each other and to give them a common mouthpiece.

The Academy should be impartial in conduct; while it aims
to exalt the people it should aim to do so by truth–not by lies,
by honesty–not by flattery. It should continually impress the
fact upon the Negro people that they must not expect to have
things done for them–they MUST DO FOR THEMSELVES; that they have
on their hands a vast work of self-reformation to do, and that a
little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work
and manly striving would do us more credit and benefit than a
thousand Force or Civil Rights bills.

Finally, the American Negro Academy must point out a
practical path of advance to the Negro people; there lie before
every Negro today hundreds of questions of policy and right
which must be settled and which each one settles now, not in
accordance with any rule, but by impulse or individual
preference; for instance: What should be the attitude of
Negroes toward the educational qualification for voters? What
should be our attitude toward separate schools? How should we
meet discriminations on railways and in hotels? Such questions
need not so much specific answers for each part as a general
expression of policy, and nobody should be better fitted to
announce such a policy than a representative honest Negro
Academy.

All this, however, must come in time after careful
organization and long conference. The immediate work before us
should be practical and have direct bearing upon the situation
of the Negro. The historical work of collecting the laws of the