BENEFITS WROUGHT BY HARDSHIPS.
The word "Offence" is a general and somewhat indefinite term. As defined
by the various dictionaries, it means an attack, an assault, aggression,
injustice, oppression, transgression of a law, misdemeanor, trespass,
crime and persecution. In all of these definitions there is implied an
act considered as disagreeable if not harmful to the recipient.
Of the various nations of the earth, those that are most powerful and
that have accomplished most good are those which have endured and have
survived the most offences. They have grown by reason of the obstacles
which they have overcome. It is singular, yet it is true, that offences
have never destroyed a nation. Those nations which have been destroyed
have been destroyed not by attack from without, but by their own
internal weakness.
Societies that are accomplishing the most good for the uplift of
humanity today are those against whom the most offences have been
committed. Take the Christian Church, the greatest of all societies. Who
can enumerate the offences which have been committed against the church?
Herod tried to behead it, but could not; Pilate tried to crucify it, but
instead sanctified it; Paul persecuted it and it redeemed him; poor
drunken and debauched Nero poured forth the fury of his wrath against
it in every conceivable, wicked way. He deliberately set fire to the
city of Rome and accused the Christians of the deed. He gave feasts in
his garden and the bodies of the Christians were burned as torches in
the evenings. Their groans and agonies constituted the music for their
dance and carousal. Other Christians were fed to half-starved lions. But
through it all the church has become more powerful and more glorious
than before; while Nero's name will forever be a stench to the nations
of the earth. In this particular case the prophecy of Christ "That
offences must need be but woe unto the man by whom the offence cometh"
is fulfilled. As with the church, so with all other societies and
institutions that are doing good in the community, they endure their
offences.
The history of the growth and rise of the various races will show that
they, too, have had their bitter as well as their sweet. In fact, they
have fought for every inch of territory which they now possess.
Let us consider some of the benefits which have been derived from our
hardships. That the enslavement of my people was a serious offence there
is no doubt. I should be the last one to apologize for slavery; but,
after all, we brought more out of slavery than we carried into it. We
went into it heathens, with no language, and no God; we came out
American citizens, speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue, and serving
the God of all the earth.
Under the leadership of old Richard Allen and other noted colored
divines, the Negro church was set up under a bush harbor, but today they
own church property in this country valued at more than $26,000,000. As
a result of the educational offences committed against the Negro, today
he has 35,000 Negro teachers and more than seventeen million dollars'
worth of school property in this country. The Negro has been
disfranchised, but he is more capable of the ballot today than ever
before. Though the disfranchisement of the Negro has wrought great harm
to our Democratic form of government, it has increased in the Negro the
spirit of patience, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and, in fact, it has
enhanced in him all of those virtues which make for true manhood and
womanhood.
In the business world there has been less offence committed against the
Negro than in any other way. What little there has been was rather
slight and it has been only in recent years that the Negro has began to
detect it, and establish business of his own. He has not so many stores
as he has schools, nor so many shops as he has churches, yet the reports
of the Negro National Business League, which recently met in Atlanta,
will show that he is making rapid progress in the business world.
All great men as well as races and nations suffered their offences.
Washington, Lincoln and Grant were great because they had to endure
hardships. Robert Small, Frederick Douglas and Booker Washington are
great because they were slaves.
The Negro of the South was emancipated 50 years ago without education,
without money, without clothes, without food, without even a place to
rest his head, and, in many instances, without a name. His greatest
possession was ignorance. If, during slavery, he was taught many useful
and helpful lessons, during slavery, also, he was denied the opportunity
of exercising and developing the greatest requisite of independence,
self-reliance. He was a new-born babe, as a ship in mid-ocean without a
rudder. It was nothing more than natural for him at times to drift, at
times to wander, and still at other times to steer in the wrong
direction.
Consequently, he made many mistakes, some of them serious. He made
mistakes in religion, mistakes in economics, and mistakes in politics,
but to my mind his greatest mistake was made in the matter of education.
Until the year '95 the masses of our people in the Black-Belt section of
the South believed that the end of education was to free one from manual
labor, especially from the labor of the farm. They furthermore believed
that it was the end of education to take the people from the country to
the cities and otherwise fit them for only three callings, namely, of
teacher, of preacher, and of politician. This conception of education
was entertained not only by the masses, but many of our schools and
colleges encouraged the same view.
Just at this period, when the relation between the races seemed most
strained, there loomed on the horizon the Booker Washington idea, "That
the kind of education most needed by our people was that which would
dignify, beautify, and make attractive and desirable country life and at
the same time fit our people for high and useful citizenship." Mr.
Washington further contended that any education which did not manifest
itself in the practical daily life of the people was not worthy of the
name.
This idea of Mr. Washington was indeed timely, but, like all other great
movements for reform, it was not accomplished without obstacles, but in
the face of many dangers and difficulties. But the dawn of a new day is
breaking and industrialism seems to be the spirit of the age. The very
fact that the Negro was not allowed to attend the white man's school in
the South gave the Negro a Tuskegee. The fact that no white educator was
willing to bear the black man's burden gave him a Booker Washington. For
similar reasons the Negro has been forced to build his own libraries,
his own theatres, his own hotels, and to establish many other business
enterprises.
Hardships, trials, persecution, and offences are a primary necessity in
life. We ought not, therefore, complain of them; our trials have made us
what we are.
This is pre-eminently a progressive age. The world no longer stands
still. We are either going forward or backward, rising or falling; there
is no such thing as standing still. Those phases of our human activities
that are standing still are dying. This forward movement is not
accomplished without obstacles, and what is true of politics and
business is equally true of individuals. The greatest strength comes
from overcoming--from resistance and struggle.