Morals and Manners among Negro Americans

Morals and Manners among Negro Americans is the sequel to W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Negro Church. This 1914 study is the last Atlanta University Conference volume to be edited or coedited by Du Bois and is based on a national survey addressing the then current state of morals and manners within the African American community. A case study of the Black Church in Atlanta and an extensive discussion of crime are included also. The national survey addressed such topics as good manners, sound morals, habits of cleanliness, personal honesty, home life, rearing of children, activities for young people, the care of the elderly, church ministries, and an evaluation of recent progress. While the original conference volume included actual lists of the evaluators’ responses by topic and classified by state, the data were not analyzed. This reissue of the classic sociological study includes an extensive introduction based on Robert Wortham’s content analysis of the survey responses. The results of this analysis are presented in tabular form and discussed, and a statistical appendix summarizing the raw data for each topic by state is provided. This new edition presents readers with an opportunity to evaluate general and regional trends in the evaluators’ perception of the state of morals and manners within the African American community at the beginning of the twentieth century.