ealth are a trio
invincible.

To content ourselves with denouncing injustice is to fail to enlist the
economic features so necessary as assistants. For amid all our
disadvantages we are to a large extent arbiters of our fortunes, for we
can by an indomitable will dispel many, many seeming mountains that
encumber our way. But we have much to unlearn, and especially that the
road to financial prosperity is not chiefly the dictum of the facile
mouth, but through the manifestation of skilled hands and routine of
business methods, however much the mouth may attempt to compete,
conscious of its wealth of assertion and extent of capacity. While it is
eminently proper we should strive for the administration of equitable
laws for our protection, it should be ever remembered that while local
laws under our constitutional government are supposed to be the equity
of public opinion, for us they are not sustained unless in harmony with
feelings and sentiments of their environments. Our work as a dependent
element is plainly to use such, and only such, methods as will sustain
or create the sentiment desired by a fraternization of business and
material interests. This we cannot do either in the arena of politics or
the status of the menial laborer. For in the one, when the polls are
closed, we are continuously reminded of "Othello's occupation gone." In
the other, the abundance of raw and uncouth labor robs it of its
vitality as a force to compel conditions.

CHAPTER XXV.

The spirit in which these "schools of trade" have been conceived, and
the success of their conduct, indicate they have struck a responsive
chord in the communities where local approval is a necessity.
Constituting an agreeable counterpoise to the fixed determination of the
white people of the South that within its purview the Negro, however
worthy, shall not occupy political prominence. This, while diametrically
opposed to the genius and spirit of republican government, may yet be
the boomerang, beneficent in its return, redounding to his advantage by
turning the current of his aspirations to trades and business activities
rich with promise of material and ennobling fame. From this point of
view history records the Jew as a shining example. The Negro,
constitutionally buoyant, should be energetic and hopeful, for "there is
a destiny that shapes our ends," blunt them however much by "damning
with faint praise" or apology for oppression from whilom friends.