Race Equality.| The Bishop laid down a good many principles—among them that “the negro is capable of development to a point whose limit he (the speaker) had not discovered,” but that “the vast majority are still children intellectually, and little short of savages morally.” The purport of his address was the assertion that negro education should not be left entirely or mainly to negro teachers. The ideal school would be one under the supervision of a white clergyman, where carefully selected portions of Scripture should be necessary parts of the curriculum, and “where the race should be taught that race integrity is obedience to God’s own creation and appointment, and that race intercourse, kindly and cordial, is not race equality.” “Indeed,” the Bishop proceeded, “the very expression ‘race equality’ is an anachronism belonging to the mediæval period of reconstruction history [that is, roughly, the period between 1866 and 1876], which has long gone to its account.” These remarks were warmly received by the audience, and greatly applauded by the leading 44Southern papers. But one understands why Mr. Booker T. Washington—and, still more, why Professor W. E. B. Du Bois, of Atlanta University—were not bidden to the conference. Of these two negro leaders I shall try to give a sketch in my next paper. |A Bishop on Race Equality.| | | 44 45 VI TWO LEADERS “People are always laying stress on the white blood in me,” said Mr. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, “and attributing to that anything I do that is worth doing. But they never speak of the white blood in Mr. Booker Washington, who, as a matter of fact, has a larger share than I have.” “How do you make that out?” I asked; and Mr. Du Bois gave me the story of his ancestry. The story went back two hundred years, for he comes of a New England stock, and has had no slave ancestors (I take it) for many generations. I could not follow his proof that more of Africa flows in his veins than in Mr. Booker Washington’s; nor does it greatly matter; for if it be so
Prev.
Back
Top