The crucial race question; or, Where and how shall the color line be drawn

Front matter

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Preface

I. The Arkansas Plan and Memorial. II. The Drift Towards a Racial Episcopate. III. What God Hath Joined Together Let No Man Put Asunder, or the Philosophy of Color-Line Drawing. IV. A Southernized Northerner Talking Cursed Prejudice to Dixie Galleries.

The Arkansas Plan and Memorial

The Nineteen Hundred and Six Session of the Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Arkansas passed the following- resolutions :

i. Resolved: That the plan of the Bishop of the Diocese looking to the creation of an autonomous Afro-American Church, be and hereby is approved.

2. Resolved : Furthermore, that the General Convention be memorialized or petitioned to take such steps as may be necessary to consummate that plan.

This book is written partly for the purpose of commending as strongly and widely as possible the Memorial or Petition provided for in these resolutions but the chief end in view is the recommendation to the general public of the author's solution of the whole xii The Crucial Eace Question

Great American Race Problem by the drawing of the Color-Line. An effort is made to accomplish these objects by the establishment of six propositions: (i) No race can amount to anything without self-government ; (2) The only realm in which the Negro in these United States can hope to govern himself is that of religion ; (3) Under present conditions, the American Negro, speaking generally, is degenerating instead of advancing; (4) The Afro-American can be saved from utter ruin and extinction only by the bridging of the ever-widening and deepening gulf which now exists between him and the Anglo- American ; (5) This necessary bridging cannot be done without the complete drawing of the Color-Line around the Social, Political and Religious Realms, and (6) The necessity for self-government and for the bridging of the gulf between Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans by the drawing of the Color-Line makes it necessary that American Negroes should have a wholly independent, autonomous Church.

The reader will be interested to know that the resolutions providing for the presentation of the Arkansas Memorial to the General Convention, were carried almost unanimously, there being only three votes against them ; and it is well known that those who cast them did so, not because they are opposed to the idea of an Afro-American Episcopate, but because they were not quite settled in their own mind as to what its form should be, Missionary, Suffragan or Autonomous. Two of the three have since said that upon the whole they are inclined to the opinion that I am right in my contention that it should be

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autonomous. The three negative votes were cast by Clergymen, two of whom are Northern men, and one is an Englishman by birth. It is significant that all Southerners, both Clergy and Laity, voted in the affirmative.

Thus it will be seen that, not only do we in Arkansas believe that the consecration of Negro Bishops is most necessary and expedient, but, also, that to insure the very best development of this work, there must be a separate and distinct organization. Any measure short of this, in our judgment, will prove to be temporary and insufficient, embarrassing to both races, and injurious to all the interests concerned. The colored as well as the white Churchmen of Arkansas are now almost wholly given over to this opinion. There is very little if any difference among us.

From the point of view of nearly all white Churchmen in Arkansas it would be a serious mistake, the ill effects of which would be felt by the Church for many years, to give our Negro brethren the Episcopate without drawing an impassable Color-Line completely around the General Convention. Such a course would simply be the shifting of our present difficulty without getting rid of it. It would be jumping from the "frying pan" of our Diocesan Councils into "the fire" of the General Convention.

Of course, if, in order to guard against the schism of which so many are afraid, we should elect and consecrate only two Afro-American Missionary Bishops, they and their delegations would, perhaps, not be embarrassing to an intolerable degree, but xiv The Crucial Race Question

because of physical limitations and impossibilities such an Episcopate would be doomed to failure. If the proposed Afro-American Episcopate is to justify the hope that its friends, black and white, center in it, ultimately there must be nearly as many colored Bishops in the Black Belts of the South as there are white Bishops now ; and it must be started out with at least four of them, three for the South and one for the North.

I am among those who do not regard the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America as being of Divine institution or as absolutely necessary to the existence of our American branch of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the Anglo-Saxon race. Nevertheless I think that the General Convention is a good thing, and that it will be an evil day for the Church when its doors are opened to any considerable number of Negro Bishops and delegations, as it would be if the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Missionary Bishops and Jurisdictions should be granted by the creation of an adequate episcopate.

II The Drift Towards a Racial Episcopate

In the appeal of Afro-American Churchmen for Bishops of their own and the disposition on the part of at least twelve Southern Bishops to grant that appeal we have a most remarkable drift which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by a religious mind

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except upon the assumption of an over-ruling Providence which makes the drawing and recognition of the ecclesiastical Color-Line an absolute necessity.

