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AN APPEAL TO C£SAR
SERMON ON THE RACE QUESTION BY
REV. C. T. WALKER, D. D.
Pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, West 153d
Street, New York City, Delivered at Carnegie
Hall, Sunday Evening, May 27th, 1900 . . .
A Review of the Race Conference, held at Montgomery,
Ala., and a Reply to the Criticisms of Rev.
Henry Frank upon the Negro Race
ERRATA
The Evening Post Editorial, bottom of page 31,
should read thus : '' This was no ordinary religious
gathering; it was an uprising of citizens whose
rights are imperilled. To these people the Fifteenth
Amendment is a Magna Charter."
Press of
t-usey & Troxe'-'
New York
AN APPEAL TO CjESAR
TEXT: ACTS 28:22. But we desire to
hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as con¬
cerning this sect we know that every where
it is spoken against.
The Apostle Paul in this discussion was
constrained to appeal to Cssar, not in the
way of accusation of his people or nation, but
to vindicate himself and those he represented,
he made intercession for his people.
The Roman government at this time had
formed an unfavorable opinion of the Jews.
They were regarded as factious, turbulent,
disgruntled and dangerous. The Apostle is
delighted with his opportunity to speak for his
sect of people. He enunciated the doctrine
of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood
of mankind on Mars Hill, facing the Acropo¬
lis at Athens, Greece. He was an exponent of
the principles of the Christian religion, which
religion recognized God as the father of all,
and mankind as brothers.
Ex-President Harrison a few days ago, on
this platform, at the great Ecumenical Con¬
ference, said: "The highest conception that
4
AN APPEAL TO CJESAR
has ever entered the mind of man is that of
God as the father of all men—the one blood—
the universal brotherhood. It was not evolved,
but revealed."
Paul was thus given an opportunity to ex¬
plain the belief or beliefs of this sect every¬
where spoken against; this sect so greatly op¬
pressed. He was permitted to tell of their
opinions, their sentiments. So they gave him
a day to expound to them his doctrine con¬
cerning the much hated and greatly oppressed
sect which he represented.
It is my desire on this occasion to speak to
you concerning a race of people greatly mis¬
represented, despised, oppressed and hated; a
race peculiarly situated, and everywhere
spoken against. I appear in behalf of a peo¬
ple born in tribulation, and disciplined in the
school of slavery; opposed and persecuted by
some of the brightest minds that ever spoke or
wielded a pen; and yet defended by some of
the ablest, purest, and noblest men and women
the earth has ever known; for while the negro
as a race has had great opposition, he has had
able champions and defenders of his cause,
like Charles Sumner, Garrison, Wendell Phil¬
lips, Henry Ward P»eecher, Dr. Nathan-Bishop,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Benedict, and a
host of others, many of whom are shouting
from their high citadel of triumph around the
chancels of glory.
In this great hall on last Sabbath the news
went out to the world that Rev. Henrv Frank,
in preaching the Gospel of the lowly Nazarene,
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR
5
stated in the prelude to his discourse, that the
negro should again be reduced to the slavery
of ante-bellum days. Mr. Frank said:
"The most deplorable social situation which
a civilized and intelligent people have ever de¬
liberately brought upon themselves is wit¬
nessed to-day in the relation of the southern
negro to his environment.
" Judging by the history of the negro for
over four thousand years we are forced to as¬
sert that the most fortunate circumstance that
ever befell him was his enslavement on Amer¬
ican soil, and the consequent moral discipline
it bestowed upon him.
"His native sluggishness, the evidences of
his gradual extinction since his enfranchise¬
ment, his imperceptible improvement since lib¬
eration, his startling lapse into barbarism, all
must incline thinking people to conclude that
the freeing of the negro was a disastrous fail¬
ure. Every thinking man must believe that
the franchise must be removed from the negro
in such places at least where negro suffrage
must mean negro domination. The white peo¬
ple of the South see that no other course than
disfranchisement of the negro will redeem the
honor and safety of their land.
"The free negro often becomes a brutal
beast more dangerous in a community than a
wild bull. The Southern people are often
thrown into a state of hysteria by constantly
recurring evidences of his savage degeneracy.
I contend that the negro requires for his own
sake as well as that of society moral and legal
6
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR
restraint. He was a safer man when he was
a slave than he is as a citizen. A new system
of voluntary and penal servitude should' be in¬
stituted both for his protection and develop¬
ment and that of the nation. A section of the
country should be set apart to which all ne¬
groes would be permitted to migrate and there
yield themselves as slaves to such persons as
would agree to possess them and1 give them
humane treatment and education. If such an
invitation to-day were extended to the negroes
of the South I venture to say hundreds of them
would gratefully accept."
