THE WORLD ASPECT

The American Negroes are the aristocrats of the Negro world. It may be a paradox to assume that a proletariat can become an aristocracy, but an aristocracy is the best a race can produce in culture and manners. No doubt African Negrodom is made up of a great number of races, but all seem to have one common interest and to yield more homage to the name of Africa itself than to any constituent part, kingdom, or state or pasture. The American Negro is beginning to lead Africa as he is leading the Indies. The reason is that the children of the American slaves have made the greatest cultural progress of all Negroes. Though persecution has been less in some parts of Africa and on the West Indian islands, opportunity has also been less. In 1863 America committed herself to the task of raising her millions of black slaves to the cultural level of white citizenship. But no one has ever essayed to raise the savage masses of Africa much higher than the baptismal font. It is always pointed out to the American Negro that his good fortune is prodigious. The Negro retorts that if he has good fortune his fathers paid for it in the sufferings of slavery, and he still pays in the price of lynching. Yet, of course, the Negroes in Africa have suffered greatly, and their fathers suffered greatly. No Negro can deny that he owes America much. And Africa owes, or will owe, more still.

In America the door at least stands open for Negro progress. In Africa, and especially in South Africa, it is not quite certain that the door is not closed. If the door remains ajar it is not because the white man wills it, but because the American Negro has got his foot in. A low Commercial-Imperial idea reigns. The native is, “the labor on the spot.” An unfailing supply of cheap native labor is considered the great desideratum. Attempts on the Negro’s part to raise himself by education or by technical skill are looked upon with suspicion, and one must remember that as far as the British Empire or French or Belgian mandatorial regions are concerned there are no institutions in Africa comparable to Tuskegee and Hampton. If the labor unions in the United States are foolishly antagonistic to the progress of Negro skilled labor, they are twice more so in South Africa. If there is peonage in America there is an abundance of pseudo slavery in Africa, and while the American trolley car has its Jim Crow section the South African one often has not even that, and the Negro must walk unless accompanied by white employer. An open hostility has arisen between Black and White which much resembles that of the Southern States of America. If it were not for the leadership of the American Negroes it would not be promising for Negrodom as a whole.

Of course there is a vital difference between the British Empire and the United States; the people of the empire are subjects, and of the republic they are citizens. While Britain technically rules her four hundred million colored subjects from above downward America theoretically holds that all her people are free and equal. The American ideal is higher, the British more practical.

There is another difference, and it is that our Blacks, except in the Indies, are mostly indigenous, and have not been transplanted from their native wilds. They have not been slaves and have not the slave psychology. In Africa the white man is in contact with masses of natives in a primitive condition; in the United States the Negro has been definitely cut off from his kith and kin. The American Negro was set free in a land rampant with democratic ideals and possessed of a sublime belief in human progress. But Africa has been and is increasingly a commercial domain whose only function from the modern white man’s point of view is the making of material fortune. The white man in Africa is much more exclusively a dollar hunter than the American. And though Britain has been much praised for letting South Africa govern herself it does not seem as if the Union was mating much progress in ideals and culture. The King of England was a better friend to the native than the local government is proving itself to be.

A blatant anti-nigger tendency is growing throughout the British Empire, and it is very vulgar, very undignified, and at the same time disgraceful. It applies to India and Egypt as much as to Africa. It is due perhaps to a general deterioration in education and training. One may remark that those who complain of the ways of their servants are generally unfitted to have servants, and it is characteristic of parvenus to ill treat those beneath them, and I would say if a white man cannot get on well with a Negro it is a sign that he is not a gentleman. But the genuine type of English gentleman is passing. To think that the race of Livingstone and Stanley and Harry Johnston should be pitifully complaining about the Negroes, as if God had not made them aright!

The British people used to be able to manage native races well—in the age of the Victorian, when the Englishman could treat his native servant as if he were a gentleman also, never doubting that in God’s sight an equal dignity invested both master and man. Read the memoirs and letters of colonial people of time past, and then compare with the current noisy prejudice in India and Africa. The falling away is appalling. And the “natives” know the change which has been coming about—the new type of officer and employer, the man with the whisky brain, the mind stocked with music-hall funniosity and pseudo cynicism, the grumbler, the man who expects everything to have been arranged for his comfort and success beforehand. Astonishing to hear young officers calling even Hindoos and Syrians and Arabs niggers! The native instinctively knows the man of restraint and good manners and human dignity and properly trained unselfishness. The lowest coolie can tell the difference between a gentleman and a cad; and the educated colored man, while he respects in the deepest way the nation of Shakespeare and Burke and Wellington and Gordon, is puzzled to find a common spirit in the English-speaking people of to-day.

