RACIAL COOPERATION

INTER-RACIAL COMMISSION

157

The liberals of the south are gradually awakening to the fact that a new Negro is evolving from the old subservient slave. This new man is uniting his race and creating a strong Negro public opinion. The extremists of this Negro group are ignored by the south which admits no possibility of complete Negro equality. The conservative Negro, who is content to develop the Negro race as a distinct group within the color line, willing to work for and serve the white race, is encouraged. The liberal white south is willing to coöperate with him. Though no mention is made of any kind of equality, the program of these two groups proposes to alleviate many of the injustices suffered by the Negro. Their first step was to establish, in November, 1918, a commission on inter-racial coöperation, representative of both whites and Negroes. The commission set to work to organize small committees of leading white and colored men in all local communities. It was proposed that these committees hold regular conferences to determine on and carry out plans for improving race relations. This idea has been successful in most of the southern states. While many counties have not yet responded, the movement is growing and may be expected eventually to spread throughout the south. Frequent conferences between the two races have made for a better understanding. The conservative program, varying to suit the needs of the different communities, does not arouse white opposition.

This program in general calls for:

1. Justice in the courts; opposition to lynching under any circumstances.

2. Economic justice.

3. Adequate educational facilities.

4. Improved living and sanitary conditions.

5. Recreational advantages.

6. Better traveling accommodations.

No

No attempt has been made to force association between colored and white groups. No mention is made of doing away with segregation, either in living quarters, on trains, or street cars. word is said about political equality; and of course social equality finds no place on the program. The general trend of the proposed remedies is the improvement of conditions surrounding the colored race within the color line.

The commission is working quietly and steadily to accomplish

its aims. It is educating and arousing public sentiment by addresses before religious gatherings; by appeals to professional and business men; by enlisting the sympathies of schools, colleges, universities, welfare organizations, and the press. So far it has attained results despite opposition from ultra-conservative groups. Already its efforts are taking concrete form in the shape of improvements to streets and sewerage systems in Negro quarters and in adequate police surveillance for Negro residential sections. In some of the larger cities, parks and playgrounds have been provided for Negro children with paid attendants to supervise their play. Visiting nurses have been appointed in some places to visit schools and homes and promote health and sanitation. The commission has succeeded in securing improved educational facilities for Negroes-better schools, higher salaries for colored teachers, and increased appropriations for Negro education. Railway officials have been importuned for better traveling accommodations for the Negro race, sometimes with marked results. In many cases, imminent lynchings have been prevented by quick action on the part of the commission to rally the forces of law and bring order out of chaos.

Negro women and white women have also coöperated in a women's continuation committee. They have tried to bring about a better understanding between the female members of the races. Questions regarding domestic service, child welfare, sanitation, and housing have been discussed and remedial measures taken. Perhaps the most important phase of the whole work rests on the spirit of coöperation and fair play displayed by both races. This spirit may do much to improve conditions for the Negro and to solve the race question by true brotherhood, human kindness, and understanding.

PAN-AFRICAN CONFERENCES AND CONGRESSES

A broader phase of the Negro movement to secure greater rights and opportunities for the race is seen in the Pan-African conferences and congresses. These meetings are held to bring together representatives of the race from all parts of the world and to build up a spirit of unity and independence among the Negro peoples.

The first conference met in London in 1900 to discuss the problems of the colored race. The question was laid down as one concerning the color line. How far should the differences of race, which are manifested chiefly in color of the skin and texture of the

PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESSES

159

hair, be allowed to deny to over half the world its right to share in the privileges and opportunities of modern civilization? The second conference was held at Tuskegee Institute about 1912. The first Pan-African Congress was called in Paris, in February, 1919. The interest manifested by colored people was worldwide. Delegates were elected from the West Indies, South and West Africa, the United States, and elsewhere. Some were prevented from attending, but over fifty-seven representatives of fifteen countries, where 85,000,000 Negroes or mulattoes dwell, attended. A memorandum was adopted and presented to the League of Nations. This memorandum called attention to the universal exploitation of Africa and its natives by civilized white countries. It pointed out that the greed for gain and for the rich resources in Africa precipitated the war. Thus the cause of Africa must be considered by the League, if war was to really cease for all time. No action was taken on this memorandum.

Meetings of the second congress were held in London, Brussels, and Paris in the late summer of 1921, and a set of resolutions adopted:

"1. The recognition of civilized men as civilized despite their race or color.

"2. Local self-government for backward groups, deliberately rising as experience and knowledge grow to complete self-government under the limitations of a self-governed world.

"3. Education in self-knowledge, in scientific truth and in industrial technique, undivorced from the art of beauty.

"4. Freedom in their own religion and social customs, and with the right to be different and non-conformist.

"5. Coöperation with the rest of the world in government, industry and art on the basis of Justice, Freedom and Peace.

"6. The ancient common ownership of the land and its natural fruits and defense against the unrestrained greed of invested capital.

". The establishment under the League of Nations of an international institution for the study of Negro problems.

"8. The establishment of an international section in the Labor Bureau of the League of Nations charged with the protection of native labor." 3

The purpose of the congress was described by Dr. DuBois as "equality of men and races." The means of obtaining such equality, to be secured through "education, opportunity and confer

ence."

"Negro Year Book,” p. 63.

MORE RADICAL NEGRO ELEMENTS

There is a minority element of the Negro race who would not agree with Dr. DuBois that equality can be secured by these measures alone. They are represented by such magazines as the Challenge, the Promoter, the Crusader, the Messenger. The Messenger stands for the establishment of a socialist state. It believes that only through a change in the economic system and forms of government can the Negro attain his goal. It upholds the labor union, whether industrial or trade, feeling that a knowledge of collective bargaining is more important to the colored man to-day than a differentiation in the kinds of unions. It believes in civil liberties and civil rights for the Negro, including social equality and intermarriage.*

PROPOSED AFRICAN STATE

5

The Challenge, Promoter, and Crusader are not definitely socialist. They support in general the idea of the establishment of an independent Negro state in Africa or elsewhere, run by Negroes and for Negroes and developed along the line best suited to their progress." In other words they favor the nationalistic idea of Marcus Garvey with some modifications. But they are not, like the Negro World, official organs spreading propaganda for the Garvey movement. Marcus Garvey, as leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League of the World, planned to set up a colored world republic in Africa to which Negro people from all parts of the world should migrate. The project had nothing in common with the Pan-African Congress fostered by Dr. DuBois. Indeed it met with little approval from the great mass of Negroes in the United States. Its following came largely from New York City from a group of West Indian Negroes, countrymen of Garvey. The league drew up a "Declaration of Independence of the Negro Race" which expressed many of the ideas of advanced Negroes. This declaration proclaimed that all things are "created and given to man as a common possession." As a race, the Negro had been deprived of what was rightfully his, and he was justified in pursuing any means possible to obtain and keep his rights. He demanded recognition and equal rights in the League of Nations, equal treatment in political, educational, industrial, and religious fields. A 4 Detweiler, Frederick, "The Negro Press in the United States," pp. 165-171. Ibid., pp. 165-166.

Negro was forbidden to engage himself in battle for an alien race without the consent of the Negro leader, unless it was a war for national defense. War for freedom or protection of just rights was declared justifiable.

6

CONCLUSION

The Negro grows restive within the color line. He is pushing outward, bending the barrier, securing an ever wider, better corner in the world. He is seeking help from his white brother. Sometimes he receives it, but usually behind the helping hand is the thought of radical racial differences and the feeling of superiority. Some of his race do not desire help. They stand alone in sullen pride. They are making for themselves a Negro brotherhood. They hope to make it strong, powerful, united. The growing feeling of race is upon them. It has been forced into being by the treatment of the white world. The Negro of yesterday, servile, amiable, docile, is becoming a being of the past. The Negro of to-day, educated, independent, mindful of his rights, is a different man. His numbers may not be great, but he is the advance guard of the future. He constitutes a perpetual challenge to our ideals of democracy, an unsolved problem that seemingly has no solution mutually satisfactory to both races.

• World's Work, January, 1921.