and was more intense between the
Anglo-Saxon and the Norman. If, as has been the case in many another
land, there should arise an emergency threatening the existence of our
Nation, and there were one man, and only one, capable of steering us
through the storm into safety--some Lincoln or Washington--and if every
voter in our country knew that this man were the only one who could do
it, that man, if he were black, could not be elected President. Were
such an emergency to arise to-morrow, we should perish. We should perish
by suicide, and richly deserve all that we got. There is no safety for
our land until this prejudice of caste is gone. It never came by
argument; it can never be argued away. It can not be smothered under
legislation nor uprooted by resolutions nor effaced by tears. While good
men feel it they will fight it, but the majority will yield to it and it
can be decided in only one way. That way was well outlined by a colored
student in Hampton Institute in the debating club of that institution.
The subject for discussion was, "How Shall We Black Men Secure Our
Rights?" The last speaker was black as ebony, and had been bred in his
early years a slave. When he arose I expected to hear him repeat the
familiar complaints and suggest the familiar remedies. He did neither.
He simply said: "My friends, I do not agree with all that you have said.
I think, as you do, that the way white people treat us in the street
cars and hotels"--and he might have added, in churches, but he did
not--"is wrong, unchristian, and cruel." And when he said that, there
was a pathos in his voice which made me ashamed to be a white man.
"But," he added, "while I think as you do that it is cruel, I do not
think that the white people will ever stop treating us as inferiors so
long as we are inferiors, and I think that they will despise us as long
as they can. But when we get enough character in our hearts, enough
brains in our head, and enough money in our pockets, they will stop
calling us niggers!"

He was right--a thousand times right. We must face the facts and steer
by them, and not attempt to be guided by sentiment and emotions. So long
as the sight of a black face instinctively suggests to us rags and
ignorance, and servility and menial employments, just so long this
prejudice of caste will endure, and no amount of individual genius,
culture, or character will be able to brush the mildew of caste from any
individual black man's brow.