Following the Color Line Part 25

Thus the relations between white men and Negro women even to-day, though marriage is forbidden by law, are sometimes remarkable in their expression of the deepest emotions of the human heart. I shall never forget the story of one such case among many that I heard in the South. I withhold the names in this case although the story is widely known among the people in that part of Alabama. At ---- lives a planter of prominence who was formerly on the staff of the governor of the state. He had no white family, but everyone knew that he lived with a mulatto woman and was raising a coloured family. When the boys and girls were old enough, he sent them to Atlanta University, to Tuskegee, and to Spellman Seminary, providing them plentifully with money. He also paid for his wife's sister's schooling.

A year or so ago his mulatto "wife" died; and he was heart-broken. He sent for his boys to come from college and let it be known that he would have something to say at the funeral. Many white and coloured people, therefore, attended and followed the body of the Negro woman to the cemetery. At the grave, General ---- stepped forward and raised his hand.

"I have just one word to say here to-day. These children who are here have always gone by their mother's name. I want to acknowledge them now in front of all these people as my children; and henceforth they will bear my name. I wish also to say that this woman who lies here was my wife, not by law, but in the sight of G.o.d. I here acknowledge her. This is a duty I have to do not only to this woman but to G.o.d. When I leave my property I shall leave it to those children, and shall see that they get it."

_Intermarriage of the Races in the North_

So much for Southern conditions. How is it in the North where intermarriage is not forbidden by law?

In 1903, during a heated political campaign in Mississippi, United States Senator Money repeatedly made the a.s.sertion that in Ma.s.sachusetts in the previous year, because there were no laws to separate the Negro and prevent intermarriage, 2,000 white women had married Negro men. I heard echoes of Senator Money's statistics in several places in the South.

I have made a careful investigation of the facts in several northern cities, and I have been surprised to discover how little intermarriage there really is.

If intermarriage in the North were increasing largely, Boston, being the city where the least race prejudice exists and where the proportion of mulattoes is largest, would show it most plainly. As a matter of fact, in the year 1902, when according to Senator Money, 2,000 white women married coloured men, there were in Boston, which contains the great bulk of the Negro population of Ma.s.sachusetts, just twenty-nine inter-racial marriages.

Although the Negro population of Boston has been steadily increasing, the number of marriages between the races, which remained about stationary from 1875 to 1890, has since 1900 been rapidly decreasing. Here are the exact figures as given by the registry department:

RACIAL INTERMARRIAGES IN BOSTON

Groom Groom Coloured White Total Bride Bride Mixed White Coloured Marriages

1900 32 3 35 1901 30 1 31 1902 25 4 29 1903 27 2 29 1904 27 1 28 1905 17 2 19

At Boston and in other Northern towns I made inquiries in regard to the actual specific instances of intermarriage.

There are two cla.s.ses of cases, first, what may be called the intellectuals; highly educated mulattoes who marry educated white women. I have the history of a number of such intermarriages, but there is not s.p.a.ce here to relate the really interesting life stories which have grown out of them. One of the best-known Negro professors in the country has a white wife. I saw the home where they live under almost ideal surroundings. A mulatto doctor of a Southern town married a white girl who was a graduate of Wellesley College; they had trouble in the South and have "gone over to white" and are now living in the North. They have two children. A Negro business man of Boston has a white wife; they celebrated recently the twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. BOOKER T. WAs.h.i.+NGTON

MRS. ROBERT H. TERRELL Photograph by Clinedinst

TWO OF THE LEADING WOMEN OF THE NEGRO RACE]

But such cases as these are rare. In the great majority of intermarriages the white women belong to the lower walks of life. They are German, Irish, or other foreign women, respectable, but ignorant. As far as I can see from investigating a number of such cases, the home life is as happy as that of other people in the same stratum of life. But the white woman who thus marries a Negro is speedily decla.s.sed: she is ostracised by the white people, and while she finds a certain place among the Negroes, she is not even readily accepted as a Negro. In short, she is cut off from both races. When I was at Xenia, O., I was told of a case of a white man who was arrested for living with a Negro woman. The magistrate compelled him to marry the Negro woman as the worst punishment he could invent!

For this reason, although there are no laws in most Northern states against mixed marriages, and although the Negro population has been increasing, the number of intermarriages is not only not increasing, but in many cities, as in Boston, it is decreasing. It is an unpopular inst.i.tution!

No one phase of the race question has aroused more acrimonious discussion than that of the Mulatto, especially as to the comparative physical strength and intelligence of the black Negro and the mulatto, a subject which cannot be here entered into.

_Most Leaders of the Negro Race are Mulattoes_

This much I know from my own observation: most of the leading men of the race to-day in every line of activity are mulattoes. Both Booker T.

Was.h.i.+ngton and Dr. DuBois are mulattoes. Frederick Dougla.s.s was a mulatto.

The foremost literary men, Charles W. Chesnutt and William Stanley Braithwaite, are mulattoes; the foremost painter of the race, H. O.

Tanner, whose pictures have been in the Luxembourg, and who has been an honour to American art, is a mulatto. Both Judge Terrell and his wife, Mary Church Terrell, who is a member of the School Board of Was.h.i.+ngton, are mulattoes. On the other hand, there are notable exceptions to the rule. W. T. Vernon, Register of the United States Treasury, and Professor Kelly Miller of Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., one of the ablest men of his race, both have the appearance of being full-blooded Negroes. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the poet, was an undoubted Negro; so was J. C. Price, a brilliant orator; so is M. C. B. Mason, secretary of the Southern Aid Society of the Methodist Church.

