12 Things the Negro
Must Do For Himself
Nannie Helen Burroughs (Circa Early 1900's)
1. The Negro Must Learn To Put First Things First. The First Things
Are: Education; Development of Character Traits; A Trade and Home
Ownership. The Negro puts too much of his earning in clothes, in food, in show and
in having what he calls "a good time." The Dr. Kelly Miller said, "The
Negro buys what he WANTS and begs for what he needs."
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2. The Negro Must Stop Expecting God and White Folk To Do For Him
What He Can Do For Himself. It is the "Divine Plan" that the strong shall help the weak, but even
God does not do for man what man can do for himself. The Negro will have
to do exactly what Jesus told the man (in John 5:8) to do--Carry his own
load--"Take up your bed and walk."
3. The Negro Must Keep Himself, His Children And His Home Clean And
Make The Surroundings In Which He Lives Comfortable and Attractive. He must learn to "run his community up"--not down. We can segregate by
law, we integrate only by living. Civilization is not a matter of race,
it is a matter of standards. Believe it or not--some day, some race is
going to outdo the Anglo-Saxon, completely. It can be the Negro race, if
the Negro gets sense enough. Civilization goes up and down that way.
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4. The Negro
Must Learn To Dress More Appropriately For Work And For Leisure.
Knowing what to wear--how to wear it--when to wear it and where
to wear it, are earmarks of common sense, culture and also an
index to character.
5. The Negro Must Make His Religion An Everyday Practice And
Not Just A Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Emotional Affair.
6. The Negro Must Highly Resolve To Wipe Out Mass Ignorance.
The leaders of the race must teach and inspire the masses to
become eager and determined to improve mentally, morally and
spiritually, and to meet the basic requirements of good
citizenship.
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We should initiate an intensive literacy campaign in America ,
as well as in Africa . Ignorance-- satisfied ignorance --is a
millstone about the neck of the race. It is democracy's greatest
burden.
Social integration is a relationship attained as a result of the
cultivation of kindred social ideals, interests and standards.
It is a blending process that requires time, understanding and
kindred purposes to achieve. Likes alone and not laws can do it.
7. The Negro Must Stop Charging His Failures Up To His
"Color" And To White People's Attitude. The truth of the matter is that good service and conduct will
make senseless race prejudice fade like mist before the rising
sun.
God never intended that a man's color shall be anything other
than a badge of distinction . It is high time that all races
were learning that fact. The Negro must first QUALIFY for
whatever position he wants. Purpose, initiative, ingenuity and
industry are the keys that all men use to get what they want.
The Negro will have to do the same. He must make himself a
workman who is too skilled not to be wanted, and too DEPENDABLE
not to be on the job, according to promise or plan. He will
never become a vital factor in industry until he learns to put
into his work the vitalizing force of initiative, skill and
dependability. He has gone "RIGHTS" mad and "DUTY" dumb. |
8. The Negro Must Overcome His Bad Job Habits. He must make a brand new reputation for himself in the world of labor.
His bad job habits are absenteeism, funerals to attend, or a little
business to look after. The Negro runs an off and on business. He also
has a bad reputation for conduct on the job--such as petty quarrelling
with other help, incessant loud talking about nothing; loafing,
carelessness, due to lack of job pride; insolence, gum chewing and--too
often--liquor drinking. Just plain bad job habits!
9. He Must Improve His Conduct In Public Places. Taken as a whole, he is entirely too loud and too ill-mannered.
There is much talk about wiping out racial segregation and also much
talk about achieving integration.
Segregation is a physical arrangement by which people are separated in
various services.
It is definitely up to the Negro to wipe out the apparent justification
or excuse for segregation.
The only effective way to do it is to clean up and keep clean. By
practice, cleanliness will become a habit and habit becomes character.
10. The Negro Must Learn How To Operate Business For People--Not For
Negro People, Only. To do business, he will have to remove all typical "earmarks," business
principles; measure up to accepted standards and meet stimulating
competition, graciously--in fact, he must learn to welcome competition.
11. The Average So-Called Educated Negro Will Have To Come Down Out
Of The Air. He Is Too Inflated Over Nothing. He Needs An Experience
Similar To The One That Ezekiel Had--(Ezekiel 3:14-19). And He Must Do
What Ezekiel Did. Otherwise, through indifference, as to the plight of the masses, the
Negro, who thinks that he has escaped, will lose his own soul. It will
do all leaders good to read Hebrew 13:3, and the first Thirty-seven
Chapters of Ezekiel.
A race transforming itself through its own leaders and its sensible
"common people." A race rises on its own wings, or is held down by its
own weight. True leaders are never "things apart from the people." They
are the masses. They simply got to the front ahead of them. Their only
business at the front is to inspire to masses by hard work and noble
example and challenge them to "Come on!" Dante stated a fact when he
said, "Show the people the light and they will find the way!"
There must arise within the Negro race a leadership that is not out
hunting bargains for itself. A noble example is found in the men and
women of the Negro race, who, in the early days, laid down their lives
for the people. Their invaluable contributions have not been appraised
by the "latter-day leaders." In many cases, their names would never be
recorded, among the unsung heroes of the world, but for the fact that
white friends have written them there.
"Lord, God of Hosts, Be with us yet." The Negro of today does not realize that, but, for these exhibits A's,
that certainly show the innate possibilities of members of their own
race, white people would not have been moved to make such princely
investments in lives and money, as they have made, for the establishment
of schools and for the on-going of the race.
12. The Negro Must Stop Forgetting His Friends. "Remember." Read Deuteronomy 24:18. Deuteronomy rings the big bell of gratitude.
Why? Because an ingrate is an abomination in the sight of God. God is
constantly telling us that "I the Lord thy God delivered you" --through
human instrumentalities.
The American Negro has had and still has friends--in the North and in
the South. These friends not only pray, speak, write, influence others,
but make unbelievable, unpublished sacrifices and contributions for the
advancement of the race--for their brothers in bonds.
The noblest thing that the Negro can do is to so live and labor that
these benefactors will not have given in vain. The Negro must make his
heart warm with gratitude, his lips sweet with thanks and his heart and
mind resolute with purpose to justify the sacrifices and stand on his
feet and go forward-- "God is no respector of persons. In every nation,
he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is" sure to win out. Get
to work! That's the answer to everything that hurts us. We talk too much
about nothing instead of redeeming the time by working.
R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R
In spite of race prejudice, America is brim full of opportunities. Go
after them!
And, this was written in the early 1900 's! The more things change
the more they stay the same.
Center
Stage Magazine
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