egro business organizations, a Negro school
of literature and art, and an intellectual clearing house, for all these
products of the Negro mind, which we may call a Negro Academy. Not only
is all this necessary for positive advance, it is absolutely imperative
for negative defense. Let us not deceive ourselves at our situation in
this country. Weighted with a heritage of moral iniquity from our past
history, hard pressed in the economic world by foreign immigrants and
native prejudice, hated here, despised there and pitied everywhere; our
one haven of refuge is ourselves, and but one means of advance, our own
belief in our great destiny, our own implicit trust in our ability and
worth. There is no power under God's high heaven that can stop the
advance of eight thousand thousand honest, earnest, inspired and united
people. But--and here is the rub--they _must_ be honest, fearlessly
criticising their own faults, zealously correcting them; they must be
_earnest_. No people that laughs at itself, and ridicules itself, and
wishes to God it was anything but itself ever wrote its name in history;
it _must_ be inspired with the Divine faith of our black mothers, that
out of the blood and dust of battle will march a victorious host, a
mighty nation, a peculiar people, to speak to the nations of earth a
Divine truth that shall make them free. And such a people must be
united; not merely united for the organized theft of political spoils,
not united to disgrace religion with whoremongers and ward-heelers; not
united merely to protest and pass resolutions, but united to stop the
ravages of consumption among the Negro people, united to keep black boys
from loafing, gambling and crime; united to guard the purity of black
women and to reduce that vast army of black prostitutes that is today
marching to hell; and united in serious organizations, to determine by
careful conference and thoughtful interchange of opinion the broad lines
of policy and action for the American Negro.

This is the reason for being which the American Negro Academy has. It
aims at once to be the epitome and expression of the intellect of the
black-blooded people of America, the exponent of the race ideals of one
of the world's great races. As such, the Academy must, if successful, be

(_a_). Representative in character.

(_b_). Impartial in conduct.

(_c_). Firm in leadership.

It must be representative in character; not in that it represents all
int