It is a notorious fact that the Southern whites as a class will not affiliate with any political organization on terms of equality with the blacks--that is, they may be educated to accept the Negro as a voter but nothing can induce them to accept him as a leader.
This quote highlights the racial dynamics in Southern politics, where white leaders are reluctant to accept black leadership.
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More from Archibald Henry Grimké
Not at all, for they are most important, but without the ballot they are impotent to give the relief so much needed in the South.
That colored men with the ballot should be rated in terms of the political game higher than other colored men who have it not, violates no rule of business ethics.
That the founder of the new political party, as a practical man, should discriminate between colored men with a vote and colored men without a vote seems to me to be altogether natural, to grow, in fact, out of the necessities of every…
White and black party following with white leadership is therefore the only feasible proposition, which stands any show of success as a party of opposition in that section under existing conditions.