Martin Luther King Jr. Day Anthology - - (comprehension books .TXT) 📗

their votes according to their individual opinions, as the lamented Charles Price, one of their best leaders, advised, there would be no danger of Negro domination and no objection to their holding offices which they might be competent to fill. But as there is no present prospect of their voting upon any other basis than that of color, the white people are forced to accept the situation and protect themselves accordingly. Years of bitter and costly experience have demonstrated over and over again that Negro rule is not only incompetent and corrupt, but a menace to civilization. Some people imagine that there is something anomalous, peculiar, or local in the race prejudice that binds all Negroes together; but this clan spirit is a characteristic of all savage and semi-civilized peoples.

 

It should be well understood by this time that no foreign race inhabiting this country and acting together politically can dominate the native whites. To permit an inferior race, holding less than one tenth of the property of the community, to take the reins of government in its hands, by reason of mere numerical strength, would be to renounce civilization. Our national government, in making laws for Hawaii, has carefully provided for white supremacy by an educational qualification for suffrage that excludes the semi-civilized natives. No sane man, let us hope, would think of placing Manila under the control of a government of the Philippine Islands based upon universal suffrage. Yet the problem in the South and the problem in the Philippines and in Hawaii differ only in degree.

 

The only proper safeguard against Negro rule in States where the blacks outnumber or approximate in number the whites lies in constitutional provisions establishing an educational test for suffrage applicable to black and white alike. If the suffrage is not thus limited it is necessary for the whites to resort to technicalities and ballot laws, to bribery or intimidation. To set up an educational test with a “grandfather clause,” making the test apply for a certain time to the blacks only, seems to an outsider unnecessary, arbitrary, and unjust. The reason for such a clause arises from the belief that no constitutional amendment could ever carry if it immediately disfranchised the illiterate whites, as many property-holding whites belong to that class. But the writer does not believe in the principle nor in the necessity for a “grandfather clause.” If constitutional amendments were to be submitted in North Carolina and Virginia applying the educational test to both races alike after 1908, the question would be lifted above the level of party gain, and would receive the support of white men of all parties and the approbation of the moral sentiment of the American people. A white man who would disfranchise a Negro because of his color or for mere party advantage is himself unworthy of the suffrage. With the suffrage question adjusted upon an educational basis the Negroes would have the power to work out their political emancipation, the white people having made education necessary and provided the means for attaining it.

 

When the question of Negro domination is settled the path of progress of both races will be very much cleared. Race conflicts will then be less frequent and race feeling less bitter. With more friendly relations growing up, and with more concentration of energy on the part of the Negroes in industrial lines, the opportunities for them will be widened and the task of finding industrial adjustment in the struggle for life made easier. The wisest and best leaders among the Negroes, such as Booker Washington and the late Charles Price, have tried to turn the attention of the Negroes from politics to the more profitable pursuits of industry, and if the professional politician would cease inspiring the Negroes to seek salvation in political domination over the whites, the race issue would soon cease to exist.

 

The field is broad enough in the South for both races to attain all that is possible to them. In spite of the periodic political conflicts and occasional local riots and acts of individual violence, the relations between the races, in respect to nine tenths of the population, are very friendly. The general condition has been too often judged by the acts of a small minority. The Southern people understand the Negroes, and feel a real fondness for those that are thrifty and well behaved. When fairly treated the Negro has a strong affection for his employer.

He seldom forgets a kindness, and is quick to forget a wrong. If he does not stay long at one place, it is not that he dislikes his employer so much as that he has a restless temperament and craves change. His disposition is full of mirth and sunshine, and not a little of the fine flavor of Southern wit and humor is due to his influence. His nature is plastic, and while he is easily molded into a monster, he is also capable of a high degree of culture.

Many Negroes are thoroughly honest, notwithstanding their bad environment and hereditary disposition to steal. Negro servants are trusted with the keys to households to an extent that, probably, is not the case among domestics elsewhere in the civilized world.

 

It is strange that two races working side by side should possess so many opposite traits of character. The white man has strong will and convictions and is set in his ways. He lives an indoor, monotonous life, restrains himself like a Puritan, and is inclined to melancholy. The prevalence of Populism throughout the South is nothing but the outcome of this morbid tendency. Farmers and merchants are entirely absorbed in their business, and the women, especially the married women, contrast with the women of France, Germany, and even England, in their indoor life and disinclination to mingle with the world outside. Public parks and public concerts, such as are found in Europe, which call out husband, wife, and children for a few hours of rest and communion with their friends, are almost unknown in the South. The few entertainments that receive sanction generally exclude all but the well-to-do by the cost of admission. The life of the poor in town and country is bleak and bare to the last degree.

