The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1916-10-07
"COLORED LEADERSHIP"
(From the Cleveland Gazette

(From the Cleveland Gazette.)
The attempt on the part of certain
white people interested in industrial
education for our people almost to
the point of opposition to any other
KIND, to select for the race a man or
a set of men as the recognized leader
or leaders of the race, is at least pref
JUDICIAL. No man or combination of
men could so nominate Theodore
Roosevelt leader of the white race of
America. The position Mr.. Roosevelt
occupies in this respect came not
from the dictum of interested parties
but from the moral worth of the man
to the nation as shown by his deeds
and words. Even the election of a
man to the presidency of this country
does not make him the leader of any
race. Political good fortune may be
national or racial calamity. Many
white persons frequently say, our
people should follow the dictum of
certain men of the race whose talk
or attitude toward vital questions
pleases them. Because of the pref
udlce extant in this country against
the race, and as this prejudice is very
large from white opposition to our
men coming on equality with them.
any choice for leadership by them for
the race smacks of the suspicion that
the suggested leader is in accord
with their prejudiced point of view.
We believe that colored and white
men should seek the golden mean of
harmony in all things essential for
the development of both races, but
when a leadership is foisted upon any
race and that too against the recog-
nlZed wishes of the race. that leader.
ship, however backed up by money,
will be most bitterly fought. The at
tempt to make a head of any particu-
lar school, the leader of a race, is to
Drlng down upon both the school and
it's head the opposition of all not in
sympathy with the leader" Certain
qualifications leader must have if
he would lead, and devoid of these he
will ANONYMOUSLY fail. Any man
who has not keen appreciation of
the worth and rights of his race can.
not be the leader of that race. Any
man who will surrender the funda-
mental things that belong to his race
is unfit to lead that race to virile
manhood and responsibility. The
more other races emphasize his fit
ness, the more his inacceptability will
manifest itself. No man dead or alive
has ever been the leader of our race
in this country. Many men living
and dead have been the opponents of
many things that contribute largely
to the races welfare. Besides a man
who may be a leader in one thing
may not be a leader in all. To pro
claim the president of Harvard col
lege as the leader of the white race
OF America is to insult that race. Not
because the president of Harvard is
lacking in sane advices, noble pre-
cepts and manly virtues such as are
applicable to the rise of any race, but
because the demands of the white
race are so multiplied and varied that
no one man can possibly lead in all.
The same is true of our race. The
1ns1stence by white men that all our
men echo the policy or plan of some
man of the race they (the whites)
like, Is a very disturbing element in
the progress Of the race The policy
OF placing unlimited resources in the
hands of this leader as we'll as mete-
ing out to the race only those things
this white appointed leader" dc
tates, is to subject the race to a
specie of slavery that is more damna-
Die than peonage, for it attempts to
letter the mind. All we ask of white
men, north, south, east and west, is
to allow our men to come to leader
ship in the same way others achieve
It, Our race appreciates it's great
men. 1t Is willing to give them honor
and homage, but it is unwilling to
bow the knee to any white mans
choice of leadership" simply because
this leader fits in with the diseased
and prejudiced mind of those opposed
to untrammeled manhood for our
people.
crew VIM. A. BYRD.