12 Things The Negro Must Do For Himself


Nannie Helen Burroughs
(Circa Early 1900's)

1. The Negro Must Learn To Put First Things First. The First Things Are: Education; Development of Character Traits; A Trade and Home Ownership.

• The Negro puts too much of his earning in clothes, in food, in show and in having what he calls "a good time." The Dr. Kelly Miller said, "The Negro buys what he WANTS and begs for what he Needs." Too true!

2. The Negro Must Stop Expecting God and White Folk To Do For Him What He Can Do For Himself.

• It is the "Divine Plan" that the strong shall help the weak, but even God does not do for man what man can do for himself. The Negro will have to do exactly what Jesus told the man (in John 5:8) to do--Carry his own load--"Take up your bed and walk."

3. The Negro Must Keep Himself, His Children And His Home Clean And Make The Surroundings In Which He Lives Comfortable and Attractive.

• He must learn to "run his community up"--not down. We can segregate by law, we integrate only by living. Civilization is not a matter of race, it is a matter of standards. Believe it or not--some day, some race is going to outdo the Anglo-Saxon, completely. It can be the Negro race, if the Negro gets sense enough. Civilization goes up and down that way.

4. The Negro Must Learn To Dress More Appropriately For Work And For Leisure.

• Knowing what to wear--how to wear it--when to wear it and where to wear it, are earmarks of common sense, culture and also an index to character.

5. The Negro Must Make His Religion An Everyday Practice And Not Just A Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Emotional Affair.

6. The Negro Must Highly Resolve To Wipe Out Mass Ignorance.

• The leaders of the race must teach and inspire the masses to become eager and determined to improve mentally, morally and spiritually, and to meet the basic requirements of good citizenship.

• We should initiate an intensive literacy campaign in America, as well as in Africa. Ignorance--satisfied ignorance--is a millstone abut the neck of the race. It is democracy's greatest burden.

• Social integration is a relationship attained as a result of the cultivation of kindred social ideals, interests and standards.

• It is a blending process that requires time, understanding and kindred purposes to achieve. Likes alone and not laws can do it.

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 quarrelling 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 instrumentalities.

• 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 respector 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.

Absolutely correct....where did you find this? I like the one about the negro who thinks he has escaped will loose his soul. I think this speaks on those who have so called "made it out".They feel like they live in the best, wear the best, and drive the best, so they are somehow the BEST or better than those of us who are still digging our way out of the trenches.I talk to people everyday who feel like their money & possessions make them SPECIAL and more attractive around the good white folks.Their total being lies in things and appearances, but their soul is uglty & lost.dont get me wrong, I wont step out of this house without my makeup, hair, outfit, & M Kors bag- but I know these are things I like- not things I have to have. My soul is full compassion & kindness for others 1st.
Thats why when I watched the senseless killing of the young man in Chicago, I couldnt help but cry. How can you have such a total disregard for life as to beat someone down with a railroad plank, stomp his head into the pavement, and walk away justified in taking a life away that you knew nothing of.......where are our "sensible common people"???? and the mother of one of the young men had the adaucity to try and justify her son beating this teenager because someone had hit her other son in the face with a brick.....it wasnt the teenager who lost his life...."Lord, God of host, be with us yet".

I agree!

So many of us are lost these days, its really kind of SAD !!!This teens death in Chicago has even the rappers speaking out against all this violence. I think this one finally touched the nerves of many since we got to see the video all over youtube & the news media. I hoping these gangbangers see how really senseless this death appears when they take the time to really witness this young man lying on that pavement not moving, ever again....My heart goes out to any mother having to live though that scene being played over & over ......

He's comming in a Honda!

My oh my! You fuckers CAN read after all! Well blow me down and call me shawty.

Jah Crazy, I found this in my inbox but you can google the author. I found a few more writings by her on Wikipedia.

quote:

Originally posted by AnnaMae Bullock:
My oh my! You fuckers CAN read after all! Well blow me down and call me shawty.

Jah Crazy, I found this in my inbox but you can google the author. I found a few more writings by her on Wikipedia.

Thanks, I will read her stuff. I do enjoy an intelligent conversation every now & then between actin a fool .....talked with Tavis Smiley twomwks ago, it was very interesting. Cornwell West is here tommorrow night, I'm in....

Plz don't go gettin any Dr. West or Tavis Smiley shirts made....

quote:

Originally posted by AnnaMae Bullock:
Plz don't go gettin any Dr. West or Tavis Smiley shirts made....

Awwwwww...you know what,I think i just might !!!! that Dr.West is tooo damn intelligent. Yep, I need the t-shirt, and tavis aint married yet..mmmmmm.....

Tavis's office is right here in the hood on 43rd & Crenshaw....

quote:

Originally posted by AnnaMae Bullock:
Tavis's office is right here in the hood on 43rd & Crenshaw....

OMG....you mean I could just walk right over there and get my hands on him. I absolutely love Tavis Smiley !!!!Thats my future ex-husband!!!!!