own society. Already in
the centres of Negro prosperity and culture it would be almost, if not
quite, as impossible for a white man to be received into the best
Negro society as it would for a Negro to be received into the best
white society. This growing independence and self-sufficiency in the
trades, the professions, and social intercourse leads inevitably, as
he pointed out, to a form of natural segregation based upon economic
needs and social preferences, and in conformity to the laws of nature,
which is a very different matter from the artificial and arbitrary
segregation forced upon unwilling people by the laws of men. Under
these conditions the disputes as to whether the best society of the
blacks is inferior or superior to the best society of the whites
becomes as academic and futile as would be similar contentions as to
whether the best society of Constantinople is inferior or superior to
that of Boston.

While Negroes are more and more drawing apart from the whites into
their own section of the city, town, or county they nevertheless find
it a source of strength to live near the whites in order that they may
have the benefit of their aid in those matters in which the older and
stronger race excels. Nor is this an entirely one-sided advantage, as
there are not a few matters in which the Negroes have natural
advantages over the whites and hence may render them useful service.
Thus the two races, socially separated but economically
interdependent, may to mutual advantage live side by side.

Some persons claim that any such plan of race adjustment, while
theoretically plausible and ideally desirable, is nevertheless
practically impossible. They contend that no so radically different
races have ever lived side by side in harmony and each aiding the
other. However that may be, there remains the fact that such a
harmonious and mutually helpful relationship between the two races
does already exist in the town of Tuskegee, throughout Macon County,
and in many other of the more progressive localities throughout the
South to-day. And at the same time, the lynchings and riots and other
manifestations of racial conflict are continuously if slowly growing
less frequent. Whatever may be the relative strength of the two
theories, the facts are lining up in support of the Booker Washington
prophecy at the Atlanta Exposition when he said: "In all things that
are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as