The Two Worlds of Race: a Historical View

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The Two Worlds of Race: A Historical View

John Hope Franklin

Measured by universal standards the history of the United States is indeed brief. But during the brief span of three and one-half centuries of colo- nial and national history Americans developed traditions and prejudices which created the two worlds of race in modern America. From the time that Africans were brought as indentured servants to the mainland of English America in 1619, the enormous task of rationalizing and justifying the forced labor of peoples on the basis of racial differences was begun; and even after legal slavery was ended, the notion of racial differences persisted as a basis for maintaining segregation and discrimination. At the same time, the effort to establish a more healthy basis for the new world social order was begun, thus launching the continuing battle between the two worlds of race, on the one hand, and the world of equality and complete JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN human fellowship, on the other. (1915– For a century before the American Revolution 2009) was a prominent historian and ardent defender of civil rights. the status of Negroes in the English colonies had His numerous publications include become ½xed at a low point that distinguished the groundbreaking book From them from all other persons who had been held Slavery to Freedom: A History of in temporary bondage. By the middle of the eigh- American Negroes (1947), now in teenth century, laws governing Negroes denied to its eighth edition. He was elected them certain basic rights that were conceded to a Fellow of the American Acad- others. They were permitted no independence of emy in 1964. The essay reprinted here originally appeared in Dæda- thought, no opportunity to improve their minds lus 94 (4) (Fall 1965); that volume or their talents or to worship freely, no right to was the ½rst of two special issues marry and enjoy the conventional family relation- on “The Negro American.” ships, no right to own or dispose of property, and

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 no protection against miscarriages of dom. In changing his policy if not his John Hope justice or cruel and unreasonable pun- views, Washington availed himself of Franklin ishments. They were outside the pale the services of more than 5,000 Negroes of the laws that protected ordinary hu- who took up arms against England.1 mans. In most places they were to be Many Americans besides Mrs. Adams governed, as the South Carolina code were struck by the inconsistency of their of 1712 expressed it, by special laws “as stand during the War for Independence, may restrain the disorders, rapines, and and they were not averse to making inhumanity to which they are naturally moves to emancipate the slaves. Quak- prone and inclined.” A separate world ers and other religious groups organized for them had been established by law antislavery societies, while numerous and custom. Its dimensions and the con- individuals manumitted their slaves. In duct of its inhabitants were determined the years following the close of the war by those living in a quite different world. most of the states of the East made pro- By the time that the colonists took up visions for the gradual emancipation of arms against their mother country in slaves. In the South, meanwhile, the order to secure their independence, the antislavery societies were unable to ef- world of Negro slavery had become deep- fect programs of state-wide emancipa- ly entrenched and the idea of Negro in- tion. When the Southerners came to feriority well established. But the dilem- the Constitutional Convention in 1787 mas inherent in such a situation were they succeeded in winning some repre- a source of constant embarrassment. sentation on the basis of slavery, in se- “It always appeared a most iniquitous curing federal support of the capture scheme to me,” Mrs. John Adams wrote and rendition of fugitive slaves, and her husband in 1774, “to ½ght ourselves in preventing the closing of the slave for what we are daily robbing and plun- trade before 1808. dering from those who have as good a Even where the sentiment favoring right to freedom as we have.” There were emancipation was pronounced, it was others who shared her views, but they seldom accompanied by a view that were unable to wield much influence. Negroes were the equals of whites and When the ½ghting began General George should become a part of one family of Washington issued an order to recruit- Americans. Jefferson, for example, was ing of½cers that they were not to enlist opposed to slavery; and if he could have “any deserter from the ministerial army, had his way, he would have condemned nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or it in the Declaration of Independence. person suspected of being an enemy to It did not follow, however, that he be- the liberty of America nor any under lieved Negroes to be the equals of whites. eighteen years of age.” In classifying He did not want to “degrade a whole Negroes with the dregs of society, trai- race of men from the work in the scale tors, and children, Washington made it of beings which their Creator may per- clear that Negroes, slave or free, were haps have given them. . . . I advance it not to enjoy the high privilege of ½ght- therefore, as a suspicion only, that the ing for political independence. He would blacks, whether originally a distinct change that order later, but only after race, or made distinct by time and cir- it became clear that Negroes were en- cumstance, are inferior to the whites listing with the “ministerial army” in in the endowment both of body and droves in order to secure their own free- mind.” It is entirely possible that Jef-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two ferson’s later association with the exer institutions–schools, newspapers, Worlds of traordinarily able Negro astronomer benevolent societies–to serve those Race: A Historical and mathematician, Benjamin Bannek- who lived in a world apart. View er, resulted in some modi½cation of his Those Americans who conceded the views. After reading a copy of Bannek- importance of education for Negroes er’s almanac, Jefferson told him that it tended to favor some particular type of was “a document to which your whole education that would be in keeping with race had a right for its justi½cations their lowly station in life. In 1794, for against the doubts which have been example, the American Convention of entertained of them.”2 Abolition Societies recommended that In communities such as Philadelphia Negroes be instructed in “those mechan- and New York, where the climate was ic arts which will keep them most con- more favorably disposed to the idea of stantly employed and, of course, which Negro equality than in Jefferson’s Vir- will less subject them to idleness and ginia, few concessions were made, ex- debauchery, and thus prepare them for cept by a limited number of Quakers becoming good citizens of the United and their associates. Indeed, the white States.” When Anthony Benezet, a dedi- citizens in the City of Brotherly Love cated Pennsylvania abolitionist, died in contributed substantially to the perpet- 1784 his will provided that on the death uation of two distinct worlds of race. of his wife the proceeds of his estate In the 1780s, the white Methodists per- should be used to assist in the establish- mitted Negroes to worship with them, ment of a school for Negroes. In 1787 the provided the Negroes sat in a designat- school of which Benezet had dreamed ed place in the balcony. On one occa- was opened in Philadelphia, where the sion, when the Negro worshippers oc- pupils studied reading, writing, arith- cupied the front rows of the balcony, metic, plain accounts, and sewing. from which they had been excluded, Americans who were at all interested the of½cials pulled them from their in the education of Negroes regarded it knees during prayer and evicted them as both natural and normal that Negroes from the church. Thus, in the early days should receive their training in separate of the Republic and in the place where schools. As early as 1773 Newport, Rhode the Republic was founded, Negroes had Island, had a colored school, maintained a de½nite “place” in which they were ex- by a society of benevolent clergymen of pected at all times to remain. The white the Anglican Church. In 1798 a separate Methodists of New York had much the private school for Negro children was same attitude toward their Negro fel- established in Boston; and two decades lows. Soon, there were separate Negro later the city opened its ½rst public pri- churches in these and other communi- mary school for the education of Negro ties. Baptists were very much the same. children. Meanwhile, New York had es- In 1809 thirteen Negro members of a tablished separate schools, the ½rst one white Baptist church in Philadelphia opening its doors in 1790. By 1814 there were dismissed, and they formed a were several such institutions that were church of their own. Thus, the earliest generally designated as the New York Negro religious institutions emerged African Free Schools.3 as the result of the rejection by white Thus, in the most liberal section of communicants of their darker fellow the country, the general view was that worshippers. Soon there would be oth- Negroes should be kept out of the main

