The American Missionary - Volume 54, No. 01, January, 1900

Excerpt

THE PROGRESSIVE SOUTH.

It is encouraging to note the signs of progress at the South towards meeting the heavy responsibilities of the situation. It is a mistake to imagine that the Southern situation does not improve from year to year. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, appreciate the trend of events and the necessity for the elevation of the depressed millions with whom they are intermingled. The Southern tragedies of murder and violence have awakened the same horror in their hearts as throughout the country at large. There is a rising sentiment against lynching and for enforcing justice by the cold and passionless execution of law. There is a strong desire to give the advantages of education to both the ignorant whites and the ignorant blacks. There is a growing sympathy for the beneficent efforts to this end which are put forth from the North.

It is a great mistake to confuse the whole South with certain lower elements in its vast and varied populations. It is also a mistake to imagine that sporadic instances of violence here and there are sufficient indices of the situation at large. Millions of the Southern whites and blacks are dwelling together in amity and co operation for the advance of education and for moral progress. Illustrations are multiplying on every side of the desire on the part of the progressive South to fulfil the duties and meet the heavy responsibilities thrust upon it by the masses of population submerged in ignorance.

These immense masses are the burden not only of the South, but of the American people at large. Ignorant labor is shiftless and wasteful labor. The growth of varied and inter-related manufactures cannot rest upon a labor element of clumsiness and stupidity. Civil duties demand intelligence and morals. The best patriotism of the South joins hands with that of the North in the elevation of the lowly and ignorant. What has been done is only the initiation of the ten times more which must be done.

It is a significant fact that the last national census showed that the white illiteracy of the South was deeper than even the foreign illiteracy of the North; while that of the Southern black population was fearfully darker. Both public and private efforts are being made in countless communities of the South to begin the lifting of this great burden. Some of the States have already taken encouraging measures in this direction. While there are reactions, the general tide is that of progress. It is easy to make too much of the violent reactionary outcries of a few Southern newspapers. It must be remembered that these shrill expostulations against progress are comparatively isolated and do not represent the general and deliberate sense of the intelligent South. The day has come when intelligent leaders, North and South, can unite their efforts and push forward the work of popular upliftment throughout the South. The lesson of the hour is not that of impatience and denunciation, but of mutual sympathy and co-operation. The hopeful progress of the past is a presage to the magnificent progress assured to the immediate future....