We try to be humble Lord, but we have never yet succeeded in humbling the proud blood which Thou hast given us to the level of brotherhood with these strange dark peoples.
Archibald Henry Grimké: “We try to be humble Lord, but we have never yet succeeded in humbling the proud blood which Thou hast given us to the…”
Editor's note · Context
In this passage, Grimké expresses the internal conflict of white individuals who struggle to reconcile their pride with the call for racial brotherhood.
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It should make this a day of fasting and prayer, not of boisterous merriment and idle pageantry--a day of great lamentation, not of congratulatory joy.
On every hand over against his paper rights as a citizen, the Negro faces facts which make his citizenship seem like a snare and a delusion.
I cannot conceive why a black man may not as reasonably object to my color, as I to his.
This sounds amazing and it is amazing because it fits the Negro's case so exactly, because it is an accurate description of his condition as an agricultural laborer in many of the Southern states.