The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1910-07-06
N Frank and Simple Statement.

Allu llllS statement brings me to the
last point that | have to put before
YOU. L promised to be frank with you
and you are witnesses that have
been, and | shall he frank now. Let
me say then plainly that if ever the
typical Southern white man is teYnpt-
ed to put any stone in the way of the
black man it is only from the fear of
that specter which haunts many and
many high-minded Southerner-
the fear Of ultimate amalgamation of
the races. Before that should come
we would give our own lives and sac
rifice with our own lives the lives of
those who threatened us. But here.
Southern leaders have changed or are
changing. We are coming to believe
that We have a better safeguard for
racial purity in a programme Of in
telligenee and opportunity for the ne
gro thanin a programme of ignorance
! and repression-coming to believe
that with education and property you
Will develop, as ignorance and slavery
have never anywhere developed, a So
| ciety based on character and morals
and that you will begin to ostracize as
we are beginning to ostracize those
who are traitors to their race and to
their blood.
/ n 1ox xr,i11
| develop a loyalty to race as definite
as the white mans. There are oppor.
tunities for achievement and leader
| ship among your race perhaps even
greater than the same talents would
win in the white race. Every color
ed man Of ability stands out all the
more prominently, wins all the great
er recognition, because he is of a peo-
pie but recently in slavery. Booker
Washington has far greater influence
as a negro than he would have as a
member of the Caucasian race; w. B.
Dubois is better known than he
would be If he were a white educator,
|
found more ready recognition with
the public because of his color. Start
ing on your career of freedom but yes
terday, the shackles newly struck
from your limbs, without education
or property or demonstrated indus
trial capacity as independent workers
such a situation should bring out
the best that is in you in prof Of what
your race can do, and it can have no
other effect if your race be worthy to
! live, If you are to have either self
respect or the respect of other peo-
pies. If no spirit Of loyalty develop
from such a condition then there is no
hope for the colored man in America.
Nature itself will abhor and repu-
diate a people whose ambitions is not
self-preservation and development but
to lose it's identity in the blood Of a
| mongrel breed.
Men Who Are Traitors to Their Race
| And to Their Blood
The Southern white people are be-
ginning to understand that only
through immoral and depraved men
can the integrity of their race be i'm
perilled and just, as we should spurn
and loathe a Benedict Arnold, a trait
or to his country; even more bitter
must be our loathing, even more
blighting must be our ostracism of the
man who, worse than a traitor to his
country, is traitor to his race and to
the integrity of a people who are bat
Ting FOR the purity Of their blood as
| treasure dearer than life. Yet even
| the group of apostles was not without
its traitor and it would be too much
to expect that our race should not al
ways have some element too deprav-
ed to be moved by such considerations
as have mentioned, and in such a sit
uation our surest safeguard must be
the pride of race among the masses
OF your own people as definite as the
pride of race among our own. We be-
lieVe that this pride can best be de-
veloped by giving you the opportun-
tiles of education and industrial fair
play by giving you an opportunity to
| show proudly what race can accom-
plish in industry and character build
ing even without the heritage of an
cient achievement.
This, I repeat, is our hope. If, on
the other hand. your educated men
and women show so little self-respect
as to prefer to sacrifice character by
| alliance with the low and immoral
of our race, if their ambition be to go
North or elsewhere and "cross over