Year: 1876

FprroR CHEZ :-wi you be 50 kind as to inform your
readers M you canl why s that coored brethren
have their appreciation Of President Lincoln Eman
cipation Proclamation and expend all their ammunition.
niekes and patriot celebrating the old anniversary Of
the emancipation the West India darkest 1t looks
like q of disinterested benevoenee If they 90
ing take such lively interest in the Affairs Of the
West Indies would il mot be well for them to go there
and be forever close to their fountain head Of joyi


In answer to the above conundrum, we will
say that the whole reason is ignorance on the
part of the masses of the colored people, and
neglect on the part of the intelligent ones to In
form their brethren. 1t is simply custom,
which proper instruction and effort would reme-
dy. While slavery existed in the United States,
West Indian emancipation was regarded by the
colored people the grandest event of the age,
and wherever there was a community of colored
people in the Free States, the day was saeredly
celebrated In the Slave States of course, the
negroes were not allowed to celebrate it. But
emancipation in the United States was an event
as much more grand than West India emancipa-
tion, as thunder is more grand than the explo-
sion of fre-eracker. But instead of making the
date of their own emancipation their great day
of jubilee these very negroes fall into the custom
of their Northern brethren, of celebrating West
India emancipation. The latter should have
been enlightened or progressive enough to change
the programme, but it seems they were not, but
kept on in the old groove. If West India eman-
cipation had had the remotest influence in bring
ing abont emancipation in the United States,
there would be some excuse; but it had not.
Emancipation in this country originated here,
from causes totally different from those which
resulted in West India emancipation, and by it
the blacks were placed in a higher scale than by
any similar event since the world began. But
instead of seizing upon the event as an epoch in
their history, the colored people seem to have
retrogaded in the matter of celebrating their old
day. The anniversary of West India emancipa-
ton is August 1st, and that day was formerly
the one celebrated; but of late years, they have
been celebrating the 4th of August. This also
comes of ignorance, and the negro habit of imi-
tating somebody else. The white people of the
United States celebrate the 4th of July, and the
blacks thought their celebration must also be OH
the 4th of the month. This is the only reason
for the change


Some years ago, while we were at White Cloud,
the colored people preparing to celebrate the
4th of August. We explained to them that they
had q grander day of their own, that they ought
to celebrate; that if the 1st of January, the date
of the Emancipation reclamation of President
Lincoln, came in an unfavorable season for cele-
brating, there was the 22d of September, really
the date of emancipation, as the preliminary
proclamation was issued that day. 1t would
be a more pleasant season than the beginning of
August, a season Of more leisure, and one of more
abundance in the way of fruits, &c. We offered,
if they would inaugurate the custom of celebrat-
ing the date of their own freedom, instead of the
freedom of people who were all in their graves,
We would print, without charge, all the bills
they wanted to circulate far and wide, that they
might have the honor of instituting the custom
of celebrating their own great holiday. But it
was-of no use. We might as well have tried to
prevail upon them to change their Christmas or
their Sunday. And so it has gone on ever since;
and so it will go, until intelligent colored men
come forward who have sufficient energy and ap-
probation of the dissnthrallment of their race in
America, to establish the custom of celebrating
the event, and celebrating it OH the true ami
versary of the day on which it occurred