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Francis J. Grimke.  “The Race Problem As it Respects the Colored People and the Christian Church, in the Light of the Developments of the Last Year,” November 27, 1919.

Occasion: Sermon given for Thanksgiving Day Service at Plymouth Congregational Church, in Washington DC.

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The Race Problem As it Respects the Colored People and the Christian Church, in the Light of the Developments of the Last Year

1

Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name;

Make known among the peoples His doings.—Psalm 105:1

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We have met here today, in compliance with the request of the President of the United States, to render thanks to Almighty God.  That this service may be something more than a mere formality there must be something to be thankful for, and that something we must be conscious of, and conscious that we are in some sense beneficiaries.  We naturally ask, therefore, in a service like this, “What is there, in the year that has just passed, to be thankful for?”

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I.  This question may be asked of us as a Nation.  In attempting to answer it, I am going to mention only a few of the many things for which we should be thankful:

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(1).  We should be thankful that the blood war, which for more than four years convulsed the world, and into which we were drawn, is now over.  The two great opposing forces, the Allies and the Central Empires, are no longer marshalling their forces, one against the other.  Things are not fully settled yet, it is true; the world is still topsy-turvy, everything is in a state of unrest; everywhere agitation in some form is going on, with no certainty as what the ultimate outcome is going to be.  But the great war precipitated by Germany’s senseless ambition for world domination, as such, is over—over, certainly for the present.  And when we remember what its continuance for another year would have meant in blood and treasure, it is certainly a ground for national thanksgiving that the whole horrible business is over.

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(2).  We ought to be thankful also that our casualty list, due to the fact that we went late into the conflict, is much smaller than some of the other nations, certainly smaller than that of France, England, Italy, or Russia.  Of the seven millions who perished, some were Americans, it is true, but not as many as of the nations that I have just mentioned.  There are, in our own land, many, many homes draped in mourning; many, many sad hearts who said good-bye to loved ones as they started for the battle fields of Europe, who will never see their loved ones again in this life.  All that is mortal of them is now resting in the sacred, blood-stained soil of France.  It is sad to think of these desolate homes and hearts in our own land; but how many, many more there are in other lands, caused by the same great calamity.  That there are not more of these desolate homes among us is certainly a ground of national thanksgiving.  There might have been a great many more.  

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(3).  We ought to be thankful also, for another aspect of the same subject, for the large number of homes that have been made glad by the return of their loved ones—some of them badly maimed, it is true, but so many of them unhurt, and apparently in better physical condition than when they went abroad.  The discipline of the army seemed to have rendered them more rugged, to have given them a more vigorous grip upon life.  During this last year, during the last few months, how many have been made glad—fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, sweethearts, friends, by the return of their loved ones.

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(4).  We ought to be thankful also that we were enabled to render some substantial aid in arresting, and for the time being at least, overthrowing the effort on the part of Germany to fasten upon the world its iron heel of military autocracy.  There are grave reasons to doubt whether the Allies, unassisted by the United States, could have overthrown Germany.  The indications were when we entered the war that the Allies were very near exhausted, and that without aid from over this side of the water they would not have been able to hold out much longer.  And while that may have been also true of the Central Powers, without our aid, even if the contest had ended in a drawn battle, the principle underlying the great struggle would still have been unsettled, the conflict between autocracy and democracy.  Our going into it threw the balance in favor of democracy.  And for this we ought to be thankful.  If we had stayed out and allowed the nations of Europe to wage the great war alone, it would have been to our everlasting shame—conduct utterly unworthy of our traditions, of our avowed principles, and of our boast of being the great champion of democracy, though in perfect accord with our practice, as seen in the treatment which we accord to our twelve million colored citizens.

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II.  Leaving now the thought of the Nation as a whole: we are here also, not only as American citizens, but as colored American citizens—as citizens, and yet not citizens—citizens with rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution, but with those rights but very imperfectly recognized.  On an occasion like this, it is well for us, therefore, to ask ourselves the question, What reason or reasons have we, as an oppressed, aggrieved, circumscribed class in this country, in the midst of this great white population, to be thankful during the past year?  Are there any reasons, any things as a race, in the events or happenings of the last year, for which we should be thankful?

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Not withstanding many discouragements that meet us almost everywhere and every day; notwithstanding lynchings the crowning glory of American democracy, still goes on unchecked; notwithstanding race prejudice has grown and is growing with a rapidity unparalleled before, not only in the wide extent of it over the country, but also in its virulence; notwithstanding there is no abatement of segregation in the departments of the general Government under the, shall I say, humane and Christian leadership of our good President who has been so awfully afraid that the heart of the world will be broken if something wasn’t done pretty soon for the oppressed millions in other lands; notwithstanding the race riots that have disgraced the land; notwithstanding, I say, these discouragements and others, there are, in the midst of the gloom and darkness, some things for which we should be thankful.

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And among them:

(a).  The evidences of a growing sense, within the race, that it has rights under the Constitution, and of the value and importance of those rights in a republic like this.  There was a time when there was a disposition even on the part of some of our leaders to pooh-pooh the ideas of our rights: that, it was said, if we concerned ourselves about our duties, our rights would take care of themselves: that when we were worthy of them, they would come to us unsolicited.  Thank God that time has passed.  Nobody now with a particle of sense or self-respect talks such nonsense.  As a race we are not insensible of our duties, nor are we averse to the consideration of our duties.  I think the colored man is about as anxious to do his duty as the white man is: neither of them seems to be overburdened with a sense of what Carlyle calls everlasting yea, and the everlasting nay—with a sense of the binding force of moral obligation.  It is well for both races to give attention, and very close attention, to what each ought to do, to be ever looking out for, and to be ever pursuing, the straight and narrow way of what is true, just, pure, lovely and of good report.

