All that we want is the unmolested enjoyment of the rights and privileges guaranteed us in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the national constitution. If we are allowed the exercising of these in every state in the Union, we will be satisfied, and will in an almost incredibly short period of time solve for our white brethren that ever perplexing race problem which, like Banquo's ghost, will not down. Our Southern white brethren need entertain no fears of "Negro domination" or "black supremacy" in the government of the Southern States, for the Southern Negro is rapidly leaving the low and uncertain plane of political honor or gain for a higher one of morals, education, and the amassing of wealth. During the past, with the rights guaranteed us by the constitution nullified in the states containing the larger portion of the colored population—the black belt of the South—we have made marvelous progress along the lines of securing classical and industrial education and the accumulation of wealth. With these restrictions or nullifications of our constitutional rights removed, is it either fair or reasonable to believe that a race with so grand and wonderful a record of progress along this line of prosperity as ours is at this late day going to drop into the quagmire of retrogradation? No. We have but begun, and though the wheels of Negro prosperity may continue to be checked by the brakes of race prejudice, we will nevertheless continue to climb upward to the very top of the hill of wealth, honor, and fame. (National Reflector, Wichita, Kans.)
PROF. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, TUSKEGEE, ALA.
The key to the solution of the race problem in the South is in the commercial and industrial development of the Negro, a development along this line that shall rest upon the broadest and highest culture. Under God, as bad as slavery was, it prepared the way for the solving of the problem by this method. Friction will disappear and the two races in the South will be as one in all their civil and commercial relations just in proportion as the Negro, by reason of skill and educated brains, produces something that the white man wants or respects; and when you pursue that question to its last analysis one white man cares little for another white man, except as the other has something that he wants. In all history we cannot find a race that possessed property, industry, intelligence, and character in a high degree that has long been denied its rights. If the possession of these elements does not bring to the Negro every right enjoyed by any other class of citizens, then the Bible and the teachings of the Great Jehovah are wrong. I propose that the Negro take his position on the high and undisputed ground of generosity, usefulness, forgiveness, and honesty in all things, and that he invite the white man to step up and occupy this ground with him. If the white man in every part of our country cannot accept this invitation, we will thus prove that the problem is a white man's problem rather than a Negro problem. (Booker T. Washington.)