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50 The StageThatWe Have Reached All labor leaders, liberals, and radicals always say that the solution to the Negro question is with the class question. In theory that is true. But I think that if you look at the history of the United States from the very beginning, the formation of this country was on a class basis. The people who came over from Europe, the settlers who were getting away from Eurpope, were what we would call today class-conscious people. But the one thing that makes the Negro question such a dual thing, as I have pointed out before in this column, is this: Even though the Negroes are working-class people, they are at the bottom of the class as human beings. Today even though we have had the historical struggles of the CIO, which is the closest thing to a total class struggle that we have had in the United States, you find more and more that the independent struggle of the Negroes goes far beyond the CIO. Pressure on the CIO The advancement of the Negroes at this point is far beyond what the CIO itself wishes to cope with. So much so that the CIO at this point has taken just a liberal viewpoint, no more advanced than other classes in society and similar to the liberals back in Reconstruction times who wanted to protect the Union in order to save the country rather than to give everybody human rights. That is the condition which the CIO is in today, while Negroes, even within a working-class organization, are constantly pressuring them to go beyond where they want to go. Every move the CIO makes at this point is being challenged and questioned by Negroes because Negroes do not expect to find in the CIO what they found in other organizations. At first they saw in the CIO an amalgamation of races. But at this point they begin to question how much the CIO has been using them. What appeared in 1937–39 to be a total social reorganization now seems to them just a way to gain economic means. And the reason the Negroes see this so clearly is that the Negro question goes far beyond just gaining economic means. An Independent Role The Negro question means recognizing everybody as a human being. That cannot be bought with nickels and dimes and quarters. More and more the tendency now is that the Negro struggle will take on an independent role, accepting those who give unquestioned concrete support rather than those who talk but still operate on the “big But” and “step by step.” Ward.indb 50 12/21/10 9:27 AM The Stage That We Have Reached 51 Like on the Supreme Court decision,* anybody now who does not demonstrate that he is wholeheartedly in favor is automatically classed as an enemy of the Negroes. It used to be a common characteristic of Negroes to say, “I heard a white man say this or that,” as if the white man had authority on a particular subject. But that no longer prevails. The Negro today is saying, “I think so and so.” This in itself means that the Negro question in the United States is reaching a very new stage, a stage where it is put up or shut up. All the ifs, ands, buts, and hesitations will have to be reckoned with. The initiative has been taken by the Negroes themselves . No amount of intimidation, Klan organization, or reactionary elements will be able to stem the tide. In the minds and hearts of all Negroes is the idea that the solution to the Negro question lies fundamentally with them and that the answers and solutions can only come from their demonstration. Not Asking I wouldn’t ask a white person anymore what he thinks is the answer to the Negro question . Few Negroes are asking. They are telling white people now. The only Negroes who consult with whites about what should be done are those who are scared of the masses of the Negroes themselves and what they will do. And in their concern with whites, these Negroes are doing it because of the pressure of Negroes rather than from the pressure of whites. The whites have lost the initiative. Negroes figure they have had it long enough. From now on Negroes are going to be aggressive, demonstrative, demanding. American society is today in the position where it can run but it...

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