Chapter V: Section VI (1)

The Bishops shall have power to appoint Evangelists and send ministers to their respective tabernacles. They also shall state the different districts for the evangelists. The fourteenth day of April shall be the Feast of the Passover. The ministers of God shall teach the principal things that pertain to our salvation.

_The Independent Church of God_

This organization is entrusted to me by the trustees.

I am an ordained licensed minister, sent out from the Independent Church of God and Saints of Christ headquarters, at 82 Livingston Street, Newark, N. J.

In 1910 I was sent to Montclair, N. J., to take charge of a tabernacle. For two years, I was in charge there, and did good work for God. The people received me, both white and black. In 1913 I was called in with my members, and my little tabernacle was broken up. In 1914, I was sent to Yonkers, N. Y., to do a work for God. I built a tabernacle there, and prospered. The Lord blessed me and gave me friends.

When America joined the World War, my little church was called in again; I sent the members who were with me down to headquarters, the Mother Church, but I refused to go.

For some unknown reason, I had become very unpopular at headquarters, so I stepped out on the word of God, and submitted myself to His spirit in all things.

Men and women’s hearts are full of jealousy, and my leader cut me loose from her. For the space of three years, I sat alone in the world, without a member who could help me, spiritually or carnally.

The white people did not turn me down, they stuck by me. My finances came directly from them. They really befriended me, and I cannot thank the God of Heaven enough for them. When my people laughed at me and rebuked me, the good white people were with me, and helped me to preach righteousness to my people. Allow me, my friend, to speak a word for the Mother Church, whose leader is Evangelist M. D. Morris, the title she holds is, the Queen of Israel. She is the chief evangelist, set up over all of the daughters who are in the Church of God and Saints of Christ. She and her ministers are the founders of this church. She is helping people who cannot help themselves. She is their spiritual mother, and she loves them. She wants me there until after the great destruction on the earth, but I have a work to do. I shall go and warn the people of the coming destruction among all nations.

When we as a people of God learn to know and control ourselves, and be guided by the words of God and His righteous spirit, then true love will come in and a true smile will cover your face, and sunshine will come out of your heart. The meanest man will feel good when he sees you and will respect you, and encourage you to keep it up.

_The Black Jews_

This is the most important part of my subject, in fact, it is the most important subject of the world. The representatives of this name have been, and yet are driven, sold and killed, some put in ships and carried to desert lands, put there to starve to death. Some are chained together and carried from their country and made slaves to all the nations of the world. They are not known by their own name, which is the Black Jews. God speaking through Moses in Deut. 28:37.

And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb and a by-word among all nations whether the Lord shall lead thee.

About 586 B. C., Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and carried tens of thousands of Jews to Babylon, and the Black Jews have been slaves ever since as a race. But we must admit that the nations have suffered and are cursed for trying to destroy and keep us down.

The nations have not made much headway with civilization, they are now going back where they started from, so let us all come to the agreement that the God of Heaven and Earth, loves all of His children if they will do His commandments, whether they be white or black, it makes no difference with him.

This is what Jesus said to both Jew and Gentile, white or black. St. John 15:12. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.

My subject, the Black Jews, mean all the dark and black people of the world--four hundred million of them, but all of them don’t know that they are the real Jews, but they are turning back to their God of Israel, and we are going to take our white brothers’ children with us, and the mothers and fathers if they want to go, but the children must turn to the God of Israel and learn of his ways and keep his commandments.

_Proof That We Are Jews_

Now my friends, allow me to quote some scripture on the subject and make some comparison.

I will take first the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy and the thirty-seventh verse.

And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb and a by-word among all of the nations of the earth, whether the Lord shall lead thee.

My friends, history will prove to you that we blacks are called by many names. All nations have a different name for us. In America they call us negroes, colored people, darkies, niggers and shines, because our skin is slick and greasy. In foreign countries, we are known by many different proverb, that the people see fit to call us by.

You yourself can think of many names by which we are known. Our true name is the children of Israel, The Black Jews.

After we were in bondage for seventy years, then Israel took the names after the fourth son of Jacob, about 500 B. C., and built up Jerusalem the second time. Read Nehemiah, The Prophet Book, and if you read the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, you will see and know who the real Jew is. We black people have fulfilled the chapter to the letter, it fits us like the paper on the wall. There is no other nation in the world who has fulfilled this book as we have.

Again my friends, that you may see the children of Israel, the Black Jews more clearly.

Allow me to quote Paul’s writing in Romans, Romans 1:20 1-2-3-4-5-6.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God head, so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

Wherefore God, also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.

