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CHAPTER VII. OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY

There are College professors, mechanics, tradesmen, bishops and theologians all over the South, with black faces.In Washington,Wilkes County, the home of Hon. Robert Toombs, a carriage is sent with a committee of white men to escort a Negro Bishop, Rt. Rev. W. J. Gaines, to the largest church for white people in the city, to preach to white people about the “Unspeakable riches of God's kingdom reserved for the Saints”.

In Milledgeville every white church in the city is given up during the A. M. E. Conference to the colored preachers, and not only the churches but the opera house. Did these Negroes surrender their manhood to obtain these things? No. They simply conducted themselves like sober, conservative, Christian gentlemen, and were treated accordingly.

The court rooms, the State capitols and the opera houses throughout the South are given to the colored people, in which to hold their meetings and conventions from time to time. Are not these evidences of the fact that the South is rapidly going forward and losing sight of prejudice?

The Southern white men will give the Negro all he merits. The Atlanta Journal has repeatedly called the attention of the railroad companies to the distinction made in providing for colored accommodation at the depots, and in the cars prepared for their conveyance. This paper is not alone. Only a few days ago the Charleston News and Courier "hauled" the railroads "over the coals" for a failure to provide equal accommodation for their colored passengers.

All over the South, regardless of the Negro "hot heads" and the white "kickers," a sentiment is present, and on the increase, which is gradually clothing the Negro with responsibilities in proportion to the number answering to the standard by which they are measured, to-wit: Intellectual, financial and moral fitness — more stress being put on the first and last than on the other.

In mentioning a few things which ought to be granted, I deny a disposition to lecture anybody, to refuse to be thankful for what has been and is being done, or to appear offensive and dictatorial. What I say is for the good of the whole country, and I trust I am actuated by the purest motives.

If in this world I have an enemy, he is unknown to me; that my heart is friendly to all is proven by a reiteration of an earnest expression of mine which appeared in print some time ago, it was:

 “No man loves his race more than I love mine. It may be that I shall die misunderstood, just as I have lived misrepresented; suffer me to say that, so great is my love for the race to which I belong, I stand ready, if such a thing be possible, to remain the balance of my life, however long, in any prison, however vile, to perpetuate peace between the sons of Japheth and the sons of Ham”.

"I am ready at any day to keep my word. Be at peace with God, knowing that you have treated your neighbor right, and there is no more pleasant death than dying for your country”.

 

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CHAPTER VII. OUR CHRISTIAN DUTY

Since both races are here to stay never to be separated, let us come to some understanding and agreement with each other.

In treating as to terms remember that there are two sides to the subject and agreement: and that there are two races equally interested in the final settlement or the terms of the "peace arrangement”.

Colored men on account of the "wrong doing" of a few white men do not consider all white men bad; therefore white men should not, because one Negro steals, say all Negroes are thieves.

There are good and noble men in both races in the South, Men who despise “wrong doing" of every kind. I know white men of this section that I would trust with any interest which I hold dear.

Who could imagine or picture General J. B. Gordon, Editor Henry W. Grady, Mayor John T. Glenn, Captain Harry Jackson, Lawyer Hoke Smith, or men of their class and rank, unwilling and refusing to measure out full justice to the once oppressed race?

These gentlemen stand ready to grant, when properly asked, every just right to which the Negro in Georgia is entitled. And progressive men like these can be found in every State in the South, ready and willing to prove by tangible evidence to the world that they are the best friends of the black men.

These men take no delight in reading of attacks made on Negroes. All they ask is to be allowed to settle the Southern question for themselves.

They rightly claim that living here, they understand the situation better than persons who know only of the present “South" by what they read in the newspapers.

Under the present policy of the South, the colored people have been able to acquire (one hundred and seventy five million) $175,000,000.00 dollars worth of property, and although the colored people are not given as yet recognition in the distribution of State and municipal offices, there is every reason why they should feel encouraged.

A number of colored men have been educated as doctors and lawyers by white physicians and white barristers of the South. These professional Negroes have hung out their shingles, and where they once moved as slaves, they now live as successful practitioners. In treatment they are accorded the same attention, courtesy and kindness extended to white men of the same calling. This is certainly a long distance to travel in twenty-four years.

 

WHITES AND BLACKS OR THE QUESTION SETTLED 44

CHAPTER VI. SHALL THE NEGRO BE DISFRANCHISED? 

Let the colored tax-payers and the white tax- payers, both possessing intelligence, get together, and let each swear eternal friendship for the other. Let them build up a fence high, and make it so secure that the worthless political demagogue, owning nothing and having no calling except that of the breeder of dissension and strife, cannot get over or through it.

Let the colored voter decide that there are men enough in the South, born here, to hold all the offices, and vote accordingly. Vote on, being governed by the rule that your interests are identical with your white neighbors, and that you are not only physically but politically free as well.

Vote in the way indicated, and as a free and honest citizen, and as an intelligent handler of the "ballot," you will be regarded as a blessing in the community where you reside.

The man who will sell his vote ought to be from that day forever disfranchised. The man who will purchase a vote should thenceforth be disqualified from holding office. True citizenship, with the right to vote, is that which gives the individual enjoying the same the right to take part in the legislative and judicial proceedings of the community, and requires of him the carrying of an equal share of the community's burdens and responsibilities.