What the Negro thinks

Front matter

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Contents

Foreword Chapter | I. “I Know the Negro”

II. Knowing the White Man Ill. The Advancing Negro IV. Solving the Negro Problem Without the Negro V. .The Negro and the Law: Common Carriers VI. The Negro and the Law: Schools—Housing VII. The Negro and the Government: The Ballot—The Courts VIII. The Negro and the Government: Public Office—Public Policy IX. The Negro and Public Sentiment X. The Negro’s Reaction XI. The Outlook

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Chapter I ‘! KNOW THE NEGRO”

PERHAPS no single phrase has been more frequently used in discussing the race problem in America than the familiar declaration, “I know the Negro.” It has been commonly employed to support the opinions and sustain the convictions of large numbers of white men and women who are zealous to defend existing customs and practices which give to the Negro a different status in social and civic life from that occupied by his white neighbour.

Negroes have always met this remark with a certain faint, knowing smile. Their common experience has taught them that as a matter of fact there are vast reaches of Negro life and thought of which white people know nothing whatever, even after long contact with them, sometimes on the most intimate terms.

There is, however, a certain amount of truth in the assertion. Every white man in the South has some knowledge of Negro life gained at first hand, sometimes from playmates of childhood, as often from contact with serv-

I ants in the home, and more frequently with labourers and employees on the farms and in industrial plants, and with janitors and porters in shops and stores; for the great majority of Negroes who work for others are to be found in the employ of white people; though it is also true that the majority of Negroes in gainful occupations are working for themselves. ‘This means that white people, particularly of the South, do have direct contact with a large section of the Negro race under circumstances which permit of direct observation. Such white people are naturally impressed with the authenticity of their personal observations and thus are convinced of the essential correctness of their own impressions. Their error lies in assuming that they are familiar with the whole range of Negro life and every type of Negro character.

What most of these people do not realize is the fact that there are certain phases of their life to which Negroes rarely ever, and if so, very reluctantly, admit white people; and such as are so admitted hardly boast of their knowledge. Still less is it realized that there is an increasingly large percentage of the Negro race with whom white people have no such intimate contacts whatever, who, as a matter of fact, move in a sphere confined almost entirely to their own people, with only an occasional digression into the avenues of trade and communication operated and conducted by whites.

“Tr BRNOWV THE NEGRO” 3

Negroes asa class traverse the paths of life among whites to a much greater extent than do whites among Negroes. A Negro housemaid, for instance, becomes familiar in a very short time with practically all phases of the life of her mistress. Not only is she familiar, as a matter of fact, with the contents and uses of every room in the house, and the disposition of her mistress’s most valued possessions, but she also comes in time to learn the habits of every member of the household, the topics of their conversation, the peculiarities, faults, and virtues of their friends and acquaintances; and, what is more to the point, in many and many a case these servants become the confidantes of their employers, to whom many secrets are divulged and many confessions made—all in the strictest confidence.

Very, very seldom does any white mistress ever come to know her Negro servants so intimately. Few ever visit the home of their cook or butler or nurse, unless it be in case of emergency, such as serious illness or death, perhaps. Or if otherwise they do come to the street where their servant lives, they must then be directed to the particular house they seek, and usually remain without while some accommodating passer-by calls to the door the man or woman, boy or girl, whom they wish to see. Very often they are not encouraged to enter. Such a Negro servant would hesitate to invite her mistress into her home lest it be counted a presumption; or, as often as not, because it is not such a house as befits either her estimate of herself or of the high estate of her mistress.

For the same reason these servants are not quick to divulge confidences to their employers. Many Negroes have not yet got beyond the fear of slavery days that the revelation of more intimate facts concerning themselves to white people may at some time place them in the power of these same people to their disadvantage. In this they are simply human. No one of us will reveal anything to anyone if we think it may be used to our disadvantage. And in the courts this is recognized as an unassailable right: hence, a witness may refuse to testify if the answer may tend to incriminate him.

Now white people generally feel that they have nothing to fear from their Negro servants who may learn the details of their lives, inasmuch as they are not in a position to use their information to their employer’s disadvantage. Indeed, they often feel a deal of comfort in opening their minds to such of their servants who show themselves capable of understanding and sympathy; and frequently they seek and accept their advice, particularly in matters of personal relationships. And one seldom, if ever, hears a white man or woman complain that their confidence so placed has been betrayed.

In recent years the increase of professional men among Negroes has also tended more and more to reduce the range of the white man’s acquaintance with Negro life.

