instead of following their own counsels (as the Irish and the Jews do), all would yet be well. Many Negroes who have a wish-bone where their back-bone ought to be have been doing this. It was as a representative of this class that Mitchell’s man, Mr. Fred R. Moore, the editor of The Age, spoke, when in July he gave utterance to the owlish reflection that, CONTENTS The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect upon the whole race. … The unruly tongues should not be allowed to alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed. It was as a fairly good representative of the class of “good white friends of the colored people” that Miss Mary White Ovington, the chairman of the New York Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, sent to The Voice the following bossy and dictatorial note: My dear Mr. Harrison, I don’t see any reason for another organization, or another paper. If you printed straight socialism it might be different. Yours truly, MARY W. OVINGTON. These “good white people” must really forgive us for insisting that we are not children, and that, while we want all the friends we can get, we need no benevolent dictators. It is we, and not they, who must shape Negro policies. If they want to help in carrying them out we will appreciate their help. Just now the white people even in the South—have felt the pressure of the new Negro’s manhood demands, in spite of the fact that backward-looking Negroes like The Age’s editor condemn the inflexible spirit of these demands. All over the South, the white papers, scared by the exodus of Negro laborers who are tired of begging for justice overdue, are saying that we are right, and friendlier legislation has begun to appear on Southern statute books. Mr. Mencken and other Southern writers are saying that the Negro is demanding, and that the South had better accede to his just demands, as it is only a matter of time when he will be in position to enforce them. One should think, then, that those who have been parading as our professional friends would be in the van of this manhood movement. But the movement seems to have left them in the rear. Now, that we are demanding the whole loaf, they are begging for half, and are angry at us for going further than they think “nice.”
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