“We are very much in favor of the Pan-African movement which Dr. W. E. B. DuBois has in charge and is trying to make a success of. The race needs an international organization which will gather representatives of the African peoples of the world, where their rights and wrongs may be registered and looked after, and where, annually, they may gather in an open congress or a discussion and agreement upon questions affecting them. The question is a broad one, race-embracing, and should be considered from that viewpoint.
“On the other hand, we are very much in favor of the movement fostered by Mr. Marcus Garvey, the provisional president of Africa, to create a sentiment in Africa in favor of a oneness of sentiment among Africans themselves and the building up of African States for Africans. Mr. Garvey has been pointing out, recently, and very wisely, we think, that the time may come when Afro-Americans who are dissatisfied with their conditions in States of the United States may desire to go to Africa, and to a State in Africa governed by Africans. This is reasonable foresight.
“There are millions of Jews working hard for the rehabilitation of Palestine who have no desire to make it their home, as they are satisfied in the States where they are, but there are millions who are not satisfied, as in Turkey and Russia, who would go to Palestine and build its waste places while repatriating it. It is in the same way that we regard the building of a strong African State as a sufficient asylum of those of the race who are persecuted anywhere on the globe that they may be.
“Mr. Garvey is as much of a prophet in his way as Dr. DuBois, and we should be willing to hold up the hands of both of them in any plans they may advance which seems possible of working out for the good of the race. Both of them have ideas and methods we do not approve, but that would be the case with any movement whatsoever, that may be started, on a large or small scale, by any man or group of men of the race, but it should not prevent us from encouraging them in any idea or plan which appears reasonable and possible of resulting in good for the race.
“A World League of African People is necessary. An Independent African State in Africa is necessary. We already have Liberia and Abyssinia, but we need more than these, and stronger than both of them.”
ON THE FARM
| Education | The Negro Needs All |
| Wild men first learned to scratch the ground: | —Agricultural Education |
| In building caves first trades they found: | —Industrial Education |
| Then exchange of hides made business boom, | —Commercial Education |
| And science was born gazing stars and moon | —University Education |
| —Harrison. |
SINCE the raising of tobacco, cotton, corn, sugar cane and other farm products had been the main reason for starting slavery in America, it is plainly seen that farming was the chief work of the Colored people until they were set free. And it is quite natural that they took a great dislike to a work that they had been compelled to do against their wills for over two hundred years. So at the close of the Civil War when they were free to choose their own work, the majority of ex-slaves were willing to do any kind of labor under the sun (or over the sun for that matter) but work on the farm. Such a state of affairs continued for a number of years and caused much of the rich fertile lands in the South to go unfarmed, neglected and runned-down, but after some years away from the only kind of work they knew the most about, their dislike to farming began to lessen and they gradually drifted back to work patches of land on shares with their former owners who had survived the war. And their return to the bosom of nature rapidly increased as the ex-slaves saw how it would enable them to make a living and save money to buy land for themselves.
As a result of that movement back to the farms which continued to increase, there were, according to the 1910 census, over two hundred thousand farms or twenty-one million acres of land owned in the United States by Colored people. Negroes in the South alone own more than two hundred thousand of those farms that are valued at more than four hundred million dollars. Just in the state of Virginia Colored people own over one million acres of land that are valued at over ten million dollars. The following named are just a handful of the Colored farmers throughout the South and West who own and cultivate farms ranging in size from 500 to 3,000 acres of land; J. N. Brown, Tenn.,; J. Collins, S. C.; Robt. Chatman, Texas; Wash Dillard, Texas; Lewis Dolphin, Okla.; J. G. Groves, Kan.; Wiley Hinds’ family, Cal.; J. A. Hickey, G. N. Humphries, Texas; Howard Jackson, Ala.; Chas. Jackson, La.; Deal Jackson, Ga.; Y. U. Jones, Texas; John Lyttle, N. C.; J. H. McDuffy, Fla.; Wm. Mazy, John F. McGowon, L. A. Nash, Lance Parker, Dennis Pollard, H. Penneth, Jack Taylor, Texas; Jake Simmons, Okla.; R. L. Smith, Newton Smith, La.; A. W. Taylor, Texas; J. Thompson, Ga.; W. B. Turner, Va., and Frank Wallace, Texas.