Chapter II: Part 2

(1). I want to remind them of the fact that we came here originally through no volition of our own. We were brought here against our will, and brought here for purely selfish purposes, to serve their interest. We are not responsible for being here—the responsibility is with the white race. That fact ought to be remembered by them. If our presence in this country is undesirable, as is frequently alleged, it is not for the white man to set that up as an excuse or justification for ill-treating us. If it had not been for their selfishness we would not be here. If our presence here is an evil, they are not the ones to complain, they at least, ought to be willing quietly to accept it as it is an evil of their own making. This is one of the things that has always seemed to me to render the treatment of the Negro by the white man particularly contemptible. After forcing him away from his home against his will; and after getting out of him all that he could without compensation, when that is no longer possible, then to turn upon him and tell him to get out, that he is no longer wanted, is conduct of which even savages ought to be ashamed. Whenever you are tempted to ill-treat the colored man, to deny him a man's chance in the race of life, remember that you brought him here, and that the least that you can do, the least that you owe him, is to treat him decently, humanely.

(2). I want to say, that for two hundred and fifty years you had our unrequited toil; we tilled your soil, we gathered your crops, we cut down your forests, we built your houses, made your clothes, worked for you in manifold ways. We worked for you in the days of slavery, and you seemed satisfied with our labor; why do you withhold your work from us now? Why do you now shut us out of employment? We are just as able, and just as willing to work now as then. Work is what we need; work is what we must have if we are to support ourselves in decency, if we are to live honestly and honorably. You are bound by every consideration of justice, of fair play, to make a place for us, to give us the same chance that is given to others to support themselves and their families. For two hundred and fifty years we worked for you, as your slaves; are you unwilling to help us now that we are free and are working for ourselves? You, who brought us here; you, who are responsible for our presence here, ought to want to encourage us to be industrious, to be self-respecting.

(3). I want to remind you of the fact that we are now free; that we are American citizens; that under the laws we are entitled to the same rights and privileges as yourselves. Slavery no longer exists in this country—all are now free men. What is freedom to mean to us? Why were we made free? Why were the fetters stricken from our limbs? Why were we made citizens? Why have schools been provided for our intellectual development? Why emancipation at all, if we are not to have the same chance as other freemen? What is the value of freedom if it doesn't carry with it the guarantee of protection in the enjoyment of all rights that are common to all citizens? Is freedom to mean one thing to the white man, and another thing to the colored man? Freedom and citizenship cannot mean one thing to a white man and another to a black man in a republic without creating needless and endless trouble; and without in the end destroying the spirit that is essential to the perpetuity of republican or democratic institutions. Is it wise? Is it consistent? Is it the part of true patriotism to continue longer to make invidious distinctions between citizens who must forever live side by side, and upon the mutual co-operation and sympathy of whom, the welfare and happiness of the whole will depend? Is it wise to encourage, to help fan the flame of race prejudice from which no good can possibly come, but only evil, and evil more and more as it is encouraged? Isn't it a great deal better to use a little common sense, now that we are here, now that we are here to stay, now that we are free, now that we are citizens, to recognize us as such, and to accord to us the same treatment as is accorded to others? One thing you may be assured of, we will never be satisfied with anything less. Unless these rights be conceded; unless we be treated as we have a right to expect you to treat us, this friction, which is doing so much to demoralize the whole country, will continue. Is it not better for the thoughtful, sane, sober, right-thinking men and women among you to call a halt to those, who, keeping the humiliation of the Negro before them as their chief aim, are willing to sacrifice everything else to it? The humiliation of the Negro; the hedging of him about with degrading restrictions; the forcing him down into a position of subordination, of inferiority, even if you should succeed in doing it, after all, is it worth the price that must be paid; that you are paying? The policy of giving the Negro a man's chance in the Republic; of treating him with the same consideration as others are treated, has vastly more good in it for the Republic than the measure of repression, of enforced subordination, of invidious distinctions upon which you are now insisting. Such a policy will make the Negro forget that he is a Negro, and will lead him to think of himself simply as an American citizen; will stimulate his patriotism; will render it no longer necessary for him to be particularly concerned about race interests, but will leave him free to be concerned about those interests which are common to all the people. Such a policy will also set free for higher and nobler uses all the ability, the energy, the resources that are now being expended in efforts to keep the Negro down and which will be of incalculable benefit to the Nation. Think of how much time, how much thought, how much energy are used up in this needless race friction, and how much the Nation is losing by this misuse of valuable time, thought, energy! If you, who are fighting the Negro,—you who are determined to reduce him to a pariah class, would only turn your thought and energy towards upbuilding the Republic—materially, intellectually, morally, spiritually,—towards fighting those evils that are really endangering the Republic,—greed, corruption, impurity, lawlessness, intemperance, how much more valuable your services would be. There never was a time when the Republic needed your services more than if does to-day, in harmonizing the elements of its population, in encouraging a spirit of fraternity, of brotherhood. It is not the function of a patriot, of a lover of his country to array class against class, race against race; that is the role of the demagogue, the low panderer to passion and prejudice for selfish ends. This race friction ought to cease; and it will cease if you will do the right thing; if you will listen to reason and common sense. It is not the Negro that is keeping up the friction, but the white man.

