t Appomattox. It is
quite true that we have an immensely larger realty-holding to our
credit, that our financial worth is constantly on the increase, that our
illiteracy is rapidly reaching the vanishing-point, and that in all
matters, spiritual as well as temporal, we seem to have improved, but
the closer we approximate the standard of life and living of the
dominant race, all the harder apparently have we to fight to maintain
our self-respect, and preserve the rights and privileges which the
letter of our American law guarantees. When we were slaves and had
nothing except our muscles, there was no thought of separate-car laws.
When we were ignorant and powerless to think coherently, there were no
efforts at our disfranchisement. When we were poverty-stricken and
satisfied if we might live in the alleys of our great American cities,
there was no thought of segregation, whether in the matter of our
residences, or in that of the employees of our much-heralded republican
government. With every increase in accomplishment, or worth, or demand
for the better things of life, comes the burden of wrongs, injustice,
and rash discrimination. It would be idle here to attempt to recount in
detail the grievances we justly have against the government in city,
state and nation; to do so further than the purpose I have in view would
be but to tell you what you full well know. The Negro race needs a
change of viewpoint; another leadership is an absolute necessity, and I
see no reason why men of our profession should not attain it. For years
we have had in the ascendency the prophets of submission and silence,
and we have been taught to declare for peace when we knew there was no
peace. No other element in our great nation, except that of ourselves is
content with things as they are, accepting without protest every new
injustice, in the vain hope that some day would bring about a change for
the better. We have lulled ourselves to sleep with this fatalism, and
what is the result? We have noted the practical nullification of every
act suggested or inspired by the changing conditions in the lives and
property of freedmen brought about by the Civil War. Disfranchisement in
every Southern State is as fixed and determinate, as the indifference of
the Negroes of those sections, or the practises of all political parties
can make it. Separate, and therefore inferior, accommodations on public
conveyances are the rule, and we have endured these condi