Black America 1968 The Great Unknown

This epilogue is taken from Dr C. Eric Lincoln’s 1967 book, “The Negro Pilgrimage in America”. Yet again, the author attempts to summarize events and assess current circumstances with a view to the future.

Now we stand at the opening of a new era in American history. Perhaps we are ready to face with realism and fortitude the greatest changes to come. The issue is "Freedom Now," for all men without compromise. If we cannot solve the grave problems that face our nation, if we cannot give the Negro and other minorities their rightful and equal access to the values of a true society, then this country as we want it cannot survive. Slavery and a hundred years of pseudo-citizenship have left their scars on the American Negro and on his relations with the white majority in America. In spite of a long, harsh century of effort to measure up to the white man's demands, the Negro is still put off when it comes to the real rewards of being an American. He is still last hired and first fired, as his economic conditions will attest. He needs better opportunities for education and training. His cultural experiences, like his creativity, have been severely truncated. He is forced to make a racial appraisal of whatever he encounters. There is a long struggle ahead. To confront it successfully will take dedication and honesty. It will cost much in terms of money and time. The Negro must find complete and full acceptance into the mainstream of American culture and life. If he does not, there will be a lame and tragic future for all Americans. There is reason for hope. Already there are signs that the tide is turning, that America and its leaders are hearkening to the call for freedom at home for all the people, and that the future, while difficult and never completely certain, promises much in the way of honest and significant progress.

The Negro pilgrimage is not over. We have not seen the end of the anguish and bitterness, the hardships and disappointments which have characterized so much of the social history of America. But the end is near. The very fact that there has been such a pilgrimage—a fateful and persistent journey by a highly visible -minority across the historical and social domain of a powerful majority, from slavery to freedom to responsible participation in every phase of the life of the prevailing society—is in itself a monument to the persistence and forbearance of the American people. The anachronistic tribalism which has heretofore separated Americans by race has been discredited. The Negro pilgrimage has brought new strength to America. If America would be great, let her recognize her gain and move on from strength to strength.

Within a year of Lincoln’s epilogue, Dr Martin Luther King, jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. Just when you are confident about circumstance, stability and progress, everything is catapulted into a road unknown.  

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