(4). I want to say to those who are friendly to us; who believe that we have rights under the constitution, and that those rights ought to be recognized:
(1). We are profoundly thankful to you for your sympathy, for your good-will, and for all that you have done to cheer and encourage us. Some of you have taught in our schools, have worked among us as missionaries, have contributed of your means to aid us in our education, in our development; for all of which we are grateful.
(2). We wish very much that you would be a little more outspoken in your sympathy. We have, it may be, many silent friends among you. It is better, of course, in some respects to have a silent friend than to have no friend at all. Such friends constitute a reserve force which may serve us well at some future time, in an emergency which may arise unexpectedly. The friendship, however, that counts for most, that is of most value, is the friendship that is known, that openly, publicly expresses itself. The importance of thus openly showing your sympathy, your friendship is to be seen in that in this way public sentiment is made and influenced. The people who speak out, or, who act out their sentiment are the ones who count in shaping, in moulding public sentiment. Our enemies are never silent. The opposition, the hostility which they feel is never concealed, it always comes to the surface, always expresses itself. And this is one reason why they have influence, why they are so potential. Take the segregation idea which has been projecting itself upon the attention of the country. When the agitation was started, e. g., in the city of Washington, there were many meetings held in various parts of the city among the whites; but they were all in the interest of segregation, they were gotten up and managed by those who wanted to force this humiliation upon the colored people. I cannot believe that the purpose of these meetings met the approval of all the white people of the capital; I know that it did not of some of them. And yet no meeting was held; no public expression was given to indicate that such was the case, that there was any dissenting opinion among the whites. Not one white church; not one ministerial association; not one Christian Endeavor society, nor any other organization among the whites, including the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, gave expression to any dissenting opinion. So far as any public expression was concerned, it looked as if the entire white population approved of the movement to segregate the colored people in street cars and otherwise. What we are asking of you, our white friends, is to show your colors, is to be just as pronounced in your sympathy for us as our enemies are pronounced in their opposition to us. If you will do this; if you will let the people about you know where you stand, it will greatly help matters. Lowell, in his sonnet on Wendell Phillips, says,
"He saw God stand upon the weaker side,—
And humbly joined him to the weaker part."
And it is necessary that this be done—that the weaker part be joined, and joined openly as he did, if it is to be strengthened. There is a good deal in numbers. Somehow people have a great deal more respect, are inclined to be very much more considerate of a cause that has many adherents, or whose adherents are increasing in numbers. Where we are silent we are never counted. Elijah is sometimes criticised for his so-called pessimistic statement when he was running from Jezebel—"The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only am left." In this he was mistaken. It seems there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. But, as some one said, no one knew it, and therefore they counted for nothing. Now we don't want our friends among the whites who want us to get our rights, who think that we ought to be treated fairly, justly, to count for nothing; we don't want them to be so silently sympathetic that no one will know of it. We want them to be outspoken; to be openly for us, and thus help to mould public sentiment in our favor. It would have helped greatly if, during this segregation agitation there had been some meetings held among the whites giving expression to a different sentiment. Even a simple protest from a single individual helps. A letter like the one published not long ago by the Hon. A. E. Pillsbury of Boston, Massachusetts, declining to pay his annual dues to the treasurer of the National Bar Association, and giving as his reason his positive and emphatic dissent from the action of the Association in discriminating against colored men, is bound to have its effect in educating public sentiment, in helping to break down invidious distinctions. Carl Schurz, in his Life of Henry Clay, in speaking of the Abolitionists, says, "The immediate effect of their work has frequently been much underrated. They served to keep alive in the Northern mind that secret trouble of conscience about slavery which later, in a ripe political situation, was to break out as a great force." And so here, the protest of our white friends in the struggle we are making now will serve to keep alive in others the sense of right, which will ultimately become a great force before which the wrongs from which we are now suffering will be righted. Silent sympathy is better than no sympathy; but the sympathy that expresses itself in word and act is greatly to be preferred. If you think we are not treated right; if you think that invidious distinctions based upon color, upon race ought not to exist, say so; and say it so loud that all about you will hear it. This is the request that we make of you, as we enter upon another half century of freedom.
And now just a word more. The struggle before us is a long and hard one; but with faith in God, and faith in ourselves, and indomitable perseverance, and the purpose to do right, in spite of the forces that are arrayed against us, we need have no fears as to the ultimate result. Success is sure to crown our efforts. We are not always going to be behind; we are not always going to be discriminated against; we are not always going to be denied our rights. For as Sojourner Truth said, "God is not dead." And some day, in his own good time, the right will triumph. As the poet has expressed it,
"Right is right since God is God,
And Right the day will win."
What is needed is a New EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION—a proclamation that will set the white man free from the degrading influence of race prejudice—a proclamation that will register a decree or purpose on the part of the white race to free itself not only from the narrowing lust of gold, but from the still more narrowing lust of race hatred and proscription. O, for another and greater Lincoln to speak the word of power,—another and greater Lincoln to set the thought and heart of white America going in a new and better way—the way of righteousness—the way of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. In the inspired record we read: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea." Surely if this be true; if this is a prophecy of what is to be, there is reason and good reason to believe that the savage element in the white man's nature, which corresponds to the nature of these ferocious animals, and which leads him to devise and execute his various schemes of disfranchisement, of segregation, of restricted opportunities, in order to annoy and degrade us, will yet undergo a change. If the wolf and lamb can dwell together, and the lamb be perfectly safe, surely the white man in this country is not so absolutely beyond being amenable to reason and common sense and decency as to make it impossible, some time in the future, for him and his brother in black to dwell together, and the brother in black feel no uneasiness, no fear of being molested, or of having his rights infringed upon by him. The white man, when it comes to the Negro, is pretty bad, I know, but I cannot believe that he is so hopelessly bad as to render it impossible for the colored man to dwell with him and be treated by him as a man and brother. It may ultimately turn out to be true; but I am not yet willing to believe it. It cannot be that this white race, which prides itself upon its superiority to all other races, under this highest test of superiority—the ability to accord to every man his right and to treat every man as a brother of whatever race or nationality, is going to be found so sadly deficient. It is a great race. It has done many wonderful things. All the greater is the reason, therefore, why it should not permit itself to be controlled by such an ignoble spirit. It has done, too, many wonderful things to have its greatness marred by settling down permanently on the low level of race prejudice. No; I cannot believe that the white man is so hopelessly bad, so absolutely possessed by this demon of race hatred that there is no honorable future in this country for the colored man. The Tillmans, Vardamans, Hoke Smiths are not always going to be the leaders of even Southern public sentiment. A better day is coming, with truer, saner, wiser leaders. Dr. Josiah Strong, in his last volume, "Our World," in the chapter on "The New Race Problem," after some remarks on the improbability and the undesirability of blending all races into one says,—"If we recognize any plan in creation, we must accept a differentiation of the human family as an expression of the divine purpose, infinitely wise and benevolent. And it behooves us as colaborers together with God to find that purpose, if possible, that we may work with him and not against him."