Chapter IX · PUBLIC OPINION IN RACE RELATIONS (continued 2)

The Negro should be given the advantage of education, culture and good employment. We should expect to grant him better living conditions on account of such advantages.

Prejudice against the Negro has its principal basis in not understanding him, as well as fear and an inborn dislike for people of another race.

There never seemed to be any conflicts in the South because the whites and blacks occupied separate parts of towns. Colored people in the South seem to prefer to live in communities to themselves, because a bond of sympathy holds them together.

It is better for a minority to bear an injustice than for an overwhelming majority to bear an injustice.

F—

Negroes should have the same rights as we.

I know of no distinguishing traits.

My opinion is based largely on reading, as I never lived in the South. I had no early contacts. There were few Negroes near, and none in my schools. As authorities I would mention Professor Du Bois, Fannie B. Williams, Professor Graham Taylor. I know an able colored woman, a member of the Chicago Woman's Club and women who have worked in our home.

Occasionally I read a Negro periodical.

The discussion of lynchings and riots at home and church lead most frequently to the Negro.

Our schools, trades and professions should be opened to Negroes and they be permitted to take care of themselves. Let them follow their own bent so long as it injures no one else.

Of course, when you educate Negroes you increase their demands. Grant their demands.

Egotism and the jealousy that we whites are better are the basis of prejudice.

It is true that a minority has no right to expect complete justice from the majority, if Negroes reason from experience; but the colored race probably has idealists who hope for better future treatment.

G—

The trouble is with the whites; selfishness and pride have caused the situation and the regulation of the Negro according to faulty concepts of right will always fail. The Stock Yards riots gave proof of equality in passion, cowardliness, and unfairness between blacks and whites.

Negroes lag in evolution through hinderment. They may put reason above emotion as they develop mentally, as do cultured whites, but a better evolution may bring trained intuition from crude emotion.

My opinions are based upon short trips South, residence in Louisville and northern contacts, plus general reading.

My only contacts are on the streets.

Children's talk and the term "Nigger" just called my attention to a race difference.

I know a few highly educated Negro pastors. I never read Negro papers. The subject of interracial marriage leads to the discussion of the Negro.

As a solution they should be distributed without boundaries, among whites, as to residence, occupation and society. They would not object; it is what they fight for—equality.

Negro faults are the result of retarded mental growth. Why further retard them? The problem ceases to be as their mental level rises. Prejudice is the result of selfishness in whites. Your third proposition is absolutely true.

Injustice to the minority by the majority is unconstitutional, un-Christian and unwise.

H—

My opinion is that the Negro is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as well as the white. The very fact that his skin is differently colored than mine is no reason why he should not be free to develop himself mentally, morally, and physically the same as I do. Observation is basis of my opinion. No contacts or warnings as a child. No friends particularly familiar with question.

I have given this matter some little consideration, and have discussed it with some Negroes as well as many white men. It is my opinion that the consensus of opinion among Negroes to whom I have talked is that they have no particular desire to mix socially with the white man, but that they do feel they should be given opportunity for development along those lines for which they are best fitted. I am not acquainted particularly with any of the leaders in this movement anywhere.

I read no Negro periodical. Racial equality is the subject that leads to the Negro.

In all circles where general subjects are usually discussed the question of the Negro arises.

Until the white man is ready to give the Negro a square deal, I would suggest that he be segregated, and given every opportunity for development possible under such segregation. If they objected I would insist upon majority rule.

Nothing is gained by keeping the Negro ignorant, any more than would be gained by keeping the white man ignorant. Education of all of our races will bring about the world's salvation.

Prejudice among white women has its basis in fear but not particularly among men. This is partly due to the publicity given to all acts against women by Negroes, in my judgment.

The history of the world has proved that most of the races on earth tend to group themselves, which is the natural thing, because of the community of interest.

Until the Golden Rule is accepted unanimously majority rule will continue to be the human law and under our present world political arrangements, it seems to be about as fair as any arrangement could be.

I—

The Negro seems to me to be evolutionally handicapped, but possesses the qualities of children—imitativeness, affection, loyalty, receptiveness, lack of responsibility, carelessness, improvidence. They also seem to me to lack racial pride, for which their history in this country may well account. There are fine Negroes and those who are as worthless as "poor white trash." To judge them all by either the best or the worst would be manifestly unfair. I feel that they have, as a race, never had a fair chance for their finest development.

I have lived among them and practiced medicine in their families for ten years.

The most tender, loving service, beyond monetary recompense, of one Negro woman who worked in my family for ten years. Her intimate, gentle, faithful services to members of my family in health and sickness will always endear her to us and make us more conscious of the possibilities of members of that race.

The community in which I was raised had so few Negroes that there was no occasion for contacts or prohibitions to association. I suppose as a boy I first became conscious of race difference.

I have discussed this question with intelligent Negroes, have heard some fine sermons by Negro preachers, and am somewhat familiar with the writings of Booker T. Washington and Du Bois.

I do not read their periodicals.

Mention of the servant cited in a foregoing question, newspaper accounts of lynchings, house-bombings most frequently lead to discussion of Negroes among our personal friends.

I feel that Negroes would be happier if segregated in neighborhoods which allowed contact with the dominant race. I feel that they are as unhappy to be isolated among whites as the whites would be to be isolated among Negroes. I feel they should have the right to live under decent conditions, with those things which make life livable and enjoyable. Probably part of my unwillingness to have them for neighbors lies in the fear of undesirable neighbors (bad citizens), in the fear of property depreciation which would follow, and because of the lack of interests in common that make for neighborly intercourse. I suppose I am as inconsistent as others in this, for in my heart I have no prejudice of which I am aware, yet I believe I am infected with the universal indefinite prejudice, if I could but analyze it thoroughly.

Their education should not be curtailed, but enlarged. Their demands should be granted if not incompatible with the common good.

It is probably true that prejudice is based on fear, a result of the abuse of female slaves by the whites in slavery time, and the resultant desire on the part of a few Negroes engendered during the reconstruction period by the carpet-baggers, to have social equality. I have discussed this subject of "social equality" with intelligent, fine Negroes, and believe they meant what they said when they assured me that among decent Negroes there is no more desire for this than there is among the white people. I feel that it is a bugaboo, useful in increasing fear and prejudice against the Negro.

By segregation, I did not mean isolation, but the natural grouping together of Negroes under wholesome conditions, but which permitted their contact through employment, through meetings for the common good, with the dominant race.

Even a minority has the right to expect and demand justice in opportunity to develop industrial, social and spiritual growth. I recognize that education of both whites and blacks is necessary to overcome fear and prejudice and make this possible.

J—

My opinion, which is still open to conviction, is that the Negro race overlaps the white race throughout the bulk of the frequency curves of distribution of intelligence of the two races; but the average of the Negro race is probably lower than that of the white race, and among the extreme varieties the Negroes probably go lower and the whites higher than the similar varieties of the other race. This refers to distribution of inherent capacity. But I believe that many of them are modifiable and differ only in their average distribution from similar qualities in whites. Also that certain distinguishing traits may be so adjusted to the circumstances under which Negroes are educated and employed as to be distinctly advantageous, both to themselves and to society.

Aside from my conversation with southerners, I have made a special study of the Negro problem in connection with my undergraduate work, and again at the University of Pennsylvania. I am familiar with a number of worth-while sources which can be listed on request. I lived for four winters in St. Louis, where I saw a great many Negroes, but knew none. Some excitement was caused there by an instructor inviting a mulatto school principal to address our sociology class. There was no protest here in Evanston. I also passed through the South, and stopped twice at New Orleans.

As a child in Portland, Oregon, I had two Negro nurses. At the age of perhaps seven or eight years, one of my nurses returned for a visit, and I was teased by companions for kissing her. That was my first consciousness of a racial difference.

My authorities and sources of importance are the N.A.A.C.P., Urban League, the Race Relations Commission, and certain Negroes. I might also mention the two Spingarns and Mr. Roger Baldwin. I know C. S. Johnson, T. Arnold Hill and the colored members of the Commission, together with the union leaders whom I heard. W. E. B. Du Bois, Haynes, Dr. Roman, J. W. Johnson, T. A. Hill, I regard as leaders among the Negroes.

I read the Crisis, and occasional newspapers. The Crisis is good except the fiction; the newspapers are rather poor.

Race relations, mob action, venereal disease, and housing questions lead to discussion of the Negro.

As a solution I suggest equal facilities, spontaneous segregation, spontaneous co-operation in common interest, education in matters of sex. In this program there would be no compulsion involved—unless possibly upon the whites.

Their education should be modified and their demands granted so far as they can be harmonized with the general good.

The main question involved in prejudice seems to me whether it is an interest or an instinct. If it is an interest then changes in social organization may with comparative ease abate the fear and the prejudice. If it is an instinct then we can only deal with it by repression and sublimation of a more deeply psychological character.

