The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1890-07-12
PROF. J. G. PRICE,
President Of Livingston College, Sails
bury, North Carolina,
Winds up the National Educational Asso-
citation With Mastery Address on
Education and the Race
Problem.

Education and the Race
Problem.
The real question implied in this subject, as l
understand It, is, will education solve the race
proper that we have some conception Of what
the problem is, in order that we may select the
best means for its solution; FORT is evident that
all remedies, whether for the removal OF dsor-
ders of the body, or III the social state-whether
in physianthropy or sociology be IN pro-
portion to their affected parts or abnormal
It is further observable that the length OF
time q malady is allowed to grow, or an evil
baneful results, has much to do with the nature
of the forces that will neutralize the growth or
destroy the evil 1t is not infrsquently the case
that the ags o. the complaint or an undesirable
state Ot affairs has to determine, to very
large degree, the means OF resistance, or the
remedies which will effect the cure More is true
AS it is admitted that time is a large element
IN the stubbornness OF a condition of evil. so is
IT also true that time, coupled with the highest
| wisdom OF administration, becomes an indis-
pensable element in producing the healthier and
| more desirable conditions. It is further patent
! to every thoughtful mind that there are com
pick irregularities i'll the human system, as well
as in the body polite, that single remedy or
manner OF procedure regulate. In such
cases, we have to proceed step by step, and
take only one phase Of the complaint at a time:
and the remedies that are efficient in one stage
are totally inadequate to the other. Each stage
has its peculiar prescription-some requiring
| mllder. and others severer antidotes; and when
ever these antidotes are used substitutionally,
we are thWarted in our desired end and our pur-
poses often miscarry.
The negro problem is different from the Indian
| or Chinese question. III the negro we find a COM
| mendable absence of all the stubborn and dis
cordant characteristics which are peculiar to the
problem, together with it's solution is the all
absorbing topic Of the country, and the negro.
IN the opinion of some, is the only destructive
! element accountable pOe nhap 0f rhs
body polite of America.
The race problem, as now understood, had it's
| beginning in 1920, when the negroes were forced
to accept this country as their home So in one
form or another, the negro question has been
before the country for two hundred and seventy
! years. and this question, with its constant and
| incident dangers, has been a source Of anxiety
ana vexatlon and rock OF offense during all of
| these years.
lnhere III the negro as a race, it is but natural
| that we should seek to change, not his color, but
| his character under reasonable and fair en-
| engagements so to do; and if they are the re-
suits Of prec onceived opinions, even conscel-
| tlous convictions, produced by unfavorable and
misleading environments, these opinions and con-
| Vlctions must change, all other things being
| equal with change of the environments.
The peculiar institution continued to grow,
with all its attendant evils. until it threatened
the verv life OF the republic; so much so, until it
was declared by one Of the wisest men the
country ever produced that the nation could not
| live half free and half slave. Every means pos
sible was called into requisition to solve this
phase OF the negro question in America, and it
was only solved permanently and effectively by
| the bloody arbtrament OF arms. Slavery is no
more, and can never exist again in this country,
simply because it was settled right. But this
does not argue that every phase OF this question
must be settled in the same manner or by the
| same means.
The race problem OF to-day is the last I'M
settled phase of the slave question, which vexed
| the country for more than two centuries. 1t is
but g resultant of this great villainy; and negro
| freedom will never be complete, and the republic
never free from the peril it produced, until the
last vestige OF that gigantic evil shall forever dis
| appear from the land
| The solution of the race problem means the
| satisfactory and harmonious adjustment of the
racial relation in the South and in the country
| as we'll, on the principles of humanity
and justice. In other words, it is the con
| cesslon to the negro OF all the inaenable rights
| That belong to him as a man and as a men,
Der of that family OF which God is the common
father, and the granting to him all the civil i'm
every other citizen by the authority and power
| OF the constitution of the American government.
