Following the Color Line — Following the Colour Line in the South: A superficial View of Conditions - part 2

_A Negro Boycott_ Of course this was an unusually intelligent coloured man, and he spoke for his own sort; how far the same feeling of a race consciousness strong enough to carry out such a boycott as this--and it is like the boycott of a labour union--actuates the masses of ignorant Negroes is a question upon which I hope to get more light as I proceed.

I have already heard more than one coloured leader complain that Negroes do not stand together.

And a white planter, whom I met in the hotel, said a significant thing along this very line: "If once the Negroes got together and saved their money, they'd soon own the country, but they can't do it, and they never will."

After I had begun to trace the colour line I found evidences of it everywhere--literally in every department of life.

In the theatres, Negroes never sit downstairs, but the galleries are black with them.

Of course, white hotels and restaurants are entirely barred to Negroes, with the result that coloured people have their own eating and sleeping places, many of them inexpressibly dilapidated and unclean.

"Sleepers wanted" is a familiar sign in Atlanta, giving notice of places where for a few cents a Negro can find a bed or a mattress on the floor, often in a room where there are many other sleepers, sometimes both men and women in the same room crowded together in a manner both unsanitary and immoral.

No good public accommodations exist for the educated or well-to-do Negro in Atlanta, although other cities are developing good Negro hotels.

Indeed one cannot long remain in the South without being impressed with extreme difficulties which beset the exceptional coloured man.

[Illustration: COMPANION PICTURES Showing how the colour line was drawn by the saloons at Atlanta, Georgia.

Many of the saloons for Negroes were kept by foreigners, usually Jews.

] In slavery time many Negroes attended white churches and Negro children were often taught by white women.

Now, a Negro is never (or very rarely) seen in a white man's church.

Once since I have been in the South, I saw a very old Negro woman, some much-loved mammy, perhaps--sitting down in front near the pulpit, but that is the only exception to the rule that has come to my attention.

Negroes are not wanted in white churches.

Consequently the coloured people have some sixty churches of their own in Atlanta.

Of course, the schools are separate, and have been ever since the Civil War.

In one of the parks of Atlanta I saw this sign: NO NEGROES ALLOWED IN THIS PARK

_Colour Line in the Public Library_ A story significant of the growing separation of the races is told about the public library at Atlanta, which no Negro is permitted to enter.

Carnegie gave the money for building it, and when the question came up as to the support of it by the city, the inevitable colour question arose.

Leading Negroes asserted that their people should be allowed admittance, that they needed such an educational advantage even more than white people, and that they were to be taxed their share--even though it was small--for buying the books and maintaining the building.

They did not win their point of course, but Mr. Carnegie proposed a solution of the difficulty by offering more money to build a Negro branch library, provided the city would give the land and provide for its support.

The city said to the Negroes: "You contribute the land and we will support the library."

Influential Negroes at once arranged for buying and contributing a site for the library.

Then the question of control arose.

The Negroes thought that inasmuch as they gave the land and the building was to be used entirely for coloured people, they should have one or two members on the board of control.

This the city officials, who had charge of the matter, would not hear of; result, the Negroes would not give the land, and the branch library has never been built.

Right in this connection: while I was in Atlanta, the Art School, which in the past has often used Negro models, decided to draw the colour line there, too, and no longer employ them.

Formerly Negroes and white men went to the same saloons, and drank at the same bars, as they do now, I am told, in some parts of the South.

In a few instances, in Atlanta, there were Negro saloon-keepers, and many Negro bartenders.

The first step toward separation was to divide the bar, the upper end for white men, the lower for Negroes.

After the riot, by a new ordinance no saloon was permitted to serve both white and coloured men.

Consequently, going along Decatur Street, one sees the saloons designated by conspicuous signs:[1] "WHITES ONLY" "COLOURED ONLY" And when the Negro suffers the ordinary consequences of a prolonged visit to Decatur Street, and finds himself in the city prison, he is separated there, too, from the whites.

And afterward in court, if he comes to trial, two Bibles are provided; he may take his oath on one; the other is for the white man.

When he dies he is buried in a separate cemetery.

One curious and enlightening example of the infinite ramifications of the colour line was given me by Mr. Logan, secretary of the Atlanta Associated Charities, which is supported by voluntary contributions.

One day, after the riot, a subscriber called Mr. Logan on the telephone and said: "Do you help Negroes in your society?"

"Why, yes, occasionally," said Mr. Logan.

"What do you do that for?"

"A Negro gets hungry and cold like anybody else," answered Mr. Logan.

