Posted on 09/07/2005 7:46:48 AM PDT by Sam Cree
"...The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! [Applause.] If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone,--your interference is doing him a positive injury. Gen. Banks’ "preparation" is of a piece with this attempt to prop up the Negro. Let him fall if he cannot stand alone! If the Negro cannot live by the line of eternal justice, so beautifully pictured to you in the illustration used by Mr. Phillips, the fault will not be yours, it will be his who made the Negro, and established that line for his government. [Applause.] Let him live or die by that. If you will only untie his hands, and give him a chance, I think he will live..."
I hadn't heard the term before, now trying to figure out a good place to use it ;-)
Thank you Lyndon Baynes Johnson for your powerful contribution to this effort! Only problem is, you are with the Lord now and votes don't count anymore!
You won't hear them mention Booker T. Washington either.
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public.Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."
I actually watched the Malcolm X movie. There was one great scene. Some lilly-white liberal college girl goes up to Malcolm and asks "is there anything I can do to help your cause?" To which, Malcolm simply replied, "No!"
The thing that really gets me about that Douglass speech is that what he was asking for the black man is pretty much the premise of the founding of the United States, that men would be left alone by government. That idea doesn't seem to be accepted very universally anymore, not even here on FR.
I wouldn't be so sure of that.
Exactly, as well they should be. What a wonderful post this is.
I use to live in Maryland and correct me if I am wrong but I believe there is a statue in the honor of Douglass at Salisbury, MD outside the courthouse with other great people prominent during the Civil War.
"While a majority do indeed stand on their own two feet, a too large minority want a free lunch and more."
I want you to re-read your own words for clarity.
Then I want you to consider who it was, exactly, that annointed Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and the NAACP as the official racial "spokesmen" for black USA citizens.
I am a white female.
Do you assume I agree with anything Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton "spews" because I am a white female?
Should I assume all and only fat, slovenly white males agree with Michael Moore?
You really think he's with the Lord? Hmmmm.
How true. What's good for the GOP takes precedence over what's good for the individual.
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