The New South: A Chronicle of Social and Industrial EvolutionThompson, Holland
History
The New South: A Chronicle of Social and Industrial Evolution
Thompson, Holland
Southern States -- Economic conditions; Southern States -- History -- 1865-1951; Southern States -- Social conditions
It is the fashion to speak of the "old-time negro" and the "new negro."
The types are easily recognizable. One is quiet, unobtrusive, more or
less industrious. He "knows his place"--which may mean anything from
servility to self-respecting acceptance of his lot in life. The other
resents more or less openly the discrimination against his race, and
this resentment may range from impertinence to sullenness and even to
dreams of social equality imposed by force. Some have a smattering of
education while others, who have been subjected to little training or
discipline, are indolent and shiftless. The thoughtless, however, are
likely to include in this classification the industrious, intelligent
negro who orders his conduct along the same lines as the white man.
This last type, it is true, is sometimes regarded with suspicion. Many
men and women in the South fear the progress of the negro. They do not
realize that the South cannot really make satisfactory progress while
any great proportion of the population is relatively inefficient. Some
fear the negro's demand to be treated as a man. On the other hand, many
negroes demand to be treated as men, while ignoring or perhaps not
realizing the fact that, to be treated as a man, one must play a man's
part. As Booker Washington put the matter, many are more interested in
getting recognition than in getting something to recognize. Many are
much more interested in their rights than in their duties. To be sure
the negro is not alone in this, for the same attitude is to be found in
immigrants coming from the socially and politically backward states of
Europe. The ordinary negro, however, apparently does not think much of
such problems of the future, though no white man is likely to know
precisely what he does think. He goes about his business or his pleasure
seemingly at peace with the world, though perhaps he sings somewhat less
than he once did. He attends his church and the meetings of his lodge or
lodges, and works more or less regularly. Probably the great majority of
negroes more nearly realize their ambitions than do the whites. They do
not aspire to high position, and discrimination does not burn them quite
as deeply as the sometimes too sympathetic white man who tries to put
himself in their place may think.
There are, however, some individuals to whom the ordinary conditions of
any negro's life appear particularly bitter. With mental ability,
education, and æsthetic appreciation often comparable to those of the
whites, and with more than normal sensitiveness, they find the color
line an intolerable insult, since it separates them from what they value
most. They rage at the barrier which shuts them out from the society
which they feel themselves qualified to enter, and they are always on
the alert to discern injuries. These injuries need not be positive, for
neglect is quite as strong a grievance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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