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nd society and making him a political outcast. They knew that to educate the Negro would cause him to know that when he was being jim-crowed and segregated, a caste system based on the color of the skin was being established in America. In a word, those Americans who desired to rob the Negro of the fruits of the Civil War and to reduce him as far as possible to his previous status as a slave, knew that to educate the Negro was to open his eyes to the fact that the restrictions which they were trying to impose upon him were giving him a social, civil, political and economic status which was lower than that of the illiterate emigrant from Europe, lower than that of the Japanese, Chinese, Hindoo, Indian and Filipino. In a word, they knew that to educate the Negro would open his eyes to the fact that the color of his skin was a mark of shame and a badge of dishonor and that a caste prejudice based upon color, was contrary to the spirit of Christianity and to the democratic principles underlying this government. In a word, they knew that it would be more difficult for them to carry out their programme with the Negro educated. And these are the reasons why twenty years ago, it was regarded as unwise and dangerous to give the Negro any higher education above the three R's and a training in the trades. And most of the leaders of the Negro race were asleep at the switch twenty years ago. They eagerly swallowed the sugar-coated and chocolate-coated pills. They took the medicine which their Anglo-Saxon friends offered because it was honeyed and sugared with a few fat jobs and contributions to churches and schools. And while they slept, as Samson slept on the lap of Delilah, they were shorn of their political and civil locks, and awoke one bright morning to find that their strength was gone. It was a rude awakening that they experienced in the summer of 1917, when the edict went forth that all American citizens, black as well as white men, were subject to the selective draft. It was a rude awakening that they experienced, when they discovered that their sons must cross the ocean and give their lives to bring a freedom to war-ridden Europe, which was denied their race in this country. It was a rude awakening that they experienced when they realized that they who only experienced partial citizenship in this country were called upon to make the same sacrifice in blood and treasure as their fairer-skinned brothers, who had experienced
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