WHAT THE SOUTHERNERS ARE BEGINNING TO THINK.
The following extracts taken from an editorial which appeared in the Memphis Daily Appeal, March 18th, contain so much true appreciation of what ought to be done for the Negro under the circumstances, that we are glad to give them a place in our columns. We believe they indicate that the South is on the eve of a great revolution of sentiment respecting the importance of popular education, and that if the friends of the A. M. A. will assist us in pushing forward with our present and proposed work, the time will come speedily when the recognition of the vital importance of our principles and institutions will be well nigh universal.
After commenting upon an article which appeared in the North American Review from the pen of Chief Justice Chalmers, quoting from him the assertion that the negroes’ “right to vote as a race is as fixed and irreversible as their freedom,” and that “the ballot box must speak the unbiased verdict of all lawful electors,” the editor says: “No sane man doubts it; there is but one thing left for the people of the South to do, and that is to throw themselves into the work of educating the negro, of lifting him out of the deplorable condition of brutality which slavery left him in, and elevating him to a plane where he can not only stand alone and see for himself, but where he can not be reached by the arts of demagogues, of which, unfortunately for the country, there are too many in all parties. In this work, a man of culture, like Judge Chalmers, can do a great deal. He can by personal example induce the leading men of his State to come to the front as eager defenders of a thorough system of public education. They have, as most of those of the other Southern States have done, too long stood aloof and allowed the stranger to do for the negro what they should have done themselves as willing workers, instead of making mouths at a fate which after fifteen years of effort they find is superior to anything they can put forward against it.
“Thirteen years ago the Jackson Clarion warned the people of Mississippi, as the leading papers of the South everywhere did, that ‘there was but one way out of the wilderness, and that was as plain as the road to market. It was to recognize the rights the Federal Government had bestowed upon the negro; to treat him kindly, and to point him the way he should go.’ This plan was not generally pursued. But it is never too late to mend. We can begin now the work that should have been done in 1867. We can rescue the negro from the ignorance that threatens him and us by establishing good public schools—not grudgingly, as if we were conferring an unwilling charity—but in a broad, cheerful, earnest and good neighborly spirit, as if we were performing a duty—a paramount and most important duty. Under God this is the only remedy for negro suffrage. It is a waste of time to talk of abridging it. Revolutions never go backward. The best answer to that sort of talk is that the United States never were so strong or so prosperous as they are at this moment, when public sentiment is in all the States demanding the most absolute assertion of democratic life and living. Instead of looking back, we must look forward; nay, we must go forward, and we must take the negro by the hand and make him feel that he is a part of the great column of the people; that his destiny is interlaced with ours; that we must not stand apart, isolated and at enmity, but go forward, each doing what he can to strengthen the community at all points, moral and physical, to uphold and defend our democratic form of government and perpetuate unsullied the liberties which have survived the chaos of civil war and reconstruction.”
We are glad to add to the other testimonials from able and intelligent Southerners, a few words from the remarkable Thanksgiving Sermon of Rev. Atticus G. Haygood, D.D., President of Emery College, Oxford, Ga.:
“There is a vast mass of illiteracy among us. There is white as well as black illiteracy. There are multiplied thousands who can neither read nor write. They must be taught.
“Let us wake up to our want of educational facilities. Our public-school system is painfully inadequate. Our colleges and universities are unendowed, and they struggle against fearful odds in their efforts to do their work. We are one hundred years behind the Eastern and Middle States. We are also behind many of the new States of the West.
“For the negroes themselves. * * * * Much depends on those who, under God, set them free. By every token this whole nation should undertake the problem of their education. That problem will have to be worked out on the basis of co-operation; that is, they must be helped to help themselves. To make their education an absolute gratuity will perpetuate many of the misconceptions and weaknesses of character which now embarrass and hinder their progress. Much also depends upon the Southern white people, their sympathy, their justice, their wise and helpful co-operation. This we should give them, not reluctantly, but gladly, for their good and for the safety of all, for their elevation and for the glory of God.”