Produced by KD Weeks, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriberâs Note: This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the â_â character as _italic_. Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced. Marginal notes normally appear near the top of the paragraph they annotate. They appear here in-line as [Sidenote: <text>]. Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriberâs note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. THROUGH AFRO-AMERICA THROUGH AFRO-AMERICA AN ENGLISH READING OF THE RACE PROBLEM BY WILLIAM ARCHER LONDON CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD. 1910 TO H. G. WELLS WITH WHOM I SO RARELY DISAGREE THAT, WHEN I DO, I MUST NEEDS WRITE A BOOK ABOUT IT CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ix PART FIRST SOUTHWARD HO! I. ON THE THRESHOLD 3 II. THE BLACK MANâS PARADISE 11 III. THE NIGHTMARE OF THE SOUTH 19 IV. RHETORIC IN LOUISVILLE 29 V. âDISCRIMINATIONâ IN MEMPHIS 38 VI. TWO LEADERS 45 VII. A WHITE TYPE AND A BLACK 59 VIII. IN THE BLACK BELT 67 IX. EDUCATION AND THE DEMONSTRATION FARM 76 X. NEW ORLEANS 85 XI. CRIME-SLAVERY AND DEBT-SERFDOM 94 XII. AN INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY 104 XIII. HAMPTON: AN AFTERMATH 114 XIV. BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA 126 XV. THE CITY OF A HUNDRED HILLS 135 XVI. PROHIBITION 146 XVII. THE NEGRO HOME AND THE NEGRO CHURCH 156 XVIII. CHARLESTON 167 XIX. THE FRINGE OF FLORIDA 177 PART SECOND THE PROBLEM FACED PART THIRD HAVANA TO PANAMA I. THE AMERICAN IN CUBA 247 II. A GAME FOR GODS 257 III. A FRAGMENT OF FAIRYLAND 263 IV. THE PANAMA CANAL 276 INDEX 293 INTRODUCTION âThe problem of the twentieth century,â says Mr. W. B. Du Bois, âis the problem of the colour line.â That, no doubt, is the view of a man born âwithin the veilâ; but, whatever our point of view, we cannot but admit that racial adjustment is one of the two or three most urgent problems of the near future. Ought the colour-lines drawn by Nature to be enforced by human ordinance, and even by geographical segregation? Or ought they to be gradually obliterated by free intermingling and intermarriage? Or, while intermarriage is forbidden (whether by law or public sentiment), is it possible for people of different colours to dwell together in approximately equal numbers and on terms of democratic equality? Or is it for the benefit of both races that one race should always maintain, by social and political discriminations, its superiority over the other? Or is this opinion a mere hypocritical disguise of the instinct which begot, and maintained throughout the ages, the âinstitutionâ of slavery? These are questions which the coming century will have to answer, not only in America, but in Africa. It is in the Southern United States, however, that the problem presents itself in its acutest and most fully developed form. In South Africa it is looming ahead, in America it is present and hourly insistent. Though the conditions in the two countries can never be precisely similar, yet the experience of the one ought certainly to be of the utmost value in shaping the counsels of the other. My interest, then, in the colour-question in the South was not a mere abstract interest in an alien problem; nor was it due solely to the special sympathy for America and all things American which (I am happy to say) has been strong in me from my youth upward. It was a personal interest which ought, I think, to be shared by every Englishman who is so far an Imperialist as to feel that he cannot simply wash his hands of the problems of Empire. It was heightened, moreover, by the feeling that a great deal of what passes in England as advanced thought on the subject of race-relations is very superficial and remote from the realities of the case. This suspicion had for some time beset me, and was perhaps the main factor in inducing me to utilize a rare interval of leisure in getting into touch with the facts of the problem as it presents itself in Afro-America. Some thinkers display an almost furious antipathy to the very idea of race. They hold it a mere superstition or illusion, and look forward, not only with equanimity, but with eagerness, to an obliteration of all race-boundaries in a universal âpan-mixture.â I cannot believe that this is a true ideal of progress; nor does it seem to me that the world at large is verging in that direction. No considerable fusion is taking place between the European and the Asiatic races. No one dreams of seeking on that line the solution of our difficulties in India. No practical politician dreams of encouraging yellow immigration into America or Australia on the same terms of permanent citizenship and free intermixture that obtain in the case of white settlers. If the myriads of China and Japan are to âexpandâ in the same sense in which the European races have expanded, it must be by conquest and something like extermination. That is, in fact, the âyellow perilâ which haunts so many dreams. The truth is, it seems to me, that no race problem, properly so called, arises until two races are found occupying the same territory in such an approach to equal numbers as to make it a serious question which colour shall ultimately predominate. A handful of white administrators, as in India, or of white traders, as in China and Japan, may give rise, no doubt, to important and difficult questions, but they are not specifically questions of race. No one doubts that India belongs to the Indians; that is the theory of the British ârajâ no less than of the most fervid Nationalist; the dispute is as to whether the Indian people do or do not benefit by the British administration. So, too, in China and Japan: it may be doubtful whether the privileges accorded to foreigners are judicious, but neither the racial integrity nor the political autonomy of the yellow races is for a moment in question. The race problem