Advice upon the formation of Literary Associations, and total
abstinence from all intoxications is needed, and I will give it to
you in this chapter. The time for colored men and women to organize
for self-improvement has arrived. Moral, social, and intellectual
development, should be the main attainment of the negro race. Colored
people have so long been in the habit of aping the whites, and often
not the better class either, that I fear this characteristic in them,
more than anything else. A large percentage of them being waiters, they
see a great deal of drinking in white society of the “Upper Ten.” Don’t
follow their bad example. Take warning by their degradation.
During the year 1879, Boston sent four hundred drunken women to the
Sherborn prison; while two private asylums are full, many of them from
Boston’s first families. Therefore, I beseech you to never allow the
intoxicant to enter your circles.
It is bad enough for men to lapse into habits of drunkenness. A
drunken husband, a drunken father--only those patient, heart-broken,
shame-faced wives and children on whom this great cross of suffering is
laid, can estimate the misery which it brings.
But a drunken girl--a drunken wife--a drunken mother--is there for
woman a deeper depth? Home made hideous--children disgraced, neglected,
and maltreated.
Remember that all this comes from the first glass. The wine may be
pleasant to the taste, and may for the time being, furnish happiness;
but it must never be forgotten that whatever degree of exhiliration
may be produced in a healthy person by the use of wine, it will most
certainly be succeeded by a degree of nervous depression proportioned
to the amount of previous excitement. Hence the immoderate use of
wine, or its habitual indulgence, debilitates the brain and nervous
system, paralyzes the intellectual powers, impairs the functions of the
stomach, produces a perverted appetite for a renewal of the deleterious
beverage, or a morbid imagination, which destroys man’s usefulness.
The next important need with our people, is the cultivation of habits
of business. We have been so long a dependent race, so long looking to
the white as our leaders, and being content with doing the drudgery
of life, that most who commence business for themselves are likely
to fail, because of want of a knowledge of what we undertake. As
the education of a large percentage of the colored people is of a
fragmentary character, having been gained by little and little here
and there, and must necessarily be limited to a certain degree, we
should use our spare hours in study and form associations for moral,
social, and literary culture. We must aim to enlighten ourselves and to
influence others to higher associations.
Our work lies primarily with the inward culture, at the springs and
sources of individual life and character, seeking everywhere to
encourage, and assist to the fullest emancipation of the human mind
from ignorance, inviting the largest liberty of thought, and the utmost
possible exaltation of life into approximation to the loftier standard
of cultivated character. Feeling that the literature of our age is the
reflection of the existing manners and modes of thought, etherealized
and refined in the alembic of genius, we should give our principal
encouragement to literature, bringing before our associations the
importance of original essays, selected readings, and the cultivation
of the musical talent.
If we need any proof of the good that would accrue from such
cultivation, we have only to look back and see the wonderful influence
of Homer over the Greeks, of Virgil and Horace over the Romans, of
Dante and Ariosto over the Italians, of Goethe and Schiller over the
Germans, of Racine and Voltaire over the French, of Shakespeare and
Milton over the English. The imaginative powers of these men, wrought
into verse or prose, have been the theme of the king in his palace,
the lover in his dreamy moods, the farmer in the harvest field, the
mechanic in the work-shop, the sailor on the high seas, and the
prisoner in his gloomy cell.
Indeed, authors possess the most gifted and fertile minds who combine
all the graces of style with rare, fascinating powers of language,
eloquence, wit, humor, pathos, genius and learning. And to draw
knowledge from such sources should be one of the highest aims of
man. The better elements of society can only be brought together by
organizing societies and clubs.
The cultivation of the mind is the superstructure of the moral, social
and religious character, which will follow us into our every-day life,
and make us what God intended us to be--the noblest instruments of
His creative power. Our efforts should be to imbue our minds with
broader and better views of science, literature, and a nobleness of
spirit that ignores petty aims of patriotism, glory, or mere personal
aggrandizement. It is said, never a shadow falls that does not leave
a permanent impress of its image, a monument of its passing presence.
Every character is modified by association. Words, the image of the
ideas, are more impressive than shadows; actions, embodied thoughts,
more enduring than aught material. Believing these truths, then, I say,
for every thought expressed, ennobling in its tendency and elevating
to Christian dignity and manly honor, God will reward us. Permanent
success depends upon intrinsic worth. The best way to have a public
character is to have a private one.
The great struggle for our elevation is now with ourselves. We may talk
of Hannibal, Euclid, Phyllis, Wheatly, Benjamin Bannaker, and Toussaint
L’Overture, but the world will ask us for our men and women of the day.
We cannot live upon the past; we must hew out a reputation that will
stand the test, one that we have a legitimate right to. To do this, we
must imitate the best examples set us by the cultivated whites, and
by so doing we will teach them that they can claim no superiority on
account of race.
The efforts made by oppressed nations or communities to throw off
their chains, entitles them to, and gains for them the respect of
mankind. This, the blacks never made, or what they did, was so feeble
as scarcely to call for comment. The planning of Denmark Vesey for an
insurrection in South Carolina, was noble, and deserved a better fate;
but he was betrayed by the race that he was attempting to serve.
