The enemies of the people are...those who keep us in ignorance. Under the cover of spiritual guidance and tradition, they exploit the people instead of serving their real  spiritual needs and their real social interests. They must be fought against, and we will fight them. Thomas Sankara

 We continue with Message to the People, so that we may relearn things that we may have forgotten, and teach those who may have never learned. These lessons are basic common sense lessons, which some are lacking. We must teach each other so that what we went through as a people is never repeated. We need constant lesson plans that will help us to be a better people and also to teach us how we treat each other. How we treat each other is the most important lesson plan that we need at this time. Not only here in America, but in the rest of the world. African people must stop killing, robbing, stealing, raping, backstabbing, maiming, murdering, and selling drugs to each other. We need not remain silent and afraid to speak out about what we do to each other, and quick to criticize those who don't look like us when they do the same things.

                                 Character

  Men and women who want to be of use to themselves yes and humanity must have good character. Good character means the demonstration of the kind of behavior that meets the moral precepts of a civilization; the standard that is laid down by the society of the time in which you live and which forms a part of and guides that very character. If you do not live up to those standards, in the highest sense, you will not be respected by that society. Your mission in the society for useful work will fall to pieces. The greatest prop to character is honesty. Honesty is the best policy. Let no one believe that you are dishonest. If they believe you are dishonest, you are doomed. You will never be able to rise to a position of respect and trust except by some mere accident. You must live so clean that everybody can see the cleanliness of your life. Never let people believe that you are a liar, but the contrary. Let them believe that you always speak the truth and live up to it.

Any conduct that your community or society condemns, be careful not to violate that rule or law, because you will lose the respect of your community. Never borrow money, unless you intend to pay it back. Pay it back as quickly as you can. If you give excuses when you should be paying, those you are obligated to will think you are a trickster. Even though you subsequently pay them, they will be loath to trust you a second time. Even if you have to make sacrifices, pay your debts, because when you don’t pay your debts, people talk about it and sooner or later everybody in the community knows about it and you are ruined. It is a good policy to keep a good and honorable name. It is good credit. People will trust you on a good name. They will ask for the cash right on the spot and count it to the last farthing if your name is bad. People who trust you will almost take money from you without counting it. When you have lost that much confidence, you are a marked object and you may as well move from that town or city or community to start life afresh some where else where nobody knows you; where you may practice the higher principles and retrieve your name.

Never move into a nearby or adjoining community if you have lost your name. In the first place, go far away from it. No leader who is dishonest can hold his leader ship. Nobody will follow him. Let your good character shine so that men will see it and talk about it. Morality is upheld everywhere in civilization. Don’t be immoral in your community. Somebody will tell on you and expose you; and the homes of the community will be closed against you and respectable people will shun you. If you have to be immoral because your nature is weak, then hide it. Keep it within closed doors and be sure nobody knows about it.

If you read good books and think loftily, you will not be immoral. If you are intelligent, you will not be immoral because immorality leads to disease, pain, suffering and ultimately to premature death. An immoral person cannot find good company because no good person wants to take the chance with immorality. Those who cater to your immorality must be people who have no character and who have nothing to lose. They must be either sick or diseased themselves and therefore, don’t care. No respectable woman or man who cares about his or her future is going to be indiscriminate because that is taking chances. Therefore, when you find a person of immoral habits, it is someone who has lost all proportions of decency and health and doesn’t care. Such a person is a social danger.

Sensible people do not give themselves away for nothing, but sick people and diseased people, like a drowning man, catch at a straw. Never be seen with those people in your community. Never be seen with a person of bad character. You will be roped in and even though your character is good, it will also suffer because of your association with that person. If you have to keep company with the opposite sex, let your companionship be consistent and steady with one person. Don’t run around always with different people of the opposite sex. This does not mean that you must not associate socially with all the people of your class. It means, if your name is to be linked up in the community as directly interested socially, let is be that one person, but don’t run around with several.

As a leader, never flirt or indicate that you are a flirt. Never try to make love to two people in the same organization; where both attend and you are a member at the same time. A fight will ensue and scandal will spread and you will lose your reputation. If you have to speculate with your love, keep the parties far apart; at least in different communities, but not in the same town. It will leak out and be whispered about and you will be called a bad person.

Most of the deformities in a community are the result of immoral and loose people cutting loose. Sick people never produce good children. Disease in man is destructive. It destroys the species and wrecks the mind of man. The first thought a healthy man has of a poor minded man is that his parents were immoral and stamped their immorality on him, which be is to carry through the world by his particular affectation, be it in poor mentality or in disability.

Don’t be a public drunkard. Don’t drink inordinately. You may contract disease by over drinking, and water your brain to that of deterioration. Don’t take drugs or narcotics as a habit. They will have the same effect. Be temperate in everything you do. Learn self- control. By self-control, you can conquer every bad habit. You can do so by concentrating on the thought always that the habit is bad and will ruin you. Say to yourself, “I shall not be ruined. I shall conquer my bad habit.” Say this and repeat it day after day until you conquer the habit, Let the habit be your opponent and then fight your opponent and beat it. Never give up until you conquer. If you follow this rule, you will beat down every bad habit. Always see the injury that the bad habit will do you.

