Mr. President, Trustees and Faculty, Alumni, Students and Friends:

I acknowledge with deep appreciation the honor of being chosen as your speaker on this Founders Day, marking the sixty-fifth anniversary of the founding of this University. And, too, I stand before you at this moment moved by no small sense of humility. A glance backward over these sixty-five years of work and sacrifice, of hopes and disappointments, of struggles and victories, makes me humble. And I ask - what can I say, what tribute can I offer, what admonitions can I give that will not appear small beside the vision and courage and faith of those who laid the foundations of this institution - small beside the devotion and the labors of

those who have followed.

We have before us at this moment evidences that we cannot contemplate without some feelings of awe. And awe is a non-too common emotion in this age. Go back and measure, if you can, the faith and the love of his fellowman in Henry Martin Tupper when in 1865, with his five hundred dollars allowance as a soldier in the Union Army, he purchased the first piece of property for this institution; and with his own hands helped to cut the trees and prepare the timber for the erection of its first building. Then follow on down through the years - the years of effort on the part of teachers and pupils, of loyalty on the part of friends, and, not

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to be forgotten, the self-denial of Negro parents, especially Negro mothers - and flowing from it all the work and influence of the men and women who have gone out from here--then you begin to form a true conception of what this scene today signifies.

It is good for us to take such a glance backward, to take a sort of inventory of our heritage. It is not only good, it is necessary. It is in that way we get our intellectual and spiritual orientation. We need to feel the ground of the past under our feet.

But to loiter too long in the past is worse than not to know it. The past is precious, but the present and future are vital. The past cannot be changed, but we can ameliorate the present and shape the future.

I was at this point tempted to refer to this institution

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as a monument that stands as a justification of all the work and sacrifice and money that have been expended to make it what it is. Such a phrase would not only have been a rhetorical rubber stamp, it would have carried a totally wrong idea. I fear that some of them are, but no university should be a monument. In fact, the only useful place for monuments is in a graveyard. A university needs to be a living organism, a dynamic centre of forces radiating to every part of the body social and politic. It needs to be a growing organism. While conserving all the wisdom and experience of the past, it should be open-minded and sensitive to the present and the future. It should always maintain a fearless and progressive

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attitude towards life, and never allow itself to become encrusted
with mere tradition.

And so, it is concerning life and conditions of today and
tomorrow that confront Shaw University and our educational institu-
tions that I shall speak to you for the next few moments. I shall
not speak academically, but as plainly and as practically as I can.
I shall especially strive to avoid rhetoric, the which, the older I
grow the more I distrust. These remarks I deem will be appropriate,
because I believe that Shaw University, the oldest - as I understand
it is - of our higher educational institutions, is and intends to
remain one of the newest.

I shall not, then, waste your time or mine in talking from
behind a camouflage of generalities. We shall not begin by trying

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to deceive ourselves. We shall not attempt to disguise or hide the
fact that the responsibilities and opportunities in education faced
by Shaw and the rest of our institutions and colleges differ by
many degrees from those faced by the other institutions of the
country. These responsibilities and opportunities are not merely
general, they are also special. And as long as there stands a
Negro university - as a Negro university - that will be true.

Our institutions are called upon to deal with a three-fold
problem in education. I need not use many words in stating that
their first responsibility is for the general education of American
Negro youth. Education of them to take their places as American
citizens. For regardless of opinions or attitudes on the matter,

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the solid fact remains that the Negro is an integral part of American
civilization, and, whether he would or not, hemust keep pace with it.
There fore, the education for American youth must in like proportion
be the education for American youth. Now, American life and
civilization are not the same today as a half century ago. And
educational preparation for intelligent citizenship has been corre-
spondingly broadened. It is needless to say that the Negro universi-
ties and colleges must strive continually to broaden and heighten
their general curricula. We should not be satisfied to have our
capabilities measured by any broad shorter than the one used for
others.

But hand in hand with general education in our institutions
must go the special education of Afro-American youth. From their

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very beginnings our higher schools have recognized the principle of
"special education" along with general education. Among their
earliest efforts was not only the teaching of reading and writing
and arithmetic and grammar, or of Latin and Greek and Geometry and
Trigonometry. It was also the preparation of those who would be
peculiarly fitted to go out and lead the great masses of their race
intellectually and morally. And I doubt not that this is still a
cardinal ideal in all our higher institutions. I may digress here
far enough to say that the mistake was often made and, perhaps is
still being made, of stressing the idea of leadership beyond that
of service; and thereby a pit was dug into which many have fallen,
the pit of selfish and narrow ambition, of personal advantage and

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gain reaped from the trustfulness and mass ignorance of their less fortunately circumstanced fellows. I say - let no one conspire with his fellows to be a leader of his fellows rather than a server. Such a one is sooner or later doomed to disappointment and failure. Such a one will learn that only to him who serves will his fellows some day say, "This man serves well; let us follow him."

