DEDICATION TO THE NEGRO RACE IN AMERICA.

My Friends:In the hope of promoting the interest of my race, and of helping forward its progress, this booklet is now sent forth to the public. When you shall have read it, and reconsidered the facts of which it treats, you will at once discover why I have dedicated it to you. Greatful as I am to all those noble white men who have lived and fought and died for us, and to those who now advocate our cause, I do not believe the goal of our righteous ambition can be reached if we do not help ourselves. Believing our cause is the cause of humanity, I implore the divine blessing on every effort which has been, or shall be, put forth to hasten the day of the universal brotherhood of man and the destruction of human hatred.

PAST.

Why slander we the times?What crimesHave days and years that weThus charge them with iniquityIf we would rightly scan,It's not the times are bad, but man.-- Bad times.

Seneca once asked the question, "What is most hostile to man?" and he himself gave this answer, "Another man;" the truth of which is attested by all human history. Man has taken advantage of his fellow man in all ages, and has not scrupled to cause pain and misery in order to enrich himself and enlarge his power. In fact, human suffering has been and is so great, so awful, so endless, that the thought of possible extinction has lost its terrors for thousands of men, which most dreadful result is easily traced to "man's inhumanity to man."

It is not, however, the work of one who seeks to promote the good of the human race so to write of past social evils that fresh enmity be provoked thereby; every religious man knows it is safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him. Victory, it is true, destroys his power for a time, but reconciliation changes 000710his will, and in a will which will not hurt there is less danger than in a power which cannot. A worthy enemy can be transformed into a worthier friend, and even an unworthy enemy may be rendered harmless. Of course, an enemy must not be reconciled at the cost of honor, never may it be done so as to bring a meanness on one's self, because friendship can not be desirable when it is based in dishonor; but he who honorably endeavors to reconcile his foe is both prudent and wise. That which results in the making of a friend or in the unmaking of an enemy is beneficent labor; because in the one case a treasure is won; in the other, enmity is destroyed.

Now, I wish at the beginning of this booklet to declare that friendship between the colored and white races is desired and sought, and I would imitate the example of the psalmist, who said: "I have purposed that my mouth shall not offend;" and, "I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue." But the truth must be told; past and present evils must be exposed; injustice can not be condoned; yet, truth may be told and the foulest injustice denounced a language that will strengthen the cause of the oppressed by its purity and gentleness. The force of words turns the world about. Thereby armies are commanded, debates 000811are held in the Senate, advocates plead causes, and judges decide them; whatever is done in the school or in the church, on the exchange or in the parliament house is done by words, and 'tis true to-day as in the time of old:--"A soft answer turneth away wrath." Therefore, in words of soberness and gentleness let the past and the future of the Negro race be discussed, that all good people be won to that party which endeavors to promote the universal brotherhood of man and to break down and destroy every cause of oppression.

Africa is the home of the Negro race; it is a peninsula of the Old World, and of the great divisions of the globe is third in size. It is to-day a land of interest to the great nations of the earth, and England, Germany, and France are pushing forward therein in every direction, and millions of Negroes are being brought under the influences of civilization; but little was known of, and no interest was aroused by, it until modern maritime discovery began in the fifteenth century. Far back as 617 B. C. it was visited by the Phoenicians, who established colonies on the north coast, which were absorbed by the Carthaginians in the year 570 B. C.; but these ancient settlements nothing remains, they having vanished with the men who made them.

000912

The 15th century may be called the birth century of Africa, the ancient histories of Egypt and Abyssinia notwithstanding. It was a century of adventure, which saw the Portuguese exploring the west coast of Africa and the Spaniards gaining possession of South America, who, though they erected the figure of the cross upon every new land, respected no right of property or produce, not even in the flesh and blood of the natives; but plundered and murdered them with apparent pleasure. From that hour until now the white man and the colored man have stood face to face in full view of the Almighty, and much of both good and bad has been done by each of them; but the colored man, though he has suffered most, may be said to have realized the greatest personal benefit. Suffering is the price man must pay for progress; there is no great, strong, noble nation, whose people have not passed through the furnace of trial; and, in the fullness of time, in his native Africa, a land of luxuriant vegetation, fruitful fields, noble rivers, vast forests, immense mineral wealth, and wherever else he may chance to live or be, the Negro will be strong and noble, and his white brother will have respect for him.

Man is one the whole world over, and consists of a single species. He is distinguished from the animals 001013beneath him by conscience, reason, and speech, and is so marvellously endowed that he can adapt himself to every known climate. His intelligence has taught him how to protect himself from the Arctic cold, and to endure the heat of the Torrid zone. He may be found in every climate, from the hottest to the coldest; in vast forests, in regions of fertility, in wastes of sterility, in valleys and in mountains he finds a home, and makes the earth provide him food and shelter. But man is not the same in stature, intelligence, and color in every place, diversity obtains most prominently; but color is the most noticeable feature of difference. His skin is black, yellow, olive, tawny, white, but he is man, qualified for the highest effort of mind and the holiest act of worship. Whether black or white, educated or uneducated, he is the same creature in his feelings, and has ideas of a state after death, of a supreme power, of guilt, of pardon, which vary according to his state of enlightenment. The saying that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" is an established truism, but has been established by nothing more powerfully than by the rising of the Hottentots of South Africa and the Esquimaux of Greenland to the average level of educated nations. The ancestry of mankind is one ancestry, 001114and man everywhere is the child of a divine Father, and is destined for an eternal life, and it is the duty of all nations to cultivate relations of peace and good-will. The learned are under obligation to teach the unlearned; the strong to help the weak; and they who have knowledge of God and enjoy His sustaining grace and love are commanded to rescue from wretchedness, guilt, and impurity those that are ignorant and depraved, that the identity of man be perfect.

In the presence of this world-wide truth, which is acknowledge by all (the bigot and the vicious only excepted), the past history and the present state of the Negro race in America become very interesting, and the future invites attention. The past is known, also the present; the future remains to be realized. On past and present many books have been written, and all the material facts thereof have been brought to the notice of mankind; it may be assumed that every man who desires to know is informed of them. Therefore a brief resume of the chief events and legal enactments of the last two hundred and fifty years, which caused immeasurable suffering and sorrow, is all that will here be attempted, and will be sufficient to clear the way for a discussion of the probabilities of the future.

001215

In the year 1485 Alphonso de Aviso discovered Benin, Africa, and subsequently Fernando Po of Portugal established a Portuguese colony and the Church of Rome at Gaton, Benin, but failed to make a permanent settlement of Christianity, which events would appear to have no connection with the people called Afro-Americans, yet are most vitally connected with them. The Portuguese established the Church of Rome at Gaton, also the slave trade, and the foul practices of the buyers and sellers of flesh and blood nullified the efforts of the brothers of Jesus. When a civilized nation establishes colonies in a foreign land, and sets itself to the task of promoting peaceful industry, teaching honesty, truthfulness, and gentleness, and the dissemination of knowledge, only good is the result to the less civilized natives; but the Portuguese proceeded to stir up a sea of treachery, duplicity, and cruelty, and for a time made themselves rich out of the profit of a trade whose wickedness has no parallel. And then the Natives of Gaton became man stealers and followers of the slave trade, and sold one another into life-long, debasing servitude. The Portuguese went to Africa to establish colonies and, presumably, preach the Gospel, yet created a hell of cruelty which obtains until now.

001316

In the year 1492, seven years after the settlement of the Portuguese in Benin, Columbus set forth to find lands in the West, and was quickly followed by thousands of Spaniards. Then Henry VII. of England, on the 5th of March, 1496, commissioned John Cabot "to search for islands, provinces, and regions hitherto unseen by Christian people, and to set up the banner of England on city, island, country, or continent," and on the 24th of June, 1497, fourteen years before Columbus discovered the main land, John Cabot sailed three hundred leagues along the coast and planted on the land the flag of England. Meanwhile, between 1496 and 1664, Spaniards flocked to South America, the Dutch to New Netherlands (now New York), and the English to New England, and the New World and the Old World were opened one to another. Then the slave trade traveled from Africa to America, and fourteen Negros were carried by a Dutch man-of-war to Virginia in the year 1619, where they were bought by the English colonists.

From that fatal, or eventful, year 1619 to the year 1630, it is not clear that the Negro was treated cruelly by the colonists of Virginia; it is rather to be assumed that the white men behaved toward him in a patriarchal manner. But in the last named year Virginia 001417was the home of more bad characters than the original settlers desired. Thieves, vagrants, burglars, and disorderly persons of every sort had been sent thither by the English government for crimes they had done at home, who in time began to have influence, and by degrees the morals of the colony were lowered. Had the original colonists been determined to retain the theory and practice of individual liberty, and resisted the baleful influence of these wicked people, it is more than probable that subsequent history would have been different; but they had bought flesh and blood, and were ready for the following steps in the downward path. Then began the pain and sorrow of the Negro, who for generations was treated worse than a beast.

On the 17th of September, 1630, Virginia made a prohibition, that the banished criminals of England must not have any relations with Negroes, which was an enactment that cleared the way for those subsequent laws which bound chains to the feet of men and women made in the likeness of God. It is always so; one false step, one step in the path of wickedness, whether in private or national life, opens the way for, and suggests, larger steps, and wrong and shame invariably follow. Looking back to those distant times, it is impossible not to see that the history of America 001518could not be what it is, had the white man set himself to educate his colored brother, who was a natural child of the forest, in letters and skilled labor, and that the Negro question of to-day would be non-existent. However, it was not, and the Negro's condition went from bad to worse, until at last it dragged the very life of a great nation to the point of ruin.

On the 4th of December, 1662, the following proclamation was made--"that the issue of slave mothers should follow their condition;" and, on the 24th of October, 1684, the province of New York made the slave trade legitimate within its borders, establishing the right of the white man to buy and sell the colored man. Then most men began to believe, what millions believe to-day, that what the law allows and sanctions is right, forgetting that bad men make bad laws, which have no foundation in righteousness. And the trade in flesh and blood increased. Christian men, so-called, scrupled not to steal the Negro's labor, and were wicked enough to commit adultery with their own slaves that their live stock might be increased, and forsook every feeling of humanity. Well has it been said that--"the multitude never comprehend principles; principles are complex ideas; they comprehend a simple idea, and the simplest idea is, a name that 001619rids their action of all responsibility of thought." The law said it was right to own slaves, to buy and sell flesh and blood. Therefore, most men believed it, and troubled themselves no more about it. But all men did not believe the lie of the law, some always opposed and denounced it, yet were not strong enough to prevent it being declared that Negroes were "deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal to all interests, constructions, and purposes whatsoever." Henceforth, until God should decide differently, a Negro "had no rights; could not appear as a witness in court of law; could be condemned on the evidence of one witness without a jury; could own nothing; if he secretly saved anything, it was taken from him; had no family relations; lived together by common consent; dared not strike a Christian or a Jew, no matter what the provocation; had no schools; was at last buried in a ditch."

The year 1712, in which the Negro's condition was fixed for the following 150 years, was an evil year for America, as subsequent events abundantly prove. "What a man sows, that shall he also reap"--and America has gathered a full harvest of sorrow from the seed sown in the past, and the Southern States are yet gathering evils of many kinds. But there is a wisdom 001720and a power in this world which ever seeks to bring good out of evil. It has puzzled and perplexed all thoughtful men to explain the connection between suffering and progress, and probably no satisfactory solution of the problem has yet been found. But we do know that the cleansing fire of affliction and the truest nobility of character have a close relation with each other. The man who has never had a personal Gethsemane knows not the glory of the mount of transfiguration; the greatest men and women are they who have braved the storm. The undisciplined soul cannot be compared with the soul that has by bitter experience learned the secret of the Christ. Now, if this be true, which few, perhaps none, will dare to deny, the Negro race may become, as individual members thereof have already become, the equal of those other races who have attained greatness by struggle, disaster, and hardship. Indeed, the writer has no more doubt of the ultimate regeneration and emancipation from countless evils of the whole than he has of his own existence, and thinks of the past only as an inspiration to view the future with glad expectation of great good.

The enactments of the old slave power were so much alike, and produced such exactly similar results 001821of torture and death, and are so well known, that it were a waste of the reader's time to reproduce them all; but mention may be made of one of the New York Assembly. In 1702, that Assembly passed a law which was called "an act for regulating slaves." It was declared "not lawful to trade with Negro slaves;" "not more than three slaves may meet together," "a slave must not strike a freeman;" "all the children of freed black mothers already born, or yet to be born, must be slaves;" and, "that a common whipper be appointed." All over the land this law was put into real practice. The Negro must work, but not trade with Christian or Jew. He might talk with two other Negroes, but if more than three met together they were all whipped, or sent to jail. A freeman was at liberty to beat him anywhere and anyhow, but he must not lift his hand in self-defence. A freed black woman could become a mother, but her child was taken from her as soon as he could work, and became a slave. In brief, this was the state of the Negro race in the past, than which nothing could be more horrible, nor anything more debasing; on which it is unnecessary to dwell at length, and out of which it is impossible to gather any guidance for the present and future. It is past; its miseries are ended; its legal wickedness can never be repeated.

002022

If the year 1712 was an evil one for America, the year 1859 was full of instruction and blessing, inasmuch as on the 17th of October John Brown went forth to set free the slaves, and to his death. In every epoch of human history some one man of great character and noble heart may be seen,--a Christ, a Luther, a Wesley, a Napoleon, a Cromwell, a Washington, a John Brown,-stepping forth at the risk of life to teach, enlighten, deliver, and lead the crowd. There must be a man to arouse men to action; and John Brown stepped forth to do it. He felt that his destiny was linked with that of the slave, and that he must die for him. In prison he said--"I want you to understand, gentlemen, that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people apprised by the slave system just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea that has moved me, and that alone. We expected no reward except the satisfaction of endeavouring to do for those in distress and greatly oppressed as we would be done by. The cry of distress of the oppressed is my reason and the only thing that prompted me to come here... I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all of you people at the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of this question, that must come up for settlement 002123sooner than you are prepared for it. You may dispose of me quickly--I am nearly disposed of now- but this question is still to be settled--this Negro question, I mean; the end of that is not yet." From prison they led him to execution, and so he passed into rest; but, as he told them, the Negro question remained to be settled.

One hundred and twenty years before John Brown, the Rev. Geo. Whitfield had written of the "miseries of the poor Negroes," and spoke of the "cruel lashings which ploughed their backs and made long furrows," and subsequently other men exposed the horrors of plantation slavery; but it required a hero's death to bring the blessing of awakening to the nation. On the day of John Brown's execution, Longfellow wrote in his journal: "This will be a great day in our history; the date of a new revolution, quite as much needed as the old one. Even now, as I write, they are leading old John Brown to execution in Virginia, for attempting to rescue slaves. This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind, which will come soon." Slave dealers had been sowing the wind since 1619, and the groans of men, women, and children had gone up to heaven day by day; the whirlwind must come. It came. The nations of the world looked in awe upon a scene of 002224struggle and slaughter, and God beheld the sons of men in their best and worst conditions. But the Negro was declared a free man. No more auction blocks, no more legal slavery, no more iron fetters, but liberty to work out his full salvation as best he might. When Lincoln issued his his famous proclamation of emancipation he sent blessing, light, and strength to a people whose misery, darkness, and weakness were too awful for language to describe.

We see, then, what all the world knows, that the lot of the Negro in America, from the year 1619 down to Lincoln's declaration of emancipation, was one of legal disability, debasing servitude, poverty, oppression and misery, the details of which have been given to the world by writers of unimpeachable veracity. But what has been his state since emancipation? What is the condition now? To the first question the answer is, without any kind of any kind of qualification, one of progress, progress that is as clear and distinct as the stars of heaven . To the second question the answer can not be given so quickly, neither in so few words. The writer does not forget what is called the Black Belt of America, and the Convict Lease system is painfully fresh in his mind; but it must be remembered that these most horrible things do not constitute the condition 002325of the Negro race. True, they engulf thousands of men and women every year, but do not destroy the race; they are hindrances of a most horrible sort to the progress of a portion of the race, which must and will be swept away. The man who can not see that by some method these things will be destroyed must be blind to the teaching of history, also incapable of learning its lessons.

Harking back to the question, What is the Negro's condition now? we shall be helped to arrive at the right answer, also to see the remarkable progress he has made, by asking a few other questions. How much wealth did he possess thirty-five years ago? How many schools were open to him? How many churches had he built? How many colleges were devoted to Negro tuition? What proportion of the men and women of the race could read and write? Without doing violence to truth it may be said thirty-five years ago, always allowing for exceptions, the Negro owned nothing, went to no school, had no church, knew nothing by experience of a college, and that not many of all the race could either read or write. But put these same questions in respect of the present time, and see the difference. To-day he is legally possessed of millions of money and much land, goes 002426to school, worships in his own beautiful church, owns colleges, and a large proportion of the race can both read and write. And more than all that. He has taken his place among the inventors, artists, poets, authors, teachers, professors, doctors and preachers of our time, and is doing a share of this world's work on the highest plane. If this be not progress, the writer is unable to appreciate progress when he sees it, and must be incapable of distinguishing human advance from retrogression. But the truth is, the condition of the Negro race thirty-five years ago is no more like that of to-day than a fog is like a sunbeam.

Turning our attention from the whole race to a certain portion thereof, it may at once be confessed that their lot is little different from that which tormented and killed their fathers in the days of slavery. The Black Belt is a disgrace to civilization, and the Convict Lease system, which is an instrument of torture to thousands of Negroes, can never be defended by mortal man. But, bad as these things be, there is something far worse and infinitely more difficult of removal in the Southern States: the ignorance and poverty of millions of colored people and the enmity of millions of whites constitute the worst feature of the problem under discussion. Treating of this very 002527aspect of the question, and making direct reference to these opposing whites, Secretary Frank P. Woodbury, of the American Missionary Association, says: "At the opposite extreme stands the opposite element of the White South. It represents the spirit of the old slave times. It is never tired of asserting white supremacy. It regards the black man as born to serve, and resents every movement which would lift him out of a position of inferiority. It claims that the only possible mode in which the white man and black man can live together is the subjection of the latter. It regards any independence of bearing in the black man as insolence, and resents it with violence. It either stigmatizes his training in the common school as a failure or would make the common school the extreme limit of his education. It dreads his attainment of education and property because they give him power. It accepts his demoralization and vices as the natural manifestations of his inferior nature. It insists that his upward development cannot be permitted on the same soil with that of the whites. In some of its extreme forms it resents his right to our common humanity and our Christian religion, and relegates him to a place in the highest order of animals, below the qualities and privileges of a real man." Of the black South he says: "The black 002628South has before it the task of lifting itself from vice and crime into virtue, from ignorance into intelligence, from poverty into competence, of creating a new social order for its own people, of making homes out of cabins, of maintaining its relations and duties as citizens of the republic; and all this in the face of a superior people, vastly outnumbering it, and preponderately either indifferent to or sharply antagonizing its upward progress." These things are worse than convict lease systems and lynchings, horrible though they be, because they are the source whence such things proceed.

The conclusion, then, in respect of past and present, is of a double character. The past, previous to emancipation, was utterly bad, awful, debasing; since emancipation, it has been upward struggle in respect of a portion of the race, resulting in education, refinement, wealth, religion and power. Of the present state of the race this may be said: One part (whether the larger or smaller part need not be discussed) stands level in every respect with the whites; the other part are yet ignorant, poor and oppressed. The case is one of 8,000,000 of human beings, of a foreign country, having a colored skin, descendants of parents who were slaves, endeavoring to overcome past and present disabilities 002729and make `for themselves a permanent home of freedom in the land of their fathers' enslavement, and to take their just part in the government to which they are subject, of whose protection they have a right to claim. "Among the problems which the people and government of the United States have to deal with," says Prof. James Bryce, "there are three which observers from the Old World are apt to think grave beyond all others. These three are the attitude and demands of the labor party, the power which the suffrage vests in recent immigrants from the least civilized parts of Europe, and the position of the colored population at the South. And of these three, the last, if not the most urgent, is the most serious, the one whose roots lie deepest, and which is most likely to stand a source of anxiety, perhaps of danger, for generations to come. Compared with it, those tariff questions and currency questions and railway questions with which politicians busy themselves sink almost to insignificance." With Prof. Bryce the writer is in full agreement, and turning from the past and endeavoring to forget its horrors, will now proceed to discuss the possibilities and probabilities of the future:

FUTURE.

'Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil,'Tis in the gifted line,In each fair thought divineThat brings down heaven to light our common soil.Man's Noblest Task.

What will the future of the Negro Race be? This question is engaging the thought of friends and foes, but as yet no clear answer has been given, because it has not been possible to give one. The impossibility of arriving at an answer has obtained in a multiplicity of ideas rather than in any insurmountable difficulty. It is, no doubt, a difficult problem, yet, not more difficult than many that have been satisfactorily solved by nations of the Old World. There was a time when an English peasant was the baron, and had no voice in the government of his country; but now every working man can cast his vote in every election, and enjoys the widest, most real liberty. The Queen herself is not more free than the humblest of her subjects, and in the path of none is one legal obstacle placed; each and all are free to make the most of life and to use their abilities for their own personal 002931good. What has been done in England for the peasant can be done in America for the Negro, if the same patience and perseverance be practised.