If you don’t want that injury to your health, to your mind and body to bring pain, worry and unhappiness, then fight it to the death. This is what is called “man mastering himself.” Anything that is not good rise above it and be its master. Don’t be a public nuisance. Don’t go out in public untidy or poorly dressed. Always keep a good and clean personality. Always bathe your skin and do so at least once a day. If it is not convenient, bathe at least three times a week. A dirty body emits bad odor and causes people to shun you. If you know you are dirty, you lose confidence in yourself. When you approach other people, you are afraid that they are going to find out that you are not clean. It makes you nervous and you lose your balance and sense of proportion. When a man is clean in body, appearance and mind, he feels like a giant and a master. He is afraid of nothing. If he lacks these qualities, he cringes, bows and hides. He is never himself. Don’t eat like a hog, even in private. A custom or habit will develop on you and you will do it unconsciously. Observe good manners in eating and drinking when you go among company.

If you are invited to dine with friends and you are hungry, eat a little before you get to dinner, so as not to show how hungry you are. If you eat up everything, your host will talk about you when you are gone. He or she and the rest of their friends will talk about your gluttony and you may never be invited the second time.
Be courteous and gentlemanly everywhere. Be kind to and practice respect for all children. Develop the habit of playing with children and treating them decently. The news will spread. Children will tell their parents and the parents will get to love you.

Never abuse a woman in public. Never abuse a man in public. Never make a noise in your home. Never abuse your wife or your husband in public. Never make a fight where you are living or anywhere else in public.
If you are angry to the point of fighting, count ten and move off. If it is your wife, family, relatives or even friends, take your hat and go for a walk. Inhale the fresh air, look at the sky, landscape, flowers and stars and new thoughts will come into your mind. You will forget your anger. Go to your room, lock yourself in and take a book of poetry from your bookshelf and read the beautiful thoughts of the past. You may even read the Bible for consolation. Read the proverbs and the Psalms and you will come back to normal.

Never fall in love to the point of losing control of yourself. If you do, you will become somebody else’s slave and that experience will surely take advantage of you and cause you to lose your best character.
Never love anybody for companionship, unless that person has the majority of the qualities that you like and appreciate. Never love a person more for his or her physical appearance or personality. First, Investigate the character, disposition, temperament, behavior and thought of the person and when you find in that person, along with good physical appearance such as you like, all the qualities or as many of them as possible that would tend to satisfy you and make you happy through a lifetime, then love that person. But never love anyone better than your self, because you are responsible to God for yourself. Only love God better than yourself.

Don’t believe that anybody loves you honestly, in the true sense of the word. Generally, it is something you have or something they can get from you as the reason why they love you or pretend to love you. When that something fails, you generally find that you were never loved; which is always too late. Don’t put your absolute Divine trust in human love; because man is bad and is susceptible to change.  When you love one for the qualities you think that person possesses and those qualities are not fully developed, help that person to develop them for your own happiness. It is better to wait to find the person with the majority of the qualities you like, than to rush into loving for a minimum of those qualities. As soon as you get over your passion, you will still be searching for those other qualities, and since that person does not have them, you will seek them elsewhere and break up your happiness. It is best for people not to get married until they are about 30 or 35, by then they have enough time to see everything and understand everything.

Don’t try to get too many children. You will find it a burden and then your love will turn into slavery and unhappiness. Never wear clothes as if you were sleeping in them. To do so, it makes a woman suspicious and it suggests untidiness to men. Never wear a dirty collar or a dirty pair of shoes. Keep your fingernails clean and your teeth clean. Take salts or purgatives at least twice a week to keep your system clean. It helps to give you clear thought and vision and it keeps your health in perfect state. A dirty breath is due to a foul stomach. People will shun you if your breath is dirty. You may notice people drawing away from the faces of other people when they are talking immediately before them. It is because such people have foul breath. It betrays you to the person and to all who are observing.

Sometimes by keeping a foul breath, tiny flies hover around your mouth and everybody knows that your breath is foul. A leader cannot be in that position; because when he is addressing the crowd, they will be visible objects telling the audience how foul his breath is. Remember, a leader must be honest. You have your character to maintain. You can maintain it only by good conduct. Therefore, never try to fool anybody or deceive anybody. Never fabricate nor falsify; if the thought should ever come to you, count the consequence and the risk. It may be your last chance, and it may be your first mistake. Most men suffer from their first mistake; from which they never recover. In working for the U.N.I.A., prefer death to stealing from the U.N.I.A. If you steal from the U.N.I.A. hundreds of millions of people will concentrate on you when they find it out; you will be exposed if you are found out. They will have your picture before them to hate, despise, curse and to damn. Therefore, play honest with the U.N.I.A. and its principles, all the time, because you are dealing with the destiny of a race.