"Well, you can strike my name from your subscription list.

I won't give any of my money to a society that helps Negroes."

_Psychology of the South_ Now, this sounds rather brutal, but behind it lies the peculiar psychology of the South.

This very man who refused to contribute to the associated charities, may have fed several Negroes from his kitchen and had a number of Negro pensioners who came to him regularly for help.

It was simply amazing to me, considering the bitterness of racial feeling, to see how lavish many white families are in giving food, clothing, and money to individual Negroes whom they know.

A Negro cook often supports her whole family, including a lazy husband, on what she gets daily from the white man's kitchen.

In some old families the "basket habit" of the Negroes is taken for granted; in the newer ones, it is, significantly, beginning to be called stealing, showing that the old order is passing and that the Negro is being held more and more strictly to account, not as a dependent vassal, but as a moral being, who must rest upon his own responsibility.

And often a Negro of the old sort will literally bulldoze his hereditary white protector into the loan of quarters and half dollars, which both know will never be paid back.

Mr. Brittain, superintendent of schools in Fulton County, gave me an incident in point.

A big Negro with whom he was wholly unacquainted came to his office one day, and demanded--he did not ask, but demanded--a job.

"What's your name?"

asked the superintendent.

"Marion Luther Brittain," was the reply.

"That sounds familiar," said Mr. Brittain--it being, indeed, his own name.

"Yas, sah.

Ah'm the son of yo' ol' mammy."

In short, Marion Luther had grown up on the old plantation; it was the spirit of the hereditary vassal demanding the protection and support of the hereditary baron, and he got it, of course.

The Negro who makes his appeal on the basis of this old relationship finds no more indulgent or generous friend than the Southern white man, indulgent to the point of excusing thievery and other petty offences, but the moment he assumes or demands any other relationship or stands up as an independent citizen, the white men--at least some white men--turn upon him with the fiercest hostility.

The incident of the associated charities may now be understood.

It was not necessarily cruelty to a cold or hungry Negro that inspired the demand of the irate subscriber, but the feeling that the associated charities helped Negroes and whites on the same basis, as men; that, therefore, it encouraged "social equality," and that, therefore, it was to be stopped.

Most of the examples so far given are along the line of social contact, where, of course, the repulsion is intense.

Negroes and whites can go to different schools, churches, and saloons, and sit in different street cars, and still live pretty comfortably.

But the longer I remain in the South, the more clearly I come to understand how wide and deep, in other, less easily discernible ways, the chasm between the races is becoming.

_The New Racial Consciousness Among Negroes_ One of the natural and inevitable results of the effort of the white man to set the Negro off, as a race, by himself, is to awaken in him a new consciousness--a sort of racial consciousness.

It drives the Negroes together for defence and offence.

Many able Negroes, some largely of white blood, cut off from all opportunity of success in the greater life of the white man, become of necessity leaders of their own people.

And one of their chief efforts consists in urging Negroes to work together and to stand together.

In this they are only developing the instinct of defence against the white man which has always been latent in the race.

This instinct exhibits itself in the way in which the mass of Negroes sometimes refuse to turn over a criminal of their colour to white justice; it is like the instinctive clannishness of the Highland Scotch or the peasant Irish.

I don't know how many Southern people have told me in different ways of how extremely difficult it is to get at the real feeling of a Negro, to make him tell what goes on in his clubs and churches or in his innumerable societies.

A Southern woman told me of a cook who had been in her service for nineteen years.

The whole family really loved the old servant: her mistress made her a confidant, in the way of the old South, in the most intimate private and family matters, the daughters told her their love affairs; they all petted her and even submitted to many small tyrannies upon her part.

"But do you know," said my hostess, "Susie never tells us a thing about her life or her friends, and we couldn't, if we tried, make her tell what goes on in the society she belongs to."

The Negro has long been defensively secretive.

Slavery made him that.

In the past, the instinct was passive and defensive; but with growing education and intelligent leadership it is rapidly becoming conscious, self-directive and offensive.

And right there, it seems to me, lies the great cause of the increased strain in the South.

Let me illustrate.

In the People's Tabernacle in Atlanta, where thousands of Negroes meet every Sunday, I saw this sign in huge letters: FOR PHOTOGRAPHS, GO TO AUBURN PHOTO

GALLERY OPERATED BY COLOURED MEN

The old-fashioned Negro preferred to go to the white man for everything;

he didn't trust his own people; the new Negro, with growing race consciousness, and feeling that the white man is against him, urges his friends to patronise Negro doctors and dentists, and to trade with Negro storekeepers.

