White society

“ It did not only degrade the slave, but it blunted the sensibilities, and, by its terrible weight, carried down under the slimy rocks of society some of the best white people in the South. Like a cankerous malady its venom has touched almost every side of American life.
The white race is in a constant and almost overpowering relation to the other races upon this continent. It is the duty of this great totality of intellectual life and force, to supply adequate facilities for the education of the less intelligent and less fortunate. Of every ten thousand (10,000) inhabitants there are ”

“ Even now the whites stand accursed by their oppression of humanity, being subject to a degree of confusion, chaos, and enslavement to error and wrong, which northern society could not credit or comprehend.
"Added to the four millions of the colored race whose disaffection is increasing even more rapidly than their number, there are at least four millions more of the white race whose growing miseries will naturally seek companionship with those of the blacks. ”

“ Under no circumstances, social, civil or religious, can the white man and the African, meet on terms of equality and reciprocity. They are debarred from social intercourse with the whites. They are not suffered to become, so far as I know, members of any secret society, association or organization, whatever. Beside the white man at the hospitable board, they cannot, they dare not sit ”

“ The fact which gave strength and energy to those who employed this instrument was that in the southern half of the Union, society, business, property, religion, and law were all based on the proposition that over four millions of our countrymen, capable of civilization and religion, were, because of their race and color, "so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." ”

“ The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. ”

“ There must be an end to white monopoly on political power and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughly democratised. ”

“ It has become the universal opinion that the world is moving onwards and upwards; yet how few understand why the world is so moving. Men have yet to learn that effects can [101] no more take place without adequate causes in the universe of mind than in the universe of matter. Nowhere out of Swedenborg can we find a description of those spiritual causes which are changing society and revolutionizing the whole world. We, who live in the dawn of the new era, can form, even in our highest states, but a faint conception of its coming glory. ”

“ It is as natural as my breath; and if I ever cease from vain and trifling conversation in this world, you must place me in society which I have no regard for,—either to love or to hate,—where I could be a hypocrite without any drawback. For I have often noticed, when I am alone and with no one to converse with, that I am not tempted to speak words of vanity. ”

“ But worse calamities were hanging over the heads of knights and barons than the avarice of Philip and the dishonesty of Clement. Knighthood itself, and feudalism, were about to die,—knighthood, which had offered at all events an ideal of nobleness and virtue, and feudalism, which had replaced the expiring civilization of Rome founded on the centralization of power in one man’s hands, and the degradation of all the rest, with a new form of society which derived its vitality from independent action and individual self-respect. ”

“ If the tendency of affairs on the other side of our encircling sea was to pull down, to destroy, to modify, and to redistribute, the tendency at home was to build up and consolidate; so that in almost exact proportion to the wild experiments and frantic strugglings of other nations after something new—new principles of government, new theories of society—there arose in this country a dogged spirit of resistance to all alterations, and a persistence in old paths and old opinions. ”

“ Why was every Negro who too audibly or visibly resented the brutalities and proscriptions of race prejudice instantly labelled as a radical—a dangerous character [92] —as one seeking “social equality”? What was this thing called “social equality” anyhow? That was an easy question to answer. It was about the only one he could answer with any completeness. White folks didn’t really believe that Negroes sought to force themselves in places where they weren’t wanted, any more than decent white people wanted to force themselves where they were not invited. ”

“ As servants they are welcome, but as equal citizens they are not. It is also seen in the further fact that nowhere else on the globe, except in the United States, are colored people subject to insult and outrage on account of color. The colored traveler in Europe does not meet it, and we denounce it here as a disgrace to American civilization and American religion and as a violation of the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ But I ask why should there be a negro problem any more than a problem for any other class of the American people? We need not go far to seek the answer. It is found in the fact that in certain parts of our country the people are not willing to receive the negro into full fellowship and to grant him the civil and political rights enjoyed in common by other citizens. ”

“ In spite of a common nature and the equality framed into law, this hate works injustice, of which each in their own name and under their own color may justly complain. The apology for observing the color line in the composition of our State and National conventions is in its necessity and in the fact that we must do this or nothing, for if we move our color is recognized and must be. It has its foundation in the exceptional relation we sustain to the white people of the country. A simple statement of our position vindicates at once our convention and our cause. ”

“ The grounds of this fear, however, have in some measure decreased, since the negro has largely disappeared from the arena of Southern politics, and has betaken himself to industrial pursuits and the acquisition of wealth and education, though even here, if over-prosperous, he is likely to excite a dangerous antagonism; for the white people do not easily tolerate the presence among them of a race more prosperous than themselves. ”

“ Educated as they are and have been for centuries, taught to look upon colored people as a lower order of humanity than themselves, and as having few rights, if any, above domestic animals, regarding them also through the medium of their beneficent religious creeds and just laws—as if law and practice were identical—some allowance can, and perhaps ought to, be made when they misapprehend our real situation and deny our wants and assume a virtue they do not possess. ”