At the recent conference held at Montgom¬
ery, Ala., for the study of race conditions and
problems of the South, many unfavorable
things were said concerning my people, while
some men present spoke favorably of the col¬
ored man and pleaded for equal and
exact justice for him by the American
people. And yet that Conference was
very unfair in that it excluded from
the privileges of the meeting the very
people it meant to discuss. For instance, the
Mayor of Wilmington, N. C., Mr. A. M. Wad-
dell, denounced the legislation which enfran¬
chised the negro as the meanest political crime
in the history of nations; and he also demand¬
ed a repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment. Mr.
W. N. McKellar of Alabama advocated a re¬
peal of the Fifteenth Amendment, and declared
that the white man of the South would not
submit to negro domination even if it was nec¬
essary to employ force and fraud.
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR
7
Mr. Graves discussed the problem as fol¬
lows : "Will the white man permit the negro
to have an equal part in the industrial, political,
social and civil advantages of the United
States?" This he says is the problem. Mr.
Graves states in answer to his own question:
"It may be expressed in diplomacy, it may be
veiled in indirection, it may be softened in
philanthropy, it may be guarded in political ut¬
terance, and oftenest of all it is restrained by
ultra conservatism and personal timidity. But
wherever the answer to this vital question
comes, stripped of verbiage and indirection, it
rings like a martial bugle in the single syllable,
No! " He further says, " this may not be
right, but it is honest. It may not be just,
but it is evident. It may not be politic, but it
is a great, glaring, indisputable, indestructible
fact." "I do not stop to defend it," he says,
"I do not justify it. I do not argue it at all,
but I state it as a truth that we may as well in
the beginning look frankly and fearlessly in
the face. North and South, the answer, wher¬
ever it is honest, is the same." Mr. Graves
states further that, "Over his black body (the
negro) we have shed rivers of blood and treas¬
ure to emphasize our separate convictions of
his destiny. And yet as the crimson tide rolls
away into the years we realize that all this
blood and treasure and travail was spent in
vain, and that the negro whom a million died
to free, is in present bond and future
promise still a slave, whipped by cir¬
cumstances, trodden under foot of iron
8
AN APPEAL TO CLESAR
and ineradicable prejudice; shut out for¬
ever from the heritage of liberty, and
holding in his black hand the hollow
parchment of his franchise as a freeman looks
through a slave's eyes at the impassible bar¬
riers which imprison him forever within the
progress and achievements of a dominant and
all conquering race." He says, "Search
through all your logic for a reason of this
prejudice. Explore all your themes for a
cause. And when you fail to find in reason,
in religion, or knowledge or justice, anywhere
an answer, you will find at last the answer—
in his skin! Bleach that to the whiteness of
your own, and you have solved the problem
by a chemical solution. But until this leopard
shall remove his spots, until this Ethiopian
shall have changed his skin, you may tug in
vain to draw out this leviathan of problems
with a hook. Straighten the hair and whiten
the skin of the negro, and the issue is closed."
Mr. Cochran in his speech declared that the
Fifteenth Amendment was a dead letter in the
South, because the people in the states had
made up their minds not to submit to it, public
opinion of the South was against it, and on that
account it could not be enforced.
Gov. McCorkle of West Virginia: "The
South most certainly will be ultimately insist
ent that the negro vote shall be counted, as nec¬
essary to sustain its great commercial policies.'
Dr. J. L. M. Curry believes in the education of
the race, but two separate systems as being in
evitable and yet each be maintained. Dr. Fris-
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR
9
sell of Hampton believes industrial education,
and a stronger sentiment in behalf of popular
education; better school buildings, the length¬
ening of the school term, the strengthening of
those in power to see that there is more super¬
vision of schools, public and private, white and
black, will go far towards the solution of the
problem.
Thus I have stated briefly the-position of
some of those who have discussed my people
publicly. Now I give you the colored man's
position:
1. The negro first is a part of this great
American continent. He is bone of her bone
flesh of her flesh, and member of the body
politic ; her near kinsman.
The colored man is an American of
Americans; he has been in this country almost
as long as anybody else.
Our emancipation did not make us men; the
amendment to the Constitution gave us consti¬
tutional liberty, God made us men long before
men made us citizens. "His sovereign power
without our aid made us of clay and formed us
men." Slavery stifled and choked the princi¬
ples of manhood, made the slave a chattel, a
tool, a thing. Emancipation restored and rec¬
ognized manhood. The Fifteenth Amendment,
is but a recognition and endorsement of God-
given rights to the colored man.
2. Emancipation of the colored race was the
overruling providence of God. Slavery was
wrong, it was a curse, it was a blot upon the
nation's escutcheon, the prolific mother of ig-
10 AN APPEAL TO CJESAR
norance and vice, of crime and superstition.
God was against it. The time had come in the
providence of the mighty God that the bat¬
talions of the righteous army of God should
march against the giant walls of slavery in this
country, and slavery fell like Dagon before the
Ark. And although Mr. Lincoln wrote the
immortal proclamation liberating more than
4,000,000 human slaves, which was the central
act of his administration, and the most won¬
derful event of the Nineteenth Century, yet the
hand that wrote the proclamation was guided
by the bruised and pierced hand of the incar¬
nate Christ. Christ owed a debt of gratitude
to the African, for it was Africa that gave him
shelter and protection in his babyhood, and it
was an African who bore the cross on the way
to Calvary; and although Christ had upon him
the diadem of omnipotent power, and was sur¬
rounded by the triumphant shouts of a host
no man could number, it was in His will that
the enslaved negro should be emancipated,
both in accordance with His eternal purpose
and in answer to the earnest, faithful prayer of
the enslaved.
