Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/280

 I have been called a "radical," perhaps I am, but for years I have felt constrained to deplore the negligence of the colored race in America, in not seizing the opportunity for monopolizing more of the many million acres of rich farm lands in the great northwest, where immigrants from the old world own many of acres of rich farm lands; while the millions of blacks, only a few hundred miles away, are as oblivious to it all as the heathen of Africa are to civilization.

In Iowa, for instance, where the number of farms total around two hundred and ten thousand, and include the richest land in the world, only thirty-seven are owned and operated by negroes, while South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota have many less. I would quote these facts to my father-in-law until I was darker in the face than I naturally am. He could offer no counter argument to them, but continued to vituperate the sins of the white people. He was a member in good standing of the reactionary faction of the negro race, the larger part of which are African M. E. ministers.

Since Booker T. Washington came into prominence they have held back and done what they could to impede and criticize his work, and cast little stones in his path of progress, while most of the younger members of the ministry are heart and soul in accord with him and are helping all they can. The older members are almost to a unit, with some exceptions, of course, against him and his industrial educational ideas.

A few years ago a professor in a colored university