TO do this solves the problem. not to do it is
| to leave it unsOlved; and to leave it unsoved in
| lace OF the growing numbers and increasing in
telligence of the negro is to intensity the bitter
ness ! between the races, and to involve both
into conflict more destructive and widespread
than the country has hitherto witnessed.
| SLAVERY AT THE BOTTOM OF
| Slavery, as a SYSTEM degraded the negro to
the level OF the brute, because it denied him tie
untrammeled exercise of all the instincts of
higher and better manhood. 1t recognized no
|
sacred and inviOlable relation between husband
and wife, sundered at will Or caprice the tender
est ties that the human heart is capable OF
forming or the human mind is able to conceive.
! Such a system had the support of the highest
tribunal of men, and even the representatives
OF the church OF God came to its rescue and de-
tense with all the weight OF it's divine authority
and power. From the maternal knee, the table,
the family altar, the forum and the pulpit was
the the lesson taught that the person Of sable
and therefore an inferior race, not en-.
| titled to a place in the brotherhood OF
men, men. This impression, made on chidhoods
strengthened with the power of increasing years.
10 deepen the blot and intensity the damning
heresy, the law of the land wrote him down a
chattel that is, cattle. and forbade the training
OF the mind and the culture of the heart by
! making learning Oh his part ami teaching on the
part Of others crime. 1t is not surprising,
! then, that men brought up in the face of such a
| system for $50 years should be skeptical as to
| the real manhood of the negro and hesitate to
| give him place in the one blood family.
The feeling against the negro, which helps to
| make our race problem, is called prejudice, and
| it is not without some grounds. For two hun
dred and fifty years the white man OF the South
! saw only the animal or mechanical side of the
| negro. Wherever he looked, there was degrada-
| ton, ignorance, Observation-Disclosures there,
| and nothing more, as he thought The man was
overshadowed and concealed by debasing appe-
! titles and destructive and avarcious passions of
| the auimal; therefore, the race problem of to-
day is not an anomaly it is the natural and
|
l am no pessimist. do not believe we are APP
preaching a race war in the South. entertain
an impression, which is rapidly deepening into
convictlon, that the problem can and will be
solved peaceably; but this can only be done by
| changing the character of the environment
| which has produced it: 1t is unfavorable
condition that has given the country race
problem. and it will never be solved until we put
| at work the forces that will give us a changed
removal OF the environment, as is suggested By
| colonization, deportation or amalgamation;
but it does mean transformation of the same
environment.
THE REAL ELEMENT OF POWER
What Is the great element of power i'll the race
problem? 1t is opposition to the claims of
manhood and constitutional rights as made by
| the negro or his friends, because it is thought
| that he is not i'll all things aman like other
men. 1t is all avowed determination to resist
the full exercise of his naenable and God-g given
rights. 1t is a premeditated purpose not to
give him Justice. In some portions of the coun-
| try this spirit is more violent than in others;
| but it manifests itself, in one form or another,
the land over. Sometimes it denies the man of
the negro race the exercise of his elective fran
chise, refuses to accord him first-class accom-
! modations in public highways of travel, on land
| Or sea- when he pays for the same; denies him,
however competent and qualified, an opportu-
nifty to earn all honest living, simply because he
| ize Southern educational association, because
it is said that the National Educational associa-
ton has some ways that do not at all accord with
the condition of Southern society, or for obvious
| reasons: and. as one has said, to be out o:
smelling distance of the sable brother When it
is asked, why this opposition, this determine
| ton and this premeditated purpose against the
human and constitutional rights of man and
a citizen? we are told directly and indirectly,
| that while there are rare and commendabe ex-
ceptions the race, such, is ignorant, poverty
| stricken and degraded Now, if ignorance, pow
erty and moral DEGRADATION are the grounds of
objection against the negro it is not difficult to
discover that the knotty elements of the race
problem are the intellectual. moral and mate
rial conditions OF the negro race. It is reason
able, therefore, to suppose that if we can fin
the means that will change these cond1 tions we
have found a key to the problem and gone q