Part 1

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The Sex Question and Race Segregation

BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE, President.

Message of San Domingo to the African Race

BY THEOPHILUS G. STEWARD, U. S. A. (Retired)

Status of the Free Negro Prior to 1860

BY LAFAYETTE M. HERSHAW.

Economic Contribution by the Negro to America

BY ARTHUR A. SCHOMBURG.

The Status of the Free Negro from 1860 to 1870

BY WILLIAM PICKENS.

American Negro Bibliography of the Year

BY JOHN W. CROMWELL.

The above Papers were all read at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting

of the American Negro Academy, held in the Y.M.C.A.

Building, 12th Street Branch, Washington, D.C.

December 28th and 29th, 1915.

PRICE: 25 CTS.

Table of Contents

- Archibald H. Grimke. The Sex Question and Race Segregation - Theophilus G. Steward. The Message of San Domingo to the African Race - Lafayette M. Hershaw. The Status of the Free Negro Prior to 1860 - Arthur A. Schomburg. The Economic Contribution by the Negro to America - William Pickens. The Constitutional Status of the Negro from 1860-1870 - John W. Cromwell. The American Negro Bibliography of the Year

Archibald H. Grimke. The Sex Question and Race Segregation

One wrong produces other wrongs as surely and as naturally as the seed of the thorn produces other thorns. Men do not in the moral world gather figs from a thorn-bush any more than they do in the vegetable world. What they sow in either world, that they reap. Such is the law. The earth is bound under all circumstances and conditions of time and place to reproduce life, action, conduct, character, each after its own kind. Men cannot make what is bad bring forth what is good. Truth does not come out of error, light out of darkness, love out of hate, justice out of injustice, liberty out of slavery. No, error produces more error, darkness more darkness, hate more hate, injustice more injustice, slavery more slavery. That which we do is that which we are, and that which we shall be.

The great law of reproduction which applies without shadow of change to individual life, applies equally to the life of that aggregation of individuals called a race or nation. Not any more than an individual can they do wrong with impunity, can they commit a bad deed without reaping in return the result in kind. There is nothing more certain than the wrong done by a people shall reappear to plague them, if not in one generation, then in another. For the consummation of a bad thought in a bad act puts what is bad in the act beyond the control of the actor. The evil thus escapes out of the Pandora-box of the heart, of the mind, to reproduce and to multiply itself a hundredfold and in a hundred ways in the complex relationships of men within human society. And then it returns not as it issued singly, but with its related brood of ill consequences:

"But in these cases, We still have judgment here; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught return To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips."

The ship which landed at Jamestown in 1619 with a cargo of African slaves for Virginia plantations, imported at the same time into America with its slave-cargo certain seed-principles of wrong. As the slaves reproduced after their kind, so did these seed-principles of wrong reproduce likewise after their kind. Wherever slavery rooted itself, they rooted themselves also. The one followed the other with the regularity of a law of nature, the invariability of the law of cause and effect. As slavery grew and multiplied and spread itself over the land, the evils begotten of slavery grew, and multiplied, and spread themselves over the life of the people, black and white alike. The winds which blew North carried the seeds, and the winds which blew South, and wherever they went, wherever they fell, whether East or West, they sprang up to bear fruit in the characters of men, in the conduct of a growing people.

The enslavement of one race by another necessarily produces certain moral effects upon both races, moral deterioration of the masters, moral degradation of the slaves. The deeper the degradation of the one, the greater will be the deterioration of the other, and vice versa. Indeed, slavery is a breeding-bed, a sort of compost heap, where the best qualities of both races decay and become food for the worst. The brute appetites and passions of the two act and react on the moral nature of each race with demoralizing effects. The subjection of the will of one race under such circumstances to the will of another begets in the race that rules cruelty and tyranny, and in the one that is ruled, fear, cunning and deceit. The lust, the passions of the master-class, act powerfully on the lust, the passions of the slave-class, and those of the slave-class react not less powerfully on the master-class. The greater the cruelty, tyranny and lust of the one, the greater will be the cunning, deceit and lust of the other. And there is no help for this so long as the one race rules and the other race is ruled, so long as there exists between them in the state inequality of rights, of conditions, based solely on the race-hood of each.

