os" ‘Bee i AN ORATION 5 | | : . - DELIVERED IN THE CITY OF CHARLESTON ON THE |. TWENTY-SRVBNTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE H EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. | u - \3) PaaS Se eee ea oo ne a cr By - H GEORGE W. MURRAY. Hl Taian tee ra ea eer eee a Waker, Evans & Cogswetr Co., Prinrers AnD SraTroners, Nos. 3 and 5 Broad and 117 East Bay Sts. } \s i CHARLESTON, §. C.: iH : 1890. : ert titi ottittriiriitrrttrieitt rrt ttre rrr IF FLOWERS COLLECTION AN ORATION DELIVERED IN THE CITY OF CHARLESTON ON THE TWENTY-SEVENTE ANNIVERSARY OF THE Emancipation Proclamation. By GEORGE W. MURRAY. My Friends:—In an attempt to address you on sucha momentous occasion, taking our condition. and circum- stances into consideration, it is natural that I should be filled with emotions of joy and pride, sorrow and shame. Joy and pride nat only because we are free, but that during the comparatively short period of Emancipation we have surpassed the record of all other people similarly situ- ated. Sorrow and shame, because we have left undone so much ._ that we could have done to strengthen our standing among other tribes and nationalities and give us more influence in the government under which we live. Looking out upon the great and limitless periods of time in which Nature’s self seems to die and molder away, form- ing new strata of earth and repeopling the same, these re- curring anniversaries are but short mile-stones at which we should halt fora moment and calculate our moral, religious, financial and political longitude and latitude to find out : whether the forces with which we are surrounded are carry- ___ ing us up tothe haven of human ambition, or down into the sloughs of degradation and destruction. In my humble opinion the event that we have met to commemorate is too little understood and appreciated by the race as a whole. ; All civilized nations and tribes, in accordance with their intelligence, have their great holiday and festive occasions, 2 wherein they meet, celebrate and commemorate some great event by which they were benefited. Take the different tribes that make up the population of our beautiful city, ‘“‘ where every prospect pleases and onl man is vile,” and you will find the German, Irish, Dute and Italian, each interested in some anniversary peculiar and interesting only to his own tribe, and I do not believe that any among them have as much cause for rejoicing and thanksgivings on his recurring anniversary as we. j While we all are Americans and love our country, and notwithstanding that the blood of Crispus Attucks and that of other Negro soldiers, under the lead of Marion and Sumter, was among the first to stain the soil for Independ- ence, yet the 4th of July should not have half the charms for us as the first day of January, In many respects, our perseverence in celebrating the 4th of July to the exclusion of the 1st day of January, our own joyous day ot freedom, borders on servile imitation, with little reason to support it. The victory gained under the banner of Independence, which makes the 4th of July dear and martian to the ‘ whites, because it marks the end of tyranny and tyrannical restrictions to them, prolonged greater tyranny and stronger restrictions, and more intensified slavery to the blacks. The grandest event in the history of our country, for us, occurred on the first day of January, 1862, when Abraham Lincoln, directed by God, and whose hands were guided by the shades of all the holy angels, as they looked down upon him smilingly from their glorious habitations, and the° prayers of all the good on earth, issued that immortal pa- per, read in your hearing, the Emancipation Proclamation. It was the day in which all the prayers poured forth by a wronged, injured and suffering people for two hundred and fifty years, were answered in the statutes of the na- tion. But all the prayers of black mothers, with their loving babes clinging to their heaving breasts, into whose smilin and prattling faces unmindful of the cruel fate that awaite them, as they gazed, while the tear drops rolled down their sable cheeks as fountains, and their supplications rose before the throne of God as they thought of the time when they should be separated from their loving infants ; all the pray- ers of the rude and hoary fathers in ebony, in whose faces sorrow had left its indelible foot-prints, as they gazed for the last time on their loving sons in whom all their pride 3 and hopes were centered, and whose mournful supplications ~ rung so often upon the telephones of heaven that they kept angels in waiting; all the prayers and self-denials of the abolitionists, that noble organization whose members practiced what they preached, and in their homage and devotion, lived so near the throne of God that they could hear the whisperings of His holy angels encouraging them on and urging them to greater exertions in behalf of suffer- ing humanity, were not sufficient to make good all the principles of that glorious Proclamation, No, not even the blood of Sumner, as it oozed from his noble head, from a wound inflicted by slavery personified, , staining the carpeting of the national hall of legislation asa memento of slavery’s cruelty, and dedicated to the goddess of slavery; nor that of John Brown, as it poured from his lifeless carcass dangling from the scaffold at Harper’s Ferry, and who, in meekness and resignation, in laying his own precious life on the altar of freedom, resembled Christ, was a sufficient ransom. ; The whole nation had sinned, and the whole nation had to suffer for it. To atone for its long yearsof human bondage and degra- tion, the nation had to offer upon altars of smoke and blood billions of dollars and nearly a million of lives, in- cluding that of its noblest and wisest President, to appease the smoldering anger of God at the wrong of centuries. I wish it indelibly written upon your minds, in letters of shining brightness, that Emancipation is dual in itself, physical and mental. Everywhere and at all times, mental slavery remains long after physical slavery has been abolished, and is al- ways the chief hindrance to the progress of the newly emancipated. It is long after the physical chains are broken, before the ex-slave is reconciled to the fact, or convinced that it is neither natural nor right to serve his fellow-man without pay, or cease to look upon everything connected with the master class, in habits, manners, associations, language and color, however repugnant to right some of them may be, as being superior in every essential to him and all his con- nections. It willtake long years of teaching the doctrine of human equality, race pride and self-respect before he shall have been educated up to that stage, in which he shall be con- scious of -his own equality, manhood and fitness. 