I question whether the prejudice is greater the greater the isolation. The word isolation should be analyzed into physical or economic on the one hand, and psychological on the other.

Plato asked, "What is justice?" The answer can never be final, and one's concept of it is usually colored by interest. A sociological definition of justice is in terms of harmony or harmonization of interests. Complete harmony never does exist, else we should have no thought and no progress, but harmonization of interests can be a continuous process, and is not irreconcilable with the existence of minorities and majorities.

K—

I have formed no definite opinions about Negroes. I am inclined to the opinion that generally the balance is found on the side of the white races. In general I believe they possess distinguishing traits of mentality and character. I find it very difficult, however, to define my opinion regarding this.

When I was in high school in Petersburg, Illinois, from 1895 to 1898, the school had an attendance of about forty. There were two Negroes, a boy and a girl. The boy's name was John Gaddie. I have the impression now that they both acted as though they were out of place. I found John a likeable boy. I think all of the members of the school liked him. I particularly liked him, so paid considerable attention to him, to which John reacted in a decided manner. He never forgot it. I do not like to shake hands with Negroes. I avoid it whenever I can, but I never had any hesitancy in shaking hands with John. After finishing school, I went to college and John went to work. His work was some sort of manual labor. From time to time when I went back to Petersburg I saw John, always spoke to him, shook hands with him and talked to him. John appreciated this very much and acted as though he regarded it a condescension on my part. I am not aware that I feel toward any other Negro as I feel toward John Gaddie.

I was first conscious of a racial difference when I first knew the Negro, which was when I was about fifteen years of age. In the small town of Petersburg (about 3,000 inhabitants) the Negroes there, as here in Chicago, lived in a segregated district. There were no clashes between the Negro and the whites but the racial difference was obvious enough.

I know very few Negroes. I know too little to be in a position to consider anyone as a leader among the colored people in Chicago or the United States. I never read a Negro periodical. The subjects most frequently leading to the discussion of the Negro are riots, housing problems, certain industrial problems, and, here in Chicago, politics.

The fact that the Negroes obstinately objected quite logically would not interfere with making any adjustment which seemed "wise." The social adjustment which seemed "wise" would have to be based on the possibility of objection on the part of the Negro. If the leaders were obstinate, some other solution would have to be worked out, but if the leaders saw that it was wise and for the best interest of the masses I would insist that the plan be tried out.

I do not comprehend what is meant by "demand." It may mean ambition for social standing in the sense of intermingling with the whites. It may mean other things. No matter what it means, I am not impressed, if the statement is true, that it is any reason for not educating the Negro. I am not impressed that it becomes necessary either to curtail or modify the Negro's education or to grant their demands whatever they may be.

I do not think it true that prejudice has its basis in fear.

So far as I am familiar with it there is naturally a very high degree of segregation of the Negro as to living quarters everywhere. I am not aware that the segregation which we now find of habitation brings about the development of special group prejudices. Undoubtedly, if there are or were such prejudices they would form the background of conflicts. It doesn't seem to me to follow that the greater the isolation the greater the prejudice.

There never is complete justice; but if a minority may not expect justice at the hands of an overwhelming majority it can expect no justice at all. The justice, if it comes at all, will be at the hands of an overwhelming majority. Theoretically, in this country all are entitled to justice. I know no reason why this should not be true in a practical sense. Furthermore, I see no reason why a minority may not only expect but demand, at the hands of an overwhelming majority, justice. It seems to me that if the overwhelming majority hoped to prosper, it would see to it that justice was dispensed to the minority. I do not find myself ready to place the Negro on an equal basis with the white in every respect, that is, socially and otherwise. I do not regard the failure to so place the Negroes as injustice to them.

L—

In general, I like the Negro, but I lament his presence in this country in large numbers. I have never heard a solution of the Negro problem. Their distinguishing traits are ignorance, good nature, mental weakness, and physical strength.

I have never heard of good arguments for extensive isolation.

M—

I have a strong prejudice, but it is undefined. For instance, the hair of Negroes always holds a peculiar fascination, but under no consideration could I touch it, but there was always a great curiosity about it. I was undecided whether or not I should shake hands or in any way touch a colored skin, but I am quite sure I would never do it from choice. The everyday contacts on street cars are the only personal experiences I have had. The fascination of watching them is constant.

When I was about two years old a family moved into the village bringing with them an old colored nurse. She was too old to work, and my childish remembrance is that she always sat in the corner near the fireplace with a pipe in her mouth. I did not know that the Negro could do anything else.

When I was about five years old a Negro came to the village and opened a barber shop. I remember my father telling mother about the Negro and how he took the three small children down to see "Snowball" as a matter of curiosity. My reaction was that the Negro was not a person such as I was accustomed to seeing, although there was no feeling of classing him as an animal.

The third contact came when I was half-grown. My father was prominent in politics and on election day the table was kept set so that anyone sent from the polls could have a meal. By some chance a Negro was sent and ate. After he had gone I remember seeing my mother take the plate and other dishes out in the yard and scour them with brick dust, evidently with an idea that something had rubbed off.

My information is largely taken from the books of Booker T. Washington. I admired Dunbar's poems when they were current in the newspapers and magazines. I have not seen any of them for many years but remember vividly, "When the Bread Won't Raise." I was naturally familiar with Uncle Tom's Cabin, both as a book and a play in Civil War days. I do not consciously seek for information on the subject of Negroes and do not personally know any Negroes. Outside of the names which appear in the press I do not know of any Negro leaders and could not be sure of correct information as to those who are well known.

I have never seen a Negro periodical and have so rarely heard Negroes discussed that no conclusions can be given. The Negro is rarely a topic of conversation in my circle.

As a solution they might be nationalized if possible, somewhere and somehow, like the Japs. Liberia is a failure largely because of white leadership and policy. Some portion of the earth should be set aside where the Negroes can be a nation, perhaps in Africa. They have a right to work out their own problems in their own ways.

All Negroes should be educated as highly as possible. They have a right to it because they are Americans. If demands follow this education, it is right they should be granted.

There is no personal fear of Negroes as a basis of my prejudice.

I agree with the third proposition as to isolation.

Majority's injustice to minority is always true in politics, religion, everyday dealings. Is not peculiar to relations between white and colored.

N—

My views are more impressions than opinions. I have a distinct aversion to close association with Negroes generally. On the other hand I have a distinct liking for particular Negroes whom I have been thrown with. Aside from the more educated ones, they seem to me to be of a sluggish mentality and of somewhat low moral character. They seem to have more of the animal in them. I am not sure that this is not an impression rather than an opinion.

I have no basis for my views except my own experience and what I have read in papers and periodicals.

I had two Negro classmates in college; I saw a good deal of Negroes as a boy; and I have known Negroes, some well educated, since I came to Chicago from the law school.

Although my contacts were largely casual, I particularly remember one very old Negro man whom I regarded as a sort of patriarch and of whom I was a little bit afraid. Then I recall vividly my impression of the filth and sordidness of "darky-town" in the small city in which I lived as a boy. I was never forbidden, so far as I can remember, to associate with Negroes. In public school there was no separation of the races. As a small boy, it seems to me my playmates in school were partly Negroes. Of course the Negroes, as is usual, lived in a separate part of the city. I should say that this seemed to me then to be a natural and necessary arrangement. Negroes were black and we were white. That was about all there was to it.

Very early I became race conscious, I should say along about the fourth or fifth grade in school, perhaps even before.

I regard as authorities on the question teachers or officers of Fisk University, Tuskegee Institute, those who have to do with criminals; employers of Negroes; persons who have dealt with Negroes as a class as well as individually. Booker T. Washington's writings should be an authority.

I have made very few inquiries for information. I know few Negroes in Chicago. Those that I do know are of the better educated type. Some of them, I think, have been at Fisk University. I do not know the leaders in the city, nor do I know the leaders in the country; but I should say they are the heads of the great Negro universities and colleges, like Fisk, Tuskegee, Lincoln Institute. Booker Washington was, of course, a leader. I do not know who his successors are.

So far as I know, I have seen only one Negro periodical, some years ago. The article I read in it I happened to be interested in because I was dealing with the subject of it, and it was undoubtedly a prejudiced article founded on misinformation and a rather wilful disregard of facts. As I recall the paper as a whole its main motive and purpose was an apparent hatred of the white race. I realize that this is not enough to base an opinion on.

The discussion of labor, politics, especially questions connected with southern politics, almost any question relating to the South, education, home missions, living conditions, the servant problem, crime, most frequently lead to the Negro.

