Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/454

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
446
THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

work of the Afro-American editor, the public to-day understands to what extent the negro is a tax-payer. In regard to his millions of dollars in property, his school-houses, churches, private dwellings and his bank deposits, the country is now well informed. His place and achievements in the schools and universities are known. If his rights are violated, the fact is proclaimed and his oppressor denounced. His writings are published. Indeed, to my mind, the Press, in the hands of the Afro-American editor, is doing the work of reviving the lost arts among us, and pointing us to the way to success on the one hand and the achievements of the race on the other.

Unquestionably, I answer No to the third question. I attribute the cause, first, to our financial weakness as a race, and, secondly, because our journals are too much African, instead of American, thus keeping our minds, as a race, isolated from the great mass of American citizens, instead of making us a part of the great whole.

To the fourth question, I would say to the Afro-American Press go ahead in the course you are pursuing. Let justice be your guide, integrity your sword of defense, and virtue your pedestal. Teach the people that rights which are worthy of being received should be protected, even at the cost of their lives. We must die to rise again. This should be the motto of our journals.

Opinion of Prof. B. T. Washington.

Few agencies for the uplifting of the colored people have accomplished more good than the negro newspapers. These papers have served to create race confidence, in that they have taught the colored people that the colored man could manage a business requiring the out-lay of money, brains and push that a newspaper enterprise demands. The colored