4 Our physical emancipation is an assured fact, our mental freedom is hardly begun. The former was wrought out by our friends, the latter can be made possible only through and by ourselves. The peculiar mission of the old abolition school, was to train and produce an element powerful enough to mold a national sentiment of pity, strong enough to cause the physical freedom of the slave. The especial mission of the new school, the future leadérs of the race, is to create within the emancipated class suffi- cient self respect and race pride to demand the respect and consideration of others. Where the work of the old school ended, that of the new begun. . The powerful eloquence, wisdom and philanthropy of Sumner, the humility and martyrdom of John Brown, the dedication of the priceless life of the great and wise Lincoln to the goddess of slavery and the matchless service of their co-workers, tended to mold a sentiment of pity so strong that it not only brought our physical freedom, but also the precious boon of citizenship without which we would have been half free and half slave. After nearly doubling our population, and increasing our wealth by five hundred fold, and our education by thousands. We find to-day, on our twenty-ninth anniver- sary, that our influence is not half as great as it was some fifteen or twenty years ago. Do you ask why? Because that great humanitarian and philanthropic generation of pitiers made wise, noble and heroic in the schools of Garrison, Sumner, Phillips, Wayland, Channing and their associates, is gone and going, and the immediate necessity of their schgol having cea to exist, the sentiment created by it is dying with it. We are now put to the crucial test, in the fiery furnace of competition intensively heated by the inordinate preju- dices of ages in order that if we succeed those who doubt our capabilities and possibilities, might have ample proof of our fitness for equality among the rest of mankind. All must admit that the work of our physical emancipa- tion was great, but in comparison to the magnitude of what has to be done to bring about our mental freedom, it sinks in»its presence, as the evening star does in the brilliancy and grandeur of the king of day. The task of the great workers for physical emancipation was to free the limbs of one class, the immense undertaking 5 of our present and future leaders must be the emancipa-- tion of the minds of three classes, the slaves, the masters, and the rest of mankind. ‘As soon as the slave is brought down to the standard of idolizing the master, he and the rest of mankind, especially where there is physical difference become slaves to the belief that the slave is naturally inferior. Whenever slavery lasts long cnough to create such con- ditions they continue long after the original cause is re- moved and are the principal hindrances and draw-backs to the progress of freedmen. This slavish idolatry exposes itself, in the ex-slave’s preference for everything that is old master’s or looks like him. In such a stagnant and slavish condition we find our- selves to-day, and there we will remain contemned by all free and self-respecting people until we free ourselves from this inward bondage. We must get down to work at once to create within our- selves race-pride and self respect. We can no more expect to rise without them than a lazy unself-respecting person can demand the respect and con- sideration of his neighbors. Through the age of pity and sentimentalism we have passed, in which the hopes and expectatious of the race were magnified to such an extent that it almost caused ins action and helplessness. Our leaders in such an age played their part well, but conditions, in many respects, have changed, and the times demand a different kind of leadership. We find ourselves in too great a proportion still ignorant, poor, unself-respecting, non race-loving, without influence in business, law or politics and helpless. Our condition demands a leadership wise enough to see the needs of the race, with innate resources enough to’ ‘provide for them, and manhood and endurance sufficient to execute their plans. Our Moseses are either dead or dying, and yet we are in the thickest jungles, and we must have Joshuas to lead the children to the promised land. The greatest injury that slavery ever does a people is to destroy its self respect and tribal pride, the greatest service that its leadership can render is to restore the lost feelings and sentiments, without which no individual or nation is regarded by the rest of mankind. re 6 Our Eee must be taught that it is their condition, and not the color of their skins, nor the texture of their hair, that causes them to be snubbed in the business world, whipped of justice in the court room, shorn of influence in the political, and scorned in the social world, and that color is only a badge oftheir condition. The poorer class of white people, though they do not have the odds and barriers to contend against as we, on account of color, still by reason of the discriminations of the rich against the poor, to better their condition and elevate their class, they are organizing into clubs from one end of this land to the other. The result of the recent elections to a great extent, was the molding into thunder-bolts, all their real and supposed grievances which they blasted through the ballot om a privilege in great measure denied you. Again, as white men, all the avenues of labor, commerce and politics, from the little boot-black