Light Ahead for the NegroJohnson, Edward A. (Edward Austin)
Science
Light Ahead for the Negro
Johnson, Edward A. (Edward Austin)
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
After reading the article, I turned to the Doctor, and said, “These
statements are essentially correct, according to my recollection of
those times, and I will say further that there were grave doubts one
hundred years ago as to the permanency of our institutions under
the strain of the Negro problem; and no less prominent was the
labor agitation or the war between capital and labor. It is a happy
realization for me to return to my country and find these questions
peaceably adjusted and that the South, which was for a long time
considered obdurate on this subject, has led in bringing about this
happy solution, in spite of the prophecies of many writers like this
one. But the problem I have been laboring with ever since my second
advent, as it were, is, how was it all done?
“Well, we Southern people changed our leaders. We took men of noble
character; men who appealed to reason and humanity, rather than
pandered to the lowest passions of the people,” he said.
“Tell me, Dr. Newell, how the labor question was settled and how the
labor unions learned to leave off discriminating against Negroes.
According to my best recollections the American labor organizations,
almost without exception, excluded Negro members.”
“Yes,” replied Dr. Newell, “that is correct, as I have gleaned from
the history of your times, but--as all injustice must--this particular
instance followed the fixed rule and finally gave way to truth. Such
discriminations were incompatible with the spirit and trend of our
government. The labor leaders, however, yielded in the end more from a
sense of necessity than of justice to the Negro. As Lincoln said, the
nation could not exist half slave and half free, and as Blaine said, in
his famous Augusta speech, no imaginary line could continue to divide
free labor from serf labor. The labor leaders found, after serious
second thought, that it would be better to emancipate Negro labor than
to lend their efforts towards keeping it in serfdom. For a long time
the labor organizations desired the Negroes deported, as a solution
of the problem for themselves alone. They found various influences,
especially capital, opposed to this; as one writer put it, ‘the Dollar
was no respecter of persons and would as soon hop into the hands of
a black man, in consideration of the performance of a service, as in
those of a white one.’ Capital wanted the work done and the man who
could do it the cheapest and best was the man that got the Dollar every
time. This phase of the question was a constant menace to organized
labor, and finally caused a revolution in its tactics. White labor
began to see that it would be better to lift the Negro up to the same
scale with itself, by admitting him into their organization, than to
seek his debasement. If Negroes were in a condition to work for fifty
cents per day and would do so, and capital would employ them, then
white men must accept the same terms or get no work! This, followed to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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