nd West we see many colored men with handsome
estates run high into the hundred thousands. Almost every large city
and town will show among her population a Negro here and there whose
wealth is rated between five and ten thousand dollars or more.
Rev. A. G. Davis of Raleigh, N. C., in an address at the North
Carolina Agricultural Fair, said, "Scan, if you will, the long line of
eight million Negroes as they march slowly but surely up the road of
progress, and you will find in her ranks such men as Granville T.
Woods, of Ohio, the electrician, mechanical engineer, manufacturer of
telephones, telegraph and electrical instruments; William Still, of
Philadelphia, the coal dealer; Henry Tanner, the artist; John W.
Terry, foreman of the iron and fitting department of the Chicago West
Division Street Car Company; J. D. Baltimore, engineer, machinist, and
inventor, of Washington, D. C.; Wiley Jones, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas,
the owner of a street car railroad, race track and park; Richard
Hancock, foreman of the pattern shops of the Eagle Works and
Manufacturing Company, and draughtsman; John Beack, the inventor,
whose inventions are worth tens of thousands of dollars; W. C. Atwood,
the lumber merchant and capitalist."
And now in review let me add that the social conditions of the
American Negro are such that he has shown to the world his aptitude
for study and general improvement.
Before character, education and wealth, all barriers will melt, and
these are necessary to develop the growth of the race.
From abject serfdom and pauperism he has risen to a plane far above
the masses of any race of people.
By his industry and frugality he has made himself master of any
situation into which he has been placed, and none will deny that his
achievements along all lines have been commensurate with his
opportunities.
SECOND PAPER.
DID THE AMERICAN NEGRO MAKE, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ACHIEVEMENTS
ALONG THE LINES OF WEALTH, MORALITY, EDUCATION, ETC., COMMENSURATE
WITH HIS OPPORTUNITIES? IF SO, WHAT ACHIEVEMENTS DID HE MAKE?
BY JOSEPHINE SILONE YATES.
[Illustration: Mrs. Josephine Silone Yates]
MRS. JOSEPHINE SILONE YATES.
Mrs. Josephine Yates, youngest daughter of Alexander and
Parthenia Reeve-Silone, was born in Mattiluck, Suffolk
County, N. Y., where her parents, grandparents and
great-grandparents were long and favorably known as
individuals of sterling worth, mo
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