While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
"Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne; mercy and truth shall go
before thy face."
"Righteousness exalteth a
nation but sin is a reproach to any people."
The
"Problem of the Negro" is an old and
familiar phrase. It relates to the fact,
that, however many and great have been the
benefits derived from his labor and loyalty,
the best management of him has been a
troublesome problem to the statesmen of this
country, ever since the declaration of
independence, and especially the Freedman,
since his emancipation.
Like a prism or cube, this problem has
several sides, but unlike these symbols, its
various sides are unlike each other. The
solution of it has always appeared to be
different when viewed from different angles
of vision. Observers in one part of our
country unite in saying, "this is the best
way to solve this problem," while others in
another section insist, they know a better
way. The statesman views it from one point
of view, the labor leader from another and
the Christian philanthropist from still
another standpoint.
The first part of this problem, the one
relating to the fact of his freedom, has
already been solved. The solution of this
introductory part of the problem caused
preliminary struggles in Kansas and other
places, including the Civil War. It served
to bring out that which was noblest and best
in Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd
Garrison, Frederic Douglass, Henry Ward
Beecher, Horace Greeley, Charles Summer,
Abraham Lincoln and others.
The parts that remain to be solved relate to
his uplift from ignorance, poverty and
degradation, to the attainment of the
ability to support himself, by a fair chance
in the labor market, and the enjoyment of
approved educational, religious and
political privileges.
He has been accorded the right to own
property, and is enjoying that right to the
full extent of his ability to acquire and
hold it.
He has been accorded limited educational and
religious privileges, and has made a very
commendable progress along both of these
lines.
It is at this point we reach the difficult
and unsolved part of the problem.
The intelligent and
prosperous portion of them in the South,
though native and loyal Americans, are
discriminated against, and denied rights and
recognitions, that are accorded other
nationalities, though illiterate. The
popular reason assigned, for locally
withholding from all of them certain
privileges of citizenship, is the fact that
a great number of them continue to be
illiterate.
In several of the states the Freedman is
denied the privilege of enjoying the
instruction of competent white teachers in
their state and public schools, and in all
of them he is prohibited from attending
white schools, as in Pennsylvania and other
northern states. The discriminations against
them are so general, that it is almost
impossible for any of them to acquire skill
as workmen, or become fitted to serve their
own people in the professions, except from
those of their own number, or institutions
of learning provided specially for them.
Representation In
Congress
During the last forty years, the Freedmen
have been counted as a part of the
population, in apportioning the districts
for the election of Representatives in the
Congress of the United States. This
inclusion of their number, in the
arrangement of the districts, has enabled
the states to which they belong, to have a
considerable number of additional
congressmen that they would not have had, if
the districts had been arranged according to
the white population, which alone has been
permitted to vote.
Since 1910 the additional number of
Congressmen representing the suppressed vote
of the Freedmen, has been 32 in a total of
82 members. These additional
representatives, based on the population
representing the suppressed vote of the
Freedmen, have come from the different
states as follows: Alabama, 5; Arkansas, 2;
Florida, 1; Georgia, 6; Louisiana, 4;
Mississippi, 5; North Carolina, 4; South
Carolina, 4; Texas, 1. Total, 32.
This is an unexpected and a rather anomalous
condition. It places the Freedmen in this
country on a plane somewhat similar to that
accorded the Philippines and Porto Ricans,
as regards the matter of government and
participation therein.
It also, however, suggests the goal towards
which education, religion and consequent
material prosperity are gradually uplifting
the race. This goal is clearly expressed in
the following amendments to the Constitution
of the United States.
Amendments To The
Constitution
Article XIII. Section I. Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.-(Ratified
Dec. 18, 1865.)
Article XIV. Section I. All persons born or
naturalized in the United States and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States, and of the state wherein
they reside. No state shall make or enforce
any law, which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United
States; nor shall any state deprive any
person of life, liberty or property, without
due process of law, nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be
apportioned among the several states
according to their respective numbers,
counting the whole number of persons in each
state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when
the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for president and
vice-president of the United States,
representatives in congress, the executive
and judicial officers of a state, or the
members of the legislature thereof, is
denied to any of the male inhabitants of
such state, being twenty-one years of age,
and citizens of the United States, or in any
way abridged, except for participation in
rebellion or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in
the proportion, which the number of such
male citizens shall bear to the whole number
of male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such state.-(Ratified July 28, 1868.)
