Professor knows very well that it is not fair to argue from the
general to the particular. The "Old Auntie in Hackensack" is not the
subject. She is a member of the Afro-American family. Children
generally take the name of their parents by birth or by adoption.
Don't refuse to call a thing by its right name because it is
"awkward," for the name is not "awkward," but the tongue that handles
it. We have a similar case in God's Word. The Gileadites took the
passage of Jordan and adopted a distinct watchword by which everyone
of their number could be known. The Ephraimites, who desired to pass
over the river, were required to say the word "Shibboleth," which, if
said properly, would signify that they were Gileadites. The
Ephraimites could not pronounce it correctly, so they could not pass
over, but were slain. This word "Shibboleth" was "awkward" to the
Ephraimites; but not to the Gileadites, because they had trained
themselves to say it. So must we train ourselves to say the right
name, "Afro-American."

In the second place, the Professor objects to the appellation
"Afro-American" because, says he: "The adjectives 'Irish' or 'German'
or 'Swedish,' which are sometimes used to designate certain classes,
refer always to race rather than to country, and never to either of
the great world divisions." This may be true in a sense, but we beg to
offer an alternative. There were many of us brought from those
families or tribes in Africa which were not known as "Negroes," for
the Negroes, as we have shown, were only a remnant of the great
African, or Hamitic, race.

In the third place the Professor objects to the term "Afro-American"
because, says he: "This name would seek to separate us from our
kindred in the land of our fathers." This kind of reasoning is what we
call _reductio ad absurdum_, for just the reverse of what he says is
true. To say "Afro-American" is to reunite us to our forefathers, both
by blood and language. It tells, whence we came and where we are.
There is no other term in language, thought, or reason that fits in
and at the same time covers the ground so completely as
"Afro-American." "Let us be Negroes, let us be one in blood," says he.
We can't be what we are not. How can we be one in blood when our blood
has been crossed a thousand times?

But we all can be Afro-Americans, because we all were of Africa and
now are of America. In other words, our forefathers were Africans by
birth and became Americans by