The northwestern bulletin-appeal., 1925-02-28

From One Of Our white Friends

To the Editor OF the Bulletin Appeal:
Before me Is a copy of the Bull
letin-Appeal of December 81, 1924,
on the front page of which is an ur-
gent appeal to his race for support
signed by the publisher. Among 9TH
er things, he states: 1T has had a
long and tempestuous career, due to
lack of appreciation and financial
support. This condition will continue
until the race realizes the value of a
representative newspaper in the com
munity where ii resides"
This statement suggests to the
writer, this problem:
Are we of the white race, who
have ever been friends and admirers
of the ambition, the fixed determine
tion and the stiff backbone possess
ed by the Negroes of the former gen.
Grafton, who as stubbornly refused
to recognize-much less accept-the
stupendous obstacles continually
placed in their paths to prevent their
advancement along educational, and
other elevating lines? The race
newspaper being the greatest aid of
derstand by such appeal for support
(Which means advancement and bet
terment) that with the passing of the
former generation, all the loyalty to
race, all the ambition and all the
many admirable qualities so char
acteristic of the progressive Negro,
Grafton? 1t is shame, and an out
frage that that noble band of alert
active Negroes, so pronounced in the
former generation, ever anxious to
place their race in the best possible
light before the public, should be
compelled to have to be listed among
the lazy, Indifferent and: careless ones
of their race of to-day! The good
Lord only knows what would be the
result of the present generation were
it not for these shining lights, the
noble wide-awake enthusiastic men
and women. Ones sympathy goes out
to them in their strenuous endeavors
to awaken, to arouse and enthuse,
their brethren to a whole-hearted
effort along all lines of advancement!
And the foundation for advancement
is the Bible and their own newspa.
per.
1t was more than passing strange
that while pondering over the pub
lisher's call for support of the Bull
letin-Appeal, l noticed the following
Government statistics among my pa
pers, which follows right along this
line of talk. Every friend and we'll
wisher of the Negro, will perhaps be
surprised as l was upon learning that
in the cities of New York, Philadel-
phia, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, Chi
cago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and st.
Paul, as well as in every city and
town in the middle-west, west and
northwest, where there is public
library may be found books the
authors of which are Negroes. But
according to the Librarians report:
"The Negroes, only in a few in
stances read the books of their own
authors" To me this is remarkably
strange, for with such writer's (all
we'll known to the average White
reader) as Doctor Scarborough, who
was born a slave, worked his way
through country school, then
through a ward school, then high
school, then worked his way
through college, then through Har-
ward University, and finally through
Oxford University in England, gradu-
ating with high honors and receiving
the "red hood" His Greek grammar
is the textbook in the public schools
in the states of N. Y, Penn, Mass,
r. l., and Conn. Then other famous
and favorite Negro authors are e. H.
Bethune, j. l.. Curry, Booker T.
Washington, Professor George Car
| NtT, IL. -. ~, It ~ D., DoSIoi w A'
J d. Dubois, +. Salter, Kate Brous-
J sard, F. A. Bruce, ]. A. Tollinghast,
Paul Dunbar, A. H. Stone, w. p.
Picket A. B. Hart, r. G. Browley;
C. p. Lyons, w. F. Livingston, and
others. The above is only a partial
list of Negro authors, to every one of
whom every true loyal American can
look and point to with genuine pride
} and admiration. But, according to
the most dependable authority, the
: people of their race, who are readers,
shun them. So they do also their own
newspapers. / cannot conceive how
J it is possible for one who considers
himself or herself a loyal American,
true to his race, can even frame a
lame excuse for not backing up in
everyway possible the newspaper
, that always has and always will fight
the peoples battles, for JUSTICE,
besides giving them all the local