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From "In Freedom's Birthplace: A study of the Boston Negroes" by John Daniels published in 1914

p. 95-96 THE NEGRO IN BOSTON In 1893, William H. Lewis, a young Negro then attending Harvard University Law School, and an ardent recruit to the ranks of the agitators for equality, was refused service in a barber shop in Cambridge.^ He and Wilson went before the Legislature and asked that not only barber shops, but all places open to public patronage, be included in the scope of the law. The Act of 1885 was in consequence amended, and made to include "barber shops or other public places kept for hire, gain, or reward, whether licensed or not."^ The ast revision of the law was made two years later. It increased the maximum fine to three hundred dollars, made imprisonment of not more than one year an alternative or additional penalty, and provided also for the recovery of damages, of not less than twenty-five nor more than three hundred dollars, by the person subjected to discrimination.^

By 1895, therefore, the Negro's civil rights — that is, his share in all public privileges of whatever sort — had been made fully equal, in Boston and Massachusetts, to those of other elements of the community. So far as it was possible for the law to accomplish, all obstacles to the Negro's largest opportunity were removed, and he was placed abreast of his white fellow-citizens. ^ For further information regarding Lewis, see Appendix, p. 456.
 * Acts and Resolves, 1885, chap. 316.

p. 101 The only Negro subsequently sent to the Legislature was W. H. Lewis, who was elected from Cambridge in 1902.

p. 127 But during the same period the change and re-adjustment of attitude toward the Negro, and the general endorsement of Washington's point of view and plan of operation, have made progress many times more extensive than that of the counter-movement which has been described. One of the most impressive and promising elements of this progress has been the turning to Washington's principles on the part of the great mass of his own race. In Boston, as has already been intimated and as will later be more amply shown, the rank and file of the Negro population is made up of recent immigrants from the South. These Southern Negroes grew up among their people in the "Black Belt," accustomed to regard the color line as a fact rather than a grievance. Their most immediate and vital concern is to earn a living. They instinctively recognize that a plan which will enable them to earn a better living will necessarily promote their general welfare. Except for a small and scattering minority, they have therefore accepted the gospel of salvation through work. This acceptance has not come about so much through a process of conscious reasoning as it has through the promptings of a native common sense. It finds expression not so much in words or declamation as in the ordinary acts of each day's routine. But therein

p. 128 THE NEGRO IN BOSTON

As it is with the rank and file, so it is with most of those who occupy positions of leadership, a majority of whom also are to-day of Southern birth and rearing. They both share and respond to the feeling of the mass of their race. Especially noticeable is the extent to which the younger leaders, as they arise, are planting their feet squarely upon the solid ground of self-help.

More significant still is the fact that a majority of the Negroes who were formerly in the forefront of the equal-rights agitation have substantially modified their views in the light of a fuller understanding of conditions. Most of the earlier leaders in that agitation no longer take part in it with their pristine vehemence, and have grown to be at least tolerant of the prevailing attitude. Some, while not abandoning their belief in the importance of constant activity by the Negro to safeguard his rights, have become convinced that tactics less precipitate and more conciliatory in character are better adapted to that purpose, and have at the same time openly committed themselves to the substance of Washington's position. These latter are represented most prominently in the Boston community by William H. Lewis, to whom reference has already been made in connection with civil rights legislation, and whose opinion should command special respect by reason of the high posts in the public service which, as will at a later point be mentioned specifically, he has occupied.

For a time after leaving the Law School I was counted as one of the radicals and agitators [said Mr. Lewis in a statement to the writer], but I found so many good people who

FORCED ON HIS OWN RESOURCES 129

approved Dr. Washington's course and who were just as sincere in their advocacy of human rights and Negro rights as I myself, that I began to ask myself if they were wholly wrong and myself wholly right. I came to believe that they were more right than I, and so I decided that I should not make the business of my life the pulling down of some other men or slinging mud at a real worker.

In an address at Cleveland, Ohio, in August, 1909, he further defined his present attitude : — Northern colored men — in their earnest zeal for better things — should be careful not to hinder, not to retard, not to jeopardize, the progress toward that happy consummation which both races are working out to-day. Mere indiscriminate denunciation, vituperation, recrimination, and abuse on our part, will accomplish nothing. . . . The race in the minority, like the individual in society, who is always in the minority, must advance, if at all, by the same line that the individual advances, by tact, ability, conduct, character, common sense, and diplomacy. . . . Our old-time methods of agitation, denunciation and exposition of our wrongs, today fall upon deaf ears and find little sympathy anywhere. . . . The educated colored men have not taken advantage of the human failing which will often grant a request when it will refuse to yield to a just demand. They have forgotten that, though man's heart may be apparently surcharged with the blackest hate and prejudice, somewhere from his inner consciousness flows the milk of human kindness. They have failed to realize that under present conditions the field of diplomacy has scarcely been touched in the solution of race problems.

Likewise by the vast majority of white people, in Boston as elsewhere, the principles enunciated by Washington have been accepted as the most practicable and normal course to be followed with respect to the emancipated race. There is a reason for this acceptance, moreover, which is far broader and deeper than any consideration peculiar to this particular prob-

130 THE NEGRO IN BOSTON

lem. It is this : that while the dominant commercial spirit which characterizes the present generation makes less response than the humanitarian spirit of the preceding generation to abstract appeals regarding the Negro's rights, this same commercial spirit responds readily to the proposal to develop the latent productive capacities of the Negro people and thus to enhance their value to the community. This proposal, espe- cially in its advocacy of industrial education, is, furthermore, in line with the rapidly evolving new humanitarianism, which places less emphasis upon the immediate relief of human distress and more upon the eliciting of human powers.

THE LEVERAGE OF THE BALLOT p. 273

W, H. Lewis, to whom several important references have already been made, was chosen as a councilman from another ward where the Negro vote is small, and served in that capacity for the three years 1899-01. He was then elected a representative in the Legislature, which position he filled during the year 1902. He holds the double distinction of having been the last Negro member of the Common Council of Cambridge, and the last Negro member of the Legislature of the State of Massachusetts.

In only two other suburbs have Negroes held elective offices. In Chelsea a member of this race, who has taken a considerable part in local civic affairs, was elected, entirely on his individual worth, to the position of alderman, and served in that role five years. ^ Not long ago there was a Negro member on the Common Council of Everett.

p. 302 THE NEGRO IN BOSTON

Outside the field of the civil service, only two federal appointments have come to the Negroes since 1895, but these two have been very important. Both of them have been conferred upon the same man, William H. Lewis, previous references to whom will be recalled. In 1907, Lewis was made Assistant United States District Attorney, at Boston, and in that capacity wasplaced at the head of the Naturalization Bureau for New England. The fact that one of this race should thus be put in charge of the naturalization of aliens is surely suggestive of considerable progress on the part of the Negro people in the way of becoming an inner element of the community. In 1911, he was appointed an Assistant United States Attorney-General at Washington; which was the highest political position ever bestowed upon a member of his race,^ This appoint-


 * This appointment aroused much protest from Southern and anti-Negro sources, but the President and Attorney-General stood firmly by it. By virtue of his position, Mr. Lewis took precedence at formal functions over many high officials of the other race. An episode was the unsuccessful attempt to exclude him from the national lawyers' association. With the incoming of the present Democratic administration, Mr. Lewis's occupancy of this position came to an end.

Appendix - p. 456 William H. Lewis, to whom a number of previous references have been made. Lewis was born in Virginia, in 1868, graduated from Amherst College, studied law at the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the Bar in 1895.