THE MAKING OF A PACE
By JOHN E. BRUCE
(Bruce Grit)
NEW YORK
1922
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THE MAKING OF A RACE
By JOHN E. BRUCE
(Bruce Grit)
NEW YORK
1922
THE MAKING OF A RACE
The difference between a Race and a Nation is one
of degree. A Nation is a combination of many Races
and constitutes an organic whole, and is a more po¬
tential force for good or evil than any of the units
that go to make up the Race. The making of a Race
is the work of centuries of patient plodding and suf¬
fering; of oppression and repression of individual
ambitions and aspirations.
The Jewish and the African Races, once mighty and
powerful Nations, have been reduced to the plain
level of Races; "Races scattered and peeled and ter¬
rible from the beginning." Of the causes which
have led to the fall of these Races from their once
high stations, to become strangers and sojourners
among the Nations alien to them. I will deal on
some future occasion.
The starting point in the making of a Race, is the
home. The good homes of any Race are sure to pro¬
duce good men and good women, and good men and
good women are the bulwarks of society and of the
Nation. The master work, then, of the Negro is the
establishment of good homes, where the rising gen¬
eration, under a healthy and helpful environment.
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may imbibe correct principles of living, and grow in
that larger knowledge of its Race, its traditions, its
accomplishments, its splendid past, and its magni¬
ficent future; its Heroes and Sages; its great Schol¬
ars, Poets, Authors, Military Geniuses, Scientists,
Navigators and mighty men of valor. Careful inves¬
tigation will disclose the fact that the Black Race has
produced all of these and more, but we have not, all
of us, been careful investigators, and so do not real¬
ize what the Black Race stands for in civilization.
We have been too prone to accept the estimate
which others have placed upon our Race, and in ac¬
cepting that estimate, we have come to depreciate
our own worth; to minimize our influence; and to
think meanly of ourselves, because other Races,
which have come into power by the law of might,
think imeanly of us; but, if we will search the rec¬
ords of the past, we shall see that the Black Race has
nothing to be ashamed of in all its history as a Race,
and that the Races which now dominate the earth are
greatly indebted to it for what they know of civiliza¬
tion, science, learning, statecraft and the principles
of the Religion which they profess, but do not al¬
ways practice. In the making of a Race, the acquisi¬
tion of useful knowledge should not be neglected. It
is knowledge that is easily obtainable in any first-
class library, and the young should be fed early and
often on it, as, the more extensive their knowledge
of Race achievement, past and present, the greatei
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their respect for their Race. If you teach your chil¬
dren to honor the memory of Lincoln, the White
President of this country, teach them also to honor
that of Frederick Douglass, the Black man, who was
largely instrumental in inducing Lincoln to draft the
Emancipation Proclamation, which gave freedom to
4,000,000 Blacks. If you tell them of the battles of
Saratoga or New Orleans, or Fort Donelson or Chica-
amauga in which white men died to save this coun¬
try, tell them also that Black men fought at Sara¬
toga; Bunker Hill; at New Orleans; at Milliken's
Bend; at Forts Fisher and Pillow; and died like
heroes at the Crater to help free White Men and
Black Men. Tell them that 300,000 Negroes fought
in the war of Rebellion, in 252 battles. If you tell
them that a White Man discovered the North Pole,
let them know also that a Black Man, Henson, waa
by his side, and helped him to win the victory, and
that another Black Man, Gustavus Vassa, a hundred
years before, had gone on a similar expedition to the
Pole. If you tell them of great American Poets like
Whittier, Bryant, and Longfellow, link with their
names the great Negro Poets: Phyliss Wheatley,
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alberry Whitman, Marget-
son, and so to the end of the chapter, match them
with a Negro who has made his mark in the same
line. Don't be ashamed nor afraid to put forward,
for the inspiration and encouragement of the young
of the Race, the deeds of men of light and leading in
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our Race, who have been too lightly regarded, be¬
cause some of us have preferred to think and be¬
lieve that nothing good can come out of Africa.
