A deeply rooted prejudice shut the Negro out from the trades. He could not acquire the art of setting type, civil engineering, building machinery, house carpentering, or any of the trades. The schools of medicine, law, and theology were not open to him; and even if he secured admission into some gentleman's office, or instruction from some divine, the future gave him no promise. The white wings of hope were broken in an ineffectual attempt to move against the bitter winds of persecution, under the dark sky of hate and proscription. Corporations, churches, theatres, and political parties made the Negro a subject of official action. If a Negro travelled by stage coach, it was among the baggage in the "boot," or on top with the driver. If he were favored with a ride on a street car, it was in a separate car marked, "This car for Colored people." If he journeyed any distance by rail, he was assigned to the "Jim Crow" car, or "smoker," where himself and family were subjected to inconvenience, insult, and the society of the lowest class of white rowdies. If he were hungry and weary at the end of the journey, there was "no room for him in the inn," and, like his Master, was assigned a place among the cattle. If he were so fortunate as to get into a hotel as a servant, bearing the baggage of his master, he slept in the garret, and took his meals in the kitchen. It mattered not who the Colored man was—whether it was Langston, the lawyer, McCune Smith, the physician, or Douglass, the orator—he found no hotel that would give him accommodations. And forsooth, if some host had the temerity to admit a Negro to his dining-room, a dozen white guests would leave the hotel rather than submit to the "outrage!"
The places of amusements in all the large cities in the North excluded the Negro; and when he did gain admission, he was shown to the gallery, where he could enjoy peanut-hulls, boot-blacks, and "black-legs." Occasionally the side door of a college was put ajar for some invincible Negro. But this was a performance of very rare occurrence; and the instances are easily remembered.
When courts and parties, corporations and companies had refused to accord the Negro the rights that were his due as a man, he carried his case to the highest earthly court, the Christian Church. He felt sure of sympathy and succor from this source. The Church had stood through the centuries as a refuge for the unfortunate and afflicted. But, alas! the Church shrank from the Negro as if he had been a reptile. If he gained admission it was to the "Negro pew" in the "organ loft." If he secured the precious "emblems of the broken body and shed blood" of his Divine Master, it was after the "white folks" were through. If the cause of the Negro were mentioned in the prayer or sermon, it was in the indistinct whisper of the moral coward who occupied the sacred desk. And when the fight was on at fever heat, when it was popular to plead the cause of the slave and demand the rights of the free Negro, the Church was the last organization in the country to take a position on the question; and even then, her "moderation was known to all men."
If the Negro had suffered from neglect only, had been left to solve the riddle of his anomalous existence without further embarrassment, it would have been well. But no, it was not so. Studied insolence jostled Colored men and women from the streets of the larger cities; mobocratic violence broke up assemblages and churches of Colored people; and malice sought them in the quiet of their homes—outraged and slew them in cold blood. Thus with the past as a haunting, bitter recollection, the present filled with fear and disaster, and the future a shapeless horror, think ye life was sweet to the Negro? Bitter? Bitter as death? Ay, bitter as hell!
Driven down from the lofty summit of laudable ambitions into the sultry plains of domestic drudgery and menial toil, nearly every ray of hope had perished upon the strained vision of the Negro. The only thing young Colored men could aspire to was the position of a waiter, the avocation of a barber, the place of a house-servant or groom, and teach or preach to their own people with little or no qualifications. Denied the opportunities and facilities of securing an education, they were upbraided by the press and pulpit, in private gatherings and public meetings, for their ignorance, which was enforced by a narrow and contracted public prejudice.
But "none of these things moved" the Negro. Undismayed he bowed to his herculean task with a complacency and courage worthy of any race or age of the world's history. The small encouragement that came to him from the conscientious minority of white men and women was as refreshing as the cool ocean breeze at even-tide to the feverish brow of a travel-soiled pilgrim. The Negro found it necessary to exert himself, to lift himself out of his social, mental, and political dilemma by the straps of his boots. Colored men turned their attention to the education of themselves and their children. Schools were begun, churches organized, and work of general improvement and self-culture entered into with alacrity and enthusiasm. Boston had among its teachers the scholarly Thomas Paul; among its clergymen Leonard A. Grimes and John T. Raymond; among its lawyers Robert Morris and E. G. Walker; among its business men J. B. Smith and Coffin Pitts; among its physicians John R. Rock and John V. DeGrasse; among its authors Brown and Nell; and among its orators Remond and Hilton. Robert Morris was admitted to the bar in Boston, on Thursday, June 27, 1850, at a meeting of the members of the Suffolk County Bar. The record is as follows:
"Resolved, That Robert Morris, Esq., be recommended for admittance to practice as a Counsellor and Attorney of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States.
"(Signed) Ellis Gray Loring, Chairman.
"Chas. Theo. Russell, Secretary."
John V. DeGrasse, M.D., an eminent physician of Boston was perhaps the most accomplished Colored gentleman in New England between 1850-1860. The following notice appeared in a Boston journal in August, 1854:
"On the 24th of August, 1854, Mr. DeGrasse was admitted in due form a member of the 'Massachusetts Medical Society.' It is the first instance of such honor being conferred upon a colored man in this State, at least, and probably in the country; and therefore it deserves particular notice, both because the means by which he has reached this distinction are creditable to his own intelligence and perseverance, and because others of his class may be stimulated to seek an elevation which has hitherto been supposed unattainable by men of color. The Doctor is a native of New York City, where he was born in June, 1825, and where he spent his time in private and public schools till 1840. He then entered the Oneida Institute, Beriah Green, President, and spent one year; but as Latin was not taught there, he left and entered the Clinton Seminary, where he remained two years, intending to enter college in the fall of 1843. He was turned from this purpose, however, by the persuasions of a friend in France, and after spending two years in a college in that country, he returned to New York in November, 1845, and commenced the study of medicine with Dr. Samuel R. Childs, of that city. There he spent two years in patient and diligent study, and then two more in attending the medical lectures of Bowdoin College, Me. Leaving that institution with honor in May, 1849, he went again to Europe in the autumn of that year, and spent considerable time in the hospitals of Paris, travelling, at intervals, through parts of France, England, Italy, and Switzerland. Returning home in the ship 'Samuel Fox,' in the capacity of surgeon, he was married in August, 1852, and since that time he has practised medicine in Boston. Earning a good reputation here by his diligence and skill, he was admitted a member of the Medical Society, as above stated. Many of our most respectable physicians visit and advise with him whenever counsel is required. The Boston medical profession, it must be acknowledged, has done itself honor in thus discarding the law of caste, and generously acknowledging real merit, without regard to the hue of the skin."
The Colored population of New York was equal to the great emergency that required them to put forth their personal exertions. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, Dr. Charles B. Ray, and the Rev. Peter Williams in the pulpit; Charles L. Reason and William Peterson as teachers; James McCune Smith and Philip A. White as physicians and chemists; James Williams and Jacob Day among business men, did much to elevate the Negro in self-respect and self-support.