The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu¬
tion of the United States under which the col¬
ored man acquired the right to vote was placed
there after the nation had been baptized in
blood; and it would require a second baptism
of blood to remove it. (Cheers.)
One of the great dailies of this city said re¬
cently, editorially: that the Fifteenth Amend¬
ment to the Constitution under which negroes
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR 11
acquired the right to vote, will not be abro¬
gated ; it will be prevented not less'by the oppo¬
sition of the Northern states than by that of
the South itself; for of course the amend¬
ment could not be expunged from the constitu¬
tion without a corresponding loss of political
power to the Southern states, to which they
would not consent.
3. The right of citizenship to the colored
man is in harmony with the principles of sci¬
ence, theology, and humanitarianism. The
unity of the race is taught in the history of cre¬
ation as found in the book of Genesis; human
brotherhood is taught in Paul's sermon on
Mars Hill; and the fatherhood of God and
brotherhood of mankind is taught in the Lord's
prayer. The antiquity and dignity of the ne¬
gro race can be traced to a period of more than
3,000 years before Christ. Negroes won fame
in the armies of Egypt under Sesostris, and
the armies of Xerxes. Herodotus said that
eighteen of the Egyptian kings were Ethiopi¬
ans. It is claimed that some of the idols in
Japan are represented as wooly-headed ne¬
groes: so are some idols in Siam; and Osiris
in Egypt is frequently represented as being
black. Moses married a negress; she was re¬
ferred to as a "Sable Princess" by Dr. James
Hamilton. They built Thebes, with her one
hundred gates, wonderful temples and beauti¬
ful palaces. Karnac and the pyramids were
erected by them. Meroe, the queenly city on
the Nile River in Egypt, is referred to as an
Ethiopian city of splendor and glory; it was
12
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
noted for its inventive genius and varied schol¬
arship ; it was the cradle of civilization and the
mother of art. She had her public and private
buildings, her stupendous gates, and colossal
walls. It is claimed by the best scholars and
historians that Ethiopia gave learning to
Egypt, Egypt to Greece, Greece to Rome, and
Rome to Britain, and Britain to the world.
Dr. Robert Stewart MacArthur says:
"Many of the ex-slaves are the descendants
of the imperial Ethiopians of the brave days of
old; echoes of that far off time and of those
superb achievements must have floated through
the memories of slaves as they toiled under
the master's lash in the fields of the Sunnv
South."
This birth of liberty and citizenship is due
the negro as a reward of meritorious service
on the battlefield in defense of the American
Republic which did not regard him as a citi¬
zen. As early as 1770 Crispus Attucks, dur¬
ing the Boston Massacre, became famous as a
negro patriot, soldier and martyr. He led in
that bloody drama which opened an eventful
and thrilling chapter in American history. He
attacked the main guard of the ministerial
army and went down in his own blood before
the terrible fire, and was the first to give his
life for American independence. From old
Faneuil Hall in Boston, "The Cradle of Lib¬
erty," four hearses bore to one grave the bodies
of Attucks, Caldwell, Gray and Maverick.
The colored man responded to the call of
arms from the Massachusetts Bay to Lake
AN APPEAL TO CJESAR 13
Champlain. Every Northern colony had its
troops of negroes, and Rhode Island had its
black regiment. At the battles of Monmouth
and Bunker Hill the negroes fought nobly and
bravely. In the battle of New Orleans and
the battle of Lake Erie, in the War of 1812,
the negro made history for his race and helped
to gain victory for the American continent.
His part in the Civil War is too well known
to need argument or rehearsal; you have but
to name Fort Harrison, Port Hudson, Port
Royal, and Fort Wagner. Who can forget
the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, whose signal
victory is commemorated in a volume entitled,
"A Black Regiment?" During the Civil War
186,017 black men enlisted in the service and
took part in 249 battles. The first regiment
to enter Petersburg was composed of negroes.
The first troops to enter Richmond were two
divisions of negroes. The last guns fired at
Appomatox were fired by negroes. The last
volley of the war was fired by colored troops,
May 15, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas. A
negro regiment guarded the remains of Presi¬
dent Lincoln, and marched in the great funeral
procession from the White House.
The negro's loyalty and fidelity to his for¬
mer master's home, family and interests en¬
titles him to this birth of freedom. During
the trying days of the war the negro on the
Southern plantations guarded and defended
the interests of his former master, supported
his family, and was as true and loyal as a
faithful sentinel. He deserved this birth of
14 AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
liberty, even though the North had failed in
the war, justice to humanity on the part of his
former owners would demand his emancipa¬
tion.
