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Chapter V. The Reconstruction Period
The years from 1867 to 1878 I think may be called the period of
Reconstruction. This included the time that I spent as a student
at Hampton and as a teacher in West Virginia. During the whole of
the Reconstruction period two ideas were constantly agitating in
the minds of the coloured people, or, at least, in the minds of a
large part of the race. One of these was the craze for Greek and
Latin learning, and the other was a desire to hold office.
It could not have been expected that a people who had spent
generations in slavery, and before that generations in the
darkest heathenism, could at first form any proper conception of
what an education meant. In every part of the South, during the
Reconstruction period, schools, both day and night, were filled
to overflowing with people of all ages and conditions, some being
as far along in age as sixty and seventy years. The ambition to
secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The
idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a
little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from
most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live
without manual labour. There was a further feeling that a
knowledge, however little, of the Greek and Latin languages would
make one a very superior human being, something bordering almost
on the supernatural. I remember that the first coloured man whom
I saw who knew something about foreign languages impressed me at
the time as being a man of all others to be envied.
Naturally, most of our people who received some little education
became teachers or preachers. While among those two classes there
were many capable, earnest, godly men and women, still a large
proportion took up teaching or preaching as an easy way to make a
living. Many became teachers who could do little more than write
their names. I remember there came into our neighbourhood one of
this class, who was in search of a school to teach, and the
question arose while he was there as to the shape of the earth
and how he could teach the children concerning the subject. He
explained his position in the matter by saying that he was
prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round,
according to the preference of a majority of his patrons.
The ministry was the profession that suffered most--and still
suffers, though there has been great improvement--on account of
not only ignorant but in many cases immoral men who claimed that
they were "called to preach." In the earlier days of freedom
almost every coloured man who learned to read would receive "a
call to preach" within a few days after he began reading. At my
home in West Virginia the process of being called to the ministry
was a very interesting one. Usually the "call" came when the
individual was sitting in church. Without warning the one called
would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie
there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news would
spread all through the neighborhood that this individual had
received a "call." If he were inclined to resist the summons, he
would fall or be made to fall a second or third time. In the end
he always yielded to the call. While I wanted an education badly,
I confess that in my youth I had a fear that when I had learned
to read and write very well I would receive one of these "calls";
but, for some reason, my call never came.
When we add the number of wholly ignorant men who preached or
"exhorted" to that of those who possessed something of an
education, it can be seen at a glance that the supply of
ministers was large. In fact, some time ago I knew a certain
church that had a total membership of about two hundred, and
eighteen of that number were ministers. But, I repeat, in many
communities in the South the character of the ministry is being
improved, and I believe that within the next two or three decades
a very large proportion of the unworthy ones will have
disappeared. The "calls" to preach, I am glad to say, are not
nearly so numerous now as they were formerly, and the calls to
some industrial occupation are growing more numerous. The
improvement that has taken place in the character of the teachers
is even more marked than in the case of the ministers.
During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people
throughout the South looked to the Federal Government for
everything, very much as a child looks to its mother. This was
not unnatural. The central government gave them freedom, and the
whole Nation had been enriched for more than two centuries by the
labour of the Negro. Even as a youth, and later in manhood, I had
the feeling that it was cruelly wrong in the central government,
at the beginning of our freedom, to fail to make some provision
for the general education of our people in addition to what the
states might do, so that the people would be the better prepared
for the duties of citizenship.
It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have been done,
and perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in
charge of the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be
done at the time. Still, as I look back now over the entire
period of our freedom, I cannot help feeling that it would have
been wiser if some plan could have been put in operation which
would have made the possession of a certain amount of education
or property, or both, a test for the exercise of the franchise,
and a way provided by which this test should be made to apply
honestly and squarely to both the white and black races.
Though I was but little more than a youth during the period of
Reconstruction, I had the feeling that mistakes were being made,
and that things could not remain in the condition that they were
in then very long. I felt that the Reconstruction policy, so far
as it related to my race, was in a large measure on a false
foundation, was artificial and forced. In many cases it seemed to
me that the ignorance of my race was being used as a tool with
which to help white men into office, and that there was an
element in the North which wanted to punish the Southern white
men by forcing the Negro into positions over the heads of the
Southern whites. I felt that the Negro would be the one to suffer
for this in the end. Besides, the general political agitation
drew the attention of our people away from the more fundamental
matters of perfecting themselves in the industries at their doors
and in securing property.
The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I
came very near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from
doing so by the feeling that I would be helping in a more
substantial way by assisting in the laying of the foundation of
the race through a generous education of the hand, head, and
heart. I saw coloured men who were members of the state
legislatures, and county officers, who, in some cases, could not
read or write, and whose morals were as weak as their education.
Not long ago, when passing through the streets of a certain city
in the South, I heard some brick-masons calling out, from the top
of a two-story brick building on which they were working, for the
"Governor" to "hurry up and bring up some more bricks." Several
times I heard the command, "Hurry up, Governor!" "Hurry up,
Governor!" My curiosity was aroused to such an extent that I made
inquiry as to who the "Governor" was, and soon found that he was
a coloured man who at one time had held the position of
Lieutenant-Governor of his state.
