“We now come to Jean Gordon’s statement relative to ‘wild stories are being circulated that the Negro won the great world war....’ No intelligent Negro can claim that the Negro won the world war, but every intelligent man, woman, and child, in this country and on the other side, is aware that the Negro did his share in winning it over there, and did his full share over here. The Negro has participated in every war in which this country has engaged, and at no time did he retreat nor show the yellow streak. No one can cite an instance where a Negro protested against going to the front. Against propaganda that was overwhelming, the Negro remained loyal. The first Negroes to set foot on French soil were from Louisiana—longshoremen; they were not soldiers, true, but they did what they were sent to do, and did it well. Very few white regiments from Louisiana saw the firing line, yet they are all soldiers. No doubt, had they been sent to the front, they would have fought, but so would every black citizen of the United States. However, if it is true that ‘comparatively few of them fought when the total of the millions of white men who died in that struggle is considered,’ the reason for that is that the South did its level best to keep the Negro out of the war as a soldier. And it must be known that every white man who fought and died was not an American! Every black man who fought did his part creditably, as has ever been the case. Whole Negro regiments were decorated by the French, and bear in mind that among those who were the first to be decorated by the French were American Negroes! As for the fighting qualities of the Negro, all I need do is to refer any ‘doubting Thomas’ to Xon Hill. Nothing more need be said. And I repeat for all concerned that while the Negro did not win the world war, he did his share in helping to win it over there, and he and his women who remained over here helped to win it by laboring and giving funds.... The Negro dug trenches, he fought, he died on the battlefield, he gave of his money and his labor over here, and his women gave of their money and labor. Did the Negro help win the great world war? I’ll say he did!!! Will anyone say he did not? If anyone has done more, let him come forward.
“Before concluding, I wish to ask Jean Gordon just why it is she and the women of the South are so bitterly opposed to giving suffrage to Negro women? Do they fear us? Yea, they need to fear us, for we have made up our minds that we are going to help our men of the South get their rights, and Jean Gordon, being a woman, is fully aware that when a woman wills a thing, it is as good as done. The Negro men are going to come out on top, and their women are going to see to it. The Negro men are going to learn to protect their women from the snares of white men, and their women are going to help them do this, too.... No longer does a Negro woman consider it an honor to have a white man for a ‘friend’—a lover; gradually have we made her understand that it is an insult, and she now tells her father, brother, or husband, as the case may be, and it is up to this man to defend the virtue of his female relative, in the same way the white man defends his. No more do we hear nice-looking colored boys bragging that such and such a white woman is quite crazy for him, for we have shown him that her affection for him is likely to lead him into trouble, so, having quite a variety of colors to choose from in the women of his own race (thanks to the white man for that), the Negro boy runs along with the kind of girl who pleases him, and keeps out of trouble. Very often, though, the White does not let him stay out of trouble—there are so many ways devised by these nice white people to hurt the Negro who is peaceably bent. The Negro has been patient, true, but we all know there is an end to all patience. I hope the time has come when the Whites of this section will take up more time in improving themselves and less time in seeing the error of our ways. We both of us have much to do, but we Negroes are aware of it, and are anxious to improve ourselves, but we are unable to take pattern after those who are more in need of lessons than we. The Negro is bound to come out on top—even though he is in a hopeless minority. Right will ever and always crush Might; for reference, see William Hohenzollern!”
By this sulphurous little smoke one may know of subterranean fire. When the earthquake comes the Jean Gordons will fall down and the new Negro woman will stand forth. White society in places like New Orleans may one day be overthrown unless it can live for ideals and reform its institutions. Much depends on the law which is corrupted and much on the churches now in decay. Literature in New Orleans is nigh dead, so I will not mention that.
XII
THE NEW MIND OF THE NEGRO
Resentment is the main characteristic of the Negro forward movement. In endeavoring to understand the Negro mind a maximum is gained by answering the question: What does it mean to have been a slave? Analysis of racial consciousness at once brings to light in the case of the Negro a slave mentality. He has been pre-dispositioned by slavery.
To have been a slave, or to be the child of a slave, means to have an old unpaid grudge in the blood; to have, in fact, resentment either smouldering or abeyant or militant. If it does not develop in the slave it will develop in the child of the slave or the child of the child. It may not take a violent form. Certain circumstances, such as prosperity, have power to neutralize it. On the other hand, certain other circumstances have power to bring it more rapidly to a head. The virus feeds on grievances, will even feed on imaginary grievances, but most certainly will grow apace on real grievances. In all seriousness, there is nothing like burning people alive for bringing out active spite and hate. Because of burning and lynching, the whole of American Negrodom swells larger in resentment, day by day, and moon by moon.
The character of ex-slave, and the child of one who was a slave, is aptly shown by the way the Negro treats animals, in the way also in which he treats those Negroes who happen to come under him.