What has he done to be maligned, malicious¬
ly assailed, and inhumanly persecuted as he is ?
II. THE PROGRESS.
I desire in this connection to discuss with
you the progress of this sect or race since their
emancipation. The Boston Transcript said
recently, "Nominally free now, no more to be
bought and sold, the race must stand on its
own legs, must make itself really free if it can."
The Nezv York World, in discussing the ne¬
gro problem recently, said: "The black man
is able thus to sum up his accomplishments
since his emancipation: He has reduced his
illiteracy 45 per cent. He has written 300
books. He has 200 newspapers, issued regu¬
larly each week. He has accumulated school
property to the value of $12,000,000; he owns
church property worth $37,000,000; he owns
137,ooo farms and homes worth $725,000,000;
he has personal property to the value of $165,-
000,000; and he has raised $10,000,000 for his
own education; his per capita possessions
amount to $72.50." "To propose further,"
says the World, "that the nation shall step
backward in the face of such a stepping for¬
ward, is a curious way to argue the superiority
of the dominant white man,—Mr. Cochran is
on the wrong color line." The Utica
Globe states that the negroes have 48,000
An appeal to cjesar
15
students in the higher branches of learn¬
ing, 30,000 negro teachers, 30,000 youths
learning the trades, 12,000 pupils pur¬
suing scientific courses abroad, 17,000
graduates, 254,000 volumes in libraries,
valued at $500,000; 156 normal schools
and universities, 500 negro doctors, 200
lawyers, 250 newspapers and magazines."
The negro has made progress in science, liter¬
ature and art. Colored students have stood
the equal of white students at Harvard, Yale,
Brown, Colgate, Chicago University, and
other great schools. The equatorial telescope
at Lawrence University of Wisconsin, was
made by negro students. Paul Lawrence
Dunbar is one of the leading literary charac¬
ters of the present century. Tanner's "Rais¬
ing of Lazarus" is a proof of the negro's abil¬
ity as a painter. Williams, Brown, DuBois,
and Johnson have proven their ability as his¬
torians. T. Thomas Fortune of the New York
Age, Cooper of the Colored American, Knox
of the Freeman, Mitchell of the Planet, White
of the Georgia Baptist, have settled their status
as journalists. Booker T. Washington, W.
H. Council, Jones and Vassar of the Univer¬
sity of Virginia; Wright, President of the
State College of Georgia; Gilbert, of Brown
University 'and the American College at Ath¬
ens, Greece; Scarborough, author of a Greek
text-book; Hope and Page from Brown Uni¬
versity ; and W. E. Holmes, of Atlanta Bap¬
tist College and Chicago University, have
proven their ability to educate their own race.
10
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
The professional men, such as doctors and
lawyers, in this and other cities throughout
the country, prove the ability of negroes to
measure up professionally with his white
brothers. The True Reformers' Bank at Rich¬
mond, Va., whose president is on this plat¬
form.; the Colored Bank at Birmingham, Ala.,
and at Washington, D. C.
The colored man is not half as bad as he
is painted to be. The facts concerning him are
often suppressed. He is made the aggressor
in every conflict between him and the white
man. Many of the newspapers are not fair in
the discussion of the negro's rights, for in
many instances the only way .he can be men¬
tioned in a newspaper is to commit some crime.
The race to which I belong is a patient, long
suffering and uncomplaining people. The ne¬
gro daily sees his rights and liberties taken,
and is not protected by the flag he has hon¬
ored, and to which he has been loyal and true.
He sees his race lynched, murdered, and
burned, .and only asks the Almighty God, How
long! And frequently the persons lynched
are not guilty of the crime charged, for many
are lynched even on suspicion. And many
times the slain are greater and worthier than
the slayers.
The colored man is against crime as a race,
and is against lynching people, is against law¬
lessness and disorder of every form; and the
best people of my race do not condone crime.
With a little more than thirty years to labor
for himself, the colored man should not be
AN APPEAL TO CiESAR
17
expected to measure up with his more for¬
tunate white brother, after giving him a start
of more than 246 years; that would argue that
our white friends have not done much for
.themselves; and that they expect the negro,
under adverse circumstances, to accomplish
more than they (the white men) have done in
a much longer time, and to concede that would
be admitting negro superiority, which our
white friends cannot afford to do. Many col¬
ored people have their own property; there are
several banks, like the Reformers' Bank in
Richmond, Va.; factories, building and loan
associations, cooperative stores, coal mines,
and some few of them have succeeded in pur¬
chasing the plantations of their former masters.
They never owned any of these during the
days of slavery. I would like to know what
the advocates for the repealing of the Fif¬
teenth Amendment have to say concerning the
progress of the negro. I would like to ask if
they hope by the repeal of the Fifteenth
Amendment to get possession of what the ne¬
gro has accumulated in these years ?