“ They are willing to live in a world which is the equal possession of all peoples—white, black, brown and yellow. If the white race is willing, they will live at peace with it. But if it insists that freedom, democracy and equality are to exist only for white men, then, there will be such bloodshed later as this world has never seen. And there is no certainty that in such a conflict the white race will come out on top. Not the destinies of the world, but the destinies of the white race are in the hands of the white race. ”

“ They said that only bad Negroes were ever lynched and they alone caused all the trouble. But you just think back over the list of coloured people right here in Central City who’ve had the most trouble during the past two years. What do you find? That it is the Negro who has acquired more property than the average white man, they are always picking on. Poor whites resent seeing a Negro more prosperous than they, and they satisfy their resentment by making it hard on that Negro. ”

“ A few such men, well known to us and the country, happening to be more fortunate in the possession of wealth, education, and position than their humbler brethren, have found it convenient to chime in with the popular cry against our assembling, on the ground that we have no valid reason for this measure or for any other separate from the whites ”

“ Foreigners, seeking employment, have gone to the South in large numbers during the last five years, and finding there the typical poor whites, who are the ancient enemies of the Colored people and ever ready to do them harm, have united with them on the color line and raised that old familiar cry that “this is a white man’s country, that white men must and shall rule it; no Negro domination over white men.” ”

“ One might suppose that, with the hosts of mechanical toys, of costly French dolls, each with a wardrobe as much in keeping with fashion as that of a society woman, the small sons and daughters would be content for a year of rainy days. ”

“ We have been advised, if we really wished to benefit the slave and the colored race generally, not unnecessarily to shock the feelings, though they were but prejudices, of the white people, by admitting colored persons to our Anti-slavery meetings and societies. We have been told that many who would otherwise act in unison with us were kept away by our disregard of the feelings of the community in this respect.... ”

“ Kenneth, what you and all the rest of Negroes need is to learn that you belong to a race that was centuries old when the first white man came into the world. You’ve got to learn that a large part of this thing they call ‘white civilization’ was made by black hands, as well as by yellow and brown and red hands, too, besides what white hands have created. You’ve got to learn that the Negro to-day is contributing as much of the work that makes this civilization possible as the white race, if not more. ”

“ The examples of valor and virtue on which their minds are fed are exclusively white examples. What wonder, then, that each generation comes to maturity with the idea imbedded in its mind that only white men are valorous and fit to rule and only white women are virtuous and entitled to chivalry, respect and protection? What wonder that they think, almost instinctively, that the Negro’s proper place, nationally and internationally, is that of an inferior? It is only what we should naturally expect. ”

“ But this is just what the manumission of the black people of this country has accomplished. They are more absolutely under the control of the Southern whites; they are more systematically robbed of their labor; they are more poorly housed, clothed and fed, than under the slave régime; and they enjoy, practically, less of the protection of the laws of the State or of the Federal government. ”

“ Forced upon themselves, every point of contact with the white race becomes to the Negro a story of peculiar human interest. The view they get from the outside or underneath of white civilisation is not, to say the least, altogether our view. ”

“ This convention is a proof of our faith in you, in reason, in truth and justice—our belief that prejudice, with all its malign accompaniments, may yet be removed by peaceful means; that, assisted by time and events and the growing enlightenment of both races, the color line will ultimately become harmless. When this shall come it will then only be used, as it should be, to distinguish one variety of the human family from another. ”

“ Thus in all the relations of life and death we are met by the color line. We cannot ignore it if we would, and ought not if we could. It hunts us at midnight, it denies us accommodation in hotels and justice in the courts; excludes our children from schools, refuses our sons the chance to learn trades, and compels us to pursue only such labor as will bring the least reward. While we recognize the color line as a hurtful force, a mountain barrier to our progress, wounding our bleeding feet with its flinty rocks at every step, we do not despair. We are a hopeful people. ”

“ We must admit the stern fact that at present the Negro, through no choice of his own, is living among another race which is far ahead of him in education, property, experience, and favourable condition; further, that the Negro's present condition makes him dependent upon the white people for most of the things necessary to sustain life, as well as for his common school education. In all history, those who have possessed the property and intelligence have exercised the greatest control in government, regardless of colour, race, or geographical location. ”

“ Living in the same communities, pursuing identical avocations, and subject to the same fundamental laws, however these may differ in construction and application in the several States, it is as much, if not even more, the interest of the white man that the black should be given every possible opportunity to better his mental, material and civil condition. ”

“ This accounts for much of the persecution of the colored people, everywhere, in the free States. It is a comfort to the lowest and most degraded of the whites to feel that there is a class of society which they can despise and trample. ”