(4). I want to say to those who are friendly to us; who believe that we have rights under the constitution, and that those rights ought to be recognized:

(1). We are profoundly thankful to you for your sympathy, for your good-will, and for all that you have done to cheer and encourage us. Some of you have taught in our schools, have worked among us as missionaries, have contributed of your means to aid us in our education, in our development; for all of which we are grateful.

(2). We wish very much that you would be a little more outspoken in your sympathy. We have, it may be, many silent friends among you. It is better, of course, in some respects to have a silent friend than to have no friend at all. Such friends constitute a reserve force which may serve us well at some future time, in an emergency which may arise unexpectedly. The friendship, however, that counts for most, that is of most value, is the friendship that is known, that openly, publicly expresses itself. The importance of thus openly showing your sympathy, your friendship is to be seen in that in this way public sentiment is made and influenced. The people who speak out, or, who act out their sentiment are the ones who count in shaping, in moulding public sentiment. Our enemies are never silent. The opposition, the hostility which they feel is never concealed, it always comes to the surface, always expresses itself. And this is one reason why they have influence, why they are so potential. Take the segregation idea which has been projecting itself upon the attention of the country. When the agitation was started, e. g., in the city of Washington, there were many meetings held in various parts of the city among the whites; but they were all in the interest of segregation, they were gotten up and managed by those who wanted to force this humiliation upon the colored people. I cannot believe that the purpose of these meetings met the approval of all the white people of the capital; I know that it did not of some of them. And yet no meeting was held; no public expression was given to indicate that such was the case, that there was any dissenting opinion among the whites. Not one white church; not one ministerial association; not one Christian Endeavor society, nor any other organization among the whites, including the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, gave expression to any dissenting opinion. So far as any public expression was concerned, it looked as if the entire white population approved of the movement to segregate the colored people in street cars and otherwise. What we are asking of you, our white friends, is to show your colors, is to be just as pronounced in your sympathy for us as our enemies are pronounced in their opposition to us. If you will do this; if you will let the people about you know where you stand, it will greatly help matters. Lowell, in his sonnet on Wendell Phillips, says,

"He saw God stand upon the weaker side,—
And humbly joined him to the weaker part."

And it is necessary that this be done—that the weaker part be joined, and joined openly as he did, if it is to be strengthened. There is a good deal in numbers. Somehow people have a great deal more respect, are inclined to be very much more considerate of a cause that has many adherents, or whose adherents are increasing in numbers. Where we are silent we are never counted. Elijah is sometimes criticised for his so-called pessimistic statement when he was running from Jezebel—"The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only am left." In this he was mistaken. It seems there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. But, as some one said, no one knew it, and therefore they counted for nothing. Now we don't want our friends among the whites who want us to get our rights, who think that we ought to be treated fairly, justly, to count for nothing; we don't want them to be so silently sympathetic that no one will know of it. We want them to be outspoken; to be openly for us, and thus help to mould public sentiment in our favor. It would have helped greatly if, during this segregation agitation there had been some meetings held among the whites giving expression to a different sentiment. Even a simple protest from a single individual helps. A letter like the one published not long ago by the Hon. A. E. Pillsbury of Boston, Massachusetts, declining to pay his annual dues to the treasurer of the National Bar Association, and giving as his reason his positive and emphatic dissent from the action of the Association in discriminating against colored men, is bound to have its effect in educating public sentiment, in helping to break down invidious distinctions. Carl Schurz, in his Life of Henry Clay, in speaking of the Abolitionists, says, "The immediate effect of their work has frequently been much underrated. They served to keep alive in the Northern mind that secret trouble of conscience about slavery which later, in a ripe political situation, was to break out as a great force." And so here, the protest of our white friends in the struggle we are making now will serve to keep alive in others the sense of right, which will ultimately become a great force before which the wrongs from which we are now suffering will be righted. Silent sympathy is better than no sympathy; but the sympathy that expresses itself in word and act is greatly to be preferred. If you think we are not treated right; if you think that invidious distinctions based upon color, upon race ought not to exist, say so; and say it so loud that all about you will hear it. This is the request that we make of you, as we enter upon another half century of freedom.

And now just a word more. The struggle before us is a long and hard one; but with faith in God, and faith in ourselves, and indomitable perseverance, and the purpose to do right, in spite of the forces that are arrayed against us, we need have no fears as to the ultimate result. Success is sure to crown our efforts. We are not always going to be behind; we are not always going to be discriminated against; we are not always going to be denied our rights. For as Sojourner Truth said, "God is not dead." And some day, in his own good time, the right will triumph. As the poet has expressed it,

"Right is right since God is God,
And Right the day will win."

