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♦ WILLIAM PICKENS f
The Ultimate Effects
OF
Segregation and Discrimination
From a moral point of view the Negro question is the most im¬
portant question before the American people. And in the long run
the morale of a nation will be prepotent among the factors of its
destiny. In none of our problems is there more need of the scientific
spirit, which seeks the facts, all of the facts, and faces the full mean¬
ing of those facts, regardless of prejudice or preconception.
One of the greatest defects in the reasoning of many who have dealt
with this problem is the lack of adequate knowledge of the Negro's
real interest, motives and opinions. On this question it is very probable
that colored people know the opinions of white people much better
than white people know the opinion of colored people: the Negro
reads the white man's opinion in the daily, weekly and monthly press;
he hears it reiterated in the debates of Congress and in a dozen state
legislatures; he hears the white man talk much oftener than the white
man hears him talk. The inevitable result is that the Negro knows
his own opinion and the white man's too, while the white man as a
rule knows only his own opinion. This lack of contemporary knowl¬
edge concerning the Negro causes many white speakers to appeal to
far-fetched evidence, even to the fore-ordainments of providence:
ever since my childhood I have heard it said that providence ordained
the Negro for such and such a destiny, and that God created the Negro
to be so-and-so. I learned later that the creation antedates all his¬
tory and all human experience, so that its facts and motives are inad¬
missible evidence. My faith has been further shaken by the gradual
discovery that those who quote providence are almost without excep¬
tion the Negro's most active enemies, and the Negro should be very
suspicious of a providence that reveals its will concerning him only
to his enemies.
In our present discussion we aim to state plainly the ultimate
meaning of segregation and discrimination in the life of the American
Negro; and we make less appeal to providences, which we understand
not, than to the evidences of our senses and to the ordinary everyday
arguments of justice and humanity.
Why does the Negro oppose:
Jim Crow Cars,
Residential Segregation,
Civil Service Segregation,
Separate School Laws, in large Northern cities with large Ne¬
gro population,
And Laws Forbidding the Intermarriage of the Races, in places
where such prohibition has not heretofore been established?
And finally, what does the Negro want with full, voting citizen¬
ship?
How many of the Negro's friends know the motives behind his atti¬
tude? I admit that I have great patience with those who are shocked
at his position on the intermarriage question^ and that is just why I
shall state plainly the motives which hold the Negro to this position,
so that his sincere friends may judge for themselves whether there be
any justice in his contention. I have learned through my acquaintance
with some of these friends that the shock which they feel arises not
from the Negro's real motives, which they know not, but from mo¬
tives which their own imaginations postulate in the Negro. I have
even seen some shocked in the opposite direction when they first saw
the thing from the Negro's standpoint.
But first as to separate railway cars. The Negro opposes them,
and the real motive of his opposition is wrongly assumed to be a desire
to ride with white people. The fact is ignored that on every separate
car system white people are given superior accommodations and black
people are given inferior accommodations. Reverse the conditions
and black people would prefer to ride with black people—and some
white people would too. In Europe there are first, second and third
class accommodations on the railroads. In America the difference be¬
tween white and black accommodations is often as great as the dif¬
ference between first and third class in Europe—but in Europe the
fares are as different as the accommodations, while in America the
fares are the same. Now let an American white man imagine that in
Europe he is compelled to ride in third class but to pay for first class,
while all other travelers, even yellow and black, are admitted to first
class for the same fares. When he opposed this arrangement as legal¬
ized robbery, what a joke it would be for the yellow and black folks to
ask, "Why do you want to get away from your own people?" The
truth is, he would want to get away from that injustice and carry all
of his "own people" away with him.
But suppose the Negro were given absolutely equal accommoda¬
tions, what then? That would be a decent supposition if human na¬
ture and all of the facts were not against it: nowhere in the whole
separate car system has there ever been systematic equality of accom¬
modations. In the majority of cases colored men and women are put
into one end of a smoker, not always fully screened off from smoking
white passengers. This is just as if the law required white people
and black people to pay three dollars for each pair of shoes, but al¬
lowed the merchant to sell the Negro, for tyLs three dollars, shoes that
were worth only one dollar. In that case a merchant with a large
Negro trade could afford to sell to a hard-to-please white customer
shoes actually worth more than the three dollars which he paid. The
Negro would pay the difference. The passenger in the "jim crow
car" supplements the luxury of the "parlor car"—and the same princi¬
ple of indirect robbery pervades the whole system of jim crowism
and segregation in public conveniences.
