Chapter IX: Public Opinion in Race Relations (5)

3. I can't describe the mental complexes, but some are caused
by situations such as these: I go to the library to get a book,
and I am told that I must sit in a seat among dusty shelves
of newspaper files at a table marked "For colored people"; in
order to see a play I have to sit in the gallery. I submit to
that and when I get to the theater, I am told that no seats
are reserved for colored people. I go to a lecture by the Hon.
Mr. So and So (white) and he discusses the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution, creating much enthusiasm
among the unthinking and some of the thinking. Then the next
morning I take up the paper of which the same gentleman is the
editor, and read a sneering editorial on the race question,
and so on.

4. Personally, I am able to impersonalize my relation to the
situation, and experience no mental perplexities. I try to
preserve a rational attitude in an irrational environment and
objectify cruelty, injustice and wrong. I know that I as an
individual am not Jim Crowed, or disfranchised or socially
isolated; it is the race to which I belong. My only perplexity
is how to remove these racial, not personal, disqualifications.

5. Determination to fulfill my personal desires in spite of
the present social system; a loss of respect for the white
man's sense of justice.

6. The arrogance of the poor ignorant white man and the
snobbishness of the middle class. This is the stumbling-block
for the future of our race to overcome.

7. Trying to get white persons, as employers, etc., to accept
me as a man first of all, then to judge me on my merits,
irrespective of my color. Trying to attain to the same degree
of success and liberty of any other man of my training and
experience in spite of the world in which I live.

8. Amused and almost cynical tolerance. A desire to reap
the greatest possible advantages from the system, without
permitting my intelligence to admit that it is right because
it is personally advantageous.

9. My desires are never adjusted to the present "social system";
they are constantly out of harmony with the practices of our
so-called democracy, as these practices relate to the Negro.

10. If this question means what I think it does, space will
not permit an intelligent answer.

11. A hyper-sensitiveness in regard to the subject Negro;
a tendency to see racial antagonism as a motive of conduct
in every act of white persons when perhaps it is sometimes
absent; a hesitancy about entering public places or approaching
individuals for fear of rebuff or insult; a withdrawal into a
Negro world in which almost every thought and act are colored
by a racial aspect before a humanitarian one, are some of the
mental complexes experienced in a greater or less degree by
almost every colored person.

_Question_: Do you believe that Negroes are prejudiced against
white persons?

_Answers_:

1. Some are, but the prejudice is due to nurture rather than
to nature.

2. Prejudice means pre-judgment. Negroes come into the world
to find most white persons disliking them. They grow up in
an atmosphere where they find whites ready to insult them
because of the color Nature saw fit to give them. Therefore,
knowledge, not prejudice, causes Negroes to dislike whites.
Human beings, and even dumb animals, love only those who
love them. The average Negro is, however, quick to drop this
defensive attitude when he meets a fair-minded white person.
Perhaps too easily, as he is often taken advantage of by shrewd
whites disguised as friends.

3. I do not believe that Negroes are inherently prejudiced
against the white race. Personally, I have absolutely no such
prejudice. I do not believe that the white race is inherently
prejudiced against the Negro, but that it is wholly a feeling
stimulated by social opinion which can be modified and
controlled. I put in evidence the facts: First, when social
pressure is removed, white women marry Negro men, and white
men marry Negro women. Second, the superior always shows
prejudice against the inferior, whether superiority is claimed
on basis of wealth, culture, birth, or position. The prejudices
of inferior against superior is never so pronounced as that
of superior against inferior. Natural antipathy is mutually
reciprocal. Third, some white persons are less influenced by
it than others. Fourth, race antagonism as such is scarcely
discernible where Latin civilization and the Catholic religion
are in control. Fifth, it does not exist in the Mohammedan
dispensation. Sixth, the experience of thousands of Negro
soldiers in France proves its comparative absence. Seventh,
race prejudice seems to be principally the vice of the Teuton
and the Anglo-Saxon, which must be subject to ultimate control.
It will not be quite so strong among Germans as it was before
the war.

4. I do not believe that Negroes as a race are prejudiced
against white people, although I am conscious of an increasing
prejudice against white people on the part of many individual
Negroes, especially educated colored women who live in the
South and resent keenly the indiscriminate approaches of white
men.

5. Many Negroes are cynical of all the professions of white
men. They often express their hatred of white people openly.
I think, however, that feeling is more prevalent among the
younger Negroes than among the older ones.

6. Many pretend to be. Most of them are not.

7. Yes, 98 per cent of them are.

8. Not as individuals. They are affected by the spirit of
mass hostility to dissimilar masses based upon the desire to
appropriate and retain advantages. Racial prejudices are the
products of the will of dominant individuals evoking responses
from weaker intelligences and serving the purpose of the
dominating mind.

9. If so, to a very slight extent. What feeling most Negroes
have is created almost solely to offset the prejudice and
antagonism of the whites. The prejudice of the whites I might
describe as primary; that of the colored, secondary.

10. Yes; too much so among some groups.

11. Negroes in most cases are very much prejudiced against
whites.

12. Yes. The difference lies in the degree. Prejudice is
artificial. It is learned. The white boy and girl have been
"taught" more prejudice than the Negro. Negroes seldom teach
prejudice outright. When they learn it, it is inescapable.
America is a school, I fear, at present where even the most
backward learns something of prejudice whether he will it or
not.

13. I believe there is a strong prejudice against white persons.
This antipathy is, I believe, not based on racial unlikeness,
but on resentment because of cruel treatment as an inferior.

