Your Negro Neighbor
Benjamin Brawley writes about the American Negro. Printed in 1918.
“...His is a race of enthusiasm, imagination, and high spiritual fervor. He revels in the sighing of the wind, the falling of the stars, the laughter of children, and already his music is recognized as the most original that the country has produced; from his deep-toned melodies wails a note of intolerable pathos. But over all the doubt and fear through which it passes there still rests with the great heart of the race an abiding trust in God. Around us everywhere are commercialism, politics, graft--sordidness, selfishness, cynicism. We need faith and hope and love, a new birth of idealism, more fervent faith in the unseen; and the stone that the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. Already the work of some members of the race has pointed the way to great things in the realm of conscious art; but above even art soars the great world of the spirit. This it is that America most sadly needs; this it is that her most fiercely persecuted children bring to her.”