REMARKS OF SENATOR SHERMAN.
STENOGRAPHIC REPORT BY A FISK STUDENT.
This seems to me a very impressive scene. Most of you have grown up, indeed most of you have been born, since the event that secured your citizenship took place.
I am familiar with the object of “Fisk,” and Howard University in Washington; both are engaged upon the same work and are a tower of knowledge to a race of people that were denied all those privileges now so dearly cherished and so valuable to everyone. It seems almost an act of the genii or the golden lamp, like the story of The Arabian Nights. The rapid changes that have occurred and now are occurring, and the attainment of citizenship to a race that was a short time ago denied these privileges, seem only to have been made possible by the magical power of the wonderful lamp.
You are all now entitled by the Constitution and laws of the United States to the privilege of citizenship. Thirty years ago this could not be said of you in any State in the Union. Now, so far as law is recognized, you have the same rights as the proudest man or woman in the country. You must fit yourselves to enjoy these privileges. I am now getting to be an old man. Let me give you a word of advice. You must be patient in the progress you are making. You must meet the prejudice of centuries. While you should assert your rights with dignity, you must be patient, endeavor to command the respect of those you meet, and you will see in the time near at hand that you will be given all your privileges. You must be guided and directed by the forces that govern all humanity, and, therefore, while you have the rights of American citizenship, you should do all that will materially help your race and those that are to come after you. You must be patient if sometimes you meet with difficulties and prejudice.
The Alumni of Fisk University will some day stand side by side with the graduates of Yale and Harvard. To help on this passage are the laws of education, the study of the sciences, the study of arts, and the study of the practical development and various resources you have at your command. It is this, young men and young women, that is to help you.
Now, with these simple remarks, with no desire to excite you, I again express the hope that the time will come when in the North, South, East and West you will be recognized as a race and as American citizens according as you behave yourselves and not according to your color and condition.