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Aside from the fact that congestion in the "black belts" has forced negroes to invade white districts in a search for better living facilities, among the negroes who remain in the "black belts" the congestion breeds those vicious and criminal qualities that readily unleash in rioting. Graham Taylor, in "The Survey" for August 9, 1919, refers to a recent investigation of two blocks in this district. These significant facts were uncovered. Eightythree families lived in these two blocks. Ninety-six per cent. of the boys in these two blocks were truants. Seventytwo per cent. of these boys were retarded in their development. Thirtyone of these families had been deserted by the father. In twenty-eight of these families the fathers were confirmed drunkards. In twenty of these homes the mothers were heavy drinkers. In forty of these homes the mothers worked all day away from home. Fifty-one per cent. of these homes were broken by death, desertion, divorce, drink, promiscuous living, or degeneracy. Good preparation indeed for the reckless brutality of a riot week. While criticizing brutality born of congestion, it of course behooves white men from comfortable homes to display a bit more self-control during a riot week.

TASTING THE WINE OF EQUALITY

Another matter to be taken into account is the fact that our negro soldiers tasted social equality in France. To them it was no doubt an exhilarating wine, and many of them have returned still flushed with its intoxication. In Europe they found a white attitude toward the negro different from the attitude they had known at home. There he was a white man with a black skin. Certain bitter partisans are

using, with the demagogue's disregard of accuracy, the phrase "French-women-ruined" to describe the mass of returned negro soldiers. This wholesale charge is manifestly unfair both to the French woman and to the American negro, but it rests upon the clear fact that the American negro's social adventures in France have further complicated our race problem.

An interesting side-light on the French attitude toward the negro has just come to my attention through the translation by Theodore Stanton of an incident from pages 3730-2 of the "Journal Officiel" of the French Chamber of Deputies for the sitting of July 25, 1919. M. René Boisneuf, one of the negro deputies of the Chamber, read an official communication, dated last August, which Colonel Linard, chief of the French military mission with the American Army in France, addressed to French officers. The communication attempted to interpret to French officers the attitude of the white American officers toward the American negro officers, and to prescribe how French officers should act in their relations with American negro officers and American colored soldiers in general in order to conserve FrenchAmerican harmony in the matter. The communication contained a long and explicit set of recommendations. The tone of the communication is illustrated by this quotation:

...

American opinion is unanimous on this "negro question" and permits no discussion of the matter. . . . The kindly spirit which exists in France for the negro profoundly wounds Americans, who consider it an infringement on one of their national dogmas, and if observed by us will greatly indispose American opinion toward us. If French officers treat American negro officers as they treat French negro officers, white American officers will warmly resent it. We should not sit at table with them and should avoid shaking hands with them. . . . The merits of the American negro troops should not be too much praised, especially in the presence of Americans.

M. Boisneuf paid a glowing tribute

to the American colored troops, and declared amidst enthusiastic applause that "in France no distinction is made between her sons, no one asks whence they come or who they may chance to be." The interpellation ended with the unanimous passage of this resolution:

The Chamber of Deputies, faithful to the immortal principles of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, reproving and condemning every prejudice of faith, caste, and race, affirms and proclaims the absolute equality of all men without distinction of origin or color in the enjoyment of the benefits and protection of all the laws of the land.

The subtle psychological influence of this French attitude on the minds of many of our returning negro soldiers is being played upon and appealed to by that element in negro leadership which has a hankering after social equality.

A NEW RACE PRIDE

Then, too, the negro's race consciousness and race pride have been aroused by his record in the war both as soldier and as civilian. They look with pride upon the near four hundred thousand picked blacks that were drafted into the army and there played their part as Americans. They remember the part they played in essential war industries. They still feel the thrill of self-respect that came with their help in food conservation, the buying of liberty bonds and thrift-stamps, their contribution toward the Red Cross and other relief agencies. This freshened race consciousness has put a confident and aggressive tone into hitherto latent or feebly voiced aspirations.

THE BROKEN TETHER

Another factor entering into the changed attitude of the negro grows out of the fact that the colored migration into Northern industrial centers has shown the Southern negro that he can make a living in the North and that he can stand the Northern climate. Hitherto the rank and file of Southern negroes have been strangely tethered to the South by the fear of Northern

climate and Northern conditions. Negroes who have moved North during the last five years say that letters from their home-folk are filled with eager inquiries about the possibility of the negro's adapting himself to the Northern climate and of adjusting himself to the social and industrial situation that prevails. The answers that the homefolk are receiving are giving the negro throughout the South a sense of the possibility and freedom of movement that he has not had. This is a very real psychological factor that introduces an element of restlessness into the race situation.

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM-IN EUROPE

Then, too, the old limitations, social and industrial, appear even more onerous to the negro as he throws them into contrast with the ideals of freedom, democracy and equality for which he was asked to fight during the war. The negro mind is to-day brooding over what it regards as an essential contradiction between our actions in race relations and our ideals in international relations. The negro is displaying that penchant for analogy to which I referred in the opening paragraph of this paper. This began early in the war.