means (in its only convenient definition) the problem of adjustment between two very dissimilar populations, locally intermingled in such proportions that the one feels its racial identity potentially threatened, while the other knows itself in constant danger of economic exploitation. Now these conditions, as a matter of experience, arise only where a race of very high development is brought into contact with a race of very low development, and only where the race of low development is at the same time tenacious of life and capable of resisting the poisons of civilization. In other words, the race problem, as here defined, is a purely Afro-European or Afro-American problem. Where civilization has met civilization, as in India, China, Japan, there has never been any question of local intermixture in such proportions as to give rise to the conditions indicated. Where civilization has met savagery, elsewhere than in Africa, the savage race has generally dwindled to a degraded and negligible remnant. The African races alone have shown considerable tenacity of life and considerable power of putting on at any rate a veneer of civilization. This is as much as to say that only between Europeans and Africans has the active competition arisen which is the essence of the race problem. In some parts of Spanish America it has resulted in the practical fusion of the races; a solution which, as above noted, commends itself to some thinkers. But where fusion is resisted, the problem must one day become acute; and that day has arrived in the Southern States. There the two races are more nearly than anywhere else on a footing of numerical equality; there, more than anywhere else, is the ambition of the African race stimulated by political theory and seconded by education, organization, and considerable material resources. The Southern States, then, are, so to speak, the great crucible in which this experiment in inter-racial chemistry is working itself out. There you can watch the elements simmering. To some hopeful eyes they may even seem to be clarifying and settling down. The following pages will show that I, personally, am not confident of any desirable solution, unless a new element of far-sighted statesmanship can be thrown into the brew. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, author of that admirable series of studies, âFollowing the Colour-Line,â was good enough to map out for me a zig-zag tour through the States east of the Mississippi, which enabled me to employ my time to the best advantage. I was also much indebted to Mr. Baker, as well as to Mr. Walter H. Page and Dr. Booker Washington, for many valuable introductions. Wherever I went, my first preoccupation was with the colour question; but I also welcomed the opportunity to see something of the great agricultural, industrial, and educational revival which is rapidly transmuting the South from a ghost-haunted region of depression and impoverishment into one of the most eagerly progressive, and probably one of the wealthiest, of modern communities. This book, then, is mainly to be regarded as a series of rapid impressions of travel, intermingled with conversations, in which I try to present the colour-problem from various points of view, and to suggest the temper in which it is approached by men of both races. In the middle of my travel-sketches, however, at the point where I leave the American Continent, I have inserted an essay of some length which embodies my reflections on the preceding âchoses vuesâ with such tentative conclusions as I felt justified in drawing. This essay, which appeared in _McClureâs Magazine_ for July, 1909, has elicited a good deal of criticism in the South, which has led me to modify one or two passages. I am happy to say, however, that none of the criticism which has reached me, either privately or through the Press, has been in any sense hostile. Many critics have declared impossible the only solution of the problem which at all commends itself to me; but only one out of a hundred or thereabouts has accused me of seriously misrepresenting the conditions. From Florida, I proceeded by way of Cuba and Jamaica to a detached but very important section of the United States, the Canal Zone at Panama. I make no apology for including in this book a few notes of that journey. For one thing, I was still in Afro-America, still studying certain aspects of the colour-problem. But another motive prompts the inclusion of these sketchesâthe hope that some readers may be moved to follow in my footsteps, and enjoy a very delightful and interesting tour. Anything is worth doing, in my judgment, that tends to encourage Englishmen to cross the Atlantic. If any considerable proportion of the English travelling public could be induced to set their faces westward, we should soon get rid of many of the little prejudices and ignorances which still interpose themselves between the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon stem. The route which I followedâroughly, New York, Washington, Memphis, New Orleans, Charleston, Florida, Cuba, Jamaica, Panama, Cartagena, Trinidad, Southamptonâis as easy and comfortable as it is interesting and instructive. No doubt the completion of the Canal will carry a rush of travel in this direction. But even before the gates of the Pacific are opened, I see no reason why the fascinating ferment of the Southern States, in conjunction with the glorious beauty of the West Indies, should not attract the travelling Briton. The chapters in the First Part of this book appeared, with two exceptions, in the _Westminster Gazette_; those in the Third Part, with one exception, appeared either in the _Morning Leader_ or the _Pall Mall Magazine_. The chapters on Hampton and on Jamaica are here printed for the first time. PART I SOUTHWARD HO! I ON THE THRESHOLD The scene is Chicago; the occasion, a luncheon-party at the Cliff-Dwellersâ Club. All the intellect and talent of the Middle West (I am credibly assured) are gathered round one long table. I mention to an eminent man of letters that I am going into the South. âWell,â he says, âyou are going into a country that is more foreign to me than most parts of Europe. I do not understand the Southern people, or their way of looking at things. I never feel at home among them. The one thing I have in common with them is a strong antipathy to the black man.