Southern Negro Research Articles

The Relative Political Status of the Negro in the United States

The political status of the Negro in the United States has undergone basic change during the past decade. His improved position stands out in sharp contrast with the situation which existed in the 1930's, and especially with that of 1900. As the twentieth century dawned the shortlived political career of the Negro had gone into almost total eclipse. After a long period of relentless assault upon Southern Negro suffrage-ranging from outright fraud, intimidation and violence to evasion and cunningly constructed legislative' and constitutional devices which shrank the black electorate,2 the Negro had been reduced to a position of political impotence. Shortly after having been catapulted into the political arena and becoming a most controversial element, the Negro had been generally abandoned by the federal government. Indeed, the disillusioned freedmen could find no refuge in their hour of great need; they faced enemies within and without. In the pithy words of Du Bois, . . it was a losing battle, with public opinion, industry, wealth, and religion against them. Their own leaders decried 'politics' and preached submission. All their efforts toward manly

Comparison of Some Ethnic and Religious Attitudes of Negro and White College Students in the Deep South

W HAT attitudes do southern Negroes hold toward whites? What attitudes toward Jews? Do the more religious Negroes differ in attitude from the less religious? How do their attitudes compare with those of southern whites? Although extensive study has been made of attitudes toward the Negro in the South, the attitudes of the southern Negro himself have been much less carefully explored. A study of his attitudes is of obvious importance, however, in providing clues to the responses of a minority group to overt discrimination. From a theoretical viewpoint we might expect the victim of discrimination either to react aggressively by actively resenting other groups generally, to resent the majority group while sympathizing with other minorities, or to accept the values and views of the majority group while seeking consolation elsewhere (e.g., in religion). Sargent, in discussing the attitudes and other adaptive responses of the southern Negro, has pointed out these alternative courses, but has not attempted to established which ones or ones are more frequently employed.' Previous investigations of the beliefs of southern Negroes have not dealt directly with the question of their attitudes toward other groups. Holmes compared southern Negroes and whites with respect to their attitudes toward liberalism in Negro-white relations and found Negroes to be more liberal.2 This result may manifest the Negro's greater belief in the rights of his group than his greater tolerance for whites. Studies of the ratings which Howard University students gave to various national groups on the Bogardus scale seemed to show that Negro college students rated various groups as did students, except that they rated Negroes higher.3 From this we could probably conclude that Negro students have a favorable attitude toward white Americans, the majority group, and a less favorable attitude toward Jews, another minority. Bayton's study of the stereotypes held in 1941 by Negro students in a Virginia college and Meenes' study of those held by Howard students in 1935 and 1943 apparently confirmed this conclusion.4 In both studies the stereotype of Americans was quite favorable and that of the Jew much less favorable. More recently Bayton and Byoune noticed a difference in the stereotype held by Negro students of Louisiana in 1947.5 To the usual American pattern of intelligent-industrious-sportsmanlikesophisticated was added a pattern of graspingdeceitful-cruel-quick tempered. At the same time, the pattern attributed to the Jew was more complimentary than that of the earlier studies. The authors state that deep-seated anti-Semitism is not revealed in the 'deep south' Negro's stereotype of the Jews. It is possible, then, that the Negro of the deep South does not hold the usual American pattern of attitudes. The study here reported attempted to determine the attitude of Negro college students of the deep South toward Americans and Jews, to compare these attitudes with those held toward Negroes and Jews by students in nearby colleges, and to ascertain the

The Historian and Southern Negro Slavery

A SURVEY of the literature dealing with southern Negro slavery reveals one fundamental problem that still remains unresolved. This is the problem of the biased historian. It is, of course, a universal historical problem-one that is not likely to be resolved as long as historians themselves are divided into scientific and so-called subjectivist-presentist-relativist schools.' These schools seem to agree that historians ought to strive for a maximum of intellectual detachment and ought not to engage in special pleading and pamphleteering. But whether they are entitled to pass moral judgments, whether they can overcome the subjective influences of their own backgrounds and environments, are still debatable questions-at least they are questions which are still being debated. Yet it must be said that so far as Negro slavery is concerned we are still waiting for the first scientific and completely objective study of the institution which is based upon no assumptions whose validity cannot be thoroughly proved. And as long as historians must select their evidence from a great mass of sources, as long as they attempt to organize and interpret their findings, the prospects are not very encouraging. This does not mean that everyone who has written about slavery has had the same bias, or that some have not been more flagrantly biased than others, or more skillful than others in the use of the subtle innuendo. It most certainly does not imply that further efforts toward a clearer understanding of slavery are futile, or that we are not enormously indebted to the many scholars who have already engaged in research in this field. No student could begin to understand the complexities of the slave system without being thoroughly familiar with the findings and varying points of view of such historians as Ulrich B. Phillips, Herbert Aptheker, Lewis C. Gray, John Hope Franklin, Avery Craven, Carter G. Woodson, Frederic Bancroft, Charles S. Sydnor, John Spencer Bassett, and many others. Among these scholars, the late Professor Phillips has unquestionably made the largest single contribution to our present understanding of southern slavery. It may be that his most durable monument will be the vast amount of new source material which he uncovered. But Phillips was also an unusually able and prolific writer. Measured only crudely in terms of sheer

