“Where there is but one race in a community there may be political equality in rights—but this cannot give equality in mind, character and condition. Servitude still prevails in one form or another, from a necessity as stern as the laws. But when the races are different and one race is inferior to the other, the inferior race must be exterminated or fall into such a state of subjection as to present motives for their preservation to the stronger race.”[356]
Residence in the South, a considerable time after maturity, had therefore apparently lessened the independence of this colored man. He had come, not unnaturally, to prefer security to independence.
But, in the same year and about the same time, there appeared in the same paper a temperately worded article from the pen of another Negro, also a minister, R. R. Wright, Jr., residing in Philadelphia, who had been employed at various times by the United States Bureau of Labor and the University of Pennsylvania.
He had also, at an earlier date, published an essay on the Negro Problem, which treats the subject as a scientific investigation, in which all temper and feeling is out of place. With regard to the movement of the Negroes he declared there had been at least four different migrations of the Negroes from the South to the North since the war between the States, and estimating in 1916 that there were then, in that section, usually called the North but embracing a considerable portion of the West, he thought, of the 1,600,000 Negroes there, three fourths had been born in the South. With regard to the number of Negroes in the North at that date this estimate was above what the Census of 1920 disclosed; for by it, the date 1910, there were only 1,059,000 Negroes in the North and West and therefore, even if they had increased by 1916 to 1,600,000, three fourths of these could not have been from the South, even if the total addition of 541,000 had come from that section, as of the 1,059,000 in 1910, only forty per cent were from the South;[357] but whether 40%, 50% or 75% were from the South, Wright believed 80% of those who had moved up would stay, because he was confident, the most efficient could compete with the Slavs and Italians in rough work. Indeed he claimed it was no uncommon thing to see a Negro foreman over groups of Italians in Pennsylvania. Having seen the same thing practically as to Negroes and Spaniards, during the World War the writer can believe this. Higher wages and better educational facilities also Wright claimed would draw the Negro, North and West, and finally he cited what is in his opinion the most powerful inducement, for the Negro to move in increasing numbers from the South to the North:
“The opportunity to vote will also tend to hold them. Politicians are encouraging Negroes to remain; as they are very generally Republican. Northern Negroes are encouraging them to stay because it gives them more power; and after the Negro casts his vote and takes part in political meetings, he is just like the naturalized foreigner—he likes it and stays. Of course the white people rule, because superior intelligence and wealth always rule. But the black man enjoys being a part of the Government and being called upon every year to have his “say”.... While there is no more social equality in the North than there is in the South, and practically no desire for the same, the longer the Negro lives there, the opportunities to enjoy himself according to his means appeal to him. He earns more money, can live in a better house, buy better clothes, develops more accomplishments, has more leisure and has more protection in his enjoyment. Personally, I think it is good both for the Negroes and for the whites that a million or two million Negroes leave the South. It will make room for a large number of foreigners to come to the South and will tend to divorce the South’s labor problem more widely from its race problem, and will give it a new perspective. It will also rob the South of the fear of ‘Negro domination’ and will give it a chance to give a better expression to our democratic principles. On the other hand the scattering the Negroes throughout the country will bring them in touch with the forces of organized labor in a way to bring them better protection, while it will also acquaint the North with the Negro in such a way as to give it a more intelligent grasp of our general problem of racial relations.”[358]
Meanwhile with views for and views against, shouted to them, from all sides, the Negroes moved up from the South to the North and West and to the great centers of industry, to supply the place of immigrants and soldiers passed and passing to Europe for the great war.
To the reading Negro, wherever he was, North or South in this year just before the entrance of the great Republic into the greatest war of all time, came “The New Negro, His Political and Civil Status and Related Essays,” by William Pickens, Lit. D. Easily comprehended, popularly composed, they opened with the usual attack upon the black laws of the South in the sixties, the author especially singling out the code of South Carolina for criticism. Of them generally he says:
“From the standpoint of the Negro’s interests, however, these laws were ‘black’, not only in name and aim, but in their very nature. Instead of being the property of a personally interested master, the Negro was to be converted into the slave of a much less sympathetic society in general.”[359]
But strange to say this critic, in 1916, actually proclaims that—
“One of the greatest handicaps under which the New Negro lives is the handicap of the lack of acquaintanceship between him and his white neighbor. Under the former order, when practically all Negroes were either slaves or servants, every Negro had the acquaintance of some white man; as a race he was better known, better understood and was, therefore, the object of less suspicion on the part of the white community.”[360]