In our rejoicing on this occasion we should not forget to hold in grateful remembrance the men whose votes secured the passage of the bill, and especially its author, a man who by his works proved himself a friend of the oppressed, Hon. Henry Wilson, the benefactor of the District.
When the emancipation bill became a law in 1862, there were 15,000 colored people in the District of Columbia, 12,000 of whom were free and the remainder slaves. They maintained eight schools for the education of their children, and were the owners of twelve churches, which cost about $75,000. With the increase of population came the demand for more churches, so that to-day they have eighty churches and missions in the District. Many of the churches are very valuable and located on some of the principal streets and avenues, the new Metropolitan Church alone being valued at $100,000.
Under the old system the word “colored” appeared opposite the name of each colored person paying taxes on the books of the Collector of Taxes. Now, no such distinction is made, and there are no data from which the number paying taxes among colored citizens can be definitely known. From information received at the tax office, I judge that there are about 180 persons with property assessed individually at $1,000, the assessed valuation of real estate in this District being two-thirds to actual cash valuation. It will be quite in keeping with the facts to say that two of our citizens have acquired property valued at $100,000 each, two at $75,000, six at $25,000, fifteen at $20,000, twenty at $10,000, and fifty at $5,000, making in the aggregate at least a million of dollars. I am positively assured that the increase in the valuation of property owned by colored men since emancipation is 100 per cent. This, we think, is a most creditable showing for our property interests.
Of the 15,000 colored people in the District at the time of emancipation there were proportionately more skilled carpenters and masons than now in a population of 70,000. But labor has become more diversified. We are now engaged in pursuits in which we had no experience before the war. In 1861 a colored lawyer was a personage unknown to the national capital. Now half a dozen colored lawyers successfully practice their profession in the courts of the District. Then we had no physicians, regular graduates of medical schools; now a dozen or more follow the practice of medicine in the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and are recognized as men of skill and ability by the profession. One of these physicians, with his assistant, is in charge of the Freedman’s Hospital, one of the largest and most successful hospitals in the country. Government employment tends to keep out many from some business occupations in which the people in other large cities engage, but this disadvantage, if disadvantage it be considered, operates no more against us than against other citizens.
The greatest progress made, however, and that which is necessarily the first in order of time and importance, has been in matters of education. The schools have increased from 8 to 174, with an average attendance of 9,000 children, giving employment to more than 100 teachers. Twelve of the school-houses in which these schools are conducted are among the largest and most convenient school buildings in the District. Too much cannot be said in praise of the teachers, supervising principals, superintendent and trustees, for it is by their combined efforts largely that the schools have attained that degree of excellence for which they are known. Howard University and Wayland Seminary, placed on heights commanding beautiful views of Washington, are among the results of emancipation. These institutions grew out of the necessities of the times to meet the wants of colored youth for higher and professional education. It is proper that we should take pride in our schools and institutions of learning, for they are the chief instruments through which our children are to receive the training which will fit them to properly discharge the duties that will afterward devolve upon them as men and women and to elevate the race to an equality of development and enlightenment with other peoples.
We often hear the question asked, “What are we to do with the Americanized negro?” Articles have appeared in newspapers, pamphlets, and magazines giving what the author regards as a proper solution of the negro problem, so-called. But I ask why should there be a negro problem any more than a problem for any other class of the American people? We need not go far to seek the answer. It is found in the fact that in certain parts of our country the people are not willing to receive the negro into full fellowship and to grant him the civil and political rights enjoyed in common by other citizens. They take from him the means of elevation and then reproach him with inferiority. They would rejoice to rid the country of his presence by colonization, but seeing the utter hopelessness of the colonization scheme, they seek to inflame the public mind against him by constant appeals to the low and narrow prejudices entertained by certain classes of the American people. When the 300 colored citizens from Cleveland visited President-elect Garfield at Mentor, he said in reply to the address, to which he had given respectful attention, that he did not profess to be more of a friend to colored men than hundreds of others, but he was in favor of giving, and, so far as it was consistent with the duties of his office, would give them opportunity to achieve success for themselves. This is all we ask to-day. This is all we can reasonably ask. Give us fair play, equal opportunity, and we will work out our own destinies.
