launched upon the waters without mast, sail or rudder. Pleased
with liberty, he thought his happiness complete; but a few months’
experience taught him better. When the ballot was denied, when he
could not—nay, more, when he cannot—claim as a right or privilege
the comforts of travel; when deeply-rooted prejudice on account
of his color and previous condition of servitude confronted him
at every turn, he soon found that he had not reached the full
stature of an American citizen, but was still in his infancy.
And the question that presents itself to your minds, and to the
friends of the negro and to ours, the orphaned recipients of your
generosity, is, Has the negro grown any? has he made any noticeable
advancement? Or is he where freedom found him and where slavery
left him? January, 1863, found the negro penniless, ignorant, a
homeless wanderer, his chief object to be in General Sherman’s
army, or if not in it, in the wake of it; but he is now settled,
fixed, and by industry and by perseverance he has purchased homes,
and he and his children, through the generous aid of friends, have
received some education. The land that he once sowed in slavish
fear and reaped with trembling, he now sows in joy and gathers with
the gladsome shout of a free and jubilant harvester. In fact, the
material, as well as the intellectual and moral progress of the
negro has surprised his best friends. He has gone forth without
possessing the tattered garments that he wore, without a foot of
soil on which to tread, and he has purchased those homes. And not
only has he purchased them, but he has carried into them those
things which make home what it is—the comforts of home. It is
nothing strange to go into a Southern home and see a carpet on
the floor. If it is not on all of it, it will be a big piece in
the middle. And if you don’t find it all the way up-stairs, you
will find a little as you step on the first step. That shows a
disposition to do something that is elevating. And then the fact
that they have purchased these homes is something. I have seen it
repeated in the newspapers of the North—and I regret to say by men
who do not know the negro—that he is a lazy, shiftless fellow.
Well, they do not go down South, as we term it, and go into the
negroes’ houses. They do not go into his colleges and universities
and high schools, but they ride around by the station, they see a
few at the depot—a lot of lazy negroes, as you find a lot of lazy
white men under similar circumstances. They judge us unfairly. No
man is judged by the worst, but by the best. Did you want Lord
Chief Justice Coleridge to form an opinion of America by the men
that he met by accident or saw in the slums of New York—“lazy”
men, that he saw lounging around the corners of the streets? No;
you wanted him to judge you by your best, and you put your best
forward. Now, what we ask for the negro is that he be judged by his
best and not by his worst. Of course, the best is always in the
minority, but that is the way we are judged. If these same men were
to go into the South and go into the negroes’ homes, they would
find there very often excellent comfort. Some one has asked whether
the negro has any of this race prejudice in him. No; he will give
you the best bed and the fattest pig and the best chicken he has
got in the yard. There is no prejudice there. And then, not only
these things, but you find in many of their houses instruments of
music—some with an organ, some with a piano; and you can find young
girls there who can play on both, and if you want a little singing
they can do that too. Negroes can sing as well as my friends the
Chinamen. These things, too, are not only found in the cities but
in the country places and villages.
The negro has done all this, notwithstanding that he has lost
millions—yes, the negro has been defrauded of millions, yet he
has accumulated millions, and in many instances he has become the
owner of the farms and plantations of his former master. It was no
longer than two or three years ago that the papers told us that
the farm of Mr. Jefferson Davis rightly belonged not to him, but
to two negroes, they having paid $200,000 for it. And these are
but examples. You go through the South and you find negroes owning
farms of 100 or 200 acres each; and I know of one man who owns 900
acres, all of which he has bought since the war. We have gone forth
to the earth, and with the horny hands of toil we have made the
earth to answer to our appeals; and these have been the results.
Why, in Georgia alone there are more than 85,000 colored voters
who own 500,000 acres of land valued at about $1,244,000, besides
city property valued at $2,100,000, horses and mules, etc., valued
at, $2,000,000, making an aggregate for Georgia alone of more than
$6,000,000, which the colored people in that State now own.