As you will not steal from the U.N. I. A., do not encourage anyone to steal. Do not shield anyone in stealing; expose him. Life is too short to reform a thief. If he steals once, he will steal again. Don’t pardon him when he steals from the U.N. I. A. because we must speed up to get to the end. To waste time to correct a thief is to hold up the program of the organization. Get him out of the way and march along.

                             Economy

There are several kinds of economy, but this subject deals specifically with financial economy. Economy is based upon good and sane judgment. The practice of it is that you must always be on the safe side of your bargains or your dealings. Never exhaust yourself, always have a reserve. There should always be something left over that you may fall back on in time of need. Money is the prop of life; in that it pays for all necessities and offers security for all opportunities. In earning money, one should never spend as much money as he earns. That is bad business.

Whatever his earning capacity, he should always be thrifty enough to save at least 15 to 20% of his income, storing it up for making better opportunities when they come and providing for a rainy day. If you spend all you earn, you are on the edge of bankruptcy all the time. If you spend more than you earn, you are not only a fool, but you are a very dishonest person, and you are bound to suffer without any other chance. Therefore, always make it a policy to save money out of your earnings, never mind how small it is. If you have better commercial ideas than your present job calls for and your present remuneration war rants, then save out of your present earnings to take advantage of the opportunity to improve yourself within a reasonable time in achieving these ideas.

Never engage yourself in living luxuriously when you can only live ordinarily. Ultimately, you are bound to fail and be the laughing stock of your friends in the community by not being able to keep up your luxurious standard of living on a limited purse. Never buy anything for more money than you have or positively expect to have within the time limited for the purchase. Never give away money that you cannot spare. Never give away anything of value that can be turned into money except you can spare it. Never borrow on interest from anybody. If you can, within a reasonable time pay your debts. If you pay your own debts with your own money, you will save the interest for yourself that you pay to others. The moment you start paying interest to others on money borrowed you become a slave working for somebody else. It is better to wait until you have the money yourself to do a thing before you borrow it to purchase that thing and pay interest on it.

At the same time, you must use good judgment to find out whether it is to your advantage to seek an opportunity of doing something big with somebody else’s money, even with interest to be paid. You must decide if that particular business will positively bring enough to meet the interest and give you sufficient profit to justify the risk you take in assuming the responsibility of paying interest to others may be of value [
The moment you are loaned money on interest to do anything, the person loaning you the money must be credited as being wise enough to know before hand if more money can be made out of the thing or investment than only the interest. If it is so, it is likely that he himself will go into that business and not give you the chance to go into it with his money. He may be a friend and want to help you, but few money lenders are friends. They are lending for usury and have no souls. At least their souls are bad. So be careful in borrowing money to go into business.

It is better you save and wait until you are able to go into business on your own account before you take the risk. It is bad business to go into any business without enough capital to run that business . . . 99 cases out of 100 will fail. Always consider cost before you go into anything and in figuring out the cost be sure that there is a margin of profit before you do the thing; otherwise it is not worth while doing. If you are going to address a meeting 100 miles away, first count the cost of railroad fare or transportation to and from, the cost of the meeting, your living expenses while going and staying at the meeting and returning from the meeting; the percentage to pay those who are looking after the meeting and the prospect of getting a crowd large enough that will meet all these expenses and leave you with a profit of at least 25%. If there is no profit in it, you are taking a risk and when you are finished you will be sorry you went.

Always work out before hand the possible financial results of every transaction and be sure that your arrangements are of such as to bring profit at the end; otherwise you are wasting time. As far as the U.N.I.A. is concerned, you should always calculate for profit for the association in every thing you do. Profit comes in many ways to the association. For instance, if you go to address a meeting 100 miles away, profit will come by new members joining the association, the establishing of agencies there, for the association; leaving behind the sentiments of the association may be an advantage to any money you receive for the expenses of the meeting. As long as you have converted and attached someone permanently to the U.N.I.A.; that may be considered as profit.

Always seek to get some profit, otherwise your work is a failure. When your work is to be judged, you will find that a balance sheet of how much you have received and how much you have disbursed as a representative of the association and how much net you have turned into the movement and how much morally you have helped the movement will be called for. If your balance sheet shows that for one month, three months, six months, or one year you have not added anything net to the association, your importance in it is nil, you will not account for much. Your status will be far below that of others who have been more valuable to the movement.

A president or representative who can show that for the year he or she has turned over $500, $1,000, or $10,000 net to the association occupies a position of eminence that calls for the greatest recognition of service rendered. Another president or representative may occupy no such position of recognition because of his failure.

Men and women are promoted on their record. Their record must be profitable. If their record is that of failure, they remain failures until they can prove otherwise. There is no other standard by which you can judge the ability of a man. Always seek to get substantial value for their work, because you will never be able to recall them as they move along.