Go to the Public Library and read "Timimctoo the
Mysterious," by Felix Dubois, "Volney's Ruins of
Empire" Ludolph's History of Abyssinia, and the
Father of all History,"Herodotus," and your opinion
of Negro civilization, culture, and leadership will
undergo a metamorphosis. This knowledge should
be gathered and imparted to the young of the Race,
because it will help to form their character and to
give them a more comprehensive understanding of
the significance of the Negro Race, for Race is, as
Lord Disraeli well says, "the key to History."
Families are remembered for generations by some
act of heroism or infamy performed by some member
or members of them. In the making of a Race, it
should be our care to do only those things which will
redound to its honor; to avoid the doing of anything
that will reflect discredit and shame upon its good
name; for, after all, a Race is a family, and we show
the family instinct whenever any member of it is
oppressed by a member of a Race, alien to our own.
Moses showed it when he slew the Egyptian in the
way. White Men show it when they see Black Men
getting the better of White Men in personal en¬
counters. It proves that blood is thicker than water.
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It is natural; it is human. It is the apotheosis ot
Race loyalty. Said King Henry at the beginning of
the Battle of (Agincourt:)
"For (who so) sheds his blood with me,
Shall this day be my brother,
Be he e'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition."
This is almost, in effect, what Andrew Jackson said
to the Blacks of Louisiana before the battle of New
Orleans; but, he didn't mean it. Like Henry of
England, he was in trouble and he wanted help and
sympathy. He got both, and won the day; but he
and his White brethren forgot the pledge made to
the loyal Colored Sons of Louisiana. One of whom,
Major Jeffries, after the war was over, despite the
fact that he had served as a brave non-commissioned
officer, and enjoyed, by courtesy, the rank of Major,
was publicly flogged by the City Authorities for hav¬
ing struck a white man, who had insulted him. This
shows what the "significance" of Race means to
White Men. We must profit by the lessons their loy¬
alty to each other teaches.
A Race, then, is a family. Its hopes and aims are
one. Its destiny is one. In the making of the Ne¬
gro Race, which is now taking place, every precau¬
tion that is taken by the head of a family to safe¬
guard the honor and protect the virtue of its women¬
folk, should be followed as rigidly, as conscientiously,
and as determinedly to protect the women of the
larger family, thus making the injury of one the
injury of all, and we should do this at the risk of
our lives. We should make white men who insult
our Mothers, Wives, Daughters and Sisters, know
that Black women are as sacred in our eyes as White
Women are in theirs, and we should make the punish¬
ment fit the crime wherever and by whoever commit¬
ted. The moment the men of any Race permit the
cheapening of their women, the polution of their
women, their Race is doomed; for no Race deserves
to rise in the scale of being which does not do rever¬
ence to or respect the honor and good name of its
women. Even among the lower animals, the males
will fight to the death to protect the females.
The Negro Race can never hope to rise to any
great eminence in the world when the spineless cow¬
ardice of its men, permits the open degradation ol
its girls, and young women by leprous and lecherous
libertines of alien Races. The mothers and fathers
of the Race have a duty which they cannot evade
nor avoid; it is to teach their children to love their
Race; to study its history; to honor its great meii,
and to be true to its traditions. Our Race is neither
going to be swallowed up by another Race nor swal¬
low another Race. It is going to be the Ethiopian
or Negro Race to the end of time. The Ethiopian
cannot, will not, shall not change his skin. No other
Race can do for humanity what God, in the begin¬
ning created and appointed it to do. The Negro
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Race is the most spiritual Race of all the Races of
mankind, and spiritually, Africa is nearer tc
heaven than any of the four continents, and in the
civilized portions of that continent, these Blacks are
more practical and consistent followers of the lowly
Nazarene than some on this side of the Atlantic, who
are busy raising money to send Missionaries to show
the way. The heathen do not all live in Africa.
The making of a Race requires another thing,
which I think is more important and necessary than
any other, and that is the spirit of co-operaticin,
Unity, Brotherhood. As long as the Negro Race is
divided on sectional, social, religious, color or educa¬
tional lines, its weakness will be apparent and it will
never be able to exert any influence or command a
tithe of respect from other Races, which a united front
would command. The slightest fraction of the blood
of the Negro in our veins makes us Negroes if the
fact be known. There is, and there will ever be, a
natural antipathy between Black Men and White
Men, and no man with Negro blood in his veins will
ever be able to fuse that blood with the White Man's
except by stealth; and this is not the way to make a
Race.
