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

in the Southern states, with here and there a few exceptions, had practically no political control or political influence, except in sending delegates to national conventions, or in holding a few Federal positions by appointment. It became evident to many of the wise Negroes that the race would have to depend for its success in the future less upon political agitations and the opportunity of holding office, and more upon something more tangible and substantial. It was at this period in the Negro’s development, when the distance between the races was greatest, and the spirit and ambition of the colored people most depressed, that the idea of industrial or business development was introduced and began to be made prominent. It did not take the more level-headed members of the race long to see that while the Negro in the South was surrounded by many difficulties, there was practically no line drawn and little race discrimination in the world of commerce, banking, storekeeping, manufacturing, and the skilled trades, and in agriculture, and that in this lay his great opportunity. They understood that, while the whites might object to a Negro’s being a postmaster, they would not object to his being the president of a bank, and in the latter occupation they would give him assistance and encouragement. The colored people were quick to see that while the negro would not be invited as a rule to attend the white man’s prayer-meeting, he would be invited every time to attend the stockholders’ meeting of a business concern in which he had an interest and that he could buy property in practically any portion of the South where the white man could buy it. The white citizens were all the more willing to encourage the Negro in this economic or industrial development, because they saw that the prosperity of the Negro meant also the prosperity of the white man. They saw, too, that when a Negro became the owner of a home and was a taxpayer, having a regular trade or other occupation, he at once became a conservative and safe citizen and voter; one who would consider the interests of his whole community before casting his ballot; and, further, one whose ballot could not be purchased.

 

One case in point is that of the twenty-eight teachers at our school in Tuskegee who applied for life-voting certificates under the new constitution of Alabama, not one was refused registration; and if I may be forgiven a personal reference, in my own case, the Board of Registers were kind enough to send me a special request to the effect that they wished me not to fail to register as a life voter. I do not wish to convey the impression that all worthy colored people have been registered in Alabama, because there have been many inexcusable and unlawful omissions; but, with few exceptions, the 2700 who have been registered represent the best Negroes in the state.

 

Though in some parts of the country he is now misunderstood, I believe that the time is going to come when matters can be weighed soberly, and when the whole people are going to see that president Roosevelt is, and has been from the first, in line with this policy,—that of encouraging the colored people who by industry and economy have won their way into the confidence and respect of their neighbors. Both before and since he became President I have had many conversations with him, and at all times I have found him enthusiastic over the plan that I have described.

 

The growth of the race in industrial and business directions within the last few years cannot perhaps be better illustrated than by the fact that what is now the largest secular national organization among the colored people is the National Negro Business League. This organization brings together annually hundreds of men and women who have worked their way up from the bottom to the point where they are now in some cases bankers, merchants, manufacturers, planters, etc. The sight of this body of men and women would surprise a large part of American citizens who do not really know the better side of the Negro’s life.

 

It ought to be stated frankly here that at first, and for several years after the introduction of industrial training at such educational centres as Hampton and Tuskegee, there was opposition from colored people, and from portions of those Northern white people engaged in educational and missionary work among the colored people in the South. Most of those who manifested such opposition were actuated by the highest and most honest motives.

From the first the rank and file of the blacks were quick to see the advantages of industrial training, as is shown by the fact that industrial schools have always been overcrowded. Opposition to industrial training was based largely on the old and narrow ground that it was something that the Southern white people favored, and therefore must be against the interests of the Negro.

Again, others opposed it because they feared that it meant the abandonment of all political privileges, and the higher or classical education of the race. They feared that the final outcome would be the materialization of the Negro, and the smothering of his spiritual and aesthetic nature. Others felt that industrial education had for its object the limitation of the Negro’s development, and the branding him for all time as a special hand-working class.

 

Now that enough time has elapsed for those who opposed it to see that it meant none of these things, opposition, except from a very few of the colored people living in Boston and Washington, has ceased, and this system has the enthusiastic support of the Negroes and of most of the whites who formerly opposed it. All are beginning to see that it was never meant that ALL Negro youths should secure industrial education, any more than it is meant that ALL white youths should pass through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or the Amherst Agricultural College, to the exclusion of such training as is given at Harvard, Yale, or Dartmouth; but that in a peculiar sense a large proportion of the Negro youths needed to have that education which would enable them to secure an economic foundation, without which no people can succeed in any of the higher walks of life.

