 | CHAPTER III. The future of the American negro |  |
CHAPTER III.
In the heart of the Black Belt of the
South in ante-bellum days there was a
large estate, with palatial mansion, surrounded
by a beautiful grove, in which
grew flowers and shrubbery of every
description. Magnificent specimens of
animal life grazed in the fields, and in
grain and all manner of plant growth
this estate was a model. In a word, it
was the highest type of the product of
slave labor.
Then came the long years of war
then freedom, then the trying years of
reconstruction. The master returned
from the war to find the faithful slaves
who had been the bulwark of this household
in possession of their freedom.
Then there began that social and industrial
revolution in the South which it is
hard for any who was not really a part
of it to appreciate or understand. Gradually,
day by day, this ex-master began
to what an extent he and his
family had grown to be dependent
upon the activity and faithfulness of
his slaves; began to appreciate to what
an extent slavery had sapped his sinews
of strength and independence, how his
dependence upon slave labour had deprived
him and his offspring of the
benefit of technical and industrial training,
and, worst of all, had unconsciously
led him to see in labour drudgery and
degradation instead of beauty, dignity,
and civilising power. At first there
was a halt in this man's life. He
cursed the North and he cursed the
Negro. Then there was despair, almost
utter hopelessness, over his weak
and childlike condition. The temptation
was to forget all in drink, and to
this temptation there was a gradual
yielding. With the loss of physical
vigour came the loss of mental grasp
and pride in surroundings. There was
the walls of the house which was not
replaced, then another and still another.
Gradually, the window-panes began
to disappear, then the door-knobs.
Touches of paint and whitewash, which
once helped to give life, were no more
to be seen. The hinges disappeared
from the gate, then a board from the
fence, then others in quick succession.
Weeds and unmown grass covered the
once well-kept lawn. Sometimes there
were servants for domestic duties, and
sometimes there were none. In the absence
of servants the unsatisfactory condition
of the food told that it was being
prepared by hands unschooled to such
duties. As the years passed by, debts
accumulated in every direction. The
education of the children was neglected.
Lower and lower sank the industrial,
financial, and spiritual condition of the
household. For the first time the awful
truth of Scripture, "Whatsoever a man
to dawn upon him with a reality that it
is hard for mortal to appreciate. Within
a few months the whole mistake of slavery
seemed to have concentrated itself
upon this household. And this was
one of many.
We have seen how the ending of
slavery and the beginning of freedom
produced not only a shock, but a standstill,
and in many cases a collapse, that
lasted several years in the life of many
white men. If the sudden change thus
affected the white man, should this not
teach us that we should have more
sympathy than has been shown in many
cases with the Negro in connection with
his new and changed life? That they
made many mistakes, plunged into excesses,
undertook responsibilities for
which they were not fitted, in many
cases took liberty to mean license, is
not to be wondered at. It is my opinion
that the next forty years are going
of progress in the life of the Negro
along all lines than has been shown
during the first thirty years of his life.
Certainly, the first thirty years of the
Negro's life was one of experiment; and
consequently, under such conditions, he
was not able to settle down to real,
earnest, hard common sense efforts to
better his condition. While this was
true in a great many cases, on the other
hand a large proportion of the race,
even from the first, saw what was needed
for their new life, and began to settle
down to lead an industrious, frugal existence,
and to educate their children
and in every way prepare themselves
for the responsibilities of American
citizenship.
The wonder is that the Negro has
made as few mistakes as he has, when
we consider all the surrounding circumstances.
Columns of figures have been
gleaned from the census reports within
the great amount of crime committed
by the Negro in excess of that committed
by other races. No one will
deny the fact that the proportion of
crime by the present generation of
Negroes is seriously large, but I believe
that any other race with the Negro's
history and present environment would
have shown about the same criminal
record.
Another consideration which we must
always bear in mind in considering the
Negro is that he had practically
no home life in slavery; that is, the
mother and father did not have the
responsibility, and consequently the experience,
of training their own children.
The matter of child training was left to
the master and mistress. Consequently,
it has only been within the last thirty
years that the Negro parents have had
the actual responsibility and experience
of training their own children. That
training them is not to be wondered
at. Many families scattered over all
parts of the United States have not yet
been able to bring themselves together.
