SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE: "Who Are the Negro's Best Friends?" Who Are the Negro's Best Friends? It is impossible to overestimate the value of a true friend. Not until one attempts to conceive what a dreary, barren waste this world would be without tried and trusted friends, can he realize what a priceless treasure they are. No matter how strong [and] nor how rich in this world's goods an individual may be, there comes a crucial time in his life, when he will sorely need a friend, some one whom he can trust, with whom he can consult about the most important matters which concern him and feel that the advice given and the opinions expressed come from one who is vitally, genuinely interested in his welfare. It is difficult to exaggerate a person too warmly upon the possession of a true friend. On the other hand few spectacles are sadder and more pathetic than that of ahuman being who trusts one implicitly as a friend who is in reality a foe. If tears are ever shed in heaven, nothing would more surely make angels weep that to behold a human being fastening his affections upon one, who, while pretending to reciprocate it was secretly stabbing him in the dark and treating with ridicule and contempt the confidence of the deceived man's soul. While it is true that nobody is so sufficient unto himself alone as to require no friends, it is also true that some are in greater need of friends than others. While is always a great misfortune for any human being, no matter how powerful he may be, to be deceived in a friend, to one whose condition in life is unfortunate the consequences of being deceied and betrayed by a treacherous friend are all the more serious. Not only do individuals feel the need of friend but even great nations eagerly seek the good will of others, so that they may form alliances one with the other based upon the friendly relations for mutual protection and defense. It is unnecessary for me to make an elaborate review of the history of the Negro, from the day the first ship load of slaves was landed at Jamestown to the present time to prove that no group or race of people in this composite nation stands in greater need of friends to day than the descendants 2 of ex-slaves. The majority of this audience, certainly, are sufficiently well acquainted with the atrocities perpetrated upon the American slave for nearly 300 years as well as with the cruel manner in which he has been handicapped and persecuted since his emancipation to justify me in consuming none of your valuable time trying to prove these points. Since the creation of the worl till the present time no people have endured a bondage more galling and more dehumanizing than that suffered by the American slave. No people who have been permitted to sip at the fountain of liberty have every been forced to fight more desperately and continuously to retain their dearly-bought freedom than have the colored people of the United States ever since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. No more deliberate and diabolical efforts practically to re-enslave a weak and struggling people have ever been made by a race superior in numbers, intelligence and power than those exerted by the majority of citizens in one great section of this land. Beset as they are, therefore, behind and before by dangers manifold and great, confronted on all sides by the powerful and rich who are determined to reduce them to as low a plane of civilization as they possibly can, torn and bleeding by dissnsion and strife within their own ranks, there is no doubt whatever that the colored people of this country are sorely in need of friends. Standing upon such slippery ground as that upon which they tread in a large section of this land where their staus as citizens is more uncertain and insecure than that of any other people in the country, with their libery in greater jeopardy than that threatening any other group, the colored man's need of friends, tried and trusted and true is more imperative this minute than that felt by any other race in the United States. It follows as a natural corollary, therefore, that the consequences of having untrustworthy, unsafe and false friends will be more disastrous to the happiness and progress of colored people than [those] to the welfare of any other group in this country. 3 For a short time, therefore, let us consider who are the colored man's best friends, Let us covenant together that the friends whose adoption has been tried shall be grappled to our soul with hoops of steel, while the foes who under the guise of friendship are confusing us and leading us astray shall be summarily banished from our camp. In the first place, the colored man's best friend is he who believes in his ability to be and do what others[ ] become and achieve; who encourages colored people to believe in themselves and is not afraid to express his confidence in the race to the whole wide world. With the professional pessimist, be he white or black I have no patience at all. But if the white pessimist is a dangerous menace to the progress of colored people, the colored man who hangs his harp on a willow tree and drones doleful Jeremiads from day to day is the deadliest foe which his race is forced to face. The sooner this long-faced, prophet of evil is gathered to his fathers, puts on his golden slippers and sails around the heavenly ether with angelic wings, the better it will be for his immediate friends in particular, the race on general principles and the public at large. It is unnecessary and unwise to go to either extreme in discussing what is called the race problem. The optimist who sees nothing but roses and butterflies deals wholly in beautiful, irridescent visions of the future that can never be realized, is anything but a safe guide. He has the best intentions, to be sure and his heart is in the right place, but his head is a bit unsound. If placed between the extreme pessimist and the ultra optimist and obligated to choose between the two evils, I should certainly select the optimist as the less. The man who fills our heart with hope and forces us to believe in ourselves spurs us on to greater effort and thus make it possible for us to accomplish vastly more than he who crushes us with prophecies of failure and despair. But like other things, there are optimists and optimists – the wise and the foolish variety, so to speak. It is quite possible for one to be an optimist, who looks on the bright side of life 4 and sees the blessings which he has without closing his eyes entirely to existing conditions and without ignoring indisputable facts. In other words, one can be an optimist without being an ignoramus. Those who believe one must be an ignoramus in order to be an optimist know as much about the that [ ] meaning of the word optimist as did a certain theatrical manager about whom Sydney Rosenfeld tells. Mr. Rosenfeld says that he was trying to find a manger who would produce his play, "The Optimist." "I don't think much of the title was the first mangers protest. "Do you know what it means?" asked Rosenfeld. "Certainly," was the impatient answer. "An optimist is a man who looks after eyes and a [ ] pessimist is one who attends to the feet." It is also possible to be an optimistic without becoming a candidate for an insane asylum. There are those who call themselves optimists, who are so exhilirated and satisfied with the cheerful manner in which they regard existing conditions as well as the bright prospects for the future that they feel it unnecessary to put forth special efforts to improve affairs and are perfectly content to rest on their oars. Such alleged optimists remind of a certain man about whom I once heard. A certain tourist came upon him while he was sitting stone still on a stup. "Hows times" asked the tourist. "Pretty tolerable stranger", replied the old man. scarcely turning his head. "What you doing here?", asked the stronger. "Oh I aint doing nothing now", replied the old man. "I had some trees to cut down a little while ago, but the cyclone leveled them and saved me the trouble." That was fine" replied the stranger. "Yes it was", continued the old man. But that aint all, I had to move some brush away from my lot/ but the lightning set fire to the brush and saved me the trouble of burning it." Well that was great luck", said the stronger. But what are you doing here now?" "Oh, I am just waiting for an earthquake to come along and shake the potatoes out of the ground." The white man who is always underestimating the ability of his colored brother is undoubtedly a deadly foe, as I have already said, but the 5 colored man who is forever sneering at our capacity, ridiculing our efforts to achieve what others have done, who is always prophesying failure is a tract of the deepest, most diabolical dye. Particularly is his conduct reprehensible, when he tries to inject his pessimism into our youth and inoculate them with their deadly poison of despair. And yet there are teachers of our youth, a surprisingly large number, at that, who do not hesitate to sneer at the capacity of the race and mock their efforts in the presence of young children and youth. When first I ran across such an ugly specimen, I fell exactly as I should have, if I had found a hen with a full set of teeth. But since I have travelled up and down the earth a little more extensively than I had at that time, I have discovered that dusky detractors of their own race are by no means so rare as I formerly thought. The colred man's best friend is not only he who tries to inspire adults with hope, but who makes it a matter of conscience and religion to preach the gospel of hope to our youth in season and out and cite every possible example of individual achievement on the part of the race to prov prove this point. The colored man's best friend will never lose an opportunity of informing our children concerning the marvellous progress rhe race has made along intellectual lines, for instance, during the last thirty or forty years. He will do his level best to burn into the very sould of the youth with whom he comes in contact that the intellectual heights attained by other members of his race may be reached by himself, if he only have the inclination to learn, the will to stick and the patience to mount the ladder of wisdom round by round. Upon the teachers of colored youth, truly a great responsibility rests. In many instances they must be father, mother brother and sister to the children whom they instruct. And colored teacher is not only recreant to her duty but actually assumes a hostile attitude toward her race, if hse does not furnish her children every bit of information redounding 6 to the credit of the race that she can possibly find. And she should consider it her business to find such facts. The crying need of the race is self respect. If a man have no respect for himself, he can hardly expect others to have any for him. Scorned and despised as the colored man is by so large a majority of the more favored race, it is especially necessary that he think well of himself and refuse to accept the [ ] estimate placed upon him by his detractors. Colored