If two races live together on the same land and under the same government as master and slave, or as superior and inferior, there will grow up in time two moral standards in consequence of the two races living together under such conditions. The master or superior race will have one standard to regulate the conduct of individuals belonging to it in respect to one another, and another standard to regulate the conduct of those self-same individuals in respect to individuals of the slave or inferior race. Action which would be considered bad if done by an individual of the former race to another individual of the same race, would not be regarded as bad at all, or at least in anything like the same degree, if done to an individual of the latter race. On the other hand, if the same offense were committed by an individual of the slave or inferior race against an individual of the master or superior race, it would not only be deemed bad, but treated as very bad.

With the evolution of the double moral standard and its application to the conduct of these two sets of individuals in the state, there grows up in the life of both classes no little confusion in respect to moral ideas, no little confusion in respect to ideas of right and wrong. Nor is this surprising. The results of such a double standard of morals could not possibly be different so long as human nature is what it is. The natural man takes instinctively to the double standard, to any scheme of morals which makes it easy for him to sin, and difficult for a brother or enemy to do likewise. And this is exactly what our American double standard does practically in the South for both races, but especially for the dominant race, for example, in regard to all that group of actions, which grows out of the relation of the sexes in Southern society.

What relations do the Southern males of the white race sustain to the females of both races? Are these relations confined strictly to the females of their own race? Or do they extend to the females of the black race? Speaking frankly, we all know what the instinct of the male animal is, and man after all, is physically a male animal. He is by nature one of the most polygamous of male animals. There goes on in some form among the human males, as among other males, a constant struggle for the females. In polygamous countries each man obtains as many wives as he can purchase and support. In monogamous countries he is limited by law to one wife, whether he is able to maintain a plurality of wives or not. When he marries this one woman the law defines his relations to her and also to the children who may issue from such a union. But the man--I am talking broadly--is at heart a polygamist still. The mere animal instinct in his blood inclines him to run after, to obtain possession of other wives. To give way to this inclination in monogamous countries he knows to be attended with danger, to be fraught with sundry grievous consequences to himself. He is liable to his wife, for example, to an action for divorce on the ground of adultery. He is liable to be prosecuted criminally on the same charge by the state, and to be sent to prison for a term of years. But this is not the end of his troubles. Public opinion, society, falls foul of him also in consequence of his misconduct. He loses social recognition, the respect of his fellows, becomes in common parlance a disgraced man. The one-wife country is grounded on the inviolability of the Seventh Commandment. All the sanctions of law, of morals, and of religion conspire to protect the wife against the roving propensities of the husband, combine to curb his male instinct to run after many women, to practice plural marriages. There thus grows up in the breast of the race, is transmitted to each man with the accumulated strength of social heredity, a feeling of personal fear, a sense of moral obligation, which together war against his male instinct for promiscuous sexual intercourse, and make for male purity, for male fidelity to the one-wife idea, to the one-wife institution. The birth of this wholesome fear in society is the beginning of wisdom in monogamous countries. And unless this sense of moral obligation is able to maintain its ascendancy in those countries, the male sexual instinct to practice plural marriages will reassert itself, will revert, if not openly, then secretly, to a state of nature, to illicit relations. But every tendency to such reassertion, or reversion, is effectively checked in a land where national morals are sound, are pure, by wise laws which a strong, an uncompromising public sentiment makes and executes impartially against all offenders.

This is the case in respect to monogamous countries inhabited by a homogeneous population. In such countries where there exist no differences of race, where there is no such thing as a dominant and a subject race, the national standard of morals is single, the sexual problem is accordingly simple and yields readily, uniformly, to the single standard regulation or treatment. The "Thou shalt not" of the law applies equally to all males in their relations to all females in general, and to the one female in particular. No confusion ensues in law or in fact in respect to the subject, to the practical application of the rule to the moral conduct of individuals. Fornication, adultery, marriage and concubinage are not interpreted by public sentiment to mean one thing for one class of individuals, and another thing for another class under the same law. There are no legal double standards, no moral double standards. The moral eye of society, under these circumstances, is single, the legal eye of the state is likewise single, and the eye of the whole people becomes, in consequence, full of moral light. Marriage is held to be sacred by the state, by society, and adultery or the breach of the marriage-vow or obligation is held accordingly to be sacrilege, one of the greatest of crimes.

The man who seduces another man's wife in such a society, in such a state, is regarded as an enemy by society, by the state, and is dealt with as such. Likewise the man who seduces another man's daughter. For this crime the law has provided penalties which the wrong-doer may not escape. And it matters not whether the seducer be rich and powerful, or the girl poor and ignorant, the state, society respects not his wealth nor his power. His status in respect to her is fixed by law, and hers also in respect to him. While in the event of issue arising from such a union, the law establishes certain relations between the child and the putative father. It enables the mother to procure a writ against him, and in case of her success he will be thereupon bound to support the child during a certain number of years. The state, society, does not yet compel him to give his name to the innocent offspring of his illicit act, but it does compel him to provide for it proper maintenance. Thus has the state, society, in monogamous countries restrained within bounds the sexual activity of the human male, evolving in the process a code of laws and one of morals for this purpose. These codes are administered impartially, equally, by the state, by society, over all of the males in their relation to all of the females.

In monogamous countries where two races live side by side, one dominant, the other subject, the single legal standard, the single moral standard, yields in practice if not in theory to the double standard in law and morals in respect to the sexual question. In the ensuing confusion of moral ideas, of moral obligations, the male instinct gains in freedom from restraints of law, of social conventions, and reverts in consequence and to that extent to a state of nature, of natural marriage. The legal and moral codes which regulate the relations of the males of one race with the females of the same race are not applicable in regulating the relations of those self-same males with the females of the other race. Marriage in such a country has regard to the males and females of the same race, not to those of different races. The crime of adultery or of fornication undergoes the same gross modification. For in such a land the one-wife idea, the one-wife institution has reference to the individuals of the same race only, not to individuals of opposite races. The "Thou shalt not" of the law, public opinion interprets to refer to the sexual conduct of the males and females of the same race in respect to one another, _i. e._, a male member of the dominant race must limit his roving propensities wherever the females of his own race are concerned. He need not under this same law, interpreted by this same public opinion, curb to the same extent those roving propensities where the females of the other race are concerned. He may live in licit intercourse with a woman of his own race and at the same time live in illicit intercourse with a woman of the other race, _i. e._, without incurring the pains and penalties made by the state, by society, against such an offense in case the second woman be of his own race. Neither the law nor public opinion puts an equal value on the chastity of the women of the two races. Female chastity in the so-called superior race is rated above that in the so-called inferior race. Hence the greater protection accorded to the woman of the first class over that accorded to the woman of the second class. The first class has well-defined legal and moral rights which the men of that class are bound to respect, rights which may not be violated with impunity. Here we encounter one of the greatest dangers attendant upon race segregation, where the two races are not equal before the law, where public opinion makes and enforces one law for the upper race, and practically another law for the under race.

Under these circumstances a male member of the dominant race may seduce the wife of a member of the subject race, or a daughter, without incurring any punishment except at the hands of the man wronged by him. Such a wrong-doer would not be indicted or tried for adultery or seduction, nor could the wronged husband or father recover from him damages in a suit at law, nor yet could a bastardy suit be brought by the girl against him with any show of success for the support of his child, were issue to be born to her from such illicit union. The men of the dominant race find themselves thus in a situation where the law, public opinion, provides for their exclusive possession the women of their own race, and permits them at the same time to share with the men of the subject race possession of the women of that race. The sexual activity of the men of the first class approaches in these conditions to a state of nature in respect to the women of the second class. They are enabled, therefore, to select wives from the stronger race, and mistresses from the weaker one. The natural law of sexual selection determines the mating in the one case as truly as in the other, _i. e._, in the case of concubinage as in that of marriage. The men of the upper class fall in love with the women whom they have elected to become their wives, they also fall in love with the women they have elected to become their concubines. They go through all those erotic attentions to the women of each class, which are called courtship in the language of sexual love. Only in the case of women of the first class this courtship is open, visible to the eye of the upper world of the dominant race, while in the case of the women of the second class it is secret, conducted in a corner of the lower world of the subject race.

