Some Negro leaders have advanced the belief that in another few years the white people will
make up their minds to assimilate their black populations; thereby sinking all racial prejudice in
the welcoming of the black race into the social companionship of the white. Such leaders further
believe that by the amalgamation of black and white, a new type will spring up, and that type
will become the American and West Indian of the future. This belief is preposterous. I believe
that white men should be white, yellow men should be yellow, and black men should be black in
the great panorama of races, until each and every race by its own initiative lifts itself up to the
common standard of humanity, as to compel the respect and appreciation of all, and so make it
possible for each one to stretch out the hand of welcome without being able to be prejudiced
against the other because of any inferior and unfortunate condition.
The white man of America will not, to any organized extent, assimilate the Negro, because in so
doing, he feels that he will be committing racial suicide. This he is not prepared to do. It is true
he illegitimately carries on a system of assimilation; but such assimilation, as practiced, is one
that he is not prepared to support because he becomes prejudiced against his own offspring, if
that offspring is the product of black and white; hence, to the white man the question of racial
differences is eternal. So long as Negroes occupy an inferior position among the races and
nations of the world, just so long will others be prejudiced against them, because it will be
profitable for them to keep up their system of superiority. But when the Negro by his own
initiative lifts himself from his low state to the highest human standard he will be in a position to
stop begging and praying, and demand a place that no individual, race or nation will be able to
deny him.