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 stream of American life. They were ington, and President James Monroe John Hope forced to establish and maintain their thought that separation–expatriation– Franklin own religious institutions, which were was the best thing for Negroes who were frequently followed by the establishment or who would become free.4 of separate benevolent societies. Like- While the colonization scheme was wise, if Negroes were to receive any ed- primarily for Negroes who were already ucation, it should be special education free, it won, for a time, a considerable provided in separate educational institu- number of sincere enemies of slavery. tions. This principle prevailed in most From the beginning Negroes were bitter- places in the North throughout the pe- ly opposed to it, and only infrequently riod before the Civil War. In some Mas- did certain Negro leaders, such as Dr. sachusetts towns, however, Negroes Martin Delany and the Reverend Henry gained admission to schools that had M. Turner, support the idea. Coloniza- been maintained for whites. But the tion, however, retained considerable School Committee of Boston refused to support in the most responsible quar- admit Negroes, arguing that the natural ters. As late as the Civil War, President distinction of the races, which “no legis- Lincoln urged Congress to adopt a plan lature, no social customs, can efface ren- to colonize Negroes, as the only work- ders a promiscuous intermingling in the able solution to the race problem in the public schools disadvantageous both to United States. Whether the advocates them and to the whites.” Separate schools of colonization wanted merely to pre- remained in Boston until the Massachu- vent the contamination of slavery by setts legislature in 1855 enacted a law pro- free Negroes or whether they actually viding that in determining the quali½ca- regarded it as the just and honorable tions of students to be admitted to any thing to do, they represented an impor- public school no distinction should be tant element in the population that re- made on account of the race, color, or jected the idea of the Negro’s assimila- religious opinion of the applicant. tion into the main stream of American Meanwhile, in the Southern states, life. where the vast majority of the Negroes Thus, within ½fty years after the lived, there were no concessions sug- Declaration of Independence was writ- gesting equal treatment, even among ten, the institution of slavery, which re- the most liberal elements. One group ceived only a temporary reversal during that would doubtless have regarded it- the Revolutionary era, contributed great- self as liberal on the race question ad- ly to the emergence of the two worlds vocated the deportation of Negroes of race in the United States. The natural to Africa, especially those who had be- rights philosophy appeared to have little come free. Since free Negroes “neither effect on those who became committed, enjoyed the immunities of freemen, nor more and more, to seeking a rationali- were they subject to the incapacities zation for slavery. The search was ap- of slaves,” their condition and “uncon- parently so successful that even in areas querable prejudices” prevented amalga- where slavery was declining, the sup- mation with whites, one colonization port for maintaining two worlds of race leader argued. There was, therefore, was strong. Since the Negro church and a “peculiar moral ½tness” in restoring school emerged in Northern communi- them to “the land of their fathers.” Men ties where slavery was dying, it may be like Henry Clay, Judge Bushrod Wash- said that the free society believed almost