The Polar Bear is indigenous to the cold bleak
northern regions, and while he might be able to re¬
produce his species in the tropics, it would be a differ¬
ent species from those which thrive and prosper in
the frigid Zone. God made everything for a pur-
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pose. He created the Ethiopian whom custom calls
Negroes, and set metes and bounds to his habitation.
He created the Jew, and put his mark in his face as
plainly as he did in that of the Negro. Both these
Races are a peculiar people, and both are being re¬
served by the Almighty, 'gainst the time of the un-
foldment of His purposes, when He will make plain¬
er than we are now able to understand, the signifi¬
cance of Race. Neither the Negro nor the Jew is
going to be absorbed by Races alien to them. Whole¬
sale Race absorption is an irredescent dream. The
five divisions of the human family are still in evi¬
dence, and ever will be. Be not deceived, our place
in the divine economy is irrevocably fixed, and our
part in the great world drama is yet to be performed.
We are like new metal dug from the earth, waiting
for the refiner.
Fifty years is a short period in which to build up
a Race to the full stature of manhood and woman¬
hood; and yet, from 1865 to 1897, a brief thirty-two
years, the Negroes of a dozen great States in this
Union, then only eight millions strong—rising from
a condition of absolute poverty, had gathered to¬
gether $300,000,000 of taxable property. The church
property of one Religious Denomination alone,
amounting to $9,000,000. The majority of its intel¬
ligent, moral and industrial people handled more
money than the settlers of New Eng2and, during the
first half century of their occupation. Their, (the
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Negroes') average church and social gathering dis¬
played a better style of dress than entire classes ot
people in all the States. All of this is creditable to
the Race and is to be commended; but, the master
work of the Negro today and tomorrow and the day
after is: that of dressing his mind and in the habili¬
ments of knowledge, which, next to Religion, is one
of the greatest forces in the Universe. Knowledgt
of how to make a Race a strong and potent force for
good; how to unify the units, and weld them into
one harmonious and invincible whole, is exactly the
kind of knowledge which will be most useful to the
Negro in the next thirty years.
Our homes, our Churches, our Social and Fraternal
Organizations are the agencies through which this
kind of knowledge should be disseminated. We will
not find it in the Public Schools, Universities, or
Churches controlled by a Race other than our own.
It is our business to search for it among ourselves,
and when we find it, apply it, and make it tell on the
generations to which we impart it.
History teaches that the concentration of wealth
into the hands of a few has invariably been the sig¬
nal for the downfall of Nations. When Egypt went
down, two percent of her population owned (97%)
ninety-seven percent of her wealth. The people
were starving when Persia went down, and one per
cent of her population owned all the land. When
Babylon went down, two percent of her population
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•owned all the wealth. When Rome went down, 1,800
owned all the known world. And when the crisis
came in France, her population was divided into an
aristocracy of wealth and birth on the one hand, and
millions of half clad, half fed, impoverished toilers
qn the other. The result was the bloodiest revolution
in the annals of recorded history. All these are ob¬
ject lessons to us, who are now in the formative
stage of Race building, to teach us to avoid the
dangers and pit-falls, by which these Nations lost
their places in the grand march of civilization.
In the making of the Negro Race, this knowledge
should help us to avoid the mistake of judgment; the
greed for wealth; and the thirst for power, which
humbled and destroyed these other Races. The
White Race to-day, is drunk with power; much of
it acquired by questionable methods. It has never
been willing to give us a square deal—a "White
Man's chance," for it has seen, for more than a cen¬
tury the danger it would do itself by "letting down
the bars, and letting the Negro in." It knows that
the times are precarious and perilous, and in order
to save itself, it will not scruple to destroy us. To
save itself, industrially, it organizes trades unions
and combinations of various sorts. The white laboring
classes combine in Unions, Leagues, Fraternal Or¬
ganizations and Federations to save themselves from
industrial rivalry, and ruin, and from contact with
Negroes. Capitalists do the same, though they make
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less noise about it, and make their money talk. The
annual turn over of the New York Stock Exchange
is $15,500,000,000. It has 1,100 members, and its
management is vested in a committee of 40 members,
with plenary power. The annual turn over of these
great exchanges exceeds the entire wealth of the
(15,000,000) Fifteen Million Negroes by hundreds of
thousands of dollars. But, against all these combin¬
ations of wealth and power which it gives, the Negro
can place, as an offset, the promise of God, spoken
through the mouth of His Prophet, Isaiah 41:10 and
possess his soul in patience.
