in Northern States and cities.

No race that is so largely ignorant and so recently out of slavery
could, perhaps, show a better record, but we must face these plain
facts. He is most kind to the Negro who tells him of his faults as
well as of his virtues. A large percentage of the crime among us grows
out of the idleness of our young men and women. It is for this reason
that I have tried to insist upon some industry being taught in
connection with their course of literary training. It is vitally
important now that every parent, every teacher and minister of the
gospel, should teach with unusual emphasis morality and obedience to
the law. At the fireside, in the school-room, in the Sunday-school,
from the pulpit, and in the Negro press, there should be such a
sentiment created regarding the committing of crime against women that
no such crime could be charged against any member of the race. Let it
be understood, for all time, that no one guilty of rape can find
sympathy or shelter with us, and that none will be more active than we
in bringing to justice, through the proper authorities, those guilty
of crime. Let the criminal and vicious element of the race have, at
all times, our most severe condemnation. Let a strict line be drawn
between the virtuous and the criminal. I condemn, with all the
indignation of my soul, any beast in human form guilty of assaulting a
woman. I am sure I voice the sentiment of the thoughtful of my race
in this condemnation.

We should not, as a race, become discouraged. We are making progress.
No race has ever gotten upon its feet without discouragements and
struggles.

I should be a great hypocrite and a coward if I did not add that which
my daily experience has taught me to be true; namely, that the Negro
has among many of the Southern whites as good friends as he has
anywhere in the world. These friends have not forsaken us. They will
not do so. Neither will our friends in the North. If we make ourselves
intelligent, industrious, economical, and virtuous, of value to the
community in which we live, we can and will work out our salvation
right here in the South. In every community, by means of organised
effort, we should seek, in a manly and honourable way, the confidence,
the co-operation, the sympathy, of the best white people in the South
and in our respective communities. With the best white people and the
best black people standing together, in favour of law and order and
justice,