James Thompson, a twenty-six-year-old cafeteria worker, eloquently articulated the Negro dilemma in a letter he wrote to the Pittsburgh Courier: “Being an American of dark complexion,” wrote Thompson, “these questions flash through my mind: ‘Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?’ … ‘Is the kind of America I know worth defending?’ … ‘Will colored Americans suffer still the indignities that have been heaped upon them in the past?’ These and other questions need answering; I want to know, and I believe every colored American, who is thinking, wants to know.”
