Following the color line

My purpose in writing this book has been to make a clear statement of the exact present conditions and relationships of the Negro in American life. I am not vain enough to imagine that I have seen all the truth, nor that I have always placed the proper emphasis upon the facts that I here present. Every investigator necessarily has his personal equation or point of view. The best he can do is to set down the truth as he sees it, without bating a jot or adding a tittle, and this I have done.

I have endeavoured to see every problem, not as a Northerner, nor as a Southerner, but as an American. And I have looked at the Negro, not merely as a menial, as he is commonly regarded in the South, nor as a curiosity, as he is often seen in the North, but as a plain human being, animated with his own hopes, depressed by his own fears, meeting his own problems with failure or success.

I have accepted no statement of fact, however generally made, until I was fully persuaded from my own personal investigation that what I heard was really a fact and not a rumour.

Wherever I have ventured upon conclusions, I claim for them neither infallibility nor originality. They are offered frankly as my own latest and clearest thoughts upon the various subjects discussed. If any man can give me better evidence for the error of my conclusions than I have for the truth of them I am prepared to go with him, and gladly, as far as he can prove his way. And I have offered my conclusions, not in a spirit of controversy, nor in behalf of any party or section of the country, but in the hope that, by inspiring a broader outlook, they may lead, finally, to other conclusions more nearly approximating the truth than mine.

While these chapters were being published in the American Magazine (one chapter, that on lynching, in McClure's Magazine) I received many hundreds of letters from all parts of the country. I acknowledge them gratefully. Many of them contained friendly criticisms, suggestions, and corrections, which I have profited by in the revision of the chapters for book publication. Especially have the letters from the South, describing local conditions and expressing local points of view, been valuable to me. I wish here, also, to thank the many men and women, South and North, white and coloured, who have given me personal assistance in my inquiries.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE vii

PART I

THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTH

I. A Race Riot and After 3

II. Following the Colour Line in the South: A Superficial View of Conditions 26

III. The Southern City Negro 45

IV. In the Black Belt: The Negro Farmer 66

V. Race Relationships in the Country Districts 87

PART II

THE NEGRO IN THE NORTH

VI. Following the Colour Line in the North 109

VII. The Negroes' Struggle for Survival in Northern Cities 130

PART III

THE NEGRO IN THE NATION

VIII. The Mulatto: The Problem of Race Mixture 151

IX. Lynching, South and North 175

X. An Ostracised Race in Ferment: The Conflict of Negro Parties and Negro Leaders over Methods of Dealing with Their Own Problem 216

XI. The Negro in Politics 233

XII. The Black Man's Silent Power 252

XIII. The New Southern Statesmanship 271

XIV. What to Do About the Negro--A Few Conclusions 292

Index 311

ILLUSTRATIONS

An Old Black "Mammy" with White Child Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Fac-similes of Certain Atlanta Newspapers of September 22, 1906 7

James H. Wallace 10

R. R. Wright 10

H. O. Tanner 10

Rev. H. H. Proctor 10

Dr. W. F. Penn 10

George W. Cable 10