American Negro Monographs, No. 4 The Social Evolution of the Black South BY W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS The American Negro Monographs Co. 609 F STREET, N. W., (Room 102) WASHINGTON, D. C. American Negro Monographs. Historical and Educational Papers, Published Occasionally by the AMERICAN NEGRO MONOGRAPHS CO. 609 F STREET, N. W. (Room 102) WASHINGTON, D. C. JOHN W. CROMWELL, EDITOR. R. L. PENDLETON, PUBLISHER Vol. I. MARCH, 1911. No. 4. The Social Evolution of the Black South BY W. E. Burghardt DUBOIS PRICE 10 CTS. DR. W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS. Dr. W. E. BURGHARDT Dubois is a native of Great Barrington, Mass. After receiving an education in the schools of his native city he entered Fisk University, Tennessee, from which he graduated with the degree of A. B. He subsequently graduated from Harvard and received the degree of Ph. D. He obtained a scholarship and studied two years abroad. Returning to the U. S., he entered upon a distinguished career both as an educator and author. He taught at Wilberforce University, and for more than ten years was Professor of History and Political Economy in Atlanta University. Dr. DuBois is editor of the “Crisis,” the organ of the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People. The Social Evolution of the Black South. BY W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS. I have worded the subject which I am going to treat briefly in this paper; “The Social Evolution of the Black South,” and I mean by that, the way in which the more intimate matters of contact of Negroes with themselves and with their neighbors have changed in the evolution of the last half century from slavery to larger freedom. It will be necessary first in order to understand this evolution to remind you of certain well known conditions in the South during slavery. The unit of the social system of the South was the plantation, and the plantation was peculiar from the fact that it tended to be a monarchy and not an aristocracy. In the early evolution of England we find men of noble and aristocratic birth continually rising and disputing with the monarch as to his arbitrary power and finally gaining, in the case of Magna Carta, so great influence as practically to bind the monarch to their will. In France on the other hand we find continually a tendency for monarchs like Louis XIV to gain such power that they forced even the aristocracy to be their sycophants, and men who, like the rest of the monarch’s subjects had no rights which the monarch was bound to respect.