Article XV. Section I. The right of citizens
of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or
by any state on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The congress shall have power to
enforce this article (or these articles) by
appropriate legislation.-(Ratified March 30,
1870.)
Negro Senators And
Representatives
As a result of these amendments two negroes,
one free born, the other a Freedman were
elected to the United States senate, namely,
Hiram R. Revels, 1870-1871; and Blanche K.
Bruce, 1875-1881, both from Mississippi.
Twenty others have enjoyed the privilege of
serving as representatives in congress,
during the thirty-two years intervening
between 1869 and 1901. The first of these
was Jefferson Long of Georgia, who served
alone in 1869 and 1870. During the next four
years 1871 to 1874, there were four
representatives, representing Alabama,
Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina, the
last having two colored representatives
during this entire period. Their number was
then reduced to two representatives, and
finally to none since 1901, save that there
were three during the terms commencing 1877,
1881 and 1883. Their last representatives
were George W. Murray of South Carolina,
1893 to 1897; and George H. White of North
Carolina, 1897 to 1901.
Five of these twenty representatives were
re-elected and served terms of four years;
three served six years, and Joseph H. Rainey
of South Carolina enjoyed the unusual
privilege of serving ten years, 1875 to
1885. Eight of them were from South
Carolina, four from North Carolina, three
from Alabama and one from Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia.
Disfranchisements
During the seventies and eighties the
Freedmen were to a considerable extent
disfranchised by means of "election devices,
practices and intimidations."
Since 1890, when Mississippi took the lead,
a number of the states have passed laws
restricting the right of suffrage on their
part to such tests as the payment of their
annual taxes, previous to a certain date;
ownership of a certain amount of land or
personal property, the ability to read and
write the constitution of the state or of
the United States, and the "Grandfather
Clause" which permits one unable to meet the
educational or property tests to continue to
vote, if he enjoyed that privilege, or is a
lineal descendant of one that did so,
previous to the date mentioned therein,
usually 1867.
The following states have enacted laws
containing the "Grandfather Clause:" South
Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia,
North Carolina, Georgia and in 1910,
Oklahoma. This part of the Oklahoma statute
reads as follows:
"But no person who was on January 1, 1866,
or at any time prior thereto, entitled to
vote under any form of government, or who at
that time resided in some foreign nation,
and no lineal descendant of such person
shall be denied the right to register and
vote because of his inability to so read and
write such Constitution."
Result Contrary To
Expectation
This historic record, of representation in
the highest legislative council of the
nation, is very suggestive. That the
Freedmen should have been accorded the
largest number of representatives just after
the dawn of freedom, when their general
condition has always been described as
extremely deplorable, that this number
should have been gradually diminished with
the spread of intelligence among them; and
that finally they should have no
representative during the last thirteen
years, when their progress in education and
material prosperity has been, at their
fiftieth anniversary, declared to be
"wonderful," certainly does not seem to be
in accordance with what one intuitively
would expect to be the natural order of
things.
It is quite natural the present order of
things should awaken and develop a feeling
of protest on the part of the Freedmen, for
they appreciate rights and privileges as
well as other races and nations.
Their segregation, enforced on all alike in
cities, public places and conveyances
results also in many disappointing and
humiliating experiences to those who are
leaders among them.
The existing order is, however, an
expression of local public sentiment and of
the wisest statesmanship of those, who claim
to be the best friends of the Freedman,
because they live nearest to him and know
better than others how to provide for his
needs, including rights and privileges.
He enjoys the privileges of public
protection to life, property and the pursuit
of happiness, but to a considerable extent
is denied the privilege of representation in
making laws and exercising the power of
government.
