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I wish to add here that, in later years, 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 reach the conclusion that often the negro boy’s birth and connection with an unpopular race are an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the negro youth must work harder and 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.

From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than to be able to claim membership with the most favored of any other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of my race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments.