The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1909-09-10
STORY OF THE NEGRO.

Outlook OF September 4th gives an
interesting account of the African in
his native land in the first of a series
OF six articles on The Story of the
Negro" He touches on the American
Negro sufficiently to suggest that in
the articles TO follow facts will be pro-
Guced that will enlighten the world
On the real condition of the Negroes
in the United States.
Mr.. Washington has great faith in
the Negro. He says the following
about the mechanical skill of the ma
lives of West Africa:
The blacksmith seems to occupy a
very important place in the social life
of Africa. Travellers have found
these smiths at work in the most re-
mote and inaccessible parts of the con-
tinent, where they may be seen col
Letting the native iron and copper
ores, smelling and reducing them, and
then working them in their primitive
iorges into hoes, knives, spear and
arrow heads, battleaxes, woodwork
ing tools, rings and hatchets.
Throughout West Africa, wherever
the European has not established his
trading factory, the native market is
an institution which is a constant
source of surprise to travellers. These
markets are the native clearinghouse
for the produce of the soil and the
fabricated articles of the land They
are generally the center of the trading
operations of a district ranging from
ten to thirty miles. Here will be seen
vegetables and fruit, poultry, eggs,
live pigs, goats, salt Of their manufac-
ture, pottery of their own make, strips
Of cloth, grass-woven mats, baskets,
and specimens of embroidery and art
work, besides numberless other arti-
cles of various sorts and kinds which
are essential to African comfort and
well-being. From the small group Of
native merchants who travel with
their wares within radius of thirty
OF fifty miles, to the large caravans of
the Hausa traders who cross the Des-
ert of Sahara, and at times reach the
eastern and western confines of the
continent, everywhere in Africa the
black man is trader.
In discussing the conditions in the |
South he says:
1t is just as true in America as it |
is in Africa that those who know the
Negro intimately and best have been,
rs a rule, kindest and most hopeful
in their judgments of him. This may
seem strange to those who get their
notion Of. the Southern white mans
opinion Of the Negro from what they
see in the press and hear from the
platform, during the heat of a politi
cal campaign, or from the utteranceS
Of men who, for one reason or an
other, have allowed themselves to be.
.ome embittered. Southern opinion
Of the Negro, particularly as it finds
expression in the press and on the
platform, is largely controversial. It
has been influenced by the fact that |
for nearly hundred years the Negro |
has been the football in a bitter po-
litical contest, and there are a good |
many Southern politicians who have |
acquired the habit of berating him.
The Negro in the South has had very |
little part in this controversy, either |
before or since the war, but he has |
had a chance to hear it all, and it has |
often seemed to me, if, after all that |
has taken place, the Negro is still
able to discuss his situation calmly |
the white man should be able to do so
ALSO But that is another matter
Nineteen times out of twenty sup
pose, stranger coming South who in
quires concerning the Negro from PEG
pie he meets on the train or on the
highways will get from these men
pretty nearly the same opinion he has
read in the newspapers or heard in
political speeches. These criticisms
of the Negro have been repeated so
often that people have come to accept
and repeat them again without reflec-
ton. The thing that shows this to be
true is that the very men who de-
nounced all Negroes will very likely
before the conversation is ended tell
of one, and perhaps half a dozen, in.
dividual Negroes in whom they have
the greatest confidence.
A Southern white man may tell you,
with the utmost positiveness, that he
never knew a single Negro who would
not steal-except one Every white
man knows one Negro who is all
right-a model of honesty, industry,
and thrift-and, if he tries to remem-
Der he will think of other Negroes