Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1950-02-04
The New Negro
From The Jackson Daily News, Jackson, Miss.)


For the first time in a goodly number of years the
Mississippi legislature faces serious phase of the Negro
problem and unless it faces that problem in fair i'm
partial and courageous the result is going to
be unhappy for our state
1t is SenseesS to say there is nothing new about
the Negro problem
There may he nothing really new concerning the
Negro problem, per Sc but there is Negro in
land and the Southern lawmaker citizen who
fails to recognize that fact is being stupid at his cost
The new Negro has more education. He has better
health. He makes money per week He has better
clothes He reads newspapers. He is adopting
the white mans customs, the white mans speech the
white mans standards and the white mans shibbo
leths.
Now it doesn't make sense to assume that this new
Negro is going to be content in the cabin of his slave
grandfather. And it doesn't make sense to pretend
that there is where he ought be- His eyes are on bet
ter things, materially considered He is going to have
and drive it, He is going to have business and
it. He is going to buy home and live in it. He is
going to step into citizenship and exercise its rights and
demand its privileges.
Indeed our use of the future tense is merely to
gentle the recalcrant of readers to the fact
that the Negro is already doing these things The
new Negro is not man of tomorrow. He is a man of
today.
The important thing is not that the new Negro is
that he is Negro. Those things are important
to him. of but the thing of chief significance to
the white man is determining his attitude to the
Negro is that the Negro is man There is an
adulthood about this status that simply can't be ignored
The oldtime Negro was in some things child
were
childish Ones easy to chuckle over, easy to forgive
The new Negro is growing up. Maybe he is not fully
grown, but he has grown amazingly He is longer
a child
That means this other thing-having become man,
he must put away childish things.
A vast deal OF foolishneSs has been uttered about
equality. The Negro is different. If he weren't there
would be problem and argument 1t is silly to say
he isn't The equality that the Negro is entitled is
equality Of opportunity. How high he will reach given
the same level to stand en- is something else. Some will
reach high; will grove in the dirt 1t has been
with others, and it will be with him. Few Negroes
endowed with any sense are thinking about social
equality Of mscegenation.
Soberly justly and with all kindness of spirit, the
white is going to have to make the ground
rules Of living together Quietly patiently with all the
dignity of his SOUL the black is going to have to
wait while the white does make those ground
rules
The white will make them over, not because he
chosen CT the Lord to make ground rules but because
the white man is in the majority Democracy you
know that the majority make the ground rules Civ
ization is the overall process by which the rules
nearer and nearer by SLOW stages violent jerks to
justice and peace and public order.
Our Negro citizens must be patient tolerant and try
to understand that, matter how rksome forms
of injustice inequality may SEEM that there cannot
possibly be overnight transformation.