“{ KNOW THE NEGRO” $

Lawyers, doctors, dentists have a more or less ready access to the intimate phases of the life of their clients. As these services are rendered Negroes more and more by members of their own race the chances of the white man to know the Negro are diminishing. It is also true that in some cases where white people have the chance to know their Negro servants, clients, and patrons they are not at all interested to know more than the matter of immediate professional interest, and sometimes even this is not pursued with care or concern.

From these natural causes the white man’s knowledge of Negro life is diminishing and the rate is accelerated by the present-day policy of segregation. This operates practically to make an ever widening gulf between the two races which leaves each race more and more ignorant of the other. Without contact there cannot be knowledge; segregation reduces the contacts, and so knowledge and understanding decrease. With decreasing knowledge comes increasing distrust and suspicion, and these in turn engender prejudice and even hatred. So a vicious circle is established whose ultimate effect, unless counteracted, must be a separation of the races into more or less opposing camps, with results as disastrous to the spirit of American institutions as to the genuine progress of both races.

There is, however, a certain significance in the expression so frequently used by white men, “I know the Negro,” that is apt to be overlooked, though it gives the greatest validity to the assertion. It expresses the mental attitude of a type which has had more or less of contact with Negroes, frequently on a large scale. It falls from the lips of plantation managers, merchant-planters, sawmill and turpentine farm managers, railroad section and chain gang bosses, all of whom have very practical relations with large numbers of Negroes, mostly unskilled labourers.

When one of these days he “knows the Negro” it means that he has had them under his control for very practical purposes and has come to a pretty wide and thorough knowledge of the habits, mannerisms, foibles, weaknesses, defects, deficiencies, virtues, and excellencies of this particular type of the race. It means, too, that he is thoroughly familiar with the ethical, social, and moral code that obtains among white men of his class in dealing with Negroes of this class and under the conditions obtaining in these fields. In such a declaration he means to say that he knows how to get the required amount of work from any given group of such Negroes, that he knows the conditions under which they will work best, the amount of pressure they will stand, what abuse they will submit to, what they will resent, under what conditions they will remain cheerful, when they will become sullen, what and when to pay them, what food to provide, what housing to furnish, what holidays to recognize, and what indulgences to grant. Such a man knows, too, to what extent

“LENOW THE NEGRO” 7 public opinion in his own race will support him in his relations with his men. He is familiar with all the local prejudices and practices involved in race adjustments; he is adept according to these in “keeping the Negro in his place”; and above all else he can be counted on to be firm and resolute in all his dealings with black folk of every type and class.

To know the Negro thus is a real attainment. The possession of such knowledge is a marketable commodity. Wherever large numbers of Negroes are to be dealt with, such an individual is an asset, however questionable its value. Such men were frequently put in charge of Negro troops, especially of labour battalions, during the World War. It was felt that men of this type would get best results from their units; but anyone who talked with Negro soldiers, especially those who went overseas, will quickly perceive that there was much that these men did not know and apparently did not learn about Negroes. The record of Negro labour battalions is a testimonial of high efficiency. The critical emergency made it both necessary and possible to secure maximum results everywhere. But even in France Negro soldiers were not free from the pressure of white domination, which is everywhere such a factor of Negro life in America. The Negro is at all times conscious of the virtual solidarity of white control in American life; and the same is true of every white man and of almost every white person.

In sections where there is any considerable number of Negroes every white man can count upon the practically solid support of all his race in any disagreement he may have with a Negro. In a few individuals it may not be active, but in all such cases he can certainly count on its being passive. Even little white boys know this and frequently assume an insolence toward adult Negroes that would be thoroughly ludicrous were it not for the fact that it has widespread popular approval. Only in the rarest instances nowadays is a white child upbraided for insolence or impertinence toward an adult Negro. __

Thus a great part of “knowing the Negro” is a thorough understanding of the operations of this type of interracial sentiment and of how to employ it in managing the Negro and “keeping him in his place.” Where firmness is required rather than sympathy, where ruthlessness is the order of the day rather than consideration, a white man who “knows the Negro” is the most effective agent procurable. What he doesn’t know about the Negro is the factor that produces the race problem.

Now, Negroes feel that any person outside the race is simply deceiving himself when he professes to know them, for the reason that the very circumstances recited operate effectively to prevent such knowledge.

The Negro does not pretend that there is anything mysterious about his people, but simply that the very attitude of the white man himself prevents his having that

“l ENOWA THE NEGRO? 9 thorough knowledge not only of the circumstances of Negro life, but less so of his inner thoughts and feelings.

Even in slavery the Negro took great pains to conceal his resentments and his longings. This habit of mind is recorded in the phrase still current in Negro speech, “talkin’ at the big gate,” which alludes to a Negro’s vociferous and voluble complaints and protests against ill-treatment when far removed from the “big house” as compared with his humility and even obsequiousness in his master’s presence.

