Case Study of a Negro

The negro has been far more systematically studied in his native haunts, Africa, than in his civilized environs, America. In the latter he has been strictly regarded as an economic factor and hardly as a human being; not as one of us but as something apart. As the problem of race relationships presses on, and it surely will once the negro acquires the rudiments of race pride when he no longer will wish to be assimilated by the whites, we will become more conscious of other aspects of the colored man whom we have ignored, regarded with amusement, or viewed with contempt and pity. The negroes' contribution to the arts, especially music as exemplified in the “Spirituals,” constitutes a germinating nucleus for the awakening of race pride. That this is a definitely palpable factor is clearly shown in the spirited reaction evoked in the form of Wyndham Lewis' book “Paleface,” wherein he sets forth salient facts in this connection and cautions us about its possible ramifying influences. We are beginning to be influenced from a source wholly disregarded in the past. Naturally we shall want to know more about that influence and so we become drawn into a more and more intimate acquaintance with our old neighbor, the African.

A fertile field for future investigation is here awaiting development. Many works of a general nature have already appeared, but as yet very little, if anything, has been attempted in the psychological study of the negro as is directly afforded, for example, by the employment of the psychoanalytic method. In view of the extreme scarcity of clinical studies of the mental aspect of the negro, I find justification for the publication of this case report. More ample studies have been undertaken, and are still in progress, by others and myself, at St. Elizabeths Hospital, where there are excellent facilities for studying the negro. In private practice it is impossible for a white physician to treat a negro patient unless he is unusually “white”, owing to the us