Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-09-27
MEMPHIS APPEAL
WEDNESDAY,: SEPTEMBER ga, 1ss.
Tile COLORED MUTIAY

The Work goes bravery oh' ~ S'''J
State in the Union the colored peple are re-
solving 10 think for themselves and to vote
according to their own judgments instead oil
obeying the orders Of the white leaders. We
publish in another column the speech oil
Sandy joiner, a colored barber OF Leadvilie,
delivered before the Democratic Convention
of Colorado on Thursday last. This speech
ia another straw showing that for the future
the colored voters are free and Independent,
and that they can never again be lashed into
the party traces by the Republican oVerseers.
The blacks have at last learned that there
are two kinds of servitude--ph ysical and
mental. The first gun which the COnfederates
fred upon Fort Sumter severed the chains OF
physical slavery, and now it deyolves upon
the colored people to free themselves from
the most degrading OF all serfdom-the
slavery of the mind. They are laboring to
solve the problem, and the indications are
that they will succeed. They have resolved
to be Ieemen and 10 vote individually like
white men instead OF 30 many slaves
who have no right to hold an opinion
ion in opposition to the white leaders. The
history of the world shows that our greatest
heroes cared nothing for the physical bond
age which chained them to dungeon floors
30 the mind was left free and untrammeled
70 think as it pleased. But for seventeen
years the colored people have rejoiced in
their physical freedom, while the mind was
enslaved. They have at last struck for free
dom, and the Federal rings and the carpet
ba01ara nan again mao the hIacIa for
their own selfish purposes 10 the injury OF
both races, whose interests are identical. In
discussing the determination of the colored
people TO think for themselves and to vote
according to their own judgments, the st.
Louis Republican says:
When we remember that only FIVE years have
elapsed since the negro was released from carpet
degree encouraging INDUSTRY economy and
thrift are gradually obtaining from him the recog-
he must hoe his own row. il the ed Of fe!
that he is not a ward of the nation" to be fed
and clothed at public expense, but man among
men, who must work out his own salvation as
other men do. He is beginning to realize that he
selrespect, and that to be self-respectinS he
be self,suPporting: He is beginning to learn that
his white fellow-citiZens have no conceivable in
ducement to treat him unjustlyor ungenerously.
because their fortunes are inextrlcably bound up
with his own, and whatever Injuries him DIS
must necessarily injure them and theirs He is be
ginning TO understand that as whites and blacks
are in the same boat, To swim or sink together.
mutual interests require mutual confidence, and
that he has anything to lose in the of proper
ty he must be the gamer by anygoVernment which
benefits the rest OF the community. That the re
should be- may be freely admitted, but the great
improvement wrought in the last five years Is, as
Relationship at no distant day, be entirely salts
factory. Indeed, they are so uniformly peaceful
rage MILL is never started except on the eve of
an important election, and even then its product
and disastrous collapse Of the exodus is anothcr
and most conclusive evidence that 'the house of |
and that the alleged victims of Southern oppres
sion" regard the South their old and only home
with all its defects and drawbacks has more bright
ness and blessing than can be found anywhere |
negro when he emerged from slavery, and |
the pernicious teachers who gave him his first |
lessons in freedom and citizenship, his present |
condition is far better than could reasonably have
been ANTICIPATED, and his prospective condition |
standing STILL He is slowly yet surely advancing |
as man and as citizen, and every step forward |
ne Is as free in his politics as in everything else
upward progress will be removed, and there are |
signs that this second emancipation is near at |
hand.
The relations between the whites ard |
blacks are becoming more cordial and satis-
factory every day. Race hatreds are iDjuri-
GUS to both whites and blacks, and every |
good citizen will rejoice 10 see that the color
line il rapidly fading out. The negroes 70
longer believe that the Southern whites are
their worst enemies-that the Republican
white oficeholders and oficeseekers are their
only friends. And now since the colored
people have set up for themselv es-cut Loo
from their white masters, their real elevation
as a man and citizen for the first time has
begun, and it Will increase in proportion 10
their independence until they will hold the
balance of power and become an important
factor in elections.