The Souls of Black Folk
disappointment of displaced demagogues and the spite of narrow minds.
But aside from this, there is among educated and thoughtful colored men
in all parts of the land a feeling of deep regret, sorrow, and
apprehension at the wide currency and ascendancy which some of Mr.
Washington’s theories have gained. These same men admire his sincerity
of purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor which is
doing something worth the doing. They cooperate with Mr. Washington as
far as they conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute
to this man’s tact and power that, steering as he must between so many
diverse interests and opinions, he so largely retains the respect of
all.
But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous
thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence
and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so
passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest
criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism
of writers by readers,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard
of modern society. If the best of the American Negroes receive by outer
pressure a leader whom they had not recognized before, manifestly there
is here a certain palpable gain. Yet there is also irreparable loss,—a
loss of that peculiarly valuable education which a group receives when
by search and criticism it finds and commissions its own leaders. The
way in which this is done is at once the most elementary and the nicest
problem of social growth. History is but the record of such
group-leadership; and yet how infinitely changeful is its type and
character! And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive
than the leadership of a group within a group?—that curious double
movement where real progress may be negative and actual advance be
relative retrogression. All this is the social student’s inspiration
and despair.
Now in the past the American Negro has had instructive experience in
the choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which
in the light of present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks
and stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their
attitude is largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of
natural forces. But when to earth and brute is added an environment of
men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned group may take three
main forms,—a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all
thought and action to the will of the greater group; or, finally, a
determined effort at self-realization and self-development despite
environing opinion. The influence of all of these attitudes at various
times can be traced in the history of the American Negro, and in the
evolution of his successive leaders.
Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in the
veins of the slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted
leadership but the one motive of revolt and revenge,—typified in the
terrible Maroons, the Danish blacks, and Cato of Stono, and veiling all
the Americas in fear of insurrection. The liberalizing tendencies of
the latter half of the eighteenth century brought, along with kindlier
relations between black and white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment and
assimilation. Such aspiration was especially voiced in the earnest
songs of Phyllis, in the martyrdom of Attucks, the fighting of Salem
and Poor, the intellectual accomplishments of Banneker and Derham, and
the political demands of the Cuffes.
Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much of the
previous humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of the
Negroes at the persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two
movements. The slaves in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors
of the Haytian revolt, made three fierce attempts at insurrection,—in
1800 under Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822 under Vesey in Carolina, and in
1831 again in Virginia under the terrible Nat Turner. In the Free
States, on the other hand, a new and curious attempt at
self-development was made. In Philadelphia and New York
color-prescription led to a withdrawal of Negro communicants from white
churches and the formation of a peculiar socio-religious institution
among the Negroes known as the African Church,—an organization still
living and controlling in its various branches over a million of men.
Walker’s wild appeal against the trend of the times showed how the
world was changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery
seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly
cowed into submission. The free Negroes of the North, inspired by the
mulatto immigrants from the West Indies, began to change the basis of
their demands; they recognized the slavery of slaves, but insisted that
they themselves were freemen, and sought assimilation and amalgamation
with the nation on the same terms with other men. Thus, Forten and
Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of Wilmington, Du Bois of New Haven,
Barbadoes of Boston, and others, strove singly and together as men,
they said, not as slaves; as “people of color,” not as “Negroes.” The
trend of the times, however, refused them recognition save in
individual and exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the
despised blacks, and they soon found themselves striving to keep even
the rights they formerly had of voting and working and moving as
freemen. Schemes of migration and colonization arose among them; but
these they refused to entertain, and they eventually turned to the
Abolition movement as a final refuge.
Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown, and Douglass, a new period of
self-assertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate
freedom and assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the
assertion of the manhood rights of the Negro by himself was the main
reliance, and John Brown’s raid was the extreme of its logic. After the
war and emancipation, the great form of Frederick Douglass, the
greatest of American Negro leaders, still led the host. Self-assertion,
especially in political lines, was the main programme, and behind
Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the Reconstruction
politicians, and, less conspicuous but of greater social significance,
Alexander Crummell and Bishop Daniel Payne.
Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the Negro votes,
the changing and shifting of ideals, and the seeking of new lights in
the great night. Douglass, in his old age, still bravely stood for the
ideals of his early manhood,—ultimate assimilation _through_
self-assertion, and on no other terms. For a time Price arose as a new
leader, destined, it seemed, not to give up, but to re-state the old
ideals in a form less repugnant to the white South. But he passed away
in his prime. Then came the new leader. Nearly all the former ones had
become leaders by the silent suffrage of their fellows, had sought to
lead their own people alone, and were usually, save Douglass, little
known outside their race. But Booker T. Washington arose as essentially
the leader not of one race but of two,—a compromiser between the South,
the North, and the Negro. Naturally the Negroes resented, at first
bitterly, signs of compromise which surrendered their civil and
political rights, even though this was to be exchanged for larger
chances of economic development. The rich and dominating North,
however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was investing
largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful
cooperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize
Mr. Washington’s leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.
Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of
adjustment and submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to
make his programme unique. This is an age of unusual economic
development, and Mr. Washington’s programme naturally takes an economic
cast, becoming a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as
apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life.
Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are coming in
closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is
therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington’s programme practically
accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own
land, the reaction from the sentiment of war time has given impetus to
race-prejudice against Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of
the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens. In other
periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro’s tendency to
self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of
submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and
peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly
self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who
voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not
worth civilizing.
In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only
through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people
give up, at least for the present, three things,—
First, political power,
Second, insistence on civil rights,
Third, higher education of Negro youth,—and concentrate all their
energies on industrial education, and accumulation of wealth, and the
conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously and
insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant
for perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch,
what has been the return? In these years there have occurred:
1. The disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the
Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher
training of the Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s
teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped
their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: Is it possible,
and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in
economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile
caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their
exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to
these questions, it is an emphatic _No_. And Mr. Washington thus faces
the triple paradox of his career:
1. He is striving nobly to make Negro artisans business men and
property-owners; but it is utterly impossible, under modern competitive
methods, for workingmen and property-owners to defend their rights and
exist without the right of suffrage.
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels
a silent submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the
manhood of any race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates
institutions of higher learning; but neither the Negro common-schools,
nor Tuskegee itself, could remain open a day were it not for teachers
trained in Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates.
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object of
criticism by two classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually
descended from Toussaint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and
Turner, and they represent the attitude of revolt and revenge; they
hate the white South blindly and distrust the white race generally, and
so far as they agree on definite action, think that the Negro’s only
hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And
yet, by the irony of fate, nothing has more effectually made this