Fifty Years of Freedom / with matters of vital importance to both the white and colored people of the United States

by Francis J. Grimké

There is something really pathetic in the spectacle here presented, of vast numbers of people claiming to be intelligent, claiming to be civilized, some claiming even to be Christians, allowing themselves to be dominated, to be controlled absolutely by such an utterly ignoble sentiment as race prejudice. You can't help asking yourself the question, Can these people really be sane? Jesus, we are told, wept over Jerusalem. As he saw her condition—saw her in her blindness, stupidity, obstinacy—as he saw the end towards which she was madly rushing, it touched his great heart with pity, and wrung tears from his eyes. And this is the way, it seems to me, that any right thinking man, any man who has a heart of pity must feel as he looks out on the multitudes in this land who are yielding themselves up to the sway of this bitter, degrading, Negro-hating spirit; as he sees how they are being driven more and more into doing so many utterly contemptible things; and, when he remembers also that the reaping is to be as the sowing. It is easy enough to hate such people, if you don't stop to think; but when you remember that they are human beings; that they are under the dominion of moral laws that are just as inexorable in their operations as are physical laws; and remember also, under these laws, what the result is sure to be, there is no room for hatred, for bitterness, but only for pity, for the deepest commiseration. The thing that we ought to do, and, that I wish very much that we would do, and do more than we have been in the habit of doing, is to pray for these misguided, unfortunate, greatly to be pitied individuals who are fighting us. The Spirit of God can open blind eyes, can unstop deaf ears, can soften the hardest hearts. The Spirit of God can regenerate, can give an entirely new bias or direction to character and life. And this is what is needed. These people need to be changed, to be set right. The possibility of such a change, both for their sakes and for ours, should lead us to work and pray earnestly for it.

(9). It is also well for us, as we face the future, not to be deceived, not to be misguided by the assumption upon which some of our race leaders have been proceeding. It has been assumed by some that the reason why we are treated as we are is because we are poor, because we are ignorant, because we are degraded, in a word, because of our condition; and, that if we will only improve ourselves—will only work hard and better our condition—will get more knowledge, more money, more character, it will be all right in the end. Those who act upon this assumption think that the wise thing for us to do, therefore, is to lose sight entirely of the manner in which we are treated, to take no account of it, to make no ado about it, to bear it patiently and give ourselves up entirely to the work of improving ourselves. This is what they counsel; this is the way, they say, this race problem is to be solved.

Looked at in the abstract this seems to be very plausible. The assumption that if we improve ourselves; if we show ourselves worthy of being treated properly, that we would be, is what would naturally be expected. Unfortunately, however, the facts are all against it. Things have not panned out as might have been expected, under this theory of race adjustment. The race problem, as we understand it, may mean one of two things. It may mean the problem of the race's development, which would include all the agencies to be employed in securing this result; or it may mean the problem of getting the white man to behave himself—getting him to treat the colored man properly, as a man, as a brother, as a citizen, having common and equal rights with himself. That the race's development may go on without at all affecting favorably the white man's attitude towards it, is clearly evident from what is going on about us, and from the experience of the last forty or fifty years. During these years the colored people have steadily improved along all lines; and yet the same feeling of antipathy, of hostility to them exists. There is no indication of a desire to treat them any better. The progress that they have made has counted for nothing in their favor; has not lessened, in the least, the opposition to them.

A short while ago a Congressman from Louisiana, J. B. Aswell, introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to segregate colored employees of the Government. Among other things in presenting his bill, he said:

"Every informed and right-thinking white man, while sympathizing with and anxious to help the Negro in his place, recognizes the necessity of preserving the integrity and supremacy of the white race. The purpose of this bill is to check a bad tendency in this country, before it is too late, and cause thinking people everywhere to find themselves in relation to the race problem and thus deal fairly and give justice to both races. The bill seeks to help the Negro by making him proficient in his own sphere and by correcting a false idea of his proper circumscribed position in the republic, and, at the same time, relieve the white man in the public service from the intolerable humiliation of being compelled, in order to earn his daily bread, to work side by side with an objectionable people, the continuation of which practice must result in irreparable injury to both races, and ultimately destroy the efficiency of the public service. Such practices will drive the self-respecting proficient white man and woman from the civil service of the Government."

The bill provides, "That the heads of all executive departments shall issue all such orders as shall be necessary to secure in all branches of the civil service of the United States to the utmost extent consistent with public interests, the segregation of civil employees of the white race from those of African blood or descent, in the performance of their services."

It also provides that, "In all executive departments within the District of Columbia, clerks or employees shall not be required to occupy the same office or work rooms with clerks or employees of African blood or descent; nor shall any white clerk or employee be placed under the orders, direction, or supervision of any person of African blood or descent."

It also provides that, "In the railway mail service of the Post-office Department white clerks shall not, except in cases of emergency, be ordered to duty in the same mail car with postal clerks of African blood or descent."

You will notice that the course which he recommends here, and which he seeks to enforce by law, is not because the Negro is ignorant, not because he is inefficient, not because he is ungentlemanly in his deportment; but simply because he is a Negro, or has Negro blood in his veins. The fact that he is in the service at all proves that he isn't ignorant, that he isn't inefficient, for he is there as the result of civil service examination. It makes no difference how much he knows, how efficient he is, how gentlemanly he is, the thing that makes him objectionable is that he is a Negro, or is of Negro descent. It doesn't make any difference how highly cultivated he is, it becomes, in the language of the Representative from Louisiana, "an intolerable humiliation for a white man to be compelled, in order to earn his daily bread, to work side by side with an objectionable people." It isn't the condition of the people; it isn't their backwardness that discounts them, but the fact that they are of African blood or descent.

Senator Vardaman, in his insane ravings over the nomination by President Wilson of Adam E. Patterson, a colored man from Oklahoma, as Register of the Treasury, speaks in the same strain. He says: