FOLLOWING THE COLOR LINE
| BY THE SAME AUTHOR |
OUR NEW PROSPERITY |
| SEEN IN GERMANY |
| BOYS’ BOOK OF INVENTIONS |
| SECOND BOYS’ BOOK OF INVENTIONS |
| AND MANY STORIES |
AN OLD BLACK “MAMMY” WITH WHITE CHILD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1904, 1905, BY THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1907, 1908, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1908
“I AM OBLIGED TO CONFESS THAT I DO NOT REGARD THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY ASA MEANS OF PUTTING OFF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE TWO RACES IN THE SOUTHERNSTATES.”
—De Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” (1835)
PREFACE
My purpose in writing this book has been to make a clear statement of theexact present conditions and relationships of the Negro in American life.I am not vain enough to imagine that I have seen all the truth, nor that Ihave always placed the proper emphasis upon the facts that I here present.Every investigator necessarily has his personal equation or point of view.The best he can do is to set down the truth as he sees it, without batinga jot or adding a tittle, and this I have done.
I have endeavoured to see every problem, not as a Northerner, nor as aSoutherner, but as an American. And I have looked at the Negro, not merelyas a menial, as he is commonly regarded in the South, nor as a curiosity,as he is often seen in the North, but as a plain human being, animatedwith his own hopes, depressed by his own fears, meeting his own problemswith failure or success.
I have accepted no statement of fact, however generally made, until I wasfully persuaded from my own personal investigation that what I heard wasreally a fact and not a rumour.
Wherever I have ventured upon conclusions, I claim for them neitherinfallibility nor originality. They are offered frankly as my own latestand clearest thoughts upon the various subjects discussed. If any man cangive me better evidence for the error of my conclusions than I have forthe truth of them I am prepared to go with him, and gladly, as far as hecan prove his way. And I have offered my conclusions, not in a spirit ofcontroversy, nor in behalf of any party or section of the country, but inthe hope that, by inspiring a broader outlook, they may lead, finally, toother conclusions more nearly approximating the truth than mine.
While these chapters were being published in the American Magazine (