BY

DR. P. THOMAS STANFORD

AUTHOR OF THE "TRAGEDY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA"


As a member of the negro race, I myself have suffered as a child whose
parents were born in slavery, deprived of all influences of the
ennobling life, made obedient to the will of the white man by the lash
and chain, and sold to the highest bidder when there was no more use
for them.

The first negro fact for white thought is--that my clients, the
colored people here in America, are not responsible for being here any
more than they are responsible for their conditions of ignorance and
poverty. They suddenly emerge from their prison house poor, without a
home, without food or clothing, and ignorant. Now the enemies of God
and of the progress of civilization in our country are to-day
introducing a system of slavery with which they hope to again enslave
the colored people. To carry out their evil designs they retain able
politicians, lawyers and newspapers to represent them, such as Senator
Tillman, the Hon. John Temple Graves of Georgia and the Baltimore Sun,
and they are trying the negro on four counts which allege that the
race is ignorant, cannot be taught, is lazy and immoral.

Now, are the negroes, as a whole, guilty of these charges? In the
first place, the negro race of America is not ignorant. In the year
1833 John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina, is reported to have