d echo in every black cabin in the land: _Unless we
conquer our present vices they will conquer us_; we are diseased, we are
developing criminal tendencies, and an alarmingly large percentage of
our men and women are sexually impure. The Negro Academy should stand
and proclaim this over the housetops, crying with Garrison: _I will not
equivocate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard_. The
Academy should seek to gather about it the talented, unselfish men, the
pure and noble-minded women, to fight an army of devils that disgraces
our manhood and our womanhood. There does not stand today upon God's
earth a race more capable in muscle, in intellect, in morals, than the
American Negro, if he will bend his energies in the right direction; if
he will

Burst his birth's invidious bar
And grasp the skirts of happy chance,
And breast the blows of circumstance,
And grapple with his evil star.

In science and morals, I have indicated two fields of work for the
Academy. Finally, in practical policy, I wish to suggest the following
_Academy Creed_:

1. We believe that the Negro people, as a race, have a contribution to
make to civilization and humanity, which no other race can make.

2. We believe it the duty of the Americans of Negro descent, as a body,
to maintain their race identity until this mission of the Negro people
is accomplished, and the ideal of human brotherhood has become a
practical possibility.

3. We believe that, unless modern civilization is a failure, it is
entirely feasible and practicable for two races in such essential
political, economic and religious harmony as the white and colored
people of America, to develop side by side in peace and mutual
happiness, the peculiar contribution which each has to make to the
culture of their common country.

4. As a means to this end we advocate, not such social equality between
these races as would disregard human likes and dislikes, but such a
social equilibrium as would, throughout all the complicated relations of
life, give due and just consideration to culture, ability, and moral
worth, whether they be found under white or black skins.

5. We believe that the first and greatest step toward the settlement of
the present friction between the races--commonly called the Negro
Problem--lies in the correction of the immorality, crime and laziness
among the Negroes themselves, which still remains as a heritage from
slavery. We belie