The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-06-22
THEIR BEST FRIENDS

OF THEIRBEST FRIENDS
Again and again has the Messenger
said that the very best friends the
negro race in America has are the in
south. There is not a shadow of doubt
of this. If it had not been 50 the con
Idition of the negro to-day in the south
would have been very different and in
many particulars. They would have
had no education, no prosperity, no
work. no ~countenance whatever from
the superior race. Their condition
would have been most pitiable, most
distressing, most calamitous. They
would have been common pariahs, de-
Ispised of all, and spurned as men shun
a lazaar house. But, we repeat, the
best friends OF the negro race is the
white race in the south. but not the
white race in the north But despite
this fact for nearly thirty-four years
the negroes have voted always against
the true white race, and with northern
white radicals. the constant enemies
Iof the south. The negroes nave always
felt and acted as If the southern
whites were their enemies, and that if
IL they showed this antagonism at the
ballot box it would propitiate and de-
light the northern white radicals whom
they believed to hate the southern
whites and were willing to use the ne
Igroes to wound and humiliate the peo-
pie it took four years to defeat with
five men behind the guns to n in the
south.
But, prestol change. Let the north
ern whites take the places of the
southern whites and it woul not be
two years before the feelings would be
subverted completely, and the abomi-
nation and antagonism of the north
erners would be intense, complete. But
look now and see how the negro really
flares in the north. What occupations
Ican he fill up there?" Ask any fairly
Intelligent negro who has lived in the
north about this. He will tell you that
race prejudice exists there, that the
negro mechanics cannot work with
the white mechanics. that the place
lof the negro is that of a servant or bar
her or something of this kind. There
is social, religious, business and po-
llitical prescription for the negro in the
north. Every negro who knows any
thing about the north knows this to
be true. The negro in the north is ex-
lcluded from schools, hotels, places OF
amusement, positions of public trust,
lprivate employments except the me-
nial, and he is really worse off than he
would be here. If all the negroes in
the south were to go to the north the
great majority would freeze to death
or perish or become tramps and pau
Ipers to be fed by public subscription.
Some years ago, at a big banquet held
i'm the north the walters were
negroes and not one lac ever heard of
VIM. Lloyd Garrison, h noted abo-
Ilitionist.
If the negro were wise in his day
and generation he would avoid the
north and the leaders of his race who
ARE fanatical and fools withal, of the
Tom Fortune and Manly stripe, n
leaving the barren fields of politics he
would remain in the south, betake
him to steady labor, and obeying the
laws and c~ultivating the grcious anne
mites of life, he would seek to
mend his fortunes and become a
steady, useful, reliable man, and a
blessing to the community in which he
lived. Politics-vicious, evil, bitter
politics, have done more to injure and
retard him tina any other cause. He
has been the tool of bad, evil disposed,
rapacious white men, and antagoniz-
ing the white men of character and
~benevolence, he has to some extent
alienated them, made them somthing
indifferent to his welfare, and sowing
the seeds of race prejudice a reaped
a most Improbable crop of darnel and
weeds INK briers and thorns. 1t is
time to pursue another course and try
to make friends of the people he has
lspurned and prosecuted and delighted
to injure by supporting robbers and
~rascals who plundered and outraged.