NEGRO PROGRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18509, 21 March 1922, Page 8

NEGRO PROGRESS

The defenders of slavery have always referred 123 back - to the Bible, and insisted upon “the curse of Ham 7 ' —“a servant of servants shall he be.” But as a general rule, curses have an inconvenient habit of returning home' to roast. In view of the Negro Congress, it is a good time to examine the whole problem dispassionately from a scientific point of view (writes Herbert Vivian in the Daily Despatch). In doing that it is difficult to decide why negroes ehould not develop as ctrickly as anybody else. Civilisation has not travelled much their way in the centre of .Africa, or when it, has done, so it has beer, chiefly to provide them with drink*and disease, or else to barter Bibles and beads for ivory and gold. Now, however, they are displaying very remarkable evidence of progress. The first sign of real emancipation from white thrall was through religion. Even before the abolition of slavery there were 300,000 black Christians in the southern States, though they had no ehare in the conduct of their services. In 1866 there were 700 places of worship exclusively attended by blacks. In 1919 there were 43,000 black communities, with nearly 5.000. church members and a treasury of 86.000. dollars. _lt is this power of the purse which is raising the black race to be a force in the world. Pride of colour and the well-known sentimental delicacy of the American people do not prevent white men, even nominally white journalists, from accepting black gold for the furtherance of a black crusade. The negro press flourishes exceedingly in America, and its chief organ, The Crisis, has a circulation of 62,000. The campaign, however, is chiefly directed towards influencing white journals and white politicians. The negroes have promulgated a charter with six points; 1. The restoration of the sovereignty of the island of Haiti. This was occupied for five years by American marines, and the negroes allege that 3000 citizens of the black republic were put to death without reason. 2. Pressure to be brought to bear upon those States, chiefly in the south, which interfere .with negroes’ vote«. 3. Equal education for negro children. 4. Admission to all military positions. 5. Admission to all civil employment 6. Special legislation against lynching. It appears that 63 negroes were lynched last year, as against S 3 in 1919, the sentences being carried out by means of hanging, burning, shooting, drowning, and flogging to death. In the majority of cases these punishments were inflicted for outrages on white women, and the apologists of lynch law point out that the ordinary law does not suffice to check this form of crime. It i* interesting that, in spite of their enormous T voting strength in a land where almost anything will be sacrificed to secure votes, the 1 negroes had very small success with their charter. President Harding, for one, would have none of it. It is, perhaps, too soon to forecast the gravity and imminence of a black peril, but in J 963 90 pgr cent, were -illiterate; now the percentage is only 20. The most recent statistics give 40,000 coloured preachers, of whom 6000 are in the higher schools, and 2,500,000 black children attend ' public places of instruction. There are 100,000 black students at the various American universities. There are even dusky lady doctors, and a black woman is actually the director of a bank at Richmond, in Virginia. At & recent medical congress no fewer than 600 black physicians, apothecaries, and dentists were present. The negroes have been, specially successful at agriculture, and SO 1 !,ooo farms in the southern States are now . in the hands of black owners. There are in America 73 black banks and 36 black insurance companies, all flourishing. And' il has been calculated that the whole negro capital at the present day amounts to one billion dollars. The white races do not naturally look forward with joyful emotions to the day when a prolific black race will rule. We may salve our fears by pinning our faith to the mollifying effects of education, religion, and civilisation, but the time may come when w© shall have to submit ourselves to the tender mercies of our dusky conquerors. A black leader observed in a speech the other day: ,r We solemnly warn America that the patience of the coloured peoples hts its limits.” A possible precaution might be found in the provision of a black Palestine, a home of thoir own, in one of the more promising lands of Africa-