Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt Part 7

The recent race troubles should not discourage us or our friends. In fact, we should be encouraged, for during these troubles the better element of the race has been severely tried and they have stood the test. Everywhere their advice has been for moderation, patience, and forbearance. It is true, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. Our records will show that we have been faithful over a few things, may we not retain the faith and trust of friends?

CHAPTER 14.

THE GREATEST MENACE OF THE SOUTH.

In every age there are great and pressing problems to be solved,--problems whose solution will have seemingly, a far reaching and lasting effect upon the economic life of the country concerned. It was the case in this country from its very beginning and the same condition obtains today, although each section of the country has its own peculiar problems the true American citizen recognizes the fact that the success of one section in solving its problems will be beneficial to the entire nation.

Perhaps, no section of this country has been confronted with more difficult problems than the South. I therefore, wish to present what I consider to be the greatest menace of this section, not as a prophet foretelling future events, but humbly expressing my views of the situation after careful study.

If you were to ask the average white man of the South today what is the greatest menace to this section, his answer, undoubtedly, would be, the Negro and Negro domination. At least this would be the answer of the politician. That he would take this view, is shown by the great amount of legislation that has been enacted, aiming either directly or indirectly to r.e.t.a.r.d the Negro's progress. I do not believe that there has been one piece of legislation enacted in the South within the last thirty years for the express purpose of promoting the Negro's welfare.

This does not mean, however, that the entire white South is against the Negro or that it means to oppose his advancement. There are thousands of white men and women throughout the length and breadth of the South, who are today, laboring almost incessantly for the advancement of the Negro.

To these, we owe a great debt of grat.i.tude, and to these should be given much credit for what has been accomplished. This cla.s.s of white southerns are not, as a rule, politicians and it is seldom, if ever, they are elected to office. When we speak of the average southern white man then, we have particular reference to the great horde of office seekers and politicians that infest the entire south-land. It is this cla.s.s that will tell you that Negro domination is the greatest menace to the South.

Now, Negro domination may be a menace to the South, but it is certainly not the greatest. Neither is the extermination of our forests to be greatly feared. There are organizations and societies on foot in all parts of the South for the conservation of our forests.

Southern citizens.h.i.+p is suffering much from child labor, but even this, although being a great danger to our future development and prosperity, cannot rightly be cla.s.sed as our greatest menace. The one thing today, in which we stand in greatest danger, is the loss of the fertility of the soil. If we should lose this, as we are gradually doing, then all is lost. If we should save it, then all other things will be added. Our great need is the conservation and preservation of the soil.

The increased crops which we have in the South occasionally, are not due to improved methods of farming, but to increased acreage. Thousands of acres of new land are added each year and our increase in farm production is due to the strength of these fresh lands. There is not much more woodland to be taken in as new farm lands, for this source has been well nigh exhausted. We must then, within a few years, expect a gradual reduction in the farm production of the South. Already the old farm lands that have been in cultivation for the past fifty or fifty-five years are practically worn out. I have seen in my day where forty acres of land twenty or twenty-five years ago would produce from twenty to twenty-five bales of cotton each year, and from 800 to 1000 bushels of corn. Now, these forty acres will not produce more than eight or nine bales of cotton and hardly enough corn to feed two horses. In fact, one small family cannot obtain a decent support from the land which twenty years ago supported three families in abundance. This farm is not on the hill-side, neither has it been worn away by erosion. It is situated in the lowlands, in the black prairie, and is considered the best farm on a large plantation. This condition obtains in all parts of the South today. This constant deterioration of land, this gradual reduction of crops year after year, if kept up for the next fifty years, will surely prove disastrous to the South.

Practically, all the land in the black belt of the South is cultivated by Negroes and the farm production has decreased so rapidly during the last ten or fifteen years that the average Negro farmer hardly makes sufficient to pay his rent and buy the few necessaries of life. Of course, here and there where a tenant has been lucky enough to get hold of some new land, he makes a good crop, but after three or four years of cultivation, his crop begins to decrease and this decrease is kept up at a certain ratio as long as he keeps the land. Instead of improving, the tenant's condition becomes worse each year until he finds it impossible to support his family on the farm. Farm after farm is being abandoned or given up to the care of the old men and women. Already, most of these are too old and feeble to do effective work.