To-day Negroes, young and old, resent the assertion that they were contented as slaves, which is prima facie evidence, they would say, that the person so declaring does not know them. In the presence of his master the slave indeed had very little to say either about his wrongs or his aspirations and hopes; his songs, the “‘spirituals,”’ were the vehicle for expressing the Negro’s deepest emotions, sometimes under the cloak of religious sentiments, as when he sang:

“I’m so glad trouble don’ Jas’ always.”

“I’m goin’ tell God how you served me.”

*“Nobody knows de trouble I see, Nobody knows but Jesus.

Sometimes you see me goin’ long so Oh yes, Lord!

I have my trials here below, Oh yes, Lord!”

Paul Laurence Dunbar, the Negro poet, makes an antebellum preacher embellish his sermon on the delivery of the Hebrew children from their bondage in Egypt with the injunction:

Now don’t run and tell yo’ mastahs Dat I’s preachin’ discontent.

All of which reflects the persistent effort of the Negro at the concealment of his thoughts and feelings.

The knowledge of the anti-slavery agitation came quickly to the slaves in all sections. Information was passed among them by word of mouth but under the guise of the commonest expressions which had come to have special significance in this connection. If a slave coming back from town greeted a fellow servant with the declaration, ““Good-mornin’, Sam, yo’ look mighty greasy this mornin’,” that meant that he had picked up some fresh information about the prospects of freedom which would be divulged later on. In that particular section the word for freedom in the slave code was “grease,” and conversation on the subject was carried on even in the presence of their master and mistress with the most innocent allusion to this simple article of household use.

Many old people to-day are still controlled by the whispering habit of the days when it was necessary to guard against eavesdroppers by conveying information in whispers even when there was no one in sight to over-

“P‘RKNOW THE NEGRO? 11 hear the conversation. This habit persisted for a long time after emancipation, as a reflection of the pains which the slaves took to conceal their thoughts from all those who, they had reason to believe, would be unsympathetic toward them. They went even further than that under the stress of circumstances and sometimes deliberately proceeded to deceive their masters as to their real feelings and thoughts.

I recall the story which I heard over and over again in my boyhood from the leading characters themselves, of a deacon and a preacher among the coloured people of the county where I was born, who were summoned to the church along with all the people of both races in the surrounding counties to pray for the success of the Confederate cause. This was just after the battle of Gettysburg and at the culmination of a series of reverses to the Confederate forces. The white ministers prayed, as did also various laymen of the congregation; then it was thought appropriate to call on the leaders among the coloured people. They first called on one of the deacons to lead in prayer. He responded by praying simply “that the Lord’s will be done,” and in a rather neutral way left the responsibility on the shoulders of God as to which of the two sides should win. Then they called on Brother Armstead Berkeley, the pastor of the Negro Baptist Church, a man of wonderful voice and a magnetic personality, a strong man in any group of people. Lifting up his voice, he was direct and outspoken in his prayer: ‘“‘O Lord,” he said, “point the bullet.of the Confederate guns right straight at the heart of the Yankees; make our men victorious on the battlefield and send them home in health and strength to join their people in peace and prosperity.” |

There were easily ten thousand people present, for the situation was very tense and serious, and everyone was listening intently. Imagine the consternation created by such a prayer among the Negro people present that day. It was hard for them to restrain their anxiety and indignation until after the white folks had gone; but at the first opportunity his deacons quickly gathered around him and challenged Brother Berkeley on his bold desertion of the cause of his people in praying for the success of the Confederate army. Instantly came the reply in all seriousness; “Don’t worry, children; the Lord knew what I was talking about,” and everybody was satisfied. They understood exactly and immediately all the reservations that accompanied that prayer.

In spite of emancipation Negroes still feel it necessary to conceal their thoughts from white people. In speech and in manner they may convey the impression of concurrence and contentment when at heart they feel quite otherwise. In these recent days the psychologists have come to call this a “defense mechanism,” and some are sure that it is the only thing that enables the Negro to survive in his contact with the white man. Negroes are some-

“I KNOW THE NEGRO” 13 times warned, even now, that they dare not manifest any resentment toward mistreatment; that the safest policy to pursue is to acquiesce in the judgment of those white people who have manifested a friendly attitude toward them and appeal to their consciences for the redressing of wrongs and correction of abuses. Small wonder that the Negro is so generally secretive.

