Page:The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race (1919).djvu/9

Foreword

FOR the past 20 years Negroes have been coming to the front so rapidly that to list all whose names should appear in a work of this kind would, I know, be impossible. As it is true of names and biographies, so is it true of the general data concerning the Negro race. Almost daily something happens or some new development in the race records itself as monumental and historical. All of this, I know the Editors cannot record; yet I am thoroughly convinced, from what I have seen of the Cyclopedia of the Colored Race, that this book will be of inestimable good to both the white people and the black people of America.

It will be of service to the white people because it is the one work which gives a comprehensive knowledge of the Negro race, past and present.

It will be of great service to the Negro for two reasons. In the first place it will be an advocate pleading his cause by setting forth his achievements under the most trying circumstances. It will show to the world that the American Negro is worthy not only of what he has achieved, but of an open door to much greater achievements and much kindlier treatment.

In the second place it will teach the Negro more about himself. No Race, white or black, can get very far as a race or as individuals without a goodly amount of self-respect and -race pride. Every biography, the story of every kind of property ownership, of a bank or store, owned and operated properly, will be a source of great inspi ration to Negroes old and young. Were there no other reason, this one of valuable racial inspiration would more than justify the hard labor and careful thought that the publishers and editors have put into this work.

Finally the public can rely upon the honesty and integrity of the men whose names appear as editors of the Cyclopedia. Here and there these men may err in fact, but in principle I do not believe there is a man on the list who can be doubted. I know all of them personally, a good many of them intimately. The editor in chief, Mr. Clement Richardson, his chief advisor Mr. E. J. Scott, Mr. J. R. E. Lee, Mr. N. B. Young, are all men who have rendered years of most valuable services on the staff at Tuskegee Institute.

I commend this book highly to all Americans, with the hope that a perusal of it will bring a better understanding and a warmer spirit of friendship and inspiration, to both races.

Principal Tuskegee Institute