to the merehant prince or chief ruler of the nation, in proportion to their talent and fitness, are open to them, while even the fields of manual labor are closed and being closed on us. The doors of the factories and furnaces are slammed in our faces, and we are told in plain English that we are not wanted within their confines, and what is more appalling this practice obtains more or less Nurth and South. Situations as clerks and salesmen in business made possi- ble only by our consumption and patronage are denied us. Not only is the law of business sociality and marriage reversed in our case, but even legislative enactments are set up against us. Situations as teachers in schools created exclusively for negro children, supported by taxes paid out of the pockets of negro citizens, in many instances, and notably in Charles- ton are denied us, and the teachers selected for revenue only in many instances, are away out of sympathy with their pupils, whom they endeavor to impress with the notion of not how great is the possibility of obtaining their standard, but how utterly inferior they naturally are. Almost all the representation both local and national based upon our numbers and contributions to the govern- ment directly or indirectly, either fraudulently or violently usurped. Our situation is deplorable indeed and demands a leader- ~ ship with eyes enough to see it, brains enough to find a remedy and manhood sufficient to apply it. 7 All the blame for our ills should not be attributed to the white people. I would rather say we should blame our- selves for most of them. Whenever we can infuse into ourselves that we are as grand, noble and honorable as any other people, more than half of our battle shall have been fought and if we never produce this pride of race and self respect, the race is doom- ed to everlasting degradation. A man that is always showing by his actions that he regards another so much superior to himself, that he is ever trying to be like him, is never regarded by the latter as his equal. While labor is every where and always honorable, yet we must raise our standard higher than a monopoly of the lowest order of manual labor. It is a burning illustration of our incapacity to compete in the race of life with others and tends to decrease rather than enhance race pride, the lever power. _It is true we have amassed some wealth but in certain respects it is in a crude state, and does not take such shape as would inspire the race either old cr young, with pride in itself. In order to create pride and confidence, our wealth and talent must beam out in magnificent business blocks, pow- erful banking houses, strong railroad stock and splendid mansions owned and controlled by Negroes. Our talent and,wit must shine and sparkle in great dai- hes, magazines, standard books, histories and fiction spring- ing from and sustained by Negro genius. _ In the morning, after prayer, you will call your little sons around you and tell them that they are just as good as your white neighbors’ sons, that all men sprung from Adam, the common father, and that they must think as much of themselves as your white neighbors’ sons. Then you will take them by the hands and lead them into street cars manned only by white men, from that into grocery steres where they will see only white bosses and clerks, again into dry goods stores where you are served alone by white clerks under the orders of white bosses, they will find nearly every police officer white, all the splendid turnouts and palatial mansions owned by the whites, all the well-dressed people white, and they, on returning home after their day’s experience, will begin to reason for themselves, ‘They will very soon come to the conclusion that difference in color causes difference in condition, and will commence 8 to wish that their complexion was such as would enable them to enjoy this higher condition, while even you in every movement of your journey have been materially con- tributing to aid this conclusion. While your sons will soon become sorry that they are not white on account of the superior advantages offered that color, the white boys will be correspondingly glad that they are not black, on account of the disadvantage accompany-~ ing that color. The great problem for us to solve as a race, is how to make as good condition, as high and honorable employment for our color, for our sons and daughters, as the whites make for theirs, and as long as we fail to do that, our color ‘a be a badge of inferiority not only to others, but our- selves. THE BUSINESS OF A RACE OR COUNTRY ITS MAIN LEVER. The strength of the organism and power of every com- munity is dependent upon a complete blending of its various professions and business interests, but around the bnsiness and commercial classes everywhere rotate and depend all other classes, as the satellites do around the sun. The lawyers, doctors, politicians, mechanics, laborers and even ministers coquette and fondle the business men. The business class is to the social body what the great network of veins and arteries are to the natural. The highest statesmanship of every country is displayed in efforts to obtain. that part of the business and carrying trade of the world commensurate with the number of its inhabi- tants and their consumptions, without which each country is in some degree a slave to others. This principle was the corner-stone of American Inde- pendence, and stands at the very foundation of our protee- tive system. It is a want of a proper appreciation and execution of business principles that prevent Ireland from enjoying that freedom for which all Irishmen have been struggling for the last four hundred years. She is still knocking at the doors of self-government and ~ equality with other lands, but she will never enjoy those ' privileges in their fullest sense as long as English landlords collect the money paid as rent on her soil and the income from investments within her borders, no matter how many Emmets as orators and martyrs and Parnells as statesmen she may produce. 