Now, the chief cause of these farms becoming less productive, is the failure on the part of the farmers to add something to the land after they have gathered their crops. They seem to think that the land contains an inexhaustible supply of plant food. Another cause of this deficiency of the soil is the failure of the farmer to rotate his crop.

There are farms being cultivated in the South today where the same piece of land has been planted in cotton every year for forty or fifty years.

Forty years ago, I am told by reliable authority, that this same land would yield from one bale to one and a half per acre. And today it will take from four to six acres to produce one bale.

Still another cause for the deterioration of the soil is erosion. There is practically no effort put forth on the tenant's part to prevent his farm from was.h.i.+ng away. The hill-side and other rolling lands are not terraced and after being in use four or five years, practically all of these lands are washed away and as farm lands they are entirely abandoned. Not only are the hillside lands unprotected from the beating rains and flowing streams, but the bottom or lowlands are not properly drained, and the sand washed down from the hill, the chaff and raft from previous rains soon fill the ditches and creeks and almost any ordinary rain will cause an overflow of these streams.

Under these conditions an average crop is impossible even in the best of years. At present, the South does not produce one-half of the foodstuff that it consumes and if the present condition of things continue for the next fifty years, this section of the country will be on the verge of starvation and famines will be a frequent occurrence. Of course, Negro starvation will come first, but white man starvation will surely follow.

I believe, therefore, that I am justified in saying that there is even more danger in Negro starvation than there is in Negro domination.

I have noticed in this country that the sins of the races are contagious. If the Negro in a community be lazy, indifferent, and careless about his farm, the white man in the community will soon fall into the same habit. On the other hand, if the white man is smart, industrious, energetic and persevering in his general makeup, the Negro will soon fall into line; so after all, whatever helps one race in the South will help the other and whatever degrades one race in the South, sooner or later will degrade the other. But you may reply to this a.s.sertion by saying that the Negro can go to the city and make an independent living for himself and family, but you forget that all real wealth must come from the soil and that the city cannot prosper unless the country is prosperous. When the country fails, the city feels the effect; when the country weeps, the city moans; when agriculture dies, all die. Such are the conditions which face us today. Now for the remedy.

It is worth while to remember that there are ten essential elements of plant food. If the supply of any one of the elements fails, the crop will fail. These ten elements are carbon and oxygen taken into the leaves of the plant from the air as carbon dioxide, hydrogen, a const.i.tuent of water absorbed through the plant roots; nitrogen, taken from the soil by all plants also secured from the air by legumes. The other elements are phosphorus, pota.s.sium, magnesium, calcium, iron and sulphur, all of which are secured from the soil. The soil nitrogen is contained in the organic matter or humus, and to maintain the supply of nitrogen, we should keep the soil well stored with organic matter, making liberal use of clover or other legumes which have power to secure nitrogen from the inexhaustible supply in the air.

It is interesting to note that one of the ablest chemists in this country, Prof. E. W. Clark of the U. S. Geological Survey, has said that an acre of ground seven inches deep contains sufficient iron to produce one hundred bushels of corn every year for 200,000 years, sufficient calcium to produce one hundred bushels of corn or one bale of cotton each year for 55,000 years, enough magnesium to produce such a crop 7,000 years, enough sulphur for 10,000 years and pota.s.sium for 2,600 years, but only enough phosphorus for 130 years. The nitrogen resting upon the surface of an acre of ground is sufficient to produce one hundred bushels of corn or a bale of cotton for 700,000 years; but only enough in the plowed soil to produce fifty such crops. In other words, there are enough of eight of the elements of plant food in the ordinary soil to produce 100 bushels of corn per acre or a bale of cotton per acre for each year for 2,600 years; but only enough of the other two, phosphorus and nitrogen, to produce such crops for forty or fifty years.

