rible lot in the
country. Never in all history was there a race more shamefully oppressed
by a dominant race than were the blacks by the whites of America. Held
as slaves in the South, they were stamped as social outcasts at the
North. There was no one, however mean or vicious, who if he possessed a
white skin, was not treated more humanely than were they. In the most
enlightened of the free States they were discriminated against by public
laws and proscribed by public opinion. They were in a word pariahs of
the republic. They were shut out from all the common rights, and
privileges and opportunities enjoyed by the lowest of the favored race.
They were denied equality in the public school. The principle of popular
education had no application to a class which was not of the people, a
class which the common sentiment of a Christian nation had placed at the
zero point of political values, and meant to keep forever at that point.
Entrance to the trades were barred to the blacks. What did they want
with such things where there was no white trash so forgetful of his
superiority as to consent to work by their side. Nowhere were they
allowed the same traveling accommodations as white men, and they were
everywhere excluded from public inns. Neither wealth nor refinement was
able to procure them admission into other than "Jim Crow cars." If
heart-sick at the outrages by every one heaped upon them they turned for
consolation to the house of God, even there the spirit of proscription
and caste prejudice met them, and pointed to the "negro pew" where they
sat corraled from the congregation as if they had no equal share in the
salvation which the pulpit preached. Everywhere the white man had the
right of way, even on the highway to heaven! And in no place was the
negro made to feel the prejudice against his color more gallingly than
in churches arrogating the name of Christian. He had no rights on earth,
he had none in trying to get into the bosom of the founder of
Christianity, which the white sinners or saints were bound to respect.
Even the liberty-loving Quakers of Philadelphia were not above the use
of the "negro seat" in their meetings. Somehow they discerned that there
was a great gulf separating in this life at least the white from the
black believer. That God had made of one blood all nations of men, St.
Paul had taught, but the American church had with one accord in practice
drawn the line at the poor despised colored man. H