race groups, not as individuals, but as races. For the
development of Japanese genius, Japanese literature and art,
Japanese spirit, only Japanese, bound and welded together,
Japanese inspired by one vast ideal, can work out in its
fullness the wonderful message which Japan has for the nations
of the earth. For the development of Negro genius, of Negro
literature and art, of Negro spirit, only Negroes bound and
welded together, Negroes inspired by one vast ideal, can work
out in its fullness that great message we have for humanity. We
cannot reverse history; we are subject to the same natural laws
as other races, and if the Negro is ever to be a factor in the
world's history–if among the gaily-colored banners that deck the
broad ramparts of civilizations is to hang one uncompromising
black, then it must be placed there by black hands, fashioned by
black heads and hallowed by the travail of 200,000,000 black
hearts beating in one glad song of jubilee.

For this reason, the advance guard of the Negro people–the
8,000,000 people of Negro blood in the United States of America–
must soon come to realize that if they are to take their just
place in the van of Pan-Negroism, then their destiny is NOT
absorption by the white Americans. That if in America it is to
be proven for the first time in the modern world that not only
Negroes are capable of evolving individual men like Toussaint,
the Saviour, but are a nation stored with wonderful
possibilities of culture, then their destiny is not a servile
imitation of Anglo-Saxon culture, but a stalwart originality
which shall unswervingly follow Negro ideals.

It may, however, be objected here that the situation of our