Let us grant that most of our farm lands in the South have been in cultivation for fifty or seventy-five years, and in many instances for one hundred years, it is readily seen that practically all of the phosphorus and nitrogen in the plowed soil have been exhausted. Is it any wonder then that we are having such poor crops? The wonder is that our crops have kept up so well. Unless a radical change is made in our mode of farming, we must expect less and less crops each year until we have no crops, or such little that we can hardly pay the rent.

To improve and again make fertile our soils, we must restore to them the phosphorus and nitrogen which have been used up in the seventy-five or more crops that we have gathered from them. This is a herculean task but this is what confronts us and I for one, believe we can accomplish it.

By the proper rotation of crops, including oats, clover, cowpeas, as well as cotton and corn, and a liberal use of barn-yard manure and cotton seed fertilizer, all of the necessary elements of plant food can be restored to our worn out soil. But the proper use of these require much painstaken study.

The black as well as the white should give this matter serious consideration. The landlords and the tenants should co-operate in this great work. The merchants and bankers must lend their aid and influence, preachers and teachers should be pioneers in this movement to save our common country. Our agricultural colleges should imprint their courses of study in something more than their annual catalogues. They should be imprinted in the minds and hearts of their students, and especially those who are to do farm work. Thus far, but very little general good has been accomplished by these schools. The reason is that the farmers, those who till the soil, have not had access to these schools and those who attend are not the farming cla.s.s, and do not take to farming as their life's work. The man who works the soil must be taught how to farm. We have in this state nine purely agricultural schools, each of which is a white inst.i.tution. It is true that some agricultural training is given for Negroes at Normal, Montgomery and Tuskegee, but these are not purely agricultural schools and the great ma.s.s of Negro farmers cannot hope to attend them.

If the Negro is to remain the farming cla.s.s in the Black Belt of the South, then he must be taught at least the rudiments of the modern methods of improved farming. He must have agricultural schools and must be encouraged to attend them. The loss of the fertility of the soil is the greatest menace of the South. How can we regain this lost fertility, is the greatest question of the hour.

CHAPTER 15.

THE NEGRO EXODUS.

The Negro has remained in the South almost as a solid ma.s.s since his emanc.i.p.ation. This, in itself shows that he loves the South, and if he is now migrating to the East, North and West by the hundreds and thousands, there must be a cause for it.

We should do our best to find out these causes and at least suggest the remedy, if we cannot accomplish it. The time has come for plain speaking on the part of us all. It will do us no good to try to hide the facts, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."

In the first place, the Negro in this country is oppressed. This oppression is greatest where the Negro population is greatest. The Negro population happens to be greater in the South than in the North, therefore, he is more oppressed in the South than in the North.

Take the counties in our own state. Some are known as white counties and others as black counties. In the white counties the Negro is given better educational opportunities than in the black counties. I have in mind one Black Belt county where the white child is given fifteen dollars a year for his education and the Negro child thirty cents a year. See the late Dr. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton's article, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" Now these facts are generally known throughout this State by both white and black. And we all know that this is unjust.

It is oppression.

This oppression shows itself in many other ways. Take for example the railroads running through the rural sections of the South. There are many flag stations where hundreds of our people get off and on train.

The railroads have at these little stops a platform about six feet square, only one coach stops at this point; the Negro women, girls and boys are compelled to get off and on the train sometimes in water and in the ditches because there are no provisions made for them otherwise.

Again, take the matter of the franchise. We all agree that ignorant Negroes should not be entrusted with this power, but we all feel that where a Negro has been smart and industrious in getting an education and property and pays his taxes, he should be represented. Taxation without representation is just as unjust today as it was in 1776. It is just as unfair for the Negro as it is to the white man, and we all, both white and black, know this. We may shut our eyes to this great truth, as sometimes we do, but it is unjust just the same.

Take the matter of the courts. There is no justice unless the Negro has a case against another Negro. When he has a case against a white man you can tell what the decision will be just as soon as you know the nature of the case, unless some strong white man will come to the Negro's rescue. This, too, is generally known, and the Negro does not expect justice.

None of us have forgotten the recent campaign of Mr. Underwood and Mr.

Hobson for United States Senator from this State. Mr. Underwood's supporters attacked Mr. Hobson because he defended the Negro soldiers when he was Representative, and Mr. Hobson's supporters attacked Mr.