_Question_: Are you ever conscious of a feeling of racial
inferiority or even the desire to compensate for a supposed
inferiority?

_Answers_:

1. I attribute inferiority and superiority alike to individuals,
not race. I have every confidence that my race is capable of
producing as great men, and proportionately as many of them,
as any other race under the sun. I trace to environment the
responsibility for not releasing their energy upon constructive
work, but concentrating it upon gaining a living or a chance
to gain a living. Many times I feel the desire to compensate
for a supposed inferiority, because I believe in nailing a
lie wherever possible.

2. I never have a feeling of racial inferiority or a desire to
compensate for a supposed inferiority (with reservations). I am
usually cognizant of the fact that most white people consider
the Negro an inferior. This often causes the bristles to rise
on my back.

3. Personally, at no moment of our lives. The Negro is really
superior in stamina. His race is progressing, while the whites
appear to be standing still. The white race has had seven
thousand years or more of education and civilization, yet in
this prosperous republic today the average white person is
comparatively poor and possesses little education. The Negro,
in spite of the oppressive handicap due to color, is progressing
along all lines, commercial, professional and artistic.

4. I am never conscious of racial inferiority, but I am a firm
believer in the theory that any human being will be whatever
his environment and his heredity will make of him, regardless
of the color of his skin or the form of his skull. One in
considering this point of view should be sure not to confuse
the words "inferiority" and "inequality."

5. No.

6. I feel no desire to apologize to the world because I am a
colored woman; I had to be of some race, and here I am.

7. No. I believe that accidents of environment determine
relative positions.

8. Decidedly no! I believe absolutely in my own worth as a man
and as a Negro and defer only to wider experience, knowledge,
or skill, whether possessed by white persons or Negroes.

9. No!

10. No.

11. I never have a feeling of racial inferiority or a desire
to compensate for a supposed inferiority.

12. Personally, I am absolutely unconscious of any feeling of
racial inferiority. I recognize the control of social forces
and influences which may seem too strong to be overcome at
present. I simply suffer it to be so now.

13. I have never felt any racial inferiority, though always
when thrown in school work or business with white people
the desire to do my work as well or better than they is very
strong. This desire comes primarily from a desire to show that
the Negro is not inferior in his ability.

NEGRO PROBLEMS

_Question_: Do you believe that there should be recognized
leaders of Negroes? Are there such persons whom you regard as
qualified for leadership? Discuss their merits and demerits.

_Answers_:

1. As long as the dominant power treats with us as with Negroes
rather than as with American citizens, there will be need of
recognized leaders; but these leaders should be chosen by the
Negroes themselves, not chosen and imposed by others.

2. Yes and no. Theoretically and ultimately, no. Practically
and immediately, yes. In any clearly differentiated group the
spokesman should come from and grow out of conditions within
the group. In a community in which there were cultural and
not ethnic divisions there would be no need for Negro leaders.
What was good for the hive would be for the good of each bee.
However, in a community in which color is a target, defensive
alliances under the best possible leadership are a _sine
qua non_. I am too close to the problem to have sufficient
perspective to attempt the discussion of personalities.

3. Logically, no. Practically, under present conditions it is
imperative to have Negro leaders. Where people do not read
much, do not study much, they are incapable of doing much
thinking. Better a bad leader under such circumstances than
no leader at all. The very clashes between rival leaders with
their several points of view force the rank and file to attend
to conditions and compare conflicting views. This often marks
the beginning of interests in striving to improve conditions.
The merits of leaders are considered in another place.

4. I do not think that it will be possible, or advisable, to
attempt to appoint or elect leaders for Negroes. Naturally men
and women of exceptional powers will be recognized by those
of less developed powers as leaders of thought in various
connections in their several localities.

5. There should be no recognized leaders of Negroes except those
who are selected from groups or bodies of Negroes--selected by
them for a particular purpose or a particular cause. I do not
believe in Negro leadership secured by members of the white
race and then handed to our group as a leader without first
having had the endorsement of the Negroes themselves.

6. Yes. Emmet Scott, Dr. Du Bois and Mr. Grimke. Mr. Scott has
great executive ability. Dr. Du Bois is a great philosopher
and an ardent race rights advocate. Mr. Grimke a scholar and
wise counsellor. This combination as Leaders' Council would,
in my opinion, conserve our best interests. Mr. Scott is too
much of an opportunist for an ideal leader, Dr. Du Bois is too
radical at times, Mr. Grimke is too much of an intellectual
recluse.

7. There should be recognized leaders of Negroes, recognized
by Negroes because of their merits in their particular fields
of endeavor. There are Negroes qualified for such leadership
today, but their affiliations with organizations largely
or partly supported by philanthropic whites negative their
usefulness.

8. I believe every community should develop its own leadership.
A great deal of our present leadership is too largely clerical
and political and therefore not free, broad, and independent.
We need a leadership which is free, courageous, and which
possesses a program and definite objective.

9. I do not approve self-appointed leadership or leadership
bestowed by white friends because they can command funds. If
there are to be leaders, they should be chosen by selection so
that there can be "solemn referendum." With this qualification,
there are a large number of Negroes whom I would vote for as
leaders. The trouble now is that our so-called leaders are
not responsible to those whom they are supposed to represent.

10. There should not be; as soon as one appears, destructive
influences are brought to bear upon him both from within and
without, making of him within a short period an extremely
artificial and useless guide, but who is followed, nevertheless,
by Negroes blindly to their own great injury.

