(1). In every community we have got to have men and women who put a proper estimate upon our civil and political rights--men and women who know what rights we are entitled to as American citizens, who value those rights; and who are deeply conscious therefore of the wrong which the enemies of the race are seeking to perpetrate upon us by depriving us of those rights. There are some members of our race, unfortunately, who, for one reason or another, have attempted to minify the importance of civil and political rights, or who, at least, pretend that they see no great evil in the deprivation of these rights. I say pretend, for, at heart, I do not believe they think anything of the kind. They cannot believe as they say they do, if they have any self respect, or any appreciation of what citizenship means. Such people are of no value to us in the fight which we are making for our rights under the Constitution: they are rather a hindrance to us, because they are used by the enemy in justification of the course which they are pursuing. The fact that there are colored people, and some so-called leaders, who don’t attach much importance to these rights, makes the white assailant feel that, after all, no great injury is done to the Negro. The colored people themselves, they say, in effect, don’t regard it as such, and why should we, why should we attach any more importance to the matter than they do. In every community therefore, as a foil to this pernicious doctrine, there must be men and women to whom these rights mean something; there must be men and women who hold them in high estimation, who have a deep and abiding sense of their value, of their importance. Everywhere, throughout the race, very little patience ought to be shown, or respect either, to Negroes, whether big or little, who undervalue, and who are seeking to instill into the race a spirit of indifference to civil and political rights. To do so is to encourage the race to commit political suicide; and the race that is willing to commit political suicide is the race that will be driven to the wall, that will be the football of every other race within the Republic. Strange, that some of us are so stupid or so blinded by selfishness that we don’t see this! Personally I have absolutely no patience with the Negro, big or little, who is content to live in a country, under laws which are made for his government without his consent and about which he, not only has nothing to say, but is purposely excluded from participation in the functions of government. The American colonies resisted the imposition of a tax by the British Parliament, because they were taxed without representation; and they were right in the resistance which they offered. The position in which our enemies are seeking to place us is a humiliating one, and I pity the race or individual who doesn’t see it, and who doesn’t feel the humiliation of being compelled to submit to laws without having a voice in the making