It would hardly be feasible to send Negroes out of the country as a whole; they are needed in the industrial world, and it would not be a Christian act to deport them. Nor does it seem right or practicable or just to segregate them entirely. They need education and the help that comes from association with those who are further along in the polite amenities. On the other hand, unless they are somewhat segregated racial troubles are sure to arise when a Negro tries to settle, say, in the same block with upper class whites. I am not sure that it might not be a good plan if one or two of the southern states could be turned over to the Negroes, but if this is done they should be allowed to govern themselves and should be protected from exploitation from unscrupulous whites.

It seems to me that race prejudice is not based principally on fear, but rather on a natural aversion or shrinking from a man of another color. It is almost as elemental as fear. We fear any uneducated, ignorant and brutal man, whether he be white, red, black or yellow. We have an aversion, as I have said, to close association with any man of another color, even though he be educated. I do not know whether this aversion is curable by any method or not.

I am inclined to agree with the third proposition, and I suppose the fourth proposition is regrettably true.

The outstanding feature in the answers to the queries: "Have you formed definite opinions about Negroes?" and "Do Negroes, in your opinion, possess distinguishing traits of mentality or character?" is the great variation in opinions. As a race they are "shiftless," "childish," "docile," "evolutionarily handicapped," "undependable," "some of them good," "they have as a mass a lower level of inherent capacity," "disliked in the mass," "liked as individuals," "entitled to the same leniency and consideration as whites," "entitled to the same rights as whites," "lacking in racial pride," "loyal," "imitative," "affectionate," "improvident."

The feelings toward Negroes are as varied. There is aversion to close association, a distinct dislike, a desire that Negroes should have equal rights and privileges, a desire that they should have the same rights, a feeling that Negroes have been mistreated and exploited, a feeling that selfishness and pride of white persons have caused the present racial situation, and a conviction that present behavior toward the Negro is faulty and wrong. Lincoln is twice mentioned but with different meanings. The trend of sentiment, while unfavorable toward Negroes, maintains some sort of ideal. Although childish, they "must be trained," "although we dislike their presence, we must submit to our penalty for years to come," etc. Some are not sure of their opinions. Some call them impressions or regret a lack of knowledge. A general summing up would show a desire to be fair in spite of unfavorable opinions.

The questions regarding the disposition they would make of Negroes if they could entirely control the situation were put to get views uninfluenced by considerations of present practicability. The play of circumstances, opinion, ethical considerations, and difficulties were excluded from consideration. The trend of replies was toward segregation, even to the extent of colonization in Africa. There were curious anomalies, like segregation without Jim Crow and segregation for the Negro's own happiness. Others would distribute them without boundaries throughout the social system. When segregation is generally mentioned it is conditioned on the consent of Negroes.

Interesting answers are made on propositions (a), (b), (c), and (d), covering education, prejudice, isolation, and justice. In spite of unforeseen danger, it is pretty generally agreed that Negroes should be educated, even though their demands are thus increased. There is less agreement on granting demands. The analysis of prejudice brought a wide variety of opinions. Repulsion, natural aversion, social equality and the sex complex, selfishness of whites, egotism and inborn dislike, as well as fear, are accredited as forming the basis of prejudice.

The problem of isolation was essentially a problem of segregation. Strange to say, although the trend of some was toward isolation, there was a majority belief that isolation would increase conflict and friction. The ethical problem developed in general the opinion that there does exist a disparity between what is and what should be.

The unwisdom of an unjust course of social conduct is recognized, but is for the most part held to be warranted by the peculiar difficulty of present relations. Here, probably as nowhere else, the problem was compared with other general problems not involving race.

The experiences on which opinions are based divide into definite classes:

1. Experiences in the South.

2. Experiences with individual Negro servants.

3. Experiences with individual Negroes of intelligence.

4. General observation.

The actual basis of opinions as stated by the persons themselves provides an interesting question.

The question concerning early childhood experiences was put to draw out, if possible, impressions unconsciously insinuated or consciously obtained but perhaps discounted and forgotten through subsequent years of intermittent relations. It was successful in bringing to light incidents of striking significance. The answers, indeed, show striking elements in the heritage of racial consciousness. Impressions gained in early life require many facts to unsettle or remove.

Most important in considering the trustworthiness of information sources are the replies to the question: "Whom of your friends, acquaintances, favorite authors, scholars, etc., do you regard best fitted to speak with authority on the question?" There are mentioned seven Negroes and ten white persons. Of the four local Negroes mentioned, two might be regarded as well informed; one has been out of public life for fifteen years, and the other, although by no means an authority, probably could provide interesting information. Of the Negro national figures, Washington, Du Bois, and Dunbar are mentioned, Washington three times, Dunbar and Du Bois once. Booker T. Washington died in 1915. Paul Laurence Dunbar, the poet, died in 1906. Practically all of the white persons mentioned have been at some time connected with movements to improve conditions among Negroes. George W. Cable wrote for the most part stories of the Creole South.

It is strange, though, that in answering the question, "Who are the Negro leaders?" so many gave the names of politicians, who are not the real leaders of Negroes. About half of those who answered had never read a Negro periodical, and half of those who had read them considered their influence pernicious.

V. PUBLIC OPINION AS EXPRESSED BY NEGROES

The practice of "keeping the Negro in his place" or any modification of it in northern communities has isolated Negroes from all other members of the community. Though in the midst of an advanced social system and surrounded by cultural influences, they have hardly been more than exposed to them. Of full and free participation they know little. The pressure of the dominant white group in practically every ordinary experience has kept the attention and interests of Negroes centered upon themselves, and made them race conscious. Their thinking on general questions is controlled by their race interests. The opinions of Negroes, therefore, are in large measure a negative product.

It is probably for this reason that most of their expressions of opinion take the form of protest. This same enforced self-interest warps these opinions, giving exaggerated values to the unconsidered views of the larger group, increasing sensitiveness to slights, and keeping Negroes forever on the defensive. Extreme expressions, unintelligible to those outside the Negro group, are a natural result of this isolation. The processes of thought by which these opinions are reached are, by virtue of this very isolation, concealed from outsiders. Negroes by their words alone may often be judged as radical, pernicious, or fanatic. Without the background of their experiences it is no more possible for their views to be completely understood than for Negroes to understand the confessed prejudices of white persons, or even their ordinary feelings toward Negroes.

Negroes know more of the habits of action and thought of the white group than white people know of similar habits in the Negro group. For Negroes read the whites' books and papers, hear them talk, and sometimes see them in the intimacy of their homes. But this one-sided and partial understanding serves only to make the behavior of the whites more keenly felt. Until these differences, long held as taboo, are thoroughly understood and calmly faced, there is small chance of satisfactory relations.

The opinions of Negroes on this question are as various as the white opinions of the Negro. Their response may reflect, the sentiment of the larger group; it may take a conciliatory turn, or, it may be exclusively self-centered in disregard, if indeed not in defiance, of the white group. The rapid growth of the Garvey movement[80] is a good example of this last type of opinion. There is harmony of opinion on ultimates, but on programs, processes, and methods there are differences among Negroes that reach the intensity of abusive conflicts.

No Negro is willing to admit that he belongs to a different and lower species, or that his race is constitutionally weak in character. All Negroes hope for an adjustment by virtue of which they will be freely granted the privileges of ordinary citizens. They are conscious, however, of an opposition in the traditions of the country and actually meet it daily. Conflict arises from opinions as to methods of combating and overcoming the opposition with the greatest gain and smallest loss to themselves.

Thus we come to hear of different schools of thought among Negroes. Booker T. Washington is contrasted with W. E. B. Du Bois, and Du Bois is contrasted with Owen, Peyton, and Colson, and they, in turn are contrasted with Garvey. Among individual Negroes opinion is determined by experience as well as tradition. The Negro house-servant does not feel toward white persons as does a Negro common laborer. The independent professional man holds an opinion essentially different from the social worker. Yet they are all governed by those trends of sentiment protective of the Negro group, and in crises either act upon them or suffer the group's censure.

An instance of the strength of Negro group opinion appeared in a tragic by-product of the Chicago riot. A Negro prominent in local political and social circles was sought out as a leader, and asked for an interview by a reporter of the Chicago Tribune during the riot. In the published interview he was reported as saying: "This is a white man's country, and Negroes had better behave or they will get what rights they have taken away." This aroused a solid Negro sentiment against him; his life was threatened; for several weeks he had to have police protection; he was finally ostracized; and in less than a year he died. His friends asserted that he was slanderously misquoted, and that his death was due largely to the resulting criticism.

The more balanced opinions may be found among Negroes who have developed a defensive philosophy. Race pride and racial solidarity have sprung from this necessity. The term radical is used to characterize Negroes whose views and preachments are in advocacy of changes which to the general white public appear undesirable. It will be observed that most of the so-called radicals are southern Negroes now living in the North. They know by experience the meaning of oppression. Contrasts with them are sharper and the desire for change is more insistent, because they can appreciate differences.