children who so frequently hear that their race is innately inferior and has more than its share of vices and defects cannot possibly generate much self respect. For this very reason it is the Christian duty of teachers and parents and everybody else who has the interests of the race at heart to inform our children of our successes. Nothing will more surely increase their respect for the race and in turn increase their own self respect than such information as this. Our youth should be impressed with the fact that if colored people in earlier times accomplished so much and that, too, before members of their race had displayed signal ability along intellectual lines, how much more should they of the present day aspire to scale the loftiest heights of achievement and how much greater their chance of successors than their predecessors who blazed the path? The colored man's best friend never loses an opportunity of discussing with our youth the brilliant success achieved by colored students in the best universities in the land. And what a glorious text this is. For there is scarcely a college or a university of any repute in this country from which colored students have not graduated with honor. The most coveted prizes at Harvard college have been carried off by colored students. And our best friends will teach our children that this desire to improve his mind and become the mental equal of the race which he has always regarded as his superior shows to what a high order of the human family the colored man belongs. 7 It is the duty of those interested in the progress of the race to puncture the falsehoods concerning the alleged intellectual inferiority every time they have a chance. There is no better way of proving the falsity og the charge of the intellectual inferiority of the colored man than by drawing a comparison between the intellectual progress made by the great masses of colored people in the South and that made by the white people of that section. A few years ago the Atlanta Constition, which is one of the largest newspapers in the South expressed itself as follows; "There as many illiterate white men in the South to day over 21 years as there were 52 years ago, when the census of 1850 was taken. Over against this frank admission made a white newspaper in the South are some facts concerning the progress of colored people which are very significant indeed. In less than 40 years the colored man has reduced his illiteracy to 44% There in this country at the present time 2000 colored men who are practicing medicine and as many are engaged in the practice of law. There are 32000 colored teachers in our public schools. Altho it is the bourden duty of the race's best friends to disseminate information which shows the marvell ous progress of the race and inspire old and young with hope, let me hasten to disabuse your minds of the impression that nobody is a friend who tells the race frankly of its faults. Occasionally it is necessary to acknowledge our besetting sins and defects it is the duty of leaders, teachers, preachers and all adults to do this once in a while, so as to remedy existing evils and correct the mistakes we so frequently make. But there is a time and place for everything. There is no reason why any colored person not an avowed enemy should feel called upon to expatiate upon the faults of his race to a white audience, for instance. White people know our faults all too well. Nor will any colored person who really has the interests of his race at heart ridicule it for the delectation and amusement of white people. It is a great temptation for a colored 8 person whi is invited to address a white audience to tell anecdotes which show the foibles of the race, for nothing will more surely call forth roars of laughter than a joke told at the colored man's expense. But it should be the aim of every public speaker and writer to be original as possible and furnish the long-suffering public with something new. For this reason it is a great wonder and I might add it is a great pity they do not feel the necessity of letting the poor colored man rest and crack a few jokes upon somebody else. Nobody enjoys a joke more than I do, even if it is at my own expense, but long ago I made up my mind that if I ever attempted to crack a joke upon the lecture platform, it would be at the white man's expense, just for the sake of giving the audience a change. Nobody knows better than myself that colored people are far from perfect and have some serious faults. But I know also that the defects with which colored people as a whole are charged, are not those which adhere to any one particular race but are peculiar to all races whose condition during a long and cruel bondage and a grudging, handicapped, limited freedom are similar to our own. The great trouble with the colored man is that both white and black critics of the race discuss its faults as tho no race of people from the creation of the world till the pesent time was ever quite so weak and wicked as the colored man, forgetting that it is the condition and not the complexion of the race which determines its conduct. But how often have I heard colored people themselves expatiate and dilate upon the faults of ther race, declare in the most serious and positive manner possible that no other race in the world has ever had such fatal weaknesses and glaring defects. As I go up and down the land, it seems to me that the most unreasonable, cruel and cold-blooded critics of colored people are to be found among colored people themselves. In the presence of children they