The Southern South

by Albert Bushnell Hart

A widely read book of the same type is Thomas Nelson Page’s “The Negro: the Southerner’s Problem” (1904). Mr. Page accepts as a fact the existence of various classes of Negroes self-respecting and worthy of the respect of others; and he believes, on the whole, that the colored race deserve commendation. “The Negro has not behaved unnaturally,” he says; “he has, indeed, in the main behaved well.” The main difficulty with Mr. Page’s book is that it fails to go to the bottom of the causes which underlie the trouble; and that while admitting the fact that a considerable fraction of the negro race is improving, he sees no ultimate solution. He suggests but three alternatives: removal, which he admits to be impossible; amalgamation, which is equally unthinkable; and an absolute separation of social and apparently of economic life, which could be accomplished only by turning over definite regions for negro occupation. Starting out with undoubted good will to the black race, the writer ends with little hope of a distinct bettering of conditions.

Quite a different point of view is William Benjamin Smith’s “The Color Line—A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn” (1905), which is based on the assertion that the Negro is no part of the human race and hence that amalgamation is a crime against nature. The general trend of Professor Smith’s book is an argument, somewhat technical and not convincing, that the black man is physically, mentally, and morally so different from the white man that he may be set outside the community. This was of course the argument for slavery, and if it be true, is still an argument for peonage or some other recognized position of dependency. From this deduction, however, Smith sheers off; he uses the inferiority of the Negro chiefly as an argument against the mixture of the races, which he believes to be a danger; and he makes an ingenious distinction between the present mixture in which the fathers were Whites and a possible future amalgamation in which the fathers might be Negroes.

The most suggestive recent study of the negro question is Edgar Gardner Murphy’s “Problems of the Present South” (1904). Mr. Murphy is an Alabamian, very familiar with Southern conditions. While not optimistic—nobody in the South is optimistic on the race question—he recognizes the possibility of a much better race feeling than the present one. It is interesting to see that this man who, as champion of the movement against child labor in the South, has been so successful in relieving children of a terrible burden, feels sure that the worst thing that can be done for the community is to keep the Negro ignorant. He is perfectly willing to face the issue that those who show the qualities of manhood should have the reward of manhood, namely, the right to participate in politics; and the acknowledgment of that right he says does not imply race fusion. He gives up nothing of his Southern birthright, and courageously asserts the ability of his section to work out its problem for itself.

Genial in tone, full of the ripe thought of an accomplished writer is William Garrott Brown, “The Lower South” (1902), which is not a discussion of the race question so much as of the character and point of view of the planter before the Civil War and the Southern gentleman since that time, a plea for a sympathetic understanding of the real difficulties of the South and its sense of responsibility.

These five books are proof not only that there is wide divergence of views, but also that genuine Southern men, strongly loyal to their own section, can set an example of moderation of speech, breadth of view, and willingness to accept and to promote a settlement of the Southern question through the elevation of the people, white and black, who have ultimate power over that question.

In slavery days almost all the discussion of race questions came from the Whites, Southern or Northern. Now, there is a school of negro controversialists and observers, several of whom have had the highest advantages of education and of a personal acquaintance with the problems which they discuss, and thus possess some advantages over many white writers. About twenty years ago George W. Williams published his “History of the Negro Race in America” (1883), which, though to a large degree a compilation, is a respectable and useful book. Another writer, William H. Thomas, in his “The American Negro” (1901), has made admissions with regard to the moral qualities of his fellow Negroes which have been widely taken up and quoted by anti-Negro writers. Charles W. Chesnutt, in several books of collected stories, of which “The Conjure Woman” (1899) is the liveliest, and in two novels, “The House Behind the Cedars” (1900) and the “Marrow of Tradition” (1901), has criticised the rigid separation of races. No man feels more keenly the race distinctions than one like Chesnutt, more Caucasian than African in his make-up. One of the best of their writers is Kelly Miller, who has contributed nearly fifty articles to various periodicals upon the race problems; and in humor, good temper, and appreciation of the real issues, shows himself often superior to the writers whom he criticises. The most systematic discussion of the race by one of themselves is William A. Sinclair’s “The Aftermath of Slavery” (1905), which, though confused in arrangement and unscientific in form, is an excellent summary of the arguments in favor of the negro race and the Negroes’ political privileges.

