The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1880-07-24
OUR DEVELOPMENT.

the habfln1eRts that distinguish an en-
lightened, cultured and progressive
race. On every hand are seen encOurag-
ing signs of progress aud Improvement,
but we must all understand that the
major portion of the work that is to
place us on a plane of equality with our
other fellow citizens, remains yet to be
done. The bitter and uDreasoning pref
udice enaenaered. by slavery still lin
gers among the people of this country,
and serves in many instances to retard
cur progress. But, even this foolish
prejudice, deep-rooted and seemingly
ineradicable as it appears. is gradually
disappearing before the dawning sun
light of modern truth and justice, and
ere long must entirely disappear. 49,
AS the North was first TO see the evil
of slavery and abolish it, so it is here in
the North that prejudice against color
must first disappear. There is, however,
shade of difference between the prejs-
serves notice. In the South the preju-
dice is due more to the Negroes former
condition of servitude, rather than to his
color. The close and intimate contact
of the two races in the Southern States
for two hundred and fifty years obliter-
ated, in large measure, the mere an
tipathy of one color to another. The
Southern white bases his superiority to
the negro upon the latter's origin and
condition, more than upon his
color. He thinks that it was Gods in
tention that the dark races should be
subordinate and subservient to the white
races. and hence he argues that in en-
Shaving and trampling upon the Negro,
he is but carrying out the Divine injunc-
ton registered by Noah when he ad-
ministered his never o-be- forgotten
curse to Ham.
Prejudice in the North arIses merely
| from the difference in color. The whites
of this section who are most susceptible
to color prejudice do not, as a rule, feel
that they have any God-given rights
superior to the black man. Their preju
dices, which they themselves often think
| mate and natural, are due entirely to
the long continued separation of the
races in social relations, such as schools,
churches, etc. To this, of course,
must be added the luminosity against
the Negro that has been in the past
kindled and nurtured by INSCRIPTIONS
Northern demagogues for their own base
and ignOble purposes. The intellectual
iuferiority enforced by eight OF ten gem
erations of chattel debasement and de-
NAL of school privileges, has also, in
many cases, led the ignorant Northern
mind into the belief that it was natural
ly superior to the Negro mind.
1t is interesting to nete the effect of
these two different phases of anti-Negro-
ism. The Southern article blossoms out
into complete social, political and civil
Ostracism. The effort is boldly made to
reduce the negro to a condition of serf-
dom little, if any, better than chattel
slavery. 1t is impudently proclaimed
that he ought to be, must and shall I've,
entirely subservient to she dominant
race. He must vote with the dominant
race OF not at all. He must not presume
to think and act for himself; to sit on
juries, or to eat in first class hotels, or
anything of the kind. He must, accord
ing to the Southern idea, in all essen
tails be a newer of wood and drawer OF
water. The results of Northern preju-
dice are somewhat different 10 the re-
suits in the South. Politically, the negro
is left to think and act as he pleases;
but, as a rule, there is q distinct line
drawn in social matters. The two races
are probably more distinctly separated
in this respect here than in the South.
In business affairs, too, prejudice ope-
NCly bSdAuob iuS
cOlored man of the North
Nothing is more difficult than
for a competent young colored man
to obtain a respectable position in an
office or a store. There are certain lines
of business which he has been accus-
toned to follow, and it seems that the
commercial world has come to under
stand that he ought not to be employed
in anything else. This exclusion from
the higher and more profitable business
avOcations is where Northern prejudice
is felt most keenly by the Negro, and
where it is most damaging to his present
and future prospects for material hap
piness.