They soon lose
ambition to do anything else than to continue as a coal-miner.
In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture
in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with
absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I
used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of
his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason
of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that
I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom
and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I
once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much
by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which
he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this
standpoint, I almost reached the conclusion that often the Negro boy's
birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as
real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must
work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth
in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual
struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a
confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by
reason of birth and race.
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