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."

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.