The Historian and Southern Negro Slavery

The Historian and Southern Negro Slavery

Nature and Causes of the Difficulties of High School Pupils in Reading and Interpreting Four Kinds of Materials

This study was undertaken to secure data needed by Southern educators in improving reading programs in Southern Negro high schools. It is concerned with the difficulties which pupils in Southern Negro high schools encounter in interpreting assigned materials in four content fields English, history, science and mathematics. Its major purposes are to deter-mine the nature and extent of the difficulties encountered by these pupils and the relationships, if any, between reading competence and -four selected factors, namely, the mental ability of the pupils, their general reading attainments, their interests in school activities, and their socio-economic backgrounds.

Growth of Tradition in a Southern Negro Family

Growth of Tradition in a Southern Negro Family

A Note on the Values of Southern College Women, White and Negro

A Note on the Values of Southern College Women, White and Negro

Southern Negro Communities

Southern Negro Communities

Organization for Regional Planning

which they were occupying.16 Similar differentials prevailed in each of the three divisions. On the other hand only 41 percent of the southern white owner operators had been on their farms for 15 years or more, while the comparable percentage for Negroes is 46. These data indicate definitely that those Negro farmers who have attained the status of owner operator are considerably less migratory than their fellows of the white race. Similar are the racial differentials among tenants other than croppers. In the entire South 62 percent of the whites and only 49 percent of the Negroes had been less than five years on the farms they were occupying in 1940. On the other hand, only 7 percent of the white and 14 percent of the Negro tenants had been on their farms for 15 years or more. But it is the Negro sharecropper who is generally thought to be excessively mobile. That he moves about a great deal is indisputable: 64 percent of all southern Negro share croppers in 1940 had been less than five years in the locations they were then occupying. However, the corresponding percentage for members of the white race was much higher, 72 percent. In this case also the differential prevailed in all three of the census divisions. Furthermore, in the southern States 5 percent of the Negro sharecroppers had been on the places they were occupying for 15 years or more, while such a degree of stability was exhibited by only 3 percent of the white sharecroppers. Again, this very marked differential was of approximately the same magnitude in each of the divisions. Thus the evidence reveals that even those Negroes who fall into that great category of farm laborers called share croppers are actually a great deal less migratory than whites of similar status. The conclusion to be drawn from these comparisons is that farm Negroes are definitely less migratory than whites of comparable tenure classes. 16 These data and those to follow were compiled from the U. S. Census of Agriculture: 1940, Vol. III (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1942).

A Co-operative Effort among Southern Negro High Schools

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Co-operative Effort among Southern Negro High SchoolsW. A. RobinsonW. A. Robinson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 52, Number 9Nov., 1944 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/441088 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The School Review (1893-1979), which is continued by the American Journal of Education (1979-present). PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:William G. Wraga Clinical Technique, Tacit Resistance: Progressive Education Experimentation in the Jim Crow South, History of Education Quarterly 59, no.22 (Apr 2019): 227–256.https://doi.org/10.1017/heq.2019.5Scott Baker Pedagogies of Protest: African American Teachers and the History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1940–1963, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education 113, no.1212 (Dec 2011): 2777–2803.https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811111301206

Consumer Problems and the Cooperative Movement in the Curricula of Southern Negro Colleges

Journal Article Consumer Problems and the Cooperative Movement in the Curricula of Southern Negro Colleges Get access Lee M. Brooks, Lee M. Brooks University of North Carolina Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Ruth G. Lynch Ruth G. Lynch University of North Carolina Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 22, Issue 4, May 1944, Pages 429–436, https://doi.org/10.2307/2571811 Published: 01 May 1944

A Comparative Group Rorschach Study of Southern Negro and White High School and College Students

A Comparative Group Rorschach Study of Southern Negro and White High School and College Students

The Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Study of the Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South. Eliza Atkins Gleason

<i>The Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Study of the Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South</i>. Eliza Atkins Gleason

A Scholarly Study: The Southern Negro and the Public Library

<i>A Scholarly Study</i>: The Southern Negro and the Public Library

The Southern Negro and the Public Library. By Eliza Atkins Gleason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1941. 218 pp. $2.50. Tables

The Southern Negro and the Public Library. By Eliza Atkins Gleason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1941. 218 pp. $2.50. Tables

The Southern Negro and the Public Library

The Southern Negro and the Public Library

The Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Study of the Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South. Eliza Atkins Gleason

Previous articleNext article No AccessEducational WritingsThe Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Study of the Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South. Eliza Atkins Gleason DeWitt M. KelleyDeWitt M. Kelley Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 42, Number 7Mar., 1942 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/458068 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1942 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Cheryl Knott The Publication and Reception of The Southern Negro and the Public Library, (Jan 2014): 51–76.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137390523_3

Eliza Atkins Gleason, The Southern Negro and the Public Library

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsEliza Atkins Gleason, The Southern Negro and the Public LibraryJ. W. SeabrookJ. W. Seabrook Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 27, Number 1January 1942 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2715103 Journal History This article was published in The Journal of Negro History (1916-2001), which is continued by The Journal of African American History (2002-present). Copyright 1942, 1969 The Association for the Study of African American Life and HistoryPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Negro Secondary Education in Rural Areas

In any Survey of Secondary Education for Negroes, there is justification for a separate chapter dealing with secondary facilities in rural areas. According to the 1930 Census, there are 11,891,143 Negroes in the United States, 6,697,230 (56 per cent) of whom live in rural areas. In 17 Southern and border states and the District of Columbia there are found 9,586,000 Negroes or 81 per cent of the total Negro population; over a million of this group (1,081,600) are adolescents, 15-19 years of age. In the distinctly rural areas of this Southern section there reside 67.4 per cent of the total Southern Negro population; here are over eight hundred thousand (808,376) Negro youth between the ages of 15 and 19 years. Therefore, in this rural area of Negro concentration (adult and youth) whatever is problematic in secondary education for Negroes will be found accentuated. During the last twenty years, a number of studies dealing with Negro education have appeared, and all of them have contributed to our information concerning secondary education for Negroes.' Expert investigators

The Paine College Children's Library

It is generally admitted among educators that Southern children, and in particular Negro children, are greatly handicapped because they have done so little reading. Most of them have grown up in homes which could not afford books; and which, in many cases, had no appreciation for the value of reading. Few of the public schools have any book collections. The teachers, having never read much themselves, know how to use only the textbook and think they have achieved great results if the student memorizes it verbatim. The recent move to increase library service in the South is splendid, but as yet it benefits only a few Negroes. Paine College is keenly aware of this problem and has spent much study in finding out how best to plan its curriculum to overcome this deficiency on the part of its students. Results of college entrance examinations are quite revealing. In the fall of 1936 sixty entrants took the Monroe Standardized Silent Reading Test III, form I. The median score for rate was 83.1 as compared with the national norm of 100, and the median score for comprehension was 21.7 as compared with the national norm of 32. In the fall of 1937 thirty-nine entrants took the same examination. The median score for rate was 76.5 and for comprehension 26.25. The examination on language and literature showed even more clearly the lack of a general reading background. The Sones-Harry High School Achievement Test, form A, was given for the first time this fall. When compared with the national score, only six of the fifty-eight taking the examination were above the median. When compared with the score for Southern Negro high school graduates, twenty-five were above the median. This indicates, not only that we are far behind the national average in a general knowledge of literature, but that this section of Georgia and South Carolina is behind the average for Southern Negroes. A study of the situation in Augusta, Georgia, where Paine College is located, strengthens our belief in the above conclusion. There are nine Negro public schools in Augusta. They are staffed by 101 teachers and have enrolled 4,212 pupils. Of these nine schools only five have any book collection. One school has 600 books, but only 250 of them are usable. They are kept in a small room and may be checked-out through any of the teachers. Another of the schools has 225 books, most of which are suitable and in fair condition. They are kept in a small room adjoining the principal's office and are checked out by him. The most used collection is one of about 100 volumes. These are kept on shelves in the various classrooms and are handled by students trained to do the work. As these are loaned for only three days, they are widely circulated. One elementary school has 275 books, but they are mostly suited to high school age pupils and are little read. The high school has only a few reference books,