Unfettered: A NovelGriggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert)
General
Unfettered: A Novel
Griggs, Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert)
African Americans -- Fiction; United States -- Race relations -- Fiction
It is said of American politics as a whole, that the best citizens are too
largely holding aloof. It is urged that the law making bodies do not any
longer represent the highest mental and moral development of the people.
Even if the good and strong of other groups of Americans are adopting such
a course, the better element of Negroes cannot afford to follow the
example.
The interests of the race in matters political must not be left to those
least qualified for the responsibilities. Men, good and true, the ablest of
the race, must be induced to make the necessary sacrifices and enter
politics with a view to taking care at this point of the honor and welfare
of the race. Unworthy and incompetent men in the race must be given a back
seat, and their influence neutralized in political affairs, the place where
we are peculiarly on trial, and where so much may be won or lost.
Finally, knowing that our hereditary influences and environments in the
past were not such as were best adapted to preparing a people
temperamentally for self-government; knowing that America is infested with
a strong color prejudice; knowing that the Negro's own record as a voter
and lawmaker is not altogether in his own favor; knowing the difficulties
that naturally arise from the attempts to blend such widely divergent race
types into a common political life; knowing how galling is the fire upon
any one who has the temerity to enter the arena of American politics;
knowing these things, the guiding star of the Negro, the light from which
his eye must never wander, is Caution. Others with less to lose may "play
the game of politics" lightly, but the Negro must give to the task the
highest there is in him.
That the policy herein set forth may be carried out; that the Negro may be
prepared to demean himself nobly in the maelstrom of American politics, our
racial organization shall create a non-partisan bureau that shall
thoroughly educate the Negro as to his own history; as to the history of
the Anglo-Saxon race; as to our form of government; as to our political
parties; as to all the problems confronting our nation; as to the
predominating racial instincts of the Anglo-Saxon race which are often in
reality more of a governing force with us than mere written laws.
WITH THE HEN GOES HER BROOD.
With the adjustment of the political question will come an era of good
feeling which will operate to ameliorate other conditions.
The Negro complains that the courts of the South are arrayed against him;
that he does not receive there the treatment accorded to other citizens. So
much of this as is true is traceable to the fact that the courts are at
present sustained by the same race feeling which has for its end the
suppression of the Negro.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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