One of the main problems as regards the education of the Negro is how
to have him use his education to the best advantage after he has
secured it. In saying this, I do not want to be understood as implying
that the problem of simple ignorance among the masses has been settled
in the South; for this is far from true. The amount of ignorance still
prevailing among the Negroes, especially in the rural districts, is
very large and serious. But I repeat, we must go farther if we would
secure the best results and most gratifying returns in public good for
the money spent than merely to put academic education in the Negro's
head with the idea that this will settle everything.
In his present condition it is important, in seeking after what he
terms the ideal, that the Negro should not neglect to prepare himself
to take advantage of the opportunities that are right about his door.
If he lets these opportunities slip, I fear they will never be his
again. In saying this, I mean always that the Negro should have the
most thorough mental and religious training; for without it no race
can succeed. Because of his past history and environment and present
condition it is important that he be carefully guided for years to
come in the proper use of his education. Much valuable time has been
lost and money spent in vain, because too many have not been educated
with the idea of fitting them to do well the things which they could
get to do. Because of the lack of proper direction of the Negro's
education, some good friends of his, North and South, have not taken
that interest in it that they otherwise would have taken. In too many
cases where merely literary education alone has been given the Negro
youth, it has resulted in an exaggerated estimate of his importance
in the world, and an increase of wants which his education has not
fitted him to supply.
But, in discussing this subject, one is often met with the question,
Should not the Negro be encouraged to prepare himself for any station
in life that any other race fills? I would say, Yes; but the surest
way for the Negro to reach the highest positions is to prepare himself
to fill well at the present time the basic occupations. This will give
him a foundation upon which to stand while securing what is called the
more exalted positions. The Negro has the right to study law; but
success will come to the race sooner if it produces intelligent,
thrifty farmers, mechanics, and housekeepers to support the lawyers.
The want of proper direction of the use of the Negro's education
results in tempting too many to live mainly by their wits, without
producing anything that is of real value to the world. Let me quote
examples of this.
Hayti, Santo Domingo, and Liberia, although among the richest
countries in natural resources in the world, are discouraging examples
of what must happen to any people who lack industrial or technical
training. It is said that in Liberia there are no wagons,
wheelbarrows, or public roads, showing very plainly that there is a
painful absence of public spirit and thrift. What is true of Liberia
is also true in a measure of the republics of Hayti and Santo Domingo.
The people have not yet learned the lesson of turning their education
toward the cultivation of the soil and the making of the simplest
implements for agricultural and other forms of labour.
Much would have been done toward laying a sound foundation for general
prosperity if some attention had been spent in this direction. General
education itself has no bearing on the subject at issue, because,
while there is no well-established public school system in either of
these countries, yet large numbers of men of both Hayti and Santo
Domingo have been educated in France for generations. This is
especially true of Hayti. The education has been altogether in the
direction of _belles lettres_, however, and practically little in the
direction of industrial and scientific education.
It is a matter of common knowledge that Hayti has to send abroad even
to secure engineers for her men-of-war, for plans for her bridges and
other work requiring technical knowledge and skill. I should very much
regret to see any such condition obtain in any large measure as
regards the coloured people in the South, and yet this will be our
fate if industrial education is much longer neglected. We have spent
much time in the South in educating men and women in letters alone,
too, and must now turn our attention more than ever toward educating
them so as to supply their wants and needs. It is more lamentable to
see educated people unable to support themselves than to see
uneducated people in the same condition. Ambition all along this line
must be stimulated.
If educated men and women of the race will see and acknowledge the
necessity of practical industrial training and go to work with a zeal
and determination, their example will be followed by others, who are
now without ambition of any kind.
The race cannot hope to come into its own until the young coloured men
and women make up their minds to assist in the general development
along these lines. The elder men and women trained in the hard school
of slavery, and who so long possessed all of the labour, skilled and
unskilled, of the South, are dying out; their places must be filled by
their children, or we shall lose our hold upon these occupations.
Leaders in these occupations are needed now more than ever.
It is not enough that the idea be inculcated that coloured people
should get book learning; along with it they should be taught that
book education and industrial development must go hand in hand. No
race which fails to do this can ever hope to succeed. Phillips Brooks
gave expression to the sentiment: "One generation gathers the
material, and the next generation builds the palaces." As I understand
it, he wished to inculcate the idea that one generation lays the
foundation for succeeding generations. The rough affairs of life very
largely fall to the earlier generation, while the next one has the
privilege of dealing with the higher and more aesthetic things of life.