 

It is because of the fact that the Tuskegee Institute began at the bottom, with work in the soil, in wood, in iron, in leather, that it has now developed to the point where it is able to furnish employment as teachers to twenty-eight Negro graduates of the best colleges in the country. This is about three times as many Negro college graduates as any other institution in the United States for the education of colored people employs, the total number of officers and instructors at Tuskegee being about one hundred and ten.

 

Those who once opposed this see now that while the Negro youth who becomes skilled in agriculture and a successful farmer may not be able himself to pass through a purely literary college, he is laying the foundation for his children and grandchildren to do it if desirable. Industrial education in this generation is contributing in the highest degree to make what is called higher education a success. It is now realized that in so far as the race has intelligent and skillful producers, the greater will be the success of the minister, lawyer, doctor, and teacher.

Opposition has melted away, too, because all men now see that it will take a long time to “materialize” a race, millions of which hold neither houses nor railroads, nor bank stocks, nor factories, nor coal and gold mines.

 

Another reason for the growth of a better understanding of the objects and influence of industrial training is the fact, as before stated, that it has been taken up with such interest and activity by the Southern whites, and that it has been established at such universities as Cornell in the East, and in practically all of the state colleges of the great West.

 

It is now seen that the result of such education will be to help the black man to make for himself an independent place in our great American life. It was largely the poverty of the Negro that made him the prey of designing politicians immediately after the war; and wherever poverty and lack of industry exist to-day, one does not find in him that deep spiritual life which the race must in the future possess in a higher degree.

 

To those who still express the fear that perhaps too much stress is put upon industrial education for the Negro I would add that I should emphasize the same kind of training for any people, whether black or white, in the same stage of development as the masses of the colored people.

 

For a number of years this country has looked to Germany for much in the way of education, and a large number of our brightest men and women are sent there each year. The official reports show that in Saxony, Germany, alone, there are 287 industrial schools, or one such school to every 14,641 people. This is true of a people who have back of them centuries of wealth and culture. In the South I am safe in saying that there is not more than one effective industrial school for every 400,000 colored people.

 

A recent dispatch from Germany says that the German Emperor has had a kitchen fitted up in the palace for the single purpose of having his daughter taught cooking. If all classes and nationalities, who are in most cases thousands of years ahead of the Negro in the arts of civilization, continue their interest in industrial training, I cannot understand how any reasonable person can object to such education for a large part of a people who are in the poverty-stricken condition that is true of a large element of my race, especially when such hand training is combined, as it should be, with the best education of head and heart.

 

THE NEGRO IN THE REGULAR ARMY

by Oswald Garrison Villard

 

When the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment stormed Fort Wagner July 18, 1863, only to be driven back with the loss of its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, and many of its rank and file, it established for all time the fact that the colored soldier would fight and fight well. This had already been demonstrated in Louisiana by colored regiments under the command of General Godfrey Weitzel in the attack upon Port Hudson on May 27 of the same year. On that occasion regiments composed for the greater part of raw recruits, plantation hands with centuries of servitude under the lash behind them, stormed trenches and dashed upon cold steel in the hands of their former masters and oppressors. After that there was no more talk in the portion of the country of the “natural cowardice” of the negro. But the heroic qualities of Colonel Shaw, his social prominence and that of his officers, and the comparative nearness of their battlefield to the North, attracted greater and more lasting attention to the daring and bravery of their exploit, until it finally became fixed in many minds as the first real baptism of fire of colored American soldiers.

 

After Wagner the recruiting of colored regiments, originally opposed by both North and South, went on apace, particularly under the Federal government, which organized no less than one hundred and fifty-four, designated as “United States Colored Troops.”

Colonel Shaw’s raising of a colored regiment aroused quite as much comment in the North because of the race prejudice it defied, as because of the novelty of the new organization. General Weitzel tendered his resignation the instant General B. F. Butler assigned black soldiers to his brigade, and was