These historic facts relating to the gradual
curtailment of the privilege of
representation in legislation and government
have been noted, not merely because they
form an important part in a full statement
of the negro problem, but as a prelude to
the following facts, and suggestions to the
Freedmen.
Providential Leading
The history of the Negro in America has been
one of providential leading and apparently
to enable him to work out his own destiny.
From the time the Dutch slave ship in 1619
landed the first importation, consisting of
20 slaves, at Jamestown, Virginia, to the
present time, every important event or
change in his condition has come to him from
others, who without aid or suggestion from
him have been moved to act for him.
The experience of Joseph, in passing through
the pit and the prison, on the way to his
real mission, the experience of Israel in
Egypt from the death of Joseph until the
time of their deliverance at the Red Sea,
and the experience of Nehemiah and Daniel,
captives at Babylon, who were there
providentially led and prepared for the most
signal services of their lives, seem like
historic parallels flashing from inspired
Bible story, their comforting and prophetic
light on the servile and dark experiences of
the negro in America.
In all of these instances the persons were
subject to the control of others, the way
seemed dark, trying and utterly
disappointing, and the opportunities, that
prepared the way for important transitions,
came unsought and in ways wholly unexpected.
The things that proved of greatest
importance in every instance were the
intelligence, integrity, patience and piety
of the individual.
The God-fearing integrity of Joseph was
expressed when he resisted a great
temptation by saying, "How can I do this
great wickedness and sin against God?"
Israel in Egypt submissively and obediently
undertook to make the full tale of brick
when unsympathetic taskmasters withheld the
usual and necessary amount of straw.
Nehemiah, a captive
cup-bearer of a heathen prince, won his
confidence and when honorably permitted to
return and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem,
nobly answered his idle opposers, "I am
doing a great work I cannot come down to
you."
Daniel, when a captive youth, "purposed in
his heart not to defile himself with the
King's meat or the wine which he drank," or
be swerved from his fidelity to the living
and true God by threats of the lion's den.
When the lives of the wise men of Babylon
were in danger of being suddenly taken by
royal command, he is introduced to King
Nebuchadnezzar with the significant words,
"I have found a MAN of the captives of Judah
that will make known to the King the
interpretation." He was a man whose power of
vision enabled him to forecast the future
correctly and possessed the courage to act
prudently. Though a captive and denied many
privileges, he proved himself an intelligent
and trustworthy man and, serving as a
special counselor of five successive heathen
kings, achieved for himself the worthy
reputation of being the greatest statesman
of his age.
All of these men discovered,
that their imprisonment or captivity was a
part of the divine plan that providentially
led and prepared them for their real
mission, which in each instance proved to be
one of prominent usefulness.
All of them were true patriots, but none of
them were "office seekers" or "corrupt
politicians." They loved more than any other
their own native land, because of its sacred
literature and religious institutions, but
they were loyal and true to those who ruled
over them in a foreign land. If any of them
had manifested a political ambition, the
divine plan, in regard to their promotion
and usefulness, would have been immediately
frustrated, and the memory of their names
would have perished with their generation.
A Divine Mission
May we not believe that God had a plan and
purpose, in bringing the negro to the
Christian colonies, that established our
government on the fundamental principles of
civil and religious liberty. His condition
during the period of servitude, which lasted
246 years, was perhaps in many places but
little worse than that of most of his
kinsmen in Africa, during this same period;
while now, at the end of the first fifty
years of freedom, the condition and
prospects of the intelligent and prosperous
ones among them, are declared to be better
than those enjoyed by their kinsmen, any
where on earth.
The Freedman's Friends
The Freedman has hosts of friends, who are
interested in his welfare. He has interested
neighbors, amongst whom he lives, and also
friends at a distance. Both are trying to
solve the problem of his true relation to
American institutions and privileges. While
both have been co-operating together to a
considerable extent and in a very
commendable manner for the betterment of his
condition, it remains to note however that
if one is considered by the other as moving
too slowly, or too rapidly, one acts as a
gentle spur or check to the other.
This is the harmonizing process that is now
going on among the friends of the Freedman.