9 There should be no misunderstanding of the fact, that in order to elevate ourselves we must get control of that propor- tion of the business of this country resulting from our numbers and consumptions. As a matter of self-preservatiou, as a matter of life and death, for the sake of our suffering race and to ameliorate our own condition, we are bound to spend our money and labor more thoughtfully than we have been, remembering that in the long run the influence of the coppers, dimes and dollars falling in the drawers of the business men outweigh all the eloquence and genius of the brilliant statesman in the halls of legislation. A race in our situation should always spend its money with a double object in view, first to obtain its full immedi- ate value to aid the individual; secondly, to spend it where its influence will be most potent in helping the race as a whole, bearing in mind that it is its influence, and not its immediate value that goes on down the ages doubling and reduplicating, making business, employment and wealth for generations unborn. I am aware that very many people are adverse to this doctrine, but our situation is desperate and we must find a remedy. ; The race must produce a leadership with manhood enough at all hazards, even life, if necessary, to teach and train our people to love and respect themselves and work for their elevation by doing for themselves what all other tribes or nationalities do for their benefit. The white man, however philanthropic and humanitarian cannot perform this duty for us. By his words, deeds of kindness and example he can teach others to pity, but not respect and admire us, and no one is regarded to any considerable extent who is not res- pected and admired. We have this the mighty lever, our labor, by which we can be elevated, if we would only see it, and have moral courage enough to use it as a means to that end. About eighty per cent. of all the crude wealth dug out of the soil of this State, both in the fields and phosphate beds, is from the labor of our hands. We are the very foundation of. nearly all the wealth of which the State can boast, and yet we use the small portion allotted to us in such a way that we scarcely have any part in its resulting influence, prosperity and glory. 10 There are now about seven hundred and fifty thousand Negroes in South Carolina and allowing twenty five dollars a head for consumptions annually, we would have the enormous aggregate amount of eighteen million seven hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars and allowing a profit of twenty per cent. which is about the usual income on busi- ness investments in this State, we find a clear profit resultin trom our business of over four million and five hundrec thousand dollars. If we had one third of this amount added to our wealth, for each one of the twenty-five years of our freedom, we would own the State of South Carolina and have more than the computed wealth of all the Negroes in the United States. The handling of this enormous business resulting from | our productions and consumptions, gives employment of comparative ease and profit in which we scarcely have any part, to more than fifty thousand persons in our State alone. If we had owned and controlled even a fifth of the profits resulting from our business, there would be to our credit to-day instead of ten over a hundred million of dollars and as a natural consequence we would have ten times more than our present influence and power. The fact that such conditions are the silent influences that are consigning us to eternal degradation cannot be too orcibly impressed upon our minds. Our narrow view of the influence of money makes us careless as to how and where we spend it. As a race, we have various practices, customs and ideas of which we must free ourselves before we can ascend the lad- der of progress, prosperity and influence alongside the other races in this or any other country. Among these is the notion that the prosperity and wealth of one member of the race benefits him only. This idea and one that I shall name later on damage us more than all other agencies combined. It makes us careless about where and to whom we give our patronage. It makes the education of our children a failure and our educated young men and women a laughing stock. You and your white neighbors send your sons and daughters to college at the same time and they graduate with equal honors and are equally competent to perform any class of mental labor. Their sons and daughters return home to find employ- ment in keeping with their tastes and education, 11 They become salesmen, clerks, book-keepers, secretaries, superintendents, commercial agents, &c. Yours, on returning from college, if they do not care to become preachers, whether called or not, or teachers at star- vation wages, find employment only as servants, perform- ing the hardest kind of manual labor, or in their attempt to ape their white contemporaries in dress, refinement, ease and travel, which is too often done, with- out the foundation either in wealth or employment to sus- tain them, very often find themselves in disgrace, in prison- houses and penitentiaries. Then, my friends, you are doing your children great damage in educating them for a heritage which you insist in your aid in giving to others. While these young people were at school and since their return, you, as well as your white neighbors have been spending your money and dispensing your patronage to give employment and wealth to theirs and none to yours. Then if the education of your children don’t make them wise and powerful enough to convert stones into bread, empty air into elegant raiment, splendid mansions and fine horses and carriages, and water into wine, you, yourselves very often join the slanderous chorus in pronouncing the Negro’s education a failure. Again this custom of spending all your substance where it only gives employment to, and build and enrich your white neighbors, has the effect of doing double injury to you as a race. It not only confirms them in their opinions and convic- tions of your innate degradation, but leaves your race in such a helpless and dependent condition that it loses confidence in its own possibilities and capabilities. Take the condition of the race in this city, for illustration, whose immense Negro population, both within and beyond its immediate limits, ought to make it the Eden of America for us. The business of this city of over fifty thousand inhabi- tants, more than half of which are Negroes, stands a monu- ment of shame to the entire race, and a menacing danger to the recognition of our manhood and the equality of our humanity, and exposes as nothing else can, our ignorance, folly and incapacity. In all this broad land I do not believe another city can be found in proportion to its Negro population, where the colored people are doing such little business, and as a con- sequence exercise so little influence as in Charleston. 