A Voice from the South (1892)

Their wordsAt any rate, as our Caucasian barristers are not to blame if they cannot quite put themselves in the dark man’s place, neither should the dark man be wholly expected fully and adequately to reproduce the exact Voice of the Black Woman.

Their wordsNow the fundamental agency under God in the regeneration, the re-training of the race, as well as the ground work and starting point of its progress upward, must be the black woman.

Their wordsOnly the Black Woman can say “when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.”

Their wordsAll I claim is that there is a feminine as well as a masculine side to truth; that these are related not as inferior and superior, not as better and worse, not as weaker and stronger, but as complements—complements in one necessary and symmetric whole.

Their wordsIt seems hardly a gracious thing to say, but it strikes me as true, that while our men seem thoroughly abreast of the times on almost every other subject, when they strike the woman question they drop back into sixteenth century logic.

Their wordsTo be plain, I mean let money be raised and scholarships be founded in our colleges and universities for self-supporting, worthy young women, to offset and balance the aid that can always be found for boys who will take theology.

Their wordsThe “social equality” implied by civility to the Negro is a very different thing from forced association with him socially.

Their wordsWoman should not, even by inference, or for the sake of argument, seem to disparage what is weak.

Their wordsIt is not the intelligent woman vs. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman vs. the black, the brown, and the red,—it is not even the cause of woman vs. man. Nay, ’tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.

Their wordsShe is confronted by both a woman question and a race problem, and is as yet an unknown or an unacknowledged factor in both.

Their wordsAnd yet politics, and surely American politics, is hardly a school for great minds.

Their wordsProgressive peace in a nation is the result of conflict; and conflict, such as is healthy, stimulating, and progressive, is produced through the co-existence of radically opposing or racially different elements.

Their wordsWe would not deprecate the fact, then, that America has a Race Problem. It is guaranty of the perpetuity and progress of her institutions, and insures the breadth of her culture and the symmetry of her development.

Their wordsNow in my judgment writings of the first class will be the ones to withstand the ravages of time.

Their wordsWe know that our bill is a true one—that the debt is as real as to any pensioners of our government.

Their wordsWhat I hope to see before I die is a black man honestly and appreciatively portraying both the Negro as he is, and the white man, occasionally, as seen from the Negro’s standpoint.

Their wordsNine-tenths of the mis-called color prejudice or race prejudice in this country is mere sentiment governed by the association of ideas. It is not color prejudice at all.

Their wordsWork must first create wealth, and wealth leisure, before the untrammeled intellect of the Negro, or any other race, can truly vindicate its capabilities.

Their wordsAgnosticism has nothing to impart. Its sermons are the exhortations of one who convinces you he stands on nothing and urges you to stand there too.

Their wordsTo me, faith means treating the truth as true.