This glaring financial and material injustice makes it hardly nec¬
essary to mention the Christian-democratic argument. But if a peo¬
ple were singled out from among all the other peoples of the world for
public stigmatization, that people could hardly be expected to accept it
cheerfully even on a plane of absolute equality. An insignificant
right becomes important when it is assailed: you do not much value
your right to walk the streets bareheaded, but you would claim the
right if it were denied. If such a right were successfully denied, the
more vital rights would be exposed to attack.
Now, as to segregating Negroes into restricted areas of our cities.
Why are Negroes not willing to live by themselves ? To live by them¬
selves would be more comfortable for" the Negroes, all other things
being equal. But there's the "rub:" all other things are not equal and
will not be, wherever segregation opens the door and lays the tempta¬
tion to inequality. We speak now of segregation by law; segregation
in fact has existed since the day of the "slave quarters." Since eman¬
cipation this segregation has been more or less continued by buying
out the Negro, outwitting his ignorance, and even by violently forcing
him out. But against this economic and brute-force opposition the
Negro had hope based on at least a fighting chance. He could "fight
it out on this line," if it took generations. But the opponent, in spite
of his overwhelming advantages in the struggle, has appealed for laws
that will eliminate the Negro from the contest altogether.
And why does the Negro oppose legal segregation? Because a gen¬
eration of experience has taught him the meaning of successful segre¬
gation: a general absence of improvements in the Negro sections,—
sometimes no pavements, no lights, no sewers, and no police protec¬
tion against brothels and saloons. The Negro section is equally taxed:
they must pay taxes on all the city improvements and bonded indebt¬
edness. This injustice is similar to that imposed by the jim crow car,
for the negro is constantly paying to improve other people's property.
If he could live on any street anywhere, this discrimination would be
impossible; but legal Segregation is a devil which drags in its tail a
host of petty discriminations.
To ask the Negro to accept this ghetto and do these things for
himself, would be a capital joke if it were not so serious a matter.
The Negro could only do that if his section were set apart as an inde¬
pendent municipality, with its own mayor and government and the
control over its own taxes—and this will not be allowed.—But, says
the opponent, the law is just and equal and constitutional, is it not? It
does not discriminate: it says that blacks shall not move in where
there is a majority of whites, but it also says that whites shall not
move in where there is a majority of blacks. That is constitutional
in, letter and equal in phraseology, but I believe it is unconstitutional
in spirit and I know it is unequal in effect. The effect of a law, and
not its rhetorically balanced phrases, should be the test of its consti¬
tutionality. It may be literally constitutional to make a law that the
rich shall not lend to the poor, nor the poor to the rich,—that the in¬
telligent shall not teach the, ignorant, nor the ignorant the intelligent.
It should not make a law constitutional to thus simply convert its terms
in successive phrases. The segregation law in effect means that those
who have no homes shall not acquire homes of those who have homes;
and aspires to constitutionality by adding that those who have homes
shall also not acquire homes of those who have them not.
As to civil service segregation. The Negro's opposition to this
type of discrimination, which is new, is not based directly on exper¬
ience; but it is based indirectly on his experience with other forms of
segregation. But his reasoning'by analogy is being justified: in the
Carolinas, as soon as it proved possible to segregate the Negro rail¬
way mail clerks, on one line they were given the hardest runs and put
on mostly at night; when bathroom segregation appeared in one of
the departments at Washington, it proved convenient to assign the
colored women a toilet that faced the one assigned to white men.—No¬
where in this country have the results of segregation inspired the Ne¬
gro with the hope of a "square deal."
The undermining of the democratic foundation principles of a great
government may be even more serious than the injury done the Negro,
but in this discussion we are taking up only the Negro's independent
case against segregating policies.
The separate school and intermarriage questions come up chiefly
in Northern communities where there is not yet a rigid opinion on
these matters. Let us feel, if we can, as if we have no interest in the
whole matter and are now examining the Negro's side of it for the
first time—not what others said about him but what the Negro says
for himself.