Underwood because they said that he had a Negro secretary in Was.h.i.+ngton.

Any politician who dares defend a Negro, however just the cause may be, is doomed to political death. This is another fact which we all know.

As yet, there has been no concerted actions on the part of the white people to stop mob violence. I know a few plantations, however, where the owners will not allow their Negroes to be arrested unless the officer first consults them, and these Negroes idolize these white men as G.o.ds, and so far not one of these Negroes has gone North. I repeat that there are out-croppings of these oppressions everywhere in this country, but they show themselves most where the Negroes are in largest numbers.

All of these sorrows the Negro has endured with patience and long suffering, and they may be all cla.s.sed as the secondary cause of this great exodus.

The primary cause is economics. The storms and floods destroy crops in the Black Belt section. These people are hungry, they are naked, they have no corn and had no cotton; so they are without food and clothes.

What else can they do but go away in search of work? There are a great many wealthy white men here and there throughout the Black Belt section.

They have large plantations which need the ditches cleared and new ones made to properly drain their farms. They could have given much work to these dest.i.tute people; but what have they done? Nothing. They say that it is a pity for the Negro to go away in such large numbers, and so it is, but that will not stop them. They have it in their power to stop them by making the Negro's economic condition better here.

The South must do more than make cotton and corn; it must begin to manufacture some of the things that it uses. Why should we send our raw material to the North to be manufactured? Practically all the furniture we use comes from the North and they get the timber from us. The South must be both a manufacturing as well as a farming section, if it would hold its own with the other sections of this great country. The capitalists of the South must turn loose their money if this section would come into its own.

Thus far, the average white man of the South has been interested in the Negro from a selfish point of view. He must now become interested in him from a humanitarian point of view. He must be interested in his educational, moral and religious welfare. We know that we have many ignorant, vicious, and criminal Negroes, which are a disgrace to any people, but they are ignorant because they have not had a chance. Why I know one county in this State today with 10,000 Negro children of school age and only 4,000 of these are in school, according to the report of the Superintendent of Education. We cannot expect ignorant people to act like intelligent ones, and no amount of abuse will make them better.

We know that our race is weak and that the white race is strong. We know also that our race is sick and that the white race is well or whole.

Now, how should the strong treat the weak? How should the whole treat the sick? Would a strong man say, here is a weak man with a heavy burden, therefore, I will put more upon him? Would a well man say, here is a sick man, therefore, I shall give him less medical treatment? Then why do you say, here is the ignorant Negro, therefore let us give him less educational opportunities than we give the white man? If the white man would be logical in this particular, he would say in the courts, because he is ignorant let us make his punishment less severe; because he is weak, let us protect him, because he is ignorant, let us give him greater educational opportunities. But this has not been done. There has not been one dollar increase in the Negro public school fund in the rural districts in twenty years; if anything, it is less today than it was twenty years ago.

Sometimes we hear it said that the white man of the South knows the Negro better than anybody else, but the average white man of the South only knows the ignorant, vicious and criminal cla.s.s of Negroes better than anybody else. He knows little of the best cla.s.s of Negroes. I am glad to say, however, that there are a few Southern white men who know the better cla.s.s and know them intimately and are doing what they can to better the Negro's condition. I would to G.o.d that the number of these few could be increased a hundred fold.

We used to deride the North for giving the Negro a chance to spend a dollar while withholding from him the opportunity to make one. But in the Providence of G.o.d all this has been changed by the great war in Europe, which has created a labor scarcity in the North, East and West, and the Negro is now being given a chance to make a dollar there as well as spend one. The white man of the North is due no special credit for this, the credit belongs to G.o.d. He is the Righteous Judge of all the earth and in the end He will do right.

We will hear many tales of the sufferings of these people who go from this section. Many will die and some will come back, but still some will never return. You remember the fate of the Pilgrims, and the early colonists who first came to this country. You also know the fate of the men in the world war; many must die that some be saved. It behooves us of the South who remain here, both white and black, to re-dedicate ourselves to unselfish service and try more and more each day of our lives to live up to the great principle laid down in the memorable Atlanta speech by the immortal Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton when he said: "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."