The strength of this Nation to-day, is its greatest
weakness; but, it believes itself invincible and invul¬
nerable. So thought Goliath, but little David laid
him low; so thought Russia; but little Japan humbled
her pride. Now, in the making of the Negro Race,
the process of evolution is not to be wholly along
the lines which other Races have followed. We are
to attain our place in the social order, by a different
process. The foundation upon which our structure
is to be built, must have, as its corner-stone, Righte¬
ousness; for, what does God require of us but to love
mercy, to deal justly, and to walk uprightly before
Him?
My friends, co-operation is the magic word and
active principle by which our Race is to be saved and
developed into a potent force. It is saving other
Races all around us as the active principles which it
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teaches, make themselves manifest in the progress
and development of these Races. We are compelled
to admit the efficacy of co-operation as a force in
Race building. It is about time for Negroes, every¬
where, to co-operate; to begin to think Black, because
white men, always tihnk "White. I call to your notice,
and trust you will all read it, the 28 Chapter of the
Book of Deuteronomy, which is a promise and a
prophecy as applicable to the Negro to-day, as to the
Jews (who were Black Men, unmistakably black) of
the period in which it was made.
The people we call Jews to-day, are not pure Jews,
any more than we in the new world are pure Africans.
The Jews who abound throughout European coun¬
tries are the most mixed, in the matter of ethnic
origin of any of the people in any of the
countries of western civilization. The Asiatics
originally lived for about five centuries in
Egypt, and intermarried with the Africans; subse¬
quently, they intermarried with the people of Asia
Minor, Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Oceania.
At one time, they were held in bondage by the Afri¬
cans, and in their captivity, the Psalmist, David, in
the 137 Psalm represents them as saying: "By the
Rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea, we wept,
when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps
upon the willows in the midst thereof. For they that
carried us away captive, required of us a song, and
they that wasted us, required of us mirth, saying,
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'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' They answered,
'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
Land?"
The difference between the Jew and the Negro in
captivity is one of temperament. The Jew is a pessi¬
mist; the Negro an optimist. It is the optimism of
our Race which has brought us thus far. Through
the centuries, our cheerfulness, hopefulness and faith
in our self-redeeming power have kept us from de^
struction; our resiliency, when cast down and op¬
pressed has amazed our oppressors and filled them
with wonder. The Indian went down before them
because he had no music in his soul and could not
look them in the eye. The Negro is full of music,
full of hope, and full of faith in everybody but him¬
self. He has in him, all the elements that are neces¬
sary in the making of a great Race, except the ele¬
ment of co-operation. Once we master this and make
it our own, there will be no power on earth to keep us
from rising to the zenith of progress and civilization.
To make this Race powerful stop helping to make
white men powerful with your money and your influ¬
ence. Help to build up your own Race in business, in
the professions, in all the industries and in the pro¬
portion that we help each other, we help ourselves in¬
dividually and collectively.
My closing word is, study the benefits of co-oper¬
ation in its application to families and to Races; in
connection with the history of the powerful Race
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from which most of us earn our daily bread, This Race
is a gigantic co-operative society, and if any one-of
us does anything to a White Man or Woman, observe
how quickly they will come to the rescue with money
to punish the offender, tendering the deepest sym¬
pathy for the offended. They are a unit, and as
against a Negro, they are neither Catholics, Protest¬
ants, German, Irishmen, Englishmen nor Frenchmen,
but White Men. This must be our spirit if we are
to attain to a commanding and influential place
among the Races of mankind. The keyword' then,
is Co-operation, and I pray God to clarify our vision
and enable us to see more clearly the duty we owe
to ourselves and to our posterity.
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