CHAPTER 68 RACIAL COÖPERATION Grounds for an Encouraging Outlook-Lines of Endeavor Favoring SurvivalNeed of the Races for More Knowledge of Each Other and More Friendly Coöperation-Recent Efforts toward Inter-racial Understanding and UpliftWork of the Y. M. C. A., University Professors, the Commission on Interracial Coöperation and Other Organizations-Part Played in Uplift by Southern White Women TA AKING into consideration the Negro's natural plasticity, his adaptation to the régime of slavery in the New World and his rapid transformation in the direction of fitting himself for the conditions of freedom, there seem to be good grounds for the belief that he will be able to adjust himself to whatever situations may arise in the future. I believe that his possibilities of achievement are such as to justify him in looking forward hopefully to the coming years, and that in the effort to realize these possibilities there will be found opportunities of sufficient magnitude to call forth general enthusiasm, and be worth the while of the best minds of both races. The specter of race extinction certainly ought not to terrify a race which counts on our globe over 200,000,000 souls. If it be true, as certain astronomers and geologists tell us, that some day this earth of ours will have radiated its heat, and become a barren mass of matter like the moon, then all races are destined to extinction. But that catastrophe is too remote to shadow our interest in and enjoyment of the present hour; and so the ultimate fate of the Negro, whatever it may be, is too remote to repress the Negro's present-day aspirations. Assuming that the Negro will abide with us for an indefinite period, and, at the same time, knowing that he will always have great difficulties to overcome, I will indicate some of the broad paths of hope which lie immediately before him. I believe that the greatest hope for the Negro lies in the direction of a better understanding of the white people and a greater inclination to coöperate with them in a spirit of good faith and friendship; for the time is surely coming when there will be a white man or woman avail able for every job in the United States, and when the opportunities for the Negro will depend much more than now upon the white people's good will. There is no danger, however, of the Negro's ever being crowded out provided he can develop proper efficiency, and keep in the good graces of the white people. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by intensifying race prejudice, and alienating himself from the sympathy, good will, and helping hand of his white neighbor. Both races need a unity of spirit, a hunger for the higher things, a disposition to help each other and to rejoice in each other's triumphs. The white man should be able to say to the black man: Friend, come up higher. The white man has nothing to gain by keeping the Negro on a low level of culture, and he is always the loser in withholding from the Negro anything which is evidently for the Negro's good. If the Negro can afford to be wronged, the white man cannot afford to wrong him. To the extent that the Negro is "kept down,” the white man must stay down with him, for as Emerson says: "If I put a chain on a slave I fix the other end around my own neck." The notion, wide-spread among unthinking white people, that "the Negro's place" is at the social bottom, needs to be got rid of. The "natural place" for any race is the highest level to which it is capable of climbing. But no matter how sincerely both races may desire to promote each other's welfare the problem of racial contact will always call for the highest wisdom of both races in safeguarding their respective interests, and in bringing about equitable and amicable adjustments. A prerequisite to good will and coöperation between the races is that they know and understand each other. Race hatred, as all other kinds of hatred, arises in the first place from ignorance of the people we hate. As Charles Lamb once remarked, "I can't hate anyone I know." Now the fact is that the Negro and the white people have been drifting further apart since the days of slavery, and know less of each other than ever before. Under slavery the races knew each other through their intimate personal contacts. The domestic slaves, especially, not only had opportunity to know the white people, but grew like them in taste, manners, disposition, and often in habits and morals. Following the slave relationship, the Negroes who worked for the white people as domestic servants continued to live in cottages on their former masters' premises. The home life of the Negroes was still under the observation of the white people, who continued their oversight of the Negro families, lending their personal services in case of sickness or other misfortune. |