The extent to which this movement has gone was one of the most surprising things that I, as an unfamiliar Northerner, found in Atlanta.

In other words, the struggle of the races is becoming more and more rapidly economic.

_Story of a Negro Shoe-store_ One day, walking in Broad Street, I passed a Negro shoe-store.

I did not know that there was such a thing in the country.

I went in to make inquiries.

It was neat, well kept, and evidently prosperous.

I found that it was owned by a stock company, organised and controlled wholly by Negroes; the manager was a brisk young mulatto named Harper, a graduate of Atlanta University.

I found him dictating to a Negro girl stenographer.

There were two reasons, he said, why the store had been opened; one was because the promoters thought it a good business opportunity, and the other was because many Negroes of the better class felt that they did not get fair treatment at white stores.

At some places--not all, he said--when a Negro woman went to buy a pair of shoes, the clerk would hand them to her without offering to help her try them on; and a Negro was always kept waiting until all the white people in the store had been served.

Since the new business was opened, he said, it had attracted much of the Negro trade; all the leaders advising their people to patronise him.

I was much interested to find out how this young man looked upon the race question.

His first answer struck me forcibly, for it was the universal and typical answer of the business man the world over whether white, yellow, or black: "All I want," he said, "is to be protected and let alone, so that I can build up this business."

"What do you mean by protection?"

I asked.

"Well, justice between the races.

That doesn't mean social equality.

We have a society of our own, and that is all we want.

If he can have justice in the courts, and fair protection, we can learn to compete with the white stores and get along all right."

Such an enterprise as this indicates the new, economic separation between the races.

"Here is business," says the Negro, "which I am going to do."

Considering the fact that only a few years ago, the Negro did no business at all, and had no professional men, it is really surprising to a Northerner to see what progress he has made.

One of the first lines he took up was--not unnaturally--the undertaking business.

Some of the most prosperous Negroes in every Southern city are undertakers, doing work exclusively, of course, for coloured people.

Other early enterprises, growing naturally out of a history of personal service, were barbering and tailoring.

Atlanta has many small Negro tailor and clothes-cleaning shops.

_Wealthiest Negro in Atlanta_ The wealthiest Negro in Atlanta, A. F.

Herndon, operates the largest barber shop in the city; he is the president of a Negro insurance company (of which there are four in the city) and he owns and rents some fifty dwelling houses.

He is said to be worth ,000, all made, of course, since slavery.

Another occupation developing naturally from the industrial training of slavery was the business of the building contractor.

Several such Negroes, notably Alexander Hamilton, do a considerable business in Atlanta, and have made money.

They are employed by white men, and they hire for their jobs both white and Negro workmen.

Small groceries and other stores are of later appearance; I saw at least a score of them in various parts of Atlanta.

For the most part they are very small, many are exceedingly dirty and ill-kept; usually much poorer than corresponding places kept by foreigners, indiscriminately called "Dagoes" down here, who are in reality mostly Russian Jews and Greeks.

But there are a few Negro grocery stores in Atlanta which are highly creditable.

Other business enterprises include restaurants (for Negroes), printing establishments, two newspapers, and several drug-stores.

In other words, the Negro is rapidly building up his own business enterprises, tending to make himself independent as a race.

The appearance of Negro drug-stores was the natural result of the increasing practice of Negro doctors and dentists.

Time was when all Negroes preferred to go to white practitioners, but since educated coloured doctors became common, they have taken a very large part--practically all, I am told--of the practice in Atlanta.

Several of them have had degrees from Northern universities, two from Yale; and one of them, at least, has some little practice among white people.

The doctors are leaders among their people.

Naturally they give prescriptions to be filled by druggists of their own race; hence the growth of the drug business among Negroes everywhere in the South.

The first store to be established in Atlanta occupies an old wooden building in Auburn Avenue.

It is operated by Moses Amos, a mulatto, and enjoys, I understand, a high degree of prosperity.

I visited it.

A post-office occupies one corner of the room; and it is a familiar gathering place for coloured men.

Moses Amos told me his story, and I found it so interesting, and so significant of the way in which Negro business men have come up, that I am setting it down briefly here.

_Rise of a Negro Druggist_ "I never shall forget," he said, "my first day in the drug business.

It was in 1876. I remember I was with a crowd of boys in Peachtree Street, where Dr. Huss, a Southern white man, kept a drug-store.

The old doctor was sitting out in front smoking his pipe.

He called one little Negro after another, and finally chose me.

He said: "'I want you to live with me, work in the store, and look after my horse.'

