in the same lines as other men. Why is it,
then, that so much of misinformation and contempt is widespread concerning
Africa and its people, not simply among the unthinking mass, but among men
of education and knowledge?

One reason lies undoubtedly in the connotation of the term "Negro." In
North America a Negro may be seven-eights white, since the term refers to
any person of Negro descent. If we use the term in the same sense
concerning the inhabitants of the rest of world, we may say truthfully
that Negroes have been among the leaders of civilization in every age of
the world's history from ancient Babylon to modern America; that they have
contributed wonderful gifts in art, industry, political organization, and
religion, and that they are doing the same to-day in all parts of the
world.

In sharp contrast to this usage the term "Negro" in Africa has been more
and more restricted until some scientists, late in the last century,
declared that the great mass of the black and brown people of Africa were
not Negroes at all, and that the "real" Negro dwells in a small space
between the Niger and the Senegal. Ratzel says, "If we ask what justifies
so narrow a limitation, we find that the hideous Negro type, which the
fancy of observers once saw all over Africa, but which, as Livingstone
says, is really to be seen only as a sign in front of tobacco shops, has
on closer inspection evaporated from all parts of Africa, to settle no one
knows how in just this region. If we understand that an extreme case may
have been taken for the genuine and pure form, even so we do not
comprehend the ground of its geographical limitation and location; for
wherever dark, woolly-haired men dwell, this ugly type also crops up. We
are here in the presence of a refinement of science which to an
unprejudiced eye will hardly hold water."[67]

In this restricted sense the Negro has no history, culture, or ability,
for the simple fact that such human beings as have history and evidence
culture and ability are not Negroes! Between these two extreme
definitions, with unconscious adroitness, the most extraordinary and
contradictory conclusions have been reached.

Let it therefore be said, once for all, that racial inferiority is not the
cause of anti-Negro prejudice. Boaz, the anthropologist, says, "An
unbiased estimate of the anthropological evidence so far brought forward
does not permit us to countenance the belief in a racial inferiority which