Fifty Years of Freedom / with matters of vital importance to both the white and colored people of the United States

by Francis J. Grimké

IV. At the end of these fifty years of freedom, in spite of the remarkable progress that we have made along all lines, we find race prejudice increasing instead of diminishing. The remarkable record of progress that we have made has had no appreciable influence, so far as appears on the surface, in lessening the feeling of hostility to us. Race prejudice is stronger, is more bitter, more aggressive to-day than ever before. The enemies of the race are more united and more determined than ever to throw themselves across the pathway of our progress and to compel us by sheer brute force, whatever our attainments may be, into a position of permanent inferiority. Not content with what has already been done to humiliate us, it is now demanding segregation, is now insisting upon restricting the rights of colored people to live in certain prescribed sections of communities only. And it has become so emboldened, so insolently aggressive that it is demanding segregation among the employees of the General Government itself. And its demand is being acceded to. Segregation, as a matter of fact, has already begun in some of the Departments of the Government. A bill recently introduced into Congress makes it a criminal offense to mix the races—to have white and colored clerks working together in the same room. For nearly a half century white and colored clerks have worked side by side, and nothing was thought of it; but now through this insane desire to humiliate a race, to impress it more and more with its inferiority, it is now proposed to make it a crime, not under laws enacted by Negro-hating Southern legislatures, but by the National Government itself, which is supposed to represent all the people, and to represent equality of rights for all the people. That prejudice is increasing; that more and more the effort is being made, and in ever-widening areas, to hedge us about with limitations, with restrictions which are not imposed upon other elements of the population, is manifest to any one whose eyes are open to what is going on in the country, not in one section only, but in all sections.

V. At the end of these fifty years, we find nearly all the rights guaranteed to us under the constitution, especially under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, practically nullified in a large section of the country. In the South we have been disfranchised. We have no rights, civil or political, which the white man is bound to respect. The only good Negro in the estimation of the dominant sentiment of the South to-day after fifty years of freedom, is the Negro who knows his place, and who is willing to keep his place of subjection, of subordination to the white man.

VI. At the end of fifty years, in spite of the facts just narrated, with a full knowledge of the gross injustice from which the colored man is suffering, the rest of the white people of the country, as a whole, are found standing silently by looking on while this cruel and relentless warfare against the race is going on, with only occasionally a word of protest, or of mild remonstrance. The great mass of the white people in other sections of the Union, seemingly, cares nothing about what treatment is accorded to us. They don't seem to think that it is a matter about which they need to concern themselves. If there is any feeling at all it is rather one of sympathy with the oppressor.

How white men of the North and West whose fathers fought and died to save the Union, and through whom freedom and the great amendments to the constitution came, can stand silently by and see the same rebel spirit that sought to destroy the Union set upon the colored man and rob him of his rights—the very rights that came to him as the result of the blood shed by their fathers, I have never been able to understand. The sons of the rebels are still true to the principles for which their fathers fought and died. It is only in the North and West, among the descendants of the men who fought and died for the Union, that we find the principles for which their fathers stood, forgotten or cowardly surrendered. For these men to allow the colored man to be robbed of his rights by the descendants of those who fought to destroy the Union and to perpetuate slavery is to dishonor the memory of their fathers; is virtually to say, that they were wrong, and that the rebels were right. Such an attitude is an affront to every loyal white man who fell during the war or who fought for the Union and the cause of freedom. It is amazing that the descendants of these brave men should be so little concerned about matters for which their fathers were willing to lay down their lives. Shame on such descendants!

VII. At the end of these fifty years, in spite of the indifference of the many we still have left, however, a remnant of men and women with the spirit of the old abolitionists—a remnant of men and women who stand squarely, uncompromisingly for the principles of liberty, of equality, of fraternity for all; and who, in one way and another, have shown their sympathy with us in the efforts we are making to develop ourselves and to maintain our rights. The number is small; but small as it is we are thankful for their sympathy and support—thankful to know that we are not left in our weakness to fight our battles alone. It encourages us to know that in the city of Boston, there is an A. E. Pillsbury and a Moorfield Story; in the city of New York, an Oswald Garrison Villard; in the city of Cincinnati, a J. B. Foraker; in the city of Philadelphia, a John Elmer Milholland; in the city of Washington, a Wendell Phillips Stafford; in the city of Chicago, a Jane Addams; in the United States Senate, a Moses E. Clapp. There are others equally worthy of mention who are known to be our friends, our sympathizers, our well-wishers.

VIII. At the end of these fifty years of freedom, we find ourselves shut out of a great many avenues of employment. There are not many things that we can get to do. This is due mainly to race antipathy, to a growing indisposition on the part of the whites, to work with us. The outlook in this respect is not growing brighter, but rather darker and darker. The disposition seems to be to limit our activities to the most menial occupations, or to shut us out entirely. This is especially true in the North; and the same sentiment is also growing in the South, and would grow very much more rapidly than it has, but for lack of white labor supply.

IX. At the end of these fifty years of freedom, we find that one of the chief sources of demoralization to the race is strong drink. A careful examination of the facts as they exist, and as they have existed during these fifty years will show that to it, more than to any other single influence, the bad record of crime which the race has made and is still making, is due. It has been an unmitigated curse to the race, eating up its hard earnings, sapping its physical strength, engendering idle and vicious habits, and breaking down character at all points. Thousands of our young men are finding their way into saloons and into gambling and other places of demoralization closely affiliated with them. Strong drink is responsible for most of the things that have given us a black eye, that have furnished the enemies of the race with the materials which they have used in the assaults which they have made upon us from time to time. The intemperate Negro who is found lurking about these drinking places is the one who is taken as representative of the race; and in this way the race's good name has been injured and is still being injured. The race has not escaped during these fifty years the blighting effects of strong drink, especially, in the cities, is this fact most noticeable.

X. At the end of these fifty years another fact should be noted in passing, we have grown in numbers, we have more than doubled in numerical strength. In spite of many adverse circumstances—in spite of disease and poverty, bad sanitary conditions and an enormous death rate, the race has not only during these fifty years been able to maintain its own, but has steadily increased in numbers. There is no evidence, at the end of the first half century of freedom, that the race is dying out; that it is deficient in physical stamina.

Such are some of the facts that stand out in this record of fifty years.

In the light of these facts, as we enter upon the second half of the century of freedom, there are a few things that we ought to impress ourselves with; and a few things that ought to be said to our white fellow citizens.