“I was reared in an atmosphere of admiration—almost of veneration—for England,” says Dr. Du Bois. “I had always looked on England as the best administrator of colored peoples, and laid her success to her system of justice,” but he wavers in that faith now, having heard the new story of Hindoos and Arabs and the Negroes of South Africa and Negroes of West Africa.

In converse with Professor Hoffmann in New Orleans, a British subject formerly in the service of the British Government in Northern Nigeria, an extremely capable and enlightened Negro, now head master of a colored school, I found confirmation of this. His impression of the change of spirit in the empire was similar to that expressed by Du Bois, and I found admiration of British rule giving way to doubt in many Negro minds. Indeed it has been possible for American Anglophobes to do a good deal of propaganda among the Negroes by representing how badly the natives now fare under British rule. There is some exaggeration in this respect, but it makes an important impression on the mind of the American Negro. He has begun to feel a care and an anxiety for the condition of his brethren overseas. The educated Negro of the United States now feels a responsibility toward the African Negro, and also toward all dark-skinned people whatsoever.

The assumption by the Negro of a common ground with the natives of India is somewhat surprising and amusing. There is no ethnological common ground. But the color bar of the British Empire applies almost as stringently to the Indians as to the Negroes. “We’ll smash them all to hell,” says a bellicose Negro stranger to a young Hindoo student at Washington, much to the astonishment of the latter. The advanced Negroes of America place the liberation of the peoples of India and Egypt in the very foreground of their world policy. They say also that the natives of South Africa must be delivered from the Union of South Africa.

One thing is certain, and that is that the British Empire will not hold together for long unless the Whites can manage the Blacks, and uphold the standard of justice which was formerly lived by. Votes are not necessary, but ordinary human rights of free existence and opportunity are necessary. The empire is at the crossroads. It is a question whether it can be held together by good will, or whether Britain will be forced to inaugurate a rule of force and obedience. The old conception of good will is being tested in South Africa and Egypt and India as it is in Ireland. Possibly as a result of the war, political circumstances may force it back to the ideal of force and a paramount central authority. The belief of native races in the King, and their hatred of the King’s intermediaries, is characteristic of the time. The American Negro is keeping a sharp lookout on the lot of colored people within the British Empire. As he leads in intelligence, in ideals, and in material wealth, he intends to missionarize the native world in the name of civilization. The missionaries are called agitators; their press seditious; their ideals dangerous; but words do not alter the fact that the flag of Pan-African unity has been raised, and the common needs of all dark-skinned races have been mooted.

The Republic of Liberia has often been dismissed as a failure, by the white man. But it is destined to be America’s advanced post in Africa for Black civilizing Black. I was fortunate in meeting in America Bishop Lloyd, just returned from Liberia, and he gave a very interesting account of the positive side of development there. First of all the American Negro is the Élite, the aristocracy of Liberia. He is taking upon himself the immense task of educating the Negro masses of the interior. In this and in commerce and in the establishment of law and order, Liberia is very successful. America and American ideals are a gospel to the Liberian Negroes. Never a word is said of the injustices and sufferings which attend Negro life in the States, but on the contrary America is regarded as a Negro Paradise. When America declared war on Germany it was the joy of Liberia to declare war also, and her war effort was remarkable.

It is somewhat curious that while British difficulties with native races obtain large advertisement in the United States and elsewhere, the lynchings and burnings and race riots of America are in general successfully hushed up within the States where they occur. But of course the American Negro is very proud of the America which he feels he helped in no small way to make. America has given the Negro an ideal, and she is to him religion. All that is new in the Negro movement, moreover, takes its rise from America.

We have seen inaugurated in New York recently the so-called “Black Star Line,” a line of steamships owned by Negroes, and manned by Negroes. Its object is to trade with Negro communities, and advance the common interests of the dark-skinned people throughout the world. Whether it is destined to succeed depends on the soundness of its financial backing. But it is an interesting adventure. Its first ship out of New York carried out the last cargo of whisky before “Prohibition” set in. A storm forced the vessel back to port after the port had become legally “dry,” and some thought the cargo would be seized. It was said there were many leaks to the ship, but after many parleys and reconnaissances with white officials the Yarmouth, afterwards named Frederick Douglass, got away.