12 The conditions that are apparent to the minds of our friends, from whatever parts they hail, while travelling through the business thoroughfares of the city, and scan- ning with eager eyes to see what part we are playing in them, create doubts in their minds regarding our capacity and possibility, and generally lower their estimation of us. They are forced to ask what is the matter with these people? When they shall have returned to their homes, they will be less disposed to dispute our slanderers and traducers, more given to believe in our eternal inferiority and degra- dation. Negro men of Charleston, before your race and yourselves can be elevated, these conditions must change, and it re- mains to be seen how long you are going to sleep over your opportunities. By your present practices you have barred and are barring almost the entire race, out of the field as merchants bankers, book-keepers, commercial agents, superintendents, secretaries, clerks, salesmen and even as teachersin your school, which are filled to a great extent by persons who for watt of employment more in keeping with their taste and preference, teach a class of people that they scorn and at times put on inelegant smiles at the little black faces up turned to theirs for instruction, encouragement and inspira- tion. Ifyou walk around the docks and wharves of the city and keep both eyes open, you will see signs on the labor horoscope that your employment even as manual laborers, is gradually being curtailed. . Just as soon as the white longshoreman organization is strong enough, the occupation of the colored brotherhood is gone. The Jews have been and are now a proscribed race, but they have pride and confidence in themselves and believe that they are God’s chosen race. Although they are scattered all over the known surface of the earth and various attempts have been made to anni- hilate them in some countries and exterminate them from others, still they live, multiply and prosper, and are becom- ing more powerful and influential every day. It is a rare thing to see a Jew in prison or Jewess in a house of ill-repute. On account of the Jewish grip on the business strings of the world they are gaining stronger and stronger recognition in every walk of life, daily. 13 One of the greatest triumphs of the Jewish nation in modern times, was when a Jew became chief owner and controller of the Bank of England, the strongest banking institution in the world. You would have hardly seen a Disraeli as premier of England had there not been a Rothschild as chief banker. There never was an earl of Beaconsfield until there was a Baron De Rothschild. The trait among the whites of taking care of their own is not so much hatred for us as love for themselves. This very characteristic, illustrations of which stand out as great lamps to light our paths darkened by ignorance and folly, should teach us a lesson. The poorest white man, straggling along your streets, half-naked, hungry and debased, regards himself superior to the best of you, including even the members of that mysterious and would-be royal club styling itself “The Colored Four Hundred.” He says to himself, and sometimes to others, I know that I am poor and worthless, but I belong toa proud, rich and powerful race, controlling all the business of this country, and consequently its government. Again he says, representatives of my race occupy those splendid mansions and powerful seats of government over there, and at times turns and asks you where are your rep- resentatives of which you can be proud ? My advice is, treat him kindly and give him food, for to- day you meet him a loafer and beggar—to-morrow super- intendent or head man of the contract in which you are engaged as laborers, or clerk, book-keeper or salesman in the business your patronage made possible, when he was not known, and in which all such employment is denied you, notwithstandiug the fact your known ability and hon- esty may be such as to give you claim to superiority over him. Do you ask how long such conditions will last? We an- swer, as long as you take your patronage, and desert your- selves and hug the wandering Jew. and tramping Dutch and Irishmen, who many times are so poor and unregarded that they are not admitted even in the kitchens of their own color and race till the profits of your trade make them merchant princes and moneyed aristocrats, when they, In turn, forgetfulof their former condition and your aid, use the powers given by you to crush you and yours; as long as you persist in building up every nationality to the exclu- sion of yourselves. 