As we have already seen, the negro is still essentially unadjusted to
our civilization, and it would not be too much to say that the masses of
negroes in this country are still not far removed from barbarism, though
living in the midst of civilization. Slavery failed, as we have already
seen, to render the mass of negroes capable of participating in our
culture, and all that has been done for the negro since emancipation has
likewise failed to adjust the mass of the race to the social conditions
in which they find themselves. We may say, then, roughly, without any
injustice to the negro, that the negro masses of this country are still
essentially an uncultivated or a "nature" people living in the midst of
civilization. The negro problem, in other words, is not greatly
different from what it would be if the present negroes were descendants
of savage aborigines that had peopled this country before the white man
came. The problem of the negro and of the Indian, and of all the
uncivilized races, is essentially the same.
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