r absolute equality, either political,
social, or economic. With the exception of five New England states, with
a total Negro population of only 16,084 in 1860, every state in the
Union discriminated against the Negro politically before the Civil War.
The white people continued to do so--North as well as South--as long as
they retained control of the suffrage regulations of their states. The
determination to do so renders one whole section of the country
practically a political unit to this day. In South Africa we see the
same determination of the white man to rule, regardless of the numerical
superiority of the black. The same determination made Jamaica surrender
the right of self-government and renders her satisfied with a hybrid
political arrangement today. The presence of practically 100,000 Negroes
in the District of Columbia makes 200,000 white people content to live
under an anomaly in a self-governing country. The proposition is too
elementary for discussion that the white man when confronted with a
sufficient number of Negroes to create in his mind a sense of political
unrest or danger either alters his form of government in order to be rid
of the incubus or destroys the political strength of the Negro by force,
by evasion, or by direct action.

In the main, the millions in the South live at peace with their white
neighbors. The masses, just one generation out of slavery and thousands
of them still largely controlled by its influences, accept the
superiority of the white race as a race, whatever may be their private
opinion of some of its members. And, furthermore, they accept this
relation of superior and inferior as a mere matter of course--as part
of their lives--as something neither to be questioned, wondered at, or
worried over. Despite apparent impressions to the contrary, the average
southern white man gives no more thought to the matter than does the
Negro. As I tried to make clear at the outset, the status of superior
and inferior is simply an inherited part of his instinctive mental
equipment--a concept which he does not have to reason out. The
respective attitudes are complementary, and under the mutual acceptance
and understanding there still exist unnumbered thousands of instances of
kindly and affectionate relations--relations of which the outside world
knows nothing and understands nothing. In the mass, the southern Negro
has not bothered himself about the ballot for more than twenty years,
not s