This is true of all generations, of all peoples; and, unless the
foundation is deeply laid, it is impossible for the succeeding one to
have a career in any way approaching success. As regards the coloured
men of the South, as regards the coloured men of the United States,
this is the generation which, in a large measure, must gather the
material with which to lay the foundation for future success.
Some time ago it was my misfortune to see a Negro sixty-five years old
living in poverty and filth. I was disgusted, and said to him, "If you
are worthy of your freedom, you would surely have changed your
condition during the thirty years of freedom which you have enjoyed."
He answered: "I do want to change. I want to do something for my wife
and children; but I do not know how,--I do not know what to do." I
looked into his lean and haggard face, and realised more deeply than
ever before the absolute need of captains of industry among the great
masses of the coloured people.
It is possible for a race or an individual to have mental development
and yet be so handicapped by custom, prejudice, and lack of employment
as to dwarf and discourage the whole life. This is the condition that
prevails among the race in many of the large cities of the North; and
it is to prevent this same condition in the South that I plead with
all the earnestness of my heart. Mental development alone will not
give us what we want, but mental development tied to hand and heart
training will be the salvation of the Negro.
In many respects the next twenty years are going to be the most
serious in the history of the race. Within this period it will be
largely decided whether the Negro will be able to retain the hold
which he now has upon the industries of the South or whether his place
will be filled by white people from a distance. The only way he can
prevent the industrial occupations slipping from him in all parts of
the South, as they have already in certain parts, is for all
educators, ministers, and friends of the race to unite in pushing
forward in a whole-souled manner the industrial or business
development of the Negro, whether in school or out of school. Four
times as many young men and women of the race should be receiving
industrial training. Just now the Negro is in a position to feel and
appreciate the need of this in a way that no one else can. No one can
fully appreciate what I am saying who has not walked the streets of a
Northern city day after day seeking employment, only to find every
door closed against him on account of his colour, except in menial
service. It is to prevent the same thing taking place in the South
that I plead. We may argue that mental development will take care of
all this. Mental development is a good thing. Gold is also a good
thing, but gold is worthless without an opportunity to make itself
touch the world of trade. Education increases greatly an individual's
wants. It is cruel in many cases to increase the wants of the black
youth by mental development alone without, at the same time,
increasing his ability to supply these increased wants in occupations
in which he can find employment.
The place made vacant by the death of the old coloured man who was
trained as a carpenter during slavery, and who since the war had been
the leading contractor and builder in the Southern town, had to be
filled. No young coloured carpenter capable of filling his place could
be found. The result was that his place was filled by a white mechanic
from the North, or from Europe, or from elsewhere. What is true of
carpentry and house-building in this case is true, in a degree, in
every skilled occupation; and it is becoming true of common labour. I
do not mean to say that all of the skilled labour has been taken out
of the Negro's hands; but I do mean to say that in no part of the
South is he so strong in the matter of skilled labour as he was twenty
years ago, except possibly in the country districts and the smaller
towns. In the more northern of the Southern cities, such as Richmond
and Baltimore, the change is most apparent; and it is being felt in
every Southern city. Wherever the Negro has lost ground industrially
in the South, it is not because there is prejudice against him as a
skilled labourer on the part of the native Southern white man; the
Southern white man generally prefers to do business with the Negro
mechanic rather than with a white one, because he is accustomed to do
business with the Negro in this respect. There is almost no prejudice
against the Negro in the South in matters of business, so far as the
native whites are concerned; and here is the entering wedge for the
solution of the race problem. But too often, where the white mechanic
or factory operative from the North gets a hold, the trades-union soon
follows, and the Negro is crowded to the wall.
But what is the remedy for this condition? First, it is most important
that the Negro and his white friends honestly face the facts as they
are; otherwise the time will not be very far distant when the Negro of
the South will be crowded to the ragged edge of industrial life as he
is in the North. There is still time to repair the damage and to
reclaim what we have lost.