These men build homes in the upper world where are installed their wives, who beget them children in lawful wedlock; they likewise build homes in the lower world, where are installed their concubines, who beget them children in unlawful wedlock. The wives move, have their being in the upper world and sustain to their husbands certain well-defined rights and relations, social and legal. The children of this union sustain to those fathers equally clear and definite rights and relations in the eye of the law, in the eye of society. The law, society, imposes on them, these husbands and fathers, certain well-defined duties and obligations in respect to these children, these wives, which may not be evaded or violated with impunity. These men cannot therefore disown or desert their wives and children at will. Whereas, such is not the case, is not the situation, in respect to the unlawful wives hidden away in a corner of the under-world, or of that of the children begotten to those men by these unlawful wives, but quite the contrary. For them the law, society, does not intervene, does not establish any binding relations, any reciprocal rights between those women and children and the men, any more than if the men and the women were living together in a state of nature and having children born to them in such a state, where the will of the natural man is law, where his sexual passion measures exactly the extent and the duration of his duties and obligations in respect to his offspring and the mother of them. When he grows weary of the mother he goes elsewhere, and forgets that he ever had children by her.

This is the case, is the situation, in the under-world of the under race. For down there, there is no law, no public opinion, to curb the gratification of the sexual instinct of the men of the upper world, such as exists and operates so effectively to curb those instincts in that upper world. In the upper world these men may have but one wife each, but in the lower one they may have as many concubines as they like, and a different set of children by each concubine. They may have these women and children in succession, or they may have them at the same time. For there is in that under-world no law, no effective power to say to those men, to their lust of the flesh: "Thus far and no farther." In the upper world they are members of a civilized society, amenable to its codes of law and morals; in the lower one, they are merely male animals struggling with other male animals for the possession of the females. On the dim stage of the under-world this is the one part that they play. In this one sensual role they make their entrances and their exits. They may have in the upper world achieved distinction along other lines of human endeavor, but in the lower one, they achieve the single distinction of being successful male animals in pursuit of the females.

So much for the males of the dominant race. Now for those of the subject race. How do they conduct themselves at this morally chaotic meeting-place of the two races? What effect does this sexual freedom, spawned under such conditions, produce on their life, on their actions? Like the men of the upper race, they, too, live in a monogamous country. But unlike their male rivals, these men of the under-world are not free to seek their mates from the women of both races. The law restricts them, public opinion restricts them, the men of the dominant race restrict them in this regard to the women of their own race. Around the women of the dominant race, law, public opinion, the men of that race, have erected a high wall which the men of the other race are forbidden to climb. What do these men see in respect to themselves in view of this triply-built wall? They see that while they share the women of their own race with the men of the other race, that these same men enjoy exclusive possession of their own women, thanks to the high wall, built by law, by public opinion, and the strong arms of these self-same men. What do the men of the under world? Do they struggle against this sexual supremacy of the men of the upper world, or do they succumb to circumstances, surrender unconditionally to the high wall? We shall presently see.

This racial inequality generates heat in masculine breasts in the under world. And with this heat there ensues that fermentation of thought and feeling which men call passion. Those submerged men begin to think sullenly on the subject, they try to grasp the equities of the situation. As thought spreads among them, feeling spreads among them also. About their own women they see no fence, about the women of the other race they see that high wall. They cannot think out to any satisfactory conclusion the justice of that arrangement, cannot understand why the women of the upper race should belong exclusively to the men of that race, and why these self-same men should share jointly with the men of the lower race the women of this race.

The more they strike their heads against this one-sided arrangement, the less they like it, the more they rebel against it. And so they come to grope dimly for some means to oust their rivals from this joint-ownership of the women of the lower race. And when they fail, feeling kindles into anger, and anger into resentment. Against this inequality of conditions a deepening sense of wrong burns hotly within them. Dark questionings assail their rude understandings. Have the men of the upper race their exclusive preserves, then ought not the men of the lower race to have their exclusive preserves also? Is it a crime, has law, public opinion, the men of the upper race made it a crime for the men of the lower race to poach on those preserves? Then the law, public opinion, the men of the lower race ought to make it equally a crime for the men of the upper race to poach on the preserves of the other race. But law, public opinion, refuses to make the two acts equal in criminality and the men of the lower race are powerless to do so without the help of equal laws and administration, and a just public sentiment. Baffled of their purpose to establish equality of conditions between them and their rivals, they thereupon watch the ways of these rivals. They see them descending into the lower world in pursuit of the women of that world by means that are crooked and ways that are dark. A few of the men in that lower world profiting by that villainous instruction, endeavor to ascend into the upper world by the same crooked means, by the same dark ways. For they affect to believe that what is sauce for one race's goose is sauce for the other race's gander. Thus it is attempted craftily, but, in the main, futilely, to strike a sort of primitive balance between the men of the two races in respect to the women of the two races.