[Black and White by Timothy Thomas Fortune]@TWC D-Link bookBlack and White CHAPTER X 16/17
In public, they should seek first to inspire the confidence of colored men by just laws and friendly overtures and by encouraging the capable, honest and ambitious few by placing them in position of honor and trust.
They should show to colored men that they accept the Constitution as amended, and are earnestly solicitous that they should prosper in the world, and become useful and respected citizens.
You can't make a friend and partisan of a man by shooting him; you can't make a sober, industrious, honest man by robbing and outraging him.
These tactics will not work to the uplifting of a people.
"A soft answer turns away wrath." Even a dog caresses the hand that pats him on the head. The South must spend less money on penitentiaries and more money on schools; she must use less powder and buckshot and more law and equity; she must pay less attention to politics and more attention to the development of her magnificent resources; she must get off the "race line" hobby and pay more attention to the common man; she must wake up to the fact that-- _Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,_ and that it is to her best interest to place all men upon the same footing before the law; mete out the same punishment to the white scamp that is inexorably meted out to the black scamp, for a scamp is a scamp any way you twist it; a social pest that should be put where he will be unable to harm any one.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|