to the 200 colleges and secondary schools maintained for negroes and
largely supported by them; to their 100 old people's homes, 30
hospitals, 300 periodicals; to the 6000 physicians, dentists, and
nurses; the 30,000 teachers, the 18,000 clergymen. They point to the
beacon lights of their genius: Frederick Douglass, statesman; J.C.
Price, orator; Booker T. Washington, educator; W.E.B. DuBois, scholar;
Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet; Charles W. Chestnutt, novelist. And they
compare this record of 50 years' achievement with the preceding 245
years of slavery.

This, however, is only one side of the shield. There is another side,
nowhere better illustrated, perhaps, than in the neglected negro
gardens of the South. Near every negro hut is a garden patch large
enough to supply the family with vegetables for the entire year, but
it usually is neglected. "If they have any garden at all," says a
negro critic from Tuskegee, "it is apt to be choked with weeds and
other noxious growths. With every advantage of soil and climate and
with a steady market if they live near any city or large town, few of
the colored farmers get any benefit from this, one of the most
profitable of all industries." In marked contrast to these wild and
unkempt patches are the gardens of the Italians who have recently
invaded portions of the South and whose garden patches are almost
miraculously productive. And this invasion brings a real threat to the
future of the negro. His happy-go-lucky ways, his easy philosophy of
life, the remarkable ease with which he severs home ties and shifts
from place to place, his indifference to property obligations--these
negative defects in his character may easily lead to his economic doom
if the vigorous peasantry of Italy and other lands are brought into
competition with him.