The Universal Negro Improvement
Association teaches our race self-help and self-reliance, not only in one
essential, but in all those things that contribute to human happiness and
well-being. The disposition of the many to depend upon the other races for a
kindly and sympathetic consideration of their needs, without making the effort
to do for themselves, has been the race's standing disgrace by which we have
been judged and through which we have created the strongest prejudice against
ourselves.
There is no force like success, and
that's why the individual makes all efforts to surround himself throughout life
with the evidence of it. As of the individual, so should it be of the race and
nation. The glittering success of Rockefeller makes him a power in the American
nation; the success of Henry Ford suggests him as an object of universal
respect, but no one knows and cares about the bum or hobo who is Rockefeller's
or Ford's neighbor. So, also, is the world attracted by the glittering success
of races and nations, and pays absolutely no attention to the bum or hobo race
that lingers by the wayside.
The Negro must be up and doing if
he will break down the prejudice of the rest of the world. Prayer alone is not
going to improve our condition, nor the policy of watchful waiting. We must
strike out for ourselves in the course of material achievement, and by our own
effort and energy present to the world those forces by which the progress of man
is judged.
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