Page:Chicago Race Riots (Sandburg, 1919).djvu/77

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MR. JULIUS ROSENWALD INTERVIEWED
67

to a place to live amid conditions that insure health and sanitation.

"I know from experience that the negroes are not anxious to invade white residence districts any more than white people are willing that they should come."

The face of Julius Rosenwald softened.

"The negro is the equal of the white man in brains,'* said Mr. Rosenwald. "I have talked with men who said they started with a theory that the negro is inferior, but when the facts were arrived at, there was no other conclusion to be derived from those facts than that the colored man is the equal in intelligence of the white man.

"I attended the graduation ceremonies of this year's class at Hampton institute in May, the fifty-first anniversary of this negro institution. I heard Columbus K. Simango tell 'The South African's Story.' Here he was, straight from the jungles of Africa, a full blooded negro who came direct from Melsetter, South Rhodesia, to Hampton institute. His speech, his markings in classes, his general behavior showed intelligence and competency. He is a specimen of what can be accomplished by education.

"He didn't know he wanted an education till he met a missionary who told him about Hampton. He walked 200 miles to a port, and was started for America three times and then turned back by authorities. He arrived in America a grown young man, unable to read or write. And now he is able to pass any college examinations in America.

"Another speaker was a Fisk university man, Isaac Fisher. He has taken thirty-two prizes offered by newspapers and magazines in competitions open to all without regard to color. While living in Arkansas, he wrote