A Social History of the American Negro Part 25

However, the Negro has no reason to be discouraged. If one will but remember that after all slavery was but an incident and recall the status of the Negro even in the free states ten years before the Civil War, he will be able to see a steady line of progress forward. After the great moral and economic awakening that gave the race its freedom, the pendulum swung backward, and finally it reached its farthest point of proscription, of lawlessness, and inhumanity. No obscuring of the vision for the time being should blind us to the reading of the great movement of history.

To-day in the whole question of the Negro problem there are some matters of pressing and general importance. One that is constantly thrust forward is that of the Negro criminal. On this the answer is clear. If a man--Negro or otherwise--is a criminal, he is an enemy of society, and society demands that he be placed where he will do the least harm. If execution is necessary, this should take place in private; and in no case should the criminal be so handled as to corrupt the morals or arouse the morbid sensibilities of the populace. At the same time simple patriotism would demand that by uplifting home surroundings, good schools, and wholesome recreation everything possible be done for Negro children as for other children of the Republic, so that just as few of them as possible may graduate into the criminal cla.s.s.

Another matter, closely akin to this, is that of the astonishing l.u.s.t for torture that more and more is actuating the American people. When in 1835 McIntosh was burned in St. Louis for the murder of an officer, the American people stood aghast, and Abraham Lincoln, just coming into local prominence, spoke as if the very foundations of the young republic had been shaken. After the Civil War, however, horrible lynchings became frequent; and within the last decade we have seen a Negro boy stabbed in numberless places while on his way to the stake, we have seen the eyes of a Negro man burned out with hot irons and pieces of his flesh cut off, and a Negro woman--whose only offense was a word of protest against the lynching of her husband--while in the state of advanced pregnancy hanged head downwards, her clothing burned from her body, and herself so disemboweled that her unborn babe fell to the ground. We submit that any citizens who commit such deeds as these are deserving of the most serious concern of their country; and when they bring their little children to behold their acts--when baby fingers handle mutilated flesh and baby eyes behold such pictures as we have suggested--a crime has been committed against the very name of childhood. Most frequently it will be found that the men who do these things have had only the most meager educational advantages, and that generally--but not always--they live in remote communities, away from centers of enlightenment, so that their whole course of life is such as to cultivate provincialism. With not the slightest touch of irony whatever we suggest that these men need a crusade of education in books and in the fundamental obligations of citizenship. At present their ignorance, their prejudice, and their lack of moral sense const.i.tute a national menace.

It is full time to pause. We have already gone too far. The Negro problem is only an index to the ills of society in America. In our haste to get rich or to meet new conditions we are in danger of losing all of our old standards of conduct, of training, and of morality. Our courts need to summon a new respect for themselves. The average citizen knows only this about them, that he wants to keep away from them. So far we have not been a.s.sured of justice. The poor man has not stood an equal chance with the rich, nor the black with the white. Money has been freely used, even for the changing of laws if need be; and the sentencing of a man of means generally means only that he will have a new trial. The murders in any American city average each year fifteen or twenty times as many as in an English or French city of the same size.

Our churches need a new baptism; they have lost the faith. The same principle applies in our home-life, in education, in literature. The family altar is almost extinct; learning is more easy than sound; and in literature as in other forms of art any pa.s.sing fad is able to gain followers and pose as worthy achievement. All along the line we need more uprightness--more strength. Even when a man has committed a crime, he must receive justice in court. Within recent years we have heard too much about "speedy trials," which are often nothing more than legalized lynchings. If it has been decreed that a man is to wait for a trial one week or one year, the mob has nothing to do with the matter, and, if need be, all the soldiery of the United States must be called forth to prevent the storming of a jail. Fortunately the last few years have shown us several sheriffs who had this conception of their duty.

In the last a.n.a.lysis this may mean that more responsibility and more force will have to be lodged in the Federal Government. Within recent years the dignity of the United States has been seriously impaired.

The time seems now to have come when the Government must make a new a.s.sertion of its integrity and its authority. No power in the country can be stronger than that of the United States of America.

For the time being, then, this is what we need--a stern adherence to law. If men will not be good, they must at least be made to behave. No one will pretend, however, that an adjustment on such a basis is finally satisfactory. Above the law of the state--above all law of man--is the law of G.o.d. It was given at Sinai thousands of years ago. It received new meaning at Calvary. To it we must all yet come. The way may be hard, and in the strife of the present the time may seem far distant; but some day the Messiah will reign and man to man the world over shall brothers be "for a' that."

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Unless an adequate volume is to be devoted to the work, any bibliography of the history of the Negro Problem in the United States must be selective. No comprehensive work is in existence. Importance attaches to _Select List of References on the Negro Question_, compiled under the direction of A.P.C. Griffin, Library of Congress, Washington, 1903; _A Select Bibliography of the Negro American_, edited by W.E.B. DuBois, Atlanta, 1905, and _The Negro Problem: a Bibliography_, edited by Vera Sieg, Free Library Commission, Madison, Wis., 1908; but all such lists have to be supplemented for more recent years. Compilations on the Abolition Movement, the early education of the Negro, and the literary and artistic production of the race are to be found respectively in Hart's _Slavery and Abolition_, Woodson's _The Education of the Negro prior to 1861_, and Brawley's _The Negro in Literature and Art_, and the _Journal of Negro History_ is constantly suggestive of good material.

