Yet, in spite of this iniquitous caste system the leaven of democracy, of equality has found lodgment in the black man's mind, and he craves the chance to become all that the white man has become and to do all that the white man does by virtue of his American freedom and citizenship.
Grimké notes that despite oppression, black men aspire to achieve the same freedoms as white men.
Share
More from Archibald Henry Grimké
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.
There must be added to them this something else, this one thing needful to render them effective to save the blacks from the evil consequences of their race ignorance, and the whites from the evil consequences of their race prejudice.
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.
And this one thing needful, I believe, the Progressive Party brings to the solution of the problem, and that it formed the underlying motive and the statesmanlike purpose of the action at Chicago last August of Theodore Roosevelt.