New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-11-09
Our COIOred Schools.

The attempt to educate colored children in
the late slaveholding portions of the United
States has ever met with an opposition as
strong and powerful as lay in the ability of its
opponents to exert. In some portions of the
country this opposition has allied itself with
the assassin and incendiary; and with the knife
and torch, tar and feathers, and kindred
diabolical instrumentalities it has succeeded in
intimidsting those who are ready and willing
to aid in educating class whose continued ig-
norance may yet prove q curse to the whole
nation in an hour of dire extremity.
In the District of Columbia strong pre-
vailing negotiating sentiment has been pan
dered to in the matter of the schooling Of
colored children, and no effort has been spared
to discourage the friends Of the education of
colored persons Finding that neither mob
violence nor unlawful measures could be
brought to bear to deter the colored people of
this District from availing themselves of the
school privileges provided for them by Con
gress, resort was had to bubbles on the part
of those in authority inimical to colored
people. to deprive colored schools of the means
of paying their teachers, and of furnishing the
necessary appliances for school purposes.
Money, however, was forthcoming from private
sources, and our schools went On until the
Republican party succeeded in getting control,
when no further trouble was experienced in
securing legal share of the school fund for
the support of colored schools.
We had hoped that all opposition to the
education OF the colored children in our midst
had outgrown itself, and that the white people
here had come to accept the situation. We
were the more easily led to this hope by the
assurance Of Governor Cooke that there should
be no discrimination between colored and white
schools, but, by letter to Acring Governor
STANTON, which we publish elsewhere, it will
be seen that there is still an opposition to col
ored schools, and q discrimination against
them by which they are seriously inconveni
enced.
We can but feel that the withholding of
money belonging to colored schools is born Of
desire to cripple those schools, and also to
pander to the prejudices of the old citizen and
pro-slavery class of our population. We feel
that the colored people of the District Of Co
lumbia are not yet safely settled down in the
full enjoyment of their rights. Men, claiming
to be Republican in politics, and in favor OF
equal and exact justice to all men, obtain
ing possession of positions under the District
government use those positions and the power
gained by them for the purpose of thwarting
the very measures tina. make the Republican
party strong throughout the nation, the full
enforcement of which is the black mans only
hope for a thorough amelioration of his sad
condition. Conservatism is rapidly gaining
ascendency in the District of Columbia; this
bodies no good to the black man. In local
politics our professedly Repub lican daily jour
nails advise the ignoring of party lines, and we
find places of great influence touching questions
directly concerning the black man being filed
by men in whose bosoms live an ill-disguised
enmity to black men and their highest interest.
Our colored schools must 20 on, and no
prejudice against colored people on the part OF
District officials will be allowed to impede the
progress of our race in the pathway of
knowledge. The school privilege was extended
to colored people by the laws of the United
States and we have recourse to the Congress OF
the nation in case those laws are disregarded.