R. H. Leavell, in a recent issue of "The Outlook," recounts a conversation he had with a negro youth in Mississippi four months after the United States entered the war.

"What all dis wah in Europe about?" asked the negro youth.

"The object of this war," said Mr. Leavell, "is to make the world safe for democracy in Europe."

A shrewdly intelligent negro teacher who was standing in the group hastened to translate the sentence into simpler words that might find readier comprehension in the youth's mind.

"That means that we are fighting to get freedom for the people in Europe. You are willing to fight, are n't you, to help them get it?"

"Yaas," was the quick reply, "but while I 'se fightin' I 'd like to get a little mo' freedom fuh myself."

This application of our war aims to the problem of his civic and social privi

leges went on in the negro's mind throughout the war.

UNDERWORLD INVADES BLACK QUARTER

Another factor that figures in the race situation in certain cities, Chicago being a good instance, has grown out of the breaking up of the segregated vice districts. In Chicago, when these vice districts were broken up, many of the women moved southward toward and into the "black belt," where their promiscuous relations with blacks introduced two psychological factors, both of which have made for race tension. This mingling of black men and white women fanned alive in many black minds the social equality idea and produced a certain number of black braggadocios, whose swagger irritated the nearby whites. This black swagger and the white resentment were elements in the situation.

BLACK MEN HOLDING WHITE MEN'S JOBS

As white soldiers returned to Northern industrial centers, they found jobs they had held before the war being held by negroes. The white workmen were and are quite naturally impatient to step back into their old jobs. As we know, the problem of fitting our returning soldiers back into our industrial life is not an easy administrative task. In the very nature of the case the process will proceed at a rate discouragingly slow to the man waiting for a job. His impatience seems to take on a more aggressive character when the job is being held by a negro. This situation is further aggravated by the fact that many of the negro laborers are nonunion men, while the white men whom they displaced during the war are to a far greater degree union men. This fact figured distinctly in the situation in the Chicago Stock Yards district, where much non-union negro labor was employed during the war, and was found at work when whites returned from France.

THE "CHANGED ATTITUDE” OF THE NEGRO

One more fact should be mentioned

before closing this tabulation of the more obvious elements that enter into the race situation out of which riots are springing, and that fact is this: there is a "changed attitude" on the part of the negro toward the question of methods for advancing his social and industrial interests. The Chicago "Defender," which is a negro periodical, apropos of this says:

The younger generation of black men are not content to move along the lines of least resistance, as did their sires. . . . We have little sympathy with lawlessness, whether those guilty of it be black or white, but it cannot be denied that we have much in justification of our changed attitude.

W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, the brilliant, but bitter, negro editor of "The Crisis," has been lately indulging in unrestrained counsel of "fight" to his constituency. There is clear evidence that one wing of negro leadership is inclined to counsel violence if the aspirations of the race find the road toward realization blocked. These leaders would probably experience little difficulty in finding a casus belli in the present strained relations. I intend no wholesale charge that the negro leadership of the country has turned revolutionary. That is not true. I must, in the interest of accuracy, list this germinal idea at work in the negro mind as one of the elements in our immediate race situation. There is being carried on, beyond doubt, a propaganda in behalf of the tactics of violence. This propaganda is fostered not only by one type of negro leader, but also by those social revolutionaries who vulture-like hover over every field of discontent. There is undoubtedly an attempt being made to capitalize colored disaffection in the interests of the social revolution.

But

Here, then, are the more important of the factors that enter into our postwar race problem in the United States:

(1) The great influx of Southern negro labor into Northern industrial centers.

(2) Inadequate housing facilities for the new negro population in the

centers to which the migration has led, with the usual results of congestion in the breeding of those types and qualities that readily yield to the rioting impulse.

(3) The overflow of negroes from crowded colored colonies into white residential blocks, with a resulting depreciation of property values as far as white occupancy is concerned, and the inevitable inter-race irritation.

(4) The exploitation of negroes by real-estate agents, both black and white, in the boosting of rentals and purchasing prices.

(5) The impressions left upon the minds of our returning negro soldiers by the measure of social equality which they enjoyed in France, and the inevitable contrast they are drawing between that attitude and the attitude they find upon their return.

(6) An intensified race consciousness and race pride on the part of the American negro resulting from his having done his share, as soldier and civilian, in the war.

(7) A new sense of the possibility and freedom of movement which the negro has acquired from having learned that a Southern negro apparently can stand the Northern climate and make a living in the new surroundings.

(8) A freshened resentment on the part of the negro against his social and industrial limitations when he thinks of them in the light of the ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality for which he fought during the war.

(9) The stimulus to social-equality aspirations growing out of the relations between blacks and white prostitutes who have moved into negro districts following the breaking up of segregated vice districts in cities, as in Chicago, together with the resentment aroused among near-by whites.

(10) The irritation of many of our returned soldiers when they find their old jobs being held by negroes, while they are having difficulty in getting back to work.

(11) A conflict of interests between non-union negro labor and organized white labor.

(12) A "changed attitude" on the part of the negro that nourishes the

idea of revolutionary methods for the attainment of his aspirations-an attitude fostered by one wing of negro leadership, and cultivated by ultra-radicals who dream of a social revolution in the United States.

I have not listed here such factors as a white attempt to "teach the negro his place," which negroes charge as being a vital factor. I am not at the moment in a position to speak regarding this charge from personal knowledge or investigation, investigation, but such an attempt would have to be listed a result more than a cause at any rate.

So much, then, for an analysis of the situation. How are we to meet it? Is there a "solution" for our negro problem? Certainly there is no simple patent remedy that can be offered. In a problem so predominantly biological, the statesman is not the final man that he may be in problems that are primarily economic or political. The problem is complicated by many intangible factors of sentiment and prejudice. When a problem is rooted in both biology and prejudice, it is folly to hope for quick solutions. The best we may do is to clear the field of every manifest injustice regarding which the better elements of both races are in agreement, and then set about the educating of the public mind on the fundamental facts in the case. The one thing that groundless prejudice cannot withstand is an onslaught of facts.

NO "QUICK SOLUTION"

At the outset both black and white leaders should frankly discourage the hope for an over-night settlement of the race problem. An ill-founded hope, when defeated, frequently leaves behind a legacy of bitterness, disappointment, and despair that defeats the steady progress that might normally be realized. This point has been well stated by Dr. Jackson, a negro leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in an article he has contributed to the New Orleans "Southwestern Christian Advocate," in which he reaffirms his confidence that the war has meant "an irreversible victory for righteousness and the beginning of applied democracy."

But he warns his constituency that "no miraculous change of sentiment nor of race relations should be expected." On this matter he says:

Such, however, seems to be the imperative demand of certain race leaders. The subsidence of race prejudice was not coincident with the downfall of Germany, nor will it be with the formation of a League of Nations, if effected. The white man has it, the black man has it-most men, everywhere, still have it. He who arouses in the negro expectations of a speedy democratic solution of all his depressing race problems will, I fear, do him much harm. It will give frequent occasions for irritating disappointment, which would work evil in various ways. I say to my people: Be patient! Not the patience of insensible apathy nor, indeed, of passive docility, but of active, peaceful effort.

It is small comfort, I know, to say to the negro that despite his valorous defense of the principles of freedom, democracy, and equality in the war, he must return to his home and there begin again the slow upward climb of racial evolution. Four and a quarter years in the atmosphere of dramatic issues and dramatic solutions have made him dream of some swifter solution of his problem. But he is building for bitter disappointment if he goes on the assumption that the war has radically changed human nature either among blacks or whites.

THREE KINDS OF NEGRO LEADERSHIP

Much will depend upon the type of leadership the mass of American negroes choose to follow. Speaking in the broad, there are three types of negro leadership to-day bidding for the allegiance of the race. These are:

First, the ultra-radical or revolutionary type of leadership to which reference has already been made. This type of leadership is clearly described in a recent issue of "Unity," a Chicago periodical, in a paragraph which reads:

Long years of oppression through disfranchisement, "Jim Crow" laws, segregation policies, lynching, economic discrim

ination, and so forth, coupled with the bitter experiences incident to the great war, have raised up a group of young men and women in the negro ranks who are impatient with the old leaders of the race, of both the Booker Washington and Du Bois school, and are clamoring for more aggressive action along lines of uncompromising social radicalism. These militants . . represent not only extreme revolt against racial oppression, but also the appearance among negroes of that same movement of political and economic revolution which is now sweeping the world from end to end. . . . It is too early, as yet, to estimate the significance of this sudden appearance among colored people of this movement for radical social change, but that it marks the entrance of the negro problem upon a wholly new period of development is not altogether unlikely.

It will be unfortunate if the American negro to any marked extent follows these leaders. It would inevitably bring down upon the negro the wrath of the conservative white world and make more difficult his fight for even the most elementary justice. And it appeals to me as very short-sighted policy upon the part of ultra-radicals to attempt the winning of the negro to their side. They will succeed only in confusing their social and economic issues with the unreasoning hatreds, prejudices, and passions that cluster around the race question.

Second, there is the Du Bois school of leadership, which urges the negro to wage an uncompromising fight for the full and unqualified rights of American citizenship. This school would transplant in America the European conception of the negro as a white man with an accidental blackness of skin. This school, in the main, is no more averse to aggressive methods than the first sort of leadership mentioned, but is more concerned with the dogma of equality than with radical social revolution as an economic consideration. Du Bois, in the earlier days of his public career as scholar and writer, wrote in a style of liquid beauty his protests against the color line in American life. His writings were touched with an appealing sadness.

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