ince his so-called political leaders let him alone; he is not
disturbed over the matter of separate schools and cars, and he neither
knows nor cares anything about "social equality."

But what of the other class? The "masses" is at best an unsatisfactory
and indefinite term. It is very far from embracing even the southern
Negro, and we need not forget that seven years ago there were 900,000
members of the race living outside of the South. What of the class,
mainly urban and large in number, who have lost the typical habit and
attitude of the Negro of the mass, and who, more and more, are becoming
restless and chafing under existing conditions? There is an intimate and
very natural relation between the social and intellectual advance of the
so-called Negro and the matter of friction along social lines. It is, in
fact, only as we touch the higher groups that we can appreciate the
potential results of contact upon a different plane from that common to
the masses in the South. There is a large and steadily increasing group
of men, more or less related to the Negro by blood and wholly identified
with him by American social usage, who refuse to accept quietly the
white man's attitude toward the race. I appreciate the mistake of laying
too great stress upon the utterances of any one man or group of men, but
the mistakes in this case lie the other way. The American white man
knows little or nothing about the thought and opinion of the colored men
and women who today largely mold and direct Negro public opinion in this
country. Even the white man who considers himself a student of "the race
question" rarely exhibits anything more than profound ignorance of the
Negro's side of the problem. He does not know what the other man is
thinking and saying on the subject. This composite type which we
poetically call "black," but which in reality is every shade from black
to white, is slowly developing a consciousness of its own racial
solidarity. It is finding its own distinctive voice, and through its own
books and papers and magazines, and through its own social
organizations, is at once giving utterance to its discontent and making
known its demands.

And with this dawning consciousness of race there is likewise coming an
appreciation of the limitations and restrictions which hem in its
unfolding and development. One of the best indices to the possibilities
of increased racial friction is the Negro's own recognition of the
universalit