ABSTRACT
The signal honor of being Provisional President of Africa is mine. It is a political job; it is a political calling for me to redeem Africa. It is like asking Napoleon to take the world. He took a certain portion of the world in his time. He failed and died at St. Helena. But may I not say that the lessons of Napoleon are but stepping stones by which we shall guide ourselves to African liberation? We do not desire the conquest of a world; we desire the conquest of Africa; that land that is ours, the land that no one can dispute as being the heritage of the Negro, and for that land I live; for that land I will bleed; for that land I will die, that you have made me its Provisional President. You have also made me President General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, a social, industrial and commercial organization. This organization seeks no warfare; it seeks not to deprive others of what is theirs; it seeks to build an economic base for the Negro wheresoever he lives. Please give to this organization all the help you possibly can. Help it to become a power of commercial strength so that, as we and our children grow into older manhood, we may be able to find a way by which to live so as to preserve our own existence.