It may safely be observed at this point that the future will not be the same in results to each individual of the Race. Yet all may be equally happy and each may find satisfaction. Agitate as we like (and agitation must be earnestly carried on), and secure, as we may, the destruction of every influence that now presses the Negro of the Black Belt to the earth and hinders the development of the whole race, yet the truth will remain that no man, be he black or white, can rise higher than he has power to rise. This is an universal law, from which no man, neither any people, can escape. To the Negro Race the future will be an individual matter, as it is to other races of men; each man will be that he is capable of being, and nothing more.

But here the remark is at once made that Negroes can not be that they are capable of being, because of oppression and opposition; which is at once granted. What is the remedy? I have just said that no man can rise higher than he has power to rise, to which I now add another truism, namely, that the laws and customs of a country will not be, cannot be, more civilized than the majority of the people who live in it, 003032which two truisms clearly point to the remedy. It is true, and every man regrets it, the Negro Race in the South is persecuted most bitterly and its progress is hindered in a thousand ways; but every thoughtful, prudent man knows that the tone of Southern life will have to be improved, or the strong hand of United States law interfere, before better conditions can be realized. To the writer it seems most improbable that United States law will interfere; the majority of the people are too indifferent in respect of the Negro question for it to be hoped for. But what if it did interfere? Is any man certain of the result? It might be effectual, and it might not. If not effectual, which is the probability, nothing but another war would settle the question. But who is foolish enough to think that America will engage in another civil war for the benefit of the Negro? The conclusion is, if Southern life can not be uplifted, if the whites of the South can not be persuaded, or educated, to treat negroes differently, and if the colored people have not the moral power to take and hold the position which is due to man as man, the question will never be settled. But the writer believes that Southern life can be uplifted, and that the Whites will recognize Negroes as members of the human Family (thousands of them do so now), and that 003133colored people have moral power enough to take the position due to man, and, above all, he is confident of the divine intention to establish in every nation the brotherhood of man. Therefore, the problem is resolved into a question of methods, which to discover and pursue is the duty of every man of the Race.

The only thing to be secured is equality of opportunity. That every Negro shall be free to put forth his best effort and to use the powers with which he is endowed without hindrance of any kind is a consummation which will be realized from a higher civilization only.

Looking, then, to the individual, and from the individual to the whole Race, it becomes immediately apparent that the first desideratum is that each member of the Race possess correct views of the possibilities of the future, which can only be attained through the medium of enlightened teachers. The demagogue, the self-seeker, particularly the impure parson, must be pushed aside; no place must be left in the front ranks of the Race for such men to stand in; they are a curse everywhere, and retard every good work in the whole world. Leaders must be found of pure life, unselfish purpose, patriotic spirit, who will chain the influence of every Negro to the common cause of Race progress, 003234and teachers must come forth, such as many who have already appeared, capable of giving the soundest instruction and of commanding the respect of the Whites. If any say we not desirem we do not need the respect of the Whites, they must be pushed aside; better sent to a history class until they shall have learned that all races of men need the respect of each race. No feature of history, none of this present moment, is more prominent than this,--the nation that commands the widest, profoundest respect is the nation that makes the greatest progress and leads in the great work of civilization.

What are the possibilities of the future? Perhaps it will be well to say first what they are not. It will not be possible for every Negro to be rich, neither learned not professional; the future can only be expected to present to the Negro Race the same opportunities it presents to all other races, neither more nor less. Wealth has been for the few in every age and in every country, and will be until social economics undergo transformation, which is not yet; learning, that is, profound scholarship, is also for the few, because only a few are capable of receiving and retaining it; the professions can provide employment for a small proportion only of any people; and let it be here observed, he who denies these simple truths is as wise as he, if 003335there be such an one, who declares that the sun moves round the earth. Therefore, the first teaching that needs to be given, and repeated year after year, forever, to present and coming generations of Negroes, also to all other races of men, is that the primary possibility of the future is that of work, honorable toil, to be done faithfully, honestly, skillfully. To men who grasp this simple, primary truth, and pursue it in daily patience, almost anything is possible; but they who have not learned it have scarcely learned anything.

