e first had as
instructors and professors almost exclusively Southern white doctors who
reside in Raleigh, and they have given the highest satisfaction. This
gives the people of Raleigh the feeling that the school is theirs, and
not something located in, but not a part of, the South. In Augusta,
Georgia, the Payne Institute, one of the best colleges for our people,
is officered and taught almost wholly by Southern white men and women.
The Presbyterian Theological School at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has only
Southern white men as instructors. Some time ago, at the Calhoun School
in Alabama, one of the leading white men in the county was given an
important position; since then the feeling of the white people in the
county has greatly changed toward the school.

We must admit the stern fact that at present the Negro, through no
choice of his own, is living in the midst of another race, which is far
ahead of him in education, property, and experience; and further, that
the Negro's present condition makes him dependent upon the white people
for most of the things necessary to sustain life, as well as, in a large
measure, for his education. In all history, those who have possessed
the property and intelligence have exercised the greatest control in
government, regardless of color, race, or geographical location. This
being the case, how can the black man in the South improve his estate?
And does the Southern white man want him to improve it? The latter part
of this question I shall attempt to answer later in this article.

The Negro in the South has it within his power, if he properly utilizes
the forces at land, to make of himself such a valuable factor in the
life of the South that for the most part he need not seek privileges,
but they will be conferred upon him. To bring this about, the Negro must
begin at the bottom and lay a sure foundation, and not be lured by any
temptation into trying to rise on a false footing. While the Negro is
laying this foundation, he will need help and sympathy and justice
from the law. Progress by any other method will be but temporary
and superficial, and the end of it will be worse than the beginning.
American slavery was a great curse to both races, and I should be the
last to apologize for it; but in the providence of God I believe that
slavery laid the foundation for the solution of the problem that is now
before us in the South. Under slavery, the Negro was taught every trade,
every industr