Robert Thomas Kerlin

“ Those who would honestly seek to know the Negro must read his papers. It is in them the Negro speaks out with freedom, with sincerity, with justice to himself, for there he speaks as a Negro to Negroes, and he is aware that the white people do not so much as know of the existence of his papers. ”

“ To know the Negro do not quiz the cook in your kitchen, or the odd-job, all-service menial about your premises, or the local school-teacher or preacher. In general they will tell you what they know you wish to hear, or, on difficult matters, remain non-committal. To know the Negro do not fall foul of two or three publications of Chicago or New York: there are some pretty radical and rather bolshevistically inclined white papers, according to the Post Office Department, in those quarters. We do not regard them as representing White America. ”

“ That the Negro himself has this right to be heard in the court of the world will not be denied except by the hopelessly prejudiced and constitutionally unjust. We have too frequently heard foolish vaunts about "knowing the Negro," the context of such boasting invariably convicting the speaker of dangerous conceit and the harsh spirit of suppression. ”