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

THE JEWS HAVE AGES OF LEARNING

The Jews understand this matter and they maintain their own racial standards which are the highest and best. Now, it is up to the African, the ten millions of them in the United States, to adopt the standards of excellence proper to their dignity, and to their purity as one of the original or primary divisions of mankind.

The Jews have ages of learning and wisdom to fall back upon, and the African, although interrupted in his advance, by ages of repression, nevertheless has the ages of high civilization, the reigns of the Queens Candace, the learning of the Egyptians from Ethiopian magi, and the startling wonders and marvels of buried cities and high culture recently unearthed in Africa as a foundation. These ought to be an incentive to him to regain the lost prestige. He has the opportunity now, and there is no one to stay his march upward, on the contrary, there are helping hands everywhere, and incentives such as no other race in the world ever had or will ever have.

He may look back to his ancestral days with as much pride as any other race, and he may point to the magnificent ruins of the departed glories of his race to prove that his origin is to be found in as high a type of civilization as compared to any other race.

THE WORLD’S CONGRESS of RACES
Great Importance of Colored Race in the Tremendous World Upward Movement
One Thousand Delegates from Fifty Different Races Proclaim Uplift of People

In considering the opportunities offered the Colored people of the United States, two things must be constantly borne in mind:

1. That the advance of the world and of the nations toward harmonious action and unity of motives, is purely of the mind and soul and not of the material things of life.

2. As to the world’s progress the Colored Americans of the United States occupy a prominent position in the vanguard with the other divisions of the human race, all of whom are moving in the same direction toward carrying out the Divine plan of bringing all nations into one fold.

On July 26, 1912, there opened in the City of London, England, a great congress of the races of the world including all the dark races or their representatives. In fact, fifty different races were represented by their leading men, consisting of over thirty presidents of parliaments, the members of the permanent court of arbitration and of the delegates to the Second Hague Conference, twelve British governors and eight British premiers, over forty colonial Bishops, a hundred and thirty professors of international law, the leading students of mankind, and other scientific men of the world.

When Lord Weardale, at the head of the World’s Peace movement, opened the first session of this congress, he looked into the faces of a thousand people representing fifty different races of men.

Lord Weardale said among other things: “To those who regard the furtherance of international good will and peace as the highest of all human interests, this First Universal Races Congress opens a vista of almost boundless promise.

“Nearer and nearer we see approaching the day when the caste population of the East will assert their claim to meet on terms of equality the nations of the West; when the free institutions and the organized forces of the one hemisphere will have their counterbalance in the other; when their mental outlook and their social aims will be in principle identical; when in short the color prejudice will have vanished and the so-called “white races” and the so-called “colored races” shall no longer meet in missionary exposition, but, in very fact, regard one another as in truth men and brothers.”

Dr. Felix von Luschan, of Germany, declared, “There is an increasing mutual sympathy between the races as they come to know each other.”

Mr. Gustave Spiller, the organizer of the congress, said:

“The common standard provided by university diplomas shows almost all races, even the majority of those which are regarded as inferior, represented successfully in the universities of Europe and America, and that they are equal in intellectual capacity with the others. Hence the difference between them are mere physical characteristics.”

Professor Robertson, of England, among other things established this comforting assurance:

“It is only after a long and painful apprenticeship that European nations have attained autonomy. Why not admit that it may be the same with the so-called backward peoples?”