race in America renders this attitude impossible; that our sole
hope of salvation lies in our being able to lose our race
identity in the commingled blood of the nation; and that any
other course would merely increase the friction of races which
we call race prejudice, and against which we have so long and so
earnestly fought.

Here, then, is the dilemma, and it is a puzzling one, I
admit. No Negro who has given earnest thought to the situation
of his people in America has failed, at some time in life, to
find himself at these cross-roads; has failed to ask himself at
some time: What, after all, am I? Am I an American or am I a
Negro? Can I be both? Or is it my duty to cease to be a Negro as
soon as possible and be an American? If I strive as a Negro, am
I not perpetuating the very cleft that threatens and separates
Black and White America? Is not my only possible practical aim
the subduction of all that is Negro in me to the American? Does
my black blood place upon me any more obligation to assert my
nationality than German, or Irish or Italian blood would?

It is such incessant self-questioning and the hesitation
that arises from it, that is making the present period a time of
vacillation and contradiction for the American Negro; combined
race action is stifled, race responsibility is shirked, race
enterprises languish, and the best blood, the best talent, the
best energy of the Negro people cannot be marshalled to do the
bidding of the race. They stand back to make room for every
rascal and demagogue who chooses to cloak his selfish deviltry
under the veil of race pride.