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
Senator Vardaman in his "high-blown pride" speaks of the white race as
"the greatest race on the globe." If the Senator is a specimen of its
greatness, the so-called inferior races need not concern themselves very
much about catching up with it in the march of progress. As a matter of
fact, there are scores of colored men who, in intelligence, in brain
power, in scholarship, in all the elements that go to make up true
manhood, are superior to Mr. Vardaman. The only respect in which the
Senator shows any superiority, in the sense of surpassing others, so far
as I can see, is in the exhibition of a coarse, vulgar, and brutal
spirit. The white race may be the greatest race on the globe, but the
assertion of that fact would come with a little better grace from one
who reflects its greatness rather than from one who is a reproach to it,
who discredits it. The white people themselves would hardly select Mr.
Vardaman as a specimen by which it would care to be judged in this or in
future generations. The Negro may be inferior, greatly inferior to the
white race, but there would have to be some better specimen of the white
race than Mr. Vardaman to prove it. My purpose, however, is not to
criticise the honorable Senator from Mississippi. I have mentioned his
name in this connection merely as illustrative of the aggressive,
ever-growing spirit of race hatred, of race antagonism, which still
confronts us after fifty years of freedom.
(10). In this connection we ought to impress ourselves also, as we leave
the first half century of freedom and enter upon the second half, with
the fact that God is and that he is a present help in time of need. We
need to emphasize, more strongly than we are in the habit of doing, the
importance of religion as a factor in this race struggle in which we are
engaged. In Exodus 14, we are told that after Pharaoh had given the
children of Israel permission to leave Egypt, and after they had left,
he repented, changed his mind, and started in pursuit of them with all
his hosts, his chariots and horsemen, to bring them back. We are also
told that when the children of Israel saw them approaching they were
terrified. And then occurs this passage: "And the angel of the Lord,
which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and
the pillar of cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
and it came between the camp of the Egyptians, and the camp of Israel,
and it was a cloud of darkness to them, but it gave light by night to
these: so that the one came not near the other all the night." God stood
between Israel and the enemy. And that is just where we want to have him
stand, between us and our enemies. What we need to do is to rest in the
Lord, is to put our trust in him. He is more than a match for our
enemies. The song which Moses and the children of Israel sang after they
had seen the advancing hosts of the enemy approaching was,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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