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No one attaches greater importance to the idea of duty than I do.  For years I have loved, as I have loved few poems in the English language, and have read almost oftener than I have any other, Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty”:

“Stern Daughter of the voice of God!

O Duty! If that name thou love

Who are a light to guide, a rod

To check the erring, and reprove:

Thou, who are victory and law

When empty terrors overawe:

From vain temptations dost set free;

And calm’s the weary strife of frail humanity.”

So have I also for years admired Tennyson’s noble lines to the great Duke, “The path of duty is the way to glory.”

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While it important for us as individuals and as a race to keep steadily before us the path of duty, turning neither to the right nor to the left: it is no less important that we should keep also just as steadily before us, what our rights are, which means simply that we shall not lose sight of the fact that we are human beings and American citizens, and that as such we are entitled to be treated in a certain way—to enjoy the same rights, the same privileges, that other citizens enjoy, to be accorded the same considerations, neither more nor less than are accorded to others.  A man, white or black, living in a community, who is unconcerned about his rights, who doesn’t are how he is treated, is lacking in self-respect, and is worthy of no better treatment than he is sure to get.  A man who doesn’t respect himself can hardly expect others to respect him.  And therefore this matter of rights is a vital one, not only to the individual, but to the race.  There can be no falling down here, no quiet acquiescence in the deprivation of our rights without serious injury to the race in its character building, and in its efforts to forge forward.  We must not forget, both for ourselves and for the sake of the white race, that we have rights: that as American citizens we are entitled to the same treatment as other citizens.  Never mind who preaches another gospel, this is the gospel we must never forget.  And, one of the encouraging things of the year—one of the things which we should be particularly thankful, is the manifest growth of sentiment in this respect within the race.  No previous year, it seems to me, has shown such a decided advance in the race’s consciousness of what it is entitled to as a part of the body politic, as a part of the community.  Heretofore there has been among the leaders, among the radical leaders, a vivid consciousness of the fact that we were not getting what we are entitled to as men, and as American citizens.  And this group has been steadily growing, so that there are more colored newspapers and more prominent colored people speaking out today in behalf of our rights than ever before.  The truckler, the time-serving type of leaders is growing steadily less, and the other, the manly, self-respecting type, is growing steadily larger and larger, for which we should be thankful.  The point, particularly, however, to which I am calling attention is as to the growth of this sentiment among the masses of the colored people.  More interest has been manifested by a larger number of colored people, covering a larger area of territory, than in any previous year that I can recall.  Never before has there been such a wide-spread interest on the part of the race as a whole in regard to its rights.  There are more colored people thinking about their rights today than ever before.  They are alive, wide awake, as never before: are not only interested in their rights as never before, but back of their interest there is a purpose, a resolute determination that is also new, and that will some day have to be reckoned with.  Any one who is at all in touch with Negro thought and sentiment, with what is going on among the colored people all over the country, cannot fail to be impressed with the fact that this matter of their rights is gripping them now as never before in all their past history.  You see it in the large numbers of organizations that are coming into being, whose specific object is the securing of our rights and the increased activity of those already in existence; you see it in the number of meetings that are being held with this object in view; you see it in the nature of the declarations that are made at great public gatherings and by organizations of one kind or another, even where they are not specifically organized for securing our rights.  Thus in the great meeting of the Colored Knights of Pythias at Atlantic City in August, the head of that organization, Major General Robert R. Jackson, in an address which he delivered before that body said: “Dollars or other material gains count for little compared to the realization of our sacred constitutional rights in the mighty struggle in which we, a suffering people, now are enlisted.  This is no common task.  It is a gigantic struggle and should be accepted by all.”

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How different that sounds from what used to be said years ago.  The emphasis then used to be laid on material things, on the getting of arms and bank accounts as of paramount importance.  Now, what do we hear? “Dollars and other material gains count for little compared to the realization of our scared constitutional rights.”  And that he says is true.  Of what value are material gains if we can be shot down, murdered, burnt to death, our property destroyed with impunity?  The founds of our great Republic saw very clearly the place which rights should occupy and the importance of keeping the though ever in mind, for they placed in the Declaration of Independence the immortal statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  Material gains certainly counted for but little with the founders of the Republic without the enjoyment of rights.  And yet some of us are fools enough to decry agitation for our rights.  Did I say fools?  Yes, that is the only word that expresses it.

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Continuing, the speaker at the Atlantic City meeting goes on: “Let me say to the world that the twelve million people of our race kept the fires of Americanism burning.  Let us keep them burning until we burn up every Jim Crow sign and every Jim Crow car in this country.”  And that is the way every manly, self respecting Negro feels.

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This extract that I have given from Gen. Jackson’s address is but a sample of how the colored people are speaking and thinking today, but a sample of what is going on to an extent never before equaled.  And for it, I say, we ought to be thankful to Almighty God.  And thankful because it is one of the hopeful signs of a better day.  And it is hopeful because whatever may be said about patiently waiting for our oppressors of their own volition to give us our rights, the simple fact is, a fact confirmed by all experience, as long as we ourselves are willing to be deprived of our rights; as long as we ourselves are inactive in securing our rights, as long as we ourselves are not thoroughly alive to the value and importance of these rights, we will never get them.  The more we ourselves are interested in securing them, the sooner they will come.  Don’t let us fool ourselves here; don