Whenever you want to sell anything, unless you meet somebody who is badly in need of that thing, you are always going to be offered less than the value of the thing. So never buy anything for its full value otherwise you will have it at a loss. It is better to buy things for cash or on short term rather than on long term. A long term purchase carries a greater percentage of interest on the purchase. Something that you purchase on terms can be bought at almost half the price if bought for cash because people are also anxious to sell for cash even though they make a sacrifice of the thing, because they want the cash. When you buy on terms, you must bear the burden, not the seller. When you buy for cash, the seller bears a bur den in the loss to get cash. Always have cash and bargains will always show up. If you have no cash, when you see bargains and want them, you pay twice the price for them, when you buy them on terms.

Never live above your income. Never live up to your income. Never assume responsibility when you are not prepared for it. It will burden you down. Never marry broke. Never marry before you are ready. Never allow anybody to force you to do anything against your will. If you can see a thing and get good results from it at a cheaper price, don’t pay a dearer price except you have money to throw away. Don’t lose your head in thinking that something is going to run away, therefore, you must grab it now. Following that attitude, you may find your self to be a big fool, because what you grab here, thinking it is a wonder, you may find thrown away next door, not worth anything.

Always look around first, when you are in doubt. Try to find the duplicate. You may come back to the first, but if a thing is in the neighborhood with one person, it is almost likely that a similar thing is also in the same neighborhood. Search the neighborhood first, before you decide to lay all of your money on one thing.
Never think that one thing or that one person is the only peach in town. There may be better peaches on the tree. Try to curb your weakness for being a spendthrift. Every time you are tempted to spend ten cents or a dollar on a frivolous thing that you will not get any direct profit or return from, hold your hand, count ten before you do the thing, say to yourself “Have I any other pressing need or use for this money better than this frivolous thing?” There is always something else that you really need. Therefore, you will keep the money in your pocket.

Never give your money away outside of your race. If you are called upon to give it to God, ask yourself if God is really going to get it. Only when you feel that it is going into a channel that God will really appreciate him self, should you give it, because God himself doesn’t want money, but a good cause in his name may need it and you should first find out if there is really a cause. To send a man touring around the world in the name of God, for his own pleasure, is not giving to God. To give a man more worldly goods than he has already is not giving to God. To give to help carry on social service work in the community, or to help the poor of the community, or to rescue the children of the community is giving to God.

If you have to be critical in giving to God, be even more so when you give to man. It must be for a good cause and the nearest cause to you is the cause of your own race. Never fail to give charity where charity is needed within your own race, but don’t allow yourself to be tricked. If an old thing is good, don’t buy a new one. Don’t follow fashion for fashion’s sake. Follow your own judgment for intelligence sake. If nothing is wrong with your suit of clothes, don’t buy a new one because someone else has done so. All it may need is attention and so with everything. You may badly need the money later on, that you may spend on a new suit.

It is better to have the money than the thing, because when trouble comes you can run with your money, but you may not be able to carry all the things. The largest sum of money can be carried in your pocket book; while the weight of other things may cause you to wait for the next train, and by waiting you may lose. Put your values more in money than in things. Only have those things that are necessary. If you have the ambition to be greater than you are and you don’t have the means to immediately do so, then practice rigid thrift in your present position by saving as much as you can so that in a given period of time, you will be able to change your position to reach your objective. Never consume all you have and then expect to climb higher, it cannot be done. Never go into anything in business that you know nothing about. No fool can make a success of anything. Therefore, know your business before you go into it, to make a profit out of it.
Never live on the capital of your business; you must live on the profit.

If you start to live on the capital, there will soon be no capital and no business. If you mean to stay in that business, whatever the profit is, live only on that profit, and not on all of that profit. Otherwise, the time may come when you have to live on the capital because you made no profit for that period. Business is only successful when you are making profit and not spending all the profit. Whenever an enemy or any person attempts to create prejudice against your organization with the government, take immediate steps to counteract the statement and reassure the government that you have no intention of doing anything not in keeping with the law. Always watch for this because the government can easily outlaw your organization and curtail or prevent your activities. Therefore, don’t join any movement that the government is not favorably inclined to tolerate; chiefly Communism.

Let the Communists fight their own battles. Let other people carry on their own discord. Have nothing to do with them. The more they carry on discord and you keep away from it, the better it will be for you because by keeping your head, you will be able to see more clearly and get an advantage. Never let the government put you on the defensive. It will create prejudice against you. Keep out of court as much as you can. If possible, never go there except to do social service work to help others. Try to never be charged with a crime, or be on trial. It will affect the association and affect you. Always try first to settle racial disputes without going to the law. Law is expensive and uncertain. When you go to the law too often, you establish a bad record and when anybody wants to know anything about you, particularly government officials, they can search the court records. Keep away as a defendant. Encourage the people to keep away and not waste their money in litigation, if their litigation can be settled by you or any responsible representative of the race. The people pay too many fines in court. The money they pay for fines could be used for their families and their own benefit.

