Booker T. Washington

TNR often reruns articles from the early part of the century on its website, which I find a wonderful feature. Today there is an interesting article from Booker T. Washington, in 1915, on the spread of segregation ordinances.

As the brief introductory note points out, Washington is a controversial figure in this day and age because many of his beliefs about race are hopelessly out of synch with modern sensibilities... especially his concession of a superior moral virtue among whites. But, as with all men from all times, Washington was often a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and I think we often do ourselves a disservice in the way we treat the analytical vices of our forebears.

Most especially intriguing to me about the article is this following passage, which could still be said today of many predominantly black neighborhoods in Oakland (and, as a former resident of Oakland's MacArthur district, I note this on the basis of personal experience):

The negro objects to being segregated because it usually means that he will receive inferior accommodations in return for the taxes he pays. If the negro is segregated, it will probably mean that the sewerage in his part of the city will be inferior; that the streets and sidewalks will be neglected, that the street lighting will be poor; that his section of the city will not be kept in order by the police and other authorities, and that the "undesirables" of other races will be placed near him, thereby making it difficult for him to rear his family in decency.

This description has been (at least substantially) true of Los Angeles, where I grew up, and Oakland where I live now. It certainly fits to a tee the projects of South Chicago and Division Street that I found in my summer living in Chicago. I haven't been here in Georgia long enough to say anything definitively, but the trend certainly appears consistent in some of the neighborhoods here in Atlanta and down in Savannah that I've been through.

During the era of Jim Crow, that Washington was watching take root, the slogan was "separate but equal." Washington was soon proved correct that separation was a guarantee of inequality. In the fifties we made war against separation, with tremendous beneficial results. But there have been limits to that. (If I remember correctly this article from The Atlantic Monthly (sorry, it's over two years old) provides suggestive evidence of a natural tendency towards various kinds of self-segregation.) Perfect integration is a wonderful dream, but it does implicit violence to a natural human impulse (though far from universal) to feel like one "blends in" to their social environment... a sensation one might not feel when one's physical appearance is markedly unique from the vast majority of one's peers.

But if the line between racial segregation and racist segregation (one based upon choice, one baesd upon force) is blurry and demanding of perpetual vigilance, the line between inequality and equality is far more clearly delineated. If half the agonizing that goes into the question of segregation (an issue substantially murkier today than forty years ago) could be channeled into the material condition of communities where public services are notably second-rate, schools are shockingly decrepit, and the rule of law is nearly unknown, we might find the problem of non-coercive segregation less pernicious than we presently do.

E Pluribus Unum

Put equality first, and separation becomes an oxymoron.


The Results of Good Housing - Hale Woodruff (Atlanta artist)