The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of AmericaDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
History
The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
African Americans -- History; United States -- Race relations
“Beloved brethren—here let me tell you, and believe it, that the Lord our
God as true as He sits on His throne in heaven and as true as our Saviour
died to redeem the world, will give you a Hannibal, and when the Lord
shall have raised him up and given him to you for your possession, Oh!
my suffering brethren, remember the divisions and consequent sufferings
of Carthage and of Haiti. Read the history particularly of Haiti and
see how they were butchered by the whites and do you take warning. The
person whom God shall give you, give him your support and let him go
his length and behold in him the salvation of your God. God will indeed
deliver you through him from your deplorable and wretched condition under
the Christians of America. I charge you this day before my God to lay
no obstacle in his way, but let him go.... What the American preachers
can think of us, I aver this day before my God I have never been able to
define. They have newspapers and monthly periodicals which they receive
in continual succession but on the pages of which you will scarcely ever
find a paragraph respecting slavery which is ten thousand times more
injurious to this country than all the other evils put together; and
which will be the final overthrow of its government unless something is
very speedily done; for their cup is nearly full.—Perhaps they will laugh
at or make light of this; but I tell you, Americans! that unless you
speedily alter your course, you and your Country are gone!
“Do you understand your own language? Hear your language proclaimed to
the world, July 4, 1776—‘We hold these truths to be self evident—that
ALL men are created EQUAL!! That they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness!!! Compare your own language above, extracted
from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders
inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our
fathers and on us—men who have never given your fathers or you the least
provocation!!!
“Now Americans! I ask you candidly, was your suffering under Great
Britain one hundredth part as cruel and tyrannical as you have rendered
ours under you? Some of you, no doubt, believe that we will never throw
off your murderous government and provide new guards for our future
‘security’. If Satan has made you believe it, will he not deceive you?”
The book had a remarkable career. It appeared in September, was in a
third edition by the following March and aroused the South to fury.
Special laws were passed and demands made that Walker be punished. He
died in 1830, possibly by foul play.
6. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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