He would go about showing
white men and black men the simple truth, the spiritual necessity for
justice and fairness. It was not a question of social equality; it was a
question of clearing a road for the development of Southern life. He
would show white men that to weaken, to debase, to dehumanize the negro,
inflicted a more terrible wound on the South than would any strength the
black man might develop. He would show black men that to hate the
whites, constantly to suspect, constantly to pilfer from them, only
riveted heavier shackles on their limbs.
It was all so clear and so simple! The white South must humanize the
black not for the sake of the negro, but for the sake of itself. No one
could resist logic so fundamental.
Peter's heart sang with the solemn joy of a man who had found his work.
All through his youth he had felt blind yearnings and gropings for he
knew not what. It had driven him with endless travail out of Niggertown,
through school and college, and back to Niggertown,--this untiring Hound
of Heaven. But at last he had reached his work.
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