11. I believe firmly in the capacity of the race for
self-leadership. Any people can govern themselves better than an
outsider is apt to govern them, unless the alien is willing to
become naturalized in the group he aspires to lead. The white
race at present is unable or unwilling to become naturalized
in the Negro group.

12. The basis of Negro leadership should rest on the ability
to develop within the masses a desire and the power to obtain
better homes, education and their privileges as citizens without
belittling themselves or adopting the toadying attitude. Any
individual who is striving in a community to secure these
things for his people should be considered a leader. The mere
ability to write a book, edit a magazine, or publicly express
the cause of the Negro is not a sufficient qualification for
leadership even though it does bring national prominence.

13. (_a_) Under the circumstances, yes. (_b_) Useless to discuss
this. People usually choose as their leaders those who express
most strongly prevailing sentiments. (_c_) The followers are
their own judges of merit and demerit.

_Question_: What, in your opinion, are some of the greatest
mistakes of prominent Negroes in their policies or stand on
racial issues?

_Answers_:

1. Most are honest, I think, but emphasize too much some one
pet solution, such as "Get Property," "Industrial Education,"
etc. Many are insincere, using their influence to feather
their own nests, letting the race go hang. An intolerance
among Negroes themselves for those among their number who have
different opinions as to the wisest courses in arriving at
the better conditions which they equally are trying to bring
about. Some characteristics possessed by most of the so-called
leaders may be summed as follows:

Don't bother and leave all in the hands of God.

Overestimation of the Negroes' present attainments,
eulogies instead of information.

Oratory of denunciation only, raising prejudice
against whites but offering no course of action or
thought leading to improvement either of Negroes
personally or individually, or as a race.

A disinclination to tell the blunt truth when
interracial conferences offer the opportunity for
an exchange of views.

2. The greatest mistake that leaders usually make is that of
failing to study the problems towards the solution of which
they are working. They also are not willing to co-operate with
leaders along other lines.

3. Selfishness and lack of moral backbone in the face of
possible financial loss.

4. To accept that there is a purely racial psychology. And to
think, act, or accept as a Negro and not as a man.

5. (_a_) Compromising attitude; (_b_) depending on support
of white people financially and morally; (_c_) failure to
co-operate freely with all cases among the Negroes themselves.

6. Lack of absolute frankness with white people about mind and
feeling of Negroes; lack of absolute frankness with Negroes
about their own shortcomings and failure. I believe that many
men are overcoming this weakness.

7. Short-sightedness. They seem not to look ahead and see the
consequence of their arrangements and concessions. Most of them,
because of the manner of their selections, are unacquainted
with history, sociology, etc. They see the present, not even the
present generation. They fall into advices and concessions today
which prove a noose tomorrow. There is lack of poise. Often
they seem to know nothing of a means. There is no intermediate
ground; it simply is or it is not. This absolutism inevitably
leads to trouble. This of course does not apply to all of our
leaders.

8. The greatest mistakes of prominent Negroes in their stands:
A statesman is supposed to be the fusion of two necessary
elements: (1) the theorist, such as we have in our college
professors and most of our writers; and (2) the practical
politician who can get things done. The main fault with most of
our prominent Negroes in their policies and behavior is that
they never accomplish this fusion; all fall very definitely
into either group one or group two, and either group by itself
is helpless.

9. The greatest mistake of prominent Negroes, in my judgment,
is that they pay too great a deference to the attitude of the
white race rather than to the inherent demands of humanity.
Jesus refused to defer to the arrogance of Pilate, although
he exercised the power of life or death.

10. Faulty perspective due to improper training; failure
to grasp the economic significance of race prejudice; and a
tendency to preach the doctrine of non-resistance when they get
rich and fat. The younger crop of Negroes, armed with modern
scientific education are remedying the first two. Time will
show whether they will prove more unselfish.

DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY

_Question_: If it may be assumed that there are conditions which
are intolerable, or, at least, a constant source of irritation
to Negroes, it is to be expected that some defensive philosophy
is necessary to give poise, dignity, and self-respect. What is
your philosophy? What basic philosophical considerations, even
if not crystallized into dogma, support your outlook on life,
or that of Negroes of your acquaintance and general point of
view?

_Answers_:

1. I believe racial solidarity, as I conceive it, to be the
defensive philosophy of many Negroes. My own philosophy, if I
have one, is summed up in the belief that potentially the Negro
has the same qualities making for success and usefulness as
any other group. All he needs is an even break. I believe in
an offensive program to teach pride in their achievements and
prepare themselves for keen, hard competition all along the
line. I believe in attacking the indifference and ignorance
of white people which is largely the basis of prejudice, by
educating them to respect and believe in the self-defending,
non-favor-asking, justice-demanding Negro.

2. My philosophy rests upon two propositions. The first is
borrowed from the Latin "I am a man; nothing human is foreign
to me." The second is: A man is entirely the product of his
environment. (Heredity is the sum of our former environments.)
Given, then, an essential equality in all men, temporary
advantages are the results of environment. Self-preservation
and its corollary, the desire for the preservation of species,
are fundamental traits, and the Israelites, killing those who
said Sibboleth and not Shibboleth, have their prototype in those
who make non-conformity in hair, color, speech or culture, a
crime and inferiority stamp. It seems rational to suppose,
however, that man may evolve sufficient mentality, and far
enough away from the brute, to make differences in culture and
not physical characteristics the basis of distinctions. Until
then the pursuit of pleasure and advantage is the proper aim
of life.

3. The Negro maintains his self-respect and dignity in the
face of intolerable conditions because of his natural optimism
and his hope for and belief in the approach of a better day.
I teach my children that they should not seek companionship
with any other children who reluctantly associate with them,
not that my children should consider themselves in any way
inferior or unequal, but that they should be possessed of too
much personal pride to wish association with those who would
not be pleasant and agreeable.

4. My philosophy is a pessimistic one. There is often a sense
of hopelessness. To live in the white group makes it incumbent
on me to overcome many presumptions on their part. On the
other hand, to create mutual understandability is a phase of
aggressive conduct I follow. To conduct one's self in a more
socially acceptable way, viz., to do a certain thing better than
any member of the dominant group, is another excellent mode of
enhancing social values. But the best way of all is to assume
an offensive attack, and place the white group or individual
on the defensive at all times. This can be accomplished only
by a superior type of mind.

5. Never submit passively to unnecessary indignities. Keep
alive the spirit of protest against all injustice from black
or white. I am just as good or at least my right to decent
treatment is as good as that of any other man. I am what I
think and do, not what some other person does to me or thinks
about me.

6. My experience with the segregation tendency has taught me
to look down upon the system. It bristles with contradictions,
being foolishly fastidious, fanatically unreasonable, and
usually carried out by the uncultured element. Moreover, the
promoters of the system are not ready to discuss the matter;
it is simply taboo. The immoral forays of members of this
super-sensitive "superior race" coupled with criminal economical
advantages maintained by intimidation aside from being tragic
lends a subtle hypocrisy which does not escape even the casual
observer. Add to this the hysteria of the thing and you have a
medley of the ludicrous hypocritical, illogical, and hysterical.
Any man then who is honest and self-respecting easily comes to
feel himself superior to the promoters of the institutions.
One moves among these conditions with a feeling probably not
unlike that of Socrates among the Athenians, although, if he
chances to be a man of color, with far less freedom of conduct
and speech.

7. My philosophy would be that by our conduct as a group we
will be able to disprove the principles upon which the white
man's intolerance is based; we should assert our rights and use
propaganda to change the white man's point of view civically,
morally and in the economic world.

8. I am firmly convinced that a dignified friendly attitude
towards the white race is the wisest course for the Negro:
education, industry, and good manners will win for us more
real tolerance and consideration than continued agitation and
bitterness. Truth and justice will demand fair play in time,
and sentiment must be molded by appeal to intelligence and
finer sentiments through undisputable facts.

9. Cultivate a wholesome discontent with untoward conditions
and use every lawful means to improve these conditions, so
that it may not be said that we are satisfied with unjust
discriminations. "The talent for misery is the fulcrum of
progress."

SEGREGATION AND RACIAL SOLIDARITY

_Question_: What, to your mind, is the distinction, either in
point of view or definite racial aim, between segregation and
"racial solidarity"?

_Answers_:

1. Segregation implies coercion by the dominant group.
Racial solidarity implies certain subjective tendencies
of like-mindedness. Racial solidarity may be enhanced by
segregation but it thrives best if its causes have their roots
in the will to progress rather than the will to exist amidst
oppression. Though segregation may aid the tendency toward
racial solidarity, neither segregation nor racial solidarity
are to be advised in a modern civilization. Racial solidarity
for protective reasons with strong limitations (never legal)
may be advisable today in America.

2. The definite racial aim of segregation is to prevent the
contact of races physically; to prevent Negroes from living
with the whites in their neighborhoods and vice versa; to keep
themselves separate as a group, thus making segregation of
schools and other institutions a natural sequence. Whereas, the
aim of racial solidarity is to focus the financial, economic,
political and social strength of the group for the purpose
of meeting the attacks of the white race as well as for the
solution of group problems; for example, solid financial
strength would mean Negro business houses of every description,
banks, etc.; it would mean that the race as a unit would
withdraw its patronage and support from any institution or
business that discriminated against members of their group;
they would boycott as a unit any brand of goods made by a firm
dealing unjustly with colored patrons, etc. It means that
politically the group would throw its strength to the party
whose principles are in harmony with the welfare of the Negro.

3. Segregation presupposes a force from without which seeks
to compel those of the same race or nationality or religious
belief to remain among themselves, separated from those
of another group supposedly superior. Grouping together
either for purposes of living or of religious worship or for
other purposes, with the idea of developing a group or race
consciousness and thus to develop "pride of race," presupposes
a force from within--that is a conscious desire of the people
themselves to develop the latent powers within their own group
through intensive application.

4. Negroes tend to flock together as do members of other
racial groups. I do not regard this as segregation. When an
effort is made from without to group them together, which
carries along with it restrictions of movement, residence or
activity, we have segregation. Racial solidarity seems to me
to be the conscious or unconscious reaction to segregation.
It is a doctrine of revolt.

5. Segregation means to me regulation of racial contacts by law
or force between white and colored people. Racial solidarity is
a natural development of massing because of race congeniality.

6. Segregation and racial solidarity differ fundamentally
and essentially in the motive prompting the individual act to
be discussed. Segregation is the forcing apart of any group
into a less favorable environment in order that advantage or
position may accrue to those in authority. Race solidarity
represents the active part in the same rôle, and is the effort
of individuals to utilize similarity of aims or of situation
as the basis of an offensive or defensive alliance.

7. Racial segregation is harmful as a social aim. Racial
segregation is the result of the attempt of a more powerful
group to impose its ideas of racial inferiority upon a weaker
group. The weaker group in its attempt to defeat this program
rightly adopts racial solidarity as a definite aim in order to
strengthen itself both to resist discrimination which usually
follows segregation and to attack the vicious and narrow-minded
motives of proponents of racial segregation.

8. Voluntary segregation is a step, consciously or unconsciously
taken, toward racial solidarity.

9. It seems to me that segregation and racial solidarity differ
in that the latter is merely a mental attitude whereas the
former, though it includes a certain mental attitude, is chiefly
characterized by a sort of hysterical physical separation.
Racial solidarity obviously can exist among groups separated by
considerable distance, as among Jews. When the mental attitude
is not, or is felt not to be, adequate to effect the desired
separation among races, then a sort of hysteria ensues and
separation is one of the forms in which this hysteria expresses
itself. On the whole we may have reason to doubt its efficacy,
for it bears a relation to race solidarity akin to that which
legal restraint bears to moral restraint.

It seems probable that both racial solidarity and segregation
aim at the same thing. Segregation, it seems to me, in the
long run must prove a poor means to the end, and it would
not require a very imaginative person to think that in its
crass forms it may destroy the very end it aims to achieve by
creating a prejudice of a violent and consuming sort.

10. The term "segregation" in current discussion connotes legal
compulsion, whereas "racial solidarity" implies voluntary
union of the colored group under the compulsion of internal
feeling or social influences.

11. Segregation, either voluntary or forced, is purely an
objective situation, a setting apart in a definite location
from one's fellows. Racial solidarity is subjective and is
the feeling of cohesion between persons of the same race.
Segregation is undoubtedly a factor in intensifying this
feeling of the consciousness of kind.

12. The distinction between segregation and "racial solidarity"
is in a point of view, viz.: racial solidarity concerns the
interior of the Negro, his psychosis, as to its inclusion of
a cohesive spirit; segregation concerns the exterior of the
Negro, is looking at the situation from the viewpoint of the
whites and relates to the barriers opposed by the whites to
his unlimited expansion. Voluntary segregation may seem to
point to the mind and viewpoint of the Negro rather than the
whites, but voluntary segregation does not become a practical
problem until the whites attempt to use it as a precedent, in
which case it becomes after all a matter of the viewpoint of
the whites.

13. It would appear that there is a very fundamental difference
between segregation and racial solidarity as the terms are
now used in the United States relative to the Negro. By racial
solidarity it is generally understood that there is some sort of
a physical separation which has been decreed by a law, as for
example: the various residential segregation laws enacted some
years ago and the segregation laws relative to the separation
of races in public conveyances, etc. Racial solidarity, it may
be said, is largely volitional, whereas segregation, as the
term now is generally used, has back of it an enacted law or
the idea of having an enacted law.

A still more fundamental distinction is that racial solidarity
does not turn upon the receiving of benefits from privileges
or things that are for all the public; segregation, on the
other hand, has to do almost exclusively with the restriction
of privileges relating to the free use of things that are
for all the public, as for example, the free use of public
conveyances, public places, the establishing of residences, etc.

14. Segregation aims to herd Negroes together in order that they
may be cheated of the rights of citizenship the more easily.
Racial solidarity urges Negroes to get together in order that
they may fight segregation the more effectively. "National
solidarity" is, to our thinking, a far better weapon. Negroes
should endeavor to find out those whites who are their friends
and ask them to join in the fight for the enforcement of the
Constitution.

_Question_: A large number of Negroes are in agreement on
the matter of separate colored churches with colored pastors,
and, more recently, colored bishops. Yet this is an argument
used by many exponents of the segregation idea, both whole
and partial, for other separate institutions. Candidly, what
is your opinion on the subject?

_Answers_:

1. Separate churches, etc., are but a part of the system of
segregation inherent in the social fabric of America. This
question is therefore not fundamental or basic enough. As
a matter of logic and sociological analysis, since I do not
favor legal or customary segregation, I cannot favor separate
churches, which are but a reflex of enforced segregation.
Therefore I do not favor other separate institutions. Yet, I
at all times favor free assemblage and organization whatever
the social system is or may be. If separate institutions are
"desired" by the group and this "want" is not cramped by such
considerations as factors like American public opinion, then
separate institutions are in order. The test is the free and
unimpaired development of the group.

2. The "colored" church is itself an anomaly. The very idea
is logically ridiculous. From the practical standpoint it is
the result of the un-Christian attitude of churches which
preceded it and largely brought it into being. If I had to
join a church now, I hope I should decide according to the
doctrines and tenets rather than according to the race of the
pastor and communicants. If any consideration should guide me
rather than the doctrines, it would be to go where I could do
the most good.

3. The idea of using the fact of the Negro's preference for
his own church, governed by its own ministry, as a reason for
segregation not only is absurd but is a weak reason for the
manifestation of race prejudice. That Negroes prefer to be
together in religious worship is a well-established fact; that
they wish their church to be governed by their own ministers
and bishops is equally well established; that such desire is
natural and human, one must admit; but that this perfectly
normal desire should become a reason for forcing upon the Negro
other separate institutions is not justifiable. There is a fine
distinction between the performance of one's religious rites and
the activities necessary to maintain and foster these (which
becomes social in character), and the business arrangements
of getting an education, being conveyed somewhere, buying a
meal, or paying to hear a world-famed artist. The former is
part of one's private life and as such is a matter of choice
and should be confined to those who are closest to him by race
and spiritual conception. The latter are affairs of business
wherein one wishes something and pays for it; and as long as
he has the necessary greenback, expects to be accorded the
rights and courtesies given any citizen of the city or state.
The French, the Italian, nearly every nationality, have their
own churches, their own ministers, and worship in their own
tongue. But no one ever hears anything about segregating the
Frenchman or the Italian for that reason.

4. The latter plan, racial solidarity, is not at all
inconsistent with the spirit of democracy even when it means
the development of separate colored churches or the appointment
of colored bishops for colored churches in the denominations
where the color line is not so sharply drawn.

5. In my opinion, the Negroes as a whole are not in harmony and
agreement on colored churches as such. It is a condition that
has been pushed upon them; a means to the end. If Negroes were
treated just as any other member of a white church, and given
the same opportunity to advance to positions of honor within
the church, ministers, priests, bishops, etc., regardless of
color, there would be no Negro churches.

6. It is this universal spirit which causes Negroes to desire
Negro churches and Negro bishops, because the dominant minds
can more easily secure advantages when in an environment in
which they conform to the majority pattern and are not parts
of a clearly differentiated minority.

7. Separate colored churches in some degree are necessary
in order to build up racial solidarity as described above.
In other words, a strong defensive many times makes for an
effective offensive.

8. Separate colored churches have never seemed to me to be
necessary.

9. I am convinced that a limited race separation is not
only desirable but unavoidable. There is a wide stretch of
possibilities between absolute segregation and unlimited
social communication. To argue that because Negroes have and
want ministers and teachers of their own color, therefore they
should want absolute segregation, strikes me as a bit absurd.
There are at least two justifications: it may be thought
that the Negro ministers and teachers understand our racial
aspirations better and can better impart instructions leading
to a realization of them.

10. Wherever Negroes find themselves segregated in schools
and churches by choice or control, they should have teachers,
preachers and overseers of their own race. Long distance
leadership is neither desirable nor effective. This leadership
will acquire requisite efficiency by survival of the fittest.

11. The motivation of any separate institutions should be the
basis of its approval or disapproval. If Negroes of their own
volition develop Negro churches, banks, clubs, stores or other
organizations as a means of developing enterprise or initiative,
or for providing better opportunities of work for young men
and women of our race, I am in accord with such separation.
If, however, such separation is forced on them especially
in public places, such as hotels, restaurants, theaters and
railroads, a separation which sets the Negro apart from the
general public, I believe it should be condemned and fought
against.

12. It is argued that if many of our leading Negroes agree
upon the expediency of complete racial separation in church
life, they are inconsistent in not applying it to all matters
concerning the Negro. The answer to this is as follows: The
highest end of the Negro is the same as that of the man of any
other race, viz.: complete self-expression and development
of his individuality; in deciding upon what he shall accept
or reject in any case this must be his guiding principle;
between being a nonentity in the "white" church and partially
expressing himself in a Negro church, he naturally chooses
the latter, choosing it not as the _summun bonum_, but solely
as the lesser of two evils; between having the Negro officers
in the world war and having Negro officers who are trained
in a separate camp, he considers the latter less injurious.
But give the Negro a choice between a separate church where
only partial self-expression can be possible, and a "white"
church which would give him full opportunity for individual
expression, and he would not hesitate a moment in choosing
such a "white" church.

13. Separate colored churches, colored pastors and colored
bishops represent more or less a voluntary action of colored
people and are indicative of racial solidarity in just the
same way as Jewish churches having Jewish rabbis represent
Jewish solidarity.

14. As a slave the Negro was welcome to worship at the
white church. As a citizen he is not. The white church is a
semi-public institution, being more social than religious in
its tone. Since Negroes are not wanted, their only recourse
is to have their own churches. And if their own churches,
why a white pastor or bishop, when Negro preachers quite as
competent can be found?

OPINION-MAKING

_Question_: On what instruments ordinarily responsible for the
making of public opinion do you rely for your opinions? With
what reservations do you accept what you read in the white
press? To what degree are you influenced by the opinions of
colored persons?

_Answers_:

1. Of course I read daily papers, magazines and books and attend
lectures and seek every possible means to learn the trend
of thought and philosophy of life as it develops throughout
civilization. However, whenever the Negro question is treated,
I always approach with suspicion the arguments presented by
white people. I always read expressions forecasting the approach
of democracy with the knowledge that but few white writers
and speakers think of the colored races in their utterances.
The colored newspapers are much more fair than the whites,
but even they, at times, are inclined to bias.

2. Magazines, colored and white papers, public speakers. I
accept with great reservation what I read in the white press. I
am influenced to a small degree by the opinions of the colored
papers.

3. The daily papers, the _Nation_, the _New Republic_, the
_Crisis_, the _Messenger_, the _Literary Digest_, the _Socialist
Review_, the colored papers, and other scattered organs from
here, there and everywhere. The dependence I put upon these
white papers is hard to state in words. If in a white paper I
see something favorable to the Negro on a question of fact,
I take it at face value. On questions of opinion, I draw my
own conclusions from my own study and experience, wherever
possible. Likewise in a colored paper I take at face value
on a question of fact anything favorable to the white view.
Otherwise I draw my own conclusions.

4. (_a_) Daily papers, lectures and magazines. (_b_) Always
with reservations on any subject, especially on race records.
(_c_) Not very much outside of a few good magazines.