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two as strongly in racial separation as it did into the pseudo-nobility of race, Cart- Worlds of in racial freedom. wright won their enthusiastic support Race: A Historical in the struggle to preserve the integrity View The generation preceding the outbreak and honor of the race. Professor Thomas of the Civil War witnessed the develop- R. Dew of the College of William and ment of a set of defenses of slavery that Mary comforted the lower-class whites became the basis for much of the racist by indicating that they could identify doctrine to which some Americans have with the most privileged and affluent of subscribed from then to the present time. the community. In the South, he said, The idea of the inferiority of the Negro “no white man feels such inferiority of enjoyed wide acceptance among South- rank as to be unworthy of association erners of all classes and among many with those around him. Color alone is Northerners. It was an important ingre- here the badge of distinction, the true dient in the theory of society promul- mark of aristocracy, and all who are gated by Southern thinkers and lead- white are equal in spite of the variety ers. It was organized into a body of sys- of occupation.”5 tematic thought by the scientists and so- Many Northerners were not without cial scientists of the South, out of which their own racist views and policies in emerged a doctrine of racial superiority the turbulent decades before the Civil that justi½ed any kind of control over the War. Some, as Professor Louis Filler slave. In 1826 Dr. Thomas Cooper said has observed, displayed a hatred of Ne- that he had not the slightest doubt that groes that gave them a sense of superior- Negroes were an “inferior variety of the ity and an outlet for their frustrations. human species; and not capable of the Others cared nothing one way or the same improvement as the whites.” Dr. other about Negroes and demanded S. C. Cartwright of the University of only that they be kept separate.6 Even Louisiana insisted that the capacities of some of the abolitionists themselves the Negro adult for learning were equal were ambivalent on the question of Ne- to those of a white infant; and the Negro gro equality. More than one antislavery could properly perform certain physio- society was agitated by the suggestion logical functions only when under the that Negroes be invited to join. Some control of white men. Because of the members thought it reasonable for Negro’s inferiority, liberty and republi- them to attend, but not to be put on can institutions were not only unsuited an “equality with ourselves.” The New to his temperament, but actually inimi- York abolitionist, Lewis Tappan, admit- cal to his well-being and happiness. ted “that when the subject of acting out Like racists in other parts of the world, our profound principles in treating men Southerners sought support for their irrespective of color is discussed heat is ideology by developing a common bond always produced.”7 with the less privileged. The obvious ba- In the ½nal years before the begin- sis was race; and outside the white race ning of the Civil War, the view that the there was to be found no favor from God, Negro was different, even inferior, was no honor or respect from man. By the widely held in the United States. Lead- time that Europeans were reading Gob- ers in both major parties subscribed to ineau’s Inequality of Races, Southerners the view, while the more extreme racists were reading Cartwright’s Slavery in the deplored any suggestion that the Negro Light of Ethnology. In admitting all whites could ever prosper as a free man. At Peo-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 ria, Illinois, in October 1854, Abraham for equality or for the creation of one John Hope Lincoln asked what stand the opponents racial world. Franklin of slavery should take regarding Negroes. The Lincoln and Johnson plans for set- “Free them, and make them politically tling the problems of peace and freedom and socially, our equals? My own feel- never seriously touched on the concomi- ings will not admit of this; and if mine tant problem of equality. To be sure, in would, we well know that those of the 1864 President Lincoln privately raised great mass of white people will not. with the governor of Louisiana the ques- Whether this feeling accords with jus- tion of the franchise for a limited num- tice and sound judgment, is not the sole ber of Negroes, but when the governor question, if indeed, it is any part of it. ignored the question the President let A universal feeling, whether well or ill the matter drop. Johnson raised a simi- founded, cannot be safely disregarded. lar question in 1866, but he admitted that We cannot, then, make them equals.” it was merely to frustrate the design of The Lincoln statement was forthright, radical reformers who sought a wider and it doubtless represented the views franchise for Negroes. During the two of most Americans in the 1850s. Most of years following Appomattox Southern those who heard him or read his speech leaders gave not the slightest considera- were of the same opinion as he. In later tion to permitting any Negroes, regard- years, the Peoria pronouncement would less of their service to the Union or their be used by those who sought to detract education or their property, to share in from Lincoln’s reputation as a champion the political life of their communities. of the rights of the Negro. In 1964, the Not only did every Southern state refuse White Citizens’ Councils reprinted por- to permit Negroes to vote, but they also tions of the speech in large advertise- refused to provide Negroes with any of ments in the daily press and insisted the educational opportunities that they that Lincoln shared their views on the were providing for the whites. desirability of maintaining two distinct The early practice of political disfran- worlds of race. chisement and of exclusion from public Lincoln could not have overcome the educational facilities helped to determine nation’s strong predisposition toward subsequent policies that the South adopt- racial separation if he had tried. And he ed regarding Negroes. While a few lead- did not try very hard. When he called ers raised their voices against these poli- for the enlistment of Negro troops, af- cies and practices, it was Negroes them- ter issuing the Emancipation Proclama- selves who made the most eloquent at- tion, he was content not only to set Ne- tacks on such discriminations. As early groes apart in a unit called “U.S. Colored as May 1865, a group of North Carolina Troops,” but also to have Negro privates Negroes told President Johnson that some receive $10 per month including cloth- of them had been soldiers and were doing, while whites of the same rank re- ing everything possible to learn how to ceived $13 per month plus clothing. discharge the higher duties of citizen- Only the stubborn refusal of many Ne- ship. “It seems to us that men who are gro troops to accept discriminatory pay willing on the ½eld of battle to carry the ½nally forced Congress to equalize com- muskets of the Republic, in the days of pensation for white and Negro soldiers.8 peace ought to be permitted to carry the The ½ght for union that became also a ballots; and certainly we cannot under- ½ght for freedom never became a ½ght stand the justice of denying the elective