 

Contrasting with this tendency is the free-and-easy life of the blacks. The burdens of the present and the future weigh lightly upon their shoulders. They love all the worldly amusements; in their homes they are free entertainers, and in their fondness for conversation and love of street life they are equal to the French or Italians.

 

May we not hope that the conflict of these two opposite races is working out some advantages to both, and that the final result will justify all that the conflict has cost?

 

SIGNS OF PROGRESS AMONG THE NEGROES

by Booker T. Washington

 

In addition to the problem of educating eight million negroes in our Southern States and ingrafting them into American citizenship, we now have the additional responsibility, either directly or indirectly, of educating and elevating about eight hundred thousand others of African descent in Cuba and Porto Rico, to say nothing of the white people of these islands, many of whom are in a condition about as deplorable as that of the negroes. We have, however, one advantage in approaching the question of the education of our new neighbors.

 

The experience that we have passed through in the Southern States during the last thirty years in the education of my race, whose history and needs are not very different from the history and needs of the Cubans and Porto Ricans, will prove most valuable in elevating the blacks of the West Indian Islands. To tell what has already been accomplished in the South under most difficult circumstances is to tell what may be done in Cuba and Porto Rico.

 

To this end let me tell a story.

 

In what is known as the black belt of the South—that is, where the negroes outnumber the whites—there lived before the Civil War a white man who owned some two hundred slaves, and was prosperous.

At the close of the war he found his fortune gone, except that which was represented in land, of which he owned several thousand acres. Of the two hundred slaves a large proportion decided, after their freedom, to continue on the plantation of their former owner.

 

Some years after the war a young black boy, who seemed to have “rained down,” was discovered on the plantation by Mr. S–—, the owner. In daily rides through the plantation Mr. S–— saw this boy sitting by the roadside, and his condition awakened his pity, for, from want of care, he was covered from head to foot with sores, and Mr. S–— soon grew into the habit of tossing him a nickel or a dime as he rode by. In some way this boy heard of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, and of the advantages which it offered poor but deserving colored men and women to secure an education through their own labor while taking the course of study. This boy, whose name was William, made known to the plantation hands his wish to go to the Tuskegee school. By each one “chipping in,” and through the efforts of the boy himself, a few decent pieces of clothing were secured, and a little money, but not enough to pay his railroad fare, so the boy resolved to walk to Tuskegee, a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles. Strange to say, he made the long distance with an expenditure of only twenty cents in cash. He frankly told every one with whom he came in contact where he was going and what he was seeking. Both white and colored people along the route gave him food and a place to sleep free of cost, and even the usually exacting ferrymen were so impressed with the young negro’s desire for an education that, except in one case, he was given free ferriage across the creeks and rivers.

 

One can easily imagine his appearance when he first arrived at Tuskegee, with his blistered feet and small white bundle, which contained all the clothing he possessed.

 

On being shown into my office his first words were: “I’s come.

S’pose you been lookin’ for me, but I didn’t come on de railroad.”

Looking up the records, it was found that this young man had been given permission to come several months ago, but the correspondence had long since been forgotten.

 

After being sent to the bath-room and provided with a tooth-brush,—for the tooth-brush at Tuskegee is the emblem of civilization,—William was assigned to a room, and was given work on the school farm of fourteen hundred acres, seven hundred of which are cultivated by student labor. During his first year at Tuskegee William worked on the farm during the day, where he soon learned to take a deep interest in all that the school was doing to teach the students the best and most improved methods of farming, and studied for two hours at night in the class-room after his hard day’s work was over. At first he seemed drowsy and dull in the night-school, and would now and then fall asleep while trying to study; but he did not grow discouraged. The new machinery that he was compelled to use on the farm interested him because it taught him that the farm work could be stripped of much of the old-time drudgery and toil, and seemed to awaken his sleeping intellect. Soon he began asking the farm-instructors such questions as where the Jersey and Holstein cattle came from, and why they produced more milk and butter than the common long-tailed and long-horned cows that he had seen at home.

 

His night-school teachers found that he ceased to sleep in school, and began asking