"He sent me to his house and told me to tell his wife to give me some breakfast, and I certainly delivered the first message correctly.

His wife, who was a noble lady, not only fed me, but made me take a bath in a sure enough porcelain tub, the first I had ever seen.

When I went back to the store, I was so regenerated that the doctor had to adjust his spectacles before he knew me.

He said to me: "'You can wash bottles, put up castor oil, salts and turpentine, sell anything you _know_ and put the money in the drawer.'

"He showed me how to work the keys of the cash drawer.

'I am going to trust you,' he said.

'Don't steal from me; if you want anything ask for it, and you can have it.

And don't lie; I hate a liar.

A boy who will lie will steal, too.'

"I remained with Dr. Huss thirteen years.

He sent me to school and paid my tuition out of his own pocket; he trusted me fully, often leaving me in charge of his business for weeks at a time.

When he died I formed a partnership with Dr. Butler, Dr. Slater, and others, and bought the store.

Our business grew and prospered, so that within a few years we had a stock worth ,000, and cash of . That made us ambitious.

We bought land, built a new store, and went into debt to do it.

We didn't know much about business--that's the Negro's chief trouble--and we lost trade by changing our location, so that in spite of all we could do, we failed and lost everything, though we finally paid our creditors every cent.

After many trials we started again in 1896 in our present store; to-day we are doing a good business; we can get all the credit we want from wholesale houses, we employ six clerks, and pay good interest on the capital invested."

_Greatest Difficulties Met by Negro Business Men_ I asked him what was the greatest difficulty he had to meet.

He said it was the credit system; the fact that many Negroes have not learned financial responsibility.

Once, he said, he nearly stopped business on this account.

"I remember," he said, "the last time we got into trouble.

We needed to pay our bills.

I picked out some of our best customers and gave them a heart-to-heart talk and told them what trouble we were in.

They all promised to pay; but on the day set for payment, out of ,680 which they owed us we collected just . 25. After that experience we came down to a cash basis.

We trust no one, and since then we have been doing well."

He said he thought the best opportunity for Negro development was in the South where he had his whole race behind him.

He said he had once been tempted to go North looking for an opening.

"How did you make out?"

I asked.

"Well, I'll tell you," he said, "when I got there I wanted a shave; I walked the streets two hours visiting barber shops, and they all turned me away with some excuse.

I finally had to buy a razor and shave myself!

That was just a sample.

I came home disgusted and decided to fight it out down here where I understood conditions."

Of course only a comparatively few Negroes are able to get ahead in business.

They must depend almost exclusively on the trade of their own race, and they must meet the highly organised competition of white men.

But it is certainly significant that even a few are able to make progress along these unfamiliar lines.

Many Southern men I met had little or no idea of the remarkable extent of this advancement among the better class of Negroes.

Here is a strange thing.

I don't know how many Southern men have prefaced their talks with me with words something like this: "You can't expect to know the Negro after a short visit.

You must live down here like we do.

Now, I know the Negroes like a book.

I was brought up with them.

I know what they'll do and what they won't do.

I have had Negroes in my house all my life."

But curiously enough I found that these men rarely knew anything about the better class of Negroes--those who were in business, or in independent occupations, those who owned their own homes.

They _did_ come into contact with the servant Negro, the field hand, the common labourer, who make up, of course, the great mass of the race.

On the other hand, the best class of Negroes did not know the higher class of white people, and based their suspicion and hatred upon the acts of the poorer sort of whites with whom they naturally came into contact.

The best elements of the two races are as far apart as though they lived in different continents; and that is one of the chief causes of the growing danger of the Southern situation.

It is a striking fact that one of the first--almost instinctive--efforts at reconstruction after the Atlanta riot was to bring the best elements of both races together, so that they might, by becoming acquainted and gaining confidence in each other, allay suspicion and bring influence to bear upon the lawless elements of both white people and coloured.

Many Southerners look back wistfully to the faithful, simple, ignorant, obedient, cheerful, old plantation Negro and deplore his disappearance.

They want the New South, but the old Negro.

That Negro is disappearing forever along with the old feudalism and the old-time exclusively agricultural life.

A new Negro is not less inevitable than a new white man and a new South.

And the new Negro, as my clever friend says, doesn't laugh as much as the old one.

It is grim business he is in, this being free, this new, fierce struggle in the open competitive field for the daily loaf.

Many go down to vagrancy and crime in that struggle; a few will rise.

The more rapid the progress (with the trained white man setting the pace), the more frightful the mortality.