do not hesitate to parade the faults and foibles of their race and seem to delight in heaping upon it ridicule and scorn 9 Surely such people cannot believe that they have a right to be numbered among the race's best friends. While discussing colored people whose main stock in trade seems to be criticism of their own race, I should like to say a word or two about some of the newspaper editors owned by colored people ostensibly in the interest of their own race. Now it is impossible to overestimate the good which it is possible for race journals to do. In the life and progress of the race they fill a niche which nothing could occupy without great detriment to its interests. It is the custom of some to sneer at race journals, I know, and speak of them contempt. Personally I hesitate to place the high estimate upon them I believe they deserve for fear some will accuse me of exaggeration. In my own work I could not get along without the valuable information contained in colored newspapers. They supply me with facts upon various phases of our race life which I could obtain from no other source. Those who speak or write upon the race question need nothing so much as facts, well authenticated, indisputable facts. When I wrote my article on Lynching from a Negro's Point of View, and wished to prove the falsity of many of Thomas Nelson's page's statements I had simply to turn to my scrap book filled with numerous clippings, mostly from colored newspapers, which contained accounts of incidents clearly showing how many errors Mr. Page had made. For instance, among other false statements which I found in Mr. Page's article on Lynching was the one that innocent negroes are never lynched in the South. But there on the pages of my scrap book were numerous instances of the lynching of colored men whose innocence had been established beyond a doubt, after they had disappeared in flame and smoke or had been shot to death. And the majority of these facts concerning the race had been culled from colored newspapers. But, like everything else, there are colored newspapers and colored newspapers. There is no doubt that a few of our journals do positive harm, because they are in the business simply for the money they can get out of 10 it. But at this time, when the white press takes special pains to exploit our crimes and opens its columns to those who underestimate and slander us, while it practically closes them to our advocates and friends, surely a race journal should not join the enemy's ranks by holding our foremost men and women up to public contempt. Surely a journal avowedly published in the interests of the race should be the last in the world to stir up dissension and and strife by continually attacking those who stand in the front ranks even if they cannot sanction all they do and say. Far be it from to muzzle the race or any other press. Nobody believes in freedom of speech and freedom of the press more than myself. The editors of our race journals have a perfect right to differ with the so-called leaders. More than that it is their bounden duty to do so. But - there is a right and a just way for our newspapers to differ with the leaders of their race and there is a wrong and unfair way of dissenting from their view. Some of our journals do not hesitate to proclaim from the house tops that the foremost men of the race with whose opinions they do not agree are grafters of the deepest dye, are simply in the race business for the money they hope to make. They go still further and declare that these race leaders are in reality trying to betray the race to its arch enemy and sell it to its highest bidder. With no desire to do even such journals an injustice it seems to me there is no other judgment we can pass upon them than to charge them with being the race's bitter foe. It is perfectly right and proper for our journals to warn the race against accepting views which the editors believe to be hostile to its progress. As I have already said, it is their duty to do so. But surely our editors can differ widely with the opinions expressed and the methods pursued by so-called leaders without branding the men and women themselves as traitors and knaves. Colored people should be the last ones in this country to sanction intolerance. Surely we should be tolerant and charitable 11 charitable one to the other, however much we may differ in opinions and views. If we attack each other as viciously as some of our newspapers hammer our foremost men, we are not a whit better than the avowed enemies of the race who say all manner of evil against us and our good white friends who do not sanction their narrow, oppressive views. The best friends of the race no matter whether they be in public or private life are those who are willing to agree on essentials and let the non-essentials take care of themselves. God has not made two blades of grass exactly alike, scientists tell us. If such diversity exists in the vegetable kingdom, how much more likely are we to find even greater variety in the higher grades of life. It is quite probable that no two brains are exactly alike. It is quite natural, therefore, that we should differ materially in our views. Difference of opinion denotes progress. Friction of ideas is a healthy sign, for it proves that as a race we are beginning to think for ourselves. Before the War there were three or four parties, each of which was working for the abolition of slavery, but each advocating a different way of reaching the goal toward which all were striving. It is no bad sign to day that there are several parties among