During the Fall and Winter of 1895-96 I addressed several audiences in various parts of the country, notably New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. At the meeting in New York, which was held in Broadway Tabernacle, Hon. Joseph H. Choate presided. I also addressed during the Winter of 1896 the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, New York. The most important meeting which I attended, however, after the Atlanta Exposition, was a large meeting held in Carnegie Hall, New York, in the interest of the Presbyterian Mission. This meeting was held under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. The meeting was of national importance in its character, and the entire Presbyterian Church throughout the country was interested in it. The President of the United States, Hon. Grover Cleveland, was the presiding officer. The speakers included, besides the President, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.; Rev. Sheldon Jackson, D. D., and myself. The hall was packed from bottom to top with the best and most influential people in New York and vicinity, and much good seems to have resulted from the meeting. The following are some of the extracts from my speech delivered on that occasion:
“My word to you to-night will be based upon a humble effort during the last fourteen years to better the condition of my people in the ‘black belt’ of the South.
“What are some of the conditions in the South that need your urgent help and attention?” Eighty-five per cent. of my people in the Gulf States are on the plantations in the country districts, where a large majority are still in ignorance, without habits of thrift and economy; are in debt, mortgaging their crops to secure food; paying, or attempting to pay, a rate of interest that ranges between twenty and forty per cent.; living in one-room cabins on rented land, where schools are in session in these country districts from three to four months in the year, taught in places, as a rule, that have little resemblance to school houses.
“Each colored child in these States has spent on him this year, for education, about 70 cents, while each child in Massachusetts has spent on him this year, for education, between $18 and $20.
“What state of morality or practical Christianity you may expect when as many as six, eight, and even ten, cook, eat and sleep, get sick and die in one room, I need not explain. But what is the remedy for this condition? It is not practical nor desirable that the North attempt to educate, directly, all the colored people in the South, but the North can and should help the South educate the strong Christian leaders who will go among our people and show them how to lift themselves up. That is the great problem before us. Can this be done? If in the providence of God the Negro got any good out of slavery, he got the habit of work. Whether the call for labor comes from the cotton fields of Mississippi, the rice swamps of the Carolinas, or the sugar bottoms of Louisiana, the Negro answers the call. Yes, toil is the badge of all his tribe, but the trouble centers here: By reason of his ignorance and want of training he does not know how to utilize the results of his labor. My people do not need charity, neither do they ask that charity be scattered among them. Very seldom in any part of this country do you see a black hand reached out for charity; but they do ask that through Lincoln and Biddle and Scotia and Hampton and Tuskegee, you send them leaders to guide and stimulate them till they are able to walk.”
I also gave it as my opinion that the American Church has never yet comprehended its duty to the millions of poor whites in the South. I said: “When you help the poor whites, you help the Negro. So long as the poor whites are ignorant, so long there will be crime against the Negro and civilization.”
During the same year I delivered addresses in several Western cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee, etc.
Immediately after my address in Carnegie