In more recent years our schools have given attention to another phase of special education. They have been teaching Negro youth something about itself - something about its historical, ethical and cultural background. Teaching it that it comes down through a really great race, a race with a record not to be ashamed of. Our schools have not only etched in the racial background in America but also in Africa, and shown that the Negro there far from being universally a howling savage, has for ages possessed a

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civilization, primitive, it may be, but adequate; that he has for ages practiced government and agriculture and the handicrafts; that in design and the plastic arts his creations have had a stronger influence on modern Western art than any other single factor. Through this phase of special education old stereotyped ideas about innate racial inferiority have been in a large degree broken up and Negro youth given a firm racial foundation on which to stand.

But in special education - as in general education - the pace must be kept. Just as changes in American life and civilization have forced a broadening in general education, so do changes in what we teach the race problem force a broadening in our special education. It is an error and a common error to think of the race problem as

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arrived at a clear and general understanding that there is a distinction
between lacking money and lacking economic opportunity and potential
economic power. The lack of money and the lack of economic power
usually go together, but they are not one and the same. This is a
question that needs to be clarified, and the proper place for that to
be done is in our universities and colleges. The teaching of
economics in our schools should not be merely academic and abstract;
it should be applied specifically to the conditions that surround the
American Negro. There are no text books covering this particular
phase of the subject of economics, so the teaching of it will depend
upon the intelligence and industry of the individual teachers in our
colleges, until one or more of them write the required books.

Negro youth should be taught the history of the working class

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movement in all countries. When they study that of England, for
example, they will be amazed at the parallels between the condition
of English working classes in the middle part of the last century
and the black workers in America today. A study of economics in this
light will reveal that subject peoples the world over are those peoples
that are, for the advantage of others, held in economic subjection.
In fact, no nation has ever gone to the trouble of subjugating another
except for the purpose of economic advantage and exploitation. Race
and color are minor factors. It merely happens that in this age the
darker races are the more easily exploited, but that has not always
been the case.

This study should begin with the fact that the Negro in

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larger proportion than any other group in America belongs to the working class. The situation in which he finds himself is in many ways analagous to the situation of working classes throughout the world. The analogy to the condition of the subject peoples is even closer. His hazardous economic situation will not be improved until as a farmer, he is a freeholder rather than a tenant and a peon; until, as a worker, he has a surer foothold in the basic industries rather than being a dependent upon unskilled, menial and personal jobs; until, as an employer he owns and controls a share in the sources of economic power.

One step towards the way out is a closer alliance of black workers with white workers; so that our cause will in a greater degree become their cause, and their strength in a greater degree our

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strength. Here is a vital matter that may be intelligently dealt with by our universities and colleges.

Now, it is a commonplace to say that equality of economic opportunity and equality of political rights are complementary. They are interdependent. In this country, where the form of government is democratic, the Negro actually possesses no kind of equality if he does not also possess political equality. Let us make an immediate pause and define "political equality". We mean by "political equality" the right to the exercise of the franchise, limited only by the qualifications demanded of all other citizens - let those qualifications be as high as they may, so long as they are impartially applied. If

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the possession of a thousand dollars or an explanation of the Einstein
Theory - so long as they are impartially required.

I believe that the special,political education of Negro youth
is a proper and necessary task for our colleges and universities.
Independence in political thinking should be inculcated. Political
rights and political responsibilities should be explained, and
intelligent preparation for exercising those rights and assuming those
responsibilities should be given. I do not in the least degree advo-
cate that our schools become any part of political machinery or
become touched by partisan politics. But I firmly believe these
general principles of politics should be taught and that the applica-
tions drawn should be directed not to government in vacuo, but to
government as it is constituted, exists, and is maintained in the

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United States and the various states at the present time.

Here I wish to interject a statement which is not intended
as a suggestion for the curriculum of Shaw. It is merely a part of my
personal opinion on this subject, an opinion I have many times before
expressed publicly. You may take it for what you think it is worth
or leave it. I assume all the responsibility for making it here.

I think the first step to be taken by theNegro toward
political freedom is a declaration of political independence. I believe
the time has arrived when he should decline to wear the brand of any
particular party purely on the ground of his race and color - there
may be other reasons that are sound and sufficient. This is, I
believe, the first step toward securing political respect. This is a

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step that was taken some time ago by the colored voters of New York City, and they are enjoying the results of it. In the last election, for example, both of the major parties conceded to colored candidates nomination for two municipal judgeships that pay $12,000 a year each. So there were four colored candidates running, two Republicans and two Democrats. And, strange as it may sound, the two Democrats were elected.

Turning directly to the situation in the South, I would counsel that colored voters where they are able and as soon as they are able go into the Democratic primaries and vote for what they believe to be the best men for local offices. For some time they should not particularly concern themselves about helping to elect Republican Presidents- or Democratic ones either. By eschewing national Republi-

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can politics, for the time, they will undermine all arguments about the Negro being a tool and monkey paw of any alien domination. By this course of action they will be building from the ground up. In common sense, the chief concern at present of a Negro in the South is to have a voice in electing the judges of the local courts, the county prosecuting attorney, the sheriff, the members of the school, and the representative of his district in Congress. Unless he holds a Federal job, it is sheer nonsense for a Negro, say in Mississippi, to boast that he voted for President Hoover. If he can't get equitable school facilities for his children or is in danger of being railroaded in the courts or mobbed or lynched, President Hoover can't help him, even if he wanted to--that is, in Mississippi. Of course, if he were in China the President could send the navy to his assistance.

