Page:The New Negro.pdf/373

Rh where in the South are to be found evidences of its influence. Negroes have been buying land for a generation till to-day about one-fourth of them own their homes. This is probably not true so largely of any other racial group in America. School facilities have been improved by leaps and bounds, because these institutions have inspired Negroes to undertake the solution of their own educational problems, building their own schools if necessary, supplementing directly out of their own pockets the salaries provided by the state and adding to the school term on their own initiative if the authorized school term was not long enough.

This impulse was extended even to business. A generation ago Negroes were the consumers, other races were the producers and distributors. The idea was set afloat that Negroes could profit by catering to the needs of their own people, that such profit would operate to create larger opportunities for their own race with a corresponding benefit both to the proprietor and to his patrons. To-day Negroes are found in all lines of business with many outstanding examples of success, as well as their own share of failures. In one of the Founder's Day addresses at Tuskegee Institute, a prominent member of his own race said that Booker Washington had "changed a crying race into a trying race.” This phrase epitomizes the idea behind Hampton and Tuskegee. General Armstrong gave to the Negro race its first lessons in this sort of self-reliance. Booker Washington inspired the whole race with his confidence which is now being felt in the rapid strides with which the race is advancing.

For a time the South was hesitant as to the effect of this new gospel on the Negro. It welcomed the idea of teaching the Negro to work if that was what was meant by the "dignity of labor”—but for a time there was some apprehension lest behind this idea there should be a subtle force inspiring Negroes to rebel against unsatisfactory conditions and to resist the domination of the Anglo-Saxon who was in control of economic as well as political life in this section. But the years have proved these suspicions unfounded. The South has seen a great change come over the Negro. Education has been found