But why should I enumerate? In fact, the negro has made the
waste places of the South to blossom as the rose. He has built
its railroads, dug its canals, erected its mansions, makes its
carriages and buggies, and in 1878 produced for the American people
more than $250,000,000. In the face of these evidences, who would
dare question his industry, stigmatize him as “lazy,” and ridicule
his unskilled labor?
But these are but the beginnings—the gray streaks of dawn ushering
in a brighter day for this toiling and long-oppressed son of Ham.
We are often reminded of what the negro was in ancient days,
especially in Northern Africa; but to-day we are forced to see what
he is in America, notwithstanding its prejudices and its political
oppression and persecution; we are forced to look at him rising in
his incomparable glory, the anomaly of the race and the wonder of
mankind.
But there is another feature. The negro’s highest powers and
worthiest capabilities are not all shown in the development of
sterile marshes or barren highlands. If slavery brought out his
power of endurance, his patience and his unparalleled fidelity,
freedom called forth his intellectual ability and causes the world
to wonder at his rapid attainments. But this angel in him long
ago would have sought his native heaven, but slavery clipped his
wings, forbade his flight, and confined him to corn hills, cotton
rows, rice marshes and pine forests. But his wings are growing
again, and already he lifts himself somewhat from the earth. But
you say, “Are there any signs of his educational progress?” I
might answer by pointing to distinguished colored men who fill
positions of responsibility and emolument in this country. But
not only are there men who are educated among us, but there are
also schools of high grade whose portals are anxiously crowded
by young men and women thirsting for knowledge. I have taken one
State as an example of our material progress; let another show our
intellectual advancement. In 1861 there was not a school in North
Carolina to which persons of color were admitted. But to-day, in
addition to her common schools, she has Shaw University, Biddle
University, St. Augustine Normal School, four State Normal Schools,
Esther Seminary, Scotia Seminary, Bennett Seminary, and the Zion
Wesleyan Institute—institutions of high grade; these have in them
to-day an aggregate of 2,000 young men and women preparing for the
great work of uplifting their brethren, and every summer they go
forth throughout North Carolina and other Southern States doing
what they can for the improvement of their fellows. Besides this,
we have in North Carolina from twelve to fifteen newspapers,
weeklies, semi-weeklies and monthlies, edited, owned and controlled
by colored men. The negro has done something, and we consider it
something—something that we are proud of, especially when we think
of the manner in which it has been done.
But, notwithstanding this favorable aspect of the condition of
the people as seen in these two States, we are forced to ask the
question—in fact it comes to us as we travel among the people—what
is our material progress in Georgia, what is North Carolina’s
educational outlook, when we consider the masses of the people
through the South? They are but a drop in the bucket. If you could
travel through that section and view the condition of the people
away off in the remote towns and districts, you would say so,
especially when you remember that the population has increased to
almost double its original number. Since 1863 the 4,000,000 have
grown to nearly 7,000,000. It is nothing strange to see the need
of instruction among the people, even among the ministry. It is my
theory that we must get the ministry straight first; and when we
have an intelligent ministry before the people, then we will soon
have an intelligent people. “Like priest” _always_ “like people”.
It was truly said by President Tobey at the meeting of the A. M. A.
in Chicago that the presence of the negro in the United States is
of great significance, that the enthusiasms of political life in
our nation have resulted from his presence, and that he has been
the occasion of the most exhaustive discussion of the rights of
man and the formation of a new political party and is now the most
considerable element in our politics. That is true; but that is
telling us our disease without a cure. What is the remedy? That is
what you are here for to-night; that is what you have bean turning
over in your minds ever since you assembled. What is the remedy for
these existing political and social evils among us? We think it was
precisely set forth by the Secretary of the Association at that
same meeting when he said, “The true remedy for the existing evils
is not to change the negro’s color or his party, but to change his
_character_,” and that is what we ask.
Legislation cannot solve the negro problem in this country. The
thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, the Civil Rights
Bill and the Constitution itself cannot solve the negro problem.
