“To put the matter in a few words, the problem that I would like immensely to emphasize to you, is the wholly abnormal position of the minority seeking its rights. We are apt to think that the Negro can achieve these rights in the way that our ancestors achieved theirs against the aristocracy, but unless I am utterly wrong, that view is doomed to failure and if followed will result in embittering the relations between the races so that segregation or deportation or extermination must result. Personally I do not believe that we will fail, but if we succeed it will be in spite of Du Bois and of the attitude of armed resistance. Never was a better illustration of the wisdom under certain conditions of the Tolstoi attitude of non-resistance.” That of course is nicely deduced, but events are not ruled by wisdom and logic. It might very well have been said to the Israelites during the long period of the Plagues. It is such a period in the history of the Negroes. XIV THE WORLD ASPECT The American Negroes are the aristocrats of the Negro world. It may be a paradox to assume that a proletariat can become an aristocracy, but an aristocracy is the best a race can produce in culture and manners. No doubt African Negrodom is made up of a great number of races, but all seem to have one common interest and to yield more homage to the name of Africa itself than to any constituent part, kingdom, or state or pasture. The American Negro is beginning to lead Africa as he is leading the Indies. The reason is that the children of the American slaves have made the greatest cultural progress of all Negroes. Though persecution has been less in some parts of Africa and on the West Indian islands, opportunity has also been less. In 1863 America committed herself to the task of raising her millions of black slaves to the cultural level of white citizenship. But no one has ever essayed to raise the savage masses of Africa much higher than the baptismal font. It is always pointed out to the American Negro that his good fortune is prodigious. The Negro retorts that if he has good fortune his fathers paid for it in the sufferings of slavery, and he still pays in the price of lynching. Yet, of course, the Negroes in Africa have suffered greatly, and their fathers suffered greatly. No Negro can deny that he owes America much. And Africa owes, or will owe, more still.