The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 189, July 1896, U. of Illinois Press

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J U LY · I 8 9 6 have decided to return to Africa, the land of their fathers.'' But those persons who reasoned thus forgot that that same morning down south, before breakfast, at least six hundred more negro children were born. And so the problem will not be disposed of in that way. I was on a train in the west a few days ago, and sat by the side of a gentleman who was very earnest in his endeavor to convince me that the Negro after all was fast disappearing in this country; that he was fast being swallowed up by the white man; that he was fast becoming bleached out, as it were, and that after a while there would be no such thing as a negro in America. Now, I do not know as you have noticed it, but the moment it is proven that a man has even ~ per cent. of African blood in his veins, he becomes a Negro; he falls to our pile; in the count we claim him every time. The 99 per cent. of Anglo-Saxon blood is not strong enough to overcome the ~ per cent. of African blood; the 99 per cent. counts for nothing and we claim the man. So you see we are a stronger race than you are; we have a greater power of attraction and absorption, and at that rate we will ultimately absorb you. I have a good friend down in Georgia who argues very strongly from the platform, and in the press, that the way to solve the negro problem is to set aside a territory in the West, and put him into it, and let him grow up a race; unto himself. Now, there are two' slight difficulties about that suggestion. In the first place you would have to build a wall about that territory to keep the black men in; in the second place you would have to build a much higher wall to keep the white man out. In fact, if you were to build ten walls about South Africa, you could not keep the white man out of there if he heard there was any gold in it. No, my friends, none of these suggestions will do. There is but one way to solve the Negro problem, as there is but one way to solve al] problems. Treat the negro as a Christian gentleman, no more, no less. If you educate his head and hand and heart, he will tale care of himself. But there are reasons why we have some rights here. We are the only people, when you come to think of it, we are the only citizens of this country who ever came here by a special invitation and by a special provision. Your race came to this country against the protests of the leading citizens at that time. Having been so important to the prosperity of this country that we had to be sent for at great inconvenience and expense on the part of yourselves, do you think we are so foolish as to leave now? No, we have a mission here and part of that mission 189