 
 The books starred (*) are those which may well be purchased 
 for a limited library. The prices quoted are subject to change. 
 
 Historical 
 
 *BRAWLEY, BENJAMIN G. A Social History of the American 
 
 Negro. 1921. Macmillan Co., New York. $4.00. 
 
 A Short History of the American Negro. Revised edition. 
 
 1919. Macmillan Co., New York. $2.00. 
 HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH. Army Life in a Black 
 
 Regiment. Reprint 1900. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 
 
 $2.00. 
 *OLMSTED, FREDERICK LAW. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave 
 
 States. Second edition 1904. G. P. Putnam s Sons, New 
 
 York. $5.00. 
 
 Negro Life and Race Relations 
 
 BAKER, RAY STANNARD. Following the Color Line. 1908. 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York. $2.00. 
 DOUGLASS, H. PAUL. Christian Reconstruction in the South. 
 
 1909. Pilgrim Press, Boston. $1.50. 
 *HAMMOND, L. H. In Black and White: an Interpretation of 
 
 Southern Life. 1914. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 
 
 $1.25. 
 MILLER, KELLY. Race Adjustment. 1912. Neale Publishing 
 
 Co., New York. $2.00. 
 MURPHY, EDGAR GARDNER. Problems of the Present South. 
 
 New edition. 1916. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 
 
 $1.50. 
 Negro Population 1790-19/5. United States Census. 1918. 
 
 Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 
 ROMAN, CHARLES V., M.D. American Civilization and the 
 
 Negro. 1916. F. A. Davis Co., Philadelphia. $2.50. 
 ^Selected Articles on the Negro Problem. Compiled by JULIA E. 
 
 JOHNSON. The Handbook Series. 1921. H. W. Wilson 
 
 & Co., New York. $1.80. 
 *SELIGMANN, HERBERT J. Negro Faces America. 1920. Harper 
 
 & Brothers, New York. $1.75. 
 WEATHERFORD, W. D. Present Forces in Negro Progress. 
 
 1912. Association Press, New York. 75 cents. 
 *WoRK, MONROE N. The Negro Year Book for 1921-22. Negro 
 
 Year Book Company, Tuskegee Institute, Ala. Cloth, $1.25 ; 
 
 paper, 75 cents. 
 
 201 
 
202 READING LIST 
 
 For leaflets on "Cooperation in Southern Communities," apply 
 to Dr. W. W. Alexander, Secretary of the Commission on 
 Interracial Cooperation, Atlanta, Georgia. Send postage. 
 
 Biography 
 
 COPPIN, LEVI J. Unwritten History: An Autobiography. Re 
 vised edition. 1922. A. M. E. Book Concern, Philadelphia. 
 $2.00. 
 
 DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. 
 As told by himself. 1882. DeWolfe & Fiske Co., Boston. 
 $2.50. 
 
 * HAMMOND, L. H. In the Vanguard of a Race. 1922. Council 
 of Women for Home Missions and Missionary Education 
 Movement, New York. 75 cents. 
 
 *HAYNES, ELIZABETH Ross. Unsung Heroes. Short biogra 
 phies of Negroes who have achieved. 1921. DuBois & 
 Dill, New York. $2.50. 
 
 MOTON, ROBERT R. Finding a Way Out. Doubleday, Page & Co., 
 Garden City, New York. $2.50. 
 
 *WASHINGTON, BOOKER T. Up From Slavery. An autobiog 
 raphy. 1901. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New 
 York. $1.50. 
 
 The Negro in Agriculture 
 
 BANKS, E. M. Economics of Land Tenure in Georgia. Vol. 
 XXIII, No. i, Columbia University Studies. 1905. Long 
 mans, Green & Co., New York. $1.00. 
 
 *DuBois, W. E. B. The Negroes of the Black Belt. U. S. 
 Dept. of Labor Bulletin, Vol. IV, No. 22, pp. 401-16, Wash 
 ington, D. C. 
 
 Negro Migration 
 
 HAYNES, GEORGE E. "The Negro Moves North." Articles 
 published in The Survey, May 4, 1918, January 4, 1919. 
 
 *Negro Migration 1916-191?. U. S. Dept. of Labor. Govern 
 ment Printing Office. 1918. Washington, D. C. 
 
 *WOODSON, CARTER G. A Century of Negro Migration. Pub 
 lished for Association for Study of Negro Life and His 
 tory. 1918. 1216 U Street, Washington, D. C. $1.00. 
 WOOFTER, THOMAS JACKSON, JR. Negro Migration, Changes in 
 Rural Organisation and Population of the Cotton Belt. 
 1920. W. D. Gray, 106 Seventh Avenue, New York. $2.25. 
 
READING LIST 203 
 
 The Negro in Industry 
 
 Atlanta University Studies: (i) No. 7. The Negro Artisan. 
 W. E. B. DuBois, 1902; (2) No. 17. The Negro American 
 Artisan. 1912. Bibliography and pages 37-114. Atlanta 
 University Press, Atlanta, Ga. 75 cents each. 
 
 HAYNES, GEORGE E. "Effect of War Conditions on Negro La 
 bor." Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 
 Vol. 8, pp. 229-312. April, 1919. 
 
 *The Negro at Work During the War and During Reconstruc 
 tion. Second Study of Negro Labor. 1920; also Negro 
 Women in Industry. 1922. Department of Labor. Gov 
 ernment Printing Office. Washington, D. C. 
 
