"One of the most singular facts about the unwritten history of this country is the consummate ability with which Southern influences, Southern ideas, and Southern ideals, have from the beginning even up to the present day, dictated to and domineered over the brain and sinew of this nation. Without wealth, without education, without inventions, arts, sciences, or industries, without well-nigh every one of the progressive ideas and impulses which have made this country great, prosperous and happy, personally indolent and practically stupid, poor in everything but bluster and self-esteem, the Southerner has nevertheless with Italian finesse and exquisite skill, uniformly and invariably, so manipulated Northern sentiment as to succeed sooner or later in carrying his point and shaping the policy of this government to suit his purposes. Indeed the Southerner is a magnificent manager of men, a born educator. For two hundred and fifty years he trained to his hand a people whom he made absolutely his own in body, mind, and sensibility. He so insinuated differences and distinctions among them, that their personal attachment for him was stronger than for their own brethren and fellow sufferers. He made it a crime for two or three of them to be together in Christ's name without a white man's supervision, and a felony for one to teach them to read even the Word of Life; and yet they would defend his interests with their life and blood; his smile was their happiness, a pat on the shoulder from him their reward. The slightest difference among them in condition, circumstances, opportunities, became barriers of jealousy and disunion. He sowed his blood broadcast among them, then pitted mulatto against black, bond against free, house slave against plantation slave, even the slave of one clan against like slave of another clan; till, wholly oblivious to their ability for mutual succor and defense, having but one sentiment in common, all became myriad systems of repellent forces, having but one sentiment in common, and that their entire subjection to that master hand."
P. 101-2, A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH, by Anna Julia Cooper (Oxford: 1892, 1988)
Monday, April 21, 2014
A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH...EXCERPT.
"One of the most singular facts about the unwritten history of this country is the consummate ability with which Southern influences, Southern ideas, and Southern ideals, have from the beginning even up to the present day, dictated to and domineered over the brain and sinew of this nation. Without wealth, without education, without inventions, arts, sciences, or industries, without well-nigh every one of the progressive ideas and impulses which have made this country great, prosperous and happy, personally indolent and practically stupid, poor in everything but bluster and self-esteem, the Southerner has nevertheless with Italian finesse and exquisite skill, uniformly and invariably, so manipulated Northern sentiment as to succeed sooner or later in carrying his point and shaping the policy of this government to suit his purposes. Indeed the Southerner is a magnificent manager of men, a born educator. For two hundred and fifty years he trained to his hand a people whom he made absolutely his own in body, mind, and sensibility. He so insinuated differences and distinctions among them, that their personal attachment for him was stronger than for their own brethren and fellow sufferers. He made it a crime for two or three of them to be together in Christ's name without a white man's supervision, and a felony for one to teach them to read even the Word of Life; and yet they would defend his interests with their life and blood; his smile was their happiness, a pat on the shoulder from him their reward. The slightest difference among them in condition, circumstances, opportunities, became barriers of jealousy and disunion. He sowed his blood broadcast among them, then pitted mulatto against black, bond against free, house slave against plantation slave, even the slave of one clan against like slave of another clan; till, wholly oblivious to their ability for mutual succor and defense, having but one sentiment in common, all became myriad systems of repellent forces, having but one sentiment in common, and that their entire subjection to that master hand."
P. 101-2, A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH, by Anna Julia Cooper (Oxford: 1892, 1988)