The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States — John Shaqi
The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United StatesDelany, Martin Robison
History
The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States
Delany, Martin Robison
African Americans
These are the means by which God intended man to succeed: and this
discloses the secret of the white man's success with all of his
wickedness, over the head of the colored man, with all of his religion.
We have been pointed and plain, on this part of the subject, because we
desire our readers to see persons and things in their true position.
Until we are determined to change the condition of things, and raise
ourselves above the position in which we are now prostrated, we must
hang our heads in sorrow, and hide our faces in shame. It is enough to
know that these things are so; the causes we care little about. Those we
have been examining, complaining about, and moralising over, all our
life time. This we are weary of. What we desire to learn now is, how to
effect a _remedy_; this we have endeavored to point out. Our elevation
must be the result of _self-efforts_, and work of our _own hands_. No
other human power can accomplish it. If we but determine it shall be so,
it will be so. Let each one make the case his own, and endeavor to rival
his neighbor, in honorable competition.
These are the proper and only means of elevating ourselves and attaining
equality in this country or any other, and it is useless, utterly
futile, to think about going any where, except we are determined to use
these as the necessary means of developing our manhood. The means are at
hand, within our reach. Are we willing to try them? Are we willing to
raise ourselves superior to the condition of slaves, or continue the
meanest underlings, subject to the beck and call of every creature
bearing a pale complexion? If we are, we had as well remained in the
South, as to have come to the North in search of more freedom. What was
the object of our parents in leaving the south, if it were not for the
purpose of attaining equality in common with others of their fellow
citizens, by giving their children access to all the advantages enjoyed
by others? Surely this was their object. They heard of liberty and
equality here, and they hastened on to enjoy it, and no people are more
astonished and disappointed than they, who for the first time, on
beholding the position we occupy here in the free north--what is called,
and what they expect to find, the free States. They at once tell us,
that they have as much liberty in the south as we have in the
north--that there as free people, they are protected in their
rights--that we have nothing more--that in other respects they have the
same opportunity, indeed the preferred opportunity, of being their
maids, servants, cooks, waiters, and menials in general, there, as we
have here--that had they known for a moment, before leaving, that such
was to be the only position they occupied here, they would have remained
where they were, and never left. Indeed, such is the disappointment in
many cases, that they immediately return back again, completely insulted
at the idea, of having us here at the north, assume ourselves to be
their superiors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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