Racial classification

“ The Negroes in America are, as you know, a mixed race. If that is an advantage we have it; if it is a disadvantage, it is still ours, and for the simple reason that the product of every sort of racial mixture between the black man and any other race is always a Negro and never a white man, Indian, or any other sort of man. ”

“ Just as there are peoples belonging to the White, Caucasian or Eurafrican race who are almost black, so there are men of a light brown or yellow color who belong to the Black, Ethiopian or Austafrican race. Racial divisions are based not on any one character but on many taken together. But men differ not merely physically. ”

“ What are the racial endowments of these risen negroes whom we are urged by lofty example to invite into our drawing-rooms upon terms of broadest equality—for upon other terms would be a mockery—as eligible associates, companions, suitors, husbands for our sisters and daughters?—for a sensible father or brother does not admit white men to his home on any other basis. Of what essential racial elements and sources is the negro, risen and unrisen alike? ”

“ But despite these differences the Blacks may still be regarded as ethnically similar and grouped together under one racial category; for, if we confine ourselves to general characteristics, the typical Negro can readily be distinguished from his human fellows by his black skin; his short curly hair, which is flat in cross section ”

“ For the similarity of suffering has produced in all lands where whites rule colored races a certain similarity of sentiment, viz.: a racial revulsion of racial feeling. The peoples of those lands begin to feel and realize that they are so subjected because they are members of races condemned as “inferior” by their Caucasian overlords. The fact presented to their minds is one of race, and in terms of race do they react to it. Put the case to any Negro by way of test and the answer will make this clear. ”

“ Numerous racial studies have been made on a large scale, comparing these capacities, for example, in different degrees of race mixture—as in the transition from pure blacks through mulattoes to whites in a large Negro community, or the comparison of racial groups in Hawaii, the school children in different European countries, Indians with whites, and distinctive races and primitive peoples in different parts of the world. ”

“ The colour of the human skin cannot, then, be regarded as an entirely trustworthy racial test, even blackness not being an exclusively negro characteristic. It serves, however, to divide Man into three fundamental types corresponding to the three great ethnic groups, viz. ”

“ Probably one-third of the Negroes of the United States have distinct traces of white blood. This blending of the races has led to interesting human types, but racial prejudice has hitherto prevented any scientific study of the matter. ”

“ For this is all that our intellects can do in the case of a racial problem—to help us to understand. The actual work of adjustment must be fought out or worked out; becomes, that is to say, a struggle to be settled by the contending races with forces more complex than the purely intellectual ones of argument and proof. Let us first consider, then, the conditions under which the relations between the black and white races were established in America. ”

“ It has been repeatedly charged that we have no racial history. If we are challenged with respect to certain events we admit the imputation by our silence. A different course would correct much error. The Journal of Negro History for January [Pg 468] has rendered a very great service by publishing the names and number of Negroes who have been members of their respective State Legislatures since the Civil War reconstruction. ”

“ Within the area controlled by the United States are now to be found representatives of each of the grand divisions, or primary racial groups, and it would be a fascinating study to turn from the more practical topics before us and follow the races of man in their dispersion over the globe and their final gathering together again under the republic of America. First is the Aryan, or Indo-Germanic race, which, wherever it originated, sent its Sanskrit conquerors to the South to plant themselves upon a black race related to the Africans and the Australians. ”

“ By State laws and the decision of the Supreme Court they belong to the negro or the American-African race. By the law of nature they belong, either to the Anglo-American race, or are a race within themselves. It is no longer a doubtful question; their constant increase in numbers shows that they are engenesic, and capable of maintaining within themselves a race of their own. Can such a people as this mixed race, imbued with the instincts, capabilities, and ambitions common to their white blood, be forever thrust back upon the negro race? ”

“ And however they may all appear to herd together and look at most matters not from an individual and rational, but from a racial standpoint, a careful study will disclose certain distinctions which have the mark of tribal distinctions, while others will show the elements of class distinctions. ”

“ The Racial Heredity of the Negro.—It is generally agreed by anthropologists and biologists that mankind constitutes but a single species, developed from a single pre-human anthropoid stock. The various races of mankind have had, therefore, a common origin, but having developed in different geographical areas they each present certain peculiar racial traits adapting each to the environment in which it was developed. Now, the negro race is that part of mankind which was developed in the tropics. ”

“ What to do with this class is a problem that perplexes the better element of Negroes, more, possibly, than it does the whites; since their shortcomings are generally credited to the whole Negro race, which is wrong as a fact and unjust in theory.
“This vicious element in the race is a constant subject of discussion in Negro churches and in private conversation. It is a mistake to say that crime is not condemned by the better class of Negroes. ”

“ The statistics of the negro race in the slave-holding States of this nation are of the most interesting kind. Their increase is prodigious. We cannot go into this matter now, farther than to say that the next census will probably show that the number of negroes and mulattoes in the United States is more than four millions. ”

“ If we consider the problem from an ethnological standpoint, we shall have four races in the United States—the white, negro, Indian, and Chinese. But these races do not mingle together. The Indian is dying out, and, although the negroes mingled in the days of slavery, the offspring carried the stigma of the race. ”

“ Two hundred years ago there were two distinct and separate streams of human life running through this country. They stood at opposite extremes of ethnological classification: all black on the one side, all white on the other. Now, between these two extremes, an intermediate race has arisen, which is neither white nor black, neither Caucasian nor Ethiopian, and this intermediate race is constantly increasing. ”