5. Every article in white or Negro press is read with the idea
that the bias of the writer must be discounted and that the
conclusions cannot be accepted, but that one's conclusions
must be made from the aggregate of the facts gleaned from every
available source bearing upon the subject under discussion.

Leading New York newspapers: _Herald_, _Times_,
_World_, _Tribune_, _Call_.

Leading American monthlies: _World's Work_,
_American_, _Metropolitan_.

Leading American weeklies: _Nation_, _New Republic_,
_Freeman_.

Leading American quarterlies: _Yale Review_, _American
Journal of Sociology_, _Non-Partisan Review_.

Leading New York Negro weeklies: _New York Age_,
_Negro World_.

Leading Negro monthlies: _Messenger_ and _Crisis_.

I read all these papers with great reservations as
to their truth and good judgment.

6. Newspapers, magazines, legislative action, personal
contacts. The white press will always justify suspicion and the
traditional grain of salt with reference to its news concerning
Negroes. White news reporters know too few actual facts about
Negroes and are too hemmed about by traditional prejudices to
be reliable news gatherers in this field. Colored newspapers
are, in my opinion, becoming increasingly more reliable in
their expression of the thoughts and mind of Negroes, although
many times they suffer from the same disease with reference
to white people which besets white reporters.

7. History and observation. I habitually question unfavorable
comment, because the prejudice and the training of the writers
must be considered. Colored papers, unless paid to do otherwise,
are more likely to exaggerate reports favorable to the Negro.
Therefore some reservations must be made on account of the
prejudice and the lack of training of many of the writers.

8. I believe that the information I get from the instruments
ordinarily responsible for public opinion influences my opinion
but little at any particular moment. I seem to have a theory of
present-day tendencies in American institutions with reference
to the Negro, and I accept items from these instruments merely
as confirmations or negations of my opinions. Usually the
negations are so few and far between that I can look upon them
as sports or the "exception that proves the rule." Perhaps
the _Crisis_ figures most prominently in forming my opinion.
At least when my opinion is formed, I am unable to account
for it by any small number of books, or other publications. I
read regularly the _New York Age_, the _Negro World_, and from
time to time many other Negro newspapers; I read the _Crisis_,
the _Messenger_, the _Century_, _Review of Reviews_, _World's
Work_, _Outlook_, _Independent_, and various scientific articles
bearing on the Negro and such reviews of an even larger number
of articles as appear in the _Psychological Bulletin_ and
similar publications from time to time.

Nearly always when I read, the white press items concerning
the Negro are looked upon as carefully selected and shaped
for propaganda. By a careful and studied system of emphasis
and omission such items can be made to prove most any point.
There are exceptions, such as the _Independent_ editorials,
etc. Colored newspapers influence my opinion little directly.
The items of real news are accepted at face value, there being
no appeal, and these are referred to a more or less stable
theory of the situation. The theory changes so gradually that
I am unable to tell what items exert the greatest influence.

9. I read the dailies and the _Crisis_, _Messenger_ and
_Amsterdam News_. I accept what all of them say with great
reservation, though I naturally give more credence to report
of Negro topics in Negro papers than in white papers.

10. I regret to say that the Christian church and the religious
press, which should be the chief reliance in shaping public
opinion in the moral direction, are all but negligible factors.
More race prejudice will be shown in Chicago in the churches
on next Sunday morning than in the schools on the following
Monday. Religion failing, the chief reliance for the present
must be upon the secular agencies such as science, politics,
trade, business and the public press and platform. The Negro
himself must shape and direct righteous public opinion. Moral
reform comes through the public, who feel the need of it. The
Negro press is greatly hampered by restrictive and controlling
influences, but on the whole it is, perhaps, the most righteous
voice in America now crying in the wilderness.

11. I rely on books, magazines and newspapers for facts on
which to base opinions. With the exception of a few weeklies,
and a few radical newspapers and magazines, I believe the white
press is hostile towards the Negro. Whatever I read concerning
him, in the daily papers especially, I take with a grain of
salt. In matters of race problems the Negro papers usually
present the facts of the case fairly. I am inclined to accept
their views about such matters. Their opinions about other
phases of life, in which race is not predominant concern, I
take also with a grain of salt or not at all.

12. Personally we rely on facts, not opinions. Hardly anything
in the white press regarding Negroes is to be believed. It
rarely, if ever, mentions good about Negroes. The white press
is the chief instrument used for fostering the exploitations of
Negroes. Most of the news is cooked and doctored to fan race
hatred. A few white editors would perhaps write more fairly
were they free. Personally very little. Nearly every Negro
newspaper that we know, though, aims sincerely to benefit
Negroes. While the judgment of the Negro editor is often at
fault, his heart is honest. It is infinitely safer for Negroes
to accept the judgment of a Negro editor than that of a white
one.

_Question_: Specifically what constitutes the offensiveness
in the manner in which the subject "Negro" is handled in some
of the local white papers and what sensitive spots do these
methods of handling touch?

_Answers_:

1. There is a suggestion of inferiority and degradation in
the usual handling of the subject "Negro" by the local white
papers; they generally use the subject in connection with
something evil or unlovely; seldom discussed with credit or
praise. This affects race honor, race pride, and race love.

2. Withholding the titles Miss and Mrs. from the names of
colored women.

Crime headlines, parading Negro crime and criminals.

Printing misstatements of facts but not the denials
of them.

Continual suggestions of "proper limitations upon
Negro activity" along lines innocent where other
races are concerned.

