The age-herald., 1901-12-04
NEGROES APPEAL IN
 BEHALF OF NEGRO W. H. Council Asks Equal Dl-
 vision of School Fund NEGRO IN A FALSE LIGHT Says Speakers in Campaign for Con- stitution Held Up Black Man In
 Way to Make Whites Hostile to Him.
NEGRO IN A FALSE LIGHT

President w H. Council of the Agri- cultural and Mechanical College for Ne groes, has issued an address to the white people of Alabama wherein he begs Tor the protection of the school fund gwen the negro. He says enforce the fran chise law but give his race education.
 The address, in part, follows:
 q have served you in slavery and in freedom for over half century. I have stood with you for good government for quarter of a century. AS all of my past life has been devoted to your service and to the welfare of my race, I believe that you will grant me a hearing now.
 1T love Alabama. I have been true to her at home and abroad. have never breathed one word against her. I have all along trusted her white people. revere the names of her long line of mo- ble sons with untarnished honor, who scorned wrong and hated injustice. Their faith in right gave birth to your Confed- crate monument which stands on Capitol Hill representing what they regarded as truth. But today. I am alarmed! tremble for the future of my people In Alabama, unless you come to our rescue. The recent campaign was one of bitter ness and abuse of my people.
 How Negro Was Held Up.
 Many of the public speakers did not appeal to the highest sentiment in man. but held up the negro in a manner to make the white masses hostile to him. With all your best efforts for many years to come, 1t will be hard to undo the harm which was done to my race by that campaign into which was put so much unkind feeling. Not that you put a premium on suffrage. That was right. nffr -pYl1n Q in government. He was that already. But in the sentiment manufactured against us. Was such a campaign neces- sary? There could have been but one -ratihcation-though the press and speakers had held their peace. Then why abuse and mortify the men who are trying hard to please you and serve you every hour? Do not misunderstood me. For Gods sake do not misunderstood me I have never asked for unqualified suffrage. Since a majority of the better element of the white people of Alabama wanted the new constitution and prom ised better things under 1t, I was not against it. I am opposed to every phase of social equality so distastefui to us both and in my opinion, detrimental to Southern society There Is no necessity for it. Ninety-nine thousand, nine hun dred and ninety-nine (99,9 ,999) negroes in every one hundred thousand 100000 do not seek social equality, and If every engro in the state sought it. it would not be. You know all this. Still we were abused and the hostility of the lower element in your race aroused against us, while quarter of a million of us were bowed, accomplishing, at your cook pots, ironing boards, wash tubs. in your cotton fields, and in all the varied industrials. loyal and true to you. We are in your hands as babes in the hands of giants, making no laws, con- struing no laws executing no laws, hold ing no offices, composing no juries, form ing no militia, a weak powerless people, and still men acted toward us as if we had been Caesars Legions in their palm ist days. If we were the strong and you the weak. would you not be alarmed? :? I beg you in the name of your mothers who were cradled in the arms of black women, in the name of your fathers who were loved and served by our fathers. and in the name of the sacred dead in gray, around whose sad hearths we