Part 2

What ought we to do to meet these conditions? Let us turn aside for a moment to consider the general conditions of the negroes and their relation to the white people. We have to-day about the same relative proportion of blacks to whites in the whole country as we had in 1860--about 12 per cent.--; and we have nearly the same in the South, about 40 per cent. What is to become of the negro for the next fifty years? No man would dare suggest an answer looking farther ahead than that: God only knows. Some say he will amalgamate with the whites. Many thought so immediately after the war who do not think or say so now. No; after forty years the separation between the races is clearer, wider and more distinct than ever before. The thoughtful black men do not desire amalgamation; and the white men will not have it. Some say the negro will be colonized. I think that there is less reason in this answer even than in the former. The negroes do not wish to go; and we cannot force them. Think of the difficulty of deporting forcibly nine million people! No; as Dr. Booker T. Washington says, "This problem is not to be solved by deportation or by amalgamation." The negroes are here to stay with us, and the bulk of them will stay in the South.

For years there has been a steady movement of the negroes from the country to the towns and cities of the South, and from the Southern cities to the Northern. I think they are coming and will continue to come North in sufficient numbers for our brethren of the North to learn to know them, to sympathize with us in our problem and to have something of a problem themselves, and to feel that we must all work together towards its true and final solution. The negroes are dividing into two distinct classes more decidedly, it seems to me, than any other nationality in our country; and I hope they will continue to keep and increase this distinction. A minority are improving, are taking advantage of education, are advancing in morality and industry, are acquiring property and becoming worthy citizens. These few are setting a standard, and are giving us hope of what the negro can and may become. The majority are not improving, but rather retrogressing. They are looking on liberty as license; they are thinking that a little education will give them the privilege of living without manual labor; they are making higher wages the way to less work rather than the way to a higher standard of life; they are shiftless, immoral, and criminal. Now, as I study this race so dividing in the great laboratory of Nature, under the law of God which works on so justly, ofttimes apparently so cruelly, always for the general good of man, I look forward with the hope that this smaller, higher class will increase, and that the larger, lower class will decrease. The better class will increase as all good things do and will increase in the providence of God and with the help and sympathy of true good men. The larger, meaner class of negroes will steadily diminish in two directions; the first by movement of their best into the higher class, swelling that slowly into the majority; the second, by the stern sloughing off of their worst by the diseases which spring from idleness, self-indulgence, filth, and immorality.

What we white men of the North and South ought to do to encourage and help this better class of negroes is, in brief phrases, this: First, to keep our faces as flint against all social intermingling that looks toward amalgamation. Then, across this chasm, which both races frankly accept, to join hands with those trying to lift and better themselves, cheering, encouraging, and helping them. We must give them full protection in their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; we must give them even handed justice in law and in politics; we must give them equality of opportunity in earning their bread, in making their homes, in educating their children; we must give them every chance and all cheer and sympathy in seeking the fulfillment of the aspirations of the human heart among their own people. And, my friends, I want to tell you here in Chicago to-night that we men of the South are largely doing all of these things now, and we are going to do them more and more completely. We are coming to see more and more clearly that it will not do to have forty per cent. of the people of our Southern land sullen and suspicious, discontented and hopeless; but that we can only go forward at our best pace towards a happy and noble civilization, with both races cheerful and hopeful, sympathizing with each other in their peculiar perplexities, trusting their brother man on earth and their Father God in Heaven.

Keeping clearly in mind these conditions, what ought we Christians in the Church of God to do to help and strengthen this smaller, higher class and to persuade many of the larger, lower class to join this higher? In the first place, we must frankly acknowledge the hard _facts_ of the case, and, as far as possible, put to one side _theories_. We are confronted by a condition, as far as I read and study, absolutely new in the history of mankind, where we have no exact precedent to guide us. The underlying practical fact is this: there must be _separation_ not _from_ but _in_ the Church between the two races, for the growth of the Church among white men and black men, and for the development of Christian manhood among the black men. Having settled and agreed on that fact, how are we to effect that separation so as to do justice to the negro? How shall we keep him still in the One Holy Catholic Church in the United States of America and bestow on him her priceless blessings; how shall we keep him close enough to receive the sympathy, the support and the guidance of the white race; and yet put him far enough apart to grow and to strengthen, to meet responsibility and to make character, to develop a manly independence and to cultivate a brave and sober initiative? We have long given up the point of contact in the one parish Church, and have made the separation there; we are now giving up the point of contact in the Diocesan Council, and are making the separation there. What more shall we do? The true answer to my mind is: make the point of contact the General Convention, and make the separation, not by superior and inferior Councils in the same Diocese under the one Bishop; but by the erection of Missionary Jurisdictions, made up out of the colored people in different Dioceses under their own Bishop, on equality with any other Missionary Jurisdiction in the Church. We must have Missionary Jurisdictions in the South--one, or at most, two to begin with--composed of the negroes of two or more contiguous Dioceses, which shall be a part of the General Church, independent of the Bishops and Councils of those Dioceses, bearing the same relation to the General Convention that the white Missionary Jurisdictions do. That is to say, they shall have their representatives to the House of Clerical and Lay Delegates and their Bishops in the House of Bishops. The negro clergy and laity would thus meet together in their Missionary Convocation in numbers great enough to hearten one another and to stir enthusiasm; they would become responsible for their own success or failure; they would discuss, resolve and do their own committee work; they would have large missionary gatherings, which would make a deep impression on the negroes living in the city where the Convocation meets.

