But I now come to another proposition, held up as a solution of the
race problem, and this I consider equally unworthy with the one just
disposed of. The two belong to the same low-bred family of ideas.
It is the proposition to colonize the coloured people of America in
Africa, or somewhere else. Happily this scheme will be defeated,
both by its impolicy and its impracticability. It is all nonsense to
talk about the removal of eight millions of the American people from
their homes in America to Africa. The expense and hardships, to say
nothing of the cruelty attending such a measure, would make success
impossible. The American people are wicked, but they are not fools;
they will hardly be disposed to incur the expense, to say nothing of
the injustice which this measure demands. Nevertheless, this colonizing
scheme, unworthy as it is of American statesmanship, and American
honour, and though full of mischief to the coloured people, seems to
have a strong hold on the public mind, and at times has shown much life
and vigor.
The bad thing about it is, that it has, of late, owing to persecution,
begun to be advocated by coloured men of acknowledged ability and
learning, and every little while some white statesman becomes its
advocate. Those gentlemen will doubtless have their opinion of me; I
certainly have mine of them. My opinion is, that if they are sensible,
they are insincere; and if they are sincere, they are not sensible.
They know, or they ought to know that it would take more money than
the cost of the late war, to transport even one half of the coloured
people of the United States to Africa. Whether intentionally or not,
they are, as I think, simply trifling with an afflicted people. They
urge them to look for relief where they ought to know that relief is
impossible. The only excuse they can make for the measure is that there
is no hope for the Negro here, and that the coloured people in America
owe something to Africa.
This last sentimental idea makes colonization very fascinating to the
dreamers of both colours. But there is really no foundation for it.
They tell us that we owe something to our native land. This sounds
well. But when the fact is brought to view, which should never be
forgotten, that a man can only have one native land and that is the
land in which he is born, the bottom falls entirely out of this
sentimental argument.
Africa, according to her colonization advocates, is by no means modest
in her demands upon us. She calls upon us to send her only our best
men. She does not want our riff-raff, but our best men. But these are
just the men who are valuable and who are wanted at home. It is true
that we have a few preachers and laymen with a missionary turn of mind
whom we might easily spare. Some who would possibly do as much good by
going there as by staying here. By this is not the colonization idea.
Its advocates want not only the best, but millions of the best. Better
still, they want the United States Government to vote the money to send
them there. They do not seem to see that if the Government votes money
to send the Negro to Africa, that the Government may employ means to
complete the arrangement and compel us to go.
Now I hold that the American Negro owes no more to the Negroes in
Africa than he owes to the Negroes in America. There are millions of
needy people over there, but there are also millions of needy people
over here as well, and the millions in America need intelligent men of
their number to help them, as much as intelligent men are needed in
Africa to help her people. Besides, we have a fight on our hands right
here, a fight for the redemption of the whole race, and a blow struck
successfully for the Negro in America, is a blow struck for the Negro
in Africa. For, until the Negro is respected in America, he need not
expect consideration elsewhere. All this native land talk, however,
is nonsense. The native land of the American Negro is America. His
bones, his muscles, his sinews, are all American. His ancestors for two
hundred and seventy years have lived and laboured and died, on American
soil, and millions of his posterity have inherited Caucasian blood.
It is pertinent, therefore, to ask, in view of this admixture, as well
as in view of other facts, where the people of this mixed race are to
go, for their ancestors are white and black, and it will be difficult
to find their native land anywhere outside of the United States.
But the worst thing, perhaps, about this colonization nonsense is, that
it tends to throw over the Negro a mantle of despair. It leads him to
doubt the possibility of his progress as an American citizen. It also
encourages popular prejudice with the hope that by persecution or by
persuasion, the Negro can finally be dislodged and driven from his
natural home, while in the nature of the case he must stay here and
will stay here, if for no other reason than because he cannot well get
away.
I object to the colonization scheme, because it tends to weaken the
Negro’s hold on one country, while it can give him no rational hope of
another. Its tendency is to make him despondent and doubtful, where he
should feel assured and confident. It forces upon him the idea that he
is for ever doomed to be a stranger and a sojourner in the land of his
birth, and that he has no permanent abiding place here.
All this is hurtful; with such ideas constantly flaunted before him, he
cannot easily set himself to work to better his condition in such ways
as are open to him here. It sets him to groping everlastingly after the
impossible.
Every man who thinks at all, must know that home is the fountain head,
the inspiration, the foundation and main support, not only of all
social virtue but of all motives to human progress, and that no people
can prosper, or amount to much, unless they have a home, or the hope of
a home. A man who has not such an object, either in possession or in
prospect, is a nobody and will never be anything else. To have a home,
the Negro must have a country, and he is an enemy to the moral progress
of the Negro, whether he knows it or not, who calls upon him to break
up his home in this country, for an uncertain home in Africa.
But the agitation on this subject has a darker side still. It has
already been given out that if we do not go of our own accord, we
may be forced to go, at the point of the bayonet. I cannot say that
we shall not have to face this hardship, but badly as I think of the
tendency of our times, I do not think that American sentiment will ever
reach a condition which will make the expulsion of the Negro from the
United States by any such means, possible.
Yet, the way to make it possible is to predict it. There are people
in the world who know how to bring their own prophecies to pass. The
best way to get up a mob, is to say there will be one, and this is what
is being done. Colonization is no solution, but an evasion. It is not
repentance but putting the wronged ones out of our presence. It is not
atonement, but banishment. It is not love, but hate. Its reiteration
and agitation only serves to fan the flame of popular prejudice and to
add insult to to injury.
The righteous judgment of mankind will say if the American people could
endure the Negro’s presence while a slave, they certainly can and ought
to endure his presence as a free man.
If they could tolerate him when he was a heathen, they might bear
with him now that he is a Christian. If they could bear with him when
ignorant and degraded, they should bear with him now that he is a
gentleman and a scholar.
But even the Southern whites have an interest in this question. Woe to
the South when it no longer has the strong arm of the Negro to till its
soil, “and woe to the nation when it shall employ the sword to drive
the Negro from his native land.”
Such a crime against justice, such a crime against gratitude, should it
ever be attempted, would certainly bring a national punishment which
would cause the earth to shudder. It would bring a stain upon the
nation’s honour, like the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hand. The waters of
all the oceans would not suffice to wash out the infamy. But the nation
will commit no such crime. But in regard to this point of our future,
my mind is easy. We are here and are here to stay. It is well for us
and well for the American people to rest up on this as final.