Full-blooded Negroes often make brilliant school and college records, even in comparison with white boys. It is the judgment of Hampton Inst.i.tute, after years of careful observation, that there is no difference in ability between light and dark Negroes. I quote from the _Southern Workman_, published at Hampton:

The question as to the comparative intelligence of light and dark Negroes is one that is not easily settled. After long years of observation Hampton's records show that about an equal number of mulattoes and pure blacks have made advancement in their studies and at their work. While it is probable that the lighter students are possessed of a certain quickness which does not belong to the darker, there is a power of endurance among the blacks that does not belong to their lighter brethren.

As to the comparative accomplishment of light and dark Negroes after leaving school, the evidence is so confusing that I would not dare to enter upon a generalisation: that question must be left to the great scientific sociologist who will devote a lifetime to this most interesting problem in human life.

CHAPTER IX

LYNCHINGS, SOUTH AND NORTH

Most of the studies for this book were made in 1906, 1907, and 1908, but I investigated the subject of lynching, South and North, in the fall of 1904. Since that time the feeling against mob-vengeance has been gaining strength throughout the country and the number of lynchings has been steadily decreasing. But the number is still appalling and many recent cases, especially in the black belt, have been accompanied by brutal excesses. My studies made four years ago are typical of present conditions; I have, indeed, confirmed them by a somewhat careful examination made last year (1907) of two or three recent cases.

Lynch-law reached its height in the late eighties and early nineties. In the sixteen years from 1884 to 1900 the number of persons lynched in the United States was 2,516. Of these 2,080 were in the Southern states and 436 in the North; 1,678 were Negroes and 801 were white men; 2,465 were men and 51 were women. I am here using the accepted (indeed the only) statistics--those collected by the Chicago _Tribune_. As showing the gradual growth of the sentiment against mob-law I can do no better than to give the record of lynchings for a number of successive years:

1891 192 1892 235 1893 200 1894 190 1895 171 1896 131 1897 166 1898 127 1899 107 1900 116 1901 135 1902 96 1903 104 1904 87 1905 66 1906 73 1907 56

Before I take up the account of specific cases an a.n.a.lysis of the lynchings for the years 1906 and 1907 will help to show in what states mob rule is most often invoked and for what offences lynchings are most common. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia--the black belt states--are thus seen to have the worst records, and the figures here given do not include the men killed in the Atlanta riot which would add twelve to the Georgia record for 1906:

Following is the comparative number of lynchings for the two years.

State 1907 1906

Alabama 13 5 Arkansas 3 4 Colorado -- 1 Florida -- 6 Georgia 6 9 Indian Territory 2 1 Iowa 1 -- Kentucky 1 3 Louisiana 8 9 Maryland 2 1 Mississippi 12 13 Missouri -- 3 Nebraska 1 -- North Carolina -- 5 Oklahoma 2 -- South Carolina 1 2 Tennessee 1 5 Texas 3 6 -- -- Totals 56 73

Of those lynched in 1907, 49 were Negro men, three Negro women and four white men. By methods:

Hanging 31 Shot to death 17 Hanged and shot 3 Shot and burned 2 Beaten to death 1 Kicked to death 1

The offences for which these men and woman were lynched range from stealing seventy-five cents and talking with white girls over the telephone, to rape and murder. Here is the list:

For being father of boy who jostled white women 1 For being victor over white man in fight 1 Attempted murder 5 Murder of wife 1 Murder of husband and wife 1 Murder of wife and stepson 1 Murder of mistress 1 Manslaughter 10 Accessory to murder 1 Rape 8 Attempted rape 11 Raping own stepdaughter 1 For being wife and son of a raper 2 Protecting fugitive from posse 1 Talking to white girls over telephone 1 Expressing sympathy for mob's victim 3 Three-dollar debt 2 Stealing seventy-five cents 1 Insulting white man 1 Store burglary 3

In making my study I visited four towns where lynchings had taken place, two in the South, Statesboro in Ga. and Huntsville in Ala.; and two in the North, Springfield, O., and Danville, Ill.

I.--LYNCHING IN THE SOUTH

Statesboro, Ga., where two Negroes were burned alive under the most shocking circ.u.mstances, on August 16, 1904, is a thrifty county seat located about seventy miles from Savannah.

For a hundred years a settlement has existed there, but it was not until the people discovered the wealth of the turpentine forests and of the sea-island cotton industry that the town became highly prosperous. Since 1890 it has doubled in population every five years, having in 1904 some 2,500 people. Most of the town is newly built. A fine, new court-house stands in the city square, and there are new churches, a large, new academy, a new water-works system and telephones, electric lights, rural free delivery--everywhere the signs of improvement and progress. It is distinctly a town of the New South, developed almost exclusively by the energy of Southerners and with Southern money. Its population is pure American, mostly of old Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia stock. Fully 70 per cent. of the inhabitants are church members--Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists--and the town has not had a saloon in twenty-five years and rarely has a case of drunkenness. There are no beggars and practically no tramps. A poorhouse, built several years ago, had to be sold because no one would go to it. The farms are small, for the most part, and owned by the farmers themselves; only 8 per cent. of them are mortgaged. There are schools for both white and coloured children, though the school year is short and education not compulsory.

In short, this is a healthy, temperate, progressive American town--a country city, self-respecting, ambitious, with a good future before it--the future of the New South.