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two franchise to men who have been ½ght- South segregated schools persisted, even Worlds of ing for the country, while it is freely giv- in the places where the radicals made a Race: A Historical en to men who have just returned from half-hearted attempt to desegregate them. View four years ½ghting against it.” Such pleas In 1875 Congress enacted a Civil Rights fell on deaf ears, however; and it was Act to guarantee the enjoyment of equal not until 1867, when Congress was suf½- rights in carriers and all places of public ciently outraged by the inhuman black accommodation and amusement. Even codes, widespread discriminations in before it became law Northern philan- the South, and unspeakable forms of vio- thropists succeeded in forcing the dele- lence against Negroes, that new federal tion of the provision calling for desegre- legislation sought to correct the evils of gated schools. Soon, because of the mas- the ½rst period of Reconstruction. sive resistance in the North as well as in The period that we know as Radical the South and the indifferent manner in Reconstruction had no signi½cant or which the federal government enforced permanent effect on the status of the the law, it soon became a dead letter Negro in American life. For a period of everywhere. When it was declared un- time, varying from one year to ½fteen constitutional by the Supreme Court in or twenty years, some Negroes enjoyed 1883, there was universal rejoicing, ex- the privileges of voting. They gained po- cept among the Negroes, one of whom litical ascendancy in a very few commu- declared that they had been “baptized nities only temporarily, and they never in ice water.” even began to achieve the status of a rul- Neither the Civil War nor the era of ing class. They made no meaningful steps Reconstruction made any signi½cant toward economic independence or even step toward the permanent elimination stability; and in no time at all, because of of racial barriers. The radicals of the the pressures of the local community and post–Civil War years came no closer the neglect of the federal government, to the creation of one racial world than they were brought under the complete the patriots of the Revolutionary years. economic subservience of the old ruling When Negroes were, for the ½rst time, class. Organizations such as the Ku Klux enrolled in the standing army of the Klan were committed to violent action United States, they were placed in sep- to keep Negroes “in their place” and, arate Negro units. Most of the liberals having gained respectability through of the Reconstruction era called for and sponsorship by Confederate generals worked for separate schools for Negroes. and the like, they proceeded to wreak Nowhere was there any extensive effort havoc in the name of white supremacy to involve Negroes in the churches and and protection of white womanhood.9 other social institutions of the dominant Meanwhile, various forms of segrega- group. Whatever remained of the old tion and discrimination, developed in abolitionist fervor, which can hardly be the years before the Civil War in order described as unequivocal on the ques- to degrade the half million free Negroes tion of true racial equality, was rapidly in the United States, were now applied disappearing. In its place were the senti- to the four million Negroes who had be- ments of the business men who wanted come free in 1865. Already the churches peace at any price. Those having com- and the military were completely seg- mon railroad interests or crop-market- regated. For the most part the schools, ing interests or investment interests even in the North, were separate. In the could and did extend their hands across

