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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 38. Negro Popular Theories - 11. Criticism of Negro Business Chauvinism - 12. “Back to Africa”
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Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 805
In the long run, this class can be depended upon to voice the interests of
the broad masses of Negroes, simply because its own interests are convergent
with those of the masses of Negroes. The Negro preacher, doctor, lawyer,
journalist, real estate dealer, insurance man, banker, mortician, and retail
merchant has his business founded upon Negro purchasing power. If he
serves only the upper strata, his interests are, nevertheless, indirectly tied
to the interests of the masses, as the majority of his customers live off the
common Negroes. He might sometimes exploit the masses mercilessly. But
fundamentally he must want the Negroes to get employment and good pay
or, if employment shrinks, he must want them to get public relief, because
otherwise he will fail himself.
He must want the common Negroes to have the vote, because otherwise
he will be less protected himself. He must want justice, because a prejudiced
police and court system is a danger to him too. And when he fights against
the humiliations of the Jim Crow system, which hurt him more than the
Negro masses, even this is in the long run to the advantage of all Negroes.
That there are exceptions and conflicts of interest is not denied. But neither
should it be concealed that, in the main, the Negro masses can rely upon
their upper class people to wage a fight that is in their interest.
12. ^^Back to Africa”
The idea of sending American Negroes back to Africa or to some other
place outside the United States has, in the main, been confined to the
whites. As Bunche observes: ‘^The real significance of the colonization
schemes is to be found in the conception of the Negro as an evil that had
to be done away with.”®® This is true also in the case of such humanitarians
and liberals as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln when they showed
interest in such projects.
The American Colonization Society was thus organized in 1817 to rid
America of the free Negroes who were considered a danger to slavery in
the Southern states. Its work proceeded parallel to the measures taken to
regiment the slaves, to discourage manumission, to hinder slave and free
Negroes from being taught to read, and generally to suppress the free
Negro population.® There were individual sponsors who had a different
view, but in general the Society took a pro-slavery attitude.
In spite of great efforts, the colonization scheme was a failure, owing to inade-
quate capital, the unwillingness of the free Negroes to emigrate, and the inability of
those of them who did go to Liberia to develop any kind of prosperous community in
that equatorial region—their failure, of course, being taken as conclusive evidence of
the Negro’s incapacity for self-government. The chief result of the Colonization
Sockty^S crUStide was the passage oflaws in the southern states prohibiting the education
of Negroes, whether slave or free, under penalty of fine and imprisonment.^®
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