A patronizing attitude toward the Negro and his
activities.

3. I detest the use of the word "Negro" as it is spelled with
a small _n_. I shrink from the feminine "Negress." "A colored
American" is not distasteful to me at any time.

4. The realization that an inferior man whose face is white
can, by appealing to white racial consciousness, outstrip his
superior by the utilization of mass cohesion. My feeling is
one of thwarted ambition rather than offended sensibilities.

5. Spelling of "Negro" with a small _n_.

Negro caricatures--always a joke and easily handled.

The Negro as criminal is the general view.

Nothing said about the Negro on the progressive side.

Negro naturally inferior. I need only refer to the
Harding episode.

6. The assumption that all Negroes are intellectually and
morally inferior. The implication that certain crimes are
peculiar to the Negro. The application of opprobrious epithets,
so common in some papers. The statement that the race is
satisfied with the treatment it receives in public places.

7. Undue prominence and emphasis upon the social aspect of
news which is purely personal. Evident failure to obtain or
give expression to the Negro point of view.

8. The tendency in my community to connect the Negro in public
print with some offensive or boorish or irresponsibly humorous
incident is the most annoying use of the word "Negro." By
careful emphasis and omissions, the word "Negro" comes to be
associated with irresponsible, apish, or silly conduct on the
one hand or criminality on the other.

9. Among the other things I take offense at the way the local
white papers cannot report crimes committed by Negroes without
a big headline, often on the front page, stating that "Brutal
Negro Commits Outrage"; I object to the use of the word
"Negress," to spelling Negro with a small _n_; and particularly
I object to the sins of omission of these newspapers in
that they never attempt any news which may construct better
relations, e.g., such as could be obtained if they secured
on their reportorial staff an intelligent Negro who knew the
needs and aspirations of his people. My sensitiveness upon this
results from two things: (1) it wounds my self-respect, and
(2) I hate to see race struggle consciously and effectively
fomented by the powerful press.

10. The white race as a whole seems to disregard the just
sensibilities of the Negro race, and does not scruple to use
offensive terms and epithets which would be violently resented
by any other group of American citizens. I have no objection
to the term Negro used in a descriptive sense for the entire
racial group.

11. The word Negro is still printed in many papers with a
small _n_. A general attitude to ridicule Negroes is sometimes
evident. Recently a baby contest was held in New York in which
there were entered several Negro babes; some of them took
prizes. One paper spoke of them as "dusky belles." Very often
when a colored woman is mentioned in the papers it is written
in this manner: "Katherine Jones, a negress." The recent
discussion of Senator Harding's lineage showed that most of
the papers considered it a "vile and contemptuous slander";
the possession of Negro blood seemed to be a polluting element
which could only mean degradation.

12. The word Negro is wrong, altogether. Prejudice is the
only reason for its use. Capitalizing might help, but does it
modify the treatment?

The editor of the _Crisis_, whose opinions are read by millions of Negroes, was one of the five Negroes living outside of Chicago to whom the foregoing questions were put. He sensed in them an insidious attempt to make Negroes confess that they preferred ill treatment, riots, segregation by proscription, and Negro Ghettos. Acting upon this conviction, he warned the Negroes of the country to watch the white members of this Commission. The article is given as it appeared in the January 1921 issue of the _Crisis_:

CHICAGO

We would advise our Chicago friends to watch narrowly the
work and forthcoming report of the Interracial Commission
appointed by the Governor of Illinois after the late riot.
The Commission consists of colored men who apparently have
a much too complacent trust in their white friends; of white
men who are too busy to know; and of enemies of the Negro race
who under the guise of impartiality and good will are pushing
insidiously but unswervingly a program of racial segregation.
They have, for instance, sent a "questionnaire" to prominent
colored men, consisting of fifteen questions, which with all
their surface frankness and innocence seek to betray black folk
by means of the logical dilemma of "segregation" and racial
"solidarity." By subtle suggestion these queries say: If you
believe in colored churches, why not in colored ghettos? Does
not Negro advancement increase anti-Negro hatred? Are not
Negroes prejudiced against whites? Are not the mistakes of
Negro leaders manifest? And so on.

Indeed, if a professed enemy of black folk and their progress
had set out to start a controversy so as to divide the Negroes
and their friends in counsel and throw the whole burden of such
hasty outbreaks of race hate as the East St. Louis, Washington,
and Chicago riots upon them, he would have framed just such
a questionnaire as has been sent out by this Commission.

The _Crisis'_ view of the questions is presented in the following contrast:

THE QUESTIONNAIRE THE "CRISIS" VERSION

What, to your mind, is the If you believe in colored
distinction, either in point of churches, why not in colored
view or definite racial aim, ghettos?
between segregation and "racial
solidarity"?

A large number of Negroes are
in agreement in the matter of
separate colored churches with
colored pastors, and, more
recently, colored bishops. Yet
this is an argument used by
many exponents of the segregation
idea, both whole and partial, for
other separate institutions.
Candidly, what is your opinion
on this subject?

Do you believe that if Negroes Does not Negro advancement
were 100 per cent literate it increase anti-Negro hatred?
would make any great difference
in race relations? Are general
and higher education likely to
widen the breach between Negroes
and white persons, increase
intolerance, resentment,
sensitiveness to insults, or
can a quieted process of
adjustment or complete fusion
of interests be expected?

Do you believe Negroes are Are not Negroes prejudiced
prejudiced against white persons? against white persons?