The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1906-04-05
NEGRO'S SENSIBLE WORDS.
A Southern Colored Educator Tells
Northern Hearers Some Plain Truths
About the Negro Question-Advises
that the Whole Matter be Left to
Southern Whites and Blacks to Set
tie Among Themselves.

Indl tUC "hObS Nl0ASSs w A~'~ ~
Southern Whites and Blacks to Set
tie Among Themselves.
MILWAUKEE, March 31st.-John j.
Smallwood, a negro clergyman OF
Virginia, the founder and president
OF the Temperance, Industrial and
| COllegiate Institute, at ClaremOnt,
Virginia, an institution for the edu-
cation of the negro youth, made a
speech here tonight to Il large audi
ence of the best people in this city,
and took such a bold and such an
emphatic stand for the South that
his speech is the subject of general
favorable comment.
SmaIlwood's View of Race Problem.
He said in part:
Il am proud that | am a South
ern-bOrn negro The South is the
best place in all of this country for
the negro. The white man at the
South is far better friend to the
negro who is trying to attend to his
own business, who is trying to ac-
emulate property, who is trying to
obey the law and maintain the dig
nifty OF self-respect and race pride
than the white man at the North.
You tell me that the negro here
at the North can go to any school
that he desires and is competent to
enter by examinations; that they
graduate from the same schools and
colleges with your white SONS and
daughters.
After Graduation.
"Ies, that is all true. But what
happens after he has graduated?
"Will you give him employment?
Can he do anything except to black
your boots, to wait, or cut hair or
drive carriage?
"IOur foreign labor won't work
with him. He is IL mere pitiful human
soul in your cold climate.
at the South he is practical con-
tractor, a builder, a farmer, "a black
smith and a carpenter, working side
by side with the Southern white man.
'The white men, the best white
people at the South, want to see the
negro smart, sensible economical and
Industrial The white people want
to See him q moral, an intelligent and
II religious man.
'The negro does not want social
equality. He does not ask for po-
litical domination. All he asks for
is a fair chance in the race OF life.
Solution of Race Problem.
LET us politically kill all the infa
nous politicians and close all the liq-
uor saloons, and teach all negroes
to work, to build up good moral
homes, to respect intelligence and
race pride and then we shall have no
race problem.
II hope that every white man here
at the North will speak and work for
our jamestown exposition in 1907.
1t will open the eyes of the North to
see the material progress of the
South and the great advancement
that the negro has made at the
South. For our Southern negroes
are us far ahead of your Northern he
grOes as New York is from San Fran
cisco
Let the South Alone.
"Iou white men at the North, you
white man at the South alone The
best thinking white men and the best
thinking negroes at the South will
solve the race problem.
Let us pass up as time goes by,
give him o chance.
"The meanest negro haters at the
South today are white men born at
the North. The meanest negro hatars
at ClaremOnt, in Virginia, are North
ern white people who, to get into the
good graces of the Southern white
man, by heaping his mean, cOwardly
prejudice upon the negro.
81 had rather trust an old slave
owner, a Southern Democrat, an OPP
ponent to negroes going to school
with the whites with all my future
than your Northern Republicans who
come South
Smallwood made friends for James
town.