The Technician (Raleigh, NC), January 8, 1926

The Technician (Raleigh, NC), January 8, 1926

First published in 1920, The Technician is North Carolina State University's oldest student newspaper. This issue from 1926 includes an article on page five entitled, "Southern College Youth and the Race Relations Problem." The essay argues that white college students are society's future leaders and must lead blacks out of poverty. The essay won first prize in a college contest sponsored by the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.

E.G. Moore, Editor

E.G. Moore, ed., The Technician (Raleigh, NC), vol. 6, no. 16, January 8, 1926.

1926-01-08

Rose Buchanan

Race relations

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English

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SOUTHERN COLLEGE YOUTH AND THE RACE RELATIONS PROBLEM

(Editor’s Note: The paper from which the following paragraphs are quoted won the first prize of $75 in the South-wide college contest conducted last year by the Commission on Interracial Co-operation.)

The presence of ten million negroes in the Southland offers a tremendous and unique challenge to the citizens of these thirteen Southern States. We have woven the negro into our history and modern life until now life is almost impossible without him. We bear the indelible stamp of the negro and he bears the indelible stamp of the white man. The race problem is a very concrete, human one; it cannot be separated from life and treated in the abstract. To understand it one must consider the whole urban, industrial, and factory life, the life of the white home, and the religion of the churches. One must visit the courts, the prisons, the schools, the hospitals, and the recreational centers.

No one statement o f conditions can apply to all the South. Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans and Lynchburg each present a different situation. Neither is the problem of the negro any longer peculiar to the South. Because of the extensive migration of the negro to the north, some of the worst riots of past years have occurred there—not in the South. Neither is the problem of the relationships of unlike races solely an American problem; it is a world problem. Students cannot be indifferent to it. Henry Watterson has called the problem of race “God’s shadow upon the dial o f American progress.”

Upon the Southern youth of today has fate placed particularly the burden of responsibility in the long process of readjustment. We find ourselves in the midst of a spirit-crushing struggle of class and race. Muddy negro alleys with tumble-down shanties stare at us from many a corner.

The cold wind moans through the cracks and broken glass in these homes, singing the death song to the tubercular. Little curly-headed babies peer at us timidly from dreary doorsteps—little tots whom the world will never give a chance. Yonder on the hill bright-eyed negro boys recite their lessons on an old church pulpit. The young girls who keep our parlors neat must entertain their own company in their bedrooms.

In tiny shacks among our hills negro farmers eke out a pittance from the soil. Children’s brown fingers pick the cotton for our clothes, and young black arms cut the sugar cane for our candies—all for half a wage. Black “mammies” coo our babies to sleep, while their half dozens shift for themselves in the street. Should a sick colored mother need to go on some long journey, there would be for her on our trains no sleeper or diner accommodations. Should a hungry negro youth go wrong and steal, we give him a mockery of justice in the courts. Yea, in this free Christian land of ours we pour oil on black bodies and burn them white to the shrieking of mobs.

When such conditions exist as do these, though not universally, we cannot expect to find the black man absolutely unquestioning. Among the negroes there is, in fact, a rising tide of racial consciousness and racial pride. There are those who add their voices to the ringing cry of DuBois against injustice. Some follow Garvey’s slogan, “Africa for the Africans.” Another group, educated youths from such institutions as Hampton, are demanding here in America a man’s right to be a man. They realize the ignorance, poverty, and moral laxity of their people; they are students of history and lovers of peace. Co-operation is their plea.

Among the white people there are those, as always, who grow small-eyed in the economic strife and small-hearted
with indifference. On the other hand, there is an ever-increasing number in the churches and in the schools who are making a worthy effort towards progress, who say with determination, “Let there be light.” The colleges, more than any other modern institutions, have the responsibility for training such leaders. College men and women, more than any other group, should seek the breadth of mind and the vision clearly to analyze this problem, and the courage to work it out.

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