For this cause God gave them up to vile affections, for even their women changed the natural things into that which is against nature.

Now my friends, that is why we as a race have suffered untold punishment from these nations. God has turned them against us, and we are cut off from our blessing from God for the time being. Now he is calling us to serve him, that the nations of the world may be blessed.

To prove to you that you have never studied this subject, that the Black Jews, our fathers were in Jerusalem at one time, about 2000 years ago, The Book of Luke, 21st chapter and the 24th and 25th verse. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the gentiles, until the time of the gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and waves roaring.

We black people are the only ones who have been captives as a race. We were led away in chains and brought to America and made slaves. The white Jew has never been a slave as a race here. They came on their own account. He has not been made slave of to any nation, but he has financed all nations and has become their money king.

But we Black Jews have nothing we can call our own, and 80 per cent of us now are keeping books with the animals in the forest, and are hunted as you would hunt any other animal. Our backs are to the wall, and God will soon answer our cry, for we can not stand it much longer. The enemies who are boasting over the downfall of his black brother was warned by Apostle Paul in Romans. Romans 11:24:25:26:27:28.

For if thou were to cut one of the olive trees, which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grappled into their own olive tree.

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of the mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles come in.

And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written. There shall come out of Zion, the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.

This part of the subject shows one that we should love one another whether we be Jew or Gentile. The color does not make the man, it is the high morals of righteousness for which he stands.

In order to try to satisfy your minds on the Black Jews, and the wisest men the world ever knew, allow me to direct your thoughts to Prophet Job, Job 30:30. My skin is black upon me and my bones are burnt with heat.

Now Job was a Black Jewish Prophet, a man of God. There is some good in some of us black people that you can trust.

I will now call your attention to one of the greatest Black Jews that ever lived. When Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem, this man was one of the first to go in bondage, Jeremiah 8:21. For the hurt of the daughters of my people am I hurt, I am black--astonishment has taken hold on me.

When this holy black man saw with his own eyes the destruction of the beautiful daughters of Jerusalem by the wicked soldiers, he wept like a child, but the God of Israel suffered it to be so. Now my friends, I will direct your thoughts again to the book of books, that which the civilized world recognizes to be the true holy record.

Songs of Solomon 1:5:6. I am black, but comely; ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar as the curtains of Solomon.

Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun has looked upon me, my mother’s children were angry with me, made me the keeper of their vineyards, but mine own have I not kept.

I draw your attention to these great characters, because we blacks of African descent are from the same stock. You need not be afraid when you have us around you or sit beside you in a car. If you train us in the right way, my people will be your best friends. If we have not got your school education, we have got good common sense and manners, that our old mothers taught us in the cabins. It is not the color that makes the man, it is the high principle for which he stands. Allow me, dear reader, to call your attention to a question that Jesus, that great prophet who faced the world unto death, who was born of the royal family of King David, Solomon’s father, asked in Matthew 16:13. When Jesus came into the coasts at Caesarea Phillipi, he asked his disciples saying, “whom do men say the son of God am.”

And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist! Some, Elias and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. My friends, Jeremiah acknowledged he was black, Job was a prophet, and said he was black, then all the other prophets must have been black, and if Jesus looked like one of them, he must have been black also.

In this subject I am not condemning neither Jew or Gentile. I am only finding myself. My people are the lost tribe of Israel, and yet slaves. I have repeatedly stated in my subject, that the so-called negro is yet a slave. In order to prove it, I shall write some facts, and I know that you, my reader, will agree with me. When the Jews were driven out of Egypt about four thousand years ago, they were all black, and were slaves in Egypt. They were in the jungles forty years, and God led them out by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Before they were driven out of Jerusalem, there was no mixed breed allowed there. Forty years A. D. they went out a mixed multitude of people of all colors.

From 1920 on, they are going back to Jerusalem all white. They are the only Jews that the Gentiles’ recognize as a race to this day.

In the fourteenth century in Russia, the Czar issued a creed that they could serve their own God, and have their own holidays. These Jews are the nine and one-half tribes who rebelled from under Rehoboham.

_Black Moon_

Dear reader, I have seen the red moon, the yellow moon and the white, but on the twenty-fourth day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-five, I had the pleasure of seeing the Black Moon for the first time in my life. He was so black, the white people on earth had to turn on their lights, that they might see how to do business. He was so black that he put the sun out of business. He was so black that you could not see his features. He looked to me like a black ball traveling from southwest to northeast.

The moon that I see traveling from east to west is a white moon that gives light on the earth by night. When you see him in the daytime, he is white just the same. But the God of Heaven and Earth has shown his power through a black moon.

