COOPERATION FOR RACIAL PROGRESS

My subject does not raise a question - it states a truism. Therefore it does not call for discussion, but, at most, for re-statement. However, the re-statement of truths that are obvious and axiomatic is often a matter of the highest importance; especially is this true of those truths that involve moral and social values. As well as they are known, I doubt that it is possible to re-state the Ten Commandments too often.

That cooperation for racial progress is necessary, and that cooperation will result in racial progress, are statements that no one will dispute - they are conceded to be true - yet, getting people to cooperate is one of the most difficult jobs that can be undertaken.

Cooperation for Racial Progress may be compared with cooperation for World Peace. Every nation in the world knows that the goal of universal peace is to be reached only through cooperation and not through the pursuit of self-interests, competition and antagonisms - and yet, after the recorded lesson of 6,000 years of bloody experiences, after the catastrophe of a five-year World War, the nations are still ready to fly at each other's throats.

Socrates was a wise man in his day - I say wise in his

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day because I believe if he had lived in this age he would have
been even wiser. One of the cardinal points in the philosophy of
Socrates was - To know the right would be to do it. But more is
necessary than a knowledge of the right. Men must be taught to
know the right, and this may be done through statement and re-
statement of the principles of righteousness. But men must also
be shown that to do the right is profitable - that it is the only
course that is permanently profitable.

Where, for instance, is all the loot and plunder and
seeming prosperity piled up by the armed powers of Europe in the
last hundred years through competition, violence, aggression and
oppression? It is all vanished - gone up in the smoke of guns -
submerged in blood and suffering and misery.

To set out to show men that to do the right is profitable
may appear, at first glance, to be a narrow and rather sordid line
of procedure. It might seem nobler to show men they should do the
right simply because it is right. But it is not; in doing so we
are basing our campaign on one of the deepest and most persistent
of human instincts. I often think that those who would make the
world better often make the mistake of starting out with the world
as they wish to make it, rather than with the world as it is. This
applies to efforts to better human relationships. We must start
out with human nature as it is - and not with human nature as we
wish it to be.

As to cooperation for racial progress in the United
States, our task is twofold. We need not only to demonstrate that
cooperation is advantageous and necessary interracially, but also

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within the race. By the latter I mean that the Negro himself
must learn the great lesson of cooperation for progress. And it
is because there is so great need for impressing this lesson that
I am here. I am here not because I love to travel - I have
travelled more than half the world over. I am here not because I
love to make speeches - making speeches is hard work for me. I am
here because I wish to express the feeling and spirit of cooperation
which does and must exist between the great organization which I
represent and the great organization here assembled.

There is every reason why there should be the closest co-
operation between these two organizations; for though at times they
may appear to be working along entirely different lines, these
lines converge to the same point. These two organizations should
in reality be supplementary and complimentary to each other. Be-
tween them they should embrace almost the full program for the
sound progress of the Negro in America.

The question of progress for the Negro in this country
resolves itself into two propositions:

(a) The making of himself fit for all of the
common rights of American citizenship

(b) Finding a way to secure the recognition
of those rights

These propositions are interdependent. One is of no value
without the other. What is the good of being fit for the rights
of American citizenship and not allowed to enjoy them?

The Negro must be

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(a) Economically fit

(b) Educationally fit

(c) Morally fit

And underlying all of these is physical fitness.

It is within the scope of fitness that the Urban League
works.

But mere fitness is not the full answer to the problem.
Material good is conserved only by what some people call abstract
rights:

> A good house in a good neighborhood and the
> right to live in it.

> My own experience today.

Cooperation through the coordination of all the forces
within the race.

Finally - the use of money.

But the Negro, as he is situated in this country
cannot do it all alone. He must do the gre ater share, but there

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must be cooperation with the race in the majority.

Interracial Cooperation.

Mutual understanding.

Seeing and meeting the other fellow's point of view.

But I would not give a snap of my fingers for any inter-racial relationship built on a double platform - one that starts out with reservations. Such a relationship is a house built upon a foundation of sand. Some colored men and women enter into such interracial relationships - feeling that it is better than none at all. I, for one, would rather stand out with my self-respect than enter at a loss of it. I will enter into no voluntary re- lationship except on a platform of mutual respect and self-respect.

Stand firm - do not surrender. We may suffer many defeats, but defeats do not mean failure so long as we do not surrender in spirit.

Riding in a Jim-Crow car in the South and self-respect.

We have a right to demand all that we are asking.

"This land is ours," etc