The Southern South

by Albert Bushnell Hart

(2) Measured by intellectual standards also the white South is below the other sections of the Union; the high standing of its leaders does not bring up the average of the more numerous elements. Any radical improvement, therefore, must include the uplift of the lower stratum of Whites.

(3) The South is divided between two races, one of which is distinctly inferior to the other, not only in what it now does, but in the potentialities of the future.

(4) The lower race is so far behind, and so likely to lag indefinitely, that it is necessary for the welfare of the community that the two be kept separate; and this stern edict applies not only to the pure African race, but also to the two millions of mixed bloods, many of whom in aptitude and habits of thought are practically white men.

(5) Both these races are improving, the Whites in great numbers and rapidly; fewer of the Negroes proportionally, and more slowly.

(6) The criminality of both races, and especially the violent criminality of the Negroes, brings into the controversy an element of personal rage and fear.

(7) Partly by superior abilities, partly by an inherited tradition, partly for the defense of the community, the white race dominates in every department of social, industrial, and political life; it owns most of the property; makes the laws for the black man; furnishes for him the machinery of government and of justice; and inexorably excludes him from both the social and political advantages of the community.

(8) This race division interferes with the American principle of equality—that is, the equal right of every man, woman, and child to do the best thing that his abilities and training allow, the inferior doing the best in his stratum, the superior the better best of his class.

(9) The two races do not live together harmoniously. The Whites fear some kind of negro domination—the Negroes resent the complete control by the Whites; actual collisions are rare, but there is a latent race hostility.

(10) The white people, though they assume sole responsibility for whatever adjustment is made, know little of the private life of the best Negroes, and exercise small direct influence on the lower race. Hence the ordinary agencies of uplift—the church, the school, and contact with superior minds—are not brought into operation.

(11) The main reason for this want of touch with the Negroes is an apprehension that any common understanding will assist a social equality which might lead to miscegenation.