It is generally advertised under the caption “OVER THE TOP—FOR WHAT?” and was started by a Negro orator called the Hon. Marcus Garvey. He founded a society known as The Universal Negro Improvement Association which boasts now a membership of over two millions in America, Africa, and the Indies. This is a militant organization. But its membership is evidently useful as a ready-to-hand investing public who can be persuaded to put its money into a whole series of Negro business enterprises, such as “The Negro Factories Corporation,” “West Indies Trading Association of Canada,” and, of course, the Black Star Line. The association has its organ, “The Negro World,” and it meets, as far as New York is concerned, at a place called popularly “The Subway Church,” between Seventh and Lenox Avenues. Whites are not wanted, and indeed not admitted, but the crowds are so huge it is possible to slip in. Musical features alternate with impassioned oratory. Whether, like a bubble blown from the soap of commerce and the water and air of humanitarianism, this will burst and let the members down, or whether it is sound and genuine, it is at least instructive and interesting in its developments. The lecturers and speakers choose the largest terms of thought, and visualize always some four hundred millions of colored brethren throughout the world. A universal convention is even to be called.

How the Yarmouth fared with the rest of her “wet cargo” during its six months’ trip has not been made public, but the Negroes hailed the progress of the vessel as a “diplomatic triumph,” and when it returned to New York an accession of 25,000 new members was announced. Five thousand in Cuba, two thousand five hundred in Jamaica, eight thousand in Panama, seven thousand in Bocas del Toro and Port Limon; the staff of the ship and its “ambassadors” were feted on their return. All made speeches, and all were greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. Thus, at the “Star Casino” one of the ambassadors described the arrival at Jamaica:

“At last we came in sight of the emerald isle of the Caribbean Sea—that beautiful island that is ever green—that wonderful island Jamaica; and dear indeed is the island of Jamaica to me. With pleasure I saw the people as they crowded along the docks to catch the first view of our steamer, the first ship of the Black Star Line. I could hear the hurrahs and the huzzahs as she majestically wended her way up to Port Royal. We had taken on board our Negro pilot, who piloted us into the harbor of Kingston, one of the finest harbors of the world. As she sped along, the people of Kingston were running down the streets in order that they might catch a sight of the Yarmouth. We steamed to the dock and they came on board. They did not wait for invitation to the captain’s cabin, but came up to the wheelhouse, they came into the chart room, they invaded every portion of the ship.... On the second night after our arrival a grand reception was arranged.”

The ship made a triumphal entry wherever she arrived. At one port where the ropes were thrown out from the ship, the Negroes seized them, pulled her alongside the dock of a fruit company, and then with their hands pulled the vessel itself the entire length of the quay. No one had ever seen the like, but the Blacks wanted to feel it with their hands—their own ship.

This was strictly a new-world voyage, and a comparatively easy one, with plenty of passengers and of freight. The cry is for more ships and bigger enterprise, and if the company makes good Africa will no doubt see Africa come riding toward itself on the waves. It is possible, however, that the Whites of Africa may prove more hostile than those of the easy-going States of South America and the Indies. The news of the Negro line is no doubt very rousing for all intelligent colored people.

What in reality is Black Internationalism is hardly realized as yet, especially by Great Britain. Anything said against the Negroes is heard by a vast number of educated and intelligent colored people. Thus you find the words of the Germanophile E. D. Morel used to stir the masses against Britain. Says Morel, according to the Negroes: “The results of installing black barbarians among European communities are inevitable.... The African is the most developed sexually of any.... Sexually, they are unrestrained and unrestrainable. That is perfectly well known.... For the working classes the importation of Negro mercenaries by the hundred thousand from the heart of Africa to fight the battles and execute the lusts of capitalist governments in the heart of Europe is a terrific portent. The workers alike of Britain, France, and Italy will be ill advised if they allow it to pass in silence.” And when the Daily Herald says that “Wherever there are black troops who have been long distant from their own womenfolk there follows a ghastly outbreak of prostitution, rape, and syphilis” it is necessarily treated as a slur by Negroes. A Negro writer who protested in a well-written and cogent letter to that newspaper fails to get his letter printed, but he prints it all right in the Negro press of America, and asks, “Why this obscene maniacal outburst about the sex-vitality of black men in a proletarian paper?”

If there is a race riot as at Cardiff or Liverpool, or if a scheme is mooted to dispossess the squatters of Rhodesia of more of their land, or a General Dyer machine-guns a crowd of civilians in the name of keeping order in India—it is absurd to think of the matter locally and provincially. It is discussed throughout the world. It is impossible to act now as if the subject races had no collective consciousness.

So much for the point of view of the world outside America. There is another point of view which is perhaps closer to those subjects specially treated in this volume. What the world does to the native and says of him are known in America. America has power to help the native races of dark color throughout the world, and many Americans, white as well as dark, are willing to do so. But there is one very serious difficulty, and that is the moral sanction.

While those things occur; such as burning Negroes at the stake and denying them the equable justice of a true Court of Law, America has no right to speak; her truly grand idealism is rendered almost wholly impotent. It was the same in the promulgation of the League of Nations and the idea of helping small nations; it is the same with regard to American interference, in the name of human rights and ideals, in the Irish question. It can always be objected: Why do you not look after your own subjects first, and save your Negroes? An American said to me in Philadelphia: “I am not overfond of the Bolsheviks, but of one thing I am glad—The red hand of the Tsar will never rule again.”

No?

And another said: “Thank God the pogroms are over.”

Are they?

And a third said: “I am sorry America refused to take a mandate for Armenia.”

But why not take a mandate for Georgia and Mississippi?

In 1919, when the question of American delegations to Ireland was being discussed, a member in the British House of Commons asked if a British delegation could not be sent to America to investigate conditions among the Negroes.

Mr. Bonar Law thought that a very humorous suggestion. The very humor of it was sufficient answer to America. No need for Britain to send investigators.

As long as America with her ideals was enough unto herself the Negro question was strictly her affair. But when she takes the moral leadership of the civilized world it becomes to a certain extent every one’s affair.

The point is that America as a whole cannot afford to tolerate what is done locally in particular States. It is not a matter of non-interference from Washington in the local affairs of Georgia and Mississippi and the rest. The baleful happenings in these States rob Americans in other States of their good name, and spoil America’s reputation in the world. The fact that the terms of the Constitution are not carried out, decreases throughout the value of the American citizenship. And the growing scandal causes America’s opinions on world politics to be seriously discounted.

Thus though America was antipathetic to the old Tsarist rÉgime, and still talks of the “bloody Tsar,” it is a fact growing daily more obvious that compared with the present rÉgime of the great republic the rule of the Tsar over his subject races was in some ways better. On the other hand, the American press has lately been flooded with the atrocities of the Bolsheviks. The fact is, we, all of us, believe evil readily of a country which is far away, but are not ready to face evils near at home when they affect ourselves.

Thus the matter affects the world and America. There is a third interest, and that is exclusively of the Negro himself. He needs a guaranteed charter, an authenticated minimum. If the vote cannot be given him, at least let him have justice; if he cannot be admitted to labor unions let his labor be adequately protected; if an offense against a white woman is regarded as specially heinous and dangerous let the legal punishment be increased; afford his women protection also. If the Whites have changed their minds about slavery let them state how much they sanction—what are its limits. Let the American Republic and the British Empire state their policy with regard to their colored population. Make it clear and manifest.

The Negro’s chief danger lies in a consensus of evil opinion concerning him. The South rejoices when a race riot disgraces some Northern city and says: “They’re beginning to find out the Negro isn’t an angel up there.” When a General Dyer uses the machine-gun argument, or a mob of dockers fall foul of Negro immigrants at Cardiff or Liverpool, America smiles and says, “You also?” When there are reports of constant trouble in South Africa someone else says, “So you cannot get on with them either?” and when one is burned to death in Georgia, South Africa says, “So you burn them to death, eh?”

Out of a cycle of happenings is derived the thought: No one can afford to feel virtuous about the Negro.

That fact no doubt helps the Negro press in the chanting of its sorrows, but it does not help the Negro himself. In fact, it shuts out a good deal of hope which might have been derived from white sympathy, and it threatens the colored peoples as a whole with worse things to be. These are the days of democracies and white proletariats, and both show themselves less friendly toward Negroes and “natives” than the old monarchies. Their hostility is based on an old fashioned ignorant contempt; competition in the labor market, and a sort of fear. Probably it can be overcome in time, but if so it will not be through white enlightenment, but through a world organization and understanding on the part of the colored races. For while throughout the world the Whites degenerate somewhat, these others rise. The gulf between the two is being diminished, and there may come a time not very far away when the white hegemony will be lost.