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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 2. Encountering the Negro Problem - 7. Negro and White Voices
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Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 43
... are moved by a bad conscience. If they really believe there is danger from the
Negro it must be because they do not intend to give him justice. Injustice always
breeds fear.^^
James Weldon Johnson, a third Negro leader, pointed out that
. . . the main difficulty of the race question does not lie so much in the actual
condition of the blacks as it does in the mental attitude of the whites.^^
And again:
The race question involves the saving of black America’s body and white America’s
soul.^^
White people have seen the same thing. Ray Stannard Baker wrote:
It keeps coming to me that this is more a white man’s problem than it is a Negro
problem.
A Southern academician, Thomas P. Bailey, whose book on the Negro
problem has not been surpassed in scrupulous moral honesty, said:
Tlie real problem is not the negro but the white man’s attitude toward the negro.
and
Yes, we Southerners need a freedom from suspicion, fear, anxiety, doubt, unrest,
hate, contempt, disgust, and all the rest of the race-fccling-begotten brood of viper-
ous emotions.^’"*
The Negroes base their fundamental strategy for improving their status
on this insight. Moton tells us:
. . . the careful observer will discover another characteristic of Negro psychology
—
his quick perception of physical disadvantage and his equally quick adjustment to
secure the moral advantage. In all the agitation concerning the Negro’s status in
America, the moral advantage has always been on his side, and with that as a lever
he has steadily effected progress in spite of material disadvantages.^®
James Weldon Johnson puts it this way:
Black America is called upon to stand as the protagonist of tolerance, of fair play,
of justice, and of good will. Until white America heeds, we shall never let its
conscience sleep. . . . White America cannot save itself if it prevents us from being
saved.^^
And the moral situation of white Southerners is such that Johnson can
confidently explain:
Negroes in the South have a simple and direct manner of estimating the moral
worth of a white man. He Is good or bad according to his attitude toward colored
people. This test is not only a practical and logical one for Negroes to use, but the
absolute truth of its results averages pretty high. The results on the positive side are,
I think, invariably correct j
I myself have yet to know a Southern white man who is
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