Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future

THE last census shows that there are nearly six millions of negroes in that part of the United States that is known as "The South." Comparatively speaking, there are few of them in the other sections of the Union--not enough to make an exigent question in labor, society, or politics. In the South the case is very different; the negroes are about one third of the whole population; in some States nearly one half. Thus, in Georgia, according to the census of 1880, the total population is 1,538,983; the colored people number 724,765. In some of the States they are in the majority. The great majority of the colored people in the Southern States are pure-blood Africans, though many lighter skins among them show the mixture of races. The white blood betrays itself. This explains the hasty conclusions of some observers, traveling through the South. They think that there are very large numbers of mulattoes. They are mistaken, and not unnaturally. A score of black children are passed unnoticed; one mulatto is observed. In a country peopled with only one race there might be as many children born out of wedlock as there are mulattoes in any one of the Southern States, but there would be no evidence to the eye. But where white and black are blended the yellow skin advertises the origin of its owner. As there are some prevalent misconceptions on this subject, one other remark may be allowed at this point; in the South the half-breeds are generally found in towns and cities, and from towns and cities most tourists derive their impressions of a country. But the great mass of the Southern population is rural. Of the entire Southern population hardly one million are in the cities. When this whole subject, with its history and conditions, is well and fairly considered, and with the passionless attention that is bestowed upon any table of mere statistics, it will be concluded, I think, that there is but one other such case in history of a race living for generations within another race and yet keeping its blood so pure. The Jews alone can match this unique fact. Let it be observed that I am not speaking of the moralities implied in these remarkable parallels, but only of the fact of mixed bloods. The Americanized-Africans increase rapidly. They numbered about seven hundred thousand at the close of the war for independence. They have multiplied more than eight times in a little less than a century. How many will they be in the year 1991?