We as a people should give God praise for all He does.

About four thousand years ago, he parted the Red Sea and let the children of Israel pass over dry shod.

I will make the statement here in my book, that the children of Israel were black, and the Egyptians were black at that time. The seeds of the ancient Israelites are yet black, and among the races of the world are kept economic slaves.

Now as God sees fit to use his red moon, his white moon, his yellow moon and his black moon, let us work together as one great big moon for God, that we may obtain his mercies on our children.

I biblically and historically have proof to back up these statements that I make, but it is not necessary that I should write them in my book, for this book is the first step to world peace, and the first step to destruction of race hatred.

You cannot build up love in men and women’s hearts by telling lies, for they are without a foundation. Tell the truth and back it up with your honor, that God may bless you and your children upon the earth.

Nine and one-half tribes of Israel rebelled from under Rehobohan, King Solomon’s son, and went on and intermarried with the other nations of the world, and they became white. There are only about fourteen million that are known as Jews, the others are the nations of the world. The fourteen million are going to become the greatest white men on earth. He will redeem the Gentiles and save many of them from destruction on earth, all business will be turned over into his hand. Through him will the Gentiles receive the black man, that he may go and serve his God.

This is a white man who has never changed his religion, he keeps to the religion of his black ancestors, which was handed down by Black Moses to us.

Whether they want to or not, all nations have got to love the white Jews that they may be blessed on the earth.

The white Jew is right about Jesus; he was a man and had a mother and father like all other children. The Romans killed him for talking against the government. He was a black king from the loins of King David. He was a great holy man who executed justice on earth and they had to get rid of him, if they didn’t they were not friends of Caesar. Now, I won’t go any further with that sentence because you cannot heal a sore by picking off the scab.

Let us love one another as this man Jesus has loved us.

_Negro Is Yet A Slave_

The so-called negro is yet a slave, though free, some reflections on the economic slavery which makes the race helpless victims.

Three score years ago, Abraham Lincoln emancipated four million and one-half negroes, this was a wonderful blessing to the negro, for he had prayed to his God unceasingly, that the slave-chain which held him fast might be broken. He had been under the lash, his women had seen their children sold like so many cattle; they had met injustice at every turn of the road.

The negro, after a period of time, began to realize that after all, he was not a free being, altho he was not subject to his master. The negro probably thought that the emancipation meant freedom to him, but to emancipate the negro only meant to give him a chance to free himself.

To emancipate the negro meant to give him a chance to work out his own destiny. No nation or race has at any time freed another nation or race, they are too busy working out their own social or national problems. The power to become free, lies within the race or nation itself. The negro forgot that his own freedom had just begun, being untrained, unskilled labor naturally fell to his lot, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, was his portion.

But will the so-called negro be free as long as he remains at the foot of the industrial ladder? Can he be free as long as poverty stares him in the face? Can he take his place among the other races of the world, unless he becomes a producer, and controls the economic forces about him? Why is the so-called negro not free today? Why is he pleading for an opportunity and for justice to be given him on every hand? There is but one answer, he is a victim of economic slavery--a slave to the economic force of this country. In the field of mercantile business he is only a child, in the world of commerce he is yet a stranger, in co-operative industries he is an alien, in all creative industries he is at the foot of the ladder.

If the negro would become free and independent, let him enter into the creative industries in larger numbers. We must have a greater per cent of negroes in business and fewer negroes in the so-called parasitical professions, such as lawyers and doctors. We must have captains of industries, we must have more negroes as manufacturers and bankers, we must have more negroes, instead of looking to the white race to support his boys and girls, the negro will then be able to protect them himself. In proportion then, as the negro learns the spirit of co-operation, in that same proportion will he be able to rid himself of the existing evils that seem to befall him.

In this martialistic age, any race, in order to protect itself, must conquer those economical principles so necessary to its very existence. Then let the negro enter largely into the creative fields of industry, let him become a producer and not a consumer.

When he has control of all the economic forces about him, prejudice, jimcrowism and disfranchisement will cease, no longer will he have to plead to the white man for justice. We will, with our finance, backed by a spirit of co-operation, force every barrier down.

When the negro succeeds as a financier, he and his posterity will be as free as the mighty winged eagle that soars to the summits sublime, as free as the fairest Anglo-Saxon that trod American soil.

Then, and not until then, will the negro be free.

I am drawing your attention to a source of facts that are among all nations, the opportunities that would free a race, are ninety-eight per cent cut off from the black man, he is only a consumer and not a producer. He is not allowed to produce like other nations, not even in his own country, Africa, the country that the God of Heaven and Earth has given him. He is ready and capable to build up his country, and to pick and back his own leaders, those whom he can trust.

