Various

“ How many American Negroes know the name of Joseph Colvis, a native of the United States who won distinction during the Franco-Prussian War, who was decorated by the French Government, and who retained till his death his American citizenship? What Negro of the United States knows the story of the last years of Edmonia Lewis, the sculptress, one of the truly great products of the race? Her name should be made to live by telling every youth of her wonderful career as an artist. ”

“ In the Southern part of the United States I was a slave, thought of and spoken of as property. In the language of the law, "held, taken, reputed and adjudged to be chattel in the hands of my owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, or assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatever."—Brev. Digest, 224. In the Northern States, a fugitive slave, liable to be hunted at any moment like a felon, and to be hurried into the terrible jaws of slavery—doomed by an inveterate prejudice against color to insult and outrage in every hand. ”

“ Let me tell thee that the manumission of 1,500,000 slaves depends on the faithfulness of the few who have obtained their freedom, yea, it is not only those who are in bondage, but the whole community of the African race, which are according to best accounts 30,000,000. If nothing better can be obtained from thee than the fruit that thou produced, let me intreat thee to petition for a prison for life; Awake thou imposter unto righteousness and pray God to forgive thee, if happily thou may find firgiveness before the door of mercy is closed against thee. ”

“ We do not generally speak of American imperialism. Such words are incompatible. Imperialism in the United States, the land of the free and the home of the brave, seems ironical. The degenerate, dying one, however, gave birth to the vital, growing other. Imperialism is the torch that fired the souls that flared and flamed forth in conquering righteous anger and tore in twain the bond which held the British Lion's restless brood intact and set one loose to roam apart a land in which to breed and suckle a stock after its kind. It was thus the United States had its beginning. ”

“ The teaching of Negro history will serve the two-fold purpose of informing the white man and inspiring the Negro. The untoward circumstances under which the Negro lives make the teaching of his history imperatively necessary. When the founders of this government brought forth a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, many thought that the Negro was not regarded as a man. Thomas Jefferson himself, the writer of that document, held the Negro as a slave. The Negro was regarded as mere property, as a mere beast of burden. ”

“ The Negro's most important contribution to American history is his unparalleled progress—his rise from poverty to wealth, from ignorance to knowledge, from backwardness to civilization. No other race has achieved more under the same conditions. No authentic history of the United States, then, can ignore or exclude the Negro. The part which he has played in American history has served largely to make the nation what it is today. ”

“ Africa, not America, is your country and your home. Africa is a good country. You will have no trouble to raise your children when all things are plenty: you will have no want of warm clothing: you will have no need of firewood, for we have it in abundance; and here you will be looked upon like the blessed creatures of the Almighty God, and that bad opinion and contempt which our white brethren harbor, will be quite done away, and the whole of us will become a large and wonderful nation. ”

“ The rise of one nation may hinder the rise of the other. It is not improbable that an accentuated civilization in Europe might have retarded civilization in Africa. We do know that the slave trade had a tremendous effect on their fortunes. When once a group makes unusual progress and by its ambition destroys the bridge over which it passed, it cannot be doubted that its ambitions considerably alter the fortunes of others at its mercy. ”

“ What a pity there was not some American Democratic Christian at the door of his splendid mansion, to bark out at my approach, "They don't allow niggers in here!" The truth is, the people here know nothing of the Republican Negro hate prevalent in our glorious land. They measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not according to the color of their skin. ”

“ Looking backward over a space of fifty years or more, I have in remembrance two travelers whose lives were real in their activity; two lives that have indelibly impressed themselves upon my memory; two lives whose energy and best ability was exerted to make my life what it should be, and who gave me a home where wisdom and industry went hand in hand; where instruction was given that a cultivated brain and an industrious hand were the twin conditions that lead to a well balanced and useful life. These two lives were embodied in the personalities of Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray his wife. ”