â This, of course, is only an individual point of view; but many other men are listening, and, while some nod assent, no one protests. But here is another point of view. A few days later I met an old friend, a Philadelphian, who said, âI like the South and the Southerners. They are men of our own stock and our own tongueâeven the âpoor whitesâ whom slavery and the hookworm have driven to the wall. In the North we are being jostled and elbowed aside by the foreigner, who murders our speech, and knows nothing and cares nothing about our history or traditions. Yes; give me the South. It is true that, intellectually, it scarcely exists. The Southerner may be living in the twentieth century, but he has skipped the nineteenth. His knowledge of literature, for instance, if he have any at all, stops at the Waverley Novels and âThe Corsair.â But Iâm not sure that that isnât part of the charm.â Thus early did I learn that no two men can talk to you about the South without flatly contradicting each other. It was evident that my plan must be simply to gather views and impressions as I went along, and trust to sifting and co-ordinating them later. An invitation, equivalent to a command, called me to Washington. [Sidenote: Nearing the Colour-line.] For a whole day my slow train dragged wearily through Northern Ohio; and in the course of that day two young couples in succession got into my car, who interested me not a little. In each case it seemed to me that the girl had a streak of black blood in her, while the young man was in each case unimpeachably white. As to one of the girls, I was practically certain; as to the other I may have been mistaken. Her features were aquiline and she was uncommonly handsome; but the tint of her skin, and more especially of her eyeballs, strongly suggested an African strain. Both girls were lively, intelligent, well-spoken, well-dressed, well-manneredâdistinctly superior, one would have said, to the commonplace youths by whom they were accompanied. Yet I felt pretty certain that a few hoursâ travel would have taken them into regions where they would be forbidden by law to sit in the same railroad-car, and where marriage between them would be illegal.[1] ----- Footnote 1: âIntermarriage between the races is forbidden by law in all the Southern States, and also in the following Northern and Western States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah. In all other Northern and Western States marriage between the races is lawful.ââRay Stannard Baker: âFollowing the Colour-Line.â ----- At any rate, even supposing that in these particular cases my conjecture was mistaken, it was not on the face of it improbable. On the other side of the Ohio River, these girls would have had, so to speak, to clear themselves of the suspicion of African blood, else any association on equal terms between them and their male companions would have been regarded as an outrage. This seemed a senseless and barbarous state of affairs. But I was there to observe, not (as yet) to form conclusions; and I kept my mind open, wondering whether, in the coming weeks, I should discover any reason or excuse for the apparent barbarism. In Indiana, rain; in Ohio, torrents; at Pittsburg, a deluge. But when I awaken next morning, just on Mason and Dixonâs line, the sun is shining on the woods of Maryland, and I feel at once that the South and the spring are here. [Sidenote: âSummer is i-cumen in.â] These spring coppices are far richer in colour than any of our English woods. They run the whole gamut of green, from the blue-green of the pine to the silver-green of the poplar and the gold-green of the birch; and the greens are freely interspersed with red and yellow foliage, and with white and pink blossoms. The red is that of the maple, whose blush at birth is almost as vivid as its flush in death. The new Union Station at Washington is a vast and grandiose palace of shining white. Its âconcourseâ (a new American word for the central hall of a station) seems a really impressive piece of architecture. But it is a Sabbath Dayâs journey from the platforms to the cabs; and the porters seem to be making a Sabbath Day of it, for I cannot find a single one. Let me not embark, however, on the endless story of a travellerâs tribulations. Every country has its own inconveniences, and recriminations are not only idle but mischievous. The city of Washington is one great sea of exquisite green, out of which the buildings rise like marble rocks and islands. Yes, I am in the South; the leafless elms of New England and the shrewd, bracing blasts of New York are left behind. And this day of sunshine was the first of many days. Save for a few thunder-showers, the South was to be all sunshine for me. And with the sunshineâthe Negro. Here he is in his thousands, and in his deepest dye. [Sidenote: A Question of Elbow-room.] In the North one sees him now and then, but he is swamped and submerged in the crowds of the great cities. To be very clearly conscious of his presence you must go to special quarters of New York or Chicago. âColoured personsâ (seldom pure blacks) are waiters at hotels and clubs, but no longer at the best hotels and clubs. The Pullman porter is always coloured; so are most, if not all, of the ordinary railway portersâwhen there are any. But âat the Northâ (as they say here) you have to go out of your way to find any problem in the negro. The black strand in the web of life is not yet particularly prominentâwhatever it may be destined to become. But here in Washington the web of life is a chequer of black-and-whiteâa shepherdâs tartan, I think they call it. In 1900 there were over 85,000 negroes in the cityânow there must be at least 100,000, in a total population of considerably under a quarter of a million, or something like the population of Nottingham. Imagine nearly half the population of Nottingham suddenly converted into black and brown peopleâpeople different not only in colour but in many other physical characteristics from you and me. Imagine that all the most striking of these differences are in the direction of what our deepest instincts, inherited through a thousand generations, compel us to regard as uglinessâan ugliness often grotesque and simian.