Ninety-eight per cent of the picked leaders have proven themselves to be self-seekers and crooks. We don’t want them, but they must go for the good of all nations that put such traitors over a people of God.

My friend, I don’t mean that we will be free twenty-five years or a century from now. I am not thinking about that. The time has come now that the black man must have equal rights. We are coming out of schools, grammar, high and colleges, by the thousands, and have nothing to do. The common labor has been given to the foreigners, and the American business men tell our boys and girls that they cannot employ colored help, although we have a college diploma in our hands.

Justice is looking all nations in the face and there is a wolf in the back yard.

Our fathers and mothers were put in chains and carried away, and have never had a chance to free themselves, but the God of Heaven and Earth put them in the hands of good white people all over the world, to help free their sons and daughters. The white boys and girls are calling for their black, brown and mulatto classmates who finished school with them. They learn to love one another with a love that prejudice cannot reach, matters not what the white father or mother says. They see no difference in the race, as the northern schools teaches none.

The government will stand by all people who stand for justice, and it will see that justice will be dealt to all people in America who have played their part as a race or nation, because God loves us all, regardless to creed or color. Now, allow me to make an open confession, as the Lord says it is good for the soul. My forty-five years of dealing with the white man and his families, in the South and North. I have found that they have met me half way. They have held out their hand to me, as if to say, come on, you can walk.

They have taken things from me, that I would not take from them. They have tried to help me to walk, but I was not smart enough to understand. We as a race, have let golden opportunities slip by, being too stiff-neck to take heed. The love, that the white men and women have for our wives, causes us men to get work to buy bread to eat and a house to live in. The black women have power with God, and the blessings of the world lies in her.

In this work for which I have given up my life for the last twenty years, I came to my own people, but they received me not, then there was nothing for me to do, but go to the white man and his families. From door to door with my vision, and the analysis of my work. I explained it to them just as I saw it. They saw my honest desire, and they held out their hands to me, and said, come on, you can walk. They are as yet meeting me half way, and I began to walk. Nine souls out of every ten have a kind word for me, and at times it has gone farther than money. Some of them would say, my son, I don’t see where I can help you now, but, you have a good work, and I appreciate it, you call again. Some of the gentlemen would call up their neighbors and tell them that I was all right, and to give me a dollar, and before I could open my mouth, he would send me out a dollar or more.

Some of the ladies when I saw them in their homes or businesses, when they were not prepared to help my work, would say, My Dear ----, I am awfully sorry that I cannot help you today, but I will send you a small check. Her kind words fill me with the spirit of come on, you can walk. To encourage me, I have had business men and women let me look into their cash registers--make me look in them. Men turn their pockets inside out to let me see that they have no change, others go out and borrow money for me, that is telling me to come on, you can walk. The same white people will tell you to come, you can walk. Try it, they will meet you fifty-fifty, but they have no time for shiftless or lazy black people. They want you to be a man or woman to your word. If they can put confidence in you, they will do anything for you, some of them will give up their life for you, but we must be honest to them and give them a square deal, not an eye servant. If you are working for them, give them justice, then they are compelled to do the same by you. My friend, the progress of the race lies in the young white boys and girls. I have never met a more friendly people than the young men in their business. They have not much money to give, but they have that hospitality, that friendly smile which is home-like. The young ladies at their desks trying to make an honest living, they all have a kind word for you, and a beautiful smile for you which makes you feel like you have something to live for.

I have an interview with a thousand white men and women every month. I can honestly say that not one out of the thousand has tried to insult me or try to take advantage of me because I am a member of the black race, the ancient Jews.

Some of the working girls open their bags and give me from twenty-five cents to a dollar for my work. Some contribute a smile of regret because they have no money, but that smile is worth as much as a dollar to me. It says come on, you can walk, and my heart goes out with the God of Heaven’s blessing on such people. I feel sorry for them, they cannot help what their fathers and mothers have done to us. It is not their fault that we have been made slaves of, and yet are to the nations of the world, but we as a race of people should obey the law and live clean and respectable, so our friends can uphold us to our enemies and demand respect for us. When we as a people don’t live the high morals with self respect, then our enemies use that to keep us down and our friends cannot say a word for us, they only can say get up and walk, our hands are open to you.

The trouble with this race is, that they are suffering for the want of true racial leadership. We want leaders to agitate the spirit to produce.