14 These practices are two-edged swords’ which cut going and coming. In building up others, and keeping ourselves poor and dependent, we cause them in their riches, splendor and power to look down upon us with scorn and disdain, and destroy our respect for, confidence and pride in ourselves, Again, we have been incalculably damaged by our would- be business men, whose acts and dispositions in too many instances show that they seek the favor and patronage of the race, not that it might be built up and strengthened through them, but for selfish purposes only. Very often, after they shall have been favored and patron- ized and made rich and strong, they show a disposition to get as far away from the race as possible, and endeavor to use the influence and power of the means made through its favor to buy association even with the lowest element of the whites. Such men attempt to rise on the race, not with it, and as soon as the race is conscious of the fact it deserts them, as it ought to do. While negro merchants, bankers, railroad magnates, mil- lionaires, commercial agents, &c., are as necessary to give tone, respectability and character to the race as air to ani- mal life, we must bear in mind that they will not spring into existence unaided, uncultivated and unpatronized in a single night or decade, as Jonah’s gourd. They will only come with the most favorable patronage, after the second and third generations of unremitting toil, long-suffering and self- denials When we shall have them in proportion to our numbers and consumptions as others, and not till then, we shall cease to.complain of discriminations in employment, business, traveling and politics. All wealth rests upon the broad and ever-widening base of the industry and manual labor of the masses, and we have all the crude elements of greatness, if rightly used, to make us as rich, wise, noble and honorable a race as breathes the purifying air of heaven. In order to elevate ourselves we must elevate the race, and to do that we must study and practice those principles that tend to lift the masses as each does his individual wel- fare. Our solid business classes and capitalists are as sure to follow well-patronized Negro enterprises as the fine business block is to come after the rural shop and little corner store. 15 For many reasons it is more incumbent upon colored business men to be strict in business, just in weights and measures, and liberal in prices than white men, because as a race we have neither secured a standing in the business world, nor the confidence and patronage of ourselves. _ The world seems inclined to attribute every Negro failure to the innate weakness of the race, and every robbery in weights, measures and prices and every failure to pay his debts by one Negro, hurt all his struggling brothers. Superior condition everywhere seems to carry with it the idea of natural superiority From time unauthenticated, in all the old countries of of the world, the belief has, and still obtains, that God cre- ated certain families ona different order and endowed them with divine rights and wisdom to rule their fellows, which has been and is still the great hindrance to republican government in all oriental countries. It appears that it was a special design of the Creator to preserve the American continent, a wilderness of savage wilds, as a training ground for republican ideas, and the destruction of that ancient, deified and idolized notion. It was only the bitterest and rudest necessity that edu- cated the American immigrant up to the realization of his own power to make laws and govern himself, and it was only after a seven years’ war, in which he learned to hate England and everything English, that he was able to free himself from the slavish worship and imitation of the Eng- lish royalty and aristocracy. Blot out all modern history, the history of all races for the last two thousand years, and reverse the ‘conditions of the races in this country, and you would find as many white men trying to be black, as you now find black men trying to be white. You would find white men painting themselves black, in order to enjoy the superior condition of that color. But, men of Charleston, if you were to ask me what im- mediate steps should be taken for the betterment of your condition, I would answer by beseeching you to organize yourselves into vigilance committees, and join with the of- ficers of the law in hunting down every vagrant and loafer that haunts your streets He stands, an impending danger to the dignity of your labor, imperils your opportunity to receive living wages, and contaminates the morals and weakens the industrious habits of your children, 16 Vagrants and loafers never work unless driven to it by starvation and nakedness, and then only long enough to supply immediate want, generally without regard to price. A large surplus of floating labor always destroys honest wages, and injures the laboring class. It makes your wages low by working for loss than living wages. It lessens your manhood by submitting to treatment that all honest labor, devoid of such an element, resents If this element i is composed of Negroes, it cheapens your color and the virtue of your females. In fact, wherever there is a larger amount of labor than can find steady employment, it damages both the class with and without employment, whether the unemployed claes i is lazy or industrious. A hungry man seldom stops to inquire what is fair wages for his labor, but seizes anything he can get to keep his soul and body together, and as such destroys the chance for living wages among all his fellows. This city is being continually overstocked with more people than can find living employment. and while this larger population has a tendency to increase the cost of living in the rents, for the more renters the greater the competi- tion among them, and consequently the higher the rent, yet in the same proportion that the rent is increased the wages ot the renter have depreciated. —- Again, this surplus population does aus only compete as renters but also as laborers, and as the area of employ- ment has not kept pace with the increase of employees ; we have more hands to do the same work, and consequently each is bound to get less pay. Again, the two men standing at the door of the work- shop, and on the docks where vessels are discharged and loaded, begging for employment, to each one employed makes the boss careless both as to the wages and the treat- ment he gives to his laborers, and answers their complaints at the low wagef and rude treatment by telling them that he can get along without them, and they need not return next day. Your labor organizations, in order to protect yourselves, must either find employment for the unemployed or drive themout of the city. There are too many young men and women quitting the country and leaving the protection of their parents and homes, and throwing themselves ignorantly and shamefully 17 on the tender mercies of avarice, lust and insatiable ambi-. tion of human