Concerning this drift we remark, first, that the colored Churchmen themselves have entirely changed, face about. In 1883 the Sewanee Conference of Southern Bishops proposed a special and separate Diocesan organization for our Negroes. The first general association of Afro-American Churchmen, which afterwards developed into the Conference of Workers Among Colored People that is now asking for Negro Bishops with Missionary Jurisdictions, was called together for the primary purpose of opposing the scheme for the separate organization for colored people recommended by the Sewanee Conference. A colored Episcopate had not been suggested, but only a separate organization of Colored Churchmen under the Diocesan Bishops, something like that which now for nearly two years has been in operation with good results in Arkansas.

The change which has taken place in the Bishops of the South is no less remarkable than that in the North. In 1902 the writer of this book was, so far as he knows, the only Bishop in the Anglo-American Church who advocated an Afro-American Episcopate. In 1904 one other Southern Bishop came out in favor of granting the appeal of the Conference of Church Workers which was first made at its 1903 session. Tn 1906 the Southern Bishops who took this side of the question were found at a Sewanee Conference to number eleven. In 1907 at the time of going to press there are, I believe, fourteen. Thus, in the course of xvi The Crucial Eace Question

the short space of about four years, thirteen Bishops "experienced a change of heart" upon the question of an Afro-American Episcopate.

This change, so far as the Conference of Church Workers is concerned, is remarkable enough; but in the case of the Bishops of the South it falls but little, if any, short of the phenomenal. It is evidently due, in the case of each Bishop, to the force of circumstances arising as the result of new conditions which first became irresistible in Arkansas and Texas, and which are rapidly becoming so throughout the Southland. The rapid spread and resistless character of the new conditions which in many sections of the South render it absolutely necessary to separate completely the work of the Church among colored and white people, may be judged of by the fact that a Bishop who at the Sewanee Conference of 1905 strongly opposed the idea of separation favored it at the 1906 Conference, when he said, to the great surprise of his brethren, "I have been reluctantly forced to believe that some separation is necessary to the proper development of the work."

I reiterate, such a change in such men cannot be accounted for except upon the hypothesis of a rapid and resistless change of conditions which is destined to carry everything before it. It is indeed true that some among the Southern Bishops are holding out against .the separation movement by stoutly opposing the granting of the Appeal. But their helplessness reminds me of a familiar scene of my boyhood days. I was a farmer's lad, and among the humble, juvenile tasks which fell to me was the driving of a herd of

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cows to and from the pasture. I was assisted by a companionable, amiable, faithful shepherd dog which generally was content to head off and change the course of wilful members of the herd. When he did this, he was usually successful in bringing them into line. But, once in a while, some more persistent and obstreperous cow would cause him to lose his even temper and good judgment, for then he would try to force the situation by grabbing her tail and attempting to hold her back with all his might and main. This never worked. In spite of the frantic efforts in which the dog exhausted his strength, the cow always went straight on in her forbidden path until he came to himself, gave up his foolishness, ran around and took hold of the ear on the opposite side from the direction in which he wanted to turn her.

The would-be obstructors of the force which is making for the segregation of Afro-American and Anglo- American Churchmen by the drawing of the Color- Line through the Episcopal Church, display about as much wisdom as my dog did when he took hold of the cow's tail. They are making an heroic but a vain endeavor to check a resistless movement which will continue right on in spite of their efforts to hold it back.

Ill

What God Hath Joined Together Let No Man Put Asunder, or the Philosophy of Color-Line Drawing

I am painfully conscious of the fact that there are many who will follow me more or less closely while I am recommending an Afro-American Episcopate, but xviii The Crucial Race Question

will take almost indignant leave of me whenever I touch upon the questions of Negro degeneration and the necessity of Social and Civil Color-Line drawing. I have tried, in the body of the essay, with what success the reader must judge, to justify myself in what I have said upon the sad subject of Negro degeneration, and so I shall pass it over in these prefatory remarks and confine myself in them to the greater of the two great objections to my position, that of Color- Line drawing.

Those who have criticised me because of what I have said and written concerning the drawing of the Color-Line about the Social and Civil Realms while approving my utterances upon the subject of ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing have made the common and fatal mistake of separating that which God has joined together. The necessity for dealing in this essay with the whole race question, instead of only with the ecclesiastical phase of it, arises from the fact that the Council and Bishop of Arkansas are recommending, open and above board, a response to the Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen which involves the drawing of the Color-Line about the Church, as it has been drawn or is being drawn about the Civil and Social Realms. The ecclesiastical Color- Line is confessedly the last of such lines to be drawn, and there are many who contend that it should not be drawn at all.

But ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing is either right or wrong. Practically all Negroes say that it is, at least theoretically wrong, and there are many Northern Caucasians who agree with them. But nearly all

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Southern and not a few Northern Caucasians contend that ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing is right. I take my stand with these. Now, this being the case, will my critics kindly do, what none among them have ever undertaken to do; explain how reasonably I can hope to bring any objector to ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing to my point of view unless I can prove its righteousness in Civil and Social affairs?

There is a unity running through nature which binds the social, civil and religious realms much closer together than is commonly supposed. Therefore, he who would recommend that a course should be pursued respecting, say, the social realm which would be wrong in the religious realm, has a great burden of proof resting upon him. If Color-Line drawing is right in the social realm, it is right in the religious realm and the civil realm, and in each case the reverse of this reasoning must be true or else the universally accepted doctrine concerning the unity of nature is not true. One or the other of these conclusions seems to me to be unavoidable.

The doctrine of the unity of nature is an hypothesis which is accepted by all scientists and philosophers among us. This being the case, the inseparableness of the social, civil and religious realms is entitled to recognition as a governing article of our larger religious creed. All religious evolutionists hold that God has not ceased to reveal himself to the world. Our scientists and ■ philosophers may quite properly be regarded as the special prophets who are revealing God to us. We are not obliged in this age of science and philosophy to believe any one of these prophets, xx The Crucial Race Question

or even any two or three of them, though they may be among the greatest; but when, as in the case of the hypothesis of the unity of nature, there is general agreement among them, we cannot wisely or rightly reject their message. Action upon this rational principle will make the doctrine of the unity of nature a part of our ever growing scientific creed which should be taken account of in the discussion that is now engaging the Church, quite as much as any article of the Catholic Creed, for the latter creed is in such matters no more surely a revelation of God's will than the former.

Complexity is an inseparable accompaniment of highly developed civilizations, but complexity does not necessarily imply a lack of unity. Man is a very much more complex being than a field of the protoplasmic life from which he is said to have originated by a long line of development through an almost infinite series of beings of more and more complex organism. But there is no representative of the animal kingdom that is so much one as man. A mass of protoplasm of the size or weight of man might be divided into ten thousand pieces, and each piece would be a complete living unit, as much so as it was before the division commenced; but in the case of man, the process of division cannot proceed very far without dividing him out of physical existence.

The greatest among the distinguishing characteristics of man is civilization, and the civilization in which this generation has the good fortune of participating, is almost, if, indeed, not quite as much of a development as is the human body. And as the body of man

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has its three essential and, at least so far as this life is concerned, inseparable parts, (i) the Physical, (2) the Spiritual, and (3) the Soul, which binds physical and spiritual together and is the basis of their life; so the civilization of man has its three parts, (1) the Social, (2) the Civil, and (3) the Religious, which binds the social and civil together and is the basis of their associated life. Furthermore, in the process of development, the essential constituent elements of man's civilization, like those of his body, are divided as they were not originally, and yet in both cases the unity is as great as ever. In fact, it is much greater now than it originally was. If Color-Line drawing was ever a necessity, if it was ever right, it is more so under a complex civilization, such as ours, than it was under a less developed and more simple one; because there is by reason of a world-wide commercial system so much more in the way of the commingling of peoples.

The social, civil and religious realms are now, as we have seen, divided or differentiated the one from the other as they were not originally, but nevertheless they are still as much one as they ever were, and perhaps in some respects even more so. This unity in the domain of man's spiritual organism, like the unity in the domain of his physical organism, seems to increase in exact ratio with the increase of complexity. It is this unity which makes it impossible that it should be right to draw the Color-Line in the religious realm of the domain of man's civilization, if it be wrong to draw it in either the social or civil realms. And of course the converse of this must be true, that is to say, if it be right to draw the Color-Line in the xxii The Crucial Eace Question

social or civil realms, it is wrong not to draw it in the religious realm.

So many of my friends have insisted that it would have been much better for the cause which I have at heart, if I had made the Arkansas Plan of answering the Appeal of Afro-American Churchmen by the creation of an autonomous or independent Episcopate and Church, my text and had stuck to it. But what is the history of the Arkansas Plan? What is the history of this whole movement? Is it not a record of Color- Line drawing? An object in this essay is, indeed, to commend the Arkansas Plan ; but since to do this is the same thing as to commend ecclesiastical Color- Line drawing, how could I, in view of the law of unity by which the social, civil and religious realms are bound inseparablely together, proceed with my argument concerning the necessity and righteousness of drawing the religious Color-Line without reference to what either has been, or should be done in the matter of drawing the social and civil Color-Lines? There really was no way open to me to go anywhere or do anything in the interest of the Arkansas Plan except the one which crosses the whole field of race antipathy and its resultant Color-Line drawing.