"Know thyself; learn what thou art able, fit and apt to do, and follow that." This must be the text of our teachers, who must be wise enough to help their scholars understand it. The great business of the majority of mankind is to provide for themselves the necessities of life, and if with care and diligence they succeed they do well. Well enough to agitate for reforms, to denounce Convict Lease systems, lynchings and railroad car iniquities, which must be done constantly in every state of the Union, that an irresistible public opinion be created before which such infamies shall pass away; but instruction in letters and skilled labor must never cease. Out of the difficulties and horrors of the Black South there is no quick, easy passage, no miracle can be performed there that will create the conditions of 003436life for which all true hearts yearn. Work, work, work; work only is the magician, whose transformations, unlike those of the common enchanter, are ever slowly produced, that will bring lasting blessing to the Negro Race. Work, done by skilled men, has built cities, founded kingdoms and empires, produced all wealth, written all books, painted every picture, and laid the foundations of the liberty of every free and prosperous people; and work is the primary possibility of the future of our Race, for which our people of the Black South need to be prepared.

Assuming that it will be made possible for every Negro to put forth freely the best that is in him, and that the opportunity will be readily and gladly utilized, what then? Anything and everything that is good and useful, but nothing miraculous. The Negro fitted and qualified by nature for the position of a mechanic, will not become a teacher of science, neither will he whose endowments are chiefly physical attain greatness as a lawyer. Then when Negroes shall be no more hindered by legal or illegal hindrances in the matter of using freely their several powers for their individual advancement they will realize what their white brethren realize now, and nothing different. Some will succeed in life, and some will fail; that is, some will forge their 003537way to the front, to places of influence, power and dignity, and others will be compelled to find satisfaction all through life in lowly toil and humble position. Once it is made possible for every Negro who desires work to find and follow it as easily as a white man, with the same certainty of enjoying its rewards in peace and safety and with equal respect from all around him, then every human possibility is before the Afro-American people, and each man will rise to the position he can win by effort and skill. This is the first great necessity,--equal opportunity in the market of life; and it is the first possibility of the future, out of which, once gained, all other human possibilities and probabilities will proceed and present themselves to the Negro for him to materialize as he shall be able.

How, then, can this first desideratum be attained? First, by

ORGANIZATION.

Now, organization implies organizers, men who can and will not only frame a platform, but also influence every member of the Race who can safely do so to swear allegiance to it. The greatest and wisest men of the Race need to come together and set forth in serious, appropriate language every Negro disability and grievance,003638in support of which meetings should be held all over the country not once, nor twice, but periodically, year in and year out, until the goal be won. At these meetings no inferior, self-seeking brawler should for one moment be allowed to speak, but men who can speak to the point as gracefully and powerfully as the white man, of whom we have enough. When Booker Washington speaks in Boston his words appear in the newspapers the following morning; let one such man speak at every great meeting, and let a meeting be held in every important town, and let resolutions, properly worded, constitutional, dignified resolutions, be passed and sent to the President and members of Congress, and a public opinion will be, cannot help being, formed that will be irresistible. No nation, much less any section of a nation, can forever resist the force of righteous public opinion; it is stronger than armies and navies, and always produces grander results.

Such an organization, formed for the purpose of diffusing knowledge on the Negro question, holding meetings, sending trained, educated speakers up and down the land will of course, require a fund, which can be created without any member of the Race feeling it to burden. If 200,000 of the 8,000,000 of Negroes in the United States feel patriotic enough to 003739subscribe five cents each per week to such a fund, it would amount to $10,000 a year, which would be enough for all immediate purposes, and could not fail of producing enormous results. The expenses of our very ablest men, incurred by traveling from one place to another to address large meetings, could be paid, also hall hire, printing (including a short pamphlet now and again for free distribution), and costs of periodical deputations to the President, Governors of States and Congress, to keep the question constantly alive and always before them. This is the way Wilberforce and Clarkson went to work, who, after years of earnest labor, persuaded the English Government to purchase the freedom of every slave living under the British flag, and subsequently William Laud Garrison and the true men who labored with him adopted the same methods. In fact, it is the well known, extensively tried method of reformers, and when the cause was righteous has never failed. Legally peacefully, intelligently organized and wisely guided by men of repute in efforts constitutionally put forth, the weakest men become mighty, eventually irresistible; but disorganized, standing separately and alone, they are like water that is easily pushed aside. Let a Negro organization, not political, be formed for the purposes herein stated, 003840and let our very wisest, ablest, noblest men manage it, who shall never ask in vain for financial and moral support, and soon will the promise of equality of opportunity appear, and in due time be realized.

