e proverbial, that the door of opportunity shall
be closed to no man, and that he shall be allowed to have that place in
our national life which he makes for himself. So it is with the Negro now,
as an individual. Will it be so with him in the future as a race? To
answer that we shall first have to determine that he has a race.

However he may be lacking in pride of ancestry and race, no one can accuse
the Negro of lack of pride of Nation and State, and even of county.
Indeed, his pride in the Republic and his devotion to it are among the
most pathetic phases of his pathetic history, from Jamestown, in 1620, to
San Juan Hill, in 1898. He has given everything to the Republic,--his
labor and blood and prayers. What has the Republic given him, but blows
and rebuffs and criminal ingratitude! And he stands now, ready and eager,
to give the Republic all that he has. What does the Republic stand ready
and eager to give him? Let the answer come out of the mouth of the future.

It is a fair conclusion that the Negro has a firmer and more assured civil
and political status in American life to-day than at the close of the
Reconstruction period, paradoxical as this may appear to many, despite the
adverse legislation of the old slave-holding States, and the tolerant
favor shown such legislation by the Federal Supreme Court, in such
opinions as it has delivered, from time to time, upon the subject, since
the adoption of the War amendments to the Federal Constitution.
Technically, the Negro stands upon equality with all other citizens under
this large body of special and class legislation; but, as a matter of
fact, it is so framed that the greatest inequality prevails, and was
intended to prevail, in the administration of it by the several States
chiefly concerned. As long as such legislation by the States specifies, on
the face of it, that it shall operate upon all citizens equally, however
unequally and unjustly the legislation may be interpreted and administered
by the local courts, the Federal Supreme Court has held, time and again,
that no hardship was worked, and, if so, that the aggrieved had his
recourse in appeal to the higher courts of the State of which he is a
citizen,--a recourse at this time precisely like that of carrying coal to
New Castle.

Under the circumstances, there is no alternative for the Negro citizen
but to work out his salvation under the Constitution, as other citizens
have done and are doing. It will be