I stated in the beginning that industrial education for the Negro has
been misunderstood. This has been chiefly because some have gotten the
idea that industrial development was opposed to the Negro's higher
mental development. This has little or nothing to do with the subject
under discussion; we should no longer permit such an idea to aid in
depriving the Negro of the legacy in the form of skilled labour that
was purchased by his forefathers at the price of two hundred and fifty
years of slavery. I would say to the black boy what I would say to the
white boy, Get all the mental development that your time and
pocket-book will allow of,--the more, the better; but the time has
come when a larger proportion--not all, for we need professional men
and women--of the educated coloured men and women should give
themselves to industrial or business life. The professional class will
be helped in so far as the rank and file have an industrial
foundation, so that they can pay for professional service. Whether
they receive the training of the hand while pursuing their academic
training or after their academic training is finished, or whether they
will get their literary training in an industrial school or college,
are questions which each individual must decide for himself. No
matter how or where educated, the educated men and women must come to
the rescue of the race in the effort to get and hold its industrial
footing. I would not have the standard of mental development lowered
one whit; for, with the Negro, as with all races, mental strength is
the basis of all progress. But I would have a large measure of this
mental strength reach the Negroes' actual needs through the medium of
the hand. Just now the need is not so much for the common carpenters,
brick masons, farmers, and laundry women as for industrial leaders
who, in addition to their practical knowledge, can draw plans, make
estimates, take contracts; those who understand the latest methods of
truck-gardening and the science underlying practical agriculture;
those who understand machinery to the extent that they can operate
steam and electric laundries, so that our women can hold on to the
laundry work in the South, that is so fast drifting into the hands of
others in the large cities and towns.
Having tried to show in previous chapters to what a condition the lack
of practical training has brought matters in the South, and by the
examples in this chapter where this state of things may go if allowed
to run its course, I wish now to show what practical training, even in
its infancy among us, has already accomplished.
I noticed, when I first went to Tuskegee to start the Tuskegee Normal
and Industrial Institute, that some of the white people about there
rather looked doubtfully at me; and I thought I could get their
influence by telling them how much algebra and history and science and
all those things I had in my head, but they treated me about the same
as they did before. They didn't seem to care about the algebra,
history, and science that were in my head only. Those people never
even began to have confidence in me until we commenced to build a
large three-story brick building, and then another and another, until
now we have forty buildings which have been erected largely by the
labour of our students; and to-day we have the respect and confidence
of all the white people in that section.
There is an unmistakable influence that comes over a white man when he
sees a black man living in a two-story brick house that has been paid
for. I need not stop to explain. It is the tangible evidence of
prosperity. You know Thomas doubted the Saviour after he had risen
from the dead; and the Lord said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my
side." The tangible evidence convinced Thomas.
We began, soon after going to Tuskegee, the manufacture of bricks. We
also started a wheelwright establishment and the manufacture of good
wagons and buggies; and the white people came to our institution for
that kind of work. We also put in a printing plant, and did job
printing for the white people as well as for the blacks.
By having something that these people wanted, we came into contact
with them, and our interest became interlinked with their interest,
until to-day we have no warmer friends anywhere in the country than we
have among the white people of Tuskegee. We have found by experience
that the best way to get on well with people is to have something that
they want, and that is why we emphasise this Christian Industrial
Education.
Not long ago I heard a conversation among three white men something
like this. Two of them were berating the Negro, saying the Negro was
shiftless and lazy, and all that sort of thing. The third man
listened to their remarks for some time in silence, and then he said:
"I don't know what your experience has been; but there is a 'nigger'
down our way who owns a good house and lot with about fifty acres of
ground. His house is well furnished, and he has got some splendid
horses and cattle. He is intelligent and has a bank account. I don't
know how the 'niggers' are in your community, but Tobe Jones is a
gentleman. Once, when I was hard up, I went to Tobe Jones and borrowed
fifty dollars; and he hasn't asked me for it yet. I don't know what
kind of 'niggers' you have down your way, but Tobe Jones is a
gentleman."
Now what we want to do is to multiply and place in every community
these Tobe Joneses; and, just in so far as we can place them
throughout the South this race question will disappear.
Suppose there was a black man who had business for the railroads to
the amount of ten thousand dollars a year. Do you suppose that, when
that black man takes his family aboard the train, they are going to
put him into a Jim Crow car and run the risk of losing that ten
thousand dollars a year? No, they will put on a Pullman palace car for
him.
Some time ago a certain coloured man was passing through the streets
of one of the little Southern towns, and he chanced to meet two white
men on the street. It happened that this coloured man owns two or
three houses and lots, has a good education and a comfortable bank
account. One of the white men turned to the other, and said: "By Gosh!