We must go behind the Constitution, behind the amendments; we must
go to the public sentiment. What effect has a law if there is not
a public sentiment to back it up? We have had the Civil Rights
Bill for several years, but what did it amount to in some sections
of the country? It amounted to nothing, because there was not a
public sentiment to sustain it. And it seems to me that we want to
educate the public sentiment and it is evident that the solution
of this great vexing problem can only come through the gradual and
thorough development of the negro’s mental and moral nature. I say
_thorough_, because some men think that the negro need have only an
elementary training, that he is not prepared for a higher training.
Why is he not? If it has taken centuries of culture, with the best
masters and the best teachers, to uplift the white race, why is it
not necessary to uplift the black race? God has made of one blood
all nations of men that dwell upon the face of the earth; and we
believe that there are only individual and not race distinctions as
to their mental and moral capabilities. Therefore, what one race
requires another race requires; and we feel assured that, when this
has been done, the millions of minds, both in this country and
in Africa, that are now rough and unshapen as the rock from the
quarry, will begin to show signs of symmetry under the constant
hammer and steady chisel of competent workmen.
Then, and not till then, the negro’s sun of progress and
prosperity, whose earliest rays already gladden his eastern
horizon, will rise and climb the firmament of his glory until it
reaches its zenith, and from that zenith it will shed forth a light
that all the nations of the earth shall behold, whose heat shall
melt away all prejudice, in whose light all indignities and all
inhumanities shall vanish; and all these nations, in one united,
harmonious voice, shall cry aloud, “Ethiopia, Ethopia has indeed
and in truth stretched forth her hands unto God.”
* * * * *
CASTE IN AMERICA.
BY SECRETARY STRIEBY.
India has four castes, America two. The Hindoo castes are the
priest, soldier, merchant and laborer or Soodra. The last is the
largest and lowest and bears the weight of all the upper classes,
whom it is born to serve and by whom it is despised. The highest
caste may come down to the employments of the soldier or merchant,
but not to those of the Soodra, but, according to Hindoo orthodoxy,
the Soodra can as little enter a higher caste as a stone can become
a plant.
America’s two castes are simply the white and the colored races.
The latter are the Soodras, and in the orthodox theology of slavery
they were born to serve the whites. But while that high orthodoxy
suffered a rude shock in the Proclamation of Emancipation, caste
comes in to save it from utter overthrow, and has fixed a great
gulf between the races, so that especially “they cannot pass to us
that would come from thence.”
This proscription of the colored races includes the Indian and the
Chinaman, but for the sake of simplicity of presentation I shall
refer mainly to the most numerous race in this country—the Negro.
By caste prejudice they are denied fellowship which Christ
enjoins—rights which the Constitution grants, access to trades,
professions and schools where they could compete with the whites.
Caste is a worse sin in America than in India. In practicing it the
Hindoo obeys his gods and his veda; the American dishonors his God
and disobeys his Bible. The Hindoo is a heathen and is degraded
by caste; the American sends missionaries to convert him and to
denounce his caste, and yet sustains caste at home. The Hindoo is
consistent in denying equal rights to all men; the American boasts
that God made of one blood all nations, and that all men are free
and equal, and yet tolerates caste.
In sustaining caste the American perpetuates the inconsistency and
shame of slavery. No greater inconsistency was ever shown than in
holding slaves in America after the Declaration of Independence;
and no greater shame than in the zealous defense of slavery by the
press, the pulpit and the theological seminaries—at the imperious
bidding of the slaveholder. Caste is the tap root of slavery,
and the defense of it is a repetition—nay, an aggravation—of the
apologies formerly made for slavery. Men will live to be ashamed of
this defense.
Caste is a curse to America.
It injures those who cherish it. Caste-prejudice is a sin. All
prejudice is narrow, born of ignorance and hate. Caste-prejudice,
therefore, by narrowing the mind and embittering the heart, harms
the American citizen both as a man and a Christian. It hinders the
progress of its victims. The slaves are emancipated—their continued
degradation is the nation’s danger, their elevation the nation’s
hope, and yet caste shuts up the avenues of trades, professions,
schools and churches, through which alone they can escape from
ignorance and degradation. If they rise it must be in spite of all
the obstacles that caste can throw in their way.
