The Training of the Negro Laborer in the North

Abstract

An English colonist of South Africa, writing about the future of the native African in that section, says, The natives must go; or they must as to develop the land as we are prepared to do. Ex-President Harrison was accustomed to say, The Indian has citizenship and a white man's chance offered to him, and must take it or perish. These two statements, I candidly believe, represent the attitude of the vast majority of the AngloSaxon race toward retarded races. This attitude means that we, as a race, must work as laboriously and as successfully to overcome in the struggle for existence as the white man has done, or we must go-whether we dwell in dear old Africa or sojourn in other lands. What I should like to see expressed in every word and act of my race is the determination not to go-whether the going means annihilation or amalgamation. But, determining to stay, shall we labor to produce an imitation of a white man or a thoroughly developed black man? Shall our goal be an artificial flower or a naturally developed wild flower? Or, to be specific, shall citizenship de jure and de facto in these United States be the end of the colored man's efforts in social and political development, or the means by which he shall become the founder and builder of a developed African nation? Should the thoughtful colored men-whether pure black or mixed blood-come out into the open and answer honestly this aim-settling question, the Negro problem would become clarified and (579)