must
be developed in freedom of action. Under freedom, a few young Negroes
have gone to excess, but, thank God, under freedom, hundreds of
thousands of young Negroes, in schools and out of schools, are
struggling up the hill of virtue, of industry, of learning, not goaded
on by the lash of the master, but impelled by a holy ambition that
does not halt at temporary defeats.

Third: So I believe the Negro will be as good as any. He will produce
his poets, historians, philosophers, inventors, his men of commerce,
his humanitarians. His present disenfranchisement will keep him along
these lines. The best people in America are helping him. Besides the
Negro's own efforts in such organizations as the A. M. E. Church, the
American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church, the
Freedmen's Aid and Southern Educational Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, the Home Mission Society of the Baptist Church, and
many other organizations are behind him with millions of dollars, with
prayers and with the souls and the flesh and blood of the best men and
women of the world. There are good men North and South--white men--who
desire the Negro's success. Their number will grow. With these helps
the Negro can become noble in character. He can merit the best at the
hands of the American people. If he is as good and useful as any other
class of people, will he be treated as any other class?

Fourth: Now, I will go a little further and say I know it is
"possible" for the Negro to attain unto the American type of
civilization; but, is it "probable"? I even believe it is probable.

The Negro is included in the "all men are created with certain
inalienable rights." He is included in the "Our Father." He is
included in the "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do
you even so unto them." Now, if the nation adopts some separate and
unjust manner of treatment of the Negro, it must repudiate the
Declaration of Independence. It must repudiate the Lord's Prayer. It
must repudiate the Golden Rule. Can it do that and survive? Can it
practice injustice upon the Negro and survive? Sin recoils upon the
sinner. Injustice to the Negro will destroy the Nation. For that
reason good white men and women are striving to bring the Nation up to
that high plane of righteousness where justice is meted out to all
alike. These good white men and women ought to conquer. I believe they
will. Not to-day, but to-morrow. Thus the Negro, striving t