My dear boys and girls, I have written nearly one hundred stories for
this book and I have not said one word about the so-called Race Problem.
I have done this on purpose. I believe that the less you think about the
troubles of the race and the less you talk about them and the more time
you spend in hard and honest work, believing in God and trusting him for
the future, the better it will be for all concerned. I know, of course,
that the sufferings which are inflicted upon the colored people in this
country are many and grievous. I know that we are discriminated against
in many ways--on common carriers, in public resorts and even in private
life. The right to vote is being taken away from us in nearly all the
Southern states. Lynchings are on the increase. Not only our men but our
women also are being burned at the stake. What shall we do? There are
those who say that we must strike back--use fire and torch and sword and
shotgun ourselves. But I tell you plainly that we cannot afford to do
that. The white people have all the courts, all the railroads, all the
newspapers, all the telegraph wires, all the arms and ammunition and
double the men that we have. In every race riot the negro would get the
worst of it finally. But there is a higher reason than that. We cannot
afford to do wrong. We cannot afford to lose our decency, our
self-respect, our character. No man will ever be the superior of the man
he robs; no man will ever be the superior of the man he steals from. I
would rather be a victim than a victimizer. I would rather be wronged
than to do wrong. And no race is superior to the race it tramples upon,
robs, maltreats and murders. In spite of prejudice; in spite of
proscription; in spite of nameless insults and injuries, we cannot as a
race, afford to do wrong. But we can afford to be patient. God is not
dead. His chariots are not unwheeled. It is ordained of God that races,
as well as individuals, shall rise through tribulations. And during this
period of stress and strain through which we are passing in this country
I believe that there are unseen forces marshalled in the defense of our
long-suffering and much-oppressed people. “They that be with us are more
than they that be with them.” What should we care, then, though all the
lowlands be filled with threats, if the mountains of our hope and
courage and patience are filled with horses and chariots of Divine
rescue?