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 sectional lines and joined in the task of ify to vote. The new literacy and “un- John Hope working together for the common good. derstanding” provisions permitted lo- Franklin In such an atmosphere the practice was cal registrars to disqualify Negroes to accept the realities of two separate while permitting white citizens to qual- worlds of race. Some even subscribed to ify. Several states, including Louisiana, the view that there were signi½cant eco- North Carolina, and Oklahoma, insert- nomic advantages in maintaining the ed “grandfather clauses” in their consti- two worlds of race. tutions in order to permit persons, who could not otherwise qualify, to vote if The post-Reconstruction years wit- their fathers or grandfathers could vote nessed a steady deterioration in the sta- in 1866. (This was such a flagrant dis- tus of Negro Americans. These were the crimination against Negroes, whose an- years that Professor Rayford Logan has cestors could not vote in 1866, that the called the “nadir” of the Negro in Amer- United States Supreme Court in 1915 de- ican life and thought. They were the clared the “grandfather clause” uncon- years when Americans, weary of the cru- stitutional.) Then came the Democratic sade that had, for the most part, ended white primary in 1900 that made it im- with the outbreak of the Civil War, dis- possible for Negroes to participate in played almost no interest in helping the local elections in the South, where, by Negro to achieve equality. The social this time, only the Democratic party Darwinists decried the very notion of had any appreciable strength. (After equality for Negroes, arguing that the more than a generation of assaults on it, lowly place they occupied was natural the white primary was ½nally declared and normal. The leading literary jour- unconstitutional in 1944.) nals vied with each other in describing Inequality was legislated in still anoth- Negroes as lazy, idle, improvident, im- er way. Beginning in the 1880s, many moral, and criminal.10 Thomas Dixon’s states, especially but not exclusively in novels, The Klansman and The Leopard’s the South, enacted statutes designed to Spots, and D. W. Grif½th’s motion pic- separate the races. After the Civil Rights ture, “The Birth of A Nation,” helped Act was declared unconstitutional in to give Americans a view of the Negro’s 1883 state legislatures were emboldened role in American history that “proved” to enact numerous segregation statutes. that he was un½t for citizenship, to say When the United States Supreme Court, nothing of equality. The dictum of Wil- in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, set forth liam Graham Sumner and his followers the “separate but equal” doctrine in that “stateways cannot change folkways” 1896, the decision provided a new stimu- convinced many Americans that legislat- lus for laws to separate the races and, of ing equality and creating one great socie- course, to discriminate against Negroes. ty where race was irrelevant was out of In time, Negroes and whites were sep- the question. arated in the use of schools, churches, But many Americans believed that cemeteries, drinking fountains, restau- they could legislate inequality; and they rants, and all places of public accommo- proceeded to do precisely that. Begin- dation and amusement. One state enact- ning in 1890, one Southern state after an- ed a law providing for the separate ware- other revised the suffrage provisions of housing of books used by white and Ne- its constitution in a manner that made it gro children. Another required the tele- virtually impossible for Negroes to qual- phone company to provide separate tele-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two phone booths for white and Negro cus- the Civil War, but none of them had chal- Worlds of tomers. In most communities housing lenged the white historians’ efforts to Race: A 11 Historical was racially separated by law or practice. relegate Negroes to a separate, degraded View Where there was no legislation requir- world. In 1882, however, George Wash- ing segregation, local practices ½lled the ington Williams published his History of void. Contradictions and inconsistencies the Negro Race in America in order to “give seemed not to disturb those who sought the world more correct ideas about the to maintain racial distinctions at all costs. colored people.” He wrote, he said, not It mattered not that one drive-in snack “as a partisan apologist, but from a love bar served Negroes only on the inside, for the truth of history.”12 Soon there while its competitor across the street were other historical works by Negroes served Negroes only on the outside. Both describing their progress and their con- were committed to making racial distinc- tributions and arguing that they deserved tions; and in communities where prac- to be received into the full fellowship of tices and mores had the force of law, the American citizens. distinction was everything. Such prac- It was in these post-Reconstruction tices were greatly strengthened when, years that some of the most vigorous in 1913, the federal government adopted efforts were made to destroy the two policies that segregated the races in its worlds of race. The desperate pleas of of½ces as well as in its eating and rest- Negro historians were merely the more room facilities. articulate attempts of Negroes to gain By the time of World War I, Negroes complete acceptance in American life. and whites in the South and in parts of Scores of Negro organizations joined the North lived in separate worlds, and in the struggle to gain protection and the apparatus for keeping the worlds recognition of their rights and to elimi- separate was elaborate and complex. Ne- nate the more sordid practices that char- groes were segregated by law in the pub- acterized the treatment of the Negro lic schools of the Southern states, while world by the white world. Unhappily, those in the Northern ghettos were sent the small number of whites who were to predominantly Negro schools, except committed to racial equality dwindled where their numbers were insuf½cient. in the post-Reconstruction years, while Scores of Negro newspapers sprang up government at every level showed no in- to provide news of Negroes that the terest in eliminating racial separatism. white press consistently ignored. Negroes It seemed that Negro voices were indeed were as unwanted in the white churches crying in the wilderness, but they car- as they had been in the late eighteenth ried on their attempts to be heard. In century; and Negro churches of virtual- 1890 Negroes from twenty-one states ly every denomination were the answer and the District of Columbia met in for a people who had accepted the white Chicago and organized the Afro-Amer- man’s religion even as the white man re- ican League of the United States. They jected his religious fellowship. called for more equitable distribution Taking note of the fact that they had of school funds, fair and impartial trial been omitted from any serious consider- for accused Negroes, resistance “by all ation by the white historians, Negroes legal and reasonable means” to mob began in earnest to write the history of and lynch law, and enjoyment of the their own experiences as Americans. franchise by all quali½ed voters. When There had been Negro historians before a group of young Negro intellectuals,

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 led by W.E.B. Du Bois, met at Niagara into Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. John Hope Falls, Ontario, in 1905, they made a sim- Although many were unable to secure Franklin ilar call as they launched their Niagara employment, others were successful and Movement. achieved a standard of living they could However eloquent their pleas, Ne- not have imagined only a few years earli- groes alone could make no successful er. Northern communities were not alto- assault on the two worlds of race. They gether friendly and hospitable to the new- needed help–a great deal of help. It was comers, but the opportunities for educa- the bloody race riots in the early years tion and the enjoyment of political self- of the twentieth century that shocked respect were the greatest they had ever civic minded and socially conscious seen. Many of them felt that they were whites into answering the Negro’s pleas entirely justi½ed in their renewed hope for support. Some whites began to take that the war would bring about a com- the view that the existence of two soci- plete merger of the two worlds of race. eties whose distinction was based sole- Those who held such high hopes, how- ly on race was inimical to the best inter- ever, were naive in the extreme. Already ests of the entire nation. Soon, they were the Ku Klux Klan was being revived– taking the initiative and in 1909 organ- this time in the North as well as in the ized the National Association for the South. Its leaders were determined to Advancement of Colored People. They develop a broad program to unite “na- assisted the following year in establish- tive-born white Christians for concert- ing the National Urban League. White ed action in the preservation of Ameri- attorneys began to stand with Negroes can institutions and the supremacy of before the United States Supreme Court the white race.” By the time that the to challenge the “grandfather clause,” war was over, the Klan was in a position local segregation ordinances, and fla- to make capital of the racial animosities grant miscarriages of justice in which that had developed during the conflict Negroes were the victims. The patterns itself. Racial conflicts had broken out of attack developed during these years in many places during the war; and be- were to become invaluable later. Legal fore the conference at Versailles was action was soon supplemented by pick- over race riots in the United States had eting, demonstrating, and boycotting, brought about what can accurately be with telling effect particularly in select- described as the “long, hot summer” ed Northern communities.13 of 1919. If anything, the military operations The two world wars had a profound which aimed to save the world for de- effect on the status of Negroes in the mocracy merely ½xed more permanent- United States and did much to mount ly the racial separation in the United the attack on the two worlds of race. States. Negro soldiers not only constitut- The decade of World War I witnessed a ed entirely separate ½ghting units in the very signi½cant migration of Negroes. United States Army, but, once overseas, They went in large numbers–perhaps were assigned to ½ghting units with the a half million–from the rural areas of French Army. Negroes who sought ser- the South to the towns and cities of the vice with the United States Marines or the South and North. They were especially Air Force were rejected, while the Navy attracted to the industrial centers of the relegated them to menial duties. The re- North. By the thousands they poured action of many Negroes was bitter, but