colored people of the country, each differing from the other concerning the best way to secure real freedom of the race and to advance its interests along all lines. There are the Higher Educationalists, the Industrialists, the Trimmers, the Radicals, the 3 talwarts and the Conservatives, each and every one of whom claims that he is the colored man's best friend and each of whom boasts that nobody understands how to solve the race problem but himself. Personally, I am a radical of the extremist type and can see but little good that trimmers or ultra conservatives can accomplish. But I hope the day will never dawn, when I shall be so narrow and unjust as to attack those whith whose views I cannot agree and whose views I believe to be unsound. The trimmers and conservatives have as much right to ventilate 12 their ideas, to advice the race to adopt their methods as have the stalwarts and radicals. So long as each well wisher is able to give good reasons for the faith that is, in him and is honest, let no one dare deny him the right to use every legitimate means in his power to convert others to his views. The fight between those who believe in higher education and those who pin their faith entirely to industrialism would be very funny, if the opposing factions did not take themselves so seriously and were so desperately in earnest. It would be just as impossible to make every boy of the race a philosopher, or a poet or a mathematician as it would be to make every boy a carpenter or a plumber. It should certainly be possible for the men and women of the race who have enjoyed superior educational advantages to discuss ways and means of reaching a common goal without pulling each others hair and scratching out each others eyes, because all cannot agree upon the same methods to be pursued. The world is composed of many men of many minds. The univers would be very monotonous and humdrum indeed, if we all thought exactly alike. We should have advanced but little, if any, beyond the mile stone of progress which the cave dwellers had reached. As I have already said, the shameful, disgraceful feature in many of our racial engagements is not that we fail to agree upon ways and means of reaching our goal, but that we should slander, villify and denounce those who have the same right to their opinions and the same right to express them, if they wish to, as we have. The more I study the race problem and see the almost insurmountable obstacles which block our path to progress/ the more firmly I am convinced that the one thing needful above everything else is race unity on essentials with a truce upon thenon essentials. In union there is strength, but without it, the race will surely totter and fall. I have reached the conclusion therefore, that the most bitter enemy the race could possibly 13 have is he goes about stirring up dissension and strife among the masses, arraying man against man, so that [much precious] energy and time which migh be profitably expended in promoting the interests of the race is consumed in fighting, and denouncing each other and holding each other up to public scorn. This course, which is persisted in alas by some of our well known men both on the lecture platform and in the press not only destroys the confidence which the masses would otherwise repose in the intelligent members of their race, but it gives our enemies a stick with which to break our own heads. The race's best friends, therefore, are those who consider it their mission to construct rather than destroy- to build up rather than tear down. While we are battling for liberty, our salvation depends upon uniting our forces, so that we mat attack the enemy in serried columns with unbroken ranks. No man has a right to call himself a true friend of the race who is ever ready to justify our oppressors and persecutors in the crimes committed against even the humblest member of the race. As I go thru the country, I am amazed at the great number of colored people who justify the powerful who enact unjust laws against us, [and] subject us to all kinds indignities and perpetrate fearful atrocities upon us, on the ground that the race[gets] receives no worse treatment than it deserves. If one protests against the Jim Crow Car Law, for instance, in the presence of such critics, they immediately justify this discrimination against the whole race, Some colored people have behaved so badly, they tell you, that they have forced the dominant race to place them in separate cars. Now, if the Jim Crow Laws of the southern States were enacted for the puepose of ridding first class coaches of the ignorant, uncultured members of the race, our critics might well shake their heads and throw the burden of our mistreatment upon the race itself. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Jim Crow Car Laws were not enacted to inconvenience the lowest and most illiterate members of the race, but were expressly designed to humiliate the 14 worthiest and most intelligent [class] colored people in the country. As a menial I may travel from one end of the South to the other in a first class car, but as a woman, of independent means and equal to others whose faces happen to be fairer than mine, I am forced into a stuffy, dirty car, deprived of the conveniences and comforts which others receive and to which my firt class ticket entitles me. In a certain southern State, I am informed, the Jim Crow Car Law was on the verge of defeat. Certain members of the State legislature argued that it was unnecessary to put the railroad companies to the trouble and expense of providing separate cars for [co]colored people. When it is convenient for the railroads to furnish separate cars, they will do so, and we can put our darkies in them, We dont need any law do force them to go into these cars, for our darkies will go where we tell them. This presentation of the case appealed to the other members of the legislature [who] now they agreed that a Jim Crow Car Law in their State was absolutely unnecessary. But, protested another member, we dont need Jim Crow Cars for the darkies who will go where we order them, We need them for the high-toned, educated Negroes- the doctors, lawyers, preachers and teachers who wont go where they are directed, unless they are forced to obey. The wisdom of these remarks struck that southern legislature so forcibly that the Jim Crow Car law went thru it like wild fire. The critics within our own ranks who blame the untutored, unkempt and irresponsible members of the race for all the unjust discriminations heaped upon us, and who claim that the intelligent, cultured class would not be humiliated, if the uncouth element did not exist, are painfullu lacking in facts. In order to appear, very broad and just, some colored people lean over backward when they [who] discuss the race problem [to the discredit] [and disadvantage of their own] and attach blame to their own, when none exists. There is absolutely no virtue in assuming an unfriendly attitude to our own, in order remove the responsibility [from] of their [evil] reprehensible conduct from those who humiliate and degrade us. 15 on several occasions, while passing thru the South I have expressed horror at the Convict Lease System, that new form of slavery which obtains in nearly every State in that section and which is in some respects more cruel and crushing than that from which the race was emancipated forty years ago. Under whose regime thousands of colored men, women and children are thrown into the dark, damp disease-breeding cells whose cubic contents were no greater than a good-sized grave- are over-worked, underfed and only partially covered with vermin-infested rags. I have deplored the outrages committed upon colored women to whom scores of children are born in these camps , who breathe the polluted atmosphere of these dens of sin and woe from the moment they utter their first cry into the world till they are released from its horrors by death. As I have looked upon the wretched victims of this system, whose condition beggars description and have expressed my horror, again and again have colored people while gazing with unpitying eyes upon them told me that my sympathy was misplaced, that the men and women are sent to these camps receive no more than they deserve. And it is all the more remarkable that colored people make this statement, [when] because it is no secret that hundreds of men and women are thrown into these camps upon trumped up charges orfor offences which would hardly land them in jail. The lack of sympathy on the part of many intelligent, cultured colored people toward their less fortunate brothers and sisters is to me one of the most disheartening features of the present situation. Against crime of all kinds we should set our faces as a race. We should give no quarter to criminals, of course, and this is the attitude assumed by 99 colored people out of every hundred, in spite of the false accusations of our traducers that we encourage and harber our criminal class. But we should set our face as firmly against the criminals of the dominant race who oppress and persecute their weaker brother as we do against our own. We should also preach against crimes committed by representatives of the dominant race as well as fulminate against our own, on the ground what it is a poor rule 16 that cannot be made to work both ways. Colored people who denounce their own dominant race, hoping thus to ingratiate themselves into the affection and favor of the latter make a fatal mistake. Whatever white people ,ay say to the colored man who leans over backward, when he is discussing his own race and heaps upon it wholesale ridicule and acorn, in the depths of his heart they despise him for his treachery to his race. Surely the colored man has no better friend than he who agitates against injustice to his race. Those who advise us to be silent under tyranny are either ignorant of the history of other races who have wrested freedom from oppression or with malice aforethought give their race bad advice. The silence of colored people who have the ear of the public to the wrongs heaped upon the race is often guilty rather golden, it seems to me. So far as I have been able to ascertain, no race which has meekly endured oppression has ever had libery thrust upon it by its [their] oppressor. Oppressors are not in the habit of offering freedom to their victims upon a golden platter. These who care so little for their rights as to be unwilling to protest against it being deprived of them are deemed unworthy of possessing them by the majority of mankind. The power of endless resistance to oppression is the lesson which the colored man must learn. "Agitation means liberty", said Wendell Phillips, and history attests the truth of this remark. Fighting against odds thru centuries is the great glory of the people of Ireland. Ever since Henry the Second started, in the twelfth century, his expedition to conquer Ireland- an expedition which failed, by the way, the English have tried and vainly tried to crush the spirit of agitation and rebellion among the Irish. The people of Ireland have been killed with famine, shot