The Young Men’s Christian Associations of the Northern cities have to meet the problem of the Negro. The New Haven, Connecticut, people refused to permit Negroes to attend the Y. M. C. A., and a separate building had to be provided for them.[306]
Within the colored church itself there is manifest a conflict between the Negroes proper and mulattoes. There is a town in North Carolina in which they have practical separation in the churches, the black Negroes going to one church and the bright mulattoes to another. A similar separation of the Negroes and mulattoes in churches exists, to some extent, in Charleston, South Carolina. At a Negro Christian Congress at Washington City, in 1906, the chairman of the meeting was charged with removing from the program dark-skinned men and substituting light-skinned men. It provoked such a discussion as to divide the meeting into two factions.[307]
The Brownsville affair—that is, the dismissal without honor, through the order of President Roosevelt, of a whole regiment of Negro soldiers because of the misconduct of some of them and the refusal of the others to testify against the guilty ones, and the championship of the cause of the Negroes by Senator Foraker—has brought into much prominence the question of the Negro as a soldier.
The Southern States have been and are unfavorable to allowing Negroes to serve in the militia. South Carolina,[308] in 1865, declared that persons of color constituted no part of the militia of the State. Arkansas,[309] in 1867, accorded to Negroes all the rights of white citizens, with a few exceptions, one of which was that nothing in the statute should be construed as modifying any statute or common law usage in the State respecting the service of Negroes in the militia. North Carolina[310] provided that white and colored members of the detailed militia should not be compelled to serve in the same companies. Georgia,[311] in 1905, by statute, abolished the colored troops of the State, active and retired, and discharged the officers and men from the military service of the State.
There is very little legislation on the subject in the other States. In 1879, the legislature of Connecticut[312] authorized the commander-in-chief of the State militia to organize four independent Negro companies of infantry to be part of the National Guard. West Virginia,[313] in 1889, provided that, if any colored troops should be organized, they should be enlisted and kept separate and apart from the other troops, and should be formed into separate companies and regiments. New Jersey,[314] in 1895, made provision for four companies of colored infantry, presumably meaning that they should be all colored and kept separate from the other troops.