[2] Imagine that this horrible metamorphosis--or, if you shy at the word âhorrible,â let us say fantasticâimagine this fantastic metamorphosis to have taken place as a punishment for certain ancestral crimes and stupidities, of which the living men and women of to-day are personally innocent. Can you conceive that, after the first shock of surprise was over, Nottingham would take up life again as a mere matter of course, feeling that there was no misfortune in this mingling of incongruities, no problem in the adjustment of their relations? ----- Footnote 2: There is no doubt, I think, that the white manâand here I mean not the Southerner, nor the American, but the white man as suchâresents in extremes of the negro type just that air of caricaturing humanity which renders the monkey tribe so painful and humiliating to contemplate. This seems an inhuman saying, but instinctive emotions are fundamental facts which it is useless to blink. And the suggestion of caricature is the stronger, the more closely the negro mimics the white man in dress and bearing. In Washington, on a Sunday, one meets scores of fat, middle-aged negro women, decked out in an exaggerated extreme of European fashion, from whom one can only look away as from something grotesque and degradingâa page of Swift at his bitterest. Yet the same women in cotton gowns and bandana headgear might look far from unpleasing. No doubt the like uneasy sense of humiliation besets one on seeing white women decked in finery unsuited to their age or their contours. But that does not alter the fact that the urban negro of either sex, when he or she indulges in extremes of European adornment, is a spectacle highly disturbing to Caucasian self-complacency. Caricature is none the more agreeable for being, in a certain sense, just. ----- Do not object that in Washington there has been no sudden metamorphosis, but that the condition of things has gradually come to pass through the slow operation of historic forces. That makes no real difference, save that the Washingtonian has no âfirst shock of surpriseâ to get over. The essence of the matter is that half of the elbow-room of life is taken up by an alien race. Even disregarding, as (perhaps) temporary and corrigible, the condition of hostility between the races, we cannot but see in the bare fact of their juxtaposition in almost equal numbers, and, theoretically, on a standing of equal citizenship, an anomalous condition of affairs, as to the probable outcome of which history affords us no guidance. Walk the streets of Washington for a single day, and you will realize that the colour-problem is not, as some English and Northern American writers assume, a chimera sprung from nothing but the inhuman prejudice of the Southern white. It is not a simple matter which a little patience and good-temper will presently arrange. It is a real, a terrible difficulty, not to be overcome by happy-go-lucky humanitarianism. It may be a great pity that Nature implanted race-instincts deep in our breastsâNature has done so many thoughtless things in her day. But there they are, not to be ignored or sentimentalized away. They are part of the stuff of human character, out of which the future must be shaped. The wise statesman will no more disregard them than the wise carpenter will disregard the grain of a piece of timberâor the knots in it. One principle I arrived at very early in this investigationânamely, that black is not always white, nor white invariably black. II THE BLACK MANâS PARADISE It was my good fortune to have for my hosts in Washington two active sympathizers with the negro. The husband hails from a North-Western State; the wife is a New Englander. They knew personally some of the Abolitionist leaders, and are still full of their spirit. They related to me cruel and deplorable incidents in the everyday life of the streets. âOne afternoon,â said my host, âI was sitting peaceably in a street-car, when I was suddenly conscious of an altercation between the conductor and a coloured man. The absolute rights of the matter I donât know, but it had somehow arisen out of a recent modification of the âtransferâ system, which the coloured man probably did not understand. I had scarcely realized what was happening, before men were standing on the seats of the car, shouting, âKill the dââd nigger! Weâll all stand by you! All Virginia is behind you!â The motor-man detached the heavy brass handle by which he works the car, ran up to the negro, and had actually raised it to strike. I interposed, and told the man that, if anything happened, he would get into trouble for leaving his post. He replied: âThe niggerâs abusive,â but sullenly went back to his platform.â â_Was_ the nigger abusive?â I asked. âI donât know. I didnât hear him say anything; but it is quite possible that he had been âsassy.â All I know is that he stood his ground like a man, with that yelling crowd around him.â âAnd what happened?â âOh, the thing blew over. The negro walked away, and the crowd dispersed. As I took my seat again in the car, the man next me said, âIf that had happened in South Carolina, he would have been a dead nigger.