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.

With organization--Schools, Industrial Schools, and Colleges must be sustained; without them even organization will fail. These we have. Therefore, one word thereon will be sufficient. Let them be supported by every member of the Race who has a dollar to spare, that year by year increased numbers of educated, refined young people be turned into the world to work with skill and intelligence. There is no rank among men but that which merit assigns, and it must never be forgotten that schools and colleges help men and women to attain an excellence which entitles them to honor. An organization of blockheads is worthless; but an organization of people trained in letters and in skilled labor is almost almighty. Fools and knaves may be clothed with robes of honor and emblems of virtue and wisdom; but no man can be superior to another without superior merit. The rank that is based in merit can no more be taken from man than the merit which establishes it. Without education and 003941trained skill the Negro Race will make little progress.

We must not wait to be happy and prosperous until we forget that we are miserable and poor, neither enjoy the tranquility of weakness and think it the result of our strength. We need, having set all our past and present afflictions before us,to resolve to overcome them; not to run away from them. We shall overcome them; but I venture to affirm that the battle will be won under the command of men who shall come from colleges.

Equality of opportunity, then,for Afro-Americans, as I think, maybe won by organization, schools and colleges but by nothing more certainly than by constant

RIGHT DOING.

There is a realm which man only occupies, into which lower animals, so far as can be discovered, never enter. In this realm art, science, literature, right and wrong are found. Here man takes brush and canvas and reproduces Nature's glories, or hammer and chisel and carves out of dead marble statues which seem to be endowed with life. He writes poetry, history, romance, comedy and philosophy, and discuss right and wrong. Why does he so eagerly and continuously 004042discuss these subjects? Some say "because he has been taught that some things are right and some wrong," which in no way solves the problem, but rather suggests another, perhaps more difficult, question,--whence came the idea of right and wrong? Is it not true that want of food suggested the word hunger and need of water, thirst? Is it not equally true that every word which describes a want, an ambition, a necessity, an aspiration of man was inspired by that it sets forth? And is it not also true that man speaks of right and wrong because there is a right and a wrong? By whatever power man was made, a sense of virtue was placed within him from which he cannot escape; hence his constant talk of morals. In fact, right and wrong are the chief elements of the human sphere, and by the doing of right man is elevated, lifted up in dignity and worthiness of life as by the doing of wrong he is debased, dragged lower and lower, down beneath the condition of the animal, which obeys the law of its nature.

Now, "right is conformity to the law of God, and wrong is deviation from moral rectitude," and he who does right may at least claim the help of the Almighty; but the wrongdoer may except condemnation. Men who steal are sent to prison, when they are caught; but 004143caught or uncaught, they know they are thieves and not fit for the society of honest men. Lying robs men of character, swearing makes them vulgar, and adultery is apt to fill them with disease and shame. If a man be a liar, and other men avoid him, or an adulterer with a body full of loathsomeness, or a thief and in prison, how can he rise? As easily might iron swim. That which is true of the individual is true of the Race, of all races of men; no nation is greater than its greatest noblest men. Therefore, let Afro-Americans say, right it shall be,--right to themselves, their friends, and the world, and so, if it be true that "there is no law for the righteous," their life shall be precious to them for its own intrinsic dignity, and for the joy and splendor with which it shall be endowed.

The writer does not urge this thought of right-doing because he thinks Negroes need it more than other men (he does not think it), but because he believes that permanent progress cannot be made without it. Nations that forget God perish, and no nation rises into greatness and lasting liberty without God. Therefore, let the Negro Race decide to do right, and surely as the sun reveals the glory of earth and sky shall every disability be overcome and every hindrance destroyed.

But what about lynchings and convict lease systems? 004244They are wrong, terrible, damnable; no language is too strong in which to condemn them. But it is one thing to feel and think and speak strongly about them and quite another thing to banish them from the land. If writing or preaching would accomplish it, it were already done; but the evil is too deeply rooted to be destroyed in a day. The writer believes that the Organization he suggests, if formed and operated along the lines he indicates by our strongest men, will be instrument powerful enough to destroy them; but he has no hope of living to see the happy day of their destruction if some such concerted effort be not made by a body representing the whole Race. Organize, organize, organize; educate, educate, educate; do right, do right, do right; this is the writer's message to his brothers, and he delivers it in utmost confidence of success, and in the belief that a years will be time enough for a complete victory to be won.