Of what race should be the Bishop of this negro Missionary Jurisdiction? There are two answers to this question. One answer comes from those in the Church who still cling to the theory that there must be no race division whatever in the Church, that there must be under all conditions conceivable or inconceivable one Bishop in the same territory to all kinds, classes and races of people. "No," say they, "no negro Bishop. Whatever be your divisions in Councils or Convocations or Conventions, let one white Bishop be the bond of unity." The same answer comes as a practical matter from men who differ widely from the above theory. It comes from those who look too much, it seems to me, at the mass of the negroes, the lower majority of whom I have spoken; it comes from those who are hopeless of doing much for or with the negroes, who regard them as children, careless and unreliable, with different aspirations from those that actuate the white man. They say, "we must have a white man; no negro is fit to be a Bishop."

The other answer comes from the men who think that we are confronted by facts, not theories, and that theories must be given up in the face of opposing facts; who think that the Church in her wisdom must rise up to meet this opportunity and responsibility, must adapt and adjust her system to the facts; who say that if a negro Bishop is acknowledged to be the best means to Christianize and save the negroes, then we must have a negro Bishop. This answer, again, comes from those who are looking more closely at the few, better, advancing negroes, thinking of them as men, with manly hopes and powers and aspirations, believing that races must be lifted by their own race leaders, that they can only truly understand and follow their own heroes. We say, "Remember Frederick Douglass, look at Booker Washington, know that wonderful Presbyterian Missionary, William H. Shepherd, consider the African Methodist Bishops, strong men, leaders of their fellows, against whom no murmur of scandal is raised. Surely among our own men in the Church, or our system is woefully at fault, we can find one or two honest, true, able, pure men, fit to be Bishops to their own race." Such a man would be a Bishop indeed to his race, such a Bishop as no white man can possibly be. He will enter, as only a negro can, into their perplexities, their hopes and their joys, sharing really in their social life, of which their religious life forms so great a part. He and his people will be a real part of the Holy Catholic Church, all worshipping according to her incomparable liturgy, all living under the same Canon law. He and his Deputies will come into close contact with their white brethren in the General Convention, and will gain much from such association and consultation. He will meet with the white Bishops, from whom his Jurisdiction is taken, in brotherly conference as his Council of Advice. From such friendly contact and advice from the highest and most sympathetic white men, he will go forth among his own people as their Apostle, their true Bishop and Father in God. In this double relation, in this position of high responsibility, he will stand forth as a true mediator between the races, pleading with both for peace, harmony, justice.

This action of the Church, this frank and fair position given to the negro will so appeal to the better class of the leading negroes, will so cheer and encourage them in their true progress, that they will come, I believe, steadily and largely into the Church.

From this line of thought, which grows clearer and clearer to me the more I read and think and see, I look forward with hope to a wise and fair adjustment of the relation between the races of this land, and to a happy future for a part of the negro race--how large a part God only knows. Towards this adjustment this Church of ours can make a rich contribution; and I believe she has, under God, a great part to play in enlarging the choice remnant and in bringing it to its true salvation.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Page 13: Changed are'nt to aren't (You aren't going) | | | | Page 15: Changed ouside to outside (to that done outside) | | | | Page 17: Moved period inside end-quotes for consistency with text | | ("Farmers' Conference.") | | | | Page 21: Changed "the the" to "to the" (rarely go to the Council) | | | | Page 27: Changed conposed to composed (composed of the negroes) | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+