He is scarcely regarded as a participating
factor in this harmonizing process. There
are times when to him every new event seems
to be one moving him in the wrong direction.
His natural impulse, on experiencing these
apparently adverse movements, is to raise
the voice of bitter complaint against one
set of his friends. When this is done in a
personal or partisan way it is offensive and
always does more harm than good. This method
of procedure should therefore never be
approved or adopted.
Friendly Counsels
A respectful protest against a wrong and an
appeal to have it removed, addressed to the
person or body having the power to remove
it, is an inherent right and a proper method
of procedure whenever deemed advisable.
"Love thy neighbor as thyself" should be
regarded as a fundamental principle by every
Freedman. When the herdmen of Abraham and
Lot had a little trouble over cattle and
pastures, Abraham, who had received all the
land by promise and Lot was really a
troublesome intruder, discovered the
greatness of his soul and settled the
difficulty by saying to Lot,
"Let there be no strife, I pray thee,
between me and thee, and between my herdmen
and thy herdmen, for we be brethren.
"Is not the whole land before thee? Separate
thyself from me, if thou wilt take the left
hand, then I will go to the right, or if
thou depart to the right hand, then I will
go to the left."
Do not become impatient. Your friends at a
distance, especially those in the Churches,
are generously endeavoring to help you to
climb the ladder of progress, until a larger
proportion of the race has been uplifted to
the plane of an enlightened Christian
civilization.
That the Freedman, notwithstanding his
wonderful progress during the last fifty
years, is still in an infantile condition is
freely confessed. It was eighty years from
the time the helpless babe was uplifted from
the river, before Moses was called to be the
leader and deliverer of Israel. The uplift
from the river and training in his case came
from the gentle hands of others. This fact
is quite significant.
The Freedman who, avoiding the worthless and
corrupt politician and over zealous office
seeker, makes a good success of his farm and
co-operates cordially with his friends and
neighbors in effecting the educational and
moral uplift of his race, will be happiest
while he lives and do most to hasten the
day, when political privileges, now
temporarily withheld, will be restored to
those who are found capable and worthy of
their enjoyment.
If you happen to live in a state where your
neighbor does not wish you to be a
politician and hold office, do not worry.
There are thousands of citizens every year
and in all parts of our land, who do not
vote and merely because they do not care to
do so.
The voice of protest,
against the useless and corrupt politician,
is now heard in all parts of our land. In
many of our cities, he has already been
relegated to the junk heap, by the adoption
of the commission form of government. Two of
the states, Kansas and Oklahoma, are now
vying with each other, to see which shall be
first to adopt the same system in the
management of the public affairs of the
state, and thus dispense with a lot of
unnecessary public officials.
"A public office is a public trust" and
affords an opportunity to render a useful
and honorable service, but holding public
office is not essential to the happiness and
prosperity of any of us. An over eager
desire to hold public office often suggests
nothing more, than an effort to find
employment for the idle. The better way, as
in the cases of Saul and David, kings of
Israel, and of Washington and Grant,
commanders-in-chief of our armies, is to let
the office seek the man.
The Golden Rule
"As ye would that men should do to you, do
ye also to them."
The application of the Golden Rule to this
part of this problem, suggests that every
man is entitled to recognition according to
his worth.
"Our country can fulfill its high mission
among the nations of the earth, conferring
lasting benefits on ourselves and all
mankind, only by guaranteeing to its
humblest citizen his just right to life,
liberty, protection from injustice, the
enjoyment of the fruits of his own labor and
the pursuit of happiness in his own way, as
long as he walks in the path of rectitude
and duty and does not trespass upon the
rights of others," declares ex-President
Roosevelt.
"Morality, and not expediency, is the thing
that must guide us," is the emphatic
declaration of President Woodrow Wilson. The
false assumption that "the end justifies the
means has come from self-centered men, who
see in their own interests the interests of
the country, and do not have vision enough
to read it in wider terms, the universal
terms of equity and justice."
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Choctaw Freedmen and Oak Hill Industrial
Academy, 1914, Robert Elliott Flickinger