It creates race antagonisms. The foreign immigration into this
country creates no antagonisms. It flows into the great river of
American life like brooklets, bringing down often their turbid
waters, but these are soon mingled and purified in the mightier
stream. But caste renders the colored races an opposing tide now
indeed overflowed and borne under, yet resisting their fate. That
they are overborne is seen in the nullifying of their vote in the
South and in denying them access to the rights, immunities and
privileges of the dominant class. But they are neither silent nor
submissive. We know how prompt and deadly is the resentment of the
Indian; the negro and the Chinaman are more quiet, but they resist
as best they can and await the time, in the conflict of tides, when
their volume and momentum will give them the preponderance.
Nor is that awaiting vain, nor that time distant, in view of the
astonishingly rapid increase of the colored population—an increase
of over 500 per day—an increase of 35 per cent. in ten years,
as against 28 per cent. in the white population of the South.
It is easy to estimate in how few years the colored population
will equal the whites, and it is easy to see that, as this growth
goes on and long before the equal numbers are reached, the sense
of growing strength and of continued wrong will stimulate the
negative resistance of the present to the determined hostility
of the future; and when that race conflict comes, what human ken
can foretell the issue? But we may be sure that when it comes the
North, the whole nation, can no more keep out of it than it could
keep out of the dreadful conflict with slavery, out of which this
impending struggle grows.
Special significance is given to all this by the recent decision
of the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing the Civil
Rights Bill unconstitutional. This takes from the colored man the
last shadow of legal protection to rights which he, and all men for
themselves, consider essential to their manhood, and will stimulate
him to more determined resistance unless the conscience and good
sense of the white races shall speedily end this needless, yet
dangerous conflict.
This leads me to ask: Is there a remedy for all this, and what is
it? Not in dragging the white man down, but in lifting the colored
man up. Both races must coöperate. The white man must let down the
ladder; the black man must climb. The white man must open the door
of the shop, and the black man must go in and do as good work as
the white man can. The white man must open the school house and
the black man must go in and become as good a scholar as the white
man is. The black man can never attain positions and honors by
demanding them simply because he is a black man; he must fairly
win them by being worthy of them. The white man cannot maintain
his superiority by denying the black man the chance of becoming
his equal. He cannot hold it by force. Slavery for a time enabled
him to do so, for then he had superior numbers and the aid of the
Government, but he has no longer that aid and he cannot always have
the weight of superior numbers. The white man must give the chance,
and the black man must take it and win his position.
But the white man is not ready to give the chance—in other words,
surrender the vantage ground his color gives him. Here is a call
for an appeal to conscience. The subject must be discussed, North
and South, among white and black alike. As the anti-slavery reform
arose not out of the stagnant waters of indifference, but out
of the dashing stream of healthful agitation, so must the caste
reform be brought about. That discussion has begun in earnest,
and will not cease till caste be sent to that bourne to which
slavery, its ancestor, has gone and whence it shall never return.
But discussion must take shape; the Church must cease to sustain
caste. The time was when men were afraid to oppose slavery because
it would hinder the spread of their churches in the South. They
urged: “Why endanger the growth of our denomination by joining
in this useless clamor against slavery?” But the time came when
these same persons decided that it was more important to destroy
slavery than multiply churches that sustained slavery. Missionary
societies abandoned their churches in the South, and the great
national churches allowed themselves to be rent in twain rather
than uphold slavery. Only such an attitude against caste will
avail anything. When the North feels that ten churches or schools
that stand unequivocally against caste are more important than a
thousand churches or schools that sustain caste, then we shall see
the beginning of the end.
But the colored people themselves must be educated out of caste.
