kward states of
Europe. The ordinary negro, however, apparently does not think much of
such problems of the future, though no white man is likely to know
precisely what he does think. He goes about his business or his pleasure
seemingly at peace with the world, though perhaps he sings somewhat less
than he once did. He attends his church and the meetings of his lodge or
lodges, and works more or less regularly. Probably the great majority of
negroes more nearly realize their ambitions than do the whites. They do
not aspire to high position, and discrimination does not burn them quite
as deeply as the sometimes too sympathetic white man who tries to put
himself in their place may think.

There are, however, some individuals to whom the ordinary conditions of
any negro's life appear particularly bitter. With mental ability,
education, and aesthetic appreciation often comparable to those of the
whites, and with more than normal sensitiveness, they find the color
line an intolerable insult, since it separates them from what they value
most. They rage at the barrier which shuts them out from the society
which they feel themselves qualified to enter, and they are always on
the alert to discern injuries. These injuries need not be positive, for
neglect is quite as strong a grievance.

These individuals all spell negro with a capital and declare that they
are proud of their race. They parade its achievements--and these are not
small when enumerated all at once--but they avoid intimate association
with the great mass of negroes. They are not at all democratic, and in a
negro state they would assume the privileges of an aristocracy as a
matter of right. It would seem that their demand for full political and
social rights for all negroes has for its basis not so much the welfare
of the race as a whole, as the possibility of obtaining for themselves
special privileges and positions of leadership. They are not satisfied
merely with full legal rights. In those States where there is no legal
discrimination in public places, their denunciation of social prejudice
is bitter. They are not content to take their chances with other groups
but sometimes are illogical enough to demand social equality enforced by
law, though by this phrase they mean association with the whites merely
for themselves; they do not wish other negroes less developed than
themselves to associate with them.

In any city where there is any considerable number of thi