WHITES AND BLACKS OR THE QUESTION SETTLED 45

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.