Harrison, responding to the East St. Louis pogrom, assails the prominent Black paper The New York Age for their refusal to countenance the need of armed self-defense.

“Arms and the Man” (1917) by Hubert H. Harrison from When Africa Awakes. Porro Press, New York City. 1920.

In its editorial on “The East St. Louis Horror” The Voice said:

“How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands? So long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium, Ireland or Galicia?

“And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down. Unbeknown to the white people of this-land a temper is being developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to reckon.

“At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defence of their lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.”

To this, the New York Age makes reply in two ways. Its editor, in an interview given to the Tribune, declares that:

“The representative Negro does not approve of radical socialistic outbursts, such as calling upon the Negroes to defend themselves against the whites.”

And in its editorial of last week it insists that:

“No man, or woman either, for that matter, is a friend to the race, who publicly advises a resort to violence to redress the wrongs and injustices to which members of the race are subjected in various sections of the country at the present time.

“The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect upon the whole race…The unruly tongues should not be allowed to alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed.”

Now, although The Voice seeks no quarrel with The Age, we are forced to dissent from this cringing, obsequious view which it champions. And we do this on the ground that cringing has gone out of date, that The Age’s view does not now represent any influential or important section of Negro opinion. The group which once held that view went to pieces when Dr. Washington died. The white papers in their news items of last week gave instance after instance showing that Negroes not only counselled self-defense, but actually practiced it. (And The Age, by the way, was the only Negro paper in New York City which excluded these items from its news columns.) If the press reports are correct, then The Voice told the simple truth when it spoke of the new temper which was being developed ‘‘unbeknown to the white people of this land.’ And an outsider might conclude that The Voice was a better friend to the white people by letting them know this, than The Age was by trying to lie about it.

But the controversy goes much deeper than the question of candor and truthfulness. The Age and The Voice join issue on this double question: Have Negroes a right to defend themselves against whites? Should they defend themselves? (And this, of course, means violence.) The Voice answers, “Yes!” The Age answers “No!”? Who is to decide? Let us appeal to the courts. Every law-book and statute-book, every court in the civilized world and in the United States agree that every human being has the legal as well as moral right to kill those who attack and try to kill him. Then the question for The Age to decide, is whether Negroes are human beings. You call our view “socialistic” is to call the courts “socialistic,” and displays’ an amazing ignorance both of Socialism and of human nature.

Before we leave this question, it is proper to consider the near and remote consequences of the radical view. The Age says that unruly tongues will alienate public sympathy from the oppressed. Good God! Isn’t it high time to ask of what value is that kind of sympathy which is ready to be alienated as soon as Negroes cease to be “n***rs” and insist on being men? Is that the sort of sympathy on which The Age has thrived? Then we will have none of it.

And, as to the remoter consequences: neither we nor The Age has a lease on the future. We can but prophesy. But intelligent people reach the unknown via the known, and prophesy the future from the known past and present. And we do know that no race or group of people past or present ever won to the status of manhood among men by yielding up that right which even a singed cat will not yield up—the right to defend their lives. If The Age knows of any instance to the contrary in the history of the past seven thousand years, let it mention that instance. But The Age may ask:

“What will self defense accomplish?” Let us see first what the absence of self-defense accomplishes. In its news account of the St. Louis massacre, the Amsterdam News shows that whenever the white mobs found a group of Negroes organized and armed, they turned back; while The Age itself had this significant and pathetic sentence:

“Since the massacre, which will go down in history alongside the atrocities committed in Brussels and Rheims, a delegation of Negroes has held a conference with Governor Lowden at Springfield, but the outcome of this meeting will not bring back the lives of those who, for no valid reason, were struck down and murdered m cold blood.”

Taking the two things together the answer seems clear enough. When murder is cheap murder is indulged in recklessly; when it is likely to be costly it is not so readily indulged in. Will The Age venture to deny this? No? Then we say, let Negroes help to make murder costly, for by so doing they will aid the officers of the city, state and nation in instilling respect for law and order into the minds of the worst and lowest elements of our American cities. And we go further: We say that it is not alone the brutality of the whites—it is also the cowardice of Negroes and the lickspittle leadership of the last two decades which, like The Age, told us to “take it all lying down’’—it is this which has been the main reason for our “bein’ so aisily lynched,” as Mr. Dooley puts it.

Whatever The Age may say, Negroes will fight back as they are already fighting back. And they will be more highly regarded—as are the Irish—because of fighting back.

We are aiming at the white man’s respect—not at his sympathy. We cannot win that respect by any conspicuous and contemptible cowardice; the only kind of sympathy which we may win by that is the kind of sympathy which men feel for a well-kicked dog which cringes while they kick it.

“Rights are to be won by those who are ready and willing to fight, if necessary, to have those rights respected.”

Who says this? Theodore Roosevelt. So does President Wilson. So does the U. S. Government. That is why we went to war with Germany. Our country always acts upon the best and highest principle and we Negroes have just begun to see that our country is quite right. Therefore, we are willing to follow its glorious example. That is all.

When Africa Awakes by Hubert H. Harrison. Porro Press, New York City. 1920.

Harrison’s uniquely important collection of writings from 1917-1920 published in various journals from the time, published by Porro Press (personally published).

Contents: Introduction, THE BEGINNINGS). Launching the Liberty League, Resolutions Passed at Liberty League Meetings, Petition to Congress, DEMOCRACY AND RACE FRICTION) The East St. Louis Horror, ‘Arms and the Man’, The Negro and the Labor Unions, Lynching Its Cause and Cure, THE NEGRO AND THE WAR) Is Democracy Unpatriotic?, Why Is the Red Cross?, A Hint of ‘Our Reward’, The Negro at the Peace Congress, Africa and the Peace, ‘They Shall Not Pass’, A Cure for the Ku-Klux, THE NEW POLITICS) The New Politics for the New Negro, The Drift in Politics, A Negro for President, When the Tail Wags the Dog, The Grand Old’ Party. THE PROBLEMS OF LEADERSHIP) Our Professional ‘’Friends’, Shillady Resigns, Our White Friends, A Tender Point, The Descent of Du Bois, When the Blind Lead, Just Crabs, THE NEW RACE CONSCIOUSNESS) The Negro’s Own Radicalism, Race First versus Class First, An Open Letter to the Socialist Party, ‘Patronize Your Own’, The Women of Our Race, To the Young Men of My Race, OUR INTERNATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS) The White War and the Colored World, U-need-a Biscuit, Our Larger Duty, Help Wanted for Hayti, The Cracker in the Caribbean, When Might Makes Right, Bolshevism in Barbados, A New International, The Rising Tide of Color, The White War and the Colored Races, EDUCATION AND THE RACE) Reading for Knowledge, Education and the Race, The Racial Roots of Culture, The New Knowledge for the New Negro, A FEW BOOKS) The Negro in History and Civilization, Darkwater, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy. EPILOGUE: The Black Man’s Burden A Reply to Rudyard Kipling.

PDF of full book: https://archive.org/download/ldpd_13339574_000/ldpd_13339574_000.pdf