If the white man was to pass a law that the black man either had to build factories or go naked, or say give us back our clothes we sold you, and here is your money that the government made, or, if you want your pork chops, buy your farms, raise your hogs, flour and meal, we would be pretty bad off.

We want leaders who will show us how to produce something, so we can free ourselves from being dependent on our good white brothers. Somewhere in this world, the God of Heaven has left us our inheritance, let us find it, but we must put down these sorry cowardly leaders, and pick up real men.

Our white friends are not going to bother along with us much longer, because they have trouble of their own.

When you have only a ten dollar a week job, and live the life of a twenty dollar a week man, there is not much sympathy that you can demand from any one.

I also want to thank my personal friends of my race. They are true to me and this work. They have given me dollars when they need them for themselves. They have fought many a battle for me, they trust me. They have also given notes on their homes to raise money for me to go on with this work. I can never forget them. Again I thank them, and the God of Heaven will bless them for their righteous works.

_Should the Color Line Go?_

_By_ ROBERT WATSON WINSTON

_The tendency to hide the facts about the negro problem--No real freedom for colored people in the South--Migration of the negroes to a country of their own is the solution suggested_

“_Reprinted by special permission from Current History Magazine, a monthly periodical published by_ THE NEW YORK TIMES CO.” Born at Windsor, North Carolina, Mr. Winston is a leading lawyer of his native State. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina and received the degree of LL. D. from Wake Forest College. He was a Judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina from 1889 to 1895, when he resigned. He is a well-known orator and also an authority on Southern problems.

By what authority do I speak on this vexed subject of race relationship in the South? For more than two centuries my people have lived in the South, and I myself am a Southern man. My father was a Whig, a thorough-going Union man, and opposed to secession. He followed Mr. Webster and not Mr. Calhoun. In 1861, when one year of age, I became the owner by will of a three-fourths interest in five negro slaves. I sucked the breast of a negro woman, listened to the wonderful tales of my father’s slaves, rode “horse” on their backs, swam and fished with them, and ate their ash cake in the cabin. The negro, I think, is my friend; I know I am his. Thus I ought to be impartial.

Why do we of the South refuse to admit the facts, and when some blunt fellow, like the late Senator Tillman, blurts out the truth, why do we straightway fall to denying and disclaiming? On the other hand, why do few people outside the South seem to understand or care what consequences will follow the destruction of the caste system upheld by a color line so rigidly drawn?

A certain inexorable race law should be kept in mind if one would understand the magnitude of the issue involved: No two homogeneous races will long continue to exist side by side in the same country on terms of perfect equality without race-blending. One is prone to think of miscegenation as a thing foreign to the United States, and yet ethnologists generally declare that such blending between whites and blacks will take place, and that the Southern States will eventually become mulatto. Shortly after the close of the Civil War miscegenation societies were organized and leading abolitionists, Theodore Tilton and Wendell Phillip among others, advocated mixed marriages. About this time also the _North British Review_, in a calm statement, concluded that not only England and Europe, but Africa, would be represented in the new race which was growing up in the New World.

A few years ago Colonel Roosevelt, in letters to _The Outlook_, told of the rising tide of color in Central America--the fusing of whites and blacks into a mulatto civilization; how a prosperous negro would marry an impecunious white woman, how the male offspring would repeat the process, so that, after two or three generations, they would become a white family. And similar conditions exist today in Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Portugal and the French colonies, where marriages between whites and blacks are well nigh universal.

Schults in “Race or Mongrel” declares that “if conditions that now exist continue nothing need be done with the negro; the problem will solve itself. The immigration of Southern mongrels is ingrafting more and more negro blood in our veins.” To the same effect is Hoffman’s “Racial Traits and Tendencies”: “The process is now rapidly going on and the black race will be absorbed; a condition which, though unpopular, is not unwelcome to many thinkers.” Document 188 of the Carnegie Foundation has valuable data showing universal race-blending in Jamaica and Bermuda. Sir Sidney Olivier, Governor of Jamaica, advocates the blending of whites and blacks “as a buffer to prevent race conflict.” In Volume 79 of the Popular Science Monthly he takes the ground that “we must make our account for a legitimate and honorable interblending between whites and blacks, and must look upon it not as an evil but as an advantage,” adding that “the black race is everywhere eager to mix with the white race.”

