The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1932-01-21
lUory and
Gold
BY Melvin J. Chisum


If a prize were offered to the
one who chose the premier of Ameri-
can book reviewers ,this writer
would win it by naming that prince
of the fourth estate formidable, who
lives in Chicago, when he is not on a
deluxe train, and writes his column,
''The Blue Streak Books" in the
Chicago Daily News.
Mr.. Howard Vincent UBrien is
one of natures noblemen, too big to
be narrow and too noble to harbor
prejudice against any man.
On Wednesday, December 80, Mr..
O'Brien said of Mr.. Embree's book
and you, things so lovely and so
beautiful in the Daily News of that
| date, that this writer is reproducing
them for your illumination:
THE BIRTH OF A NEW RACE
New Information About the Negro in
Edwin Embree's Brown America"
Last winter, in New York, / went
to a banquet in honor of James Wei
don Johnson, distinguished poet,
scholar and diplomat-and a Negro.
There were all shades of color
present, from Mrs. johnson, so white
that her husband was once arrested
in a southern city for walking in the
park with her, to a college president
from Florida who looked as if she
had just emerged from a Congo
Jungle.
any group of whites ever saw, prob
ably as intelligent, and certainly bet
ter hammered. 1t was graphic dem
onstration of statistics.
The illiteracy of the colored man
has been reduced from 95 per cent
in 1865 to less than 30 per cent in
1880. In 200 years, despite greater
handicaps than any race has had to
endure, the colored man has made
just as much progress toward civili-
cation as the white race made in
1000.
One person out of every ten in this
country is colored person. The re-
lations between the white race and
the black have been, and still are,
our outstanding social problem. Yet
it is astonishing how few white peo-
pie know anything at all about the
life of colored people.
For those who would like to rem
edy this foolish and dangerous ig-
norance | can recommend a short
and eminently readable book -
Brown America" by Edwin r. EN-
bree.
Mr.. Embree is white man who
has an intimate knowledge of the
aAIAral fhra..nl
from southern position as director of
one of the great philanthropic foun-
dations. He writes simply and clear
ly, with no AK to grind and with no
interest in controversy.
AS he himself says: "My book is
written for that great group who are
hopefully called intelligent laymen.
| have no special thesis to expound,
unless it be that the new race is an
interesting and ebullient part of our
population and that it is inextricably
bound in with the backwardness or
the progress of the nation as whole.
| do not want to establish any the
DRY, but simply to stir up interest"
| think he has succeeded admir-
| ably in this purpose. 1t is signifi-
cant that he calls his book Brown
American and not "Black America"
The Afro-American is no longer
black. The colored population of the
United States today is a new race.
In the veins of the American col
ored man flows the blood of many
and di 'erse races. 1t is a common
mistake to think of all Africans as
alike, hat slaves were secured from
vast territory, representing enor-
nous differences in race, language
and character. All of these have
been fused in the American colored
man.
In addition, there has been an i'm
measurable admixture of white and
Negro blood, so great that each year
a number of colored people pass over
and become an indistinguishable part
of the white population.
Brown America" is a book for
everybody.