But the increasing civilization of
the Negro since then has naturally meant the development of
higher classes: there are increasing numbers of ministers,
teachers, physicians, merchants, mechanics, and independent
farmers, who by nature and training are the aristocracy and
leaders of the blacks. Between them, however, and the best
element of the whites, there is little or no intellectual com-
merce. They go to separate churches, they live in separate
sections, they are strictly separated in all public gatherings,
they travel separately, and they are beginning to read dif-
ferent papers and books. To most libraries, lectures, concerts,
and museums, Negroes are either not admitted at all, or on
terms peculiarly galling to the pride of the very classes who
might otherwise be attracted. The daily paper chronicles the
doings of the black world from afar with no great regard
for accuracy; and so on, throughout the category of means for
intellectual communication,--schools, conferences, efforts for
social betterment, and the like,--it is usually true that the
very representatives of the two races, who for mutual benefit
and the welfare of the land ought to be in complete under-
standing and sympathy, are so far strangers that one side
thinks all whites are narrow and prejudiced, and the other
thinks educated Negroes dangerous and insolent.
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