Nat Turner’s strike for liberty was the outburst of feelings of an
insane man,--made so by slavery. True, the negro did good service at
the battles of Wagner, Honey Hill, Port Hudson, Millikin’s Bend, Poison
Springs, Olustee and Petersburg. Yet it would have been far better if
they had commenced earlier, or had been under leaders of their own
color. The St. Domingo revolution brought forth men of courage. But
the subsequent course of the people as a government, reflects little
or no honor on the race. They have floated about like a ship without a
rudder, ever since the expulsion of Rochambeau.
The fact is the world likes to see the exhibition of pluck on the part
of an oppressed people, even though they fail in their object. It is
these outbursts of the love of liberty that gains respect and sympathy
for the enslaved. Therefore, I bid God speed to the men and women of
the South, in their effort to break the long spell of lethargy that
hangs over the race. Don’t be too rash in starting, but prepare to go,
and “don’t stand upon the order of going, but go.” By common right,
the South is the negro’s home. Born, and “raised” there, he cleared up
the lands, built the cities, fed and clothed the whites, nursed their
children, earned the money to educate their sons and daughters; by the
negro’s labor churches were built and clergymen paid.
For two hundred years the Southern whites lived a lazy life at the
expense of the negro’s liberty. When the rebellion came, the blacks,
trusted and true to the last, protected the families and homes of white
men while they were away fighting the Government. The South is the
black man’s home; yet if he cannot be protected in his rights he should
leave. Where white men of liberal views can get no protection, the
colored man must not look for it. Follow the example of other oppressed
races, strike out for new territory. If suffering is the result, let
it come; others have suffered before you. Look at the Irish, Germans,
French, Italians, and other races, who have come to this country, gone
to the West, and are now enjoying the blessings of liberty and plenty;
while the negro is discussing the question of whether he should leave
the South or not, simply because he was born there.
While they are thus debating the subject, their old oppressors, seeing
that the negro has touched the right chord, forbid his leaving the
country. Georgia has made it a penal offence to invite the blacks to
emigrate, and one negro is already in prison for wishing to better the
condition of his fellows. This is the same spirit that induced the
people of that State to offer a reward of five thousand dollars, in
1835, for the head of Garrison. No people has borne oppression like
the negro, and no race has been so much imposed upon. Go to his own
land. Ask the Dutch boor whence comes his contempt and inward dislike
to the negro, the Hottentot, and Caffre; ask him for his warrant to
reduce these unhappy races to slavery; he will point to the fire-arms
suspended over the mantle-piece--“There is my right.”
Want of independence is the colored man’s greatest fault. In the
present condition of the Southern States, with the lands in the hands
of a shoddy, ignorant, superstitious, rebellious, and negro-hating
population, the blacks cannot be independent. Then emigrate to get away
from the surroundings that keep you down where you are. All cannot go,
even if it were desirable; but those who remain will have a better
opportunity. The planters will then have to pursue a different policy.
The right of the negroes to make the best terms they can, will have
to be recognized, and what was before presumption that called for
repression will now be tolerated as among the privileges of freedom.
The ability of the negroes to change their location will also turn
public sentiment against bull-dozing.
Two hundred years have demonstrated the fact that the negro is the
manual laborer of that section, and without him agriculture will be at
a stand-still.
The negro will for pay perform any service under heaven, no matter how
repulsive or full of hardship. He will sing his old plantation melodies
and walk about the cotton fields in July and August, when the toughest
white man seeks an awning. Heat is his element. He fears no malaria in
the rice swamps, where a white man’s life is not worth sixpence.
Then, I say, leave the South and starve the whites into a realization
of justice and common sense. Remember that tyrants never relinquish
their grasp upon their victims until they are forced to.
Whether the blacks emigrate or not, I say to them, keep away from the
cities and towns. Go into the country. Go to work on farms.
If you stop in the city, get a profession or a trade, but keep in mind
that a good trade is better than a poor profession.
In Boston there are a large number of colored professionals, especially
in the law, and a majority of whom are better fitted for farm service,
mechanical branches, or for driving an ash cart.
Persons should not select professions for the name of being a
“professional,” nor because they think they will lead an easy life. An
honorable, lucrative and faithfully-earned professional reputation, is
a career of honesty, patience, sobriety, toil and Christian zeal.
No drone can fill such a position. Select the profession or trade that
your education, inclination, strength of mind and body will support,
and then give your time to the work that you have undertaken, and work,
work.
Once more I say to those who cannot get remunerative employment at the
South, emigrate.
Some say, “stay and fight it out, contend for your rights, don’t
let the old rebels drive you away, the country is as much yours
as theirs.” That kind of talk will do very well for men who have
comfortable homes out of the South, and law to protect them; but for
the negro, with no home, no food, no work, the land-owner offering him
conditions whereby he can do but little better than starve, such talk
is nonsense. Fight out what? Hunger? Poverty? Cold? Starvation? Black
men, emigrate.