So it is that there is a whole region of thought and feeling among them of similar character with which those outside the race are wholly unacquainted. A large part of the Negro’s humour is based on these reserves in his attitude toward white people. There is a play by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward called Porgy based on Negro life in Charleston, which takes its title from the leading character. There is a scene where an officious-looking white man comes into “Catfish Alley” looking for the hero. No one knows “Porgy,” never even heard of him, till the man about to depart says he had just come to help him in his difficulty, when knowledge and intelligence burst forth on every countenance and a dozen voices exclaim in crescendo, “Oh, Porgy! You’re lookin’ for Porgy! Yes, we know him,” and a dozen hands are stretched forth to show the visitor where Porgy lives.

“Know the Negro!” When a white man boasts of it he simply discloses how little he does know about this race.

Chapter II KNOWING THE WHITE MAN

Tue Negro has a far better chance of knowing the white man than the latter has of knowing the Negro. As cited in the preceding chapter, the white man has voluntarily admitted the Negro into every phase of his life from birth to death, from play to religion. Those whose families afforded the privilege are proud in their boast of a “black mammy’’; and it sometimes happens that those who did not enjoy such a privilege have found it worth while to claim one as a badge of aristocracy and as a means of selfcommendation to the favourable estimate of black folks and in some degree also to white folks. Black servitors have over and over again been entrusted with the management of their masters’ affairs. No less a person than Jefferson Davis, late and only President of the Confederacy, grew to maturity while his father’s plantation was under the management, in every detail of its business, of one of his slaves—James Montgomery.

Montgomery was in fact a practical civil engineer, having been trained in association with his former master’s son in Virginia before being sold into Mississippi. Many white men, even to-day, have in their employ Negroes whom they have trained to handle every phase of their business and of which they are the practical managers. For many years the Patchen-Wilkes Stock Farm of Lexington, Kentucky (owned by the late W. E. D. Stokes), was under the direct and official management of a Negro, Ed Willis, who achieved a world-wide reputation in racing circles through the development of “‘Peter the Great,” one of the greatest stallions ever produced. It was only a few years ago that a distinguished bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church declared with pride and satisfaction to a Negro audience that he had settled no important question in his life about which he had any doubt without submitting it, so long as she was available, to his old “black mammy,” for whose judgment in matters of conduct he had as high respect as for that of any person he ever knew, not excepting his parents. Negroes and white people have played, worked, fought, struggled, and suffered together since the black man’s entry into this country; and segregation laws to the contrary notwithstanding, those same relations continue to a degree of which few are aware except those immediately concerned. So the Negro is in touch with every stratum and grade of white society, from the worst to the best. In these relations the white man tends more and more to lay aside reserve and let those around him see him as he is. At the same time the Negro cultivates a reserve which is not only his own defense but serves to commend him to the esteem of his employer. As a matter of fact, this reserve is a part of that “knowing his place” which is highly commended in everyone who serves where personal contacts are necessary, and is particularly approved in the Negro.

This knowledge of white persons by the individual Negro is almost universal where there is any considerable Negro population, for there is a point of contact with coloured people in the career of the large majority of white Americans. But conditions as described limit the contact for the most part, in the case of the white man, to just one phase of Negro life or one type of Negro. On the other side of the line, however, the individual Negro makes contact with a great many people of the white race, and with various types. His landlord represents one type, the insurance agent another, the policeman, the mail carrier, the ticket agent in the station, the conductor on the railroad, the cashier at the bank, all represent different phases of life among white people with which almost every individual Negro has more or less frequent contact. To these may be added the contacts in home, club, and office to which this same Negro is admitted, in the capacity of a servant, where the range of his knowledge is considerably extended. In this way Negroes come to know every type of whites from the lowest to the highest, the “quality folks” as well as the “‘po’ white trash.” And so well does the individual know these types that he can tell almost immediately by speech, manner, or appearance to which class each belongs.

Now this intimate knowledge of white people is not confined to exceptional individuals. Because of the arrangement of our social system large numbers of Negroes have this wide range of contacts. Where one white man knows at most a few Negroes, the average Negro knows a great many white people, the greater number of whom are found in the higher social spheres. Mr. Doe’s acquaintance with Negroes is limited practically to his own servants and employees; but these same Negroes know all the white people who come to the Doe home and place of business, as do also all the servants in the homes of the Doe social set. What they do not learn about these people from the servants in these other homes, they learn from direct observation and from the remarks of their employers and their occasional guests.

