The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-06-14

among negroes for fifteen years in Africa. He and his wife are both mu- lattoes. By this strange cross of blood in the human race 1t looks as though through the more than two hundred years of the black mans existence in America there was to be ingrained in his blood and in his memory our insti- tutions, our religion, our literature, our art, our government. and that when the day should come when God would open the door of hope again. He would find a man prepared for the land of Caanan
 "l myself have always believed that the darkness of the picture of the black man fin America Is due, not to himself but the awful burdens that his would be friends have put upon him. I have hoped for the race 1.-the conditions of his growth can be found. Those condi- tions are certainly not in the way of the silly sentimentalist of the south nor in the indifference of the lazy southerner who says, Let the negro alone; we want him down here, which has no meaning and never did have any truth The moment the southerner can get some one to do his work better and more faithful than the negro the world will see there was no truth in it. Nor is the condition to be found in the everlasting meddling of the misguided northern friend, with his opinions and his money It may be found when intelligent loving
 
 men and wise negroes sit down and req son together. If. then. Africa be the so- lution, it will not be found to he an idle dream or Ethiopia, as many suppose.
 A Changed World.
 "The digging of tho Panama canal and the fighting of the Russo-Japanese war will change the face of the world AL ready millions upon millions have been fr,tn f1r and handling of ships that shall leave Galveston. New Orleans, Mobile. Savan- nah. Norfolk and Charleston. It will be as easy and as cheap for the colored man to get to his native land as 1t IS for the twenty-one thousand immigrants to land in New York city in one day, as they did a week or so ago.
 "W. H. Sheppard, who has studied the conditions both In this country and in Africa, in letter to me not long since. said he thought that in fifty years change would come. Suppose 1t takes a hundred years, what's the duty of the white man to the black man? It is to give him the best in the way of religion. moral and ethical teaching It is to give him the very best in the way of education: spare neither brains nor money, so that he may understand, not alone the laws of health, but the laws of government--in a word, it is to say 10 the DlaCk man. 1ou' nave pttu the most wronged man in history; you are but child and the burdens of man have been put upon your back
 This is as I set out to show the giv- ing to the black man that inheritance our fathers brought us through blood and carnage, the right of soul and the ability to make a living from the world and to rest under ones own vine and fig tree.
 In Conclusion.
 "The failure of the negroes in Liberia and elsewhere makes no argument against the feasibility of what I advo- cate. The effort to colonlze him were like all other efforts in behalf of this race--it was half studied and poorly planned. It is impossible to pick up the rag-tags and bobtails of any race and colonize them anywhere and succeed; but with the negro race it is an abso- lute impossIbiity. The flower of the race must go to the colony. In the case of W. II. Sheppard. four thousand Afri- can negroes are under his influence, and when asked about the religion and mode of worship the answer was the same as yours-about literature, Pilgrims Prog ress and the Bible; about music. Jesus. Lover of My Soul and All Hail the Power of Jesus Name;' about govern ment. like the republic of the United States.
 with an easy mode of transportation A million negroes, with the institutions of this country ingrained in their blood and memories to keep them for genera tions, America might be reproduced on the continent of Africa"