The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-11-25

ideas, and they make caDitdl friends.
Their iron belief that your race and
theirs, so tragically thrrwE together
on this continent, without your consent
or their desire, shall forever develop
separately, in social ways. is not hard
ness nor cruelty, but kindnes and
justice 70 you, to them and Il civiliZa-
ton. The right to work at a greater
range OF occupations IS accorded to the
Q more freely at the south than
anywhere in America. You can earn
bread here, if o nave skill, in more
ways than you car in the north and
west, and all other Sous If recognition
are grim mockeries If this right is cur
tailed. The modern slave white or
black, is the man who is denied the
right to work. and if i backward race
can add to the right 30 work skill in
work and the impulse TO Accumulate, it
can afford to face the Iture with a
light heart. / see enough fIIendliness
Tor the negro among the whites of the
south, lying around loose and morgan
lied, which, if won and organized,
would constitute a beneficent social
force greater than plea up millions.
When the southern man pe~TCeives you
as a man struggling for freedom and
citizenship and usefulness as an ele-
ment in his national life, and not as an
inevitable political foo and rudangerer
his social peace. he VII develop a
new attitude toward your institutions.
He will substitute for an Individuals
tic f~riendlineSS, or a kin:ily Indifference
to your aspirations. a sense oi civic re-
spOnsibility for you, a scientific interest
end sympathy in you as factors in a
national problem, a patriotic purpose to
have a hand in the management and di-
rection of the Institutions intended to
adVanc the interests of you race. :
am speaking of the normal and the
good NOT Of thn hose nI1 80 Nyl.
are not native white men OF the best
type to be found serving upon the
boards of your Institutions? These men
are active upon boards touching Africa
and the Congo. The fundamental
thing for you to do therefore, If you
can, is to develop and display the char
acteristics which will bring about this
altered attitude on the part ,f Southern
white men. The whole question is a
question of change Of attitude by Doth
races, and it is not hopeless. though it is
difficult. and there must b. a change
of attitude. You cann0t develop your
institutions here as If they were for
tresses in a hostile county. The white
man must come to think of the negro
impersonally, with his eye OF the future
and not on the past, with his thought
on the meaning of t.,a negro citizen to
national character and w~ell-heing.
1.-The negro man must come to think
of the white man as the force that
makes public opinion with the strength
and assertiveness Of those whose birth
right was liberty. He must find a way
To believe that these men mean to be
just in large ways, as he knows they
are honest and Just in daily relations.
(Applause.)
The characteristics which the white
race wishes to see developed and dis
played in ever-increasing quantity are
C~nn6 P1nn LIVING nnnrOx- rnrNioaoh ,a
ness, character and friendliness and the
same sort of confidence and trust in
them, in large civic relations, as may
be seen a thousand times a day in per-
sOnal relations between white man and
negro man.
The last report of the Tuskegee In
Stltute shows that q humble of south
ern white men have contributed to its
endowment. They see these character
istlcs in the trained products of Tuske-
zee. Indeed, / believe that if $50 of the
leading men of the south, in all pro-
fessiOns, were to journey to Tuskegee
in a body, and see it as it is, much Of
the irritation about negro education
would forever cease. (Applause.) We
are living in an era of real reconstruct
ton. The war did not settle this que5-
ton. God knows it has difficulties. One
way is to blink at those difficulties. The
ostrich, with his head in the sand, is Il
strenuous hero to the blinker. The
blinker and the doctrinaire are respon-
sible for most of the catastrophies Of
history. Another way is for the best Of
both races and sections to understand
each others language, n to get at
this task with patient and sympathetic
intellieent action. (~Applause.) Moth
ing lasting and valuable will be done
quickly. Time and time again thusi-
aStS have fancied that this question
vuoc cartlo1 Whom IN was NOT f2irlV be-
gun. No good can e1nle of trying to s9e.
at one glance, to the n Of
TANGLED RACIAL QUESTIONS.
imagination and dreaming may play
around. but they cannot forSee the
workings of great human forces. The
thing to do is to try to get started
right and to learn to use, under modl-
fled conditions. the agencies which the
world has tested for the development Of
backward peoples. The emphasis was
placed on the wrong place, in negro
education. thirty years ago. All OF US
made mistakes. An archangel might
have Numbered. You made them. Your
northern friends m2de them. southern
whites mad them. C~Applause-) Is not
the goal a trifle clearer now because 1t
is less wrapped in the mistS of passion
and misunderstanding? This leader of
yours has placed his emphasis on the
right place. and therefore he has the
sympathy and the support OF good
white men everywhere in his efforts for
his race and country. (Applause.) Cen
eral Armstrong and others have done
this, too. but il is his distinction that
ne has made the world appreciate 1t.
With his great hold on contemporary
/ public opinion in this and other coun-
tries. 1 think one other duty. at least,
rests upon Principal Washington. He
owes II to the world TO tell the world
in just, straightforward fashion what
progress in the ways OF civilization the
negro race has mad under the influence
of such education as it has received
! since 1865. The world needs now such a
brief. clear, vivid c~onspectus as he
could give. One hears much discourag :
lag reflections about ii all. And 1t is
: easy among the ten dark millions 70
find multitudes of illustrations. But
sensible men know that thirty-ive
years of educational experiment in pow
erty and error is but a moment of time
in the slow upward march of a race.
(Applause.) To ~generalize crudely up
on such a period is 20 commit the faul,
of those who do not understand the
80 -Da;ol nl;,-+,oanr o-l H,rpaov