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
(2). We wish very much that you would be a little more outspoken in your
sympathy. We have, it may be, many silent friends among you. It is
better, of course, in some respects to have a silent friend than to have
no friend at all. Such friends constitute a reserve force which may
serve us well at some future time, in an emergency which may arise
unexpectedly. The friendship, however, that counts for most, that is of
most value, is the friendship that is known, that openly, publicly
expresses itself. The importance of thus openly showing your sympathy,
your friendship is to be seen in that in this way public sentiment is
made and influenced. The people who speak out, or, who act out their
sentiment are the ones who count in shaping, in moulding public
sentiment. Our enemies are never silent. The opposition, the hostility
which they feel is never concealed, it always comes to the surface,
always expresses itself. And this is one reason why they have influence,
why they are so potential. Take the segregation idea which has been
projecting itself upon the attention of the country. When the agitation
was started, e. g., in the city of Washington, there were many meetings
held in various parts of the city among the whites; but they were all in
the interest of segregation, they were gotten up and managed by those
who wanted to force this humiliation upon the colored people. I cannot
believe that the purpose of these meetings met the approval of all the
white people of the capital; I know that it did not of some of them. And
yet no meeting was held; no public expression was given to indicate that
such was the case, that there was any dissenting opinion among the
whites. Not one white church; not one ministerial association; not one
Christian Endeavor society, nor any other organization among the whites,
including the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's
Christian Association, gave expression to any dissenting opinion. So far
as any public expression was concerned, it looked as if the entire white
population approved of the movement to segregate the colored people in
street cars and otherwise. What we are asking of you, our white friends,
is to show your colors, is to be just as pronounced in your sympathy for
us as our enemies are pronounced in their opposition to us. If you will
do this; if you will let the people about you know where you stand, it
will greatly help matters. Lowell, in his sonnet on Wendell Phillips,
says,
"He saw God stand upon the weaker side,—
And humbly joined him to the weaker part."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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