But they faced, as all men since them have faced, that central
paradox of the South,--the social separation of the races. At
that time it was the sudden volcanic rupture of nearly all
relations between black and white, in work and government
and family life. Since then a new adjustment of relations in
economic and political affairs has grown up,--an adjustment
subtle and difficult to grasp, yet singularly ingenious, which
leaves still that frightful chasm at the color-line across which
men pass at their peril. Thus, then and now, there stand in the
South two separate worlds; and separate not simply in the
higher realms of social intercourse, but also in church and
school, on railway and street-car, in hotels and theatres, in
streets and city sections, in books and newspapers, in asy-
lums and jails, in hospitals and graveyards. There is still
enough of contact for large economic and group cooperation,
but the separation is so thorough and deep that it absolutely
precludes for the present between the races anything like that
sympathetic and effective group-training and leadership of the
one by the other, such as the American Negro and all back-
ward peoples must have for effectual progress.
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