ââ âNot long ago,â my hostess said, âI was in a crowded street-car. [Sidenote: Street-Car Episodes.] A black woman with a baby got in, and had to stand. You know how our Washington cars are constantly rounding corners; and at every curve the woman was nearly thrown from her feet. Presently one of two white shop-girls who were sitting near her rose and gave the mother her place. The two girls soon after got out; and as they passed me, the one who had kept her seat said to the other, âI wonder you would do such a thing!â âDidnât you see she had a baby?â the other replied; so, after all, we are not quite without humanity.â âBut tell about the two boys,â my host put in. âOh, that was two or three years ago. I noticed in a street-car a very distinguished-looking old man with two boys of about fourteen and twelve, evidently his grandsons. I thought what very nicely-mannered boys they were. A white woman got in, and, the car being full, the elder boy rose and gave her his seat. Immediately after, a mulatto woman got in, very well and quietly dressedâentirely a lady in manner and appearance. The younger boy was rising to give her his seat, when the elder pushed him down angrily, saying quite aloud, âI thought you knew better than to get up for a nigger.ââ âDid the lady hear?â âOh, perfectly. It was most painful.â âAnd what said the distinguished grandfather?â âHe smiled, and nodded to the elder boy.â [Sidenote: Mr. Roosevelt and the Washerwoman.] I took out my pocket-book and handed my hostess a cutting I had made a few days before. It was a letter signed âEdgar S. Walz,â and ran thus: âTo the Editor of the _New York Times_. âI read in your Sundayâs issue an item headed âSubway Manners: Boys keep their Seats rather than Give to a Sick Old Woman,â which reminds me of the first time I saw Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, about eight or nine years ago. He was sitting next to me in a Broadway car, and somewhere along about Thirtieth-street the car stopped to let some people on. All secured seats except a coloured woman with a large bundle of clothes. As soon as Mr. Roosevelt saw that she had to stand, he jumped up, took off his hat, and bowed as graciously as though she were the first woman in the land.â âYes,â said my hostess, as she handed back the cutting; âyou will find these differences.â âOf course,â I said, âMr. Roosevelt is a Northerner.â âIâm afraid that doesnât always mean liberality of feeling nowadays,â was the reply. âI should rather say Mr. Roosevelt is Mr. Roosevelt.â My host is a chief of department in a large Government office. [Sidenote: Sent to Coventry.] âHave you any coloured people working under you?â I asked him. âNot long ago,â he replied, âa coloured girl was sent to meâI think because they knew that I would âkickâ less than any other chief of department. It was suggested to me that I should assign her some special work by herself. I refused. âNo,â I said, âif she comes to me at all, she follows the regular routine.â I made a point of speaking to the three most responsible young women among my clerksâall girls of good family and standingâand telling them they must behave well to her.â âAnd how did they behave?â âOh, well enough, on the surface; there was no trouble; but she was quietly sent to Coventry. Soon afterwards a Russian girl entered the department, who knew nothing and cared nothing about our prejudices. She made friends with the coloured girl; but when she sat at the same table with her in the lunch-room, the quadroon herself said to her, âYou mustnât do this; youâll get into trouble with the others. They donât behave badly to me; but when I seat myself even at the other end of a long table they make an excuse to move away.ââ âHow are negroes placed in these positions?â I asked. âWhy, through various political âpulls.ââ âDo you think it a wise policy to try to break down the colour-line here and thereâat this point and thatâby the nomination of negroes to Government appointments?â âAh, that is just the question.â âMeantime,â I asked, âare matters getting better or worse?â âOh, worseâdecidedly worse,â said my hostess. âThey are coming to something like open war. For instance, I constantly see stone-fights between white boys and black boys in the open space outside our house. That doesnât mean much, perhaps; for boys will be boys everywhere. But sometimes lately the white boys have seemed to go frantic, and have begun stoning black men and women who were going peaceably about their business. Once I had to telephone to the police to interfere, or I believe there would have been a riot.â âI am told that in New York the white and black street-boys play amicably together.â âYes,â said my host, âthat is because the blacks are comparatively few. The tension increases in the direct ratio of the number of negroes.â This I find to be essentially, if not quite universally, true. What is the inference? Is it not at bottom an instinct of self-preservation that spurs the South to inhumanityâan unreasoning, or half-reasoned, panic fear of racial submergence? There are many other factors in the situation; but I think, beyond all doubt, this is one. âYou can see any day on the street-cars,â said my host, âthe embitterment of feeling. Formerly a black man would always rise and give his seat to a white woman; now he aggressively refrains from doing so.â I repeated this to a friend in Baltimore, a gentleman of an old Southern family, who had fought for the Confederacy, even while he realized that the institution of slavery was doomed. [Sidenote: A Pessimistic View.] âYou must remember,â he said, âthat the problem is acute in Washington. The Washington negro is particularly bumptious and intolerable. Immediately after the war, Washington was the black manâs paradise. They flocked there in their thousands, thinking that the Government was going to do everything for them, and that there was nothing they had not a right to expect. That spirit still survives and makes trouble.