His religious progress has been commen¬
surate with his numerical growth. As to
his dying out, there need not be any
fear. If slavery with its cruelties and
hardships could not kill him, freedom
will not attempt it. The colored people
are religiously inclined; they do not
have skeptics, infidels, atheists, nor agnos¬
tics to any extent. They have very little
trouble about the higher criticism, and need no
18 AN APPEAL TO CiESAR
ecclesiastical courts to try men for heresy. The
American people have no trouble with them
about strikes. They are not anarchists, they
are not communists, they are not nihilists.
Very few of them are beggars. Dr. R. S. Mac-
Arthur states that the negro, where he has had
fair opportunity of industry and economy, is
an example of success. "During all these
hard times in the city of New York, and in the
country as a whole, the number of negroes who
are beggars and paupers is gratifyingly small.
It fell to my lot, as Pastor of the Calvary
Church, for being the channel for giving sup¬
plies during a period of six weeks, to 3,000 of
the poor in New York. Not one family of
colored people asked for help. To one colored
widow help was offered, by me and not solicit¬
ed by her. Not once during all these trying
weeks and months have I been solicited for
alms on the streets by man, woman or child of
the negro race, although I have been asked six
times in a single walk from my study to my
home bv representatives of another race and
faith." "
III. THE NEGRO'S PATRIOTISM.
The negro has shown his patriotism and
valor in all the wars of this country, and by
this time should be recognized as a bona fide
American citizen. It was a negro who cap¬
tured General Prescott in his bed. A negro
planned the successful capture of Percy's sup¬
ply train. Peter Salem shot and killed Major
Pitcairn in battle at Bunker Hill. In the Civil
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR 19
War nearly 200,000 negro soldiers fought for
The Union and for the emancipation of their
race. During the war a white colonel
delivered the flag of our country to his
black color-sergeant and said- to him,
" Sergeant, I place in your hands this
sacred flag; fight for it; yes, die for
it, but never surrender it into the hands of the
enemy." The black soldier, with love of
country and pride in his heart, answered, "I'll
bring the flag back in honor, Colonel, or report
to God the reason why." In one battle, in
carrying that flag of freedom, he was stricken
down; he fell with the folds of the flag
wrapped about him, bathed in his blood. He
did not bring it back, but God knew the rea¬
son why. He did all he could, all that any
man could; he gave his heart's blood for the
flag.
The immortal Abraham Lincoln said, "Dur¬
ing the long, dark night of war not a traitor
was ever found in black skin."
Negro soldiers fought bravely in the War
of 1812. Gen. Butler said of negro soldiers
while passing before a mass of upturned faces
to the sun, wounded and dead, "Let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth, and my right
hand forget her cunning, if I fail to remember
these "men and their race for the bravery dis¬
played this day."
I11 the Spanish-American War, at San Juan
Hill and El Caney, the negro troopers marched
side by side with their white comrades, ascend¬
ed the hill, cut the barbed wire fences, passed
20
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
through the high grass, prevented the Rough
Riders from extermination, repulsed the ene¬
my, took the Spanish block houses, and helped
to win the day for America and hasten the
surrender of General Toral to General Shafter,
after planting Old Glory on the ramparts of
Santiago. Four regiments of negro soldiers
are now in the Philippines upholding the Stars
and Stripes.
IV. REPLIES TO RECENT CRITICISMS.
In reply to the criticisms of the Honorable
John T. Graves, at the Montgomery Race Con¬
ference, Mr. Graves stated the issue of races
is not peculiar to America; it is the problem of
the Anglo-Saxon people. It burns in India,
in Africa, and in America; nor is it a problem
peculiar to these modern times; it is as ancient
as the history of man. He says the Almighty
reached down and solved it for the Egyptian
in the most model way when He led the captive
Jews across the Red Sea to the Promised
Land. Mr. Graves concludes with the state¬
ment that the separation is the logical, the in¬
evitable, the only way. He says religion will
not solve it, for the Christ spirit will not be all
pervasive until the millennial dawn. Educa¬
tion, he says, complicates the problem. Edu¬
cation brings perception, and ambition follows
with aggressive assertion against the walls of
prejudice that has never yielded and will never
yield. He says the conflict is irrepressible and
inevitable.
AN APPEAL TO CiESAR
21
Mr. Graves at once takes the ground that
there is something sadly deficient in the reli¬
gion of the white man to the extent that his
prejudice cannot be overcome by the Chris¬
tian religion until the millennial dawn; which
shows that the Christian religion will take a
much longer time to save a white man of Mr.
Graves' kind than it will a negro. Education,
he says, complicates the problem, because it
brings perception, and ambition follows with
aggressive assertion. Why should Mr. Graves
object to the colored man being perceptive, am¬
bitious, and aggressive? Why should he not
expect education to< do for the negro what it
does for any other man? And why should
there be an irrepressible and inevitable conflict
because the colored man is progressive, ambi¬
tious, and assertive? I have three questions
to propound to Mr. Graves: First, as he
takes the separation of the Israelites from the
Egyptians as a parallel case to the one betweer
the American white man and the American
colored man, and as the Lord God Almight)
led the way through seas of difficulty for the
separation of the Israelites from the Egyp¬
tians, what objection has Mr. Graves to com¬
mitting this matter to the Almighty, and wait¬
ing for his way and his time for the separation
since God led the way in the first, why not wail
till he leads the way in this?
