The work of the educated colored man is largely that of leadership.
He requires, therefore, all the discipline, judgment and mental
equipment that long preparation can afford. The more ignorant and
backward the masses the more skilled and sagacious should the leaders
be. If a beneficial and kindly contact between the races is denied
on the lower plane of flesh and blood, it must be sought in the
upper region of mental and moral kinship. Knowledge and virtue know
no ethnic exclusiveness. If indeed races are irreconcilable, their
best individual exponents are not. All dignified negotiation must be
conducted on the high plane of individual equality.
“For east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall
meet,
’Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat;
But there is neither east nor west, border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the
ends of the earth”
The irreconcilable become reconciled only after each has manifested
the best possibilities of a common nature. The higher education tends
to develop superior individuals who may be expected to exercise
controlling influence over the multitude. The individual is the proof,
the promise and the salvation of the race. The undeveloped races
which, in modern times, have faded before the breath of civilization
have probably perished because of their failure to produce commanding
leaders to guide them wisely under the stress and strain which an
encroaching civilization imposed. A single red Indian with the capacity
and spirit of Booker T. Washington might have solved the red man’s
problems and averted his pending doom.