When the Negro parents shall have had
thirty or forty additional years in which
to found homes and get experience in
the training of their children, I believe
that we will find that the amount of
crime will be considerably less than it is
now shown to be.
In too large a measure the Negro
race began its development at the wrong
end, simply because neither white nor
black understood the case; and no wonder,
for there had never been such a
case in the history of the world.
To show where this primary mistake
has led in its evil results, I wish to produce
some examples showing plainly
how prone we have been to make our
education formal, superficial, instead of
making it meet the needs of conditions.
In order to emphasise the matter
more fully, I repeat, at least eighty per
cent, of the coloured people in the
South are found in the rural districts,
and they are dependent on agriculture
in some form for their support. Notwithstanding
that we have practically
a whole race dependent upon agriculture,
and notwithstanding that thirty
years have passed since our freedom,
aside from what has been done at
Hampton and Tuskegee and one or two
other institutions, but very little has
been attempted by State or philanthropy
in the way of educating the race in this
one industry upon which its very existence
depends. Boys have been taken
from the farms and educated in law,
theology, Hebrew and Greek,—educated
in everything else except the very
subject that they should know most
about. I question whether among all
the educated coloured people in the
United States you can find six, if we except
who have received anything like a thorough
training in agriculture. It would
have seemed that, since self-support, industrial
independence, is the first condition
for lifting up any race, that education
in theoretical and practical agriculture,
horticulture, dairying, and stock-raising,
should have occupied the first
place in our system.
Some time ago, when we decided to
make tailoring a part of our training at
the Tuskegee Institute, I was amazed to
find that it was almost impossible to
find in the whole country an educated
coloured man who could teach the making
of clothing. We could find them by
the score who could teach astronomy,
theology, grammar, or Latin, but almost
none who could instruct in the making
of clothing, something that has to be
used by every one of us every day in
the year. How often has my heart been
made to sink as I have gone through
and found women who could converse
intelligently on Grecian history, who
had studied geometry, could analyse
the most complex sentences, and yet
could not analyse the poorly cooked
and still more poorly served corn bread
and fat meat that they and their families
were eating three times a day! It is
little trouble to find girls who can locate
Pekin or the Desert of Sahara on an
artificial globe, but seldom can you find
one who can locate on an actual dinner
table the proper place for the carving
knife and fork or the meat and vegetables.
A short time ago, in one of the
Southern cities, a coloured man died
who had received training as a skilled
mechanic during the days of slavery.
Later by his skill and industry he built
up a great business as a house contractor
and builder. In this same city
there are 35,000 coloured people, among
educated in the languages and in literature;
but not a single one could be
found who had been so trained in mechanical
and architectural drawing that
he could carry on the business which
this ex-slave had built up, and so it was
soon scattered to the wind. Aside from
the work done in the institutions that
I have mentioned, you can find almost
no coloured men who have been trained
in the principles of architecture, notwithstanding
the fact that a vast majority
of our race are without homes. Here,
then, are the three prime conditions for
growth, for civilisation,—food, clothing,
shelter; and yet we have been the slaves
of forms and customs to such an extent
that we have failed in a large measure
to look matters squarely in the face and
meet actual needs.
It may well be asked by one who
has not carefully considered the matter:
" What has become of all those skilled
plantations? Where are those wonderful
cooks we hear about, where those
exquisitely trained house servants, those
cabinet makers, and the jacks-of-all-trades
that were the pride of the
South?" This is easily answered,—
they are mostly dead. The survivors
are too old to work. "But did they
not train their children?" is the natural
question. Alas! the answer is "no."
Their skill was so commonplace to
them, and to their former masters, that
neither thought of it as being a hard-earned
or desirable accomplishment:
it was natural, like breathing. Their
children would have it as a matter of
course. What their children needed
was education. So they went out into
the world, the ambitious ones, and got
education, and forgot the necessity of
the ordinary training to live.