Strange as it may seem, some of them are its abettors, and,
stranger still, they are so religiously. As men, they repudiate
it; as Christians, they sustain it. They prefer separation mainly,
perhaps, because they think the whites would not welcome them.
Other reasons may be given. Some of the members love excitement
in their worship, and this they can enjoy better if no whites are
present; the leaders can be bishops and rulers among their own
people, but, if joined to the whites, these honors are denied, or,
at least, unequally divided. Why is it that religion is compelled
to shield some of the greatest wrongs on earth? Albert Barnes said,
long before slavery was abolished: “There is no power _out_ of the
Church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained
_in_ it.” Must sinful and harmful caste, the baleful progeny of
slavery, find its bulwark in the Church—nay, in some of the colored
churches themselves?
But this wish or willingness of these churches for separation is
gravely made use of by many most excellent people as a reason for
ceasing to make war against caste. It is said triumphantly: “See
how the colored people, welcomed to Dr. Goodell’s or Dr. Rankin’s
churches, prefer churches of their own.” Does their abetting
caste help to destroy it? Did the wish of the Israelites in the
wilderness to return to Egypt help them on to Canaan? If the
slaves in this country were ever content to remain slaves, as was
sometimes alleged, that was all the greater evidence of the curse
of slavery. If the Soodra consents to remain a Soodra, all the more
does he need the breaking of his bondage that he may become a man.
And so, if the colored people consent to caste separation, all the
more do they need emancipation from the bondage of caste.
In this point of view the action of some of the large religious
bodies North and South in consenting to a separation on the color
line is riveting the chains of caste on the colored people, and
sustaining caste-prejudice in the hearts of the white race; and
it is seriously questioned by many considerate persons whether
the presence of two Congregational Missionary Societies in the
South, the one working mainly for the whites, and the other side by
side, mainly for the blacks, will not, with all explanations, be
construed into a sanction of caste. The question is fairly before
the churches, and should be met in a frank and Christian way.
The presence with us to-day of a committee appointed by the
American Home Missionary Society to confer on this very subject
renders its consideration by this meeting a matter of comity and
of Christian duty, and to aid in its intelligent and harmonious
settlement I beg leave to contribute some facts and considerations.
The A. M. A. was organized when the great missionary societies,
home and foreign, aided churches in the South that received
slaveholders as members. It was formed not as an anti-slavery
society, nor merely as a formal protest against slavery, but as
affording a channel through which anti-slavery Christians might
carry forward missions without complicity with slavery. Hence it
established missions in foreign lands and among the Indians, and
also home missions in the West.
But in the progress of the anti-slavery movement the large
missionary societies withdrew their aid from slaveholding
churches, and soon thereafter came the opening for the great work
to be done for the freedmen. The Association was believed to be
providentially prepared to undertake this work, and hence it gave
up its home missions in the West and among the Indians and entered
with alacrity into this new field.
The territory it occupied was the whole South, its schools being
located in every Southern State. But gradually it withdrew from
Delaware, Maryland, and unwisely, as I then thought, and now think,
from Florida. At the West it organized a few churches in Kansas,
which, however, it at length turned over to the American Home
Missionary Society, only resuming limited efforts there when the
great exodus of colored people thither took place. In Missouri it
never attempted much in church planting. It found that the Home
Missionary Society that had done so grand a work from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, rearing its monuments of light and piety along
the whole line of its march, had entered Missouri so effectually
that there was no more call for the Association in those parts,
and hence that state was soon and cheerfully surrendered to the
occupancy of that Society. In Texas the Association has established
one of its chartered institutions at Austin, the Tillotson
Collegiate and Normal Institute; it was the earliest Congregational
Society to plant churches in the State; its churches there, though
few, are more in number than that of any other Congregational
Society, and two calls are pressing upon us now for the
organization of new churches. Thus its field may be said to be the
“Solid South” leaving out Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Florida and
the new State of West Virginia. In this territory it has planted
its large and permanent educational institutions; its 89 churches,
united in eight conferences, covering nearly the whole South.