Articles

As students, scholars, professors and scientists you should be well aware that we are living in a world and at a time when great changes are taking place. New ideas are replacing the old ones. Old governments are collapsing, and new nations are being born. The entire “old system” which has held the Old World together has lost its effectiveness, and now that Old World is going out. A new system or New World must replace the Old World.

Yes, I think there is a new so-called Negro. We don’t recognize the term “Negro” but I really believe that there’s a new so-called Negro here in America. He not only is impatient. Not only is he dissatisfied, not only is he disillusioned, but he’s getting very angry.

The Western World finds itself today constantly engulfed in crisis after crisis. The ingredients for disaster lurk constantly on all sides...both at home and abroad. The Western World’s leading diplomats are whispering in the halls of the UN that catastrophe can come any moment, any hour, any second.

When I pointed out that there are two kinds of Negroes—some Negroes don’t want a Black man to speak for them. That type of Negro doesn’t even want to be Black. He’s ashamed of being Black. And you’ll never hear him refer to himself as Black. Now that type we don’t pretend to speak for. You can speak for him. In fact you can have him.

The brainwashed black man can never learn to stand on his own two feet until he is on his own. We must learn to become our own producers, manufacturers and traders; we must have industry of our own, to employ our own. The white man resists this because he wants to keep the black man under his thumb and jurisdiction in white society. He wants to keep the black man always dependent and begging—for jobs, food, clothes, shelter, education.

First, however, there are some questions we have to put to you. Since the black masses here in America are now in open revolt against the American system of segregation, will these same black masses turn toward integration or will they turn toward complete separation? Will these awakened black masses demand integration into the white society that enslaved them or will they demand complete separation from that cruel white society that has enslaved them?

Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you’re going to catch hell just like I am. We’re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.

Just ten years ago on the African continent, our people were colonized. They were suffering all forms of colonization, oppression, exploitation, degradation, humiliation, discrimination, and every other kind of -ation. And in a short time, they have gained more independence, more recognition, more respect as human beings than you and I have.

They kidnapped us and brought us here; they deprived us of our rights; they made us slaves; they sold our people from one plantation to another, from one auction block to another. And even right now, 1963, they have to confess they are still depriving the black people here in America, not only of civil rights, but even of human rights.

We see the increase of racial animosity, the increase of racial hostility, and the increase of outright racial hatred. We see masses of Black people who have lost all confidence in the false promises of the hypocritical white politicians. We see masses of Black people who are thoroughly fed up with the deceit of the so-called white liberals, or the white so-called liberals.