I was sent this piece several years ago from a friend. I have been told this article was written in the early 1900s by Nannie Helen Burroughs. (If you don't know who she is, look her up.)
I have told many audiences that the U.S. Black /White issue will not be resolved through the diversity movement. The slavery wounds and damages are intense and institutionalized. It is a dangerous scenario of power and money. The diversity movement has helped in the effort to move Blacks forward. But the wounds have not healed, and impacts are very significant to all involved.
When you read this, my first thought was I have heard this before and before and before.
The next thought was the more things change, the more they stay the same. Maybe, maybe not?
Yet, life is full of opportunities. I will give out before I give up!
The Negro Must:
1. Learn to put things first. (The first things are education development of character traits, a trade, and homeownership.)
2. Stop expecting God and White folk to do for him what he can do for himself.
3. Keep himself, his children, and his home clean and make the surroundings in which he lives comfortable and attractive.
4. Dress more appropriately for work and leisure.
5. Make his religion an everyday practice and not just for a Sunday-Go-Meeting emotional affair.
6. Highly resolve to wipe out mass ignorance.
7. Stop charging his failures up to his "color" and white people's attitudes.
8. Overcome bad habits.
9. Improve his conduct in public places
10. Learn how to operate a business for people - Not for Negro people only
11. (The average so-called educated Negro) will have to come down out of the air.
12. Must stop forgetting his friends "Remember."
