Unfettered: A NovelGriggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert)
General
Unfettered: A Novel
Griggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert)
African Americans -- Fiction; United States -- Race relations -- Fiction
In fact, the hour has come when the race must take the matter of its
salvation into its own hands. In times past, when the battles of the race
were to be fought, others led and the trusting Negro followed. In this new
era the Negroes must lead, must bear the main brunt of the battle. Thus,
while estranging no friends of the past, and fully appreciating the
continued necessity of outside assistance wherever attainable, the foreword
of our new propaganda shall be Self-Reliance.
Having hitherto been concerned with the task of comprehending and imbibing
a civilization which we had no appreciable share in developing, our
passivity, quiescence, docility, the readiness to follow others, were the
characteristics which we mainly manifested.
Now that we are to cast off the role of a nursling and take our place as
co-creators of whatever the future has in store for the human race, a new
order of talents must be called into operation and a new mode of procedure
adopted.
Fortunately for us we have the incentive of a largely inglorious past to be
redeemed, and the light of all of man's past to serve as our guide.
REVISITING THE ORIENT.
To gain our first lesson in the work before us, we transport ourselves over
land and sea until, standing in the valley of the Nile, we can pause and
gaze upon the pyramids of Egypt, reminders of the day when our ancestral
home held aloft the torch of civilization. In those pyramids, we behold
that stones of enormous size and weight have been lifted to such distances
from the earth as to stagger the imagination and inspire wonder in the
hearts of all generations of all races that have seen or heard of the feat
unparalleled in ancient or modern times.
Some African genius of the long ago constructed a device, now unknown to
earth, whereby the several strengths of individuals could be conjoined and
the sum of their strengths thus obtained applied to the task of lifting the
ponderous stones. Innumerable hosts would have failed in lifting those
pyramidal stones to the positions which they occupy had it not been for the
aid of the device that enabled them to work conjointly. From these
pyramids, eloquent in their silence, persistent reminders of the departed
glory of Africa, let the scattered sons of that soil learn their first
great need--Co-operation.
Our initial step must be the creation of a device whereby the several
strengths of the millions of Negroes in the world may be harnessed to the
huge stone of a world hate, to the end that said stone shall be swung aloft
and hurled into the sea, sinking by the force of its own weight into
eternal oblivion.
CLASPING HANDS.
In view of the fact that we cannot now point to any organization capable of
amassing the full strength of the race, and as the absence of such an
organization might be construed to indicate that there is no need for such,
we now quote authorities that thoroughly demonstrate the absolute need of
co-operative effort.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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