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two most of the leaders, including Du Bois, the whites who consigned him to the Worlds of counseled patience and loyalty. They con- ghetto, attacked racial discrimination Race: A Historical tinued to hope that their show of patri- in employment, and pressed for legisla- View otism would win for them a secure place tion to protect his rights. If he was sel- of acceptance as Americans. dom successful during the postwar de- Few Negro Americans could have an- cade and the depression, he made it ticipated the wholesale rejection they quite clear that he was unalterably op- experienced at the conclusion of World posed to the un-American character of War I. Returning Negro soldiers were the two worlds of race. lynched by hanging and burning, even Hope for a new assault on racism was while still in their military uniforms. kindled by some of the New Deal poli- The Klan warned Negroes that they must cies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. As mem- respect the rights of the white race “in bers of the economically disadvantaged whose country they are permitted to group, Negroes bene½ted from relief reside.” Racial conflicts swept the coun- and recovery legislation. Most of it, try, and neither federal nor state govern- however, recognized the existence of ments seemed interested in effective the two worlds of race and accommodat- intervention. The worlds of race were ed itself to it. Frequently bread lines and growing further apart in the postwar soup kitchens were separated on the ba- decade. Nothing indicated this more sis of race. There was segregation in the clearly than the growth of the Univer- employment services, while many new sal Negro Improvement Association, agencies recognized and bowed to Jim led by Marcus Garvey. From a mere Crow. Whenever agencies, such as the handful of members at the end of the Farm Security Administration, fought war, the Garvey movement rapidly be- segregation and sought to deal with came the largest secular Negro group people on the basis of their needs rather ever organized in the United States. Al- than race they came under the wither- though few Negroes were interested in ing ½re of the racist critics and seldom settling in Africa–the expressed aim of escaped alive. Winds of change, how- Garvey–they joined the movement by ever slight, were discernible, and no- the hundreds of thousands to indicate where was this in greater evidence than their resentment of the racial duality in the new labor unions. Groups like that seemed to them to be the central the Congress of Industrial Organiza- feature of the American social order.14 tions, encouraged by the support of the More realistic and hardheaded were Wagner Labor Relations Act, began to the Negroes who were more determined look at manpower resources as a whole than ever to engage in the most desper- and to attack the old racial policies that ate ½ght of their lives to destroy racism viewed labor in terms of race. in the United States. As the editor of the As World War II approached, Negroes Crisis said in 1919, “We return from ½ght- schooled in the experiences of the nine- ing. We return ½ghting. Make way for teen-twenties and thirties were unwill- Democracy! We saved it in France, and ing to see the ½ght against Nazism car- by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in ried on in the context of an American the U.S.A., or know the reason why.” racist ideology. Some white Americans This was the spirit of what Alain Locke were likewise uncomfortable in the role called “The New Negro.” He fought the of freeing Europe of a racism which still Democratic white primary, made war on permeated the United States; but it was

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 the Negroes who dramatized American such large-scale migration were numer- John Hope inconsistency by demanding an end to ous. The concentration of Negroes in Franklin discrimination in employment in de- communities where they suffered no po- fense industries. By threatening to march litical disabilities placed in their hands on Washington in 1941 they forced the an enormous amount of political power. President to issue an order forbidding Consequently, some of them went to such discrimination. The opposition the legislatures, to Congress, and to posi- was loud and strong. Some state gover- tions on the judiciary. In turn, this won nors denounced the order, and some for them political respect as well as legis- manufacturers skillfully evaded it. But lation that greatly strengthened their it was a signi½cant step toward the position as citizens. elimination of the two worlds. During World War II the assault on Following World War II there was a racism continued. Negroes, more than marked acceleration in the war against a million of whom were enlisted in the the two worlds of race in the United armed services, bitterly fought discrimi- States. In 1944 the Supreme Court ruled nation and segregation. The armed ser- against segregation in interstate trans- vices were, for the most part, two quite portation, and three years later it wrote distinct racial worlds. Some Negro units the ½nal chapter in the war against the had white of½cers, and much of the of- Democratic white primary. In 1947 the ½cer training was desegregated. But it President’s Committee on Civil Rights was not until the ½nal months of the war called for the “elimination of segrega- that a deliberate experiment was under- tion, based on race, color, creed, or na- taken to involve Negro and white enlist- tional origin, from American life.”16 In ed men in the same ½ghting unit. With the following year President Truman the success of the experiment and with asked Congress to establish a permanent the warm glow of victory over Nazism as Fair Employment Practices Commis- a backdrop, there was greater inclination sion. At the same time he took steps to to recognize the absurdity of maintain- eliminate segregation in the armed ser- ing a racially separate military force to vices. These moves on the part of the ju- protect the freedoms of the country.15 dicial and executive branches of the fed- During the war there began the great- eral government by no means destroyed est migration in the history of Negro the two worlds of race, but they created Americans. Hundreds of thousands left a more healthy climate in which the gov- the South for the industrial centers of ernment and others could launch an at- the North and West. In those places they tack on racial separatism. met hostility, but they also secured em- The attack was greatly strengthened ployment in aviation plants, automobile by the new position of world leadership factories, steel mills, and numerous oth- that the United States assumed at the er industries. Their dif½culties persisted close of the war. Critics of the United as they faced problems of housing and States were quick to point to the incon- adjustment. But they continued to move sistencies of an American position that out of the South in such large numbers spoke against racism abroad and counte- that by 1965 one third of the twenty mil- nanced it at home. New nations, brown lion Negroes in the United States lived and black, seemed reluctant to follow in twelve metropolitan centers of the the lead of a country that adhered to its North and West. The rami½cations of policy of maintaining two worlds of

