The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-06-14
NEW CHANCE FOR LEADERSHIP FOR
 THE AMERICAN NEGRO IN AFRICA
 IS GIVEN BY THE WAR SITUATION

A child wandered into "Y" hut in East Africa. He was big and broad shouldered and black as the ace of spades. Six feet in his stockings he stood, straight as an arrow and mus cled like a prize fighter. He wore the uniform of the King and also a long scar on his face won in a hand-to- hand melee with German troops.
 None the less he was a child. Just now he longed desperately to be at Tome with his tribe in Somaliland. He wanted to strut around in his khaki before the dusky maidens, and shis heart ached for the feast of the hunters home from the kill.
 A colored young man in the uniform of "Y' worker came. forward and welcomed the trooper in Swaheli. His friendliness went to the child heart straight as rain to the thirsty roots of flowers.
 Then a miracle took place-and cu- riosity banished homesickness. From out of lite box came the voice of a man talking. The grown-up child examined the box eagerly to see where the man was hidden, But there was no room for even a dwarf in that box so of course it was magic.
 Moro Magic.
 Presently the secretary a graduate of Shaw University Raleigh, N. c. led the shy native into a dark room where there was more magic. A lit tile man with funny feet and a cane was walking about on a white screen The 6-foot child began to grin. The last of his homesickness vanished, fol Charlie Chaplin was doing anctics fo1 him.
 War service is the key which f opening the door of opportunity tC the negro race.
 - The latest evidence of it comes from darkest Africa, into the jungles o1 which ideals of democracy are slowly pushing their way. The coloreC troops of Nigeria, Somaliland, zanzi bar, Mysaland, and the Gold Coas are looking eagerly for light, ant their eyes are turned to the Negro of the United States.
 A chance for leadership-one full O immense potentialities-has come tt the colored race of this country. I IidS been gwen HlIl to ledu iue HdIlN' of Africa into the light of the nev day that is dawning for him.
 Max Yergan was the first coloreC Y. M. c. A. secretary sent to serv' with the British troops in South Af rica. Before he had been in the fielC long Gen. Van de Vanter, command CT of the British forces, wired to asl for more of Yergan's race to help il the work. Already some of these hay, gone to the front and others are t follow.
 A Stiff Campaign.
 When the war began the German were very strongly situated in Eas Africa, the only one of their colonie that has not yet been captured by tn Allies. For three years they have of fered a most stubborn resistance t, the British, Belgian. Portuguese, ant Colonial armies. They had a yer Q thorough military system and had or ganized the tribes in their territory t remarkable efficiency.
 The country exceeds the area 0 Germany itself. Its chief products ar ivory, cocoanut fiber, rubber, wax. an, sisal for the manufacture of rope Parts of it are wonderfully fertile bu there are also large stretches of dens jungle and low-lying swamp lands Two railroads run east and west acros it.
 The British recruited and drille natives from their colonies. At frs one-third of the troops used by tn Allies were blacks, now 90 per cent of them are of that race. Africa