The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial IssueVarious
History
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue
Various
African Americans -- Social conditions -- To 1964; Civil rights movements; Martin Luther King, Jr., Day; United States -- History
Whether the policy adopted by the white South, and supported, as I have
said, by immovable conviction, is expedient or inexpedient, wise or
unwise, righteous or unrighteous, these are questions which I have not
sought to answer one way or another in this article. Perhaps they cannot
be answered at all in our time. Certain is it, that their only real and
satisfactory answer will be many years ahead of the present generation.
In the mean time, nothing could be more unwarranted, than to suppose
that the race problem of one section of this country is peculiar to
that section, because its white inhabitants are themselves in some
sense peculiar; because they are peculiarly prejudiced, because they
are peculiarly behind the hour which the high clock of civilization has
struck. Remove the white inhabitants of the South, give their place to
the white people of any other section of the United States, and, beyond
a peradventure, the Southern race problem, as I have defined it, would
continue to be--revealed, perhaps, in ways more perplexing, more intense
and tragic.
NEGRO SUFFRAGE IN A DEMOCRACY by Ray Stannard Baker
In this paper I endeavor to lay down the fundamental principles which
should govern the Negro franchise in a democracy, and to outline a
practical programme for the immediate treatment of the problem.
As I see it, the question of Negro suffrage in the United States
presents two distinct aspects:--
FIRST: the legal aspect.
SECOND: the practical aspect.
It will be admitted, I think, without argument, that all governments do
and of a necessity must exercise the right to limit the number of people
who are permitted to take part in the weighty responsibilities of the
suffrage. Some governments allow only a few men to vote; in an absolute
monarchy there is only one voter; other governments, as they become more
democratic, permit a larger proportion of the people to vote.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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