Volume 8 — THE TEACHING OF NEGRO HISTORY[1]

THE TEACHING OF NEGRO HISTORY[1]

The teaching of Negro history will serve the two-fold purpose of informing the white man and inspiring the Negro. The untoward circumstances under which the Negro lives make the teaching of his history imperatively necessary. When the founders of this government brought forth a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, many thought that the Negro was not regarded as a man. Thomas Jefferson himself, the writer of that document, held the Negro as a slave. The Negro was regarded as mere property, as a mere beast of burden. It required four years of bloody war to transform him from the position of a thing and place him in the ranks of men with a mere chance to struggle for actual democracy. These circumstances have caused one of the most intricate problems, the race problem. They have placed the American Negro in a category by himself. They have brought about the peculiar situation of a nation within a nation.

The teaching of Negro history would contribute much to the solution of this complicated race problem. The solution of any problem depends upon an adequate understanding of it. The most illuminating approach to the race problem is the historical approach. The white man of this country must be supplied with the real facts pertaining to the Negro. If not, all of his generalizations will be mere verbiage based upon tradition inspired by prejudice. To prevent a distorted social perspective and to develop a wider community consciousness, the white man should read history from the Negro's point of view.

For more than four centuries the Negro has been brought into contact with the European white man. For the most part the Teutonic stocks have regarded the Negro as a negative factor in history. The Latin and Slavic races have been more kindly disposed toward him. They have been disposed to give honor to whom honor is due regardless of race or color. To them color has been an incident of birth, not a badge of inferiority. In the annals of Russia Alexander Pushkin is recognized as her national poet. France considered Toussaint L'Ouverture, one of the most commanding figures of any age, a conspicuous example of the possibilities of the pure-blooded Negro. She recognized Alexander Dumas as her most distinguished romancer. Today she places this mantle upon the shoulders of René Maran.

The white people of the United States consider their race to be men of a superior breed and have ignored the Negro in recording European and American history. In their desire to substantiate the theory of the superiority of the white man and the inferiority of the Negro, they have failed to publish or suppressed the truth about the achievements of the Negro. They have looked for nothing praiseworthy in him; they have widely proclaimed his faults and failures. Well did Macaulay say:

By exclusive attention to one class of phenomena, by exclusive taste for one species of excellence the human intellect was stunted. The best historians of later days have been seduced from truth, not by their imagination, but by their reason. They far excel their predecessors in the art of deducing general principles from facts, but unhappily they have fallen into the error of distorting the facts to suit the general principles. They arrive at a theory from looking at a part of the phenomena; the remaining phenomena they strain or curtail to suit the theory. In every human character and transaction there is a mixture of good and evil: a little exaggeration, a little suppression, a judicious use of epithets, a watching and searching skepticism with respect to the evidence on one side, a convenient credulity with respect to every report or tradition on the other side may easily make a saint of Laud or a tyrant of Henry IV.

The Negro's most important contribution to American history is his unparalleled progress—his rise from poverty to wealth, from ignorance to knowledge, from backwardness to civilization. No other race has achieved more under the same conditions. No authentic history of the United States, then, can ignore or exclude the Negro. The part which he has played in American history has served largely to make the nation what it is today.

The fidelity of the Negro slave to his master, his devotion and loyalty to his country should constitute interesting historical themes. Under the regime of slavery the Negro was literally bought and sold like the very soil. His life was but one unceasing round of toil and misery; his faith, his hope, and his ambition, were fettered down with chains which he had no power to rend. Under these circumstances he contributed two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil. With the muscles of his brawny arms he cleared away the forests, tilled the soil, and made the wilderness to blossom like the rose. With his callous hands he has built railroads and cities in this country and has thus made this a goodly land in which to live.

Every time a foreign foe has threatened this nation, the Negro with unswerving patriotism and undaunted courage has contributed his full quota of protection. With profound sincerity he has offered his services to his country; with voluntary devotion he has laid himself upon her altar. It was Crispus Attucks who rushed upon the plains of Boston, struck the first blow and thus became the first martyr to the cause of American independence. It was the Negro soldiers who plunged dauntlessly into the face of death, scaled the heights of El Caney and San Juan and brought victory to the American flag. It was the black boys of the Ninth and the Tenth Cavalry that led the van and spilt their blood upon the troublous soil of Mexico in order that the dignity of the United States might be maintained. Negro soldiers were among the first to carry the stars and stripes into the trenches upon the gory field somewhere in France. These Negro soldiers have written their names high upon the scroll of fame.

You cannot erase their record without destroying some of the most important pages of American history. In the true annals of this nation their illustrious deeds of valor and patriotism cannot be hidden. Unobscured by prejudice these records shall shine forth and point out to posterity some of the most daring exploits and some of the most vicarious sacrifices. When the ponderous volumes of history rich with the spoils of time shall unroll their ample pages before the eyes of generations yet unborn, there in letters which he who runs may read should be inscribed the names of Johnson, Roberts, Butler, and many other black boys who staked their lives in the World War upon the contention that the world should be made safe for democracy.

Teaching of Negro history to the white people will give them a broader view. It will prove to them that the Negro has contributed a very considerable portion to the wealth, population and resources of the nation. It will engender a greater sympathy and a wider community consciousness. It will prove that the Negro is imbued with the white man's spirit and strives after his ideals. To the white man who truly studies Negro history will come views of tolerance and a spirit of justice, kindness, and helpfulness.

What benefit will accrue to the Negro from the teaching of Negro history? If the purpose of history teaching in our schools is to train for citizenship, what kind of a citizen will the Negro be, if the history he studies does not comprehend his race? The education of any race is incomplete unless it embodies the ideals of that race. The histories taught in Negro schools were not written in contemplation of the race. They were written for the white man and are the embodiment of his ideals and prejudices. The teaching of Negro history to the Negro youth is necessary to inspire race pride and arouse race consciousness. The study of what his race has done under adverse circumstances will animate the Negro youth to greater achievements. By contemplating the deeds of the worthy members of his own race the Negro youth will have his aspirations raised to attain the highest objective of life.

Because of existing conditions the inevitable conclusion is, that Negro history should be taught in all the schools of all races in the United States. The history outline should provide that Negro history supplement the regular text in United States history. The teaching of Negro history will bring a knowledge of those essential elements without which there can be no solution of the race problem. Standing upon the vantage ground of history retrospecting the past and prospecting the future, every real seeker of the truth can catch a glimmer of the glory in the realization of the prophetic utterance: "Princes shall come out of Egypt and Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hand to God."

J. W. Bell.

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