Benjamin Griffith Brawley

“ The fact is that the Negro has such a contagious brand of humor that many people never realize that this plays only on the surface. The real background of the race is one of tragedy. It is not in current jest but in the wail of the old melodies that the soul of this people is found. There is something elemental about the heart of the race, something that finds its origin in the forest and in the falling of the stars. ”

“ If the Negro was ignorant, he was also economically defenseless; and it is neither just nor wise to deny to any man, however humble, any real power for his legal protection. If these principles hold—and we think they are in line with enlightened conceptions of society—the prosperity of the New South was by no means as genuine as it appeared to be, and the disfranchisement of the Negro, morally and politically, was nothing less than a crime. ”

“ If the white world conceives it to be its destiny to exploit the darker races of mankind, then it simply remains for the darker races to gird their loins for the contest. "What of the darker world that watches? Most men belong to this world. With Negro and Negroid, East Indian, Chinese, and Japanese they form two-thirds of the population of the world. A belief in humanity is a belief in colored men. If the uplift of mankind must be done by men, then the destinies of this world will rest ultimately in the hands of darker nations. ”

“ Within recent years the dignity of the United States has been seriously impaired. The time seems now to have come when the Government must make a new assertion of its integrity and its authority. No power in the country can be stronger than that of the United States of America.
For the time being, then, this is what we need—a stern adherence to law. If men will not be good, they must at least be made to behave. No one will pretend, however, that an adjustment on such a basis is finally satisfactory. Above the law of the state—above all law of man—is the law of God. ”

“ The Negro either at home or abroad is only one of many moral problems with which she has to deal. At the close of the war extravagance reigned, crime was rampant, and against any one of three or four races there was insidious propaganda. To add to the difficulties, the government was still so dominated by politics and officialdom that it was almost always impossible to get things done at the time they needed to be done. At the same time every patriot knows that America is truly the hope of the world. Into her civilization and her glory have entered not one but many races. ”

“ However, the Negro has no reason to be discouraged. If one will but remember that after all slavery was but an incident and recall the status of the Negro even in the free states ten years before the Civil War, he will be able to see a steady line of progress forward. After the great moral and economic awakening that gave the race its freedom, the pendulum swung backward, and finally it reached its farthest point of proscription, of lawlessness, and inhumanity. ”

“ Obviously now if the Negro, if any race, is to make to America the contribution of which it is capable, it must be free; and this raises the whole question of relation to the rest of the body politic. One of the interesting phenomena of society in America is that the more foreign elements enter into the "melting pot" and advance in culture, the more do they cling to their racial identity. Incorporation into American life, instead of making the Greek or the Pole or the Irishman forget his native country, makes him all the more jealous of its traditions. ”

“ When in course of time the status of the Negro in the American body politic became a live issue, the possibility and the danger of an imperium in imperio were perceived; and Rev. James W.C. Pennington, undoubtedly a leader, said in his lectures in London and Glasgow: "The colored population of the United States have no destiny separate from that of the nation in which they form an integral part. Our destiny is bound up with that of America. Her ship is ours; her pilot is ours; her storms are ours; her calms are ours. If she breaks upon any rock, we break with her. ”

“ It is not the Negro that was massacred in the Carolinas; it was Carolina workingmen, Carolina wage-slaves who happened to be colored men. Not as Negroes must the race rise;... it is as workingmen, as a branch of the working class, that the Negro must denounce the Carolina felonies. ”

“ Once more, despite Brownsville, the tradition of Fort Wagner was preserved and passed on. And then came the greatest of all wars. Again was the Negro summoned to the colors—summoned out of all proportion to his numbers. Others might desert, but not he; others might be spies or strikers, but not he—not he in the time of peril. In peace or war, in victory or danger, he has always been loyal to the Stars and Stripes. ”

“ See the thousands of foreigners emigrating to America every year: and if there be ground sufficient for them to cultivate, and bread for them to eat, why would they wish to send the first tillers of the land away? Africans have made fortunes for thousands, who are yet unwilling to part with their services; but the free must be sent away, and those who remain must be slaves. I have no doubt that there are many good men who do not see as I do, and who are sending us to Liberia; but they have not duly considered the subject—they are not men of color. ”

“ The wealth of the New South, it is to be remembered, was won not only by the labor of black hands but also that of little white boys and girls. As laborers and citizens, real or potential, both of these groups deserved the most earnest solicitude of the state, for it is not upon the riches of the few but the happiness of the many that a nation's greatness depends. Moreover no state can build permanently or surely by denying to a half or a third of those governed any voice whatever in the government. ”

“ The Negro is so dominant in American history not only because he tests the real meaning of democracy, not only because he challenges the conscience of the nation, but also because he calls in question one's final attitude toward human nature itself. ”

“ On January 20, 1827, for instance, Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, speaking in the hall of the House of Representatives at the annual meeting of the Society, said: "Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites." Just a moment later he said: "Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with him credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions." ”

