Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
History
Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
Even with a double daily session for coloured pupils nearly half of the
Negro children in Atlanta, even in 1903, were barred from the public
schools from lack of facilities, and the number has increased largely in
the last four years. Some of these are accommodated in the private schools
and colleges which I have mentioned, but there still remain hundreds, even
thousands, who are getting no schooling of any kind, but who are
nevertheless being educated--on the streets, and for criminal lives.
_White Instruction for Black Children_
I made a good many inquiries to find out what was being done outside of
the public schools by the white people toward training the Negro either
morally, industrially or intellectually--and I was astonished to find that
it was next to nothing. The Negro is, of course, not welcome at the white
churches or Sunday schools, and the sentiment is so strong against
teaching the Negro that it is a brave Southern man or woman, indeed, who
dares attempt anything of the sort. I did find, however, that the Central
Presbyterian Church of Atlanta conducted a Negro Sunday School. Of this
Dr. Theron H. Rice, the pastor, said:
"The Sunday School conducted in Atlanta by my church is the outcome of the
effort of some of the most earnest and thoughtful of our people to give
careful religious training to the Negroes of this generation and thus to
conserve the influence begun with the fathers and mothers and the
grandfathers and grandmothers of these coloured children when they were
taught personally by their devoted Christian masters and mistresses. The
work is small in point of the number reached, but it has been productive
of sturdy character and law-abiding citizenship."
A white man or woman, and especially a Northern white man or woman, in
Atlanta who teaches Negroes is rigorously ostracised by white society. I
visited one of the Negro colleges where there are a number of white
teachers from the North. We had quite a talk. When I came to leave one of
the teachers said to me:
"You don't know how good it seems to talk with some one from the outside
world. We work here year in and year out without a white visitor, except
those who have some necessary business with the institution."
Explaining the attitude toward these Northern teachers (and we must
understand just how the Southern people feel in this matter), a prominent
clergyman said that a lady who made a social call upon a teacher in that
institution would not feel secure against having to meet Negroes socially
and that when the call was returned a similar embarrassing situation might
be created.
_Apologising for Helping Negroes_
Just in this connection: I found a very remarkable and significant letter
published in the Orangeburg, S. C., _News_, signed by a well-to-do white
citizen who thus apologises for a kind act to a Negro school:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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