The Negroes in Northern communities are generally opposed to
the separate school idea and face the usual accusation that they "do
not want to associate with their own people," which ignores the more
positive reason which the Negro himself advances—the universal temp¬
tation and tendency of the school authorities to degrade the Negro
schools wherever they have been successfully segregated. The separ¬
ate system prevails in the South, and in many of those states the
neglect of the Negro school is a disgrace to civilization. Besides,
there is perhaps not a state in the Union, certainly not in the South,
with a segregated school system which gives the Negro an absolutely
equal chance for public education. The legislature may determine the
amount to be appropriated by a per capita reckoning including black
and white, but when this appropriation is expended the Negro child
may get only one dollar out of eight or ten, on the same per capita
basis. By having been counted equal for appropriation purposes he
has helped the white child to a per capita expenditure that is higher
than the per capita appropriation. I heard a state supervisor of edu¬
cation say to Negroes that whenever retrenchment was necessary the
Negro's share was always trimmed down first. He said that the white
officers dislike to do this, but he defended it on the plea of "human
nature." Perhaps the Northern Negro who opposes the separate
school movement, has reckoned on this same human nature and has
little hope that mere geography will modify it. He knows that where
black and white attend the same school this discrimination is forever
impossible.—The Negro pays an equal rate of direct school taxes, and
where other forms of discrimination exist, like jim crow cars and
exorbitant rents, he pays a higher indirect tax. A man may pay a tax
without knowing the tax exists: the buyer pays the seller—the con¬
sumer pays the retailer. Besides, a percentage paid out of poverty
means more as a sacrifice than the same percentage paid out of
wealth. By the law of marginal utilities, ten per cent to the possessor
of a few hundred dollars means more than ten per cent to the posses¬
sor of thousands.
Cincinnati, Washington and St. Louis have the best separate
schools for the Negro in the United States, and it is significant that
the percentage of attendance of colored children at these schools is
lower than at the mixed schools of Boston, Cleveland and New York.
The percentages of attendance of Negro children from ten to fourteen
years of age are these—
In the segregated schools: Cincinnati, 93.1; Washington, 90.5;
St. Louis, 89.4.
In the mixed schools: Boston, 95; Cleveland, 94; New York City,
93.1.
These figures, made from the United States Census, indicate at
least that even the best separate schools are unfavorable to the at¬
tendance of colored children. It is not to be supposed that colored
children simply enjoy going to school with white children, where in
fact they are often woefully ostracized, but it is rather to be supposed
that the white school attracts colored people for the same reason why
it would attract any people, because of its superior location and equip¬
ment. The low public school attendance of colored children in the
South is largely due to the inconveniently located and miserably equip¬
ped school houses.
And now we come to the most interesting question of all—the one
on which more passion is felt, more opinions expressed and less in¬
vestigation and thought are put than on any of the others. Why un¬
der heaven do Negroes oppose laws forbidding white to marry colored
and colored to marry white? Is it not simply because the Negro
wants to marry a white person? Some say, the Negro may be right
on other questions, but surely he is wrong here: this law cannot pos¬
sibly discriminate, it always concerns both a white and a colored per¬
son, and squares absolutely with the 14th and 15th amendments.—
Let us see if the Negro has any decent motive to state for himself.
The literal constitutionality of such a law must be admitted; it would
also be constitutional to make a law to hang children of six years or
to grant divorces for poorly prepared meals—but it would not be hu¬
mane or wise. It would be a mad legislature that considered only the
constitutionality of a bill; bare constitutionality is no proof of its wis¬
dom, its morality or its justice. The ultimate test of a law is its ef-
fact—and the Negro claims that the effect of a law forbidding inter¬
marriage is to lower the status of colored women, without raising the
status of white women, and that it protects and fosters miscegenation
and bastardy. Such a law promotes the very thing it intends to defeat,
race intermixture, by giving perfect immunity to the men of the
stronger race. It is natural and logical to ask—Does it not give like
immunity to the men of the minority race? No. For not since the
foundation of human society has any serious, problem existed between
the men of a weaker and the women of a stronger group. The weak
are never tempted to impose upon the strong, and a prohibition of
marriage simply further protects the strong in its impositions upon
the weak, by nullifying the traditional rule of objective morality
which compels the man to accept his mate and acknowledge his off¬
spring. The intermarriage law is in effect a discrimination against
the women of the weak. And wherever any race is ninety millions
and rich and powerful, while another race is ten millions and poor
and disadvantaged, the case will be the same.
The constitutionality of a law, I suppose, can be taken care of in
its phraseology, but its wisdom and justification must exist in the
conditions to which the law is to apply. This is the special nature of
laWs intending to regulate the relations of a stronger and a weaker
group; for here the actual conditions, the laws of human nature and
the laws of relative power must be figured into a fair equation. A
color line law is not fair simply because it has "black" written into
one phrase and "white" written into the homologous part of the next
phrase. It may be unconstitutional in spirit and effect. To show the
insecurity of mere verbal equality: if the weaker race were put tem¬
porarily in charge of Congress it might think out a law on this very
question of miscegenation which would be absolutely "constitutional"
in a literal sense and yet bear harder upon the stronger race—for ex-
ample, "Be it enacted that when a white child is born into the colored
race, or a black child is born into the white race, the father of such
child is to be immediately hanged." Such a law would not hang one
Negro in a hundred thousand, but I know communities, where the Ne¬
gro does not vote, and where such a law would be so unpopular as to
be overwhelmingly defeated in a referendum.
