NEGRO LEADERSHIP

Dr. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, as the leader of the militant movement, is the greatest force among the Negroes to-day. Light of skin, short of stature, square-headed, he would pass easily in Southern Europe or in Russia as a white man. He looks rather like a highly polished Jewish professor. Considered carefully, however, it will be realized that behind an impassive mask-like face is an emotional and fiery nature. There is a white heat of resentment in him, and a decision not to forgive. Possibly his devotion to the cause and the race drags him down a little. For he is possessed of an unusual literary genius. The fire that ran in the veins of Dumas and of Pushkin is in him also, and as a master of the written word he stands entirely without rival in the American Negro world. In that respect he is altogether a greater man than Booker T. Washington. The latter was a practical genius, and what is gall and wormwood in the bosom of Du Bois was the milk of human kindness in his more sooty, natural breast. “I’m going to shout ‘Glory!’ when this world is afire, and I don’t feel noways tired,” he used always to be saying. “Booker T.,” as he is affectionately called, was the wonderful colored baby of the first days of freedom. His, “Up from Slavery,” which he wrote, and the vocational institute of Tuskegee, Alabama, are the chief monuments which he left behind him. But his portrait is almost as common in Negro cabins as pictures of the Tsar used to be in Russian izbas. “Our Booker T.,” the Negroes say lovingly and possessingly, looking upon the first of their number who rose from the dark depths of servitude, first fruits of them that slept. Freedom and Hope raised Booker T. Washington, but now he is dead a new time needs a new leader. Fain would the Whites have “Booker T.” back. The amenable Negro leader is much more to their taste than the militant one.

Many years ago Du Bois wrote “Souls of Black Folk,” which is a fascinating personal study. It has a true literary quality which raises it from the ruck of ephemeral publications to an enduring place. It is, however, immature. There is an emphasis of personal culture, and a note of self-pity, which a more developed writer would have been at pains to transmute. But the gift is unmistakable. You perceive it again and in better measure in “Darkwater,” published this year.

It has taken the war and the recent increased persecution of the Negro people to bring out the real power of Du Bois. As a labor leader said to me, “He is first of all a statesman and a politician. He is leading the Negroes. I wonder where he will lead them to?”

Certainly no other Negro in the United States is regarded by so many others as his leader. No doubt most of the quiet, cautious, and traditionally religious Negroes fight shy of him. But they, for their part, have no leader. Dr. Moton, the lineal descendant of Booker Washington at Tuskegee Institute, is only a leader in the sense that Dr. Arnold of Rugby might be considered a leader. He is there in his place. He is a great light, and is taken for granted.

In August, 1919, Dr. Moton wrote to the President, warning him of the growing tension:

In reply to this letter, President Wilson wrote Dr. Moton as follows:

With this conventional reply the matter closes, and things in America became steadily worse in the months which followed. The twilight peace of Tuskegee has been in contrast with the loud, clamorous denunciations from Dr. Du Bois. For Du Bois gives forth new words of leadership each month. He has a voice like a trumpet and must be heard. Therefore, he is the leader.

Associated with him are many brilliant men of whom the most powerful is the poet and orator, James Welldon Johnson, a darker man than Du Bois, slender and taller. He is energetic, and may constantly be heard from platforms in New York and elsewhere. I heard him speak. I was not moved by him as by Dean Pickens, but he is more intense and has the reputation of extraordinary brilliance at times.

If the persecution were lifted from off the Negro race there would doubtless be room for quiet educational leadership, and flamboyancy would fail. White sympathizers such as Mr. Bolton Smith of Memphis emphasize the value of the quieter, more unobtrusive work done in places like Piney Woods School, the Frederick Douglass School, by Laurence Jones and Principal Russell. But of course peaceful growth is impossible until the mass of the people are guaranteed against the present terrifying mob violence and general social injustice.

On the other hand, it does not follow that Du Bois is a new Moses leading his people to a Promised Land. He may be leading them to terrific bloodshed and slaughter. He may be leading them to a complete racial fiasco, not because he wants to do so or can do otherwise, but because perhaps that fiasco is written on the American Negro’s card of destiny.

The Negroes are arming themselves. They are more ready to retaliate—to quote a letter from Memphis: “There is an increased determination on the part of great numbers of Negroes to defend their rights by force.... The Negro is emotional, and the masses of them are quite ready to think they are oppressed in matters in which they are not oppressed at all, and therefore to use force on unjustifiable occasions. This shows itself in the increased use of firearms by petty thieves against the police. A Negro was arrested here recently on the charge of selling stolen chickens. His home was known. It was inconceivable that the ordinary white petty thief would shoot officers of the law in order to prevent an arrest which probably would have resulted in a comparatively small punishment, but this man murdered an officer and is to be hung. The same thing has occurred here several times. Under these circumstances it is difficult to induce the police to hold the proper attitude toward the Negro. They never know when he is going to shoot, and so it is natural that they should shoot a Negro much quicker than they would a white man. This begets in its turn a feeling of resentment which makes the relations between the Negro and the police more difficult. I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that when a minority tries to protect itself—although it may use only the weapons which the majority in the past has been accustomed to use in defending itself against tyranny, the minority is apt to find itself condemned in the eyes of the public. Take the attitude which the mass of Americans are occupying with reference to the Reds and their deportation.... A small number of the Reds have appealed to force—the whole crowd are more or less outlawed by American public opinion. What I am apprehensive of if the Negroes continue to follow Du Bois is just such an embitterment of relations between the two races. I do not believe that the race relation in Chicago is the better for the race riot. On the other hand, in Europe, every revolution usually resulted sooner or later in greater freedom even where the revolution was suppressed. My experience with Negro uprisings has been precisely the reverse. Such progress as the Negro has made has been by education and the awakening of the conscience of the white man.

“To put the matter in a few words, the problem that I would like immensely to emphasize to you, is the wholly abnormal position of the minority seeking its rights. We are apt to think that the Negro can achieve these rights in the way that our ancestors achieved theirs against the aristocracy, but unless I am utterly wrong, that view is doomed to failure and if followed will result in embittering the relations between the races so that segregation or deportation or extermination must result. Personally I do not believe that we will fail, but if we succeed it will be in spite of Du Bois and of the attitude of armed resistance. Never was a better illustration of the wisdom under certain conditions of the Tolstoi attitude of non-resistance.”

That of course is nicely deduced, but events are not ruled by wisdom and logic. It might very well have been said to the Israelites during the long period of the Plagues. It is such a period in the history of the Negroes.