Viscount Bryce asserts that “the Brazilian lower classes intermarry freely with the black people, the Brazilian middle classes intermarry with mulattoes and quadroons”; and intimates that three-fourths white is white enough for Brazilians and Portuguese. The Journal of Heredity, October, 1916, contains a statement by Maynard W. Metcalf that the union of the races is inevitable; and to the same effect speak the Literary Digest of October, 1917, and the Century Magazine of March, 1903. In the “Future of Evolution” race-blending in the South is taken for granted; the Mercure de France for August, 1922, finds much hope for France from an infusion of African blood, declaring that the French people betray no antipathy to the color of the men from Algeria, Morocco or Tunis; and that all are “welded into lasting French cement,” a condition vouched for by our soldiers returning from France.

Formerly Judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina]

Reuter in “The Mulatto in the United States” implies that race-blending will take place if the color line and race segregation are not maintained: “Where no color line has been formally drawn against them they have tended to ally themselves with the superior race--during the process of reduction to a mongrel unity; it is biracial adjustment that keeps them apart.” One writer has asserted that all religions come from the black race; that extreme white and extreme black are departures, and that Adam, as his name signifies, was made of red earth.

We must conclude, therefore, that eventually the two races in America will blend if they be placed on social and political equality, and if they are in fact homogeneous.

Are Southern whites and blacks socially and politically equal? Are they homogeneous? And now we touch the first sore spot. We of the South generally maintain that the negro is a free man, and that the law bears on white and black alike, when we must know that this is not the fact. Is a man free who cannot vote, hold office or serve on the jury; is he free when he must ride in second-class coaches, sit in the gallery at public places, occupy rear seats of electric cars and flee for his life when suspected of being a dangerous character? Is a race free which has been battered into submission by whippings and lynchings, and which has no part in governmental affairs? Can man or race be free with a spirit in chains? And does it lie in the mouth of the white man to charge that the negro is but a race of bootblacks, when we have confined him to the task of blacking our boots?

FACING THE FACTS

We are not now considering whether these things should or should not be; we are merely asserting that in the “Black Belt” they are. And they are for a definite, a fixed purpose. As in slavery days it was necessary in order to perpetuate the institution to make it a crime to teach a slave to read or write, in other words to elevate him so that he could realize his condition of slavery, so in the far South today in order to maintain the present servile condition of the negro it is necessary to put him under foot and to keep him under foot. Whippings, lynchings, burnings--these represent the color line in crimson; and the color line, as a recent writer points out, is but evidence “of an attempt based on intuitive choice to preserve those distinctive values which a racial group has come to regard as of the highest moment to itself.” The great industrial awakening in the South is made possible by this supposedly permanent settlement of the race issue, for the color line properly enforced need not interfere with business--at all.

Are the two races homogeneous? They are, undoubtedly. Some time about 1812 on the border line of two great Southern States there lived a Presbyterian preacher named John Chavis, “admired for his noble qualities as a gentleman, revered for his fervent piety as a Christian, respected for his eminent ability as a teacher and preacher.” He had been a student at Princeton under Dr. Witherspoon. Opening a classical school in an aristocratic Southern community, he was patronized by the best people and became the preceptor of future Senators, Governors, and financiers; this man was a negro, a free negro--“without any white blood in his veins.” About five feet seven inches in height, he was robust and corpulent, having a round, clean shaven face expressive of great benevolence. The pupils boarded in his home, and in their home he was a welcome guest. Because of the Nat Turner insurrection in 1832 he and other free negroes were forbidden by law to preach, and from that time until his death he was supported by a Southern Presbytery. This is an isolated case to be sure, but it is portentous.

Are not two races homogeneous which have lived together in peace for a hundred years, speaking the same language, worshipping the same God, having similar church affiliations, impelled by similar superstitions and prejudices, the weaker race imitating the stronger in customs, manners, and modes of thought? Anyway, if the races are not homogeneous, how comes it that there are so many mulattoes in the South? In 1910 one-fifth of the negro population was mulatto.

We are about to uncover another skeleton in the closet: sexual relations once existed in the South between white men and mulatto women, a condition which persisted until some time after the Civil War. During the period of slavery and up to about 1876 sexual relations between the races was frequent. Neither comment nor sense of shame was entailed by what went on among white youths and colored girls. Nor was it uncommon at that time for white men to keep negro women and to rear children. Many a colored woman was proud to be the plaything of the white man, whose passion she gratified without restraint or responsibility. Public sentiment did not condemn the practice. Before 1876 there was no public sentiment on the subject, neither was there race consciousness nor conflict; and the unhappy offspring could rise no higher than the color of the mother. Once a negro, always a negro.