God for two hundred and fifty years,
in my opinion, prepared the way for the
development. First, he made the
Southern white man do business with
the Negro for two hundred and fifty
years in a way that no one else has
done business with him. If a Southern
white man wanted a house or a bridge
built, he consulted a Negro mechanic
about the plan and about the actual
building of the house or bridge. If he
wanted a suit of clothes or a pair of
shoes made, it was to the Negro tailor
or shoemaker that he talked. Secondly,
every large slave plantation in the South
was, in a limited sense, an industrial
school. On these plantations there
were scores of young coloured men and
women who were constantly being
trained, not alone as common farmers,
but as carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights,
plasterers, brick masons, engineers,
bridge-builders, cooks, dressmakers,
housekeepers, etc. I would be
the last to apologise for the curse of
This training was crude and was given
for selfish purposes, and did not answer
the highest ends, because there was the
absence of brain training in connection
with that of the hand. Nevertheless,
this business contact with the Southern
white man, and the industrial training
received on these plantations, put
the Negro at the close of the war into
possession of all the common and skilled
labour in the South. For nearly twenty
years after the war, except in one or
two cases, the value of the industrial
training given by the Negroes' former
masters on the plantations and elsewhere
was overlooked. Negro men
and women were educated in literature,
mathematics, and the sciences, with no
thought of what had taken place on
these plantations for two and a half
centuries. After twenty years, those
who were trained as mechanics, etc.,
during slavery began to disappear by
fact that we had no one to take their
places. We had scores of young men
learned in Greek, but few in carpentry
or mechanical or architectural drawing.
We had trained many in Latin, but almost
none as engineers, bridge-builders,
and machinists. Numbers were taken
from the farm and educated, but were
educated in everything else except agriculture.
Hence they had no sympathy
with farm life, and did not return to it.
This last that I have been saying is
practically a repetition of what I have
said in the preceding paragraph; but, to
emphasise it,—and this point is one of
the most important I wish to impress
on the reader,—it is well to repeat, to
say the same thing twice. Oh, if only
more who had the shaping of the education
of the Negro could have, thirty
years ago, realised, and made others realise,
where the forgetting of the years
of manual training and the sudden acquiring
the Negro race, what a saving it would
have been! How much less my race
would have had to answer for, as well
as the white!
But it is too late to cry over what
might have been. It is time to make
up, as soon as possible, for this mistake,
—time for both races to acknowledge
it, and go forth on the course that, it
seems to me, all must now see to be the
right one,—industrial education.
As an example of what a well-trained
and educated Negro may now do, and
how ready to acknowledge him a
Southern white man may be, let me
return once more to the plantation I
spoke of in the first part of this chapter.
As the years went by, the night seemed
to grow darker, so that all seemed hopeless
and lost. At this point relief and
strength came from an unexpected
source. This Southern white man's
idea of Negro education had been that
of Anglo-Saxon civilisation, with a
special tendency to imitate the weaker
elements of the white man's character;
that it meant merely the high hat,
kid gloves, a showy walking cane,
patent leather shoes, and all the rest of
it. To this ex-master it seemed impossible
that the education of the
Negro could produce any other results.
And so, last of all, did he expect help or
encouragement from an educated black
man; but it was just from this source
that help came. Soon after the process
of decay began in this white man's
estate, the education of a certain black
man began, and began on a logical,
sensible basis. It was an education
that would fit him to see and appreciate
the physical and moral conditions that
existed in his own family and neighbourhood,
and, in the present generation,
would fit him to apply himself to their
relief. By chance this educated Negro
man. His employer soon learned that
this Negro not only had a knowledge
of science, mathematics, and literature
in his head, but in his hands as well.
This black man applied his knowledge
of agricultural chemistry to the redemption
of the soil; and soon the washes
and gulleys began to disappear, and
the waste places began to bloom. New
and improved machinery in a few
months began to rob labour of its toil
and drudgery. The animals were
given systematic and kindly attention.
Fences were repaired and rebuilt.
Whitewash and paint were made to do
duty. Everywhere order slowly began to
replace confusion; hope, despair; and
profits, losses. As he observed, day by
day, new life and strength being imparted
to every department of his property,
this white son of the South began
revising his own creed regarding the
wisdom of educating Negroes.
Hitherto his creed regarding the
value of an educated Negro had been
rather a plain and simple one, and read:
"The only end that could be accomplished
by educating a black man was
to enable him to talk properly to a
mule; and the Negro's education did
great injustice to the mule, since the
language tended to confuse him and
make him balky."