Always counsel Negroes not to be anxious to start litigations or to prosecute each other, if it can be avoided. Going to court too often gives the race a bad name and causes the government to think badly of the race. Always try to impress the government that you are law-abiding citizens, so that when you make a request of the government, it may respect the request. Always keep your good work before the government and make the government aware of it, particularly social service work, charitable work, educational work. This does not mean racial education. Your racial education is private like the Jews. Make the government aware of all public education tending towards good citizenship. It should prominently be brought to the attention of the government.

                            Propaganda

     
Propaganda means to propagate or to make known extensively some particular phase of human intelligence. The desire is to convert or influence the people to the acceptance of the truth of that particular intelligence that is sought to be spread among them. Propaganda can be true or false in its origin or intent; but it is always directed at the public for the purpose of winning the support of that public to the sentiment expressed in the propaganda. If you hate a man, giving him a bad name well may explain one of the purposes of propaganda without truth behind it. Nearly all organized efforts have a system of propaganda to convert people to their principles and get them to support them even though there may be no merit behind it all. Propaganda is all around you; to make you buy a special brand of cigarettes, although no good, but advertised to be the best; to make you drink or use a certain brand of tea; telling you of its wonderful qualities and its everlasting benefits when there is absolutely nothing to it, and so on. Before the war of 1914-1918, the Germans were known to be the most cultured and scientific people in Europe.

 When the war started, the other nations in order to discredit the Germans and to hold them up to world ridicule and the contempt of civilization, released the propaganda that classified the Germans as Huns and barbarians. This also reveals how organized intention can be carried to the public for public acceptance without thought. The press, cinema, pulpit, schoolroom are all propaganda agencies for one thing or the other. The pulpit carries religious propaganda, the schoolroom carries educational propaganda, the press carries out written propaganda, the platform carries on oral propaganda, the cinema carries out demonstrative propaganda. These methods have been devised by the white man to spread his ideas universally among men. That is why he is able, in a major sense, to control the minds of the people of the world.

The white man is a great propagandist. He fully and completely realizes the value of propaganda. Therefore, you must organize your propaganda to undo the propaganda of other people; if their propaganda affects your interest. The bible is religious propaganda; the school book is literary propaganda. The novels and books you read are also literary propaganda, all calculated to bring about certain results beneficial to the propagandist. Never forget then that you are surrounded by a world of propaganda, all dressed up or cooped up to suit a doubtful public that is not careful about what it digests from without. The artist is also a propagandist. He paints pictures to convey the idea he wants to impress upon the non-thinking and doubtful public. The sculptor is also a propagandist. He chisels figures and portrays them to suit the aim or purpose he wants to achieve.

The pictures of the Madonna and Christ and of the angels are painted portraying a white race, so as to inflict upon the rest of the world the belief that God, the angels and the Holy Family are all white, as well as Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were black. They also paint the devil and the imps of hell black to impress upon the world the belief that all that is black is evil and all that is white is good and holy. Tear from your walls, all pictures that glorify other races. Tear up and burn every bit of propaganda that does not carry your idea of things. Treat them as trash.

When you go to the cinema and you see the glorification of others in the pictures don’t accept it; don’t believe it to be true. Instead, visualize yourself achieving whatever is presented, and if possible, organize your propaganda to that effect. You should always match propaganda with propaganda. Have your own newspapers, your own artists, your own sculptors, your own pulpits, your own platforms, print your own books and show your own motion pictures and sculpture your own subjects. Never accept as yours subjects of another race; but glorify all the good in your selves. Keep your home free and clear of alien objects of glorification of other races, otherwise your children will grow up to adore and glorify other people. Put in the place of others the heroes and noble characters of your own race.

Never allow your children to play with or to have white dolls. It will give them the idea of having white children themselves. Give them the dolls of their own race to play with and they will grow up with the idea of race love and race purity. Watch the newspapers, magazines and journals daily for propaganda against your race or your institutions; particularly against the U.N.I.A. Rush into print immediately a defense of your race institutions and organizations from any attack. Never allow an insult propagated to go unanswered by you. Be ever vigilant to down any thing by way of propaganda that dishonors or discredits you. Don’t help the other fellow to carry on propaganda against yourself or your race. All propaganda comes from the arranged desire of individuals and not from a race as a whole. It is the thinkers and leaders who originate propaganda. By insisting on its wide distribution they get other people to think as they like.

Don’t accept the thoughts of others through propaganda, unless it coincides with yours. Don’t follow the band down the street because it plays sweet music to the propaganda of the circus manager. He may lead you into the circus tent and take away your pocketbook; that is to say, don’t get on anybody’s band wagon, because he may drive you to hell with his sweet music. Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, who played his sweet pipe and led the rats out of the city and into the sea and drowned them. Propaganda organized by somebody else is always calculated to take advantage of you. Don’t help them do so. Always ask, what is this about? What is the object of this? Who has sent this out? What is he aiming at? Will it hurt me and my race? Is he trying to get an advantage over me? Is it honest? Is it true? If you ask these questions of all propaganda that comes up, before you swallow it, you will be able to take care of yourself.

