The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1903-08-24
NEGROES SHOULD REALIZE
IDEALS or THEIR OWN RAGE

The black belt is a far better home for
these men of undetermined characters
than the glare ana glitter of Chicago or
Boston the southern white man with his
social eXclusiveness" is a far better
friend to this people than the inmates Of
a northern slum- / would publish it where
the negro might run and read that there
is more character. more life, more God
IN the loWiest cabin home of a southern
| plantation than in any Stun Of America.
No intelligent black man ever lifts a
voice against social separation. The white
man has not drawn the line; God and ma
ture have drawn it. If the southern
| states pass laws against inter-marriage
they only write in books what is indelibly
traced in blood.
Ii is not social oneness that we need;
it is not social oneness that We want, but
it is the best and highest society attain
able among ourselves.
Teach the negro boy that to realize the
ideals Of his own race is for him the
highest accomplishment; that it is a
crime against God and man to degrade the
ideal Of his race by mixing blood with
another; that the man who IS ashamed
OF the essential characteristics of mis- kind
must be very odd animal; that even the
oaDoon and the gorilla have a sym
pathy tor their kind" Teach him that
miscegenation as carried on in Boston Is
so far from being "a noble sense of equal
lty as to be an open scandal: that no
man, however high he may climb in ed
ucation ana culture, has the right to sep
arate himself from his race; that it is
so much the more his duty to elevate his
people. Teach him that the southern
white man does not separate himself So
claly from the negro out of hatred Teach
him that to be socially separate is Mt to
be inferior; that character is the only
measure of equality
AS to politics. 1t would have been less
foolish to enfranchise an ignorant race,
had that race been allowed to affiliate it's
poHtleal interests with those of the in
telHsent people of the section in which
it lived. The southern white man could
have given the black a political education
and would have had greater patience in
bearing the weaknesses of the negro as a
political factor. But though the negro
had his industrial, commercial and edu-
cational interests in the SOUTH he had
his political sympathies in Massachusetts.
The white man al the dictation of instinct
(soothy supported by the prejudice OF
caste) had drawn the reasonable and nat
ura line Of social separation: the black
man at the dictation of the carpet bag
ger, drew the unreasonable and artificial
line of political separation. Consequently
the negro was doomed TO be to the south
a political body of DEATH, until the same
unconquer&blo manhood which caused Lee
and Davis to defy the Stars and Stripes
under whose folds they had fought. is now
causing the sons Of the south to bid de-
hance to the constitution which their
fathers helped to frame
Judging the spirit by the letter, in many
OF the new suffrage acts the disfran-
chlsement is an opportunity for the negro:
an opportunity to acquire through merit
what had been given him for nothing: an
opportunity to deserve what had once fall
en- to him through the accident of a
russ between the north and south: an
opportunity to set more property intelli-
Sence and character: an opportunity to
see the advantage of an apparent disad-
vantage; an opportunity to overcome II
congress should pass a Jaw enfranchising
all men regardless of Intelligence ana
character, it would not better the condi-
ton OF the negro race; no law in the uni
verse can help the negro save a law that
VIII better the negro's character. and
that law is the Jaw of seIf-deveopment.