Progress and Achievements of the Colored People / Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success

by Kelly Miller; Joseph R. Gay

ALL NATIONS AND TRIBES ONE GREAT FAMILY

This is indeed the keynote to the elevation of the Colored Americans to the high plane sought to be reached by all the nations of the earth, and toward which they are surely drifting, in an unconscious fulfillment of the designs of God to gather all nations and tribes together into one great family.

Professor N. R. d’Alfonso, of Italy, laid before the Congress the most profound thought that forms the basis of all progress and gives the key to beneficial government:

“Speculative psychology teaches that the man, to whatever race he may belong, has always the same psychological possibilities.

“Subject from childhood to certain conditions of climate, environment and education, he can reach the highest and most complex grades of civilization.

“It is the action and reaction of the external world on the internal world of the mind that issues in the creation of man.

“If there are psychological differences between races they are the outcome of the particular history of various peoples—a history that has entailed a different education.

“The psychological basis is the same in all men from whatever part of the world they may come, and they may evolve in the same way and attain the same psychic results.

“In the same way racial hostilities and prejudices are not due to organic heredity, but to tradition and education.”

So far as science has gone, it must be apparent that the learned men of the age have returned to the Biblical account: Genesis, 1:26.

“26. And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’

“27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”

Again in Genesis 2:7, it is said:

“7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; And man became a living soul.”

Everywhere in Holy Writ, human beings are always referred to as “Man” whenever he is considered as a being vested with a soul, a particular psychological condition that makes him different from all other creations.

In every movement toward human betterment, education, civilization, development, and especially in the onward movement toward unification, the human species is referred to as “Man” without any racial distinctions whatever.