Frequently this "radicalism" is no more than a matter of interpretation by white persons and possibly an oversuspicion. For example, Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer, in his report on the investigations of his department, referred to the bitter protests of Negro publications against lynching and disfranchisement as radical and incendiary documents. This report is headed, "Radicalism and Sedition among the Negroes as Reflected in Their Publications." It reads in part as follows:

There can no longer be any question of a well-concerted movement among a certain class of Negro leaders of thought and action to constitute themselves a determined and persistent source of a radical opposition to the government, and to the established rule of law and order.

Among the more salient points to be noted in the present attitude of the Negro leaders are, first, the ill-governed reaction toward race rioting; second, the threat of retaliatory measures in connection with lynching; third, the more openly expressed demand for social equality, in which demand the sex problem is not infrequently included; fourth, the identification of the Negro with such radical organizations as the I.W.W. and an outspoken advocacy of the Bolsheviki or Soviet doctrines; fifth, the political stand assumed toward the present federal administration, the South in general, and incidentally, toward the peace treaty and the League of Nations. Underlying these more salient viewpoints is the increasingly emphasized feeling of a race consciousness in many of these publications always antagonistic to the white race and openly, defiantly assertive of its own equality and even superiority. When it is borne in mind that this boast finds its most frequent expression in the pages of those journals whose editors are men of education, and in at least one instance, by men holding degrees conferred by Harvard University, it may be seen that the boast is not to be dismissed lightly as the ignorant vaporing of untrained minds. Neither is the influence of the Negro press in general to be reckoned with lightly. The Negro World for October 18, 1919, states that "there are a dozen Negro papers with a circulation of over 20,000, and scores with smaller circulation. There are half a dozen magazines with a large circulation and other magazines with a smaller circulation, and there are easily over fifty writers who can write interesting editorials and special articles, written in fine, pure English, with a background of scholarship behind them." Notwithstanding the clumsiness of expression of this particular assertion, the claim is not an idle one. It may be added that in several instances the Negro magazines are expensive in manufacture, being on coated paper throughout, well-printed, and giving evidence of the possession of ample funds.

In all the discussions of the recent race riots there is reflected the note of pride that the Negro has found himself, that he has "fought back," that never again will he tamely submit to violence or intimidation. The sense of oppression finds increasingly bitter expression. Defiance and insolently race-centered condemnation of the white race is to be met with in every issue of the more radical publications, and this one in moderateness of denunciation carries its own threat. The Negro is "seeing red," and it is the prime object of the leading publications to induce a like quality of vision upon the part of their readers. A few of them deny this, notwithstanding the evidence of their work. Others of them openly admit the fact. The number of restrained and conservative publications is relatively negligible, and even some of these ... have indulged in most intemperate utterance, though it would be unfair not to state that certain papers—I can think of no magazines—maintain an attitude of well-balanced sanity....

The Messenger for October is significant for one thing above all others. In it for the first time a Negro publication comes out openly for sex equality.[81]

It is the sentiment briefly sketched in the foregoing pages that summons attention. What are Negroes actually thinking? How are they being affected by what the general public is thinking? What do they want? Against what are their protests directed? What kinds of group sentiments are being developed and how significant are they as to subsequent relations between the two groups?

This report merely sets out examples of those views in the hope of showing the beliefs that control the conduct of Negroes in Chicago.

1. RACE PROBLEMS

Criticism of Negro leaders.—A Negro attorney said:

I have read numerous articles written by prominent colored men on the subject of Negroes moving North, and I have heard many of them speak. But few of them, in my opinion, will bear rigid criticism. They are wanting in genuine expression of true conditions. Those writers and orators who have some personal motive for their expression do not necessarily speak with absolute frankness.

A Negro worker said:

Our leaders are not interested enough in the welfare of the race. As soon as they reach some little place of fame they try to get off to themselves.

Contacts as basis for respect.—A Negro professional man said:

When in school in Oberlin my professor in debating and oratory was so prejudiced that he would not let the other colored boy and me be on teams together. We asked him repeatedly, but he always refused. We decided to work on a debate for all there was in it and compel him to recognize the fact that we could measure up to the other members of the class. When we finished he praised our work in the highest terms. After that he began to take an interest in me and finally told me that he did not know anything about Negroes and just felt that there was nothing worth while in them. He tried to persuade me to teach, and when I left he gave me one of the best letters of recommendation that I have ever seen. That shows what contact can do.

Not a race problem.—A Negro business man said:

There is no race problem; if the white people would only do as they would be done by we would not have need of commissions to better conditions. This won't be done, but an easier plan is to enforce the law. The laws are good enough but they are not enforced. Riots grow out of hate, jealousy, envy, and prejudice. When a man becomes a contented citizen there will be little chance of causing him to fight anyone. Give us those things that are due us—law, protection, and equal rights—then we will become contented citizens.

For better race relations in Chicago.—A Negro alderman said:

1. Pass a vagrancy law that will take the idle, shiftless and intolerant hoodlum off the streets. Put the burden of proof on the one so arrested.

2. Close all vicious poolrooms and dens of vice, and permit no boy under nineteen years of age to enter poolrooms.

3. Forbid loitering on the street corners, especially transfer points.

4. Prohibit vicious and race-antagonizing campaign speeches on the streets of the city and in public halls. Races must not be arrayed against each other.

5. Make more rigid the habeas corpus act, tighten up on the parole and probation laws and enforcement of the truancy law.

6. Stop the newspapers from referring to the territory occupied by the colored people as the "Black Belt."

7. Inciting and inflammatory headlines in the newspapers must be stopped.

8. Open the gates of employment to all races in our public utilities, such as street-car and elevated-road service, Chicago Telephone Co. exchanges, Peoples Gas Light & Coke Co., and the Commonwealth Edison Co.

9. Better housing for the colored people and improvement of the district in which a vast majority of them reside by turning certain streets into boulevards, building small parks and playgrounds, and let the city or South Park Commissioners build a bathing-beach equal to any other for the benefit and comfort of all races along the water front, between Twenty-ninth and Thirty-ninth streets. This without lines or thought of segregation and for the benefit of a neglected part of our tax-paying community.

10. Apprehend and convict the bomb throwers by placing in command of our police-stations officers who will do their duty and place patrolmen on duty who will not sympathize with this lawless element of our citizenry. Greater still, insist that the state's attorney do his full duty in prosecuting the people who are responsible for inciting these criminal acts.

11. Safeguard the rights of all races in our public parks and on the public highways.

12. Give us a man's chance in the field of labor, and we will prove that we are no burden to any other race of people.

2. THE EMOTIONAL BACKGROUND

An old settler.—The sentiment presented below is probably the unpolished feeling of a Negro who was born in Chicago before the fire of 1871, and has lived here since. His grandfather owned the property where the post-office now stands. He was at one time a member of the Central Y.M.C.A. (white). For two and a half years he was assistant bookkeeper in a white bank in Memphis, Tennessee. He said:

Prejudice has been on the increase in Chicago since 1893. Southerners came to the World's Exposition and many of them remained. They brought their prejudices with them. On the cars they would order colored people to get up and give their seats to them. This resulted in fights, and when the cases were taken to court colored people won as many cases as whites. I took my grandmother to the fair and on the street car I had an altercation with a white southerner who called her "Auntie." He tried to hit me, and I got out my gun to shoot him. A Columbian guard and detective grabbed me. When the case was called I was discharged.

Hyde Park is a nest of prejudice. These southerners moved out there. Southern clubs are established throughout the country. They get northernized and want straight-haired mulatto maids for their mistresses and call them typists. The southern white boys get jobs on newspapers in the North and work for nothing in order that they may write articles and editorials against Negroes and spread the doctrine of the South.

A good many years ago colored people lived in good homes and the Irish lived in shanties. They used to call them "flannel mouth," "mick," and "shanty Irish." It used to be that only colored men of light complexion could secure jobs as porters on certain railroads. In 1908 the Archbishop of the Diocese of the Catholic Church issued an edict that white communicants should not worship at the Thirty-sixth and Dearborn streets church. The whites still go there, however. The very fact that the G.A.R. invited the Confederate veterans to march in the same parade on Memorial Day goes to show that prejudice against Negroes is increasing. They are combining. These southern societies in Chicago which foster race prejudice should be exposed.