“ A few men of negro extraction, with white blood in their veins, not any more negro than white man, consequently not negroes in the true sense of the word, are sent from the negro colleges of the south to lecture northern congregations upon the needs of their race ”

“ Pouring over the venerable mountain terraces, an abundant stream from an abundant and unknown source, into the malarial districts, the genuine African has gradually degenerated into the typical Negro. ”

“ At present, the negro's ideals are too low for him to visualize the evils involved in race mixture. He needs to be lifted in his own estimation and learn that a race cannot be estimated by other races—by anything else but their own ideals. ”

“ In fact it is not so, for every division of mankind presents in every character wide deviations from a standard. Thus the Negro race, well marked as it may seem at the first glance, proves on closer examination to include several shades of complexion and features, in some districts varying far from the accepted Negro type ; while the examination of a series of native American tribes shows that, notwithstanding their asserted uniformity of type, they differ in stature, colour, features, and proportions of skull. ”

“ The Negro race has already doubled three times in the United States since the beginning of the last century, and, unless conditions change, it is possible that before the end of the century there may be between sixty and eighty millions of Negroes in this country; a situation which will tax all, and more than all, of the wisdom and constancy of the white race. ”

“ I would suggest "A School History of the Negro Race" to be placed in our public schools as a text book. The general tone of all the histories taught in our public schools points to the inferiority of the negro and the superiority of the white. It must be indeed a stimulus to any people to be able to refer to their ancestry as distinguished in deeds of valor, and particularly so to the colored people. ”

“ There are those among the white race and those among the black race who assert, with a good deal of earnestness, that there is no difference between the white man and the black man in this country. This sounds very pleasant and tickles the fancy; but, when the test of hard, cold logic is applied to it, it must be acknowledged that there is a difference,—not an inherent one, not a racial one, but a difference [Pg 32] growing out of unequal opportunities in the past. ”

“ It has been my custom to write and speak of the members of my race as Negroes, and when using the term ‘Negro’ as a race designation to employ the capital ‘N.’ To the majority of the people among whom we live I believe this is customary and what is termed in the rhetorics ‘good usage.’... Rightly or wrongly, all classes have called us Negroes. ”

“ If, as stated, the ten millions of black people in the United States have excelled all the other groups of their race-type in moral and Christian growth, let us trace the cause, and in doing so we may get some light and information that will be of value in dealing with the Negro race in America and elsewhere, and in elevating and Christianizing other races. ”

“ Taking the country over, the Whites who have married Indians have not been of a high class. But the total number of Indians in the United States is so small that their future is probably that of being absorbed in the White race through miscegenation, unless it be for a few tribes cultivating a racial purity of their own and, with favorable economic conditions, perpetuating themselves for a long time to come. ”

“ With 30 per cent of the Negro population illiterate, with a criminal record double that of any of the emigrant classes above outlined, with the News Distributing Bureau against it, with no political or social standing—pariahs in the land—with Northern capital endorsing serfdom, with their inability to lose their race identity, on account of their color—we realize how heavy the odds were against the Negro race at that time. ”

“ However much the prejudice of the law and the courts may give an enforced unity to the negro race and the "colored whites," there is no ignoring the physical fact that a person who is seven eighths white, or who is but one thirty-second part colored, is not black. Of the six millions of blacks, "black" according to the United States census and the decisions of the courts, perhaps nearly two millions are of a mixed color, more white than black. ”

“ Do the characteristics which we have given of the white race, belong equally, to all three of the sons of Noah—Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their descendants? If they do, then the black race, belong to, and have since the flood at least, belonged to another and totally different race of men. ”

“ Phillis Wheatley has been mentioned already. So, in the midst of darkness and oppression, the Negro race in America, without the use of the Christian church, schoolhouse, or printing-press, produced a poetess, an astronomer, a mathematician, and a physician, who, had they been white, would have received monuments and grateful memorials at the hands of their countrymen. But even their color cannot rob them of the immortality their genius earned. ”

“ And, when I say Negroes, it is to avoid the "people of color" circumlocution, because it is no longer easy to find a pure black. The colored population, especially those who are free, are mixed in the first, second, third and fourth degree. ”

“ And while the great body of the Negro races have been located geographically in Africa, they have been, in no small sense, a cosmopolitan people. Their wanderings may be traced from the rising to the setting sun. ”

“ As a matter of fact we cannot take such extreme and largely fanciful stock as typifying that which we may fairly call the Negro race. In the case of no other race is so narrow a definition attempted. A "white" man may be of any color, size, or facial conformation and have endless variety of cranial measurement and physical characteristics. A "yellow" man is perhaps an even vaguer conception. ”

“ To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and or red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. ”

“ Educational qualifications easily permit race distinctions in several ways. In the first place, registration officers may give a difficult passage of the Constitution to a Negro, and a very easy passage to a white person, or vice versa. ”

“ These circumstances have caused one of the most intricate problems, the race problem. They have placed the American Negro in a category by himself. They have brought about the peculiar situation of a nation within a nation.
The teaching of Negro history would contribute much to the solution of this complicated race problem. The solution of any problem depends upon an adequate understanding [Pg 124] of it. The most illuminating approach to the race problem is the historical approach. The white man of this country must be supplied with the real facts pertaining to the Negro. ”