We have reminded ourselves of the tremendous, the indescribably difficult, task of the very small band of negro leaders, in guiding their people to a saner life and to the ambition to fill life with the best that God’s gifts to them would enable. Of such, were Bishop Payne, of the African Methodist Church; John Jasper, the famous Richmond preacher; Alexander Crummell, of the Episcopal Church; Henry M. Turner, of the African Methodist Church; Isaiah Montgomery, of Mount Bayou, Mississippi; and, of the younger men, Booker T. Washington and his successor Robert R. Moton, Archdeacon Russell, Dr. Bragg, Dr. Tunnell, Dr. Dubois, Bishop Demby, Professor Battle, and many others of their generation. What a load they have had to carry as represented by ignorance, superstition, low moral tone, shiftlessness and unresponse in the vast majority of their brethren! What a task, to overcome the losses of that very era which produced their younger men! What a supreme faith, what unswerving confidence in their great mission, were demanded, and in large measure provided! We can but reflect that, whether or no the Whites recognize the wisdom of the methods and philosophies of one or all or any of the negro leaders, the greatest sin we can commit toward them is to withhold our sympathy from them in their toilsome, troublous, tragic, upward pathway along which, with sweat of blood, they must lead the millions of their brethren. The demand of their condition, ever since Reconstruction, has been, and is now, for that patient, helpful sympathy from which confidence is born, the confidence which invites mutual conference, the correction of error, the enlightenment of motive and objective, and so on to a common task to which White and Negro alike can devote their best efforts.
As Dr. Washington says, it was too late to cry over what might have been. The era produced at least one institution (possibly there may have been others) which a wise head conceived—Hampton Institute, Virginia. General Armstrong, with equally wise retrospect and foresight, builded upon the past for an enduring future—a future that would restore the best in the past, and make the best better. Hampton would have been a success even had it died after producing Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute; and James S. Russell, founder of St Paul’s School, Lawrenceville, Va.
There was something, too, that the Reconstruction Era could not destroy. It could fan racial prejudices, and set race against race in political antagonism; but it could not destroy the deep, ever abiding affections between the races, which the old life had nurtured. That remained as both the motive for redeeming the time, and the foundation for the rebuilded life so sadly shattered and dismembered. The era ended, white and black again took up the task of rebuilding.
Of the total negro population, in 1880, about 95 per cent were still in the South; and, in 1920, after forty years of development, and in spite of the enticement of the fabulous wages in manufacturing States created by the World War, this percentage is still nearly 75 per cent. The South is the Negro’s home, and the conditions of his greatest opportunity are there. This is the testimony of both black and white observers. Read Edgar Gardner Murphy’s Problems of the Present South (p. 184 et seq.); DuBois’s The Philadelphia Negro; and this passage from the address by the Principal of Tuskegee which, in short, expresses the witness of all alike: “Wherever the Negro has lost ground, industrially, in the South, it is not because there is prejudice against him, as a skilled laborer, on the part of the native southern white man.... There is almost no prejudice, against the Negro in the South in matters of business, so far as the native Whites are concerned.” This was published in 1899. Since then, Labor Unions have had a disconcerting relation to the matter—a relation still in solution. But certainly there was a free field for the Negro for about half a century, coupled with about as much help from the white people as they could give and as the Negro would seek; from the Northern White also, about as much as the Negro could profitably use. The results of these fifty years seem to prove this, and to offer irrefutable evidence of the excellent preparatory work of the old patriarchal system which we have reviewed in a previous chapter.
Chapter VI
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO
We have studied the Negro, both slave and free, in his native home and when transplanted. We have looked upon the picture which his life exhibits under these varying conditions. We have traced his career through the school of slavery into the larger school of free American life, and seen the picture which his life has wrought here. We turn now to the forces which have produced a transformation not short of startling to the casual observer. The two forces are education, which occupies this chapter, and the Christian religion which will engage us in the next.
Among the educated colonists of the early years, there was no question raised as to the education of slaves. Schools were few for themselves, and in most cases instruction in letters fell among family duties. Slaves were as yet indentured servants, few in number, and were probably taught, if at all, along with the children of the family. Intelligent masters naturally regarded intelligent servants as most profitable to their mutual interest. Unlettered owners quite as naturally had neither the wish nor the ability to instruct their servants in letters, and both alike enjoyed the freedom from such mental strain.
As the population—free and slave—increased, and as social life became more complex and the status of the slaves fixed, questions as to the education of the latter were raised. The cultured slave-holders very generally, and the missionaries universally, contended for their education; the exploiters and materialists usually opposed it; though there may have been exceptions on both sides. It was not until after the insurrectionary movements around 1835, that laws against negro education were possible because upheld by public sentiment. By this time it was very generally feared that ability to read would be the ready means of learning of uprisings abroad and of suggesting them at home.
Perhaps the earliest systematic effort toward negro education was in 1691, when, in Virginia, the Church became the agency through which the apprenticeship of Negroes was made. Youths gifted mechanically and industrially were indentured on condition that the talent be developed and that they be taught to read; in some cases “to read the Bible distinctly” was specified. Both before and after that date, there is abundant evidence that parochial instruction was not unusual by the missionaries, especially in the southern colonies.