The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1925-10-24
NEGRO ORATORS AND THEIR
ORATIONS
By Carter Goodwin Woodson, PHI. D.
Editor of the Journal of Negro History,
Author of Century of Negro Migra-
ton, The Education of the Negro Prior
to 1861. The orations are masterpieces.

tors. The large number OF the Ne
gro youth now qualifying at the bar
assures an increase Of the ranks Of
those who will doubtless leave mas
terpieces Of eloquence inspired by the
cries Of a people long outraged by
agents Of injustice in a world Of race
hate and religious prejudice. Sojourn-
er Truth, Charles Lenox Remond,
Lunsford Lane and Frederick Doug
lass figured in the physical emancipa-
ton of the bondmen, but these later
champions are endeavoring to make
case for their liberation from peon-
age, their deliverance from caste, and
their full incorporation into the body
polite
The Negro orators of the Recon-
struction did not develop in the di-
rection of the forensic. The Civil
War resulted in the enlargement Of
the domain of the liberty of the Ne
gro. For time he had everything he
wanted Their oratory, therefore, was
deliberative, speeches delivered in
such bodies as the State legislatures
and the Congress Of the United
States. B. K. Bruce's discourse in
the Senate on the Indian question and
R. B. Elliot's speech in the House on
the Civil Rights Bill are examples Of
such eioquence When the undoing
Of the Reconstruction brought the Ne
gro again under the domination Of the
white man in the South, the Negro
orator sometimes resorted to the for
ensic; but he was better prepared for
duged as he saw his race illegally
deprived Of its rights. This form Of
public address continued and is popu-
lar today among Negroes complaining
Of their woes. After the Reconstruc-
tion there came the optimistic Negro
orator who had little to say about the
rights Of the race and emphasized the
necessity for making the most of an
undesirable situation by practical edu-
cational and economic efficiency. The
best representative Of this class was
Booker 7. Washington.
Since the program thus presented
did not at once materially advance
the Negro on the way toward the at
tainment Of his civic rights, there de-
veloped a number Of orators promot-
ing agitative organization. They fear
lessly denounced Booker t. Wash
lngton and his program and proclaim
ed war on the strongholds Of aristoc-
racy and caste. At first their efforts
were largely fiery speeches delivered
sporadically at centers where persons
whom they desired to reach seldom
heard them. Later, how ever, their
work has been more systematized and
their methods of attack have tended
TO become more Of an argumentative
appeal to reason. As such, these Ne
gro orators have furnished the only
humanizing theme which has stimu-
lated eloquence during the last genera
ton.
"The whites Of our day are little
concerned about human rights. They
are becoming rapidly involved in the
covetous life and death struggle be-
tween capital and labor, between those
that have and those that have not, a
thing lacking the higher motives by
which men are ennobled During the
World War, Woodrow Wilson made
a strenuous effort to popularize the
idea Of making the world safe for
democracy" but the very hypocrisy
Of this pronunciamento doubtless
contributed to the collapse OF the pro-
gram. Men had to be converted to
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