“ In a state of society in which the relation of master and slave was the rule, there was of course little place for either the free Negro or the poor white man. When the pressure became too great the white man moved away; the Negro, finding himself everywhere buffeted, in the colonial era at least had little choice but to work out his salvation at home as well as he could. More and more character told, and if a man had made himself known for his industry and usefulness, a legislative act might even be passed permitting him to remain in the face of a hostile law. ”

“ Unfortunately the whole question of the Negro has been beclouded by misrepresentation as has no other social question before the American people, and the race asks simply first of all that the tissue of depreciation raised by prejudice be done away with in order that it may be judged and estimated for its quality. America can make no charges against any element of her population while she denies the fundamental right of citizenships—the protection of the individual person. ”

“ It is thinking that as wild and awful as this shameful war was, it is nothing to compare with that fight for freedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will make unless their oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of the White World cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer. ”

“ In 1905 twenty-nine men of the race launched what was known as the Niagara Movement. The aims of this organization were freedom of speech and criticism, an unlettered and unsubsidized press, manhood suffrage, the abolition of all caste distinctions based simply on race and color, the recognition of the principle of human brotherhood as a practical present creed, the recognition of the highest and best training as the monopoly of no class or race, a belief in the dignity of labor, and united effort to realize these ideals under wise and courageous leadership. ”

“ It is true that England and France seem to-day to have a firm grip on the continent of Africa, but the experience of Germany has shown that even the mailèd fist may lose its strength overnight. With England beset with problems in Ireland and the West Indies, in India and Egypt, it is easy for the millions in equatorial Africa to be made to know that even this great power is not invincible and in time might rest with Nineveh and Tyre. There are things in Africa that will forever baffle all Europeans, and no foreign governor will ever know all that is at the back of the black man's mind. ”

“ Is America to view this great problem in Africa sympathetically and find some place for the groping for freedom of millions of human beings, or is she to be simply a pawn in the game of English colonization? ”

“ Will you despair now so many champions are coming to your help, and the trump of jubilee is sounding long and loud; when is heard a voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the North, a voice from the South, crying, Liberty and Equality now, Liberty and Equality forever! ”

“ Sometimes at a later date jealousy arose when a master employed a free Negro to work with his slaves, the one receiving pay and the others laboring without compensation. In general, however, the two groups worked like brothers, each giving the other the benefit of any temporary advantage that it possessed. Sometimes the free Negro could serve by reason of the greater freedom of movement that he had, and if no one would employ him, or if, as frequently happened, he was browbeaten and cheated out of the reward of his labor, the slave might somehow see that he got something to eat. ”

“ According to the ideals of modern England, however, he was a great man. What the Negro in the last analysis wonders is: Who was right, Livingstone or Rhodes? And which is the world to choose, Christ or Mammon?
There are two fundamental assumptions upon which all so-called Western civilization is based—that of racial and that of religious superiority. Sight has been lost of the fact that there is really no such thing as a superior race, that only individuals are superior one to another, and a popular English poet has sung of "the white man's burden" and of "lesser breeds without the law." ”

“ It is, however, seldom a sermon on the rule of faith or the plan of salvation that awakens such ecstasy, but rather a vivid portrayal of the beauties of heaven, with the walls of jasper, the feast of milk and honey, and the angels with palms in their hands. The appeal is primarily sensuous, and it is hardly too much to say that the Negro is thrilled not so much by the moral as by the artistic and pictorial elements in religion. Every member of the race is an incipient poet, and all are enthralled by music and oratory. ”

“ Not only, however, does the Negro give promise by reason of his economic worth; not only does he deserve the fullest rights of citizenship on the basis of his work as a soldier; he brings nothing less than a great spiritual contribution to civilization in America. His is a race of enthusiasm, imagination, and spiritual fervor; and after all the doubt and fear through which it has passed there still rests with it an abiding faith in God. Around us everywhere are commercialism, politics, graft—sordidness, selfishness, cynicism. ”

“ With not the slightest touch of irony whatever we suggest that these men need a crusade of education in books and in the fundamental obligations of citizenship. At present their ignorance, their prejudice, and their lack of moral sense constitute a national menace.
It is full time to pause. We have already gone too far. The Negro problem is only an index to the ills of society in America. In our haste to get rich or to meet new conditions we are in danger of losing all of our old standards of conduct, of training, and of morality. Our courts need to summon a new respect for themselves. ”

“ With the world war the Negro people came face to face with new and vast problems of economic adjustment and passed into an entirely different period of their racial history in America.
This is not all, however. The race is not to be regarded simply as existent unto itself. The most casual glance at any such account as we have given emphasizes the importance of the Negro in the general history of the United States. Other races have come, sometimes with great gifts or in great numbers, but it is upon this one that the country's history has turned as on a pivot. ”

“ The traders and the politicians knew better. They knew that there were tribes and tribes in Africa, that many of the chiefs were upright and wise and proud of their tradition, and that the land could not be seized any too quickly. Hence they made haste to get into the game.
It is increasingly evident also that the real leadership of the world is a matter not of race, not even of professed religion, but of principle. Within the last hundred years, as science has flourished and colonization grown, we have been led astray by materialism. ”