sharks. - The only way to check this dangerous influx of popula- tion, and save the morals of the race in this place, is to force it to find employment or quit the city. Again, we are creditably informed that there are between a hundred and seventy-five and two hundred thousand dol-. lars of Negro money locked up in the banks of Charieston,. where you or your sons, however fit, can scarcely te porters. According to our modern business systems, leaving out the wholesale business, this amount of money with its in- fluence, is sufficient to run a third of the business of the city. The individual depositors in thus depositing their capital, harm themselves in one respect and the race in many. They have deposited their money where they can scarcely realize over six or seven per cent. annually, while’ if they had invested in business enterprises it was possible for them to acquire all the way from twenty up to fifty per cent. Secondly, this sum of money invested in business would give employment of a higher order to more than five hun- dred persons, young men and women of the race, which would enable them, each year, besides being refined and trained in the management of business, to add to their in- dividual incomes and the credit of the race collectively. Thirdly, the business thus created in proportion to its size would give the race more influence in every direction. Although our consumptions make a large proportion of the business of the city and State, because so little of it is run through and by us, we get no credit for it. The question is asked by the enemies and traducers of the race, and sometimes our frignds, where are your busi- ness men ? What do you cdhtribute to the business of the city ? Neither you as individuals, nor the race as a whole, get any credit for, or scarcely any profit from the business of this city. If we controlled a fourth of the business of Charleston the white people almost without asking, would make con- cessions in the city government to us. You would have Negro aldermen in the City Council helping to make rules and regulations for the government of the same, who sagen be selected not because they in 2 18 some sense had proven themselves traitors to the cause of the race they represent, but as honorable representatives of the colored business men. : You would then have policemen and other officers and tribble your present influence in the Courts of the city, county and state, and even as laborers you would enjoy larger freedom and consideration from the reflex infiuence resulting from this business. Fourthly, such a business would have created a rivalry among the colored boys and girls to especially fit them- selves for certain lines of business, for a higher employ- ment would have been opened up to, and a nobler destiny made for them. It would have given new hopes, encouragements and aspirations to the race, causing its members to feel that it amounted to something, who would have more confidence and pride in the race as a whole and themselves as indi- viduals. , It would have forced out the required and indispensable latent forces necessary to bring to the surface the respecta- bility and nobility of the race, Why this money is locked up almost out of reach asa profit and influence to help either the individual depositors or the race as a whole, there are three principal causes. Primarily, capital is always conservative and will either find profitable and safe investments or safe keeping with little profit, and as long as Negro merchants and business men of all classes fail for want of the: patronage and en- couragement cf the masses of the race, you will tind n capital seeking safe depositories with iittle profit to the in- dividual depositors, and no influence and help to the race as a whole. Secondly ; as we have not yet established confidence either in ourselves or the businesg world, every failure on the part- of one Negro is regarded 48 an innate weakness in the race, not only by the business world and th@ enemies to the | progress of the race, but even ourselves. White men intrusted with the capital of hundreds and thousands of others, in every part of the country are failing for, and stealing their, hundreds of thousands every day, and no one is disposed to regard all white men as failures and robbers on account of the short-comings of these indi- viduals. The business of the world goes on, and where one white man fails or steals, another is placed in his stead, and be- 19 lieved to be a success or honest unless he proves himself . otherwise. It is not so with us. Because some Negroes robbed the race in the Freedman bank, the Azor enterprise and some other joint stock arrangements, we ourselves seem to pro- nounce all Negroes failures and robbérs, and are not dis- posed to intrust the race with anything. Inasmuch as we are so unfair, prejudiced and uncharita- ble to ourselves, what can we expect of others ? I want to call your attention to another hindering cause to the progress of the race in this city especially. Our social customs and habits, mainly among the higher classes, are too extravagant and unreasonable for a people in our condition. They tend to create an aristocracy with a big head and body, and no legs and feet to stand upon. This idiotic imitation of the aristocracy among the whites without their means of supporting it, keep the industrious and deserving men and women of the race eternally on the grind-stone, and cause very many of our young men and women to destroy themselves in foolish attempts and bad practices to keep up with them. The higher class of white people which we strain our- - selves so hard to imitate in this particular, has not always, itself, shown the best common sense. You will see, by’a casual glance at the business of the city, that in its persistency in straining its patrimony and income, to keep up certain old and effete customs and notions, it has lost its power and almost all its influence. Your eyes will search East Bay in vain to find the de- scendants of that class of men who use to rule that great mart, but spent all their substance to keep up with the re- fined taste of Saint Cecilia and other fastidious