St. Paul recorder., 1963-09-19
ISSUES: GOOD
AND BAD
BY p. L. PRATTIS

characters and men Of the present
are not generally highly regarded.
think also that the subject Of the
parallehsm I am about to describe
would, If he could, reject 1t. He
would not want 10 be part of such
an analogy.
Most of our readers know by
now that during the night Of Aug
ust 27, DR.. William e. B. Dubois
breathed his last in Accra, capital
city Of Gharra. He had celebrated
his 95th birthday on February %,
1858.
Almost three years ago, after
the third volume Of his trilogy,
The Black Flame, had been pub
IAshed, DR.. Dubois Joined the Com
munist party, left his native-land
for Ghana and undertook at the
age of ninety+two 30 supervise the
vast tasks involved in producing
an Encyclopedia Africana.
His death came before the work
could be finished, but there Is little
doubt that it will be finished and
that the encyclopedia will shed
light ON what was once known on
the Dark Continent.
More than three thousand years
ago, there lived another man, who,
according to the Scriptures was
told by God to "go down, way
down in Egyptland and tell old
Pharoah to turn my people loose"
Moses, with the backing Of God,
undertook the stupendous re-
sponsibility Of leading the tribes
of Israel out Of bondage to the
Promised Land, Canaan. But after
long years of suffering in the will
derness, Moses was only permitted
a glimpse of the Promised Land.
God took him before he could en-
ter 1t.
In 1901, six years after the death
of Frederick Douglass, w. e. B.
Dubois, began the attempt to lead
the attempt of his people to es-
cape the bondage Of racial segrega-
tion and discrimination.
While others were counselling
Negroes to go slow and to restrict
their efforts to the place" as
signed them by white Americans,
Dubois took sharp issue with such
stand and claimed for his people
all the rights other Americans en-
joyed.
He kept at this job for sixty
years. He was deeply involved in
the struggle until and after the
Supreme Court decision of 1854.
This, in way, could have pro-
Wded the old battler with a glimpse
of the Promised Land for Amer
ican Negroes. It now became nee
essary, even as the scouts of Moses
did, to sound out the land-to go
to the courts and to the streets to
see if the American Negroes prom
ised land were an illusion or a de-
lusion. This sounding out led to
The Great March of August %,
1868. And just as God did with
Moses, he so did with Dubois.
He was not to see his peoples
Promised Land. He was not to see
The Great March (for which he
had fought) even on television.
His eyes were closed. And only
few oldtimers were around to re-
call that he had led the great
March for Freedom down Fifth
Avenue in New York in 1919, after
the boys (soldiers) came home
from Europe.
DR.. Dubois, even as Moses, has
left a legacy behind of which all
Negroes should be proud, regard
less Of the fact that he left his
nativeland and became a citizen of
Ghana, regardless Of the fact that
he joined presently unpopular
political party.
There would be no United States
II huge numbers of Europeans and
Asians, dissatisfied with their ma:
tive lands had not left them. And
even those who condemn Commun-
ism known not what the verdict of
history will be.
AS the Pharisees and Sadducees
Cboth political parties or philos-
ophies of a sort) condemned Jesus
for espousing a new and different
philosophy and urged the Romans
10 cruelty him, they knew not that
this philosophy of redemption
would create a new world of men.
Thus 1t would be umwise TO con-
denim Dubois until history has
spoken.
I shall not do so.