Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading | Page 3

but the constant recollection of it, as the commanding
thought of a new people, who should be marching on to the broadest
freedom of thought in a new and glorious present, and a still more
magnificent future. You will notice here that there is a broad distinction
between memory and recollection. Memory is a passive act of the mind,
while recollection is the actual seeking of the facts, the endeavor of the
mind to bring them back again to consciousness.
The fact of slavery is that which cannot be faulted. What I object to is
the unnecessary recollection of it. The pernicious habit I protest against
as most injurious and degrading. As slavery was a degrading thing, the
constant recalling of it to the mind serves by the law of association to
degradation. My desire is that we shall, as far as possible, avoid the
thought of slavery. As a people, we have had an exodus from it. We
have been permitted by a gracious Providence to enter the new and
exalted pathways of freedom. We have new conditions of life and new
relations in society. These changed circumstances bring to us thoughts,
new ideas, new projects, new purposes, and new ambitions, of which
our fathers never thought. We have need, therefore, of new adjustments
in life. The law of fitness comes up before us at this point, and we are
called upon, as a people, to change the currents of life and to shift them
into new and broader channels. I do not ignore the intellectual evils
which have fallen upon us. Neither am I indifferent to the political
disasters we are still suffering. But when I take a general survey of our
race in the United States I can see that there are evils which lie deeper
than intellectual neglect or political injury.
We have three special points of weakness in our race: 1. The Status of
the Family. 2. The Conditions of Labor. 3. The Element of Morals.
It is my firm conviction that it is our duty to address ourselves more
earnestly to the duties involved in these considerations than to any and

all other considerations. Let us notice first
THE STATUS OF THE FAMILY.
I shall not pause to detail the calamities which slavery has entailed
upon our race in the domain of the family. Every one knows how it has
pulled down every pillar and shattered every priceless fabric. But now
that we have begun the life of freedom we should attempt the repair of
this, the noblest of all the structures of human life. The basis of all
human progress and of all civilization is the family. Despoil the idea of
family, assail rudely its elements, its framework, and its essential
principles, and nothing but degradation and barbarism can come to any
people. If you will think but for a moment of all that is included in this
word "family," you will see at once that it is the root idea of all civility,
of all the humanities, of all organized society. In the family are
included all the loves, the cares, the sympathies, the solicitudes of
parents and wives and husbands; all the active industries, the prudent
economies, and the painful self-sacrifices of households; all the sweet
memories, the gentle refinements, the pure speech, and the godly
anxieties of womanhood; all the endurance, the courage, and the hardy
toil of men; all these have their roots in the family.
Alas! how widely have these traits and qualities been lost to our race in
this land! How numerous are the households where they have never
been known or recognized! The beginning of all organized society is in
the family. The school, the college, the professions, suffrage, civil
office, are all valuable things; but what are they compared to the family?
Here, then, where we have suffered the greatest, is a world-wide field
for our intellectual anxieties and our most intelligent effort.
Secondly we will consider
THE CONDITIONS OF LABOR.
I refer to the industrial conditions of our race. No topic is exciting more
interest and anxiety than the labor question. Almost an angry contest is
going on upon the relations of capital to labor. Into this topic all the
other kindred questions of wages, hours of labor, co-operation,

distribution of wealth--all are canvassed in behalf of the labor element
of the country, but all, I may say exclusively, for the white labor of this
great nation. The white labor is organized labor; it is intelligent labor; it
is skilled labor; it is protected labor. It is labor nourished, guarded,
shielded, rooted in national institutions, propped up by the suffrage of
the laboring population, and needs no extraordinary succors. But, my
friends, just look at the black labor of this country, and consider its sad
conditions,