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
Looked at in the abstract this seems to be very plausible. The
assumption that if we improve ourselves; if we show ourselves worthy of
being treated properly, that we would be, is what would naturally be
expected. Unfortunately, however, the facts are all against it. Things
have not panned out as might have been expected, under this theory of
race adjustment. The race problem, as we understand it, may mean one of
two things. It may mean the problem of the race's development, which
would include all the agencies to be employed in securing this result;
or it may mean the problem of getting the white man to behave
himself—getting him to treat the colored man properly, as a man, as a
brother, as a citizen, having common and equal rights with himself. That
the race's development may go on without at all affecting favorably the
white man's attitude towards it, is clearly evident from what is going
on about us, and from the experience of the last forty or fifty years.
During these years the colored people have steadily improved along all
lines; and yet the same feeling of antipathy, of hostility to them
exists. There is no indication of a desire to treat them any better. The
progress that they have made has counted for nothing in their favor; has
not lessened, in the least, the opposition to them.
A short while ago a Congressman from Louisiana, J. B. Aswell, introduced
a bill in the House of Representatives to segregate colored employees of
the Government. Among other things in presenting his bill, he said:
"Every informed and right-thinking white man, while sympathizing with
and anxious to help the Negro in his place, recognizes the necessity of
preserving the integrity and supremacy of the white race. The purpose of
this bill is to check a bad tendency in this country, before it is too
late, and cause thinking people everywhere to find themselves in
relation to the race problem and thus deal fairly and give justice to
both races. The bill seeks to help the Negro by making him proficient in
his own sphere and by correcting a false idea of his proper
circumscribed position in the republic, and, at the same time, relieve
the white man in the public service from the intolerable humiliation of
being compelled, in order to earn his daily bread, to work side by side
with an objectionable people, the continuation of which practice must
result in irreparable injury to both races, and ultimately destroy the
efficiency of the public service. Such practices will drive the
self-respecting proficient white man and woman from the civil service of
the Government."
The bill provides, "That the heads of all executive departments shall
issue all such orders as shall be necessary to secure in all branches of
the civil service of the United States to the utmost extent consistent
with public interests, the segregation of civil employees of the white
race from those of African blood or descent, in the performance of their
services."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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