Page:The North Carolina Historical Review - Volume 1, Number 1.pdf/36

34 voted their time and thought to the War Savings cause. The voice of community builders and patriots was heard above the din of politicians and race agitators. The white people of the State have learned who the real, dependable leaders among the Negroes are and have a new appreciation of their worth. The colored people, themselves, on the other hand, now know better than ever the constructive leaders of the white race. Controversial matters—politics and social life— were absent from their thought. A great common cause of their country's safety and humanity's welfare was uppermost in the thoughts of speaker and audiences. The colored people of the State saw the white people at their best and the white people say the colored people at their best. The colors War Savings workers of North Carolina constitute the nucleus of a non-political organization of Negroes with whom the white people of the State may safely deal in grappling with any race problems that may arise in the near future.

The War Savings Campaign made our people more self-confident and self-reliant. It showed them how to become economically independent citizens. More than that, it astounded them to realize their own ability. It had taken them over two hundred years to accumulate savings of $24 per capita. Who ever would have dared say that they could increase their per capita savings by nearly fifty per cent in one year's time? Yet that is just what they have done. Knowing North Carolina as it is—five hundred miles in length, sparsely settled in many sections, with three counties without a railroad and two without a bank, with one-third of its population colored and with colored people constituting two-thirds of the population in some sections—who every would have dared say that in one year's time one person in three—white and black, man, woman, and child—would become an investor in Government bonds to the extent of $11 per capital, not to mention the investment in Liberty Bonds. Yet that very thing has been accomplished. Our people had a new confidence in and reliance upon themselves, and hereafter a problem—even an imposing one—will be accepted as a challenge rather than as an occasion for despair.