“ What have the Africans to show as specimens of fine art? The music of Negro peoples has become proverbial. In so far as song is an expression of aesthetic propensities the African abundantly qualifies as a lover of art. Whether the strength of a Wagner or the melody of a Beethoven; whether the melody of a southern plantation or a concert in Symphony Hall, the principle of the music is the same. The crude instruments of which the explorer tells us are mute testimonials of the African's attempts to express himself in song and music. ”

“ There can be no civilization without its concomitants of aesthetics. Man seeks beauty for beauty's sake, and he alone of the animals gives evidence of such propensity to a pronounced degree. In song, upon canvas, and in marble, humanity has poured forth its innermost soul of sentiments inexpressibly sublime. There is no passion, no object that has not at some time inflamed the soul and moved some mortal to the abode of the gods.
What have the explorers in Darkest Africa found to indicate that the Africans loved the beautiful? ”

“ Prior to the Civil War, education for the American of color, was for the most part surreptitiously obtained. There were, however, a few fearless men and women of the white race, who, endowed with a magnanimous spirit and indomitable will, rose above the sordid plane of self-advancement and comfort, brooked the tide of social ostracism and censure to a realm of true altruism in behalf of the circumstantially weak and defenseless race. ”

“ May servants be encouraged to discharge their duties with faithfulness; may they be brought up to industry; may their minds be cultivated for the reception of the good seed, which is promised to all that will seek after it. I want that we should be faithful in all things, that so we may become a people, giving satisfaction to those, who have borne the heat and burden of the day, in liberating us from a state of slavery. ”

“ The stories of their lives, in addition to making rare literature, would shed light on the past, teach race loyalty and pride, and give inspiration to thousands of Negro youths who would find encouragement in their trials and battles.
"Biography," says Lossing, "is history teaching by example." Every race that has counted for much in history has had its heroes. Every nation that has helped to build civilization got its inspiration from within. Every nation that has left a record of value had its ideal men and women, its patriots, its martyrs—its examples of usefulness within itself. ”

“ When the ponderous volumes of history rich with the spoils of time shall unroll their ample pages before the eyes of generations yet unborn, there in letters which he who runs may read should be inscribed the names of Johnson, Roberts, Butler, and many other black boys who staked their lives in the World War upon the contention that the world should be made safe for democracy. ”

“ Obviously the position in which we find ourselves in Haiti is one of embarrassment and one which has affected the prestige of our country detrimentally. American statesmen are put to task. Shall our government admit and support its economic imperialistic policy inseparably from the added political burden accompanying our Panama Canal enterprise, profiting, thereby, upon the commercial importance of the canal; or shall it long continue the dexterous fête of keeping eyes and hands on democratic ideals with both feet in the path of imperialism? ”

“ Most interesting are the laws of two States in which benefit of clergy was not provided for. According to the Black Code of Louisiana when slaves were charged with crimes punishable with death or hard labor for life, the jury might at its discretion commute the death penalty and inflict a lesser punishment. In Florida a slave guilty of crime punishable with death might at the discretion of the court suffer instead a whipping not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, have his ears nailed to a post and stand one hour, and be burned in the hand. ”

“ While the decision of the Court of Errors was pending, Prudence Crandall and her pupils were the victims of other fiendish acts of the townspeople. Having failed in their attempt to burn down her school, a number of them, with heavy clubs and iron bars, crept stealthily upon her house at midnight on the 9th of September, and simultaneously smashed in the windows with such force and suddenness that all the occupants were terror stricken. Even Prudence Crandall, for the first time, trembled with fear. ”

“ The inner voices that called the black slave at his task, clothed in simple garb, and living on homely fare, we also must hear speaking to us, and invoking the same response. Then we shall be able to appreciate the religious significance of the situations.
The bell upon the white pole in the great-house yard summons the slaves to their daily tasks in the fields. Quickly, the slave-mother, rising from the cabin-floor, and taking her babe upon her back, sets out to join the crowd. ”