The bibliography that follows is confined to the main question. First of all are given general references, and then follows a list of individual authors and books. Finally, there are special lists on topics on which the study in the present work is most intensive. In a few instances books that are superficial in method or prejudiced in tone have been mentioned as it has seemed necessary to try to consider all shades of opinion even if the expression was not always adequate. On the other hand, not every source mentioned in the footnotes is included, for sometimes these references are merely incidental; and especially does this apply in the case of lectures or magazine articles, some of which were later included in books. Nor is there any reference to works of fiction. These are frequently important, and books of unusual interest are sometimes considered in the body of the work; but in such a study as the present imaginative literature can be hardly more than a secondary and a debatable source of information.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. General References

(Mainly in Collections, Sets, or Series)

Statutes at Large, being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia from the first session of the Legislature, in the year 1619, by William Waller Hening. Richmond, 1819-20.

Laws of the State of North Carolina, compiled by Henry Potter, J.L.

Taylor, and Bart. Yancey. Raleigh, 1821.

The Statutes at Large of South Carolina, edited by Thomas Cooper.

Columbia, 1837.

The Pro-Slavery Argument (as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the Southern states). Charleston, 1852.

Files of such publications as Niles's _Weekly Register_, the _Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation_, the _Liberator_, and DeBow's _Commercial Review_, in the period before the Civil War; and of the _Crisis_, the _Journal of Negro History_, the _Negro Year-Book_, the _Virginia Magazine of History_, the _Review of Reviews_, the _Literary Digest_, the _Independent_, the _Outlook_, as well as representative newspapers North and South and weekly Negro newspapers in later years.

Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science (some numbers important for the present work noted below).

Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University (some numbers important for the present work noted below).

Atlanta University Studies of Negro Problems (for unusually important numbers note DuBois, editor, below, also Bigham).

Occasional Papers of the American Negro Academy (especially note Cromwell in special list No. 1 below and Grimke in No. 3).

Census Reports of the United States; also Publications of the Bureau of Education.

Annual Reports of the General Education Board, the John F. Slater Fund, the Jeanes Fund; reports and pamphlets issued by American Missionary a.s.sociation, American Baptist Home Mission Society, Freedmen's Aid Society, etc.; catalogues of representative educational inst.i.tutions; and a volume "From Servitude to Service" (the Old South lectures on representative educational inst.i.tutions for the Negro), Boston, 1905.

Pamphlets and reports of National a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, the Southern Sociological Congress, the University Commission on Southern Race Questions, Hampton Conference reports, 1897-1907, and Proceedings of the National Negro Business League, annual since 1900.

The American Nation: A History from Original Sources by a.s.sociated Scholars, edited by Albert Bushnell Hart. 27 vols. Harper & Bros., New York, 1907. (Volumes important for the present work specially noted below.)

The Chronicles of America. A Series of Historical Narratives edited by Allen Johnson. 50 vols. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1918--.

(Volumes important for the present work specially noted below.)

The South in the Building of the Nation. 12 vols. The Southern Publication Society. Richmond, Va., 1909.

Studies in Southern History and Politics. Columbia University Press, New York, 1914.

New International and Americana Encyclopedias (especially on such topics as Africa, the Negro, and Negro Education).

II. INDIVIDUAL WORKS

(Note pamphlets at end of list; also special lists under III below.)

Adams, Alice Dana: The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America (1808-1831), Radcliffe College Monograph No. 14.

Boston, 1908 (now handled by Harvard University Press).

Adams, Henry: History of the United States from 1801 to 1817. 9 vols. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1889-90.

Alexander, William T.: History of the Colored Race in America.

Palmetto Publishing Co., New Orleans, 1887.

Armistead, Wilson: A Tribute for the Negro, being a Vindication of the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the Colored Portion of Mankind, with particular reference to the African race, ill.u.s.trated by numerous biographical sketches, facts, anecdotes, etc., and many superior portraits and engravings.

Manchester, 1848.

Baker, Ray Stannard: Following the Color Line. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1908.

Ballagh, James Curtis: A History of Slavery in Virginia. Johns Hopkins Studies, extra volume 24. Baltimore, 1902.

White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia. Johns Hopkins Studies, Thirteenth Series, Nos. 6 and 7. Baltimore, 1895.

Ba.s.sett, John Spencer: Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina.

Sixth Series, No. 6. Baltimore, 1898.

Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina. Johns Hopkins Studies, Fourteenth Series, Nos. 4 and 5. Baltimore, 1896.

Slavery in the State of North Carolina. Johns Hopkins Studies, XIV: 179; XVII: 323.