The most eminent man whom the African race in America has produced is Booker T. Washington, the well-known president of Tuskegee. In addition to his numerous addresses and his personal influence, he has contributed to the discussion several volumes, partly autobiographic and partly didactic. His “Up from Slavery” (1901) is a remarkable story of his own rise from the deepest obscurity to a place of great influence. In three other volumes, “Character Building” (1902), “Working with the Hands” (1904), and “The Negro in Business” (1907), he has widened his moral influence upon his race. “The Future of the American Negro” (1899) is the only volume in which Washington discusses the race problem as a whole; and his advice here, as in all his public utterances, is for the Negro to show himself so thrifty and so useful that the community cannot get on without him.

Paul L. Dunbar, the late negro poet, contented himself with his irresistible fun and his pathos without deep discussions of problems. The most distinguished literary man of the race is W. E. Burghardt DuBois, an A.B. and Ph.D. of Harvard, who studied several years in Germany, and as Professor of Sociology in Atlanta University has had an unusual opportunity to study his people. Besides many addresses and numerous articles, he has contributed to the discussion his “Souls of Black Folk” (1903), which, in a style that places him among the best writers of English to-day in America, passionately speaks the suffering of the highly endowed and highly educated mulatto who is shut out of the kingdom of kindred spirits only by a shadow of color. Witness such phrases as these: “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships”; or this, “The sincere and passionate belief that somewhere between men and cattle, God created a tertium quid, and called it a Negro,—a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable within its limitation, but straitly fore ordained to walk within the Veil.”

The three groups just sketched, the violent Southerners, moderate Southerners, and negro writers, each from its own point of view has aimed to study the complicated subject, to classify and generalize. Nearly all the writers are sources, in that they are conversant with the South and have a personal acquaintance with its problems; but their books are discussions rather than materials. What is now most needed for a solid understanding of the question is monographic first-hand studies of limited scope in selected areas. Unfortunately that material is still scanty. Professor DuBois has made a series of investigations as to the conditions of the Negro; first, his elaborate monograph, “The Philadelphia Negro” (published by the University of Pennsylvania, 1899), then a series of sociological studies in the “Atlanta University Publications,” and several “Bulletins” published by the United States Department of Labor, notably “Census Bulletin No. 8: Negroes in the United States” (1904). He has thus made himself a leading authority upon the actual conditions, particularly of the negro farmer. At Atlanta University and also at Hampton, Va., are held annual conferences, the proceedings of which are published every year, including a large amount of first-hand material on present conditions. One Northern white man, Carl Kelsey, has addressed himself to this problem in his “The Negro Farmer” (1903), which is a careful study of the conditions of the Negroes in tidewater, Virginia.

One practical Southern cotton planter has devoted much time and attention to the scientific study of the conditions on his own plantation and elsewhere as a contribution toward a judgment of the race problem. This is Alfred H. Stone, of Greenville, Miss., who has published half a dozen monographs, several of which are gathered into a volume, under the title “Studies in the American Race Problem” (1908). He is now engaged, under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution, on a study of the whole question. He has visited several Southern states and the West Indies, and brings to his inquiries the point of view of an employer of Negroes who wishes them well and sees the interest of his country in the improvement of negro labor. Perhaps his judgment is somewhat affected by the special conditions of Mississippi and of his own neighborhood, in which the Negroes are very numerous and perhaps more than usually disturbing. The results of his latest investigations will appear under the title “Race Relations in America”; and may be expected to be the most thorough contribution to the subject made by any writer.