THE NEGRO ON THE NEGRO.
The New York Independent, always on the alert for information concerning the colored people, and fearless in its championship of those people’s rights, has published under the above caption seven most interesting articles.
A circular was sent to two hundred representative intelligent colored men and women in the several Southern States, “to ascertain the prevailing opinions and feelings of the colored people themselves about the relation of the races and the outlook of the colored race.” The seventh article, which is a summary of the answers received, we take great pleasure in publishing:
“Material Prosperity and Ambition of the Negro.—There is a practically unanimous opinion (the dissenting opinions coming from a few communities which have abnormal hindrances) that the colored people are becoming home owners with great rapidity. The proportion of families who own their own homes is variously estimated, and no estimate is trustworthy for statistical uses. But all the correspondents report an ambition to accumulate property, and the accumulation of more and more every year. The great mass of the blacks are not real estate owners. The great mass of black families are yet tenants; but the progress making in the acquisition of land seems to be satisfactory. In most Southern communities, land is yet very cheap, and the mere ownership of land does not argue material prosperity to any great extent; but the ownership of homes does argue a social advancement that is exceedingly significant. There is reported from some communities a lingering opposition by the whites to the disposition of land to Negroes. But this has had the natural effect to make the Negroes the more ambitious to become land-owners. In most communities this opposition seems to have disappeared, or at least to have taken the modified shape of opposition to the Negroes’ acquisition of the most desirable land for residences. The race is indisputably laying the foundation for all healthful progress.
The System of Wages, Credit, etc. There is very general complaint of the credit system which prevails in most Southern communities. The most grievous shape this takes is the payment of wages in supplies, whereby an oppressive interest is exacted, and by the nature of the system generally made necessary. By such a system the thrifty are taxed to make up for the thriftlessness of the rest. It is at this point, in fact, that the industrial servitude which yet lingers as a relic of slavery obtrudes itself most oppressively. The abolition of this system is necessary for the material advancement of the South—of both races alike; necessary for the elevation of the laborer and for the promotion of his efficiency; necessary as a corollary to the Emancipation Proclamation; and necessary as a means of freeing the whole system of Southern labor (the employer as well as the employee) from inefficiency. No conceivable amount of extraneous capital invested in the South would so add to material prosperity as the abolition of the credit and supply system. The labor problem there is to effect this emancipation. As for wages, they are low, but their lowness is not itself a cause of distress. It is the system which keeps them low and keeps labor inefficient and taxes thrift and skill, and puts a premium on thriftlessness and untrustworthiness, that does the damage. The gist of the whole problem is here.
The Races and the Laws.—The statutes of the Southern States are not a matter of complaint, except the bastardy and marriage laws; but there is a very general opinion that in the execution of the law, race prejudice appears. One correspondent lays great stress on a fact which several others mention, that many ignorant blacks often fancy that they are the victims of injustice when they are not. The opinion of the colored practitioners of law is practically unanimous that a Negro tried for certain crimes is more likely to be convicted than a white man for the same crimes, and likely to pay a heavier penalty where the penalty is discretionary with the court or jury. The marriage and bastardy laws of several Southern States at least concentrate the pressure to crime at the weakest social point, and do not give the Negro woman a fair chance, nor the same protection or reparation that the white woman has.
Schools and Churches.—In the answers to the inquiry whether the Negroes themselves prefer separate or mixed schools and churches, a peculiar state of feeling was made plain in this regard—that “union” or “mixed” schools were opposed by the colored teachers because the white teachers would then have a monopoly of the business of teaching. This implies a belief that the Southern whites would teach Negro schools if it were made profitable. The dominant sentiment of the colored people is decidedly in favor of the present system of separate schools and churches; but they prefer them because mixed schools and churches would emphasize and provoke the race prejudice. As an independent question, apart from the difficulty of readjusting a plan now almost universally adopted, they would prefer mixed schools and union churches. The most intelligent of these correspondents, even as things are, favor mixed congregations and schools as a means of eradicating race prejudice.
It is worthy of notice that several correspondents declare that the separation of the congregations of the same creed on the color line has had much to do toward causing the blacks to doubt the sincerity of the religion of those who, though they teach that their religion is universal in its application, allow it to yield to race feeling. This is a significant confession for colored men to make; and it is worthy of the attention of the Southern churches.