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| The phrase ''''Negro problem'''' has been used to refer to the problems caused by the presence of blacks in the ], especially in the ]. | |||
| ==The nature of the problem== | |||
| Although American blacks gained political equality after the ] whites were still reluctant to mix with them in terms of social equality. Intermarriage was widely considered a ]. The races remained distinct and there was considerable animosity between them.<ref>Bruce, 1893</ref> | |||
| ] argued in his pamphlet ''An Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question'' that the emancipation of slaves was a mistake which led to decay of society.<ref>http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/texts/carlyle/carlodnq.htm</ref> Opponents of racial equality in the 19th and 20th century used ] as an example of how blacks could not build succesful societies. | |||
| ==Proposed solutions== | |||
| It has been hoped that ] will lead to almost complete amalgamation of the two races in America which would eliminate blacks as a distinct ethnic group. William Hannibal Thomas wrote in 1841: | |||
| {{cquote|''The future American negro will part, undoubtedly, with many of his racial characteristics as he approximates in color and conduct | |||
| the white race. Even now many persons of negroid ancestry are so fair in color that they readily pass for | |||
| white people, and marry among that class without exciting the slightest suspicion as to their mixed race | |||
| identity. Furthermore, white American marriages are constantly contracted with every variety of the | |||
| colored races, and the fruit of such unions is certain to exert, hereafter, a considerable influence upon | |||
| many existing social perplexities. The inevitable outcome of a perfect blending of our heterogeneous | |||
| peoples would be the development of a composite type of American people of incomparable strength and | |||
| beauty, who, if they clung fast to their best ethical instincts, would attain such heights as would make our | |||
| country what it was ordained to be,—the cradle of world-wide liberty, the citadel of human fraternity, | |||
| and the seat and centre of universal righteousness.<ref>Shufeldt, 1907</ref>}} | |||
| Robert Shufeldt named this "most outrageous and vilest proposition that has yet been made on the part of any one as a solution of the negro problem in the United States". He wrote: | |||
| {{cquote|''I can conceive of no greater calamity that could happen to my people, to my race in this | |||
| country than this. We have here at least a certain proportion of the population who can call themselves | |||
| true Americans—a race that, although it came from the Old World, and is a composite stock of the Old | |||
| World, has arrived at a stage of civilization unexcelled by any other nation in the entire range of history. | |||
| This civilization speaks for itself, and it is not necessary for me to dilate upon it here, and it is this | |||
| civilization, the building up of which has taken thousands of years that Thomas would have now | |||
| jeopardized by the injection into it of a poison so foul and so hopelessly stagnant that whenever or | |||
| wherever it mixes with it, the rottenness of the result is only too apparent. I refer distinctly to the | |||
| continued and systematic crossing of the negroes and whites in the United States of America.<ref>Shufeldt, 1907</ref>}} | |||
| ] wrote in his influential book “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy” that the Negro problem was essentially the consequence of racism.<ref>Myrdal, 1944</ref> According to Myrdal the elimination of racism would lead to the elimination of Negro problem. Black intellectuals like ] and ] who wrote on the Negro problem also stressed the importance of education. | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| == References == | |||
| * ''The Negro problem'' by William Cabell Bruce. 1893 | |||
| * ''The Negro - A Menace to American Civilization'' by Robert William Shufeldt, 1907 | |||
| * ''The Negro problem'' by Booker T. Washington et. al. , 1903 | |||
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Revision as of 06:18, 31 August 2007
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