Don’t sing the songs and repeat the praises that glorify other races. Sing your own songs and recite your own praises that glorify your own race. For instance, it is foolish for Negroes to sing or say “Britons never shall be slaves” when they themselves have been slaves and are likely to be slaves if they don’t impress upon their minds that they as Negroes will never be slaves again. Sing, therefore, “Negroes never shall be slaves.” Be careful how you sing religious hymns that have been written, dished up and made popular by white writers to glorify the white race in the name of God; taking advantage of the silence of God to impress inferiority upon your race such as “the great white wings of angels,” “the great white throne of God,” “wash me white as snow.” All these are damnably vicious forms of propaganda against the Black race. “Though my sins be as scarlet, they shall be whiter than snow.” “Wash me in the blood and I shall be whiter than snow.” All these things reflect the propaganda designed by the white man to glorify his skin and his race as against the black imps of hell and the black devil and the black pale of doom.

The idea of the white man making black a symbol of mourning and sadness is just to show the extreme of the purity of whiteness and it’s joy and happiness. Reverse this. If possible teach the Negro that when he is in mourning he should wear white, and when he is happy to wear black. This is meeting propaganda with propaganda, the hatchet with the hatchet, the stick with the stick and the stone with the stone. Everything on earth is man’s creation. So out of man’s propaganda and mind he has created his special systems of opinion to meet his designs. Therefore, customs are based upon acceptance of propaganda skillfully engineered. Have your own propaganda and hand it down through the ages. Write your own poetry and recite it. Compose your own songs and sing them. Write your own interpretation of the scriptures and history and teach them as far as the interpretation of others affect your race. Challenge the thought of any book of other literature that dishonors or discredits you in any particular way; and give it the widest publicity so as to undo the harm intended. Remember always, that an error not corrected ultimately becomes a fact. Never allow false statements or allegations against your race to become current and pass into history as if they were facts.

                               War

War is the hellish passion of man let loose in opposition to man. It sums up the cruelty of man towards man. It always aims at the stronger taking advantage of the weaker to gain that which could not have been acquired otherwise; because of the failure to use human reason. War comes when men fail to adjust their differences with reasoning. Always be prepared for the exhibition of the vilest passions of men in war. Man has always warred against his fellow man. It started with Cain against Abel and has continued down through the ages; and shall ever be so as long as man remains an unreasonable creature.

 No generation has shown that man intends to become wholly reasonable. Therefore, in time of peace, prepare for war, so as not to be caught unprepared by your enemy who will naturally be the stronger, if he is prepared while you are not prepared in using the implements of warfare. War is not a good thing, but man is also not a good being. You must expect war from his disposition. All things are fair in war to win the advantage over your enemy. When there is war, use all the implements at your disposal to defeat your enemy. Do not discuss terms while you are warring; discuss them after you are victorious. When war comes, all resources of intelligence and wealth, all utilities are placed at the service of those who conduct the war to make them victorious on behalf of those for whom they are warring. Therefore, have in view the obtaining and controlling of all such resources, factors and utilities that may be necessary as ammunitions of war.
There may be righteous wars as well as unrighteous wars; depending entirely upon the civilization that makes the war or defends itself in war. It may be war to put down human abuse in favor of human virtue. The war- makers have always justified war in some way or another. If you become engaged in a war, always have justification for your engagement.

If the war is not yours, get something out of it before you go into it and complete it for the good of others. Never go into war foolishly. Never sacrifice your life with out good results for your cause. War is the best time to take advantage of your transgressor, whoever he may be. Whenever he is engaged in war and he promises you nothing, you will never get anything from him in time of peace. Therefore, during the time of war make your bar gains before you help anybody else in war. If you are suffering from the abuses of others and there should be a threat of war against them from some other source, encourage it because it will be your chance to force a square deal. The more other people war among themselves, the stronger you become if you exercise good judgment.

Divide your enemies so as to gain your advantage. Always keep them divided so as to be able to gain the advantage. Your only hope of escaping the hate and prejudice of other people is to keep them severely occupied with other problems. If they have nothing else to attend to, they will concentrate on you and your problems will be aggravated. While others have gone to war, try to be at peace among yourselves to gather the spoils of war. Never talk war openly to your enemies; but be prepared for war. If you talk it, they will become prepared waiting for you. Keep the other races divided and fighting each other as much as you can so as to take advantage for yourselves. If they have no other problems to occupy their time, they will turn to you and turn on you. Keep them occupied otherwise. The more confused they are worrying over their troubles, the more time you will have to get out of your trouble.
 