What is needed is a New EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION—a proclamation that will set the white man free from the degrading influence of race prejudice—a proclamation that will register a decree or purpose on the part of the white race to free itself not only from the narrowing lust of gold, but from the still more narrowing lust of race hatred and proscription. O, for another and greater Lincoln to speak the word of power,—another and greater Lincoln to set the thought and heart of white America going in a new and better way—the way of righteousness—the way of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. In the inspired record we read: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea." Surely if this be true; if this is a prophecy of what is to be, there is reason and good reason to believe that the savage element in the white man's nature, which corresponds to the nature of these ferocious animals, and which leads him to devise and execute his various schemes of disfranchisement, of segregation, of restricted opportunities, in order to annoy and degrade us, will yet undergo a change. If the wolf and lamb can dwell together, and the lamb be perfectly safe, surely the white man in this country is not so absolutely beyond being amenable to reason and common sense and decency as to make it impossible, some time in the future, for him and his brother in black to dwell together, and the brother in black feel no uneasiness, no fear of being molested, or of having his rights infringed upon by him. The white man, when it comes to the Negro, is pretty bad, I know, but I cannot believe that he is so hopelessly bad as to render it impossible for the colored man to dwell with him and be treated by him as a man and brother. It may ultimately turn out to be true; but I am not yet willing to believe it. It cannot be that this white race, which prides itself upon its superiority to all other races, under this highest test of superiority—the ability to accord to every man his right and to treat every man as a brother of whatever race or nationality, is going to be found so sadly deficient. It is a great race. It has done many wonderful things. All the greater is the reason, therefore, why it should not permit itself to be controlled by such an ignoble spirit. It has done, too, many wonderful things to have its greatness marred by settling down permanently on the low level of race prejudice. No; I cannot believe that the white man is so hopelessly bad, so absolutely possessed by this demon of race hatred that there is no honorable future in this country for the colored man. The Tillmans, Vardamans, Hoke Smiths are not always going to be the leaders of even Southern public sentiment. A better day is coming, with truer, saner, wiser leaders. Dr. Josiah Strong, in his last volume, "Our World," in the chapter on "The New Race Problem," after some remarks on the improbability and the undesirability of blending all races into one says,—"If we recognize any plan in creation, we must accept a differentiation of the human family as an expression of the divine purpose, infinitely wise and benevolent. And it behooves us as colaborers together with God to find that purpose, if possible, that we may work with him and not against him."

"This conclusion affords not the slightest excuse for race antipathy. The experience of mankind has convinced all peoples that close consanguinity must be a bar to marriage; and scientific observation seems likely to show that the mixture of races most widely divergent is perhaps hardly less a violation of nature. But there is in this fact no reason why there should not be as genuine respect and esteem and fellowship between the races as between brother and sister; no reason why the spirit of brotherhood which obtains in the home should not extend to the family of nations and races." And Hamilton W. Mabie, in his article in the Outlook for August 2nd on "Americans and the Far East," says: "Race differences must be clearly and frankly recognized; economical differences must be candidly faced; but race hatred must be driven beyond the pale of civilization; it is a survival of barbarism and it must go back where it belongs."

This great white race will some day, I believe, in its sober second thought, recognize the truth of these words; and will augment its greatness by emancipating itself from this detestable spirit of race hatred. It cannot be that this great white race is always going to be content to prostrate itself before this mean and degrading spirit. It owes it to itself, as well as to this black race and to all the other races to free itself from so debasing an influence. If it is to maintain its leadership in the world, under the ever-growing influence of Christianity, which knows neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian, Scythian bond, nor free, it cannot hope to do so with race prejudice inscribed on its banner. It must change, or else it will be relegated to the rear. RIGHTEOUSNESS AND BROTHERHOOD are the great forces that are to dominate the future. The white man may be strong enough to fight the black man in this country, but he is not strong enough to fight God Almighty and his eternal and inexorable laws of RIGHTEOUSNESS and BROTHERHOOD. These laws will ultimately remake him, or break him and cast him "as rubbish to the void." Which shall it be? Let this great white race take warning.

"Short is the triumph of evil.
Long is the reign of right.
The men who win by the aid of sin,
The nation that rules by might,
The party that lives by corruption,
The trickster, the knave, the thief,
May thrive for a time on the fruits of crime,
But their seeming success is brief.

Know that the truth shall triumph,
That evil shall find its doom;
That the cause of right, tho' subdued by might,
Shall break from the strongest tomb,
That wrong, tho' it seems to triumph,
Lasts only for a day,
While the cause of truth has eternal youth,
And shall rule o'er the world for aye."

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Some spelling mistakes have been corrected.

Italicized words and phrases are presented by surrounding the text with underscores.

End of Project Gutenberg's Fifty Years of Freedom, by Francis J. Grimke