“What the North is sending South is not money,” says Vardaman, “but dynamite; this education is ruining our Negroes. They’re demanding equality.”
A Southern View of Negro Education
When I was in Montgomery, Ala., a letter was published in one of the newspapers from Alexander Troy, a well-known lawyer. It did not express the view of the most thoughtful men of that city, but I am convinced that it represented with directness and force the belief of a large proportion of the white people of Alabama. The letter says:
All the millions which have been spent by the state since the war in Negro education ... have been worse than wasted. Should anyone ask “Has not Booker Washington’s school been of benefit to the Negro?” the so-called philanthropists of the North would say “yes,” but a hundred thousand white people of Alabama would say “no.”... Ask any gentleman from the country what he thinks of the matter, and a very large majority of them will tell you that they never saw a Negro benefited by education, but hundreds ruined. He ceases to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water....
Exclude the air and a man will die, keep away the moisture and the flower will wither. Stop the appropriations for Negro education, by amendment to the Constitution if necessary, and the school-house in which it is taught will decay. Not only that, but the Negro will take the place the Creator intended he should take in the economy of the world—a dutiful, faithful, and law-abiding servant.
These are Mr. Troy’s words and they found reflection in the discussions of the Alabama legislature then in session. A compulsory education bill had been introduced; the problem was to pass a law that would apply to white people, not to Negroes. In this connection I heard a significant discussion in the state senate. I use the report of it, for accuracy, as given the next morning in the Advertiser:
Senator Thomas said ... he would oppose any bills that would compel Negroes to educate their children, for it had come to his knowledge that Negroes would give the clothing off their backs to send their children to school, while too often the white man, secure in his supremacy, would be indifferent to his duty.
At this point Senator Lusk arose excitedly to his feet and said:
“Does the Senator from Barbour mean to say that the Negro race is more ambitious and has more aspirations than the white race?”
“The question of the gentleman ... is an insult to the senate of Alabama,” replied Senator Thomas deliberately. “It is an insult to the great Caucasian race, the father of all the arts and sciences, to compare it to that black and kinky race which lived in a state of black and ignorant savagery until the white race seized it and lifted it to its present position.”