â âAnd how do you feel as to the way things are shaping? Do you see any actual or probable improvement in the relations of the races?â âWhat shall I say?â he replied. âI do all I can to put the matter out of my thoughts. I do not personally feel the pinch of the problem. My children are in the North, and my life here pursues an even routine. I have old coloured servants, with whom I get on very well. But I am constitutionally a pessimist, and I confess I do not see how the thing is going to work out.â âEducation?â I suggested. âEducation is all very well; but if it removes some difficulties it raises others. It tends to make the negro unwilling to work where he is wanted, and desirous of working where he is not wantedâat any rate by the white artisan who is in the field before him. The industrial education of the black race, which is in some quarters regarded as a panacea, will no doubt do a great deal of good; but we cannot close our eyes to the fact that it will intensify race-friction in the labour market.â âStill, you are not one of the Southerners who want to keep the black ignorantâwho think that education, as a whole, merely teaches him ânot to know his placeâ?â âThat is an outworn and impossible point of view. But you can understand that even the reasonable Southerner feels a certain bitterness on the subject of education when he sees the black child marching off to a school provided by Northern philanthropy, while the child of the âpoor whiteâ goes into the cotton-factory.â[3] ----- Footnote 3: It is not only the child of the âpoor white,â in the special Southern sense of the term, that goes to the factory. Mr. Stannard Baker, in âFollowing the Colour-Line,â says: âOne day I visited the mill neighbourhood of Atlanta to see how the poorer classes of white people lived. I found one very comfortable home occupied by a family of mill employees. They hired a negro woman to cook for them, and while they sent their children to the mill to work, the cook sent her children to school!â ----- âYou say you have black servants?â âOh yes, I have; and many people still have. But you know the race as a whole is turning against domestic service. I have friends in Mobile, Alabama, who tell me that their servants make the most fantastic conditions. For instance, they wonât do a stroke of work after three oâclock. If you want a meal after that hour, you must prepare and serve it yourself. As for the abstraction of household stuff from the kitchen, it is carried on openly and systematicallyâthey call it âCookâs excursion.â In the case of domestic service, in fact, the difficult conditions which are being felt all over the world are intensified byâwhat shall I call it?âthe race pride, or the race resentment, of the black. Domestic service was one of the badges of slavery; and now, if he or she will undertake it at all, it must be on such terms as shall remove from it all taint of servility.â âA very natural feeling,â I remarked. âNo doubt; but not calculated to relieve the friction between the races.â III THE NIGHTMARE OF THE SOUTH My original plan had been to go from Washington to Hampton, Virginia, and see the great industrial school for negroes and Indians established by General Samuel Armstrong, the _alma mater_ of Mr. Booker Washington, and consequently of Tuskegee. But I found that both the President of Hampton and the President of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville were to be at a Southern Education Conference at Memphis; so, instead of going due south into Virginia, I turned my face south-westward towards Kentucky and Tennessee. But I determined to âstop offâ for a day at Virginia Hot Springs, where some friends had invited me to visit them. Virginia Hot Springs is nothing but a huge rambling hotel, with a number of âcottageâ dependencies. [Sidenote: A Happy Valley.] The hotel company has bought up the whole mountain-valley, and runs it like a little kingdom. It is a delightful place; the air fresh and sparkling, the hotel and cottages sufficiently picturesque, the basin of the valley entirely given up to the brilliant sward of the golf-course. Around the hotel runs a spacious âpiazza,â with innumerable rocking-chairs. A score of buggies and saddle-horses, at the disposition of the guests, gather round the steps. Inside, every American luxury is at command. You move noiselessly on deep-piled carpets; the news-stand is heaped with the latest magazines and novels; there is a little row of shops where you can buy hats and frocks, jewellery and bric-Ã -brac, at fifty per cent. over Fifth-avenue prices; andâmost indispensable luxury of allâthere is a stock- and share-brokerâs office, and there are long-distance telephones, whereby you can keep in touch with Wall Street and the various Exchanges. That curious oval excrescence at one corner of the building is the ballroom. It opens into the great hall of the hotel, called âPeacock Walkâ; for here the ladies assemble after dinner to air their âragsâ and their diamonds. My friends chartered a buggy, and drove me after lunch to Warm Springs, an old Colonial health-resort, where it is on record that General Washington came to nurse his gout; and thence to a point called Flagstaff Hill, or something of the sort, where we had a glorious view over an endless stretch of hill-country, running far into West Virginia. But, oh! the reckless, suicidal waste of timber that is going on here, as almost everywhere in America. Here, however, it is sheer thoughtlessness that is at workânot the criminal cupidity which is converting the forests of Maine and New Hampshire into wood-pulp, and ruining for generations to come the climate, the fertility, the water-power of the country. Our talk, of course, strays (not through my leading) to the question of the negro. [Sidenote: The Darkest Phase.] âI have two cousins,â says Mrs. X., âwho are sisters. One of them devotes all her spare money to the amelioration of the black race, while personally she loathes them and shrinks from them. The other has no philanthropic feeling whatever; she regrets that slavery was ever abolished; but she likes the black people personally; she goes among them, and nurses them when they are illâjust as she would a favourite horse or dog. That is in Philadelphia, where, as you know, I was born.