CHANGES IN SEXUAL RELATIONS

After about 1876 sexual intercourse between the races gradually decreased, and today has practically stopped. The law sustained by public sentiment condemns the practice, which has become a badge of shame. One would naturally expect the census table to reflect this change in race relationship, and it does. In 1910, in a group of 100 negroes, as we have seen, 20, or one in five, were mulattoes, whereas in 1920 the proportion was one in six, or 16 mulattoes in a group of 100 negroes. But bloody revolutions, much legislation forbidding race intercourse of any kind, innumerable race riots, lynchings and burnings in the “Black Belt,” together with the white womanhood of the South--all these were required to separate the two homogeneous races.

The Roosevelt letters made a lasting impression on the South. These letters describing the process of race-blending showed how the crossing of white and mulatto produced a quadroon; the crossing of quadroon with white person produced an octoroon; the crossing of octoroon with white person produced a person called “passing for white”; and the crossing of “passing for white” with pure white produced “fixed white,” and after “fixed white” there was no further reversion to black color.

The total population of the United States is about 106,000,000, of which 10,500,000 are negroes. It is interesting to note that of these 10,500,000 negroes about 8,333,000 reside in Southern territory. That is to say, in the fourteen South Atlantic, East South Central and West South Central States (omitting West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky), there are 8,333,000 blacks and 19,000,000 whites. On the other hand, in Northern territory there are 71,000,000 whites and 1,500,000 blacks. In other words, in the thirty-two Northeastern, Middle Atlantic, East North Central, West North Central, Mountain and Pacific States the white population is 71,000,000, while the negro population is 1,500,000.

If it were possible at the present time to blend the races, Southern people would have more than one-third colored blood in their veins and less than two-thirds white blood, and Northern people would have about 3 per cent colored blood and 97 per cent white. Moreover, if amalgamation were to take place now, the whole of South Carolina and Mississippi and half of Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana would grade about 50 per cent negro blood and 50 per cent white. The North, on the other hand, would grade about 3 per cent colored blood and 97 per cent white, a mixture well within the rule of “fixed white”; whereas the Southern mixture would not reach the grade of “passing for white,” the offspring of such persons being subject to the law of reversion to color.

It is not possible to place Southern whites and blacks on terms of social and political equality as soon as the blacks are fitted for citizenship, as many philanthropic organizations are now insisting, because the Southern white man is tenacious of his rights and on this subject is regardless of consequences. With him a white man’s government means a white man’s government. If Congress should pass a Force Bill and undertake to put it into operation, the Irish upheaval would be a mild affair in comparison with conditions in the Southern States. Either the white man would exterminate the negro, or the negro would exterminate the white man. The white man will brook no peer. It is not a question of whether the negro is a good citizen or a bad citizen; it is deeper than this; it has to do with race integrity, race autonomy.

So long as the negro “behaves himself” in the South he is safe. But once let him cross the dead line of race separation and endeavor to assert his manhood rights and he becomes a menace to the existing order of things, after the manner of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. With hat in hand, the Southern negro is more than safe, he is happy--if he is that kind of negro. For his sake and in memory of the old-time “darkey” schools, hospitals and orphanages have been set on foot. Nothing, indeed, is too good for him. A tender, patient relationship exists between this unambitious, likable creature and the white people of the South. This white man’s negro gets all that he is entitled to and often more in the courts, as a domestic on the farm, with trowel or hammer. The white man who undertakes to impose on a white man’s negro has his hands full. Many years’ experience as a Circuit Judge enables me to declare that in the Court House I never witnessed an act of injustice to such a negro--who does not desire rights, social or political, and could not be induced to leave “his ol’ white folks.”

But what of that increasing number of negroes who are not the white man’s negroes, and what of the widening gulf between races? Has the situation improved since the return of negro soldiers in khaki from France, where the black man from Algeria was a favorite of the Parisian drawing rooms, a recipient of the voluptuous white woman’s favors? Did Siki’s victory over Carpentier give a new turn to the race question, as The _Boston Herald_ asserts? Is it true, as literature of “new negro” type declares, that race war and revolution must presently follow if conditions continue and race segregation be insisted upon? Perhaps not. But so The Crisis is teaching and so one reads in “The Souls of the Black Folks,” “The Voice of the Negro,” “Dark Water,” “The Black Dispatch,” and like publications. The negro Leckey thinks that “race separation and distinctions are a spiritual lynching and that the negro must feel that he is a cursed, knee-bending slave, bound and shackled by laws and customs made for slaves.” And the “new negro’s” call to battle, how clear it is. Let us hear it:

Oh! kinsman we must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave;
And for their thousand blows, deal one death blow!
What though before us lies the open grave,
Like men we’ll face the cowardly, murderous pack,
Pressed to the wall--dying--but fighting back.