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two race–the one identi½ed with the old co- and, not infrequently, the teachers and Worlds of lonial ruling powers and the other with school administrators, become auxiliary Race: A Historical the colonies now emerging as indepen- guardians of the system of racial separa- View dent nations. Responsible leaders in the tion. In such communities Negroes oc- United States saw the weakness of their cupy no policy-making positions, exer- position, and some of them made new cise no influence over the determination moves to repair it. of policy, and are seldom even on the Civic and religious groups, some la- police force. State and local resources, bor organizations, and many individu- including tax funds, are at the disposal als from the white community began of those who guard the system of segre- to join in the effort to destroy segrega- gation and discrimination; and such tion and discrimination in American funds are used to enforce customs as life. There was no danger, after World well as laws and to disseminate infor- War II, that Negroes would ever again mation in support of the system. stand alone in their ½ght. The older in- The white community itself acts as terracial organizations continued, but a guardian of the segregated system. they were joined by new ones. In addi- Schooled in the specious arguments tion to the numerous groups that in- that assert the supremacy of the white cluded racial equality in their overall race and fearful that a destruction of programs, there were others that made the system would be harmful to their the creation of one racial world their own position, they not only “go along” principal objective. Among them were with it but, in many cases, enthusiasti- the Congress of Racial Equality, the cally support it. Community sanctions Southern Christian Leadership Confer- are so powerful, moreover, that the in- ence, and the Student Non-Violent Co- dependent citizen who would defy the ordinating Committee. Those in exis- established order would ½nd himself tence in the 1950s supported the court not only ostracized but, worse, the tar- action that brought about the decision get of economic and political reprisals. against segregated schools. The more Within the community many self- recent ones have taken the lead in press- appointed guardians of white supremacy ing for new legislation and in develop- have emerged at various times. After the ing new techniques to be used in the Civil War and after World War I it was war on segregation. the Ku Klux Klan, which has shown sur- prising strength in recent years. After The most powerful direct force in the the desegregation decision of the Su- maintenance of the two worlds of race preme Court in 1954 it was the White has been the state and its political sub- Citizens’ Council, which one Southern divisions. In states and communities editor has called the “uptown Ku Klux where racial separation and discrimi- Klan.” From time to time since 1865, it nation are basic to the way of life, the has been the political demagogue, who elected of½cials invariably pledge them- has not only made capital by urging his selves to the perpetuation of the duality. election as a sure way to maintain the Indeed, candidates frequently vie with system but has also encouraged the less one another in their effort to occupy the responsible elements of the community most extreme segregationist position to take the law into their own hands. possible on the race question. Appoint- Violence, so much a part of American ed of½cials, including the constabulary history and particularly of Southern his-

40 Dædalus Winter 2011

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 tory, has been an important factor in tempt to turn back the clock to the Re- John Hope maintaining the two worlds of race. In- construction era, when federal inter- Franklin timidation, terror, lynchings, and riots vention, they claim, imposed a harsh have, in succession, been the handmaid- and unjust peace.17 To make effective en of political entities whose of½cials their argument, they use such emotion- have been unwilling or unable to put an laden phrases as “military occupation,” end to it. Violence drove Negroes from “Negro rule,” and “black-out of honest the polls in the 1870s and has kept them government.” Americans other than away in droves since that time. Lynch- Southerners have been frightened by ings, the spectacular rope and faggot the Southerners’ claim that civil rights kind or the quiet kind of merely “doing for Negroes would cause a return to the away” with some insubordinate Negro, “evils” of Reconstruction. Insecure in have served their special purpose in ter- their own knowledge of history, they rorizing whole communities of Negroes. have accepted the erroneous assertions Riots, con½ned to no section of the coun- about the “disaster” of radical rule after try, have demonstrated how explosive the Civil War and the vengeful punish- the racial situation can be in urban com- ment meted out to the South by the Ne- munities burdened with the strain of gro and his white allies. Regardless of racial strife. the merits of these arguments that seem The heavy hand of history has been a specious on the face of them–to say powerful force in the maintenance of a nothing of their historical inaccuracy– segregated society and, conversely, in they have served as effective brakes on the resistance to change. Americans, the drive to destroy the two worlds of especially Southerners whose devotion race. to the past is unmatched by that of any One suspects, however, that racial others, have summoned history to sup- bigotry has become more expensive in port their arguments that age-old prac- recent years. It is not so easy now as it tices and institutions cannot be changed once was to make political capital out overnight, that social practices cannot of the race problem, even in the deep be changed by legislation. Southerners South. Local citizens–farmers, labor- have argued that desegregation would ers, manufacturers–have become a break down long-established customs bit weary of the promises of the dema- and bring instability to a social order gogue that he will preserve the integri- that, if left alone, would have no seri- ty of the races if he is, at the same time, ous racial or social disorders. After all, unable to persuade investors to build Southern whites “know” Negroes; and factories and bring capital to their com- their knowledge has come from many munities. Some Southerners, depen- generations of intimate association dent on tourists, are not certain that and observation, they insist. their vaunted racial pride is so dear, if it White Southerners have also sum- keeps visitors away and brings depres- moned history to support them in sion to their economy. The cities that their resistance to federal legislation see themselves bypassed by a prospec- designed to secure the civil rights of tive manufacturer because of their rep- Negroes. At every level–in local groups, utation in the ½eld of race relations state governments, and in Congress– might have some sober second thoughts white Southerners have asserted that about the importance of maintaining federal civil rights legislation is an at- their two worlds. In a word, the eco-