â âAnd you yourselfâhow do you feel on the subject?â âI had lived so much abroad that I had no very definite feeling towards the black race, one way or another, until a few summers ago, when I spent some time at Aiken, South Carolina, where the bulk of the population is black. I donât think I am hysterical, but I assure you it was an almost intolerable sensation to walk down the main street of Aiken, even at midday, under the eyes of those hundreds of great hulking blacks, staring at you with half-suppressed insolence. It gives me a little shudder now to think of it.â âLast year,â said her husband, âI was shooting in North Carolina, in a district where the population is pretty evenly divided between white and black. I boarded in a farmerâs family. The grandfather had fought in the war, of course on the Confederate side; the father and mother were solid, unpretending, intelligent people. There was a school-house only a mile and a half away, but they could not let their two daughters go to it. They could not let them stir away from home unprotected. They had to pay for their education at home, while at the same time they were being taxed for the education of the negro children of the district. That is not a pleasant state of affairs.â [Sidenote: A Significant Admission.] Some time afterwards, I stated this case to a loading educator of negroes, a man widely recognized as one of the best friends of the race. âDo you think,â I asked him, âthat these girls could not safely have gone to school? Or was their parentsâ action the result of groundless, or, at any rate, exaggerated, panicâas of one who should forbid his children to pass through a wood lest a tree should fall upon them?â âIt would depend on the district,â was the reply. âIn some districts the girls could have gone to school safely enough; in others, no!â This, I think, was a terrible admission; for, after all, a âsafeâ district can only be one in which no outrage has occurred; and that is no guarantee against its occurring to-morrow.[4] What father, what husband, is going to rest on such security? ----- Footnote 4: In a paper read in 1901, Mr. A. H. Stone said of the Yazoo Mississippi Delta: âThere is now no more feeling of fear on the white manâs part, whether for himself or his wife or his children, than in the days of slavery.â But he afterwards added: âWriting to-day, 1908, it would be necessary to modify this statement somewhatâcertainly for some part of this territory.â âThe American Race Problem,â p. 91. The footnotes to Mr. Stoneâs paper point out one or two other instances of a deterioration of conditions. ----- Here, then, I was face to face with the most hideous factor in the problemâthat which keeps popular sentiment in the South chronically inflamed and exasperated. Again and again, at every turn, I came upon it; not only in the shape of revolting stories, but in accounts of the constant and most burdensome precautions which the state of affairs imposes. To give only one instance: I asked an American long resident in Havana whether there was any trouble of this nature in Cuba. âNo,â he said, âpractically none. Itâs true that about a year ago a sort of half-witted black was accused of an outrage on a mulatto woman, and committed suicide in prison to escape the garotte; but I believe an American nigger has since confessed that he was the real culprit. Itâs very different,â he went on, âin my native State, Louisiana. I have two sisters married there. The husband of one of them never dares to leave his home unless he takes his wife with him. The husband of the other is compelled to leave home for days at a time; but he keeps a loaded shot-gun in every room in the house, and he has made his wife practice till she is a very fair shot, both with gun and revolver. There isnât a white man in the country districts that doesnât take similar precautions.â Think what it means to have this nightmare constantly present to the mind of every woman and girl of a communityâat any rate in the country districts, and on the outskirts of the towns. [Sidenote: A Malign Enchantment.] No doubt the state of ânervesâ it sets up is responsible for many errors and cruelties. Many attempted outrages may be purely imaginary. Negroes may have been lynched or shot down, not only for crimes they themselves did not commit, but for crimes that were never committed at all.[5] But there are quite enough authentic cases of crimeâdenied by nobodyâto justify the horror of the South.[6] It is all very well to say that it is the precautions taken, and most of all the lynchings, that suggests the crime to vagrant, dissolute, drink-and-drug-ruined negroes. That is probably in great measure trueâthe evil moves in a vicious circle. But who or what is to break the circle of malign enchantment? Education? Yes, perhaps; but education is at best a slow process. I cannot to-day throw my revolver into the Mississippi because I hope that fifty years hence my grandson may have no use for it. ----- Footnote 5: Among the âCauses Assignedâ for lynchings in the statistical statement prepared by the Chicago _Tribune_, âRace Prejudiceâ stands fourth on the list; and in the four years, 1900-1903, twenty-four cases are assigned to it. Among the other causes are âUnknown offencesâ (10), âMistaken Identityâ (5), and âNo offenceâ (1). Footnote 6: âMaking allowance for all exaggerations in attributing this crime to negroes, there still remain enough well-authenticated cases of brutal assault on women by black men in America to make every negro bow his head in shame.