Have the white women of the South considered that under existing conditions they are deprived of effective influence, of effective power, to reform the morals of the men of their race? And that unless the morals of the men are reformed the morals of the whole white race will eventually decline? If the women fail to lift the level of the moral life of their men to their own higher plane, the lower morals of the men will drag downward ultimately to their level that of the women. From this inevitable conclusion and consequence there is no possible escape. But the white women of the South are powerless to lift the morals of their men without lifting at the same time the morals of the women of the black race. If, however, they steadily refuse to do so in the future, as they have refused to do so in the past, and as they refuse to do so today by the only sure means which can and will contribute mightily to effect such a purpose, viz., by making the black women their equals before the law, and at the bar of an enlightened public sentiment, and these women remain in consequence where they are today, a snare to the feet of white men, when these men trip over this snare into the hell of the senses, they will drag downward slowly but surely with them toward the level of these self-same black women the moral ideals if not the moral life of the white women of the South.
And now a final word about the black woman of the South: She holds in her keeping the moral weal or woe, not only of her own race, but of the white race also. As she stands today in respect to the white man of the South, her situation is full of peril to both races. For she lives in a world where the white man may work his will on her without let or hindrance, outside of law, outside of the social code and moral restraints which protect the white woman. This black woman's extra-legal position in the South, and her extra-social status there, render her a safe quarry for the white man's lust. And she is pursued by him for immoral ends without dread of ill consequences to himself, either legal or social. If she resists his advances, and in many cases she does resist them, he does not abate his pursuit, but redoubles it. Her respectability, her very virtue, makes her all the more attractive to him, spurs the more his sensual desire to get possession of her person. He tracks her, endeavors to snare her in a hundred dark ways and by a hundred crooked means. On the street, in stores, in cars, going to and from church, she encounters this man, bent on her ruin. Into her very home his secret emissaries may attack her with their temptation, with their vile solicitation. Nowhere is she safe, free from his pursuit, because no law protects her, no moral sentiment casts about her person the aegis of its power. And when haply dazed by the insignia of his superior class, or his wealth, or the magic of his skin, or the creature comforts which he is able to offer her, she succumbs to his embrace and enters the home to which he invites her, she becomes from that time outlawed in both worlds, a moral plague-spot in the midst of both races. For she begins then to reproduce herself, her wretched history, her sad fate, in the more wretched history, in the sadder fate of her daughters. And so in her world of the senses, of the passions, she enacts in a sort of vicious circle the moral tragedy of two races. If the white man works the moral ruin of her and hers, she and they in turn work upon him and his a moral ruin no less sure and terrible.
What is the remedy? It is certainly not the segregation of the races in a state of inequality before the law. For such segregation exists today. It has existed to the hurt of both races in the past. It is the fruitful parent of fearful woes at the present time, and will be the breeder of incalculable mischief for both races, for the South, and for the nation itself, in the future. The remedy lies not then in racial segregation and inequality, for that is the disease, but in interracial comity and equality. The double moral standard has to be got rid of as quickly as possible, and a single one erected in its stead, applicable alike to the men and women of both races. The moral world of the white man and that of the black woman must be merged into one by the ministers of law and religion, by an awakened public conscience, and by an enlightened and impartial public sentiment, which is the great promoter and upholder of individual and national righteousness. The black woman of the South must be as sacredly guarded as a woman by Southern law and public opinion against the sexual passion and pursuit of the Southern white man as is the Southern white woman. Such equality of condition, of protection, in the South is indispensable to any lasting improvement in the morals of its people, white or black. If that section persists in sowing inequality instead of equality between the races, it must continue to gather the bitter fruits of it in the darkened moral life, in the low moral standard of both races. For what the South sows, whether it be cotton or character, that it will surely reap.
[Theophilus G. Steward. The Message of San Domingo to the African Race]
"The mention of that name, San Domingo," says McMaster, "calls up the recollection of one of the finest colonies, of one of the noblest struggles for liberty, of one of the grandest men, and of one of the foulest deeds in the history of revolutionary France."[1]
| [1] | History of the American People, John Bach McMaster Vol. III, p. 215. |
The part that the inhabitants of that island took in our war of independence, I have related previously in a paper read before this body. (No. 5.) I may quote in substance from that paper the following facts.
The record given by Minister Rush secured in Paris in 1849, and preserved in the Pennsylvania Historical Society states that a legion of colored troops from San Domingo saved the American army from annihilation by bravely covering its retreat in the disastrous repulse which it met in Savannah in 1779. This legion was composed of about 800 freedmen, black and mulatto, and was known as Fontages' Legion. They had freely volunteered, and had accompanied D'Estaing from Port-au-Prince, and as the Haitian historians say, they came to our shores and covered themselves with glory in the cause of freedom. Among the men named as winning distinction in that critical action were: André Rigaud, Beauvais, Villatte, Beauregard, Lambert and Christophe. How many of the brave men of that legion gave up their lives in the cause of American independence is not known; but we do know that some colored martyrs from San Domingo, poured out their blood along with that of the colored patriots of our own country as a libation to American freedom. The meagre record states that Christophe received a dangerous gunshot wound; how many others were wounded or even slain we do not know.
A few years later, and after the revolution in their own island, a strong contingent went forth from there to the aid of Bolivar in Venezuela, and by their timely and effective co-operation converted Bolivar's overwhelming defeat into victory. But for the modesty and state policy of Petion, his own name would have been associated with that of Bolivar in the liberation of South America.[2] During Cuba's recent struggles the Haitian people manifested the liveliest interest and sympathy in the efforts of the Cuban patriots.