demanding that those who advertised democracy shall now make good. This is the main root of that great unrest which is now troubling the decrepit statesmanship of Europe and America. But the rigid lines of the old regime will not permit the granting of these new demands. Hence the new war against democracy which expresses itself in the clever but futile attempt to outlaw the demands for fuller freedom as “sedition” and “Bolshevism.”

The most serious aspect of this new situation is the racial one. The white world has been playing with the catch-words of democracy while ruthlessly ruling an overwhelming majority of black, brown and yellow peoples to whom these catchwords were never intended to apply. But these many-colored millions have taken part in the war “to make the world safe for democracy,” and they are now insisting that democracy shall be made safe for them. This, in plain English, their white overlords do not intend to concede. “The undictated development of all peoples” was, at best, intended “for white people only.” Thus, white civilization is brought face to face with a crisis out of which may easily grow military conflicts of tremendous scope and, more remotely, the passing of international control out of the hands of a few white nations.

The tenseness of this new situation has been reflected here in the United States in the mental attitude of the Negro people. They have developed new ideas of their own place in the category of races and have evolved new conceptions of their powers and destiny. These ideas have quickened their race-consciousness and they are making new demands on themselves, on their leaders and on the white people in whose midst they live. These new demands apply to politics, domestic and international, to education and culture, to commerce and industry. It seems proper that the white people of America should know what these demands are and should understand the spirit in which they are being urged. Obviously, it is not well that they should be misrepresented and lied about. Futile fulminations about the spread of “Bolshevism” among Negroes by “agitators” will not help toward an understanding of this new phenomenon. They can but befog the issues and defer the dawning of a better day. On the other hand, the Negro people will profit by a clarified presentation of their own side of the case. It is to meet this dual need that this little book is launched. It is a compilation of some of the author’s contributions to Negro journalism between 1917 and the present year and consists of selected editorials, special articles and reviews written for The Voice, The New Negro, and The Negro World. I have selected for reproduction those only 

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