"The future of American Negroes is in the South... . First and greatest of these possible allies are the white working classes about you. The poor whites whom you have been taught to despise and who in turn have learned to fear and hate you. This must not deter you from efforts to make them understand, because in the past, in their ignorance and suffering, they have been led foolishly to look upon you as the cause of most of their distress. You must remember that this attitude is hereditary and that it has been deliberately cultivated ever since emancipation. Slowly but surely the working people of the South, white and black, must come to remember that their emancipation depends upon their mutual cooperation; upon their acquaintanceship with each other; upon their friendship; upon their social intermingling. Unless this happens, each is going to be made the football to break the heads and hearts of the other."
Civil Rights