ALLAN KIRKLAND SOGA

What might be termed without discourtesy the Booker Washington craze which has made the Master of Tuskegee the central figure of an agitation on the ever-recurring Negro question, and the black man's education, appears to be abating in virulence. It would be difficult for a stramger remotely situated from the centre of disturbance to account for the excitement and bitterness manifested in the discussion of the respective merits of Industrial versus Higher Education, and the claims of one precedence over the other, in the minds of the public. . . There was the promise at least that something would result as a consequence of his educational propaganda, and that it would afford a panacea, or a side-door of escape, from the crushing brutality of mod-law which singles out the Negro as its chief sacrifice. But there were others again not so enthusiastic, cautious men, cultured and deliberate thinkers, who thought that too much was claimed for Industrialism, and that much harm might be caused to the Higher Educational Institutions of the country devoted to the education of the black man, if these two factors which are co-relative were divorced in the mind of the public. There was sound reason and sanity in the attitude of Professors Burghart Du Bois and Scarborough of Atlanta of Atlanta and Wilberforce universities in stating this fear, but the crowd are moreeasily moved by impulse than reason, and on the ears of the emotional Negro in the mass, the words of these and other thinkers and race leaders fell comparatively flat for the time being.

- Allan Kirkland Soga,"Call The Black Man To Conference", Izwi Labantu, September 29, 1903.