Ten years ago, in this city, on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedman’s Monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln, an eminent divine, after congratulating the orator of the day upon his masterly portrayal of the character of the martyr President, turned to General Grant and said: “There is but one Frederick Douglass.” This distinguished citizen, the orator who paid the eloquent tribute to the memory of Mr. Lincoln on the occasion referred to, the Hon. Frederick Douglass, will now address you.
At the conclusion of Prof. Gregory’s remarks Mr. Douglass said:
Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I appear before you again, and for the third time since my residence among you, to assist in the celebration of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. And while I highly appreciate the honor and the confidence implied in your call upon me to do so, when I consider the importance of the task it has imposed, I can say in all sincerity, as I have said before, that I wish that your choice of speaker had fallen upon one of our young men, quite as well qualified to serve you as myself. I want to see them coming to the front as I am retiring to the rear. Then the fact that I have several times addressed you upon subjects naturally suggested by the recurrence of this interesting anniversary is, of itself, somewhat embarrassing. It is not an easy task to speak many times on the same subject, before the same audience, without repeating the same views and sentiments. If, therefore, you find me committing this offence to-day, you will consider the difficulty of avoiding it, and also that the same views and sentiments are as pertinent and necessary to-day as years ago. You need not fear, however, that I shall inflict upon you any one of my former orations. I am not bound by any such necessity. The field is broad, and the material is abundant. The phases of public affairs touching the colored people of the United States are never stationary. They change with every season, and often many times in the course of a single year. There is no standing still for anybody in this world. We are either rising or falling, advancing or retreating.
Last year, at this time, we were confronted with an unusual and somewhat alarming state of facts. We stood at the gateway of a new and strange administration. After wandering about during twenty-four years, seeking rest and finding none, often hungry and sometimes thirsty, and, though not feeding swine or eating husks, yet not unfrequently found in very low places and wasting the substance of the national family, our prodigal Democratic son, with one tremendous effort of will, returned to the White House, and was received with every demonstration of parental joy and gladness. Of course this did not take place without a murmur of complaint and disapproval. There was an elder brother here as elsewhere; one who had remained at home, worked the old farm, kept the fences in repair; one who had done his duty and made things in the old house comfortable and pleasant generally. Indeed, but for his elder brother, the Republican party, the house would have been broken up, the whole family turned out of doors and scattered in poverty and destitution. It was natural, therefore, when this elder brother saw the great doings at the White House one year ago, when he heard the music and saw the dancing, and learned what it was all about, he was not over well pleased, and thought his father not only soft-hearted, but a little soft-headed, and a trifle ungrateful, if not crazy withal. But elder brothers, you know, are usually reasonable and patient, and are generally quite submissive to parental authority, and though he knew the bad character of the young truant who had now come home, he hoped he had reformed. How far this cheerful and patient hope has been justified by one year of this administration I will not now stop to say; I may, however, remark, as a prelude to what I shall hereafter say, that as far as the colored people of the country are concerned, their condition seems no better and not much worse than under previous administrations. Lynch law, violence, and murder have gone on about the same as formerly, and without the least show of Federal interference or popular rebuke. The Constitution has been openly violated with the usual impunity, and the colored vote has been as completely nullified, suppressed, and scouted as if the fifteenth amendment formed no part of the Constitution, and as if every colored citizen of the South had been struck dead by lightning or blown to atoms by dynamite. There have also been the usual number of outrages committed against the civil rights of colored citizens on highways and by-ways, by land and by water, and the courts of the country, under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, have shown the same disposition to punish the innocent and shield the guilty, as during the presidency of Mr. Arthur. Perhaps colored men have fared a little worse, so far as office-holding is concerned. In some of the Departments, I am sorry to say, there have been many dismissals, but, even in this respect, colored men have not suffered much more than one-armed soldiers, and other loyal white men, whose places were wanted by deserving Democrats. Upon the whole, candor compels me to admit that this twenty-fourth year of our freedom finds us thoughtful, somewhat mystified by what is passing around us, but hopeful, strong to suffer, and yet strong to strive, with a moderate degree of faith that, under the Constitution and its amendments, we shall yet be clothed with dignity of freedom and American citizenship. But more of this in the right place.