It is all I can do to keep from calling that 'nigger' Mister." That's
the point we want to get to.
Nothing else so soon brings about right relations between the two
races in the South as the commercial progress of the Negro. Friction
between the races will pass away as the black man, by reason of his
skill, intelligence, and character, can produce something that the
white man wants or respects in the commercial world. This is another
reason why at Tuskegee we push industrial training. We find that as
every year we put into a Southern community coloured men who can start
a brickyard, a saw-mill, a tin-shop, or a printing-office,--men who
produce something that makes the white man partly dependent upon the
Negro instead of all the dependence being on the other side,--a change
for the better takes place in the relations of the races. It is
through the dairy farm, the truck-garden, the trades, the commercial
life, largely, that the Negro is to find his way to respect and
confidence.
What is the permanent value of the Hampton and Tuskegee system of
training to the South, in a broader sense? In connection with this, it
is well to bear in mind that slavery unconsciously taught the white
man that labour with the hands was something fit for the Negro only,
and something for the white man to come into contact with just as
little as possible. It is true that there was a large class of poor
white people who laboured with the hands, but they did it because they
were not able to secure Negroes to work for them; and these poor
whites were constantly trying to imitate the slaveholding class in
escaping labour, as they, too, regarded it as anything but elevating.
But the Negro, in turn, looked down upon the poor whites with a
certain contempt because they had to work. The Negro, it is to be
borne in mind, worked under constant protest, because he felt that his
labour was being unjustly requited; and he spent almost as much effort
in planning how to escape work as in learning how to work. Labour with
him was a badge of degradation. The white man was held up before him
as the highest type of civilisation, but the Negro noted that this
highest type of civilisation himself did little labour with the hand.
Hence he argued that, the less work he did, the more nearly he would
be like the white man. Then, in addition to these influences, the
slave system discouraged labour-saving machinery. To use labour-saving
machinery, intelligence was required; and intelligence and slavery
were not on friendly terms. Hence the Negro always associated labour
with toil, drudgery, something to be escaped. When the Negro first
became free, his idea of education was that it was something that
would soon put him in the same position as regards work that his
recent master had occupied. Out of these conditions grew the habit of
putting off till to-morrow and the day after the duty that should be
done promptly to-day. The leaky house was not repaired while the sun
shone, for then the rain did not come through. While the rain was
falling, no one cared to expose himself to stop the rain. The plough,
on the same principle, was left where the last furrow was run, to rot
and rust in the field during the winter. There was no need to repair
the wooden chimney that was exposed to the fire, because water could
be thrown on it when it was on fire. There was no need to trouble
about the payment of a debt to-day, because it could be paid as well
next week or next year. Besides these conditions, the whole South at
the close of the war was without proper food, clothing, and
shelter,--was in need of habits of thrift and economy and of something
laid up for a rainy day.
To me it seemed perfectly plain that here was a condition of things
that could not be met by the ordinary process of education. At
Tuskegee we became convinced that the thing to do was to make a
careful, systematic study of the condition and needs of the South,
especially the Black Belt, and to bend our efforts in the direction of
meeting these needs, whether we were following a well-beaten track or
were hewing out a new path to meet conditions probably without a
parallel in the world. After eighteen years of experience and
observation, what is the result? Gradually, but surely, we find that
all through the South the disposition to look upon labour as a
disgrace is on the wane; and the parents who themselves sought to
escape work are so anxious to give their children training in
intelligent labour that every institution which gives training in the
handicrafts is crowded, and many (among them Tuskegee) have to refuse
admission to hundreds of applicants. The influence of Hampton and
Tuskegee is shown again by the fact that almost every little school
at the remotest cross-road is anxious to be known as an industrial
school, or, as some of the coloured people call it, an "industrous"
school.
The social lines that were once sharply drawn between those who
laboured with the hands and those who did not are disappearing. Those
who formerly sought to escape labour, now when they see that brains
and skill rob labour of the toil and drudgery once associated with it,
instead of trying to avoid it, are willing to pay to be taught how to
engage in it. The South is beginning to see labour raised up,
dignified and beautified, and in this sees its salvation. In
proportion as the love of labour grows, the large idle class, which
has long been one of the curses of the South, disappears. As people
become absorbed in their own affairs, they have less time to attend to
everybody's else business.