Why is the negro not right? Self determination is of God, not of man. But the black race must not underrate the task. They are lined up against descendants of men who fought a four years’ war against the world without salt, shoes or powder, and whose courage and endurance no man questions. Men of the South place race integrity above politics, property, religion, or life itself. The South alone among nations is today making a fight against a universal ethnological law of race-blending. The mistake is in not boldly admitting the facts, flinging defiance to the future, spurning representation based on negro population in the electoral college.

THE SOLUTION

This, then, is the line-up. Can actual warfare be avoided? I think that it can. There is nothing strange or alarming about the situation. The negro desires to be free and he is right. The white man claims that the South is his to rule and control, and he, too, is right. But a head-on collision need not come from every paradox. While man has busied himself in the endeavor to solve matters, in the wrong way, the God of nations seems to have taken a hand, pointing the way of escape, even as He pointed it out to Abraham and Lot in the land of Bethel: “_And Abraham said unto Lot, let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee. Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me._” Even so today is God moving the black man to separate himself from the Southern white man, and, by the thousands, are negroes leaving the South.

Let the census tables again speak. The white population of the United States in the last four decades has increased 100 per cent, while the negro population in the same period has increased but 40 per cent. In the far South during the decade 1910-1920 the negro population either stood still or diminished. Alabama and Mississippi having 8,000 and 75,000 fewer negroes respectively in 1920 than in 1910. The way out, therefore, is to change our mental attitude on this subject and vitalize every legitimate movement for negro migration North, East and West. Let those States welcoming the negroes to equal rights make known the fact, opening wide their doors, and negroes will continue to leave the South as they are now doing, in great numbers, thus relieving race friction. Undoubtedly the Southern States should cooperate in the movement, instantly repealing such laws as impose fine and imprisonment on emigration agents and giving up negro labor for the general welfare. (The only good of the Ku Klux is to frighten negroes from Southern States to other sections--and this is unintentional.)

Organizations and associations for race betterment, heretofore assuming that the race issue must be settled in the South and not elsewhere, have given little attention to negro migrations, which have been haphazard affairs conducted along business and not along racial lines. With intelligent and sympathetic direction negro migration will be greatly accelerated; and then, but not till then, the “Solid South” with all its embarrassing consequences will cease to be.

But I go further. Were I a negro, facing the future, concerned about children and children’s children, I would cease to fight against white prejudice, but raising the banner of “Pan-Africa,” I would herald that “Unity of the Colored Races, sensed by far-seeing negroes,” as Dr. Burghardt Du Bois phrases it, until my last breath. And why shall not the National Government sponsor negro exodus, making ready a suitable home for the race? President Lincoln recommended colonization “in some place or places of suitable climate”; President Grant recommended to Congress colonization on the Island of Santo Domingo. Why may not French Guinea and Sierra Leone be added to Liberia, creating an ample fatherland for such Afro-Americans as choose to go?

But has not colonization in Liberia failed? By no means; it has never been given a trial. In the ’70s a ship with about one thousand negro emigrants sailed from Savannah for Liberia. Standing amid 10,000 of his race and raising his black face heavenward, Bishop Turner prayed that God would safely speed the little craft to a land where the color of a man’s skin was not a crime. Ten thousand negro voices sobbed “Amen”; an aged colored woman shouted for very joy. What has been America’s attitude to such heroic incidents? Either indifference or disapproval and ridicule. Our colonization societies have ceased to function, and we give no further thought to Liberia, being content that the negro shall remain in the South, “a people within a people.”

Shall we not, I earnestly ask, speedily revive the old colonization society, send another Goethals with means and equipment and make Liberia as healthy as Panama--and above all, shall we not tell the truth about Liberia? Plucky little republic, at our request, she jumped into the great war and lost shipping and commerce; her towns were shelled by German gunboats, and yet the United States is haggling about making a loan of $5,000,000, promised by President Wilson and recommended by President Harding.

During the present year a British commission after nine months’ travel reported to its Government that in the three essentials--climate, productivity and health (with proper attention)--Africa is the most favored of continents, that it possesses marvelous flora, wonderful water-power, fertile soil, extensive mineral deposits, abundant hardwood.

In the face of discouragement, 100,000 civilized negroes, of whom about 12,000 are American Christian immigrants and their descendants, now reside on the Liberian littoral; and Monrovia, its capital, has a population of 6,000 souls. A railroad running from Monrovia 150 miles up the St. Paul River, across waterfalls and into the hinterland, would open up a garden spot, with lowlands superior to our far South, with uplands equal in climate and elevation to our North Atlantic States.