THE NEGROES OF NEBRASKA

     (45) Through the efforts of their organizations, leaders, lecturers, and newspapers, in many cases actively assisted by white friends, the Negroes of Nebraska are endeavoring to demonstrate to the people of the State that they are deserving of equal consideration with all others in the economic and social life of Nebraska. As a (46) major part of their program toward this end their leaders urge improved efficiency for each member of the group through higher education. They point to the problem raised by increased competition in all branches of gainful occupation, where only the efficient, better-trained competitor can hope for continued success.

     The Negroes feel that perhaps the greatest problem confronting them as a group is one which may loosely be termed the problem of adjustment. Their other problems, both social and economic, stem from the greater one. This problem of adjustment particularly involves interracial attitudes and relations.

     For other racial groups the problem of adjustment with those already established in Nebraska is usually automatically solved by the inevitable process of amalgamation. It is even conceivable that

in the course of centuries of time amalgamation may erase the color lines now separating the white from the black race. In this present day, however, such a contingency is so remote as to be unworthy of consideration, and there is not a single Nebraska leader, Caucasian or Negro, who advocates amalgamation as a feasible solution of the Negro's problems.

     The problem of adjustment nevertheless remains. The Negroes of Nebraska are numerically a minority group. Economically and socially they are faced with problems arising from causes over some of which they have little or no control. The span of human memory still overlaps the time when Negroes were illiterate slaves. Many white men still regard the Negro race as inferior to the white race, and many white men even hold Negroes in contempt.

     On the other hand there are social leaders of both races who believe that no society can function harmoniously so long as a (47) portion of its citizens is handicapped economically and socially. Realizing that they are so handicapped, the Negroes of the State are doing everything they can to level such existing interracial barriers as hinder their progress toward social and economic parity with other racial groups in the State.

     A tolerant, and often materially helpful, attitude in the white race has been of no little benefit to them in their struggle upward from poverty and illiteracy during the past seventy-five years. Today the group is almost wholly literate; members of the race have penetrated into every trade, calling, and profession. Yet, in comparison as a whole with other racial groups, the Negroes of Nebraska still stand at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.

     It is the argument of the Negroes themselves that, were they to be allowed equal opportunity with all peoples in the struggle for individual and racial advancement a stimulus and incentive would be provided which would shortly cause to be overcome all present obstacles to their development. Some of these obstacles, among them racial prejudice and discrimination, have been more or less removed. There is little of racial prejudice, as compared with fifty years ago, still existing in Nebraska, and each succeeding generation finds less of it. Some discrimination may still be found, but it is gradually lessening. Its partial persistence at the University, where Negroes are forbidden to participate in major intercollegiate athletic events, is still a source of resentment to Nebraska Negroes.

     After the Negro slaves of America were freed, following the Civil War, members of their own race foresaw that all would not be smooth sailing in their progress toward social and economic security. Their leaders could see that not in one generation would the interracial attitudes of slave days be forgotten. Consequently they advised their people to go slowly, and not to insist upon all things at once. In the State of Nebraska Negro progress and advance has been characterized by a deliberate, judicious application of this concept. Our leading colored citizens, past and present, have worked whole-heartedly with the whites toward the betterment of the status of Negroes. That the status of Negroes in Nebraska is infinitely better than when they first came to the State is undeniable. Seventy-five years ago the handful of colored pioneers had nothing, and even their status as citizens of the State was hotly contested. They were illiterate, and dependent for a livelihood on what few jobs were granted to them.

     Now Negroes exercise the rights, duties and privileges of citizens of the State of Nebraska. They vote, and members of the race sit in the State's legislative chambers. They own property, go to school and college, hold public offices, train for the professions, conduct business, and go about their daily affairs unhampered by statutory shackles.

     Negroes have not won these advantages nor accomplished what they have by demanding it of society, but have done so by demonstrating their right to them as a law-abiding, hard-working, ambitious group.

     They themselves maintain that the end is not yet in sight. If they have progressed so far toward economic independence as they have in three-quarters of a century, surely a like period in the future will see them still farther on the path. Their leaders assert that when the time comes that their standard of living compares with that of all other racial groups, then all other criteria of the group, whether social, economic, criminological, educational, or otherwise, will be in the same ratio. Only when Negroes have equal opportunities with all other races in all lines of human endeavor, they feel, can this ideal state come to pass.

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