Disfranchisement Is The Deliberate Theft And Robbery

The Theology Of The Average Colored Church Is Basing Itself Far Too Much Upon Hell And Damnation-upon An Attempt To Scare People Into Being Decent And Threatening Them With The Terrors Of Death And Punishment. We Are Still Trained To Believe A Good Deal That Is Simply Childish In Theology. The Outward And Visible Punishment Of Every Wrong Deed That Men Do The Repeated Declaration That Anything Can Be Gotten By Anyone At Any Time By Prayer.

Here Is The Chance For Young Women And Young Men Of Devotion To Lift Again The Banner Of Humanity And To Walk Toward A Civilization Which Will Be Free And Intelligent; Which Will Be Healthy And Unafraid; And Build In The World A Culture Led By Black Folk And Joined By Peoples Of All Colors And All Races - Without Poverty, Ignorance And Disease!

It Is The Growing Custom To Narrow Control, Concentrate Power, Disregard And Disenfranchise The Public; And Assuming That Certain Powers By Divine Right Of Money-raising Or By Sheer Assumption, Have The Power To Do As They Think Best Without Consulting The Wisdom Of Mankind.

Daily The Negro Is Coming More And More To Look Upon Law And Justice, Not As Protecting Safeguards, But As Sources Of Humiliation And Oppression. The Laws Are Made By Men Who Have Little Interest In Him; They Are Executed By Men Who Have Absolutely No Motive For Treating The Black People With Courtesy Or Consideration; And, Finally, The Accused Law-breaker Is Tried, Not By His Peers, But Too Often By Men Who Would Rather Punish Ten Innocent Negroes Than Let One Guilty One Escape.

But We Do Not Merely Protest; We Make Renewed Demand For Freedom In That Vast Kingdom Of The Human Spirit Where Freedom Has Ever Had The Right To Dwell:the Expressing Of Thought To Unstuffed Ears; The Dreaming Of Dreams By Untwisted Souls.