A Little Less Complaint And Whining, And

A Little Less Complaint And Whining, And A Little More Dogged Work And Manly Striving, Would Do Us More Credit Than A Thousand Civil Rights Bills.

One Reads The Truer Deeper Facts Of Reconstruction With A Great Despair. It Is At Once So Simple And Human, And Yet So Futile. There Is No Villain, No Idiot, No Saint. There Are Just Men; Men Who Crave Ease And Power, Men Who Know Want And Hunger, Men Who Have Crawled. They All Dream And Strive With Ecstasy Of Fear And Strain Of Effort, Balked Of Hope And Hate. Yet The Rich World Is Wide Enough For All, Wants All, Needs All. So Slight A Gesture, A Word, Might Set The Strife In Order, Not With Full Content, But With Growing Dawn Of Fulfillment. Instead Roars The Crash Of Hell.

Actively We Have Woven Ourselves With The Very Warp And Woof Of This Nation, - We Have Fought Their Battles, Shared Their Sorrow, Mingled Our Blood With Theirs, And Generation After Generation Have Pleaded With A Headstrong, Careless People To Despise Not Justice, Mercy And Truth, Lest The Nation Be Smitten With A Curse. Our Song, Our Toil, Our Cheer And Warning Have Been Given To This Nation In Blood-brotherhood. Are Not These Gifts Worth The Giving? Is Not This Worth The Striving? Would America Have Been America Without Her Negro People?

The Nation Has Not Yet Found Peace From Its Sins; The Freedman Has Not Yet Found In Freedom His Promised Land. Whatever Of Good May Have Come In These Years Of Change, The Shadow Of A Deep Disappointment Rests Upon The Negro People,—a Disappointment All The More Bitter Because The Unattained Ideal Was Unbounded Save By The Simple Ignorance Of A Lowly People.

Among Negroes Of My Generation There Was Not Only Little Direct Acquaintance Or Consciously Inherited Knowledge Of Africa, But Much Distaste And Recoil Because Of What The White World Taught Them About The Dark Continent. There Arose Resentment That A Group Like Ours, Born And Bred In The United States For Centuries, Should Be Regarded As Africans At All. They Were, As Most Of Them Began Gradually To Assert, Americans. My Father's Father Was Particularly Bitter About This. He Would Not Accept An Invitation To A 'negro' Picnic. He Would Not Segregate Himself In Any Way.