One reason for dealing with the whole subject of Color-Line drawing as I have done in this essay, is the fact that a man or a people cannot be saved in sections. The whole man or the whole people must be saved. If, therefore, Color-Line drawing is necessary to save the Afro-American and the Anglo-American from mutual degradation, it will not be sufficient to

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draw it in the case of the social realm. The law which unifies all nature will always prevent any such partial measure from accomplishing the end in view. The fact of the matter is that the Color-Line cannot be drawn permanently about the social realm, unless it is also drawn about the civil and religious realms. All history attests the truth of this statement.

Caucasians in the United States, everywhere, North and South, either have drawn or are drawing an impassable social Color-Line between themselves and Negroes. There is not now very much if any difference of opinion among us as to the necessity and righteousness of this action. But either Caucasians have committed a great wrong in so doing, or else Anglo-American Churchmen will commit a great wrong if they create an Afro-American "Missionary" Episcopate with "representation" in the General Convention. If it is right to draw the Color-Line at all, the unity of nature renders it wrong not to draw it about all three of the realms of human civilization, that is, about the family, the state and the church. For this reason my argument in favor of Ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing would have been most incomplete and inconclusive, if it had been confined to the latter of these realms. A great scientific and philosophic hypothesis would have been left out of the consideration, and such an omission, in this day of science and philosophy, would have weakened my case greatly. And, really, to argue the case simply from the standpoint of religion was a logical impossibility, because religion, politics and society are too intimately and inseparably connected. In fact at the bottom they xxiv The Ckucial Race Question

are one and the same thing. If society is what it ought to be, it is religious; and if politics is what it ought to be, it is religious. Conversely if religion is what it ought to be, it is social and political.

The essence of religion is obedience to God's will. Now it manifestly is God's will to have different races of mankind, otherwise he would have made all alike. He drew the Color-Line, and the failure to recognize it is irreligious, because it is disobedience. To argue that it should be recognized in the social realm, but that the contrary is true in the religious realm, is to take an irreligious position, because the unity of God and nature would be denied. If science teaches us anything about God, it is that he is one, and that there is a unity running through all his works.

When, as we have observed, an hypothesis of science or philosophy has become generally accepted, as long as it remains so it is a revelation of the will of God by which individuals, societies, states and Churches should be governed just as much as if the hypothesis were a precept in the sacred Scriptures of a people. If it were evident that Color-Line drawing is not admissible in religion, its inadmissibility would be equally evident to the consistent scientist and philosopher in the social and political realms. It follows, therefore, that if it be necessary and right to draw the Color-Line about either the family or the state or the Church, it is also necessary and right to draw that line about the other two institutions of civilization. The hypothesis that the Christian religion does away with human distinctions in the religious realm will not stand, because it denies the unity of nature, and such

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denial involves the rejection of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, the Divinity of Christ, for God is the author of nature; and if Christ was Divine, He could not have disregarded its unity.

But for its length, the title of this book might well have been "The Salvation of the Afro-American Dependent Upon the Complete Drawing of the Color- Line About the Social, Civil and Religious Realms." It is true that the immediate occasion of my effort to establish this thesis is the appeal of Colored Churchmen for a racial Episcopate ; but I hope it is now clear to the reader that I could not deal with that appeal in a scientific way without opening up the whole question of Color-Line drawing. The Appeal itself necessarily brings up that question. Why is the Appeal made? Because of the recognition of the fact that the representatives of one race are prevented by some law of nature, that is to say, by the will of God, from being true pastors to another race. The making of that Appeal was a religious duty and the granting of it would be a religious act. But the Appeal, so far as it relates to "representation" in the General Convention, is all wrong, unless it is all wrong to draw the Color-Line about any of the three essential institutions upon which the progress of humanity in the way of civilization depends.

If, then, anybody undertakes to answer me and to discredit the Arkansas Plan of granting the Appeal by creating racial Bishops without representation in the General Convention, he will have the difficult two-fold task of proving (i) that Color-Line drawing is wrong, and (2) that racial Bishops are justifiable. For it is xxvi The Crucial Eace Question

a self-evident fact that the creation of a racial Episcopate would be the recognition of a differentiating force of some kind, call it what you please — in this countryit has come to be called the Color-Line; and it is equally self-evident that the "representation" of such a racial Episcopate in the Body of which it is asked, would be the ignoring of that line.

