Fifty Years of Freedom: with matters of vital importance to both the white and colored people of the United StatesGrimké, Francis J. (Francis James)
History
Fifty Years of Freedom: with matters of vital importance to both the white and colored people of the United States
Grimké, Francis J. (Francis James)
African Americans
(3). We must impress ourselves with the importance of being reliable,
trustworthy. However skillful we may become, however efficient, unless
we can be depended upon to do what we undertake to do, our efficiency
will count for but little. If people can't depend on us; if our word
counts for nothing; if we are deficient in a sense of obligation; if
responsibilities weigh lightly upon us, we will be sure to lose the
confidence of others, and will be sure also to lose their patronage.
Even the inefficient man who can be depended upon will be preferred to
the efficient man upon whom no dependence can be put. The two things
must go together, reliability and efficiency, if efficiency is to be of
any real advantage. This is a point which we need particularly to lay to
heart, and to keep before us in the training of the young. Unfortunately
there is considerable ground for just complaint against a large
percentage of the race just here. It is a serious defect, and one that
ought to be remedied, that ought to claim our immediate and earnest
attention.
(4). It is well for us to impress ourselves with the importance, with
the transcendent importance of character. Character is the foundation
upon which everything else must rest if it is to endure, if it is to be
of any permanent value in the elevation of the race. There must be a
sound moral basis. In the heart of the race there must be implanted the
great principles of morality. The race must not only be taught, but must
accept, must be governed by sentiments of justice, of veracity, of
purity, of honesty. It must make up its mind to square its life by the
Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. There is nothing that can
compensate for, or take the place of a sturdy, upright character. It
isn't something which it would simply be well for us to possess, which
it would be to our advantage to possess; it is absolutely indispensable.
There is no future for us, no honorable future for us, without it. This
is the way we must feel; this is the way we must make our children feel.
Character, high character, is not something which we may or may not set
before us as we face the future, as we enter upon the second half of the
century of freedom; but something which we must set definitely before us
as of transcendent importance. There is no option left us if we have any
regard to our highest and best interest, and the best interest of those
who are to follow us. If the moral atmosphere in which the race lives
and moves and has its being is not kept pure and healthful and
invigorating it can never hope to become a strong, virile,
self-respecting race, or a race that will be likely to command much
respect from others. The race has, be it said to its credit, all along
attached some importance to character, but the emphasis which it puts
upon it must steadily increase. We must come, more and more, to realize
the fact that while knowledge is power, and while there is power in the
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