The South is still an undeveloped and unsettled country, and for the
next half-century and more the greater part of the energy of the
masses will be needed to develop its material resources. Any force
that brings the rank and file of the people to have a greater love of
industry is therefore especially valuable. This result industrial
education is surely bringing about. It stimulates production and
increases trade,--trade between the races; and in this new and
engrossing relation both forget the past. The white man respects the
vote of a coloured man who does ten thousand dollars' worth of
business; and, the more business the coloured man has, the more
careful he is how he votes.
Immediately after the war there was a large class of Southern people
who feared that the opening of the free schools to the freedmen and
the poor whites--the education of the head alone--would result merely
in increasing the class who sought to escape labour, and that the
South would soon be overrun by the idle and vicious. But, as the
results of industrial combined with academic training begin to show
themselves in hundreds of communities that have been lifted up, these
former prejudices against education are being removed. Many of those
who a few years ago opposed Negro education are now among its warmest
advocates.
This industrial training, emphasising, as it does, the idea of
economic production, is gradually bringing the South to the point
where it is feeding itself. After the war, what profit the South made
out of the cotton crop it spent outside of the South to purchase food
supplies,--meat, bread, canned vegetables, and the like,--but the
improved methods of agriculture are fast changing this custom. With
the newer methods of labour, which teach promptness and system and
emphasise the worth of the beautiful, the moral value of the
well-painted house, the fence with every paling and nail in its place,
is bringing to bear upon the South an influence that is making it a
new country in industry, education, and religion.
It seems to me I cannot do better than to close this chapter on the
needs of the Southern Negro than by quoting from a talk given to the
students at Tuskegee:--
"I want to be a little more specific in showing you what you have
to do and how you must do it.
"One trouble with us is--and the same is true of any young
people, no matter of what race or condition--we have too many
stepping-stones. We step all the time, from one thing to another.
You find a young man who is learning to make bricks; and, if you
ask him what he intends to do after learning the trade, in too
many cases he will answer, 'Oh, I am simply working at this
trade as a stepping-stone to something higher.' You see a young
man working at the brick-mason's trade, and he will be apt to say
the same thing. And young women learning to be milliners and
dressmakers will tell you the same. All are stepping to something
higher. And so we always go on, stepping somewhere, never getting
hold of anything thoroughly. Now we must stop this stepping
business, having so many stepping-stones. Instead, we have got to
take hold of these important industries, and stick to them until
we master them thoroughly. There is no nation so thorough in
their education as the Germans. Why? Simply because the German
takes hold of a thing, and sticks to it until he masters it. Into
it he puts brains and thought from morning to night. He reads all
the best books and journals bearing on that particular study, and
he feels that nobody else knows so much about it as he does.
"Take any of the industries I have mentioned, that of
brick-making, for example. Any one working at that trade should
determine to learn all there is to be known about making bricks;
read all the papers and journals bearing upon the trade; learn
not only to make common hand-bricks, but pressed bricks,
fire-bricks,--in short, the finest and best bricks there are to
be made. And, when you have learned all you can by reading and
talking with other people, you should travel from one city to
another, and learn how the best bricks are made. And then, when
you go into business for yourself, you will make a reputation for
being the best brick-maker in the community; and in this way you
will put yourself on your feet, and become a helpful and useful
citizen. When a young man does this, goes out into one of these
Southern cities and makes a reputation for himself, that person
wins a reputation that is going to give him a standing and
position. And, when the children of that successful brick-maker
come along, they will be able to take a higher position in life.
The grandchildren will be able to take a still higher position.
And it will be traced back to that grandfather who, by his great
success as a brick-maker, laid a foundation that was of the right
kind.
"What I have said about these two trades can be applied with
equal force to the trades followed by women. Take the matter of
millinery. There is no good reason why there should not be, in
each principal city in the South, at least three or four
competent coloured women in charge of millinery establishments.
But what is the trouble?
"Instead of making the most of our opportunities in this
industry, the temptation, in too many cases, is to be
music-teachers, teachers of elocution, or something else that
few of the race at present have any money to pay for, or the
opportunity to earn money to pay for, simply because there is no
foundation. But, when more coloured people succeed in the more
fundamental occupations, they will then be able to make better
provision for their children in what are termed the higher walks
of life.