Question No. 2: Will Mr. Graves inform
us if the time comes in the providence of God
for the separation of the races in this country
will it be necessary for the Almighty to send
22
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
ten plagues upon the modern Egyptians be¬
fore they will be willing to let Israel go, and
will he promise that in the event we start
that we will not be pursued by the modern'
Pharaoh and his host, and will they attempt
to recapture us and take us back to the cotton
fields and brick yards of the Sunny South as
did the ancient Pharaoh ?
Question No. 3: Since religion will not
solve it, and education will complicate it be¬
cause of the unyielding, giant wall of preju¬
dice, and as it is true that this hatred and ir¬
reconcilable malice against the negro is due tc
the color of his skin, is he responsible for his
color? Is it not wiser to attack the Creatoi
than the creature. Why not find fault with
the potter rather than the vessel ? Why should
I hate the white man because God made him
white, and why should the white man hate me
because God made me black ? I have resolved
not to hate any man because of the color of his
skin, as a Christian, believing in practical
Godliness, I can't; as a manly man, I won't.
If these statesmen believe in what they say
and are sincere in their utterances, that God
has purposed the separation of the races, whj
not let the Almighty do as seemeth him best
and let the Fifteenth Amendment alone?
The problem will solve itself. Let men oi
all races contend for equal and exact justice to
all men irrespective of race or color, creed 01
condition.
With regard to Rev. Mr. Frank's utterances
I would like to know what he means when he
AN APPEAL TO C^SSAR
23
says that there are evidences of the gradual
extinction of the negro since his enfranchise¬
ment, his imperceptible improvement since lib¬
eration, his startling lapse into barbarism ?
As to the extinction of the race, we have
more than doubled since our emancipation; il
is believed that the coming census will give us
10,000,000 colored people in this country.
With regard to imperceptible improvement
since his liberation. No sane-minded man can
fail to see the wonderful progress made by oui
race in the last thirty years; emancipated
friendless, penniless, and ignorant, he has buill
schools, churches, homes, thousands have edu¬
cated their children; and raised up a host oi
professional men and women who are dis¬
charging with fidelity and ability the arduous
and weighty responsibilities of American citi¬
zenship. We are represented in Congress
The money of this country has the signature
of a colored man. He has represented this
government abroad.
With regard to his startling lapse into bar¬
barism. If Mr. Frank would consult the re¬
ligious statistics of the various colored de¬
nominations he would find that the colored
man has made a much better showing reli¬
giously than his white brother. Colored men
do not lynch and burn human beings. Col¬
ored men have never formed bands of Kuklux
and White-Caps. Colored men are not found
among the dynamite-bomb throwers; they
were not with the Haymarket rioters in Chi¬
cago nor are they now the leaders of strikes;
24
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
they are peaceable, religious, loyal, Christian
citizens. Why should the prejudiced preacher
single out the colored man for his attack when
there are thousands of foreigners coming to
this country every year whose ideas are an¬
tagonistic to the principles of American gov¬
ernment ?
If Mr. Frank is a Jew, I would like to call
his attention to the fact that his race owes a
debt of gratitude to the negro. As far back
as 4,000 years ago, which he claims has proven
the negro incapable of amounting to anything
that's commendable, let it be remembered that
one of his prophets in Jerusalem, under the
reign of Zedskiah, was saved from an awful
death by the intercession of a negro. The
nrophet was none oiher than Jeremiah. The
negro who interceded in his behalf was none
other than Ebed Melee, the Ethiopian. Let it
also be borne in mind that as "far back as the
days of David, when Israel was in war, and
Joab led that part of Israel that was friendly
to David; Cushi, an Ethiopian, was entrusted
with a message to King David concerning the
death of his son Absalom; and that he stated
the case with so mu-ch intelligence, uniqueness
and diplomacy, it stamped the brother in black
as a patriot, a soldier, and a diplomat. Let him
also remember that Moses, the Jewish leader,
the Israelitish commander, the greatest hu¬
man legislator the world ever produced, great¬
er than Lycurgus, the Spartan law-giver, mar¬
ried a negress. I wish to mention this his¬
torical account that a negro general leading
AN APPEAL TO CJESAK
25
one million men marched into Jerusalem 3,000
years ago, with 300 chariots, and waged war
with Asa.—Second Chron:, 14, 8th and 9th v.
As to his remark about negro domination,
there is no fear of negro domination nor negro
supremacy by Mr. Frank or any others. The
negro has never contended for negro domi¬
nation, negro supremacy, nor so-called social
equality; and the men who make such state¬
ments as the Rev. Mr. Frank, it is but the
vaporings of an airy, dreamy, speculative,
would-be theologian or politician who is re¬
covering from the effects of a nightmare.