                          Living for Something

Life is an important function. It was given for the purpose of expression. The flower expresses itself through the beauty of its bloom. The vine expresses itself through its rambling search in settling its own peculiar nature. The tree expresses itself in its smiling green leaves, shaking branches and sometimes hanging fruit. The lark expresses itself in its laughter and song. The river expresses itself in its gentle meandering unto the sea and man expresses himself according to the idealistic visions of his nature.

There is a scope for each life. Let yours find its scope and fully express itself. Man should have a purpose and that purpose he should always keep in view, with the hope of achieving it in the fullest satisfaction to himself. Be not aimless, drifting and floating with the tide that doesn’t go your way. To find your purpose, you must search yourself and with the knowledge of what is good and what is bad, select your course, steering towards the particular object of your dream or desire. Never enter upon life’s journey without a program. Simpleton as you may be, you can have a program. No ship ever reaches port without a positive destination beforehand; otherwise it will drift on the mighty ocean to be overtaken by the storm or the ill wind that blows. The sensible captain goes to sea with a chart to map out his course so as to reach his harbor of safety. Your program is your chart through life. Everything you do, do it by method. Nothing succeeds continuously or repeatedly by chance.

You may get success in a particular direction by accident, but it was chiefly because that accident was the correct method in achieving that particular thing, and you happened to have struck upon the right method by chance. But trying chances that way a second time may bring you failure, as it generally does. To follow the correct method will give you the same results all the time. Therefore, make your life a methodical one. Rise at a certain hour, work up to a certain hour, retire at a certain hour. Do everything on time so that your entire system becomes methodical.

If you have something to do, and it ought to be done, do it with proper method or system to get the best results. Study it first, then go after doing it. If a thing is worthwhile doing, it is worth while doing well.
How pitiful it is to see a man living without a pro gram, not knowing how he is going to use his todays and tomorrows. If you follow him long enough you will find him going down the ditch of failure because he has been traveling without a program. Observe the other man who has his program, and see him go from one step to the next with success. If you have a program, you know what comes next. If you have none, you have to improvise one and then it is too late to do it properly, and so you fail.

If you want to be 5,000 miles away in December and it costs $500; to avoid being disappointed at the last moment, start in January to think about your trip and make arrangements for it, so that when the time comes you will be perfectly ready. Make this a practice in every thing, don’t wait until the time arrives. Think ahead!
Always try to look beyond the present by calling upon your past experience when you are looking at the future. Analyze it, arrange it to suit your needs, so that when things come upon you, you will be ready. Don’t let things come upon you suddenly. The man who lives in the present, preparing for the future always enjoys a better future than the man who doesn’t visualize it, but who goes right into it unprepared. Seeing the future and pre paring for it is a worthy object.

Always try to look into the future. You make slight mistakes here and there, but if you gauge it properly, with the experience of the past and the conditions of the present, you may strike an even or accurate estimate of what it ought to be, so that when it comes, you will be able to welcome it with some kind of satisfaction.
To live for something doesn’t only mean something for yourself, but something for your kith and kin and something for your race. If a father lives for something, he ought to be able to see his children through that some thing, so that what he does not accomplish for himself might be accomplished for his children. For instance, an industrious father lives with the hope of improving his social and economic condition.

He would like to live in a beautiful mansion on the hill, from which he can see the country places around; the valleys, dales and the lofty mountains. But he is working in the valley, living in a small cottage. He is growing older without his dreams realized, but he looks to his son and says, “if I cannot enjoy this desire of mine, because I may be too old, when the time comes, I shall make it possible for my son or grandson to live on that hilltop. That is living in the future! That is living for something. When the old man dies, the son inherits and when the son dies, the grandson inherits. Inherits what? That which the grandfather lived for.

This should be the policy of every Negro; to live for something to hand down to a son, or a grandson so that they may have life a little easier than their fathers before them. This is the way successful and great families have come into the world and great races too. No Negro should be objectless or purposeless in life. Always have a purpose. To waste time in non-essentials is to be purposeless. Playing bone dice is purposeless. There is nothing achieved in the time wasted in doing it. No great fortune is guaranteed. No great art is accomplished. No structure is built because it is a game of chance. Playing pool is waste, because like playing the dice, it is a game of chance. Sitting around and going from place to place without an occupation is waste. Valuable time is going and nothing is being registered by way of achievement. When one settles down upon a given and worthy idea or occupation, such as, an engineer, architect, builder, farmer, poet, or a teacher; he or she is working on something that may become tangible in results. It is from such tangible assets that we build fortunes. Find something tangible to do and use your time in doing it well. It is better that you be dead than having no purpose in life.

 Ella Wheeler Wilcox says:
Have a purpose, and that purpose
keep in view,
For drifting like a heimless vessel,
Thou can’st ne’er to self be true.

The ship without a helm must founder on the rock. Why be such a ship? Why not sail through life like the barque whose helm is perfect? Be a captain with chart in hand seeing his port as he sails steadily on. See your port, visualize it and as the time comes, anchor in it.