To a greater or less extent every class of Negroes has some contact with whites of almost every class, but there are certain classes of whites whose contact with Negroes is limited to a single class—either the labouring class or the servant class, and sometimes both. Beyond that there is a type of Negro already referred to, whom the majority of whites never see and consequently do not know. They own their own homes, so the white landlord does not see them; they carry insurance with a Negro insurance company, so no white collector comes to the door; their groceryman is a coloured man; they travel by auto rather than by street car or train; as a rule they live in the segregated residence districts; their physician, lawyer, dentist, and often their banker is a Negro. As a result of all this, there is a constantly diminishing contact between the corresponding classes of the two races, which for the whites as a whole is fast approaching the zero point. From such contacts as he has, however, the habit of the white man is to group all Negroes in the same class. It is not so very long since the white man expressed this idea in one of his popular songs “All coons look alike to me,” which merely reflected his limited contact with the race. But Negroes of every type recognize at least three distinct types of white people: first, the upper stratum of white society recognized as the better class of white people, variously styled as “quality folks” or “‘first class people” or “real white folks”—in the vernacular, “sho nuff ’ristocrats”; at the other extremity are the “poor white se Jame SL trash” including “crackers,” “red necks,” or “sagers,” according to the particular region considered. Between these is a third class recognized as “half strainers,” that aspiring element risen from the lower class who, with some effort, affect the ways of the upper classes; who are at the same time the most aggressive in.setting up racial discrimination. Toward each group the Negro maintains a definite and characteristic attitude.

There is, among Negroes as a whole, an unconcealed and unabashed admiration for the best white people— ofttimes referred to among the humbler classes as “quality white folks.” For this they make no apology. For the Negro, as for others, they represent the highest attainment of wealth, culture, achievement, and refinement: they set the standard in manners as also in morals. Unless they have become embittered by some unusual experience, Negroes are generally proud of their contact and acquaintance with white people of this class, and as opportunity affords, without presumption, are glad to avail themselves of the advantage of such relations. As a class these white people are thoughtful and considerate toward the Negro as they are toward other persons, whether of equal or lower station. They do not alter their natural habit of gentility, courtesy and generosity either toward their servants or a casual acquaintance, for which reason they are held in high esteem everywhere, by all classes of all races. So also in their surroundings do they set standards which satisfy the ideals and tastes of the aspiring ones among this group so long unprivileged.

It is this class of the white race who have made the term “white” the hallmark of excellence so commonly used by Negroes, and appropriated by other whites for such advantage as it gives. It developed at a time when the black people had as yet no opportunity to cultivate standards among themselves. Their condition both as slaves and freedmen limited their progress to the lowest levels: only white people could go on to unlimited attainment in education, skill, wealth, and culture. Quite naturally these achievements fixed the standards for blacks as well as for whites. Being confined entirely to the white race, it as naturally developed that the label ‘white’? should serve to identify those standards universally among Negroes. As a matter of fact, the white race as a whole has itself accepted the tribute, but with the added assumption that the virtues implied by the term attach to the colour of the skin, the fallacy of which need hardly be pointed out to the readers of this volume.

But Negroes are themselves quite sensitive to any departure from this standard by which they gauge the white race: hence, the odiousness of the term “poor white trash.” The idea undoubtedly developed in slavery days as suggested by the contrast between the privileged master class and the unprivileged, landless, propertyless, “educationless,” free whites whose condition was in many respects ofttimes far more miserable than that of many slaves. There was a group of slaves on nearly every plantation, especially the larger ones, who benefited appreciably from close contact with the master’s household, acquiring the manners of the “big house,” absorbing some of its culture, ofttimes receiving specific instruction in letters as well as crafts; who were at times permitted to apply to their own advantage whatever benefits they might gain from their superior abilities. Enjoying, as they often did, the confidence and esteem of these superior families, it was not unnatural that they should esteem their own position as superior to that of lower class whites; and so in response to the taunt of “Nigger! Nigger!” they fortified their own pride at the same time that they wounded their tormentor with the retort:

Thad a little dog,

His name was Dash.

I'd rather be a nigger Than po’h white trash.

Between these two classes of whites stands the “half strainers,” a group emerging from the poverty and limitations of the poorer class but not yet arrived at the ease and assurance of the upper class. With this class Negroes identify those whites who, like themselves, are striving for better things but perhaps with considerable and more obvious effort. They seem to be at some pains to impress their retainers with their superiority; as a result they are often smiled upon even by their servants, and their errors and shortcomings observed and endured with complaisant tolerance: that is, when they do not evoke a scarcely veiled contempt. To this class Negroes would concede no superiority over themselves beyond such advantages as accrue through social custom from the mere possession of greater wealth and a white skin, for which latter the possessor is not in any way responsible. It is among the two latter classes that the Negro finds the greatest amount of prejudice and from whom he meets with the greatest amount of opposition. He has always felt that the best white people, both South and North, could be counted among his friends; and in this he has not been often disappointed.