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Page 11
But his importance as a factor in securing a National prosperity is much
enhanced when we note his remarkable capacity for improvement. Grant
that the great bulk of these eight millions are still in a pitiable
condition, poor, ignorant, sometimes vicious, the victims often of
barbaric superstitions, living often in hovels rather than houses,
without thrift or cleanliness, in crying need of kindly hands to help
uplift them to a better life. Yet, granting all this physical and moral
destitution among them, it must be said that history gives no record of
a race, stripped and stranded so completely as these freedmen were in
1865, that has shown such marvelous progress in a quarter of a century.
They have responded wonderfully to every effort made to elevate them,
and have shown in themselves such versatility and vigor of intellect as
give high promise for their future.
Their own advancement in material prosperity is an indication of this.
Never was there a people left in worse plight than they were at the
close of the war. In a country ravaged and denuded by a long and
destructive conflict, themselves penniless, with none of the knowledge
and training that would fit them for competition with shrewder and abler
classes, there seemed small hope of their getting more than a bare
livelihood. But ambition, mother wit, and a rare aptitude for learning
have helped them on till the gains they have made for themselves are
quite astonishing. Not long ago the New York _Independent_ made
extensive inquiries through the Southern States with regard to this
matter, and the replies showed that the disposition to accumulate
property was very strong among the colored people, and that industry and
economy and forecast for this purpose were virtues rapidly developing
among them. A large proportion of them are owners of their own homes,
the proportions differing widely in different localities, ranging from
10 per cent. in North Carolina, to 20 per cent. in Virginia, 50 and 60
per cent. in some parts of Georgia, and 75 per cent. in some parts of
Florida. A writer from Montgomery, Ala., even claimed 90 per cent. of
home-owners among his acquaintances.
Many, also, are coming into the ownership of land. Mr. Morris stated
four years ago that colored people owned 680,000 acres of land in
Georgia, and 5,000,000 acres in the whole South. Dr. Haygood estimates
that they own about $10,000,000 worth of taxable property in Georgia,
and it is stated that "within twenty-five years the colored people of
sixteen Southern States have accumulated real and personal property
estimated at more than $200,000,000." This, certainly, is a most
remarkable showing for a people of whom it was freely prophesied that
they would never be more than an indolent race of beggars. It shows that
if they can only be given "a white man's chance" they will be as thrifty
and prosperous as their Caucasian brothers, and that the wealth which
this rapidly increasing race will produce in the next half century will
much of it be their own property. Poverty is no more an essential
characteristic of the African than of the white American, and it looks
as though the Negro was likely to win his fair share of our prosperity
in the years to come.
The capacity for improvement is also indicated by the large variety of
occupations which the Negro is successfully pursuing. It has been
imagined by some that the work he could do is exceedingly limited in its
range, and that he must needs be a barber, a waiter, or a small farmer.
But at the New Orleans Exposition not long ago, an entire gallery across
one end of the building was assigned to the colored people, and they
more than filled it with an astonishing array of their products in all
sorts of work. There were exhibits of mechanical, agricultural and
artistic skill; specimens of millinery, tailoring, painting,
photography, sculpture; many useful inventions; models of engines,
steamboats, rail-cars; specimens of all kinds of tools, pianos, organs,
pottery, tinware, and so on. It was made manifest that the Negro can
succeed in any trade or occupation that the white man follows. They are
diversifying their labor more and more. They are physicians, lawyers,
master-mechanics, bridge-builders. They edit, own and manage a hundred
newspapers.
The avidity with which they receive education, and profit by it, is
another indication of their capacity for advancement. True, there is
still an appalling illiteracy among them, some 70 per cent. of them in
the South being unable to write. But we must remember that hardly a
quarter of a century ago it was a crime to teach one of them to read;
they were sedulously kept in compulsory ignorance, and since the ban was
removed, poverty, lack of schools and teachers, and other causes have
prevented their advancement as rapidly as we may expect in future. But
much has been done for them in this particular. Dr. Haygood estimates
that about $50,000,000 has been spent for the education of the Negro
since the war, nearly half of which has come from the benevolence of the
North. Through the American Missionary Association alone some
$10,000,000 has gone into the school and church work for the Negro, both
alike educational. There are some 200 schools carried on in the South by
different benevolent organizations, having over 28,000 colored youth in
them. Of these, ninety are colleges or high schools, and furnish
teachers and educated leaders for this race. Three-quarters of a million
dollars a year flows southward from Northern generosity to this work.
And besides this, is the work being done by the South itself for the
colored youth in its public schools. A million Negroes are in the 15,000
colored schools of the South to-day, being taught by 15,000 teachers of
their own color, the best of whom have been educated in these schools
nurtured by Northern benevolence. And what is the result? The illiteracy
in this race diminished 10 per cent. between 1870 and 1880, showing the
eagerness of the people for improvement. It is estimated that two
millions of the blacks can now read the Bible for themselves. And the
universities for higher education find the Negro as susceptible to the
best culture, as capable of receiving thorough discipline and of being
highly educated as the white boys and girls in our Northern colleges.
The time is not far distant when colored college graduates, instead of
being reckoned by hundreds as now, will be numbered by thousands, and
when we shall see some Mark Hopkins in ebony.
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