nize, with him, many signs of promise, many men of high
purpose and fair judgment, in this section; they know that no
easy task has been laid upon a region already tottering under
heavy burdens. But, nevertheless, they insist that the way to
truth and right lies in straightforward honesty, not in indis-
criminate flattery; in praising those of the South who do well
and criticising uncompromisingly those who do ill; in taking
advantage of the opportunities at hand and urging their fel-
lows to do the same, but at the same time in remembering
that only a firm adherence to their higher ideals and aspirations
will ever keep those ideals within the realm of possibility.
They do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic
rights, and to be educated, will come in a moment; they do
not expect to see the bias and prejudices of years disappear at
the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by
voluntarily throwing them away and insisting that they do not
want them; that the way for a people to gain respect is not by
continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out
of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that
color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need
education as well as white boys.

In failing thus to state plainly and unequivocally the legiti-
mate demands of their people, even at the cost of opposing an
honored leader, the thinking classes of American Negroes
would shirk a heavy responsibility,--a responsibility to them-
selves, a responsibility to the struggling masses, a responsi-
bility to the darker races of men whose future depends so