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1352^ An American Dilemma
from each group is involved, this activity can ordinarily be observed to take the form
of white people coming to the Negroes—^attending their church meetings, concerts,
lecture programs, or arranging an interracial conference of leaders or students in a
Negro college. Negroes are not supposed to take the initiative. James Weldon Johnson
observes:
‘‘There, interracial intercourse, when it does take place, is more often than not a one-
sided arrangement. In such instances, the whites come into our midst, but, no matter
how sincerely they desire the closer relationship, they fear to offend public sentiment by
having us go into their midst. Few there are who dare defy that sentiment. The situa-
tion of those who genuinely wish to defy it and dare not is near to pathetic. The culti-
vation of social and intellectual intercourse between members of the two races in the
South cannot progress very far until the whites are as free to act as we are.” {Negro
Americans^ What Now? [1934], p. 83.)
The greater freedom of the Negro of which Johnson speaks is the freedom to receive
white people without being ostracized by his own group.
This sudden change of attitude has, as is well known, its exact counterpart on the
white side. It has been repeatedly pointed out by Negro authors that a dark-looking man
who speaks Spanish, French, or some other foreign language and appears as a South
American (or Italian, or Indian) will be excepted from the ordinary Jim Crow practices
against American Negroes. This story from Booker T. Washington’s Uf from Slavery
may illustrate the point:
“I happened to find myself in a town in which so much excitement and indignation
were being expressed that it seemed likely for a time that there would be a lynching.
The occasion of the trouble was that a dark-skinned man had stopped at the local hotel.
Investigation, however, developed the fact that this individual was a citizen of Morocco,
and that while travelling in this country he spoke the English language. As soon as it was
learned that he was not an American Negro, all the signs of indignation disappeared. The
man, who was the innocent cause of the excitement, though, found it prudent after
that not to speak English.” ([1929; first edition, 1900] p. 103.)
® Booker T. Washington tells us about his early childhood:
“. . . the plantation upon which I was born, in Franklin County, Va., had, as I
remember, only six slaves. My master and his sons all worked together side by side with
his slaves. In this way we all grew up together, very much like members of one big
family. There was no overseer, and we got to know our master and he to know us.”
{The Story of the Negro [1909], Vol. i, p. 149.)
® 18 Stat. L. 335, Chap. 114.
Gilbert T. Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (1910), p. 10
;
Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), p. 28.
Stephenson, of, cit,^ p. ii.
lbid,y pp. 1
15 ff.j Mangum, of, eit,, p. 29.
Stephenson, of, cit,, pp. 171 ff.
^^See W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), especially pp. 674 ff.
^®For an up-to-date account of the Jim Crow legislation, sec Mangum, of, cit,^
especially pp. 181-222.
“The two races have not yet made new mores. Vain attempts have been made to
control the new order by legislation. The only result is the proof that legislation cannot
make mores.” (William Graham Sumner, Folkways [1906], p, 77.)
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