Such a course on the part of the Negro would eventually lead to

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a real two-party system in the South. Such a course would also certainly give the demagogues opportunity to raise the old cry of Black Domination. I believe the truth would soon silence that cry. Black Domination, as every thinking person knows, is either a fabrication for use on the political stump or a hallucination; and in either sense it is too high a compliment to the power and ability of the Negro to say that the one-third black population of the South, if given the right of the ballot would dominate the two-thirds white. It would be impossible by any method whatever--short of black magic. Furthermore, the Negro has not even the desire to do it.

I know this question is more or less taboo; and it is often avoided or is touched upon very delicately--But I don't mind taboos. It is a vital question, and ought to be frankly and rationally discussed. Nor is it vital to the Negro alone; it is vital to the South and the nation.

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The Negro *must* win political equality. He must win for himself; because his own preservation depends on it. He must win for the South; because there cannot be an enlightened, progressive, wholesome state of politics in the South unless he does win. He must win for the nation; because if he fails, democracy in America fails with him.

And now a brief word on the third phase of education our institutions are called upon to deal with. This phase, in a manner, requires extension courses. It pertains to the education of White America. Ever since there has been a race problem, education has been regarded as the most efficacious solvent; but it was always thought of in terms of education of the Negroes. The education of Negroes is, at most, only two-thirds of the appointed task; the other necessary third is the education of white people. Their ignorance on the subject has to be cleared away. White America should be made thoroughly conscious of the

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fact that the millions of Negroes in this country are not a liability
to the nation, as is frequently charged, but a great asset. Especially
is this true of the section of the country where we stand today--

Where once the tangled forest stood,
Where flourished once rank weed and thorn-
Behold the path-traced, peaceful wood,
The cotton white, the yellow corn.

To gain these fruits that have been earned,
To hold these fields that have been won;
Our arms have strained, our backs have burned,
Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.

But the Negro has not only helped to build the roads and railroads,
to plant and harvest the crops. He has not merely contributed his
strength and labor. His contributions are not only in material values.
He has made vital cultural and spiritual contributions to our national
store.

White America has long approached the race problem with the ques-

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tion, "What will America do with the Negro?" Never stopping to inquire
about the Negro's power to do something with America. In truth--while
the Negro has been shaped and moulded, he has in turn helped to shape
and mould and make America. He has been both a passive and an active
force in the forming of American civilization. It is a startling thought
that America would not be the precise America it is today except for the
influence the Negro has exerted upon it. The thought is more startling
when we contemplate the effect the Negro has had as a passive force- an
effect for which he is in no degree responsible.

Try and estimate the effect upon the moral character of the American
peOPLE because of the fact that the Negro has given a dominant majority
the opportunity to practice hypocrisy, injustice, wrong, and brutality
upon a defenseless minority. Let me in a few words make that more graphic.

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Picture a scene in the public square of a little American town, where, under the shadow of two Christian churches and the building typifying the majesty of the law, a throng of men, women, and children, women holding up their babies to see the sight, look on while a human being is first tortured with red-hot irons, then baptized with gasoline and set afire. Try and balance the momentary suffering of the wretched victim against the moral degradation of that whole community and you begin to get at the significance of the passive and involuntary force that has gone to help to shape and make American civilization.

It may not be within the scope of our colleges and universities to teach the effects of this passive force; but they certainly can help to apprise White America of the worth of the positive contributions of the Negro to the nation--not only the contribution of labor by the millions of Negro tailors, but also the contributions of their

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growing business and professional, the contributions of their scholars, their writers, their artists, their musicians, their singers, their actors, their novelists, and their poets. Here, our institutions will find abundant material for this extension course.

And now, I come to the close of this necessarily hasty summary of a very broad subject with this admonition; the colleges and universities, in the matter of these suggested phases of "special education" should always be careful to preserve balance, to see that at no time they overbalance in the minds of our youth the fact that they are human beings before they are Negroes; that the solution of the greatest of all problems lies with themselves--Of that problem transcending all differences of race or color or creed or condition, the problem of their own intellectual, moral and spiritual development. Just how the world will look to them, just what the world will mean to them-the answer lies

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within. This is the problem that no outside condition can prevent them
from working out successfully. And it is the problem beside which all
others sink into significance - the problem of the inner life.

Do we remember those lines in Walt Whitman's "Song of Life" in
which he makes us feel and understand this fundamental truth? The plat-
titudinarian would say, "Life is what you make it". Whitman, in his
magic poetry says:

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it.
Did you think it was in the white or gray stone?

Or in the lines of arches and cornices?

All music is what awakes in you when you are reminded by the
instruments.

It is not the violins and the cornets--it is not the oboe nor the
beating drums--nor the score of the baritone singer singing
his sweet romanza--nor that of the men's chorus--nor that of
the women's chorun.

It is nearer and farther than they.