Just before the turn of Pickens to speak a white lady journalist had rushed on to the platform and rushed off between two pressing engagements, and had given the audience a “heart-to-heart” talk on Bolsheviks and agitators, and had told them how thankful they ought to be that they were in America and not in the Congo still. She gained a good deal of applause because she was a woman, and a White, and was glib, but the thinking Negroes did not care for her doctrine, and were sorry she could not wait to hear it debated.
“Brothers, they’re always telling us what we ought to be,” said the orator, with an engaging smile. “But there are many different opinions about what ought to be; it’s what we are that matters. As a colored pastor said to his flock one day—’Brothers and sisters, it’s not the oughtness of this problem that we have to consider, but the isness!’ I am going to speak about the isness. Sister S——, who has just spoken, has had to go to make a hurry call elsewhere, but I am sorry she could not stay. I think she might perhaps have heard something worth while this afternoon. Sister S—— warned us against agitators and radicals. Now, I am not against or for agitators. The question is: ’What are they agitating about?’ ‘Show me the agitator,’ I say. President Wilson is a great agitator; he is agitating a League of Nations. Jesus Christ was a great agitator; He agitated Christianity. The Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t like His agitating, and they fixed Him. But He was a good agitator, and we’re not against Him. Then, again, the Irish are great agitators; the Jews are great agitators; there are good and bad agitators. (Applause.) But, brothers, I’ll tell you who is the greatest agitator in this country ... the greatest agitator is injustice. (Sensation.) When injustice disappears, I’ll be against agitators, or I’ll be ready to see them put in a lunatic asylum. (Applause.)
“Sister S—— was very hard on the radicals. There, again, show me the radical, I say. A man may be radically wrong, yes, but he may also be radically right. (Laughter.)
“As for the Bolsheviks, it’s injustice is making Bolshevism. It’s injustice that changes quiet, inoffensive school teachers and workingmen into Bolsheviks, just as it is injustice is stirring up the colored people. Not that we are Bolsheviks. I am not going to say anything against Bolsheviks, either. Show me the Bolshevik first, I say, and then I’ll know whether I’m against him. People are alarmed because the number of Bolsheviks is increasing. But what is making them increase? If America is such a blessed country, why is she making all these Bolsheviks? You know a tree by its fruits, and so you may know a country by what it produces. These Bolsheviks that we read of being deported in the Soviet Ark weren’t Bolshevik when they came to this country. It comes to this: that we’ve raised a crop of Bolshevism in this country and are exporting it to Europe, and now we’re busy sowing another crop. Stop sowing injustice, and Bolshevism will cease growing. (Applause again.)
“But there is less Bolshevism among the colored people than among the white, because the colored are more humble, more subservient, more used to inequalities. We are always being told that we are backward, and we believe it; bad, and we believe it; untrustworthy, and we believe it; immoral, and we believe it. We are always being told what we ought to be. But I’ll come back to what we are.
“We may be immoral; we may be a danger to the white women. But has anyone ever honestly compared the morality of Whites and Blacks? They will tell you there is not sufficient evidence to make a comparison, or they will bring you pamphlets and paragraphs out of newspapers, records of disgusting crimes; and we know very well that in twelve million Negroes there are bound to be some half-wits and criminals capable of terrible breaches of morality. But at best it is a paper evidence against the Negro, while there is flesh-and-blood evidence against the White. The moral standard of the Whites is written visibly in the flesh and blood of three million of our race. (Another sensation.) Brothers, there’s one standard for the white man, and another for the colored man. (Sensation redoubled.) A colored man’s actions are not judged in the same light as those of a white man.
“Well, I’m not against that. It is giving us a higher ideal. A colored man has got to be much more careful in this country than a white man. He’ll be more heavily punished for the same crime. If he gets into a dispute with a white man he’s bound to lose his case. So he won’t get into the dispute. (Laughter.) Where a white man gets five years’ imprisonment, the Negro gets put in the electric chair. Where the white man gets six days, he gets two years. If a white man seduces a colored girl, she never gets redress. If the other thing occurs, the Negro is legally executed, or lynched. What is the result of all that inequality? Why, it is making us a more moral, less criminal, less violent people than the Whites. Once at a mixed school they were teaching the black and white boys to jump. The white boys jumped and the black boys jumped. But when it was the black boy’s turn the teacher always lifted the jumping stick a few inches. What was the consequence? Why, after a while every colored boy in that school could jump at least a foot higher than any white boy. (Renewed sensation, in which Pickens attempted several times to resume.)
“That is what is happening to the Negro race in America. We are being taught to jump a foot higher than the Whites. We will jump it, or we will break our necks. (Laughter.)
“Of course a great difference separates the Black from the White still. And I don’t say that the white man hasn’t given us a chance. If our positions had been transposed, and we had been masters and the white folks had been the slaves, I’m not sure that we wouldn’t have treated them worse than they have treated us. But the white folk make a mistake when they think we’re not taking the chances they give us. We are taking them. We are covering the ground that separates Black from White. The white man is not outstripping us in the race. We are nearer to him than we were—not farther away. We haven’t caught up, but we’re touching. We are always doing things we never did before. (Applause.)
“We shall not have cause to regret the time of persecution and injustice and the higher standard of morality that has been set us. Brothers, it’s all worth while. Our boys here have been to France and bled and suffered for white civilization and white justice. We didn’t want to go. We didn’t know anything about it. But it’s been good for us. We’ve made the cause of universal justice our cause. We have taken a share in world sufferings and world politics. It’s going to help raise us out of our obscurity. We have discovered the French, and shall always be grateful to them. We didn’t know France before, but every colored soldier is glad now that he fought for France. If there is to be a League of Nations, we know France will stand by us. And we shall have a share in the councils of Humanity—with our colored brethren in all parts of the world.” (Sensation again.)