Abyssinians.—During the summer of 1920 a group of self-styled "Abyssinians," in a spectacular demonstration,[82] killed two white men and seriously wounded two Negroes, one of whom was a policeman. Neither whites nor Negroes could give any further explanation of the affair than that it was an ignorant outburst of fanatics. Although the demonstration was announced as part of a membership drive in a "Back to Africa Movement," there was a definite racial sentiment in the appeals to unlettered Negroes. This sentiment was calculated to solidify the fanatic group, while, at the same time, by its anti-social dogma, it placed this group in opposition to the safety and well-being of the community. Meetings and speeches and anti-racial dogma, founded upon unusual interpretations of the Bible, gave their sentiments a religious fervor and a racial aim. Thus these sentiments grew, uncorrected by outsiders, and finally expressed themselves in criminal but significant conduct. The significance of these sentiments is apparent in the attitude of a sympathizer with the movement, expressed to one of the Commission's investigators several weeks before the outbreak made the movement unpopular. He is a shopkeeper, and most of his trade is among Negroes. His business with whites is wholly with wholesale dealers. In his treatment of those who came into his store during the interview he was rude and discourteous. He said:

I am a radical. I despise and hate the white man. They will always be against the Ethiopian. I do not want to be called Negro, colored, or "nigger." Either term is an insult to me or to you. Our rightful name is Ethiopian. White men stole the black man from Africa and counseled with each other as to what to do with him and what to call him, for when the Negro learned that he was the first civilized human on earth he would rise up and rebel against the white man. To keep him from doing this it was decided to call him Negro after the Niger River in Africa. This was to keep him from having that knowledge by the Bible, for his right name was Ethiopian. This was done so we could always be ruled by the white man. I will call your attention to the Bible. There is not one word of evil against the Children of Israel and Ethiopia written in it. Ethiopia came out of Israel and God said they are his people and he will be their God. He also says after the 300 years of punishment he will never go by [desert] Israel again and will be with him for ever and ever. We find by the Bible that he, the Ethiopian, is the only child of God.

The three hundred years of punishment are up, and this is the year of deliverance. It started in 1619 when we were stolen from Africa and made slaves. God is taking care of the black man. Some great destruction will take place, but God's chosen people will be all right. White passers-by from other neighborhoods are the only people who trouble us. They will call you insulting names or try to annoy you in a hundred little ways. The white people in the neighborhood are all right. Two white men ran down an old pet rooster of mine this morning. They were on a motor-cycle and picked him up, carried him off, paying no heed to me, as I ran two blocks after them.

Ready for trouble.—A Negro ex-soldier said:

I went to war, served eight months in France; I was married, but I didn't claim exemption. I wanted to go, but I might as well have stayed here for all the good it has done me.... No, that ain't so, I'm glad I went. I done my part and I'm going to fight right here till Uncle Sam does his. I can shoot as good as the next one, and nobody better start anything. I ain't looking for trouble, but if it comes my way I ain't dodging.

Agitation and discussion.—A Negro lawyer said:

Agitation by the press, both white and colored, does nothing but create dissension. The religious and political leaders have gone from one extreme to the other. Formerly the Negroes were cringing and ingratiating when dealing with the whites. Now they are trying to be radical in order to gain notoriety. There is nothing to be gained in either being servile or radical. I have had indignities heaped upon me by the white man. Why, my mother was ill when a white man in Georgia took every bit of our furniture from us, pulling the bed from under her. She screamed with pain each time they moved the bed, but they left her on the floor. I swore that I would kill that man and for many years held hatred against him. Now I know it is wrong and only hope that he has learned better.

A Negro and a mob.—How does a Negro feel when he is being hunted or chased by a mob? Few persons are able to analyze their emotions under such stress. It happens, however, that a Negro university student fell victim to the sportive brutality of a gang of white men in a clash in September, 1920, and after being chased and hunted for five hours and a half in an unfriendly neighborhood escaped uninjured. He recounted his experience in an effort at a purely objective study of his emotions.

While at work in a plant just outside Chicago he became ill and was forced to leave early. Unaware that a riot was in progress, he left a street car to transfer in a hostile neighborhood. As he neared the corner one of a group of about twenty young white men yelled: "There's a nigger! Let's get him!" He boarded a car to escape them. They pulled off the trolley and started into the car after him. His story follows:

The motorman opened the door, and before they knew it I jumped out and ran up Fifty-first Street as fast as my feet could carry me. Gaining about thirty yards on them was a decided advantage, for one of them saw me and with the shout "There he goes!" the gang started after me. One, two, three, blocks went past in rapid succession. They came on shouting, "Stop him! Stop him!" I ran on the sidewalk and someone tried to trip me, but fortunately I anticipated his intentions and jumped into the road. As I neared the next street intersection, a husky, fair-haired fellow weighing about 180 pounds came lunging at me. I have never thought so quickly in all my life as then, I believe. Three things flashed into my mind—to stop suddenly and let him pass me and then go on; to try to trip him by dropping in front of him; or to keep running and give him a good football straight arm. The first two I figured would stop me, and the gang would be that much nearer, so I decided to rely on the last. These thoughts flashed through my mind as I ran about ten steps. As we came together, I left my feet, and putting all my weight and strength into a lunge, shot my right hand at his chin. It landed squarely and by a half-turn the fair-haired would-be tackler went flying to the road on his face.

That was some satisfaction, but it took a lot of my strength, for by this time I was beginning to feel weak. But determination kept me at it, and I ran on. Then I came to a corner where a drug-store was open and a woman standing outside. I slowed down and asked her to let me go in there, that a gang was chasing me; but she said I would not be safe there, so I turned off Fifty-first Street and ran down the side street. Here the road had been freshly oiled and I nearly took a "header" as I stepped in the first pool, but fortunately no accident happened. My strength was fast failing; the suggestion came into my mind to stop and give up or try to fight it out with the two or three who were still chasing me, but this would never do, as the odds were too great, so I kept on. My legs began to wobble, my breath came harder, and my heart seemed to be pounding like a big pump, while the man nearest me began to creep up on me. It was then that an old athletic maxim came into my mind—"He's feeling as tired as you." Besides, I thought, perhaps he smokes and boozes and his wind is worse than mine. Often in the last hundred yards of a quarter-mile that thought of my opponent's condition had brought forth the last efforts necessary for the final spurt. There was more than a medal at stake this time, so I stuck, and in a few strides more they gave up the chase. One block further on, when I had made sure that no one was following me on the other side of the street, I slowed down to walk and regained my breath. Soon I found myself on Forty-sixth Street just west of Halsted where the street is blind, so I climbed up on the railroad tracks and walked along them. But I imagined that in crossing a lighted street I could be seen from below and got down off the tracks, intending to cross a field and take a chance on the street. But this had to be abandoned, for as I looked over the prospect from the shadow of a fence I saw an automobile held up at the point of a revolver in the hands of one member of a gang while they searched the car apparently looking for colored men.

This is no place for a minister's son, I thought, and crept back behind a fence and lay down among some weeds. Lying there as quietly as could be I reflected on how close I had come to a severe beating or the possible loss of my life. Fear, which had caused me to run, now gave place to anger, and a desire to fight, if I could fight with a square deal. I remembered that as I looked the gang over at Fifty-first and Ashland I figured I could handle any of them individually with the possible exception of two, but the whole gang of blood-thirsty hoodlums was too much. Anger gave place to hatred and a desire for revenge, and I thought if ever I caught a green-buttoned "Ragen's Colt" on the South Side east of State that one of us would get a licking. But reason showed me such would be folly and would only lead to reprisals and some other innocent individual getting a licking on my account. I knew all "Ragen's" were not rowdies, for I had met some who were pretty decent fellows, but some others—ye gods!

My problem was to get home and to avoid meeting hostile elements. Temporarily I was safe in hiding, but I could not stay there after daybreak. So I decided to wait a couple of hours and then try to pass through "No Man's Land"—Halsted to Wentworth. I figured the time to be about 11:30 and so decided to wait until 1:30 or 2:00 a.m., before coming out of cover. Shots rang out intermittently; the sky became illumined; the fire bells rang, and I imagined riot and arson held sway as of the previous year. It is remarkable how the imagination runs wild under such conditions.

Then the injustice of the whole thing overwhelmed me—emotions ran riot. Had the ten months I spent in France been all in vain? Were those little white crosses over the dead bodies of those dark-skinned boys lying in Flanders fields for naught? Was democracy merely a hollow sentiment? What had I done to deserve such treatment? I lay there experiencing all the emotions I imagined the innocent victim of a southern mob must feel when being hunted for some supposed crime. Was this what I had given up my Canadian citizenship for, to become an American citizen and soldier? Was the risk of life in a country where such hatred existed worth while? Must a Negro always suffer merely because of the color of his skin? "There's a Nigger; let's get him!" Those words rang in my ears—I shall never forget them.

Psychologists claim that it is in the face of overwhelming forces that man is prone to turn to the Supreme Being. I was no longer afraid, only filled with righteous indignation and a desire to get out of danger. But mingled emotions shook me, and a flood of tears burst forth. In the midst of it I found myself praying fervently to God against the injustice of it all, for strength and help to go through safely, and thanks for my deliverance from the gang which had chased me. Then relief came from all these pent-up feelings with the determination to get up and try to go through—and to fight, if necessary. I began to speculate on means. A freight train came along, and the impulse came to jump on it and ride out of town until the trouble was over, but the knowledge of only 15 cents carfare in my pocket compelled the rejection of this idea. I thought of phoning to a friend to come and get me in his car, but this was futile, for where could I find a phone and be safe in that neighborhood? Some clothes on a line in a yard across the field offered a disguise, but even dressed as a woman I'd need a hat, and that idea had to be abandoned. With resources at an end, I picked up four rocks for ammunition and started out.