But not all the coloured people who were in office during
Reconstruction were unworthy of their positions, by any means.
Some of them, like the late Senator B.K. Bruce, Governor
Pinchback, and many others, were strong, upright, useful men.
Neither were all the class designated as carpetbaggers
dishonourable men. Some of them, like ex-Governor Bullock, of
Georgia, were men of high character and usefulness.
Of course the coloured people, so largely without education, and
wholly without experience in government, made tremendous
mistakes, just as many people similarly situated would have done.
Many of the Southern whites have a feeling that, if the Negro is
permitted to exercise his political rights now to any degree, the
mistakes of the Reconstruction period will repeat themselves. I
do not think this would be true, because the Negro is a much
stronger and wiser man than he was thirty-five years ago, and he
is fast learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a
manner that will alienate his Southern white neighbours from him.
More and more I am convinced that the final solution of the
political end of our race problem will be for each state that
finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the franchise
to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without
opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike.
Any other course my daily observation in the South convinces me,
will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to the white man, and unfair
to the rest of the state in the Union, and will be, like slavery,
a sin that at some time we shall have to pay for.
In the fall of 1878, after having taught school in Malden for two
years, and after I had succeeded in preparing several of the
young men and women, besides my two brothers, to enter the
Hampton Institute, I decided to spend some months in study at
Washington, D.C. I remained there for eight months. I derived a
great deal of benefit from the studies which I pursued, and I
came into contact with some strong men and women. At the
institution I attended there was no industrial training given to
the students, and I had an opportunity of comparing the influence
of an institution with no industrial training with that of one
like the Hampton Institute, that emphasizes the industries. At
this school I found the students, in most cases, had more money,
were better dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of
clothing, and in some cases were more brilliant mentally. At
Hampton it was a standing rule that, while the institution would
be responsible for securing some one to pay the tuition for the
students, the men and women themselves must provide for their own
board, books, clothing, and room wholly by work, or partly by
work and partly in cash. At the institution at which I now was, I
found that a large portion of the students by some means had
their personal expenses paid for them. At Hampton the student was
constantly making the effort through the industries to help
himself, and that very effort was of immense value in
character-building. The students at the other school seemed to be
less self-dependent. They seemed to give more attention to mere
outward appearances. In a word, they did not appear to me to be
beginning at the bottom, on a real, solid foundation, to the
extent that they were at Hampton. They knew more about Latin and
Greek when they left school, but they seemed to know less about
life and its conditions as they would meet it at their homes.
Having lived for a number of years in the midst of comfortable
surroundings, they were not as much inclined as the Hampton
students to go into the country districts of the South, where
there was little of comfort, to take up work for our people, and
they were more inclined to yield to the temptation to become
hotel waiters and Pullman-car porters as their life-work.
During the time I was a student at Washington the city was
crowded with coloured people, many of whom had recently come from
the South. A large proportion of these people had been drawn to
Washington because they felt that they could lead a life of ease
there. Others had secured minor government positions, and still
another large class was there in the hope of securing Federal
positions. A number of coloured men--some of them very strong and
brilliant--were in the House of Representatives at that time, and
one, the Hon. B.K. Bruce, was in the Senate. All this tended to
make Washington an attractive place for members of the coloured
race. Then, too, they knew that at all times they could have the
protection of the law in the District of Columbia. The public
schools in Washington for coloured people were better then than
they were elsewhere. I took great interest in studying the life
of our people there closely at that time. I found that while
among them there was a large element of substantial, worthy
citizens, there was also a superficiality about the life of a
large class that greatly alarmed me. I saw young coloured men who
were not earning more than four dollars a week spend two dollars
or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and down Pennsylvania
Avenue in, in order that they might try to convince the world
that they were worth thousands. I saw other young men who
received seventy-five or one hundred dollars per month from the
Government, who were in debt at the end of every month. I saw men
who but a few months previous were members of Congress, then
without employment and in poverty. Among a large class there
seemed to be a dependence upon the Government for every
conceivable thing. The members of this class had little ambition
to create a position for themselves, but wanted the Federal
officials to create one for them. How many times I wished them,
and have often wished since, that by some power of magic I might
remove the great bulk of these people into the county districts
and plant them upon the soil, upon the solid and never deceptive
foundation of Mother Nature, where all nations and races that
have ever succeeded have gotten their start,--a start that at
first may be slow and toilsome, but one that nevertheless is
real.
In Washington I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living
by laundrying. These girls were taught by their mothers, in
rather a crude way it is true, the industry of laundrying. Later,
these girls entered the public schools and remained there perhaps
six or eight years. When the public school course was finally
finished, they wanted more costly dresses, more costly hats and
shoes. In a word, while their wants have been increased, their
ability to supply their wants had not been increased in the same
degree. On the other hand, their six or eight years of book
education had weaned them away from the occupation of their
mothers. The result of this was in too many cases that the girls
went to the bad. I often thought how much wiser it would have
been to give these girls the same amount of maternal
training--and I favour any kind of training, whether in the
languages or mathematics, that gives strength and culture to the
mind --but at the same time to give them the most thorough
training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and other
kindred occupations.
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