The negro only asks for simple justice:
equal and exact justice. He would have an
equal chance in the race of life. He wants
clearer opportunities; he wants to be admitted
into the industrial trades. He is striving to
be honest, industrious, intelligent, economizing
and self-reliant. He wants his manhood rec¬
ognized and encouraged, rather than choked
and stifled. He wants his white brother to de¬
throne prejudice and enthrone reason; remove
hatred and place love in its stead. Banish re¬
venge for sympathy and charity, and every
man, white and black, help his brother on
life's highway.
I wish to ask Mr. Frank a question: What
would be his method of getting the negroes to
migrate to some section of the country to yield
themselves as slaves to such persons as would
agree to possess them, and give them humane
treatment and education? Is it his desire to
introduce again the system of slave drivers,
26
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
and the position of overseers of plantations:
and is this gentleman in this way preparing a
job for himself, knowing that the people will
not listen to such vaporings as he gave them
last Sabbath and call it gospel ?
Mr. Frank closed by saying that if such an
invitation were extended to the negroes of the
South he ventured to say hundreds of them
would gladly accept. Asa man born and reared
in the South, understanding my people full
well, I wish to state that there is not among
us a man or woman, be he ever so poor or so
poverty-stricken, who desires the shackles of
slavery now off to be replaced. I judge no¬
body will consider seriously the closing state¬
ments of Rev. Mr. Frank, about hundreds of
our people gladly accepting masters; for any
man who has made such a vicious, un-Chris-
tion, and unreasonable attack on a helpless and
defenseless people, would venture to say any¬
thing else.
The New York Independent, that fair, hon¬
orable, just and religious journal, takes a hope¬
ful view of the situation (and there is abun¬
dant room for hope and encouragement) and
says: "There will be sporadic trouble, per¬
haps much of it, caused by the lower class of
white people who hate a negro who gets a bet¬
ter house or farm than their own, and who
wants representation as well as taxation; but
these are eddies. The negro question will be
solved, and nothing is solved until it is solved
right. Serfdom is not the solution; primary
and industrial education alone is not the solu-
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR 27
tion. The only solution is equal conditions,
equal opportunities, equal rights, and every
Southern Conference will help it along."
The now fallen angel, ex-Senator John J.
Ingalls, said in the United States Senate, 1890:
"Four solutions of this problem have been
suggested: emigration, extermination, absorp¬
tion, disfranchisement; but there is still a fifth
solution which has never been tried, and that
solution is justice." And until then, until the
establishment of justice has been justly and
fairly tried, nothing can be done. Until the
rights of man are recognized, guaranteed, and
maintained in this nation social, disorder will
continue, and the gangrene of corruption will
continue to gnaw at the nation's heart, and the
race question will not be settled. Patience
will help, moderation will help, economy will
help, education will help, and a thousand
other things will help; but the race question
will never be settled in this country until we as
a nation will secure to every citizen beneath
the flag full, free, exact and entire justice.
Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
The colored man feels very grateful to his
Northern and to Southern friends for what¬
ever they have said or done towards his eleva¬
tion. He is placed under many obligations to
Northern philanthropists for their generous
contributions out of their princely munificence
towards the removal of illiteracy. He feels
grateful to such men as Messrs. Peabody, Sla¬
ter, Bishop, John D. Rockefeller, C. P. Hunt¬
ington, Mrs. Benedict, Mr. Fiske, Dr. Howe,
28
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
and hundreds of others. He rejoices that
there are many people in every section of this
country, north, south, east and west, who do
not favor any backward steps of this nation
toward the repealing of the Fifteenth Amend¬
ment. And he verily believes that in every
section of this country there will always be
good men and good women who love God and
their fellow men, and who are interested in the
continued prosperity of this great American
continent that to this extent they will never
give their voice to the disfranchisement of any
American citizen; and that never, never again
will the slave whip be applied upon the back
of the helpless. The auction block will never,
never again be seen. That slavery and all of
its horrors in tyranny and cruelty shall never
again be revived, but that the religion of the
lowly Nazarene shall have the ascendency over
prejudice, caste, proscription, and discrimina¬
tion, and that the God of nations will continue
his universal reign. He will ride in the gos¬
pel that knows no man by the color of his skin,
that recognizes the Jew from his wandering, the
Arab from his tent, etc. God is not dead. He
presides over the destinies of nations. Jesus
shall reign, etc.
Watchman, what of the night? The morn¬
ing cometh. The morning of true liberty for
the oppressed. The morn of the twentieth
century will soon dawn. The prophecies made
by the immortal Abraham Lincoln in his
speech at Gettysburg on the new birth of free¬
dom will be fulfilled in the coining century.
AN APPEAL TO CJESAR 29
The nation or government cannot stand that
will not give justice to its subjects ; that will
not obey God; that will ignore the principles of
truth, of justice, and righteousness. Rome,
Greece, Babylon, and Persia went down be¬
cause they did not regard the mighty God.