For four blocks I glided from shadow to shadow, through alleys. A couple of dogs nearly "spilled the beans" when they barked just as an automobile came down the street. I dove for cover until the car had disappeared and then emerged. At Forty-ninth Street and Union Avenue I climbed up on the railroad tracks and cautiously walked along them in the darkness. All of a sudden a block ahead appeared what seemed to be about ten men standing on the tracks, so I dropped to the ground and made a pair of binoculars out of my hands. For what seemed like five minutes I watched these forms then decided they were uprights on a bridge and went on. Imagination and fear can play tricks, and this was one of them.

Finally I found myself at Thirty-seventh and Stewart streets, having been walking northeast instead of east as I thought. I climbed down to the street and walked through back lanes until I saw the Sox ball park. All was quiet, so I came out and crossed Wentworth Avenue. At State and Thirty-seventh I saw two colored fellows waiting for a car and ran up to them. Putting my hands on their shoulders I said, "Gee! I'm glad to see a dark skin." Then I related my experience. They assured me the "fun" was all over, and I was thankful. It was twenty-five minutes to four, just five and a half hours after I had started for home from work. A white man came along, and my first impulse was to jump on him and beat him up. But again reason told me he was not responsible for the actions of a gang of rowdies, and he was as innocent as I had been when set upon.

Is such an experience easily forgotten? Recent events would prove to the contrary. I vowed that morning never to let the sun set on me west of Wentworth Avenue, and never to go into that section unprotected, even in daytime. On a recent Sunday the papers came out with an "Extra" about 11:00 p.m., announcing a "Big South Side Fight." I went to the door and hailed a boy. Just then an automobile with men standing on the running-board came around the corner. The possibility of another riot flashed through my mind and without looking at the paper I snapped off the light, closed the door, and prepared for trouble if it came my way. But the "Fight" had been a gunman's war. This is just indicative of the caution such an experience develops. It is not a fear, but a wariness in uncertainty.

3. DEFENSIVE POLICIES

To stimulate group morale and solidify the sentiments of Negroes for unified opposition to what they regard as oppressive measures of white people, many tactics are employed. The most common of these is that of interpreting the aims and ambitions of Negroes to white persons and of defending themselves generally against criticism. A selection of types of this "defensive" sentiment is given.

A Negro attorney said:

The only way to gain favorable public opinion is to create favorable press notices. A certain amount of agitation is necessary on the part of colored papers to educate the race as to what it is entitled to. The American white race has been very successful in its propaganda that colored people are not entitled to certain things. This has caused many Negroes to believe that they are not as good as the white people.

The press can be a source of evil or of good. It depends upon the point of view. The difficulty lies in the fact that the white press has the wrong attitude, usually. A great deal of harm is done by paid workers who will give interviews that will sustain the viewpoint of the papers. Others desirous of newspaper notoriety are guilty of the same offense. Usually those interviewed are not capable of giving exact opinions and viewpoints. Those capable of doing justice to the situation are not sought by reporters. During the time when there is more calm and people are in a position to give thoughtful consideration to the question, no effort is made to find out the attitude of substantial citizens. If this were done the papers would get somewhere.

A letter from a Negro thanking the editor of a northern paper for a fair editorial said:

The colored citizens realize fully the extent to which propaganda is spread against them in the average newspaper under the guise of news, and when they find someone who knows that too, and who is strong enough to help, as is the —— [newspaper], they thank him with all the strength of their hearts, although their lips may remain mute.

Negro sentiment regarding racial news in the white press.—A Negro weekly paper said:

Whatever be the cause or the motive there is apparently a well organized plan to discredit the race in America and to bring estrangement between fellow Americans. A short-sighted ... press is contributing to this estrangement by playing upon the passions of the undiscriminating and thoughtlessly by its glaring and sensational headings, emphasizing rumours of alleged crimes by Negroes.

Flattery as a means of promoting tolerance.—A popular Negro orator said:

I think that the great trouble with us already is that we have allowed the white people to settle too many things for us. The nation gave you constitutional freedom, but no man can make you truly free except you yourself. The white man hates nothing worse than a coward, and the American white man is the most remarkable human being the world ever knew. He is God's superman. As white and black have one destiny beneath the Stars and Stripes, so have we the common duties of citizenship....

Woodrow Wilson is my leader. What he commands me to do I shall do. Where he commands me to go I shall go. I had naught of ill will toward Von Bernsdorf until Wilson pointed him out as a national menace. Whom Woodrow Wilson cannot receive into fellowship, I cannot receive.

A Negro resident of Chicago for fourteen years, formerly of Louisiana, said:

I went to Wilson's last inauguration in Washington and tried to talk to the President. I got in the gate, but the guard would not let me go farther without a pass. I went into every place that men were allowed to enter and found no "Jim-Crowing" in any public place. The nearest approach to it was in the printing department of the government. There were several colored girls all working at the same table. In other departments I had seen white and colored together. I went into every washroom on every floor of one building and must have washed my hands twenty times.

Negroes, real Americans.—A letter from a Negro workman to Governor Lowden said:

Why is it that intelligent colored people, the real Americans and the most humble and purest nation that ever trod the soil of America since they have been here—we have never thrown any bombs; we have never written a black-hand letter and what disgrace and shameful things we do it was learned to us by our foreparents' masters down south because they taught them to steal and murder and do all other most disgraceful things. We have never bombed any white people's homes, but I cannot see into it why it is that all nations such as the Polish, Japan, Chinaman, Mexican, German and Russ and now you see what they have done to this country; they have done everything to overthrow this Government and have got the I.W.W. and the Red. Where have we done such dirty deeds? We have enriched this soil of America with our blood in every war for this country and then cannot live where we want to as an American citizen. We even shed our blood in France to save someone else money and their homes, and the thanks we got when we come back was a big race riot which I do believe was started by southern white men to put a disgrace on the North because the North do not lynch and burn as they do. Of course I know you cannot do anything by yourself. But if you can get enough men who have got a backbone to protect the ones who have always protected them this outrage could be stopped. I read a piece in the Herald-Examiner that it would be a riot here; that has poisoned the minds of so many people. So now I hope you will try to stop such trouble.

Defensive philosophy; silence does not mean contentment.—A Negro educator said:

Many white men of high intellectual ability and keen discernment have mistaken the Negro silence for contentment, his facial expression for satisfaction at prevailing conditions, and his songs and jovial air for happiness. But not always so. These are his methods of bearing his troubles and keeping his soul sweet under seeming wrongs. In the absence of a spokesman or means of communication with the whites over imagined grievances, he has brightened his countenance, smiled and sung to give ease to his mind. In the midst of it all he is unable to harmonize the teachings of the Bible which the white Christian placed in his hands with the practices of daily life. He finds it difficult to harmonize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and his faith is put to the test in that "Providence" which enslaved his ancestors, corrupted his blood and placed upon him stigmas more damaging than to be a leper or convict by making his color a badge of infamy and his preordained social position at the bottom of human society. So firmly has his status been fixed by this "Providence" that neither moral worth, fidelity to trust, love of home, loyalty to country or faith in God can raise him to human recognition.

Votes for Negroes.—The Crisis for January, 1921, said:

The astonishing thing about the Bourbon South is its intellectual bankruptcy when it comes to the Negro. It continually assumes that the Negro is a fool. Some Negroes are fools, but the proportion among them is steadily decreasing, while that among the Bourbons seems to increase. When the average white Southerner faces the problem of racial contact he has absolutely nothing to offer except what he offered in 1861, namely: the Will of God, Force and Bloodshed, and, "The best friend in the world to the Negro is the Southern white man—the only one who truly loves him." We quote from our ever-delightful friend, the editor of the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.

The tragedy of the situation is that this man believes what he says. He knows absolutely just the "place" for which God made "niggers"; but to support this sincere belief he spreads falsehoods. He says that the woman suffrage party by its secret machinations "probably" caused the blood shed in the Florida elections! He threatens murder for black men who want to vote, and almost weeps over the misguided Negroes who have left the Empire State of lynching and gone to Chicago.

There seems to be in this man's mind absolutely no conception of the tremendous, increasing, unswerving development of the Negro. To him all aspiration, unrest, and complaints of black folk are conspiracies of whites. For the blacks he has no program, no vision, except that they stay where they have always been, growing more content with "Jim-Crow" cars, lynching and disfranchisement.

