Extract from an article originally published in the fall, 1939, North Georgia Review, Clayton, Georgia, and later reprinted in numerous Southern newspapers.
I am disturbed by the fact that so few people are seriously troubled by the Negro Problem. I refer to it as the Negro Problem, but of course it is not a problem that involves or concerns only the Negro. it is, I feel, a section of the American Problem which involves all of us, white and black, old-stock white folk and people of recent-immigrant stocks. In fact, I think it is one of the things in our country's life that ought to engage our national intelligence most seriously and continously. The ultimate test of the American civilization probably will come with the success or failure of efforts to solve the Negro question. I may be wrong about what I have just said, but I throw out the observation for what it may be worth as stimulus to people from whom I hope to hear.
My sympathy for the Negro, both in the South and in the North, is rather deep, but I think it is not sentimental and personal. It is objective. But greater than this sympathy for the Negro is my concern, in connection with it, for America as a whole, for white and black America; in fact, for white almost more than the black. I shall explain this in a moment.
I have not written much about the South, but I have spent a good deal of time below the Mason-Dixon Line, looking at various conditions, including the Negro Problem, to refer to it again by that imperfect title; and my opinion is that it is as bad for the whites as it is for the Negroes, or much worse for the whites than it is for the Negroes.
Few will disagree with me if I say that the Negro is generally considered inferior to the white man, and that his social-economic-political position, both in the South and in the North, but especially in the South, is predicated on that belief. If pressed for an expression of my own view on this point, I might be disposed to grant that a great many Negroes are inferior in certain respects to some white; then I would hasten to add, "But what part of that inferiority is actual and how much of it is due to the white-imposed-white-approved situation in which the Negro finds himself?" I do not believe that, let me say, the Negro contralto, Marian Anderson; the Negro scientist, Dr. Carver; the Negro ecvonomist, Dr. Abram Harris, and the Negro actor, Rex Ingram, whom I happen to know personally, are inferior as all-around human beings to any white person. Dr. Carver probably is the most important man in the South; yet I know whites in the South (and in the North) who hold him to be an inferior being, not fit to be received as a social equal in their homes or sit with them at the same table or wait for a train in the same waiting-room.
Not that I am critical of the whites for this attitude. I understand it. Or, at least, I think I do. I know that it is not a deliberate individual attitude. Nor is it merely a deliberate official policy. It is an organic thing, which goes deep, deep, into the white human make-up. But what does it all mean to America's future? How long can we afford it? This white attitude toward the Negro, emphasized every once in a while by rope and fagot, undoubtedly helps to keep the Negro actually inferior, if he actually is inferior; it certainly helps to make him inferior if he is not actually so already. But I feel, too, that it is helping to degrade the whites who have this attitude. For one thing, this attitude is shot through with fear, and fear, expecially fear that goes through generations, has a corrosive, ruinous effect on character and personality. And there is another thing: the human organism, the human spirit, mind, ability, etc., develop and grow best amid excellent or superior persons who are willing to admit anyone to equality with them if he proves himself. In such an atmosphere the individual must strive to improve himself; and striving, he grows and develops; he is a positive man or woman, involved in a positive, creative, re-creative process. In the South, it seems to me, where a vast section of the population is popularly, collectively, officially branded inferior, the process has had the tendency to be just the opposite. To feel superior, all that a white person has to do is look in the mirror: he is white--ergo superior: there is no need for him to excel or improve himself. The effect of this is evil. I believe it was a factor in the creation of the vast "pore white trash: element. If this process continues, it is apt to be disastrous both for Negroes and whites - for the south - for America. This, as I say, is my belief: am I right or wrong? Tell me.
I find that many southerners insist that the Negro Question is a southern problem, a concern of the South alone; and they resent it if a non-Southerner interests himself in it. If you who read this happen to be one of these Southerners, I should like to hear from you and learn why you think I, or any non-Southerner, should respect your position. In this connection, I wish you would consider what I say in the paragraph immediately preceding this one; and, also, that we have large Negro populations in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and other cities. Can the Negro question in the North be dealt with apart from the Negro question in the South? Can you isolate the so-called Negro Problem from the entire racial-cultural problem in America? Isn't it part of the same vast complexity which involves us all and is a matter of general prejudice and intolerance, of ignorance and fear? If so, how to get at the situation?
As I say, I know that the Negro Problem is something organic and frightfully difficult; I don't blame anyone very drastically for any phase of it. I do think, however, that, in view of the all-around seriousness of the problem, all of us, white and black, but perhaps especially the white South, are exerting our individual and collective intelligence far too little to get at the beginning of some solution. I may not be aware of efforts to solve or touch the problem; I should like to hear of them.
I should like to hear from you who read this on any phase of the problem, including those which I do not even suggest in the above remarks and questions. I should like to hear from both whites and Negroes.
Louis Adamic
Milford, New Jersey (1939)
In Reply To The Broadside
A Negro Teacher
I am a Negro teacher in North Carolina.
American democracy is only enjoyed by certain groups. The Negro teacher is expected to teach American democracy (to segregated negroes) just as the white teacher does. But this idealism does not exist. The student soon discovers the fallacy of this lesson. Doors of opportunity are closed in his face. He is crushed in more ways than one. He cannot even join the Army or the Navy and get ready to be able to die for his country.
In a number of places in the South when a Negro is frank enough to speak out he is styled as a radical. There are any number of problems that I would like to relate but for fear this will be published I will refrain from it now.
One question haunts my mind: Can the people of the United States afford to criticize Germany for crushing the Jews when people in America will hang Negroes up trees and cut off parts of their bodies for souvenirs? . . .
The Almighty God is not pleased. I pray that He will open the hearts of Americans so that the Negro will have the opportunity to stand in any hall in this country and sing his heart out to the full capacity of his talent - that he will be given the chance to stand up and be a man and express to the world the God-given instincts and genius that are within him.
April, 1940