We need not continue the story, except
to add that to-day the grasp of the
hand of this ex-slaveholder, and the
listening to his hearty words of gratitude
and commendation for the education
of the Negro, are enough to
compensate those who have given and
those who have worked and sacrificed
for the elevation of my people through
all of these years. If we are patient,
wise, unselfish, and courageous, such examples
will multiply as the years go by.
Before closing this chapter,—which, I
think, has clearly shown that there is at
training in the South among the Negroes,
—I wish to say a few words in
regard to certain objections, or rather
misunderstandings, which have from
time to time arisen in regard to the
matter.
Many have had the thought that industrial
training was meant to make the
Negro work, much as he worked during
the days of slavery. This is far from
my idea of it. If this training has any
value for the Negro, as it has for the
white man, it consists in teaching the
Negro how rather not to work, but how
to make the forces of nature—air,
water, horse-power, steam, and electric
power—work for him, how to lift labour
up out of toil and drudgery into that
which is dignified and beautiful. The
Negro in the South works, and he
works hard; but his lack of skill,
coupled with ignorance, causes him too
often to do his work in the most costly
him near the bottom of the ladder in
the business world. I repeat that industrial
education teaches the Negro
how not to drudge in his work. Let
him who doubts this contrast the Negro
in the South toiling through a field of
oats with an old-fashioned reaper with
the white man on a modern farm in
the West, sitting upon a modern "harvester,"
behind two spirited horses, with
an umbrella over him, using a machine
that cuts and binds the oats at the same
time,—doing four times as much work
as the black man with one half the labour.
Let us: give the black man so
much skill and brains that he can cut
oats like the white man, then he can
compete with him. The Negro works
in cotton, and has no trouble so long as
his labour is confined to the lower forms
of work,—the planting, the picking, and
the ginning; but, when the Negro attempts
to follow the bale of cotton up
mill where it is made into the finer
fabrics, where the larger profit appears,
he is told that he is not wanted.
The Negro can work in wood and
iron; and no one objects so long as he
confines his work to the felling of trees
and sawing of boards, to the digging of
iron ore and making of pig iron. But,
when the Negro attempts to follow this
tree into the factory where it is made
into desks and chairs and railway
coaches, or when he attempts to follow
the pig iron into the factory where it is
made into knife-blades and watch-springs,
the Negro's trouble begins.
And what is the objection? Simply
that the Negro lacks the skill, coupled
with brains, necessary to compete with
the white man, or that, when white men
refuse to work with coloured men, enough
skilled and educated coloured men cannot
be found able to superintend and man
every part of any one large industry; and
being barred out. The Negro
must become, in a larger measure, an
intelligent producer as well as a consumer.
There should be a more vital
and practical connection between the
Negro's educated brain and his opportunity
of earning his daily living.
A very weak argument often used
against pushing industrial training for
the Negro is that the Southern white
man favours it, and, therefore, it is not
best for the Negro. Although I was
born a slave, I am thankful that I am
able so far to rid myself of prejudice as
to be able to accept a good thing, whether
it comes from a black man or a white
man, a Southern man or a Northern
man. Industrial education will not only
help the Negro directly in the matter
of industrial development, but also in
bringing about more satisfactory relations
between him and the Southern
white man. For the sake of the Negro
many things in the relation of the two
races that must soon be changed. We
cannot depend wholly upon abuse or
condemnation of the Southern white
man to bring about these changes.
Each race must be educated to see matters
in a broad, high, generous, Christian
spirit: we must bring the two races together,
not estrange them. The Negro
must live for all time by the side of the
Southern white man. The man is unwise
who does not cultivate in every
manly way the friendship and good will
of his next-door neighbour, whether he
be black or white. I repeat that industrial
training will help cement the friendship
of the two races. The history of
the world proves that trade, commerce,
is the forerunner of peace and civilisation
as between races and nations. The
Jew, who was once in about the same
position that the Negro is to-day, has
now recognition, because he has entwined
and industrial sense. Say or think
what we will, it is the tangible or visible
element that is going to tell largely during
the next twenty years in the solution
of the race problem.
| CHAPTER III. The future of the American negro | |