CHAPTER XI.
AN APPEAL FOR JUSTICE.
While the Atlanta Exposition was in progress, the State Constitutional Convention of South Carolina was in session, having been convened for the specific purpose of passing a law that would result in disfranchising the greater proportion of the Negro voters. While this Convention was in session, I addressed an open letter to Senator Benj. Tillman of South Carolina, which read as follows:
“I am no politician. I never made a political speech, and do not know as I ever shall make one, so it is not on a political subject that I address you. I was born a slave; you a free man. I am but an humble member of an unfortunate race; you are a member of the greatest legislative body on earth, and of the great intelligent Caucasian race. The difference between us is great, yet I do not believe you will scorn the appeal I make to you in behalf of the 650,000 of my race in your State, who are to-day suppliants at your feet, and whose destiny and progress for the next century you hold largely in your hands. I have been told that you are brave and generous, and one too great to harm the weak and dependent; that you represent the chivalry of the South, which has claimed no higher praise than that of being the protectors of the defenseless. I address you because I believe that you and those associated with you in convention, have been misunderstood in the following dispatch to a number of papers:
“‘An appalling fact that may not be obvious at a first glance, is that the course proposed means the end of Negro education and Negro progress in South Carolina. This is openly admitted by Senator Tillman and his friends.’
“It has been said that the truest test of the civilization of a race is the desire of the race to assist the unfortunate. Judged by this standard, the Southern States as a whole have reason to feel proud of what they have done in helping in the education of the Negro.
“I cannot believe that on the eve of the twentieth century, when there is more enlightenment, more generosity, more progress, more self-sacrifice, more love for humanity than ever existed in any other stage of the world’s history, when our memories are pregnant with the scenes that took place at Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge but a few days ago, where brave men who wore the blue and gray clasped forgiving hands and pledged that henceforth the interests of one should be the interests of all—while the hearts of the whole South are centered upon the great city of Atlanta, where Southern people are demonstrating to the world in a practical way that it is the policy of the South to help and not to hinder the Negro—in the midst of all these evidences of good feeling among all races and all sections of the country, I cannot believe that you and your fellow members are engaged in constructing laws that will keep 650,000 of my weak, dependent and unfortunate race in ignorance, poverty and crime.
“You, honored Senator, are a student of history. Has there ever been a race that was helped by ignorance? Has there ever been a race that was harmed by Christian intelligence? It is agreed by some that the Negro schools should be practically closed because he cannot bear his proportion of this burden of taxation. Can an ignorant man produce taxable property faster than an intelligent man? Will capital and immigration be attracted to a State where three out of four are ignorant and where property and crime abound?
“Within a dozen years, the white people of South Carolina have helped in the education of hundreds of colored boys and girls at Clafflin University and smaller schools. Have these educated men and women hindered the State or hurt its reputation? It warms my heart as I read the messages of the Governors of Alabama, Georgia and other Southern States, and note their broad and statesman-like appeals for the education of all the people, none being so black or miserable as not to be reached by the beneficent hand of the State.
“Honored Sir, do not misunderstand me; I am not so selfish as to make this appeal to you in the interest of my race alone, for, thank God, a white man is as near to my heart as a black man; but I appeal to you in the interest of humanity. ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ It is my belief that were it the purpose of your convention, as reported, to practically close Negro school-houses by limiting the support of these schools to the paltry tax that the Negro is able to pay out of his ignorance and poverty after but thirty years of freedom, his school-houses would not close. Let the world know it, and there would be such an inflowing of money from the pockets of the charitable from all sections of our country and other countries, as would keep the light of the school-houses burning on every hill and in every valley in South Carolina. I believe, Senator Tillman, that you are too great and magnanimous to permit this. I believe the people of South Carolina prefer to have a large part in the education of their own citizens; prefer to have them educated to feel grateful to South Carolina for the larger part of their education rather than to outside parties wholly. This question I leave with you. The black yeomanry of your State will be educated. Shall South Carolina do it, or shall it be left to others? Here in my humble home, in the heart of the South, I beg to say that I know something of the great burden the Southern people are carrying and sympathize with them, and I feel that I know the Southern people, and am convinced that the best white people in South Carolina and the South are determined to help lift up the Negro.
“In addressing you this simple message, I am actuated by no motive save a desire that your State, in attempting to escape a burden, shall not add one that will be ten fold more grievous, and that we all shall so act in the spirit of Him who when on earth went about doing good, that we shall have in every part of our beloved South, a contented, intelligent and prosperous people.”