The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-16

pGreene Shadrach Washington Lewis of vidual, MT. Speaker I was speaking gen orally to the House,
 MT. Smith-This Is not the first time ne haS been guilty of such contemptu- should be put to 1t.
 Negro Speech in the Alabama Legis-
 lature
 Greene Shadrach Washington Lewis of Perry-i know what my privileges are ana 1T the gentleman will Insist on talk ing what l have said to himself he must take It. l am personally responsible for rights, and you deny them. But I tell you. that the Congress of the United states VIII grant them, whether you do or not And when that is done, we will race, and that, too Notwithstanding the objections Of Noi tn Alabama. l antici- pate that the time is coming when the men who have offered this motion. and them up, will be asking the colored peo- pie for their suffrage: but intend, from fhis time forth, to travel over this coun- try and warn the people against all such impostors l myself, have had some ob- gections to the bill. and have thought of having 1t amended, but before I had time 10 oner my amendment, gentlemen are prompt to jump up and move an indef-
 
 who. breathing the salubrious air of freedom. can move to lay this bill aside and defeat this great movement. Our rights are guaranteed by the Constitu- cd here by carpet-baggers. scalawags, Democrats and negroes-and the man who votes against conferring upon the coiored race, the rights granted by this hii-if he Is not perjured, l would like to be told what perjury means. When I saw members holding up their hands ana swearing to support the Constitution they fulfilled the obligations they then took upon themselves? They say the people are not educated up to this meas ure, but tell them they will have to be educated up to 1t. because we intend to go further than this bill goes in assert ing and exercising the rights it proposes to grant; and we intend to do it in de- nManfe Mnrfe Of the immaculate Thite people of Christian country which admits us to an equality of civil and political rights, but denies us what We claim in the bill now of oefSre %6rtb the aoqse Rnt t talk was going on, your striped jeans fellows from North Alabama came down here supplicating for corn. and I have known their old masters to keep your women and children from starving; and yet you come here and vote against this bill which only seeks to guarantee us the en- luyheHL OL tue TlkIltS cOnISTreQ Dy the Constitution of your State. Hereafter we intend Co demand them, and we are going to press them on every occasion, and preserve them inviolate if We can. And the day Is not far distant when you will find on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State, man as black as am, and North Alabama may help herself if she can.
 vein for some time. but we have no space for more extended report.
 Mir. Clark of Perry compiimented tho able and unanswerable argument of hls equal to any man who had opposed the bill. He assailed the weak kneed Repub- licans who had not the moral courage to act up to the principles of their party by supporting the bill, and rebuked Tread well of Russell a colored member. who had moved to postpone the further con sideration of the bill until the 21st of De- cember next, for his want of apprecia-
 It Is very clear from these extracts that the negroes of Alabama claim the right to control the Republican Party of the State. And they. were then to say 1t over their white brethren.
 Having failed to pass their Civil Rights Bill through the Legislature of the State, and the Sumner Civil Rights bill the negroes of Alabama met In Mont gomery in June 1874 in an
 Equal Rights Convention-All Me-
 groes.
 From this convention white Republi- cans were excluded. The negroes be- heved that their party was in a majority in the State. They knew they were to dictate to that party what course it should pursue We insert the following account of some of the debates, taken down on the spot by Mir. M. M. Cooke. r1o haJ In ha tiser:
 Walker of Dallas, member of the Legislature, said that this was a Civil Rights Convention, and that declara- tion against sending colored boys to the State University at Tuscaloosa, would be depriving them of rights and privileges to which they were entitled. Colored children should have access to all schools. He regretted that the colored children of Alabama were unable to do as they had done in Mississippi, Louis lana and South Carolina.
 He took the ground that any declara- ton against mixed schools was equtva- lent to instruction to Congress to pro- vide for separate schools, and when that was done it would soon follow there would be white schools and no colored the white and black children together in the same school in order that the idea of inferiority of the latter might be broken up. Unless they were put togeth-
  leges and accommodations. If the two races are equal. as the Civil Rights bill declares, why should there be any at tempt made to keep up these differences? He asked if any colored man was in- suited because the National Government had colored boys at the National Mili- tary and Naval Academy.
 Curtis of Perry Ca Senator) asked Walker if any delegate advocated separ- ate schools?
 Walker in reply said he held them to the resolution, and if the resolutions did not say that they said nothing. The cOlored people were denied admission to the Agricultural College at Auburn the State University at Tuscaloosa, and hundred other things The colored peo- pie can lose nothing by demanding all their rights. Whenever they went on an equality platform they won. but when they cook a milk and water course as they did n 1870. they were defeated. lie would favor the resolutions if those ln- sidlous portions which objected to mixed schools were stricken out altoge ther
 BeviEs of Dallas said the colored peo- pie were told to go slow, like snails, un- til our white Republican brethren get some more of the spells of office, and then We will get our great civil rights. For himself he wanted all the rights to which he was entitled, and he wanted nothing less.
 Bob Whitaker of Montgomery, who was elected doorkeeper of the House by the Court Room Legislature two years a