CHAPTER XIII
THE NEW SOUTHERN STATESMANSHIP
“Democracy is the progress of all through all, under the leadership of the best and the wisest.”—Mazzini.
In former chapters I have had much to tell that was unpleasant and perhaps discouraging; but it had to be told, for it is there, and must be honestly met and reckoned with.
But the chief pleasure of the present task has been the opportunity it has given me to meet the working idealists of the South, and to see the courageous and unselfish way in which they are meeting the obstacles which confront them. If any man would brighten his faith in human nature, if he would attain a deeper and truer grasp upon the best things of life, let him attend one of the educational rallies of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, or Texas, and hear the talks of Dr. S. C. Mitchell, President Alderman, J. Y. Joyner, P. P. Claxton, Chancellor Barrow, President Houston, and others; or let him spend a few days at Hampton with Dr. Frissell, or at Tuskegee with Dr. Washington, or at Calhoun with Miss Thorne. Coming away from a meeting one night at Tuskegee after there had been speaking in the chapel by both white and coloured men, I could not help saying to myself:
“The Negro problem is not unsolvable; it is being solved, here and now, as fast as any human problem can be solved.”
Men may be found straining their vision to see some distant and complex solution to the question (have we not heard talk of deportation, extermination, amalgamation, segregation, and the like?) when the real solution is under their very eyes, going forward naturally and simply.
It is this quiet, constructive movement among the white people in the South which I wish to consider here.