God reigns, and happy is that nation whose
God is the Lord. My people need never fear
while they are true and loyal to God.
The colored man's salvation in this country
is in becoming an important and intelligent
part of the industrial world. We ought to
learn all we can of everything we can. Build
character, cultivate our intellectual and spirit¬
ual possibilities, and remember that the negro's
salvation is in his own hands. He must rise
by his own efforts. He must see no impossi¬
bilities, regard no obstacles; he must find a
way or make a way. His salvation will de¬
pend upon his ability to save and value, and to
know how to invest his money. Let him learn
the power of organization; the value of a dol¬
lar. Dollars not only count, but they rule.
They cut their way; they open barred doors;
they build railroads, ride the high seas, and
circumnavigate the globe. And the colored
man's future depends upon his ability to con¬
tend, to agitate in a manly way for justice,
not as a colored man, but as a man. His fu¬
ture salvation will depend upon his loyalty to
his God.
The negro race is a praying race. Prayer
has fought more battles and won more vic¬
tories than all the armies and navies. Gideon
80
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR
fought and conquered without a gun being
fired; Hezekiah at Jerusalem, Martin Luther,
and Moses praying for his race are samples of
the power of prayer
Hasten, Lord, the glorious time
COMMENTS FROM NEW YORK
PAPERS.
ATezu York Sun: Carnegie Hall was crowd¬
ed literally to the roof last night. It really
seemed as if the whole colored population of
the town was there; and they did more than
listen. The Rev. Dr. Walker spoke to refute
the criticism passed on his race by the Rev.
Mr. Frank the Sunday before; and in reply
to some of the speeches made at the recent
Race Conference at Montgomery, Ala. At
every telling point the pastor made in his heavy
voice they applauded, and at the end they
cheered and shouted approval for several min¬
utes.
IN DEFENSE OF HIS RACE.
New York Times: Rev. Dr. C. T. Walker
addressed an enthusiastic meeting which
crowded Carnegie Hall to the doors. He spoke
in defense of his race and in reply to W.
Burke Cochran and other speakers at the re¬
cent Montgomery Conference and to the Rev.
Henry Frank, who assailed the negro race at
Carnegie Hall a week ago.
AN APPEAL TO C^SAR 31
DR. WALKER DEFENDS HIS RACE.
New York Tribune: In the beginning he
likened the case of the negro in his appeal for
deliverance from prejudice to the people of the
Apostle Paul in their supplication to Csesar.
With fine sarcasm he asked that every one join
in singing "America." "The colored man has
a right to sing 'America,' " he said, "and I
want you to feel perfectly at home when you
do."
New York Press: There wa; a great gath¬
ering of negroes in Carnegie Hall last night,
and a few hundred white people, to hear Rev.
Dr. C. T. Walker, pastor of Mt. Olivet Bap¬
tist Church, reply to W. Burke Cochran, the
Rev. Henry Frank and other speakers, who re¬
cently asserted the negro race should not have
the right to vote. Dr. Walker at times brought
his hearers to a high pitch of excitement. He
said he would speak for a people born in tribu¬
lation and disciplined in slavery; opposed and
persecuted by some of the brightest minds and
defended by some of the ablest.
Nezv York Herald: Dr. Walker declares
that only a second baptism of blood can remove
the Fifteenth Amendment. A tumult of appro¬
bation followed which lasted ten minutes.
New York Evening Post: The great meet¬
ing of colored people that took place at Carne¬
gie Hall last night deserves more than passing
attention. This was no ordinary religious
gathering; it was an uprising of citizens whose
AN APPEAL TO CAESAR
Fifteenth Amendment is a Magna Charta.
The Rev. Dr. Walker declared that this amend¬
ment was placed in the Constitution after the
nation had been baptized in blood, and that it
would require a second baptism of blood to re¬
move it. This statement was received with the
greatest possible enthusiasm by the audience.
Their applause showed how deeply the people
of the colored race feel the contempt with
which it is now almost the fashion to speak of
them. They are of a race " greatly misrepre¬
sented, despised, oppressed, and hated." Its
members are harried and lynched, excluded
from most of the trades and professions, and
very generally deprived of the rights of citizen¬
ship. Nevertheless, they are citizens, and if
they are treated fairly, capable of being good
citizens. It is sad indeed that there should still
be occasion to hold a meeting to protest against
injustice to the negroes; but we congratulate
those who attended this meeting on their spir¬
ited assertion of their rights as men and as
citizens, and on the vigorous and eloquent pre¬
sentation of their cause by one of their own
clergy. We hear much nowadays of " inferior
races "; but the spirit of liberty and humanity
knows no such distinctions. The Fifteenth
Amendment, with its prohibition of discrimina¬
tion against men because of their " race, color,
or previous condition of servitude," may be
inconsistent with the policy adopted by our
Government towards the Filipinos! but that is
a reason for abandoning our policy, and not
our principles.