down by soldiers, hanged, coaxed, bullied, threatened and flattered, but their fight had gone on. No matter where an Irishman goes, there goes with him the persistence of agitation, the rebellion, the determination to resist coercion and tyranny, which will surely spell liberty in the end. 17 Lauzun, the French officer, thought it would be impossible for the Irish to make a stand at Limerick. "Do you call those ramparts?," he sneered. The English will not even need cannon. They may batten them down with roasted apples." Nevertheless twenty thousand Irishmen remained there to fight. Led by a daring man, they captured the English ammunition train, repelled assaukts and compelled the English to give up the siege. And this spirit of incessant rebellion and agitation against injustice & wrong is the great lesson which the colored people of this country must learn. [ As a race we must learn the benefit] of incessant agitation and rebellion against wrong. We must resent the stealing of our votes, the ignoring of our rights, being deprived of the privileges and opportunities to which every human being is entitled and every other kind of injustice which organized oppression has perpetrated upon us. Remember always, when the overcautious tell you to be silent that Wendell Phillips once said, "Agitation means freedom." There is no doubt that peace is a blessing for which we should all devoutly pray. I wish to urge no member of the race to play the role of Don Qixote and try to charge the fierce giant of prejudice and well entrenched power with a paper sword. I am not urging the race to resort to violence, for that is both unnecessary and unwise. In a manly, womanly, dignified way, however, it is quite possible for all who write ans speak upon the race problem to insist upon justice to the race and to urge the citizens of the country to obey the constitution of the United States. I have no patience with the bully who is always trying to pick a fight. But a race which is denied the rights and opportunities to which it is entitled can hardly escape the charge of cowardice, if it puts peace before justice. [can not justify itself in putting power before justice.] To use a thought once expressed by President Roosevelt- Let us put justice first. "It will generally lead to peace, but follow it, wherever it leads. I want also to place myself upon record as disagreeing with those who claim that the South is the colored man's best friend. Nobody who 18 would wilfully wound the spirit and crush the pride of another human being by telling him he was inferior, even if he believed it to be true, by placing a limit upon his achievement thru laws discriminating against him and by creating a public sentiment hostile to him- nobody, I say, who treated another human being in such a selfish, cruel, ungenerous manner could justly be called his best friend. There is not an individual in this room who would not feel grossly insulted, if I should tell him that a man who impeded his progress in any possible way, was his best friend. Those who claim that the South is the colored man's best friend base this contention upon the fact that colored people are employed in larger numbers and in a greater variety of trades in the South than in the North- that the section which offers greater opportunities of earning a living is a better friend than the one that offers less. In the first place, let us acknowledge frankly that the white South employs the colored man from necessity rather than from choice and that in many sections to day desperate efforts are being made to displace the colored laborer by the foreigner. Prominent southern men have been scraping Europe with a fine tooth comb all the summer to secure immigrants for the South and offering them all kinds of inducements to cast their lot in their section. So when I hear eloquent tributes paid to the South for the kind and generous manner in which it employs him, I cannot help saying to myself that this is a flagrant case of making a virtue out of necessity? But if it were really true that in preference to other laborers whom [they] it might easily employ the South voluntarily employed colored people and paid them such larfe wages that they might live on the fat of the land, then enacted laws to humiliate, degrade them and deprive them of the rights which other citizens no better, no more intelligent than themselves enjoy, theme such treatment would be simply a mockery- as sounding brass and a tinkling symbal. For, is not life more than meat? Is not the body more than raiment? Better a crust of hard bread with sweet liberty than angel cake with slavery 19 slavery. When I refer to the white South, I always do so with certain mental reservations. For, if I believed this whole South was a sodom and Gemorrah , in which no humane, justice loving white man could be found, I should despair far more of the Southern white man's future than I do of the future of the race which he so cruelly wrongs . I have several times referred to the cruel yoke of oppression under which colored people groan in the South But the colored man is not the only slave in the South to day. I verily believe there are hundreds of white men in the Southern States who are kind and tender of heart and who yearn to be true to their higher, better natures, who dare not listen to the dictates of conscience and be just to their colored brother, because they languish in the chains which a tyrannical public opinion and cruel, vindictive intolerance of other people's views have forged. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.