We have therefore, in this dual appeal, an irreconcilable contradiction ; and if the General Convention were to grant it, it would be guilty of trying to hold right in one hand and wrong in the other, and the net result of such action would be all wrong, for in the realm of morality there is no right in the breaking of one law in order to keep another.

IV A Southernized Northerner Talking Cursed Prejudice to Dixie Galleries

By the same delivery I received two letters from Priests of widely separated portions of the country, one an Anglo-American and the other an Afro-American who kindly read the proofs of this book.

The Anglo-American said: "I fear Northern men will think you are pretty hard on the Negro. We remember that his blood crimsoned our battle fields. While many of us think it was a mistake to give him the ballot, we are not ready to disfranchise him, and many will say, 'Bishop Brown would have done better to let that alone.' But I suppose you are speaking to Dixie galleries, chiefly."

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The Afro-American said : "The Negroes all say that their worst enemy is not the Southerner, but the 'Southernized Northerner' who tries to 'curry favor' with the South by attacking the Negro. They take what Tillman and Davis and Vardaman and their kind say with a big pinch of salt, for it is regarded as so much political ammunition ; but from a Bishop of the Church who has nothing personal to gain, they regard the same talk as cursed prejudice, intended to make him solid with his constituency."

I am writing the last paragraphs of a long Preface to a long essay, both much longer than I originally intended them to be. I believe that the patient, candid reader of the essay will agree with me that in it I have answered every objection that has been raised against the Arkansas Plan, and I boldly assert that I have no fear of any critic, White or Black, North or South, who may attack that plan ; for I am fully persuaded that it is founded securely upon the rock of everlasting truth, and its superstructure is built up of eternal verities. But this personal criticism of its author I cannot answer, for the simple reason that such criticisms are unanswerable.

A suspicion of motive is like a question of authorship. When once it has been raised there is no evidence that can be produced which will be sufficient to answer its calumny, if calumny it be. I am not only a "Southernized Northerner," but also a convert to the Anglo-American Church. Twelve years ago while I was the Archdeacon of Ohio, I published a statement of the claims of that Church and a defense of them. The book was entitled "The Church for xxviii The Crucial Eace Question

Americans." It ran rapidly through several editions and resulted in my election to the Episcopate. Then someone who did not estimate my abilities very highly, started the rumor that Archdeacon Brown had neither the brains nor the education which would enable him to write such a book, and chat a certain Professor, famous for both brains and education, who read its proofs, was the real author. I have reason to know that there are some people who will go to their graves believing that if the Professor did not write all of the book, yet its most notable chapters and passages must be attributed to him. Now he might have written a good many passages in that book without justifying the sweeping rumor concerning his part in its authorship, but as a matter of actual fact it so happens that he did not write or dictate, or otherwise compose so much as a single line of it. However, if the Professor can stand it, and if Shakespeare can endure the crediting of his works to Bacon without turning in his grave, I do not see why I should "lie awake nights" over it. I should consider it hardly worth the while to mention this rumor concerning my first book in the Preface to the second, but for the fact that it aptly illustrates the injustice to which an author is so easily liable and gives me an opportunity to do something in the way of correcting a misrepresentation which reflects unfavorably upon the talents of my gifted literary adviser and the integrity of both him and me.

No, I cannot answer this criticism about talking "cursed prejudice" to "Dixie galleries." It is a judgment of me. and such accusations can neither be

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proved by those who make them, nor disproved by the accused. Both parties and all concerned in such judgments must, in the nature of things, await that great day of accounting, when such matters will be revealed even as they are known by Him who knoweth all things.

I wish that it might be believed that in the advocacy of an Autonomous Episcopate I represent convictions touching the good of all parties and interests concerned and have reference to the truth respecting the questions involved as I understand it. That, in all I am saying and writing about the necessity, of ecclesiastical Color-Line drawing, and of a racial Episcopate for Afro-American Churchmen, I have had no concern about the opinions of my adopted people, I cannot and do not claim. But to the accusation that I have wounded Colored People in order to win "the applause of Dixie galleries," I plead, "not guilty." And whether or not this plea be received by those who set themselves up as my judges in matters which appertain alone to the court of a man's conscience, I trust that the facts and arguments which I present in support of my representations and recommendations will nevertheless receive due consideration.