But one of the most interesting phases of the South, from whatever stand-point, is the colored population. They are a remarkable people. They number six and a half millions by the last census. You know that it used to be said that when slavery should take away its fostering care, we should find large inroads made upon their numbers, and like the Indians, they would gradually waste and disappear. But what is the story of the two censuses of 1870 and 1880? The increase of the whole population of this country for the past ten years has been a little over 30 per cent. Of this, the white population has increased 28 per cent. and a fraction over, and the colored population 34 per cent. and a fraction over. So that, although the white population has been benefited by the enormous immigration, of which we so often speak and boast, yet by almost six per cent. the colored population has won in the race.
I met the president of a railroad within a month, who has recently constructed a long road in the South against time. I asked him, “With what help did you construct this road?” He said, “With colored men entirely.” “Were they satisfactory?” “Entirely so.” “Would they do as much work per man as the railroad laborers of the North?” “Not quite as much per man, but there was no danger of a strike. They were cheerful, hearty and willing, and I was entirely satisfied with them. I completed my road many days before the time given me, with every man in the South prophesying it was impossible to accomplish that result.”
I said to a policeman not long since in the city of Savannah, “Have you any colored men on your force?” “Not one; and if a colored man were placed here, every one of us would resign.” I then asked him about the colored people in the South and in that city. He said, “They are orderly and well-behaved; we have no fault to find with them.” “How are they getting on in the schools?” “They are beating our white children in the public schools.” “How is that?” “Well, our people do not altogether patronize the public schools, and the colored mothers take much more pains to have their children prompt and constant in attendance than the white mothers; and when the children of this generation come to stand up face to face ten years hence, we are going to be put to shame by the intelligence of many a black boy that to-day walks our streets barefooted and ragged.” That is the statement of a man who said he would resign if a colored man was put upon the police force of which he was a member.
There are many things about the colored people we must be patient with. They are ignorant, and ignorant beyond what we realize. It is an ignorance which we must not be surprised at; it is an ignorance which we must be patient with. It is our duty to give them education—and not merely the duty of us who are here to-night, not merely of this generation, but of generations to come. It is a duty that is patriotic beyond what we are apt to consider. At the close of the war we gave to the colored population the ballot; but it has been the proud claim of New England always that back of the ballot must be intelligence, and that it is not safe in a republic that he who casts the vote that decides the fate of the nation shall cast a vote that he cannot read. Yet to-day there is that enormous vote of the South, a vote which the man casting it cannot read. We sometimes wonder that, in a state like South Carolina, where the colored population is almost double the white, it is possible that they should be deprived of the franchise; but you can judge how timid a man is as to his rights when he cannot read his ballot nor count it after it is cast. Therefore, as I say, that question must be a slow one as it works itself out; but it is as citizens of this nation, as patriots, that we must see to it that intelligence is furnished to that people at the earliest possible day, to enable them to both read and count the ballots which they cast.
—Henry D. Hyde, Esq.
[The Colored Man.—Fifteen years ago Gen. O. O. Howard asked a colored school, “What message will you send to the friends North?” Richard Wright, at that time a lad of thirteen, responded, “Tell ’em we’s risin’ sir.” Mr. Wright has since graduated from Atlanta University, and for several years has been engaged in teaching and editing a local paper in Georgia. Those who heard his admirable address had abundant evidence that his statement has been verified in his own case, at least. We regret that we can give our readers so small a part of it.]
You cannot imagine how much it rejoices me to stand before those who helped to shape the events whose tremendous logic forced the great patriot and philanthropist, Abraham Lincoln, to sign that necessary war measure which resulted in striking the shackles from the four million unfortunate human beings whom I have the honor to represent at this meeting.
I come to tell you that your labors have not been in vain. The colored man, whose cause you have espoused, is worthy of your efforts. Numerically, the colored people form about one-seventh of this great nation. Their natural increase is greater, probably, than that of any other branch of the American family. In the South they constitute nearly one-half of the population, and in the cotton states even more. Nine-tenths of the manual or menial labor of the South is done by colored men. Freedom has not made them lazy, as has been stated by their enemies. Besides making ten million more bales of cotton than during any fifteen years of slavery, they have, during the last fifteen years of freedom, acquired in the South over one hundred million dollars worth of property. That eagerness for an education which characterized them when your first missionaries were put in the field has not left them. In 1878, Gen. Eaton reported as being in the public schools of the South 675,150 colored children, and about 100 schools devoted to secondary, normal, collegiate and professional training among the six and a-half million colored citizens. Such, in brief, is the strength of a people who are to help shape the destiny of this republic.