             The Dignity and Pride of Race

God made man as a complete and finished being, There are no flaws in him but his sin. The race of man, therefore, must be perfect in its physical origin. Hence, there is nothing to be ashamed of as far as species is concerned. The Blackman’s origin is as true as the sun. He need not therefore apologize for his existence. His place in the world is fixed as a star and as such it is incumbent upon him to maintain the dignity and pride of his own manhood.

There is nothing unusual about the Negro other than he is himself as man He is beautiful in himself and why not so? The Anglo-Saxon sees beauty through him self, the Teuton sees beauty through himself. The Mongol sees beauty through himself and so naturally and logically the Negro ought to see beauty through himself. When the Negro attempts to see beauty through the aquiline features of an Anglo-Saxon, then he images the homeliness and ugliness of his own features because his features are different from those of the Anglo-Saxon.

Beauty must be reflected out of your own eyes. A Negro must be beautiful to a Negro, as an Anglo-Saxon is to an Anglo-Saxon. The highest standard of beauty there fore for a Negro, is the Negro. Never allow any race to say that your race is not beautiful. If there is ugliness in a race, it is in the other race, not in yours, because the other race looks different to you. To the Anglo-Saxon the Mongol is ugly; to the Mongol, the Anglo-Saxon is ugly. Compare the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro; it is the Anglo- Saxon who is ugly, not the Negro. The long sharp nose of the European cannot be considered beautiful against a strong healthy, air-free nasal passage of the Black man who is free from those nasal defects that make health difficult. The thin lips of the European could not be beautiful compared with the strong, healthy and developed lips of the African.

These are the ways self- respecting people see themselves. The round healthy face of the African is much more beautiful than the straight, sickly looking face of the European. Then why surrender all that is good in you and discount it for that which doesn’t reach a standard comparable to yours and others.
Always think yourself a perfect being, and be satisfied with yourself unless you are a jelly fish. Never allow anyone to convince you of your inferiority as a man. Rise in your dignity to justify all that is noble in your man hood as a race.


May race is mine and I belong to it,
It climbs with me and I shall climb
with it,
My pride is mine and I shall surely
 honor it,
It is the height on which I daily sit.

                       The Social Confusion

Man at his best in his society is always quarreling. He is never satisfied. Don’t believe that you will find in your lifetime the solution for all his problems and ills. Attend only to those that concern you and your group. If you can solve your own group’s problems in your community, you have done well. Let others solve theirs. The time you waste running around with others and helping them in their problems, you are robbing your group of that much time to help them solve their problems.

Whether a man is sober or drunk, he is a disagreeable beast. You will find it so in every community. So search for your man and tame the beast. He is never of the same mood all the time. At one time you think you can like him, at another time you think you could kill him. Tame him towards the end of your own social satisfaction, for dabbling in the confusion of others will only make you more confused and your divided energy will only tend to defeat the special purpose which you should have in solving the problems of your race.

Never forget that all other groups in the society of your community are looking after their own individual group interests; and your interests except from the community point of view, is never theirs. Therefore, their interests should never be yours, as far as the particular group interests are concerned. Don’t be disappointed if other people shock you by their behavior; because man is made that way. He acts that way chiefly because he is racially different. The whiteman may compliment you today and abuse you tomorrow, simply because of your race. Don’t trust the whole community then, if it is mad up of different groups, because it is apt to disappoint you by being selfish at any moment as far as the division of particular interests concerned.

Always pick out your interest in the community and conserve it because others are doing the same. It is only when you tread on the heels of others by accident that you find out that there are differences between you and others. Your mistake doesn’t prove a fact, the fact was there before your mistake. It is always a fact that each group has its own individual and collective racial problems.

The whiteman can never be a Negro, and the Negro can never be a whiteman; except after eternity, and you do not live that long. You may be the same in soul, but you cannot see a soul, so the similarity is beyond you. What you see is yourself, physically, and there is no doubt that there are physical differences between you and the other man. So, watch your step in the social confusion of life.

Always remember that another person is not you, for that other person knows too well that you are different from him. He is always on guard to divide the line of interests. This applies everywhere all around; in your home, office, workshop, in the street and in the community. Your wife will grab the article and say, “this is mine,” and refuse to give it up, although you thought you were one and what was yours was hers and hers yours. She always has a time to claim her own either in peace or confusion. So always have your own in the social confusion of life, because even you and your partner may have to run in different directions to save your skins. If a person is gone with what is yours in another direction, you may lose your life following what you should have been carrying with you. Never forget this. It is of great importance to you for your own safety.

You should always have your own fare to pay the conductor. You may have to walk while the other person rides, because you can never tell where confusion will spring up. It may be in the street near the neighborhood. It may be 100 miles from town, and it will be a long walk if the car moves off because of the confusion between you and the driver. Always expect confusion in the dividing line in the social contact of life.

       The way to defeat a ruling class is to become one-a-power bloc that eliminates the elite's advantages and serves the interests of the people. The focus must be on organization.  Tony Brown

                                                        


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