It is inconceivable to the mentality of this section of the white South that such a program is absolutely impossible. That if, in the end, the price we must pay for aspiration to modern manhood is death, and death in the most horrible form of public torture and burning like that in Florida, if to live we must die, then the South will have us to kill. Any man who does not prefer death to slavery is not worth freedom....

The black man must vote. Every Southerner with brains knows this. The Negro is awaiting his enfranchisement with greater patience than the South has any right to expect. But he will not wait forever. If he sees gathering signs of sanity—a willingness to let the intelligent and thrifty vote, an honest effort to establish law and order and overthrow the rule of the mob, a desire to substitute honest industrial conditions in place of the organized and entrenched theft of black wealth upon which southern industry is based today—such a program, tardy and slow and inadequate though it be, may count on the infinite patience and long suffering of Ethiopia.

4. RACE CONSCIOUSNESS

Ancient Order of Ethiopian Princes:[83]

To My Kinsmen.—In a broad sense, the words "Negro" and "Nigger" have no historical significance. They are used synonymously in the white man's dictionary. "Negro" is a pure Spanish word meaning "black." The word "Negro," therefore, may be descriptive of a race, but not the name of it. In reality "Negro" is an alias, or nickname applied to us originally, in much the same contemptuous spirit as the black boy is called "Rastus" or "Sambo."

The white man writes his history for us to study, makes his scenario with his heroes and heroines for us to admire, and supplies our newspapers. Through these instrumentalities he almost entirely controls our thought.

Remember that "a word is the sign of an idea." The kind of an "idea" that the "sign" stands for depends upon our teaching. If we associate a word, then, with a noble or degraded idea, we have been taught to do so.

You can easily prove this by experimenting with certain words for yourself. After repeating each word tell what your idea is and what you see: (1) Roman, (2) Paradise, (3) Statesmen, (4) General. Is the idea or picture you get degraded? No. The White Press, history, reel and teacher have taken care of that.

Now take the following words: (1) Lynched, (2) Jim Crow, (3) Disfranchised, (4) Negro.

What is the result? The words "Lynched," "Jim Crow," "Disfranchised," are the signs of degraded ideas. Moreover, "Negro" is very apt to creep into each one of the three mind pictures and conversely one of the three into the "Negro" mind picture.

Do you understand? Now why is that? That is what Ethiopic culture teaches, through the "Ancient Order of Ethiopian Princes."

If we believe that we come from nowhere and have no history but that of a slave, our substance will be the charity of our oppressors, and our future handicapped by doubts and fears.

Ancient history knows no "Negro," but ancient history does know Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Change a family's name and in a generation you cannot tell whether its foreparents were rogues or saints. It is the same with a race. You cannot trace your ancestors through the name "Negro."

Take away our birthright, our ancient honorable name, "Ethiopian" and you have stopped the very fountain of our inspiration. If we are "Negroes" we are by the same dictionary also, "Niggers." The moment we realize, however, that we are "Ethiopians," we can see the beams from the lamps of Ethiopian culture lighting a pathway down the shadowy ages, and the fires of ambition are rekindled in our hearts, because we know that we came from the builders of temples and founders of civilization.

Study this.

Contrasts of North and South.—An investigator's report on home conditions of retarded children said:

The mother is eager to learn, and constantly talks of wanting to attend night school if the opportunity ever offers itself. She is eager for her girl to complete her education and wants her to take a business course so she will be independent. "A white man can take everything from the colored man but his learning," Mrs. —— said repeatedly.

In coming to Chicago she wasn't sure what she would find, but she had heard that colored people had a show here. She brought her child here to give her one. Chicago seems like heaven to her now when she thinks of what she had been through in the South.

When the investigator asked her about the church to which she belonged she said: "Olivet. I goes every Sunday and Wednesday nights to prayer meeting just to thank God that he let me live to go to a place of worship like that, a place where my people worship and ain't pestered by the white men."

The Chicago riot provoked probably the first full expressions of sentiment from Negroes in their own press. Underlying them are attitudes toward present race relations. There is a strong note of resentment, and the announcement of the birth of a "New Negro."

The war is credited with bringing about this change. More than 250,000 young Negroes, the pick of the race in health and intelligence, had returned to the United States, presumably with changed ideas, and perhaps with growing cynicism as to promises of fair treatment. Perhaps for the first time in American history the Negro group fought in the 1919 riot as a body against mob violence. The idea that these disorders are a result of active opposition to distasteful practices is prominent in practically every Negro discussion. "The Negro race is facing about" is a familiar statement. Said one Negro newspaper:

It is the utter ignoring of the Negro in the community life that is responsible for these outbreaks. The controlling whites were absolutely out of touch with the Negroes, and the races came together in a quarrel and there was no means by which the trouble could be settled.

A monthly magazine, the Favorite, said:

If the white man thinks that the rights, privileges and ordinary pursuits of the Negro can now be annulled at this stage of the world's affairs, he certainly has "another thought coming." This Washington revolt is only the "handwriting on the wall." Don't squeeze the Negro too hard; if you do you squeeze him to the bursting point. The young Negro of today is far different from his foreparents, and will not be content with anything less than a fair deal.

The New York American said:

The dangerous enemy of his race is the colored man that advocates force as a remedy. There is such a thing as being outnumbered beyond any hope.

A Negro newspaper replied:

There is such a thing, too, as a noble preference of death to a life of slavery. Do Hearst and Arthur Brisbane think the sentiment of "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" belongs exclusively to a white skin?

A poem in the Crusader and republished in the Messenger and several other periodicals, carries this same idea:

Defensive measures justified.—The general belief among Negroes is that resistance to violence is justified. Some view this display of counterviolence as simply defensive measures, some as retaliation, which in substance means the same.

The Washington Eagle, a Negro newspaper, commenting on the beginning of the Washington riot, said:

Notwithstanding the fact that these mobs, increasing in number and in violence each evening, were allowed to harass law-abiding colored citizens for three consecutive evenings, the colored citizens showed no signs of revenge or retaliation. But when the situation became so terrible that colored citizens could endure it no longer they rose up almost as one man, and, adhering to the first law of human nature, which says that self-preservation is the first law of nature, they armed themselves "to the teeth," to use the phrase of one of the local newspapers. It was only when they showed this disposition to fight back that the riot ceased.

The Messenger, a Negro magazine, said:

The world knows not that the new Negroes are determined to observe the primal law of self-preservation whenever civil laws break down; to assist the authorities to preserve order and prevent themselves and families from being murdered in cold blood. Surely, no one can easily object to this new and laudable determination.

Opinions of Negroes regarding the conduct of the police.—Negro condemnation of the police seems general. From a large selection of comments two are given. The Favorite said:

History proves that nearly all race riots are started by white policemen. East St. Louis, Houston and Washington, D.C., have had terrible cataclysms provoked by white bluecoats who in nine cases out of ten carry their prejudices with them whenever they enter black belts. Instead of acting in behalf of law and order white policemen usually act in behalf of some passion that tells them Negroes are convenient brutes. For the safety of the twenty-five thousand colored and ten thousand whites in the Second Ward of Chicago we ask that every white patrolman in the district be replaced by a colored bluecoat. Chicago must not be added to the list of American cities cut off from civilization by race riots, and it is up to Mayor William Hale Thompson and Chief Garrity to see that the honor of that city is preserved.

The Washington Eagle thought most of the trouble was due to the overbearing attitude of the police. It said:

Bishop Cottrell, wiring from Holly Springs, Miss., wants the President to call a conference of representatives of both races to consider the matter of mob law. We doubt if the President will take the trouble to do anything of the kind: while he is thinking it over the police in every place had better be instructed to have more respect for the rights and feelings of the Afro-American people. Most of the trouble is to be found in the insolent and overbearing attitude of the police.

Negro opinions regarding white newspapers.—It is asserted by numerous Negro papers that certain white papers spurred the rioters to greater lawlessness in the Washington outbreak, and in some cases settled the date and place of assembly for attacking parties. The Afro-American quoted from the Washington Post an excerpt headed "Mobilizing for Tonight," and reading:

It was learned that a mobilization of every available service man stationed in or near Washington or on leave here has been ordered for tomorrow evening near the Knights of Columbus hut on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Seventh and Eighth streets. The hour of assembly is 9 o'clock and the purpose is a "cleanup" that will cause the events of the last two evenings to pale into insignificance. Whether official cognizance of this assemblage and its intent will bring about its forestalling cannot be told.

The Afro-American added:

Commenting on this article Secretary Shillady of the National Association declares: "In view of the fact that the 'mobilization' announced by the Washington Post had not been ordered by any authority, military or civil, does not the passage show intent by the Washington Post to bring about such mobilization?"

