The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1915-02-05
f. EMANCIPATION HAS BEEN
THE NEGRO'S WORST FOE
So Says Negro Leader Who Declares
1t Alienated the Southern
White Man

L
Little Rock, Ark, last Sunday to ne
groes, DR.. wilkins, negro leader,
told them that in the matter of alien
ating the Southern white man from
the negro emancipation had been the
| negro's worst foe.
His address is "going the rounds"
| of the country.
Among other things, he said:
Il say here now, once for all, if we
are to celebrate this occasion (Eman.
clpatlon day., we cannot in any con-
science forget those who, in anguish
and pain, still held out to us a hand
without which we must have perished
from the earth-our freedom trav-
esty, and Lincoln's proclamation
would have had no place except as an
epltaph of what might have been.
Celebrate White Mans Kindness
"Let us then celebrate this day in
memory of their helpful friendship
and in memory that we had the good
sense to prove our worthiness of their
benefactions by not resorting to torch
or anarchy. And with blush of
shame that anywhere in our beloved
Southland any negro's pretended
friends supposed that Lincoln's proc
lamation ever contemplated the i'm
mediate elevation of the ex-slave to
place and power that meant the hu-
initiation, not only of the negro's
best friends, but the destruction of
that reliance which was the most i'm
portant element in the remaking of
this Southland.
"Does anyone believe that Lincol,>
would ever have signed a paper in
which he could have foreseen such a
saturnalia of wickedness as reigned
over the South during the days of re-,
construction? A period of our history
that every man who remembers it
would gladly blot out if he could. No
1T would have been better for THAI
| great heart to be still in that noble
| breast than know that an instrument
of his making could be so construed
as to produce such a condition in the
| land of his birth. God was mercifu.
In taking him from such a scene. He
never intended it. No! Not that man
whose tender heart held no malice
And, like the Master of Galilee, he
taught love of ones enemies.
a Touching Incident
"Please excuse this seeming digres-
sion. | remember well, as if it was but
yesterday, when old mistress came in
to the kitchen and told my mother:
"'Aunt Jane, you are free. AS free
as | am. And you can go'
"She wore large gray shawl. ana
as she turned to go | saw tears on her
pale cheeks. My mother caught hole
of her shawl and with streaming ewes
said:
"'Miss Jennie, where shall I go?
What shall | do? I have nine chill
dren, and know no one but you. Why
iii~o1 ica~~ :,
eve were all crying now.
"'Oh, no, Aunt Jane, she said, you
need go nowhere. You can stay right
here if you wish. and as long as I
have a crust of bread you and your
children shall eat. | will pay you
what wages / can. And as long as 7
live and you stay, if you suffer l will
suffer too.
owe stayed and she did suffer much
more than we. This scene was at the
moment being enacted in thousands
of homes all over this broad land
Those words were as the star of Beth
lehem on that dark night to every
negro then on the plantations of the
kOoulll. DIS llc SlOOu at see
ing old mistress in tears.
DenOunces Carpetbagger
"And when old master came to his
dilapidated home from the war, he
said amen to every word that old
mistress had said. And all was well.
until the carpetbagger came and, with
his damnable practices, preaching and
promises, Matched the hell into which
the South was plunged from '65 to '76
and out of which the negro came reft
of the friendship and help of those
whom he knew and who knew him
those whom he loved and who loved
him. And the scamp fled with his i'll,
gotten gains to safer quarters and
left us to shift the best we could and
meet the storm of an outraged man
hood. Today wish you to celebrate
the release of our friends from a
worse slavery, more calling yoke,
than we ever wore. And let us cele-
brate by returning to our first and
best love, and let us join hearts and
hands with them and sing with all the
soul:
"'I never will leave or forsake thee.
Where you live | will live, your God
shall be my God,
And where you die there will / be
buried.
The Real Freedom
"If this celebration shall mean this
to us, then long we shall have oc-
casion to shout free at last. This Is
the only kind of blow that we may
strike which will mean liberty and
freedom. 1t is in this way, and in this
way only, will the negro in America,
ever be free. Let us first free the