James Weldon Johnson on Anglo-Saxon Superiority

Abstract Is the Negro dangerous to white culture and to the white race? Is it true that “Anglo-Saxon culture” is threatened by aliens? Is it true that “Anglo-Saxons” are the only group fit for leadership, cultural and political, in America? Yes, seems to be the answer to these questions by the “Anglo-Saxon Clubs” of which Mr. John Powell of Virginia wrote in the World of December 2. To the specific questions raised by Mr. Powell and the “Anglo-Saxon Clubs,” I am glad, in response to the request of the Editor of the World, to make reply, as Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as a Negro and, primarily, as an American. The attitude exemplified by Mr. Powell is a common one. At its extreme it results in the Ku Klux Klan and its alleged protection of Anglo-Saxondom. At its mildest it issues in such a program as the one Mr. Powell outlines, maintaining virtually the same creed as the Klan, minus the violence. This attitude is grounded on assumptions about what makes an American, what is dangerous to an American, what American culture is and who created it.