12 things the Negro must do for himself (2)

7. The Negro Must Stop Charging His Failures Up To His 'Color' And To
White People's Attitude.

The truth of the matter is that good service and conduct will
make senseless race prejudice fade like mist before the rising sun.

God never intended that a man's color shall be anything other
than a badge of distinction . It is high time that all races were
learning that fact. The Negro must first QUALIFY for whatever position he
wants. Purpose, initiative, ingenuity and industry are the keys that all
men use to get what they want. The Negro will have to do the same. He
must make himself a workman who is too skilled not to be wanted, and too
DEPENDABLE not to be on the job, according to promise or plan. He will
never become a vital factor in industry until he learns to put into his
work the vitalizing force of initiative, skill and dependability. He has
gone 'RIGHTS' mad and 'DUTY' dumb.

8. The Negro Must Overcome His Bad Job Habits.

He must make a brand new reputation for himself in the world of
labor. His bad job habits are absenteeism, funerals to attend, or a
little business to look after. The Negro runs an off and on business. He
also has a bad reputation for conduct on the job -- such as petty
quarreling with other help, incessant loud talking about nothing; loafing,
carelessness, due to lack of job pride; insolence, gum chewing and -- too
often -- liquor drinking. Just plain bad job habits!

9. He Must Improve His Conduct In Public Places.

Taken as a whole, he is entirely too loud and too ill-mannered.

There is much talk about wiping out racial segregation and also
much talk about achieving integration.

Segregation is a physical arrangement by which people are separated in various services.

It is definitely up to the Negro to wipe out the apparent justification or excuse for segregation.

The only effective way to do it is to clean up and keep clean. By practice, cleanliness
will become a habit and habit becomes character.

10. The Negro Must Learn How To Operate Business For People -- Not For
Negro People, Only.

To do business, he will have to remove all typical 'earmarks,'
business principles; measure up to accepted standards and meet stimulating
competition, graciously -- in fact, he must learn to welcome competition.

11. The Average So-Called Educated Negro Will Have To Come Down Out Of
The Air. He Is Too Inflated Over Nothing. He Needs An Experience Similar
To The One That Ezekiel Had -- (Ezekiel 3:14-19). And He Must Do What
Ezekiel Did

Otherwise, through indifference, as to the plight of the masses,
the Negro, who thinks that he has escaped, will lose his own soul. It
will do all leaders good to read Hebrew 13:3, and the first Thirty-seven
Chapters of Ezekiel.

A race transformation itself through its own leaders and its
sensible 'common people.' A race rises on its own wings, or is held down
by its own weight. True leaders are never 'things apart from the people.'
They are the masses. They simply got to the front ahead of them. Their
only business at the front is to inspire to masses by hard work and noble
example and challenge them to 'Come on!' Dante stated a fact when he
said, 'Show the people the light and they will find the way!'

There must arise within the Negro race a leadership that is not
out hunting bargains for itself. A noble example is found in the men and
women of the Negro race, who, in the early days, laid down their lives for
the people. Their invaluable contributions have not been appraised by the
'latter-day leaders.' In many cases, their names would never be recorded,
among the unsung heroes of the world, but for the fact that white friends
have written them there.

'Lord, God of Hosts, Be with us yet.'

The Negro of today does not realize that, but, for these exhibits
A's, that certainly show the innate possibilities of members of their own
race, white people would not have been moved to make such princely
investments in lives and money, as they have made, for the establishment
of schools and for the on-going of the race.

12. The Negro Must Stop Forgetting His Friends. 'Remember.'

Read Deuteronomy 24:18. Deuteronomy rings the big bell of
gratitude. Why? Because an ingrate is an abomination in the sight of
God. God is constantly telling us that 'I the Lord thy God delivered
you' -- through human instrumentality's.

The American Negro has had and still has friends -- in the North
and in the South. These friends not only pray, speak, write, influence
others, but make unbelievable, unpublished sacrifices and contributions
for the advancement of the race -- for their brothers in bonds.

The noblest thing that the Negro can do is to so live and labor
that these benefactors will not have given in vain. The Negro must make
his heart warm with gratitude, his lips sweet with thanks and his heart
and mind resolute with purpose to justify the sacrifices and stand on his
feet and go forward-- 'God is no respect of persons. In every nation, he
that feareth him and worketh righteousness is' sure to win out. Get to
work! That's the answer to everything that hurts us. We talk too much
about nothing instead of redeeming the time by working.