Mohonk Conference on the Negro Question

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1890. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... iFourttj Session. Thursday Night, June 5. The Conference met at 8 P.m., ex-President Hayes in the chair. Letters were read from President Hickman, of Atlanta, and Dr. J. M. L. Curry. The following communication from Bishop Haygood was also read:--My diar Sir,--Circumstances involving duties forbid me to attend your Mohonk Conference. If it be desirable, let your Secretary read the brief statements that follow:--1. The colored population is believed to be about seven millions.' The great mass is made up of pure-blood Negroes. Those who think that all Negroes are black mistake the case: the larger part are brown people. The hair more than the skin determines the race status of these wonderful people. It is absolutely settled that the tendencies against miscegenation increase in both races. Fewer mulattoes are born each year. The moral tone of the Negroes does improve. The white man recoils from amalgamation more than in former days; and law teaches all. If one should look only for the bad, he can find facts enough to satisfy him that my views are all wrong, and my hopes all delusive. 2. The Negro race in the South makes progress upwards. The barbarous moral debasement of many of them may be admitted without weakening the statement that there is a real uplift. At least two millions of them can read. The American people have too much faith in education to put a light estimate upon such facts. Moreover, not less than one million of these people are now at school. There are more than sixteen thousand common schools for Negro youth in the Southern States, supported out of the public money for elementary education. These schools are taught by Negro teachers with hardly an exception, the teachers having been taught mostly in the higher institutions maintained by Northern...