Dædalus Winter 2011 41

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 The Two nomics of segregation and discrimina- While it is not possible to measure the Worlds of tion is forcing, in some quarters, a recon- influence of public opinion in the drive Race: A Historical sideration of the problem. for equality, it can hardly be denied that View It must be added that the existence of over the past ½ve or six years public opin- the two worlds of race has created forces ion has shown a marked shift toward that cause some Negroes to seek its per- vigorous support of the civil rights move- petuation. Some Negro institutions, the ment. This can be seen in the manner in product of a dual society, have vested in- which the mass-circulation magazines as terests in the perpetuation of that socie- well as influential newspapers, even in ty. And Negroes who fear the destruc- the South, have stepped up their support tion of their own institutions by desegre- of speci½c measures that have as their gation are encouraged by white racists to objective the elimination of at least the ½ght for their maintenance. Even where worst features of racism. The discussion Negroes have a desire to maintain their of the problem of race over radio and tel- institutions because of their honest com- evision and the use of these media in re- mitment to the merits of cultural plural- porting newsworthy and dramatic events ism, the desire becomes a strident strug- in the world of race undoubtedly have gle for survival in the context of racist had some impact. If such activities have forces that seek with a vengeance to de- not brought about the enactment of civil stroy such institutions. The ½ring of a rights legislation, they have doubtless few hundred Negro school teachers by stimulated the public discussion that a zealous, racially-oriented school board culminated in such legislation. forces some second thoughts on the part The models of city ordinances and of the Negroes regarding the merits of state laws and the increased political desegregation. influence of civil rights advocates stimulated new action on the federal level. The drive to destroy the two worlds Civil rights acts were passed in 1957, of race has reached a new, dramatic, 1960, and 1964–after almost complete and somewhat explosive stage in re- federal inactivity in this sphere for more cent years. The forces arrayed in behalf than three quarters of a century. Strong of maintaining these two worlds have leadership on the part of the executive been subjected to ceaseless and power- and favorable judicial interpretations ful attacks by the increasing numbers of old as well as new laws have made committed to the elimination of racism it clear that the war against the two in American life. Through techniques worlds of race now enjoys the sanction of demonstrating, picketing, sitting-in, of the law and its interpreters. In many and boycotting they have not only ha- respects this constitutes the most sig- rassed their foes but marshaled their ni½cant development in the struggle forces. Realizing that another ingredi- against racism in the present century. ent was needed, they have pressed for The reading of American history new and better laws and the active sup- over the past two centuries impresses port of government. At the local and one with the fact that ambivalence on state levels they began to secure legisla- the crucial question of equality has per- tion in the 1940s to guarantee the civil sisted almost from the beginning. If rights of all, eliminate discrimination the term “equal rights for all” has not in employment, and achieve decent always meant what it appeared to mean, public and private housing for all. the inconsistencies and the paradoxes

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00056 by guest on 26 September 2021 have become increasingly apparent. This the voices supporting inequality, while John Hope is not to say that the view that “equal no less strident, have been signi½cantly Franklin rights for some” has disappeared or has weakened by the very force of the num- even ceased to be a threat to the concept bers and elements now seeking to elimi- of real equality. It is to say, however, that nate the two worlds of race.

endnotes 1 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 15–18. 2 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of American Negroes, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (New York: Knopf, 1956), 156–157. 3 Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War (Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1919), 93–97. 4 P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816–1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 22–32. 5 John Hope Franklin, The Militant South, 1800–1861 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1956), 83–86. 6 Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830–1860 (New York: Harper, 1960), 142–145. 7 Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery; The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago: Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1961), 216–217. 8 Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 200. 9 John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction: After the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 154–158. 10 Rayford W. Logan, The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901 (New York: Dial Press, 1954), 239–274. 11 John Hope Franklin, “History of Racial Segregation in the United States,” Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science 304 (March 1956): 1–9. 12 George W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers and as Citizens, together with a Preliminary Consideration of the Unity of the Human Family, an Historical Sketch of Africa, and an Account of the Negro Governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1882), x. 13 Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 437–443. 14 Edmund David Cronon, Black Moses, The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955), 202–206. 15 Lee Nichols, Breakthrough on the Color Front (New York: Random House, 1954), 221–226. 16 To Secure These Rights, The Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Of½ce, 1947), 166. 17 John Hope Franklin, “As For Our History,” in The Southerner as American, ed. Charles G. Sellers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), 1–18.

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