"And, now, what I have said about these important industries is
especially true of the important industry of agriculture. We are
living in a country where, if we are going to succeed at all, we
are going to do so largely by what we raise out of the soil. The
people in those backward countries I have told you about have
failed to give attention to the cultivation of the soil, to the
invention and use of improved agricultural implements and
machinery. Without this no people can succeed. No race which
fails to put brains into agriculture can succeed; and, if you
want to realize the truth of this statement, go with me into the
back districts of some of our Southern States, and you will find
many people in poverty, and yet they are surrounded by a rich
country.
"A race, like an individual, has got to have a reputation. Such a
reputation goes a long way toward helping a race or an
individual; and, when we have succeeded in getting such a
reputation, we shall find that a great many of the discouraging
features of our life will melt away.
"Reputation is what people think we are, and a great deal depends
on that. When a race gets a reputation along certain lines, a
great many things which now seem complex, difficult to attain,
and are most discouraging, will disappear.
"When you say that an engine is a Corliss engine, people
understand that that engine is a perfect piece of mechanical
work,--perfect as far as human skill and ingenuity can make it
perfect. You say a car is a Pullman car. That is all; but what
does it mean? It means that the builder of that car got a
reputation at the outset for thorough, perfect work, for turning
out everything in first-class shape. And so with a race. You
cannot keep back very long a race that has the reputation for
doing perfect work in everything that it undertakes. And then we
have got to get a reputation for economy. Nobody cares to
associate with an individual in business or otherwise who has a
reputation for being a trifling spendthrift, who spends his money
for things that he can very easily get along without, who spends
his money for clothing, gewgaws, superficialities, and other
things, when he has not got the necessaries of life. We want to
give the race a reputation for being frugal and saving in
everything. Then we want to get a reputation for being
industrious. Now, remember these three things: Get a reputation
for being skilled. It will not do for a few here and there to
have it: the race must have the reputation. Get a reputation for
being so skilful, so industrious, that you will not leave a job
until it is as nearly perfect as any one can make it. And then we
want to make a reputation for the race for being honest,--honest
at all times and under all circumstances. A few individuals here
and there have it, a few communities have it; but the race as a
mass must get it.
"You recall that story of Abraham Lincoln, how, when he was
postmaster at a small village, he had left on his hands $1.50
which the government did not call for. Carefully wrapping up this
money in a handkerchief, he kept it for ten years. Finally, one
day, the government agent called for this amount; and it was
promptly handed over to him by Abraham Lincoln, who told him
that during all those ten years he had never touched a cent of
that money. He made it a principle of his life never to use other
people's money. That trait of his character helped him along to
the Presidency. The race wants to get a reputation for being
strictly honest in all its dealings and transactions,--honest in
handling money, honest in all its dealings with its fellow-men.
"And then we want to get a reputation for being thoughtful. This
I want to emphasise more than anything else. We want to get a
reputation for doing things without being told to do them every
time. If you have work to do, think about it so constantly,
investigate and read about it so thoroughly, that you will always
be finding ways and means of improving that work. The average
person going to work becomes a regular machine, never giving the
matter of improving the methods of his work a thought. He is
never at his work before the appointed time, and is sure to stop
the minute the hour is up. The world is looking for the person
who is thoughtful, who will say at the close of work hours: 'Is
there not something else I can do for you? Can I not stay a
little later, and help you?'
"Moreover, it is with a race as it is with an individual: it must
respect itself if it would win the respect of others. There must
be a certain amount of unity about a race, there must be a great
amount of pride about a race, there must be a great deal of faith
on the part of a race in itself. An individual cannot succeed
unless he has about him a certain amount of pride,--enough pride
to make him aspire to the highest and best things in life. An
individual cannot succeed unless that individual has a great
amount of faith in himself.
"A person who goes at an undertaking with the feeling that he
cannot succeed is likely to fail. On the other hand, the
individual who goes at an undertaking, feeling that he can
succeed, is the individual who in nine cases out of ten does
succeed. But, whenever you find an individual that is ashamed of
his race, trying to get away from his race, apologising for being
a member of his race, then you find a weak individual. Where you
find a race that is ashamed of itself, that is apologising for
itself, there you will find a weak, vacillating race. Let us no
longer have to apologise for our race in these or other matters.
Let us think seriously and work seriously: then, as a race, we
shall be thought of seriously, and, therefore, seriously
respected."