clubs, thereby making it possible for the descendants of men who then had what was regarded as no society, to rule the business of the city and own its palatial mansions and magnificent business blocks. ; This is a lesson and an encouragement to that class of men who free themselves from the unreasonable customs, restraints and conventionalities of society, in order that they might lay by something for old age and posterity. I think there is serious need of reformation along this line. My friends$ experience, ill treatment, the condition of the race, want of race pride and self preservation, all demand 20 that we stand unitedly and resolutely for the elevation of the race with which it has pleased God to connect us, and in the absence of whose elevation, we as individuals are tied down, However much tle race may differ in complexion as the result of the force immoral conditions and turpitude of slavery, all are Negroes, treated as such and must be sus- tained as. such, unless individuals-singly or unitedly, attempt to establish society and superiority predicated upon a color having its origin in questionable sources. Then every Negro, no matter what may be the shade of his’ complexion, who loves himself, his wife and children and his mother, and desires to see his race elevated, respected and honored, must oppose such individuals as he would the robber of his money safe or the raper of his loving daughter. Such parties are the worst enemies of the race, because their acts tend to divide, humiliate, and bring the just con- tempt and odium of the world upon it. To sustain them is to deny our humanity and the common brotherhood of mankind. ~The most unreasonable, contemptible, shameful and in- consistent phenomenon that ever appeared, is that wherein ‘an individual whose origin-is not in every respect covered with glory, even while standing aghast with horror stricken face at the discrimination of white people on account of caste prejudices, and calling on men, angels and God to condemn.them, at the same time, he without half the virtue or honor of origin and without any reason, except a slavish connivance at the color of the class that scorns him, is en- gaged in the same practices only in a more disgusting manner. To build society upon the solid pillows of virtue, intelli- gence and wealth, is reasonable, wholesome and beneficial. ' The idiotic attempt to found society upon eolor, espe- cially that having its origin in questionable fountains is un- reasonable and damaging beyond imagination and is really an encouragement in, and invitation to, the destruction of all morality and virtue. - To support such an unholy and immoral principle is to make our boys representing the purity and nobility of the race ashamed of their dark faces, the very ensigns of what remains of the virtue and morality of a noble though de- graded race whose grandeur and accomplishments date beyond the remotest records of authentic history, and to whose achievements in science, art and literature, the world is indebted. 21 It putrifies the virtue of our black maidens and forces them to ignore the sanctity of home and reject union in holy wedlock with those of their kind, in order that they might bring forth an issue, even if through unholy alliances whose caste would give it privilege, under the customs, to enjoy a higher condition. Men and women of the race, in the name of your children, in the name of the purity and honor of the race and the sanctity of home, and in the name of the laws of your coun- try and the precious teachings of the Christian religion, I beseech you to oppose individuals of your race setting up claims to superiority and preferment predicated upon color, as you would the incendiary who attempts in your presence to apply the torch to your dwelling. If they are business men shun their places of business as you would the poisonous fangs of the anaconda. If they are politicians, tear the tickets presented to you bearing their names into atoms and trample the fragments under your feet, for to vote for them is to kill the ambition and manhood of your sons who represent the nobility of the race. ‘Tf they are preachers, drive them from your pulpits with the same activity and manhood that you would display in driving out the midnight burglar, who had stealthily — forced his way into your house to rob you of your gold or to despoil the virtue of your loving daughters, for truly these are they who stole the livery of heaven to serve the devil in, The sum of all-that I have said is love God with all your might and yourselves, as you do your neighbors. In conclusion, let the history of Africa with its archi- tectural and mechanical beauties—relics of which still elicit the admiration and wonder of the world and its great feats in art, science and literature, while the rest of the world with its inhabitants dwelling in woods, dens, and caves, was in pitchy darkness, and its royal seats of learning stand- ing out as great beacon lights to illuminate the dark places, and as lanterns to the inhabitants of Europe, Asia and Ameri- ea, from which all evidence point to the fact that they bor- rowed their original torches, which is your history, and the deeds and achievements of individual members of the race, though not specially recorded as Negroes until since the wan- ing of the great luminaries, in the light of which all Negroes stood in:pride and respectability and were honored and ad- mired and the Africans like the later inhabitants of Greece and Rome reached their zenith and again descended into degra- 22 dation to such an extent that they would have lost all the credit of their glorious achievements and contributions to the progress of the world, had they not left such induring monuments of their ancient greatness in the Pyramids, Sphinx and Mummies which will go down the ages as silent witnesses and fresh evidence of the capability and—power of a noble race to the last syllable of recorded time, reanimate you to have more pride and respect for yourselves, and to make greater efforts to regain your standing and heritage in the history of the grandeur of earth and the glory and crown of heaven, = eS ay