Another Negro paper in Washington carried the criticism farther:

Editorials are supposed to concern those topics that are most important to the community in which they are written. No one can deny the importance of the race riots that disgraced the name of fair America's Capital during the present week; yet two of the leading daily papers of the city found everything to fill their editorial columns but the proper attempts to discourage mob violence and a disposition to place the blame where it justly belongs. The rioting, in itself, was a deplorable disgrace, but a greater disgrace is that the daily newspapers should have encouraged the rioting by the glaring, ugly headlines that they gave it, rather than discourage the riots in editorials.

The National Defender and Sun replied to an editorial of the Chicago Tribune:

In a recent edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, which calls itself the world's greatest newspaper, in discussing the recent race riot in Chicago, it had this to say: "Can the two races continue to live in peace in Chicago without segregation? We have for some time criticized the South for its treatment of its black citizens. We believe since the race riot in Chicago that segregation, separate cars, will be the only cure to prevent race riots in the future." We are very much surprised at the statement of the Chicago Tribune. Does the world's greatest newspaper forget that Atlanta, Ga., Memphis, Tenn., Arkansas and Texas, had great race riots, and that all of the above-named states have their Jim Crow laws and segregated district?

The New York Age had this to say:

So much clamor and bad blood have been aroused by the repeated charge of assaults attempted upon women in the city of Washington, that more than ordinary significance attaches to a news item found tucked away in an inconspicuous position on an inside page of the Washington Times. It was headed: "Woman Now Denies She Was Attacked," and read as follows: "The case of an alleged attack on Mrs. Minnie Franklin, 1361 K. Street Southeast, by two Negroes near Fifteenth and H. Sts., Northeast, Thursday night, was closed last night when according to detectives, the woman said the story was a fabrication. Several headquarters detectives questioned the woman yesterday and then went over the ground where the alleged attack was supposed to have occurred, but could find no evidence of a struggle."

This reported case of "assault" had "scare" headlines at the time it was supposed to have occurred, and it looked as if the daily papers were trying to provoke another riot. Later, by the admission of the accuser, the police and the press, the charge was shown to be groundless. Time and again these charges of assaults have been shown to be "faked," and the most credulous should be brought to see the necessity of searching investigation before pronouncing the accused guilty. Hysteria, by newspaper suggestion, may be at the foundation of many a case of reported "assault."

Charges of southern propaganda in the North.—A wide distinction has been made by Negro observers between the Washington and Chicago riots, the former being called a typical southern, and the latter a typical northern, riot. Reasons for this are given in the different forms of incentive to rioting. The Washington reasons were largely sentimental and bore a striking resemblance to the Atlanta riot about 1906. Reports of attacks on white women, played up in the newspapers, were sufficient to set the current going. The sentiment of the South is said to have been behind this outbreak. Said the Chicago Defender:

It is easy to see that the southern white man is at the bottom of race riots in the northern cities to which we have migrated in recent years.... It is idle to suppose that the black man was the only migrator from the South; every northern community is practically overrun with southern whites of both sexes. In many of the northern cities a majority of the white women employed as clerks and saleswomen in department stores, telephone operators and other fields of industry are from the South. In every place where men are utilized, including public officials, judges and prosecuting attorneys, some of them are also from the South.

Remedies.—The Chicago Defender said:

To emphasize the fact that no self-respecting citizen had anything to do with the disgraceful affairs recently witnessed here and in Washington, thousands of circulars have been distributed by our people and to our people filled with good, wholesome advice as to being good, law-abiding citizens. Our only salvation lies in harmony, and both elements must come to understand that each is necessary to the other, and that with all pulling together, democracy for America will no longer be a theory, but a reality.

The foregoing examples of sentiment by no means cover the varieties of Negro opinion. They are merely illustrative of different types. The peculiarities of group behavior which appear to be the attributes of the Negro group would doubtless show themselves in any other groups similarly placed in the social scale. There would at the same time be no more likelihood of their being understood. Situations develop which appear to the uninitiated white observer strange and even dangerous. That they do represent very definite and calculated programs of action within certain circles of the Negro group may be illustrated by a few examples.

At a garment manufacturer's plant thirty colored girls were employed in a separate unit. When a white girl was employed, the colored girls walked out. They explained that when they first began work in a plant employing white girls a precedent for this action was given. If white girls were too proud to work with colored girls, then colored girls should be too proud to work with white girls. It required much effort on the part of the Urban League to correct their viewpoints.

A short time ago there was considerable agitation among certain groups of Negroes over the appointment of a Negro principal for one of the elementary schools. His appointment was strongly opposed by Negroes. Although this may have seemed inexplicable to white people, the action was not wholly illogical from the viewpoint of Negroes. The school in question, near the Negro residential area, had an attendance of about 70 per cent Negro children. Negroes reasoned thus: If a Negro principal were appointed the white teachers would eventually resign or for one reason or another be transferred; the white parents then would withdraw their children because there would be no white teachers, and so the first step would be accomplished toward segregation of Negroes in the public schools. It was segregation that was opposed, although the advancement of one of their number must be sacrificed.

Marcus Garvey, a West Indian Negro, with a remarkable genius for organization, four years ago began a venture on a commercial basis and developed it into a definite racial movement. He conceived the notion of establishing trade relations with Africa, and accordingly organized a steamship line. It was a large undertaking. There were few large Negro investors, and if money was to be raised it had to come in numerous small amounts rather than in a few large ones. Again, if commercial relations were to be established, there must be intelligent Negroes at the African end. The effort grew into another "Back to Africa" movement. To increase interest it was necessary to campaign actively, using appeals calculated to arouse the great mass of Negroes. This Garvey did with such success that his "Back to Africa" slogans created a far larger movement than his original commercial proposition. The Universal Negro Improvement Association attracted more interest and members. The Negro World, a newspaper with a constant and powerful appeal to racial pride, racial solidarity, and racial independence, is the organ of the movement. During the summer of 1920 a great convention was held. A provisional president of the Black Republic was elected, and was acclaimed the recognized leader of the black people of the world. The women were organized into "Black Cross" nurses and it was planned to establish a "Black House" in Washington. The movement has been widened to include the black peoples of the British colonies and Africa. An alliance of sympathy has been declared with peoples similarly disadvantaged. Thus Ireland's contention for home rule is supported, in spite of the supposed general hostility between the Negroes and the Irish in the United States. The movement is credited with 4,000,000 followers in different parts of the world.

VI. OPINIONS OF FIFTEEN NEGROES ON DEFINITE RACIAL PROBLEMS

What are Negroes thinking? Few white persons know the intimate reactions of Negroes to problems which they face daily. Yet it is obvious that the conduct of Negroes in practically every phase of life is determined by these very sentiments, which for the white world remain a closed book.

It was with this in mind that a series of questions was put to seventeen Negroes whose intelligence and public-mindedness qualified them for critical self-analysis as well as dispassionate examination of racial issues as they affect the minds, behavior, and policies of Negroes as a group. Ten of these Negroes lived in Chicago and represented an ordinary type of the intelligent Negro. Five of them lived outside of Chicago. Included in this latter number were two Negroes whose writings have been widely read and who may be said to exercise some influence over the thinking of Negroes.

The fifteen whose replies are presented here included business men, physicians, ministers, school teachers, lawyers, and social workers. Two were women.

ARE RACE RELATIONS IMPROVING?

Question: Putting aside for the moment the question of right and wrong and the iniquity of the causes back of present relations, do you believe that the relations are becoming better or worse, or are they at a standstill?

Answers:

1. Better, decidedly better. If it becomes unprofitable to lynch Negroes, or unprofitable to shoot them up in riots, they will probably more and more be let alone. The riots in Chicago and Washington mean that not only Negroes will lose their lives. They also indicate to me that the Negro feels that his back is more and more to the wall, and he is bestirring himself. So long as he is satisfied, his case is hopeless. When he begins to force respect he will usher in the dawn of a new day. Again there is an increasing number of evidences that white people are waking up to the conditions. Negroes feel that some of the "Study Groups" are ineffective, but the fact remains that at one time the race question was not deemed worthy of study except by Negroes. When all is said, I would rather be living in 1920 than in 1870.

2. The relations are becoming worse. Relatively speaking, race relations in America have not kept pace with progress in many fields along other lines. The great desideratum is that the Negro change his point of view.

3. The present relations between the races seem more tense than formerly. This is due to the fact that Negroes have developed within the past few years a greater race consciousness, a great race respect. The immigration from the South which permitted him to enter into the industrial life of the North with very few hindrances, to partake of its civic life without an ever-constant reminder of race, was one of the main factors in increasing race consciousness and race respect. Another factor was the treatment as equals and fellow human beings of the Negro soldiers by the French soldiery and people. These things have caused the Negro to demand the respect which he is entitled to as a man and the privileges due him as a citizen. The whites at the present time still object to giving him these. This causes friction. I believe, however, that it will be lessened as soon as the whites realize that these demands of the Negro will not be withdrawn but will continue to be made with greater insistence.