Evening star., 1925-03-19
DISTINCTIVE RACE
OF NEGROES SEEN
Savant Says Intermarrlage
Has Virtually Stopped.
May Grow BIacker.

The American negro seems just on
the point of branching off into
{ distinct race DR.. Melville ]. Hersko-
Wits of New York, now engaged in
= scientific study of the students or
Howard University, told the Anthro-
biological Society of Washington, at
meeting in the new National Museum.
/. The term negro" as applied to the
: black element in the American pop
i ulation is somewhat of a misnomer,
+ the scientist said. Actually, the race
Is a black -white-red hybrid. with
African negroid strains predominant
ing, due to a peculiar twist in the
8, working out of evolution.
Not more than 90 per cent of black
men in the United States, DR.. Her
skovits said, are of pure negro blood,
and this is probably a very liberal
estimate. The mixture of white and
Indian blood, however, came mostly
Z before the Civil War. At the end Of
that conflict the race was a very un-
stable combination indeed. For the
last 60 years, however, this mixing
has stopped There has been prac-
tically no intermarriage. The blood
has had a chance to settle. This
means that the negro now will pass
on to his children certain racial
+ characteristics, the probability of
ured with something like mathemat-
ical certainty.
Studies Cover Hundreds.
Dr. Herskovits based his calcula-
tions on physical examinations, not
only of the Howard students during
the past few weeks, but of hundreds
of negro school children in Harlem,
New York's great black belt. He
chose these places because they
represent a cross s-section of the race.
What this race stabilization actual
ly means is this: The child of white
couple will always be white. and of
a Chinese couple always yellow, but
up to the present there was no GER
tainty whether the child of a negro
couple would be Enthusiastically black
or so white that it could be told from
a white child only by careful eX-
animation; but the time has come
when such a child will always stick
close to a rather defining shade of black.
The probability of white or Indian
ancestry introduced before the Civil
War cropping out in the baby has
been very greatly reduced. But this
works both ways. The American
negro of the future will always bear
the mark of that white and red
ancestry, and will remain a far diff
ferent man from his ancestor of
Central Africa
Likely to Remain Black.
It is reasonably certain, Or. Her
skoyits said the tests indicated, that
the American negro will remain
black, perhaps blacker than the
average of the race at present, and
during his studies at Howard Uni
versity he has found why this is
probably so. The United States has
i'm tfu
and hence a white man can survive
better under the conditions of that
civilization than a black man. Con-
sequently, it is adyantag geous to be
white, or rs nearly white as possible.
Those negroes so fortunate as to be
born with white skins have disap-
peared in considerable numbers into
the white race. But those who are
not white enough to pass for white
men still have some advantages of
association which enable them to Sc
cure wealth and culture more easily.
Consequently they live on a border
line, associating neither with white
nor real black to a great extent, but
trying to form a sort of racial island
OF the 800 or more men examined
at Howard, he said, 60 per cent told
him that their mothers were lighter
than their fathers, and they repre-
sent the trend of the race all over
the Southeast. Also the average boy
told him that his ideal of a sweet
heart was lighter negro girl.
Made Color Tests.
Even without this complicated sit
uation, he said, the tendency has
been for the black to predominant in
a. racial intermixture of black and
white. This is deduced from inter
esting skin color tests which he has
conducted both at Howard and
among the Harlem schoolchildren.
OF 800 students examined at How
ard he found only 10 per cent which
claimed pure negro blood, and he be-
lieves some of these may be mis-
taken OF the 125 adult negroes Sc
lected at random in New York, only
two claimed racial purity, and one
of these was so light that the doctor
believes he either was mistaken or
lying.
On the other hand, only one student
at Howard has a parent belonging