The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1919-07-17
NEGRO EDUCATION

States, due largely to the war, have
brought large element of the black
race into the belief that social
equality is a thing to hope for. 1t
isn't. 1t isn't even thing to think
about. 1t is playing with fire.
The sensible negro in the south has
been taught not to blame himself be-
cause the white man is his superior
The white man in the SOUTH has
given him place and abundant
room in which to work and live and
enjoy that which he rightfully ac-
quires as his own. The southern me-
gro is given the use of the school
because education helps him in the
things he ought to know. If it only
taught him to aspire to social
equality,-to an amalgamation of
races. and interests, education would
have long ago been stripped from all
southern negro population, for that
is a thing that cannot even be sug-
gested.
Thousands, hundreds of thousands,
of negroes went to the north and
east when the war industries took
them away. This will mean large
elimination of negro labor from the
southern farms, for even those left
are fl0cking more and more to the
cities and thickly populated centers.
The change has thrown the negro into
new surroundings. He has often heard
that in the north and east are mil
lions of white people who give the
negro better social standing. Fiction
coming back home about this social
standing has caused a dangerous as
sumption in many places. Added to
this is the recklessness of the negro
soldier who is just back from the
war on the war front he enjoyed an.
intermngling with men in arms from
the four quarters of the earth and
race distinction could not be made!
An occasional serious break is made
by returning negro soldier who as
sumes that it will work at home.
Natures pronouncement that the
races are separate and distinct, the
one supeerriorrs the other inferior, is
just as true today as it was when God
set it as principal in the universe.
That superiority, that inferiority
follows a law of creation, not set of
circumstances man made. Going east
will not change it. Going north will
not change it. The unthinkable thing
of social equality and intermingling
of races win not change it.
But the negro is human In the
south he has much to appreciate in
the advancement he has made. Now
and then the white man will not ac-
cord him fair treatment, but in the
main he gets justice and the white
man stands by often to see that he
is fairly dealt with by an unscrupullI
Gus public.
The negro is part of the industrial
life of the south. He absorbs and as.
stimulates enough to make education
an important factor. Schooling means
much to him. 1t would be unjust to
bar him from his schools. No man
with racial betterment for the negro
at heart will ever think of such a
thing. And an occasional negro GRIM
minal misguided in his judgement
and aim should not block his advance.
ment
Negro education does not aim at
social equality with the white man.
1t more truly reveals to him his
place in the world. Rightly directed,
it makes him useful, law abiding, bet
ter able to live up to what surround
ing conditions require of the negro.
The negro criminal is the ignorant
person who has never taken into ac-
count the full consequence of wrong
doing. The educated negro may be
high headed and imprudent sometimes
but he is not the set criminal. When
he is educated, if he is a farmer, he
Is a better farmer, makes more crop.
save more of his earnings, maintains