Johnson had helped organize the New York silent parade in July 1917 that protested the East St. Louis riot, and in February 1918 he led an NAACP delegation that petitioned President Wilson to review the sentences of sixteen black soldiers condemned to death for their role in the August 1917 riot in Houston. (Wilson eventually commuted ten of the sentences.) The delegation also asked him to condemn mob violence and lynchings publicly. While the President deliberated, Johnson addressed the question of how black Americans should view the war.
WHY SHOULD A NEGRO FIGHT?
THE ABOVE heading is the heading of an editorial in the Plainfield (N.J.) Courier-News of the 11th of this month. The Courier-News editorial was called forth by a letter written by some colored person to the editor asking reasons why the Negro should fight to protect the country. Two Age readers in Plainfield sent us the article and asked us to reply to it.
The letter which was sent to the editor of the Courier-News reads as follows:
Plainfield Courier:
Dear Sir: I am a buyer of your paper and I note in your column there are questions asked and answered. This is a question I should like you answer me. Why is it a Negro man should go to protect a country and public places when in it he can not even go in and drink a glass of ice cream soda nor even his female sex?
E.R.
In the first place, this is a very lightweight letter. The person writing it picked out the weakest argument that could possibly be found. Of course, the denial of the privilege of drinking ice cream soda in certain places on account of race or color is a phase of the denial of full citizenship and common democracy; but it is trivial to single it out as a reason why the Negro should not do his part in this great war. If the duty of the Negro to fight was really a question in the mind of the writer of the letter, it seems that he should have backed up his inquiry with such arguments as the lynching and burning alive of Negroes, without any effort on the part of authorities to punish the perpetrators of these crimes; the disfranchisement and “Jim Crowing” of the race, even of those who are bearing arms and wearing the uniform; the shutting out of Negroes from many of the fields of occupation; the criminally unfair division of the public school funds in many states; the absence of even handed justice in the courts of many of the states, and other arguments that would carry weight.
In the second place, the letter contained a needless request for information. Any Negro outside of an insane asylum can by ten minutes of thought on the matter arrive at reasons why the race must do its full part in this war, which will outweigh any doubts there may have been in his mind.
America is the American Negro’s country. He has been here three hundred years; that is, about two hundred years longer than most of the white people. He is a citizen of this country, declared so by the Constitution. Many of the rights and privileges of citizenship are still denied him, but the plain course before him is to continue to perform all of the duties of citizenship while he continually presses his demands for all of the rights and privileges. Both efforts must go together; to perform the duties and not demand the rights would be pusillanimous; and to demand the rights and not perform the duties would be futile.
It is a fact that the Negro is denied his full rights as a citizen, and that a good many people in the country are determined that he shall never have them; then the task before the Negro is to force the accordance of those rights, and that he cannot do by refusing to perform the duties. In fact, the moment he ceases to perform the duties of citizenship he abdicates the right to claim the full rights of citizenship.
As regards the present war, the central idea behind Germany is force; if that idea wins, it will be worse for the American Negro and all the other groups belonging to submerged and oppressed peoples; so the American Negro should do all in his power to help defeat it.
Then, too, a German victory would mean the almost absolute destruction of France. France, the fountain of liberal ideas, the nation which more than any other in the world has freed itself from all kinds of prejudices, the nation which endeavors to practice as well as preach the brotherhood of man. The destruction of France would be the greatest blow to liberty that could now be dealt.
These are a few of the plain, logical reasons, based largely upon self-interest; besides there are other and more altruistic reasons; we leave the purely sentimental reasons out of consideration.
So much for the letter written to the Courier-News; now for the editorial written in answer to the letter. Here is the first sentence from it:
A Negro should fight for this country because this nation freed him from the bonds of slavery.
Now if the editor of the Courier-News put up such an argument as that to a jackass he would get his brains kicked out. What was the slavery “from which this nation freed us?” It was the slavery into which this nation put us and held us for two hundred and fifty years. Can a man throw you into prison without cause in order to place you under a debt of gratitude to him for taking you out?
The editor of the Courier-News goes on to say:
The Negro who tries to put himself on the level with white men socially is an enemy of the Negro race. The greatest men of that race have condemned those who are always finding fault because they cannot obtain service in hotels, restaurants and ice cream parlors patronized by the whites. It is the duty of these dissatisfied Negroes to open restaurants and ice cream parlors of their own and endeavor to conduct them better than any white man conducts his place of business.
We do not know from what part of the country the editor of the Courier-News hails, but his definition of “social equality” sounds very much as though it was made in Alabama or Mississippi. There is no more social equality in drinking ice cream soda in a public place than there is in riding in the same subway car. And where does this editor get his information that the greatest men of the race have condemned those who found fault because hotel and other public accommodations were refused to colored people?
His suggestion that Negroes should have their own hotels, theatres and other public places is impracticable. It would be impossible for the Negro or any other group in this country to duplicate the machinery of civilization. If a colored man is passing through Denver or Salt Lake City, is he to go without food and lodging because there are not enough Negroes in either of those cities to maintain a hotel or a restaurant? But even if the Negro could duplicate all of the machinery of civilization in the country and live his life separate and apart, would it be wise to have him do it? We are now trying to cut the hyphen out of our body politic, would it be wise to deliberately create another?
It is curious to note the amount of ego that goes with the attitude of the editor of the Courier-News on this question. He sits writing his little article shaming Negroes for wanting to associate with white people, not imagining for a moment that there are colored people who not only would not seek him for a social equal, but who probably might refuse to accept him as one. If he should be stopping at the Van-Astor hotel, and a colored man came in to register, the first thought to crop up in his mind would be, “Here is a Negro who wants to get into a hotel where I, a white man, and other white men are stopping,” not knowing that what the Negro wants is something to eat and a place to sleep and that he is willing to pay for the best he can afford.
This ego is characteristic of all white people who talk like the editor of the Courier-News. They feel, when a Negro protests against discrimination and “Jim Crowism” that he is trying to get away from his race and associate with white people. When a self-respecting Negro so protests, the thought of merely associating with white people is the farthest from his mind; he is contending for a common democratic right which all other citizens of the country have, that of being accommodated in public places when he is clean, orderly and is able and willing to pay the price; or he is protesting against being forced to accept inferior service for the price of the best service, and he is especially resenting the badge of inferiority which being “Jim Crowed” places upon him.
This article of the Courier-News runs on for the length of a column, nearly all of it being a diatribe against Negroes who are seeking “social equality,” meaning those who object to being “Jim Crowed” and shut out of theatres and hotels and restaurants and other public places where orderly conduct and the price are the only requisites exacted from other citizens. So it is not worth the while to quote any more of it.
We wish to say that there are many sound and solid reasons why the Negro should fight for his country, aside from the reasons that are altruistic and sentimental; but the editor of the Courier-News in using up a column of his more or less valuable space in answering the letter of E. R. failed to strike upon a single one.
The letter written to the Courier-News was lightweight, but the editor’s article in answer to it did not weigh as much as the letter. His article is entirely apart from the mark.
The New York Age, June 29, 1918