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Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dayton, D.—This is good, read: But this little book has given me pause in my speculation. Here in the artistic effect at least, is white think ing and white feeling in a black man, and perhaps the human unity and not a the face unity, is the precious thing, the divine thing, after all God hath made of one by all nations of men; perhaps the proof of this saying is to appear in the arts, and our hostilities and prejudices are to vanish in them. W. D. Howells. It would be most unlikely that any other than an American white man should have confounded thought with color. The history of the church in Africa associates the race with primitive re ligion of God. The science of pure and applied mathematics his to asso ciates with Africa. Advancing still further back, letters are first asso ciated with Africa. Alexander Dumas, the elder, the literary wonder of the centuries, in a specific line, was more his mother than his father. His mother was a Negress. But the higher learn ing as illustrated in the last cen tury and this in Negro scholars, though few, has dissipated the notion of color in the results of the fruits of the brain. The trouble arises in ignor ance of the Negro and his achievement. Slavery has degraded the Negro, and opportunity for learning has been so meager that genius in black stamps him a phenomenon. Mr. Howells is right in accepting human unity, as the divine thing; in believing that God hath made of one blood all men. And this open recognition of the lyric in the poetry of the Negro by Howells, the lyric in song of the Negro by Dvorak, will go far to give the Negro confi dence in himself. It is a sad fact that unless the white ticket the black, he never tickets himself. He may have a diamond in his brain or a jewel in his soul, but the one is mere glass,the other pinchback until a white names it dia mond or jewel. Thus far in the case of the American Negro, neither learn ing nor Christianity has developed the base upon which a race rises, if at all, confidence in itself.—The Reformer, Richmond, Va.
Newspaper Details
Cleveland Gazette
Cleveland, Ohio, US
Sat, Sep 19, 1896
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 30 Jan 2026
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