“ That was sufficient to wreck a scheme which would have engrafted in our society that great and terrible plague which paralyzes the energies of so considerable a part of the American Union, slavery, that plague unknown under our northern sky. ”

“ For more than half a century, outside of what the general and State governments have done or attempted to do, the tide of philanthropic and Christian aid for the Negro has gone Southward, and will continue as long as needed. How many million dollars have been expended by churches, educational boards and individual philanthropists has not been computed. Neither has anyone attempted to measure the results of the work of the many consecrated men and women, who have given and are still giving their lives for the uplift of the Negro race since emancipation. ”

“ America will not allow her children to love her. She seems bent on compelling those who would be her warmest friends, to be her worst enemies. May God give her repentance before it is too late, is the ardent prayer of my heart. I will continue to pray, labor and wait, believing that she cannot always be insensible to the dictates of justice, or deaf to the voice of humanity. ”

“ Such examples of devotion to the cause of humanity, examples of consecration to truth and righteousness, examples of goodness and greatness worthy of the praise of all races and creeds, are found everywhere in the ranks of the Negro race. If unearthed and popularized, these examples would shed light upon the history of the race in the United States, illuminate the general history of man, and inculcate a profound respect for the Negro. ”

“ Two other questions current in the problem of wages in domestic service, both of which seem to be slowly lending themselves to adjustment, are the payment of weekly wages instead of bi-weekly or monthly wages, and equal pay for equal work irrespective of whether a man or a woman, a Negro or a white employee, does the work. Bi-monthly payment in domestic service has come to be the custom due [Pg 414] largely to the convenience of the employer, and to the possibility of weekly wages increasing the turnover. A domestic worker often leaves unceremoniously as soon as he gets his first pay. ”

“ The Colonization Herald said, "Captain Cuffe was a man of the strictest integrity, modest yet dignified in his manners, of a feeling and liberal heart, public spirited and well versed in the business of the world." [71]
"In the example of Paul Cuffe," said The New York Spectator, "the free people of color in the United States may see the manner in which they may require competency and reputation. It is the beaten path of industry and integrity. Captain Cuffe cultivated his own farm and guided his own ship. ”

“ Of the African peoples let us consider first their ethics. It can hardly be doubted that it was an important step in man's upward journey when he reached what anthropologists have called "the dawn of mind" but it was no less momentous an event when there was within him the dawn of morality. Morality is the highest defensive weapon which mankind can wield. So important has it become in the struggle for existence that, to man, the highest form of greatness is a moral greatness. ”

“ That the highest civilizations of history have been grounded in moral strength has become an historical postulate, but what of the races and nations that live beyond their pale? Were the Africans in their crude and primitive surroundings moral beings? Tillinghast and Beauvais would doubtless answer in the negative. The former in his The Negro in Africa and America is loud in his criticism of the ethical standards of the African, in fact he seriously doubts the advisability of saying that the tribes of Africa have an awakened moral sense. ”

“ Today the Negro historian points to the fact that the Negro's advancement is a part of the forward movement of the world, and his progress in all the fields wherein he has labored is a part of the general progress of mankind. The historian of today is scientifically bringing to light the evidences as to the worth of the Negro and his contributions to the uplift of the World. More and more the historian is directing attention to the private lives of our leaders. ”

“ They hear the shrill voice of the cock and the noise of the mules heralding the coming of day, when the presence of old master will stop their friendly discussions. While fading stars twinkle in the pines that cast ghost-like shadows upon the white-washed cabins, the slaves talk of their religious experiences, how they "overcame the devil in the wilderness" through the help of Christ. ”

“ Peter's to kiss the rosary as he kneels low-bowed and earnest before the high altar is the same that moves the aborigine in Zululand to dance in frenzied ecstacies around his devil-bush. That there are various degrees of self-expression, with a maximum in this nation and age, and a minimum in that, is a fact that is as undeniable as it is obvious; but that there are impulses of cultural possibilities which are lavished upon some races while totally withheld from others is a thesis which finds no sanction in history or archaeology. ”