Now, I hold, no less than his accusers, that the crime alleged against
the Negro is the most revolting which men can commit. It is a crime
that awakens the intensest abhorrence and tempts mankind to kill the
criminal on first sight.
But this charge thus brought against the Negro and as constantly
reiterated by his enemies, is plainly enough not merely a charge
against the individual culprit, as would be the case with an individual
of any other race, but it is in large measure a charge constructively
against the coloured people as such. It throws over every man of colour
a mantle of odium, and sets upon him a mark of popular hate, more
distressing than the mark set upon the first murderer. It points the
Negro out as an object of suspicion, avoidance and hate.
It is in this form of the charge that you and I and all of us are
required to meet it and refute it, if that can be done. In the opinion
of some of us it were well to say nothing about it, that the least said
about it the better. They would have us suffer quietly under the odium
in silence. In this I do not concur. Taking this charge in its broad
and comprehensive sense, the sense in which it is presented and as now
stated, it strikes at the whole coloured race, and, therefore, as a
coloured man, I am bound to meet it. I am grateful for the opportunity
now afforded me to meet it. For I believe it can be met and met
successfully. I hold that a people too spiritless to defend themselves
against unjust imputations, are not worth defending, and are not worthy
to defend anything else.