 Negro Health 
 
 Atlanta University Studies: (i) Social and Physical Condi 
 tions of Negroes in Cities. 1897. 25 cents; (2) Health and 
 Physique of the Negro Americans. 1906. Atlanta Uni 
 versity Press. $1.00. 
 
 HALL, GEORGE C. "Negro Hospitals," Southern Workman, 
 October, 1910. Hampton Institute. 
 
 HOFFMAN, FREDERICK L. "The Negro as an Insurance Risk." 
 The Spectator, September n, 1902, p. 112; continued 
 September 18, p. 125. 
 
 *LovE, A. G., and DAVENPORT, C. B. "Comparison of white and 
 colored troops in respect to incidence of disease." Pro 
 ceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 5, pp. 58- 
 67. March, 1919. 
 
 ROMAN, CHARLES V., M.D. "The American Negro and Social 
 Hygiene." Social Hygiene, Vol. 7, p. 41. January, 1921. 
 
 Negro Achievements in General 
 
 *BRAWLEY, BENJAMIN G. The Negro in Literature and Art in 
 
 the United States. 1918. Duffield & Co., New York. $1.35. 
 
 ROUNDY, RODNEY W. "The Negro an Asset of the American 
 
 Nation." Leaflet published by the Home Missions Council, 
 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. 10 cents. 
 
 *The Book of American Negro Poetry. Edited by JAMES 
 WELDON JOHNSON. 1922. Harcourt, Brace & Co., New- 
 York. $1.75. 
 
 Negro Music 
 
 BURLIN, NATALIE CURTIS. Negro Folk Songs. Hampton 
 Series, 1918-19. G. Schirmer, New York. 50 cents. 
 
204 READING LIST 
 
 *KREHBIEL, HENRY E. Afro-American Folk Songs. 1914. G. 
 
 Schirmer, New York. $2.00. 
 
 WORK, JOHN WESLEY. Folk Songs of the American Negro. 
 1915. Fisk University Book Store, Nashville, Tenn. $1.10. 
 
 Negro Literature 
 
 BRAITHWAITE, W. S. Lyrics of Life and Love. 1904. Small, 
 
 Maynard & Co., Boston. $1.00. 
 DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1902. A. C. 
 
 McClurg & Co., Chicago. $1.20. 
 DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE. Lyrics of Lowly Life. 1899. Dodd, 
 
 Mead & Co., New York. $1.25. 
 TALLEY, T. W. Folk Rhymes of the Negro. 1921. Mao 
 
 millan Co., New York. $2.25. 
 The Book of American Negro Poetry. Edited by JAMES 
 
 WELDON JOHNSON. 1921. Harcourt, Brace & Co., New 
 
 York. $1.75. 
 
 Negro Mind and Education 
 
 Atlanta University Studies: (i) No. 5. The College-bred Ne 
 gro. Edited by W. E. B. DuBois and A. G. DILL. 1900. 
 25 cents; (2) No. 13. The College-bred Negro American. 
 1910. 75 cents; (3) No. 19. A Study of Crime Among 
 Negro Americans. 75 cents. 
 
 *KERLIN, ROBERT T. The Voice of the Negro. (Analysis of 
 Negro newspaper opinion in 1919.) 1920. E. P. Dutton & 
 Co., New York. $2.50. 
 
 *Negro Education; A Study of the Private and Higher Schools 
 for Colored People in the United States. Edited by T. J. 
 Jones. Bulletin 39. United States Bureau of Education. 
 1917. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 
 
 PEABODY, FRANCIS G. Education for Life: The Story of Hamp 
 ton Institute. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New 
 York. $2.50. 
 
 SCOTT AND STOWE. Booker T. Washington: Builder of Civiliza 
 tion. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York. 
 
 *WOODSON, CARTER GODWIN. Education of the Negro Prior to 
 
 1861. 1915. G. P. Putnam s Sons, New York. $2.00. 
 WOODWORTH, R. S. "Racial Differences in Mental Traits," 
 Science. New Series, pp. 177-186, reprinted. 
 
 Negro Church and the Religious Life 
 
 *Atlanta University Studies : No. 8. The Negro Church. Edited 
 by W. E. B. DuBois. Statistics are old, but report con- 
 
READING LIST 205 
 
 tains a number of valuable points. Atlanta University 
 Press, Atlanta, Ga. $1.00. 
 
 *WOODSON, C. G. The History of the Negro Church. 1922. 
 Associated Publishers, 1216 U Street, N. W. f Washington, 
 D. C. 
 
 The World Survey. American Volume, pp. 99-101. Inter- 
 church World Movement. Obtainable from Home Mis 
 sions Council and the Council of Women for Home Mis 
 sions, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City, for postage. 
 
 Negro Citizenship 
 
 BAKER, RAY STANNARD. Following the Color Line. Chapter 
 XL 1908. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New 
 York. $2.00. 
 
 *McCALL, SAMUEL W. Life of Thaddeus Stevens. 1909. 
 Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. $1.25. 
 
 STEPHENSON, GILBERT THOMAS. Race Distinctions in American 
 Law. 1910. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $1.50. 
 
 WOODSON, C. G. "Fifty Years of Negro Citizenship." Quali 
 fied by the U. S. Supreme Court. Journal of Negro His 
 tory, Vol. 6, p. 1-53, January, 1921. 
 
 Community Conditions Among Negroes (General) 
 
 *DANIELS, JOHN. In Freedom s Birthplace: a Study of the Bos 
 ton Negroes. 1914. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. $1.50. 
 HAYNES, GEORGE E. Negro New-comers in Detroit, Michigan. 
 1918. Home Missions Council, New York. 20 cents. 
 
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