ââ_Atlanta University Publications_, No. IX. (A negro monograph). ----- âDuring the war,â a very intelligent coloured man said to me, âthe plantersâ wives and children were left to the protection of the negroes. [Sidenote: Who is to Blame?] Not a single case of outrage occurred, and scarcely a case of theft or breach of trust. Had we been the lecherous brutes we are now supposed to be, we should have written the darkest page in history, and brought the Southern armies home to the defence of their own hearthstones.â That is true. It is admitted on every hand that the conduct of the slaves during the war was, on the whole, excellent, and in many cases touchingly beautiful.[7] And therein lies, by the way, not, certainly, an apology for slavery, but a proof that its most melodramatic horrors were exceptional. But what matters the admission that the malignant and bestial negro did not exist forty years ago, if it has to be admitted in the same breath that he exists to-day? ----- Footnote 7: âNo race ever behaved better than the negro behaved during the war. Not only were there no massacres and no outbreaks, but even the amount of defection was not large.... Many a master going off to the war entrusted his wife and children to the care of his servants with as much confidence as if they had been of his own blood. They acted rather like clansmen than like bondmen.... As Henry Grady once said, âA thousand torches would have disbanded the Southern army; but there was not one.âââThomas Nelson Page: âThe Negro: The Southernerâs Problem,â p. 21. ----- What has bred him? Who is responsible for his existence? History may one day apportion the burden between the doctrinaire self-righteousness of the respectable North, the rascality of the âcarpet-bagâ politician, the stiff-necked pride of the South, and the vanity, the resentfulness, and the savagery of the negro himself. But what avails recrimination or apportionment of blame, while the monstrous evilânone the less monstrous because it necessarily awakens a morbid imagination on both sidesâexists and calls aloud to be dealt with? While the relations of the two races remain as they are, there can be no doubt that an act of brutal lust often justifies itself to a semi-savage imagination as an act of warâa racial reprisal. And who shall say that a state of war does not exist? Few sensible men in the South have now a word to say for lynching.[8] It has proved itself as ineffectual in practice as it is unjustifiable in theory. [Sidenote: Lynch Law.] It cannot even be palliated as an ungovernable reaction of horror at the particular atrocity here in question; seeing that, as a matter of fact, more negroes are lynched for mere murder than for outrages on women.[9] There seems to be little hope, however, of a cessation of lynchings in the near future. The Southern Press abounds with evidences that the lynching impulse is strong, and is with difficulty held in check[10] even when the provocation is comparatively trifling. ----- Footnote 8: One of the most sensible men in the South is certainly Mr. E. G. Murphy, who writes (âThe Present South,â p. 177): âThe mob, so far as it has a conscious philosophy, has attempted the justification of its course upon these grounds: It has insisted that its methods were necessary in order to prevent the crime; in order to avoid the procrastination of the courts; and in order to protect the victim of assault from the ordeal of presenting testimony at the trial of the offender. It has become increasingly obvious, however, that the practice of lynching ... is not a remedy. It does not prevent crime. Through the morbid interest which it arouses, and through the publicity which it creates, it inflames to the utmost the power of criminal suggestion and aggravates all the conditions of racial suspicion and antagonism. The so-called âremedyâ has always been followed by new outbreaks of the disease, the most atrocious crimes coming at short intervals after the previous exercise of the mobâs philosophy of âprevention.ââ âLynching as a remedy,â says Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, âis a ghastly failure.â The opposite opinion, however, has still its champions. âThe lynch lightning,â says Mr. W. B. Smith (an anti-negro extremist), âseldom strikes twice in the same district or community.â âThe Colour-Line,â p. 259. Footnote 9: The commonly accepted statistics of lynchings are those supplied by the Chicago _Tribune_. I have before me the figures for the years 1885-1904, somewhat vitiated by the fact that the enumeration for 1888 is incomplete. It would appear that in these years 2942 lynchings in all occurred, 2042 of the victims being negroes, and the remaining 900 belonging to other races. But the proportion of negro lynchings steadily increased. In 1886, 71 negroes were lynched, as against 62 men of other races; whereas in 1901 the respective figures were 107 and 28. Out of the whole number of lynchings 25 per cent. were for rape, 42 per cent. for murder, and 33 per cent. for other offences. More than 80 per cent. of the whole number of lynchings occurred in the Southern States. Footnote 10: Washington, November 15, 1909. âNinety daysâ imprisonment was imposed to-day upon ex-Sheriff Joseph F. Shipp, of Chattanooga, Tenn., by the supreme court of the United States for contempt of court in failing to prevent the lynching of a negro, Edward Johnson, whose execution had been stayed by the court. âLuther Williams and Nick Nolan were sentenced to imprisonment for ninety days for connection with the lynching, and Jeremiah Gibson, the jailer, Henry Padgett and William Mayers, all of Chattanooga, for sixty days.â ----- One thing seems to me certainânamely,
{'title': 'Through Afro-America: An English Reading of the Race Problem by William Archer', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}