Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
History
Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
The party led by Washington is made up of the masses of the common people;
the radical party, on the other hand, represents what may be called the
intellectuals. The leading exponent of its point of view is unquestionably
Professor W. E. B. Du Bois of Atlanta University--though, like all
minority parties, it is torn with dissension and discontent. Dr. Du Bois
was born in Massachusetts of a family that had no history of Southern
slavery. He has a large intermixture of white blood. Broadly educated at
Harvard and in the universities of Germany, he is to-day one of the able
sociologists of this country. His economic studies of the Negro made for
the United States Government and for the Atlanta University conference
(which he organised) are works of sound scholarship and furnish the
student with the best single source of accurate information regarding the
Negro at present obtainable in this country. And no book gives a deeper
insight into the inner life of the Negro, his struggles and his
aspirations, than "The Souls of Black Folk."
Dr. Du Bois has the temperament of the scholar and idealist--critical,
sensitive, unhumorous, impatient, often covering its deep feeling with
sarcasm and cynicism. When the question came to him:
"What shall the Negro do about discrimination?" his answer was the exact
reverse of Washington's: it was the voice of Massachusetts:
"Do not submit! agitate, object, fight."
Where Washington reaches the hearts of his people, Du Bois appeals to
their heads. Du Bois is not a leader of men, as Washington is: he is
rather a promulgator of ideas. While Washington is building a great
educational institution and organising the practical activities of the
race, Du Bois is the lonely critic holding up distant ideals. Where
Washington cultivates friendly human relationships with the white people
among whom the lot of the Negro is cast, Du Bois, sensitive to rebuffs,
draws more and more away from white people.
_A Negro Declaration of Independence_
Several years ago Du Bois organised the Niagara movement for the purpose
of protesting against the drawing of the colour line. It is important, not
so much for the extent of its membership, which is small, but because it
represents, genuinely, a more or less prevalent point of view among many
coloured people.
Its declaration of principles says:
We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American
assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic
before insults. Through helplessness we may submit, but the voice of
protest of ten million Americans must never cease to assail the ears
of their fellows, so long as America is unjust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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