Forty per cent of the children of school age in eleven states in the South are of the colored race, and yet they receive only fifteen per cent of the school fund. In the state of Georgia the population of the two races is almost equal and millions of dollars of the public fund are annually spent for high school education, but nowhere in this great state is there one public high school for members of my race. In the city of Atlanta, last year, 4,503 colored children applied for admission to the public school, and these came voluntarily, not forced by a compulsory education law. The seating capacity of the schools provided for their education was 2,951. Instead of increasing the seating capacity the board of education abolished the eighth grade, and even to this night the seventh grade measures the extent of public education for my race in the city of Atlanta.
A third form of injustice in the South which shows signs of increasing is segregation of residential sections by city ordinances. These laws are unconstitutional because they prevent a man from selling or renting his property to whomsoever he chooses. But, they are also teeming with evils which do not appear on the surface. Segregation does not simply mean that the races live apart in separate districts. It means that these segregated divisions for colored people will be almost automatically converted into slums. For, in them police improvement and sanitation will be of the poorest sort, appropriations for street improvement and sanitation will be few and far between. It means that there will be no escape from this environment within the city limits for even the most worthy and aspiring citizens of my race. You can easily see the dilemma which exists in the South today where segregation is enforced. If we are not thrifty and have no desire for education and moral uplift, we are depicted to the world as the most worthless of human beings. On the other hand, if we wish to develop ourselves and our children into citizens worthy of this great Republic, in the South we are prevented by the Law. If we ask for those privileges of the law to which we are entitled, we are told we are not yet ready for them. If we ask for the opportunity to prepare to exercise those privileges, we are told we would not make use of them if we had them—and they are denied to us. The policy of the South is illogical, inconsistent, indefensible. Unless the South squarely faces the problem before its doors, unless it seeks to solve the problem instead of repressing it, and deals with the problem with intelligence and sympathy, then inevitably there must result, for my people and for yours, stagnation, disease and death!
It is not necessary for me to call your attention this evening to the widespread practice in the Southern states of denying the right of trial by jury. Can any state expect to develop law-abiding citizens while the laws themselves are freely broken in the matter of punishment? To summarize the situation in the South, life is cheap, property is always in danger, and lawlessness reigns supreme. As a result of it all, the law of retributive justice brings it about that the South is the retarding cog in the machinery of our democracy. World conditions demand that the machine be set in prime to meet future responsibilities and duties.
The problem is neither local or racial—it is national. It is not a matter of racial misunderstanding involving only one section of the country. It is a matter of eleven million citizens of the United States being subjected to flagrant injustice. Its solution involves not only the welfare of my race, but the future of the Republic.
A correct and permanent solution of this problem involves the ready co-operation of the colored race, the South, and the National government. The colored race, which constitutes one-third of the population of the South, is such a factor in the life of the South, that no plan of civil and material welfare can ignore his rights if it hopes to reach the highest success. We are learning the value of industrial independence and education. Leaders of my race are coming forward, men of ideals and of vision, who are giving to millions inspiration, ambition and hope. Given but the opportunity, we will help to make industrious, intelligent and patriotic citizens of our people.
Today the South is half a century behind the North in the development of her resources and her industries. It is to the interest of the South to learn that the time spent in repressing the negro is just that much time lost from the promotion of its industrial and civic welfare. It is to the interest of the South to learn that those efforts which tend to curtail the fullest growth of one-third of this population must inevitably curtail the fullest growth of the South itself. It is to the interest of the South to have a spiritual awakening, if it hopes to develop its material and civil resources.
The National government that poured out its treasures and the blood of its sons that men might be free, cannot stop short of their full enfranchisement through the freedom of knowledge and culture. The National government must give its aid to develop skilled hands, disciplined minds, and patriotic hearts. For the colored race is the one asset of this country, especially of the South, which at present shows promise of the greatest returns in proportion to the money and energy spent in its development.
We, the younger generation of the colored race, realize the gravity of the situation, and that we are factors in its solution. We are aware of the fact that we are in the midst of a people that is the product of twenty centuries of human progress.
At present we have every reason to be hopeful. When, during the last half of the nineteenth century, the cries of my people were for charitable help to combat ignorance and poverty, the philanthropists of the North responded in the form of Morehouse, Fiske, Tuskegee and other institutions of both higher education and industrial training. These schools today have thousands of graduates scattered in all parts of the South, giving their lives in fighting poverty and ignorance. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the cry from the South is for equal opportunity and a proper administration of justice. We expect the government to respond. We have faith in American ideals—in the ultimate triumph of Americanism.
We have faith in the greatness of our country, and in the ability of its people to meet and overcome all difficulties which may beset it. We have faith in the determination to realize for all men, both white and black, the broadest possibilities of life and to seek its highest powers. We have faith in the Union of knowledge, cheerful co-operation, and broad-minded sympathy to advance the common good. Let us pray God that the heart hurting plights of race dislikes, the sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions will pass away, and their place be taken by that broader republic of human attainment which knows no limitations of race, color, or clime!