The primary motive of the black man is not a desire for a mixed
family but for the protection of his own colored family. He believes
that a law to compel fathers to marry the mothers would break up
more miscegenation in a week than a law prohibiting marriage will
break up in twenty-five years. This motive is proven by the fact that
the Negroes who oppose the prohibitive laws are already married, and
would not consent for their children to get into the trouble which it
costs to marry a white' person in America, legally or illegally. Again
the Negro's contention is supported by the United States Census. Lis¬
ten—in forty years the mulatto part of the population has increased
In Michigan, where there are no laws against intermarriage, 48
per cent,
in Arkansas, where there are strict prohibitive laws, 559 per cent.
It is further noticeable that in Indiana, just over the line from the
South and where public sentiment if not the law is prohibitive of law¬
ful relations, the increase of mulattoes was still only 107 per cent,—
while in South Carolina, where strict law is added to the most violent
sentiment, the increase was about 383 per cent. The law seems to
help the violator of "race integrity;" for the mulatto is not a theory,
he is a fact. What is the difference between Michigan and Arkansas ?
In Michigan the man of the stronger race is faced by at least the legal
threat of compulsory intermarriage, if he crosses the line, whila in
Arkansas he is so far protected by law. I ask in the most solemn ear¬
nestness, might it not prove more sobering to a white youth to be
directly told, "You would have to marry your colored associate,"—than
to be indirectly informed that he will have immunity in that case?
We have purposely confined our discussion to the Negro's vital in¬
terest in the question, and have avoided its wider phase—the revolu¬
tionary, or the devolutionary, idea of taking jnarriage, the most honor¬
able institution of human species, and putting it on a legal plane with
fornication, adultery and all the other most horrible sins catalogued in
the Old and New Testaments. Such a subversion of objective moral¬
ity may have far-reaching consequences, indeed, in which white and
black will reap equally..
These are the opinions and the arguments of practically all of the
most intelligent Negroes in the United States, many of whom I know
personally, and if they do not convince the race's avowed enemies they
should at least cause the impartial to believe that the real motives are
not what they are popularly said to be. The intelligent Negro, in his
arguments against segregation and discrimination, seldom sinks to the
level of mere "social equality" considerations.
Finally, is the reason not now apparent why the Negro wants to
vote? Is he after "black supremacy" in a country where his ratio is
one to ten and growing less all the time? Segregation and discrimi¬
nation are a sufficient justification of his desire for the ballot; these
evils get their greatest suport from disfranchisement, and they vary
directly as the Negro's unjust exclusion from participation in self-
government. A minority group in a democratic-republican form of
government needs the ballot more desperately than the majority group
needs it.—It is unfair to expect a white administration to protect the
Negro when the Negro has been stripped of his only power to support
or check that administration. Neither education nor money will settle
the question without the ballot; for a ballotless group cannot com¬
mand the resources of public education, and a subject and helpless
class by growing richer only endangers its life by becoming a more
tempting prey to any powerful oppressor. The officers of the law
could not, if they would, be impartial to a decitizenized people: the
elected are obligated to the electors. A disfranchised group could fare
much better under hereditary independent rulers than under elective
obligated officers. The. very advantages of a democracy make dis¬
franchisement therein the worst of tyrannies. This principle will be
true as long as human nature is human and not divine. The only way
to insure the Negro against injustice in other particulars is to remove
the most effective defense of injustice,—discriminatory disfranchise¬
ment. The Negro does not object to impartial disfranchisement, inci¬
dent upon a failure to meet prescribed and attainable qualifications;
the white man may prescribe a college education, if he deem it reason¬
able and make it impartial.—Besides, the white population outnum¬
bers the Negro population ten to one, and according to the census it
is outgrowing the Negro population by immigration and natural in¬
crease; so that the statesman does not have to look out for "white su¬
premacy"—the history of three hundred years has already looked out
for that. What the statesman does need to look out for is justice to
the Negro and the avoidance of national moral degeneration because
of injustice to the Negro. Impartial suffrage cannot mean "black su¬
premacy" in America, but would mean healthier self-government by
giving the Negro here and there a better chance to speak for himself
and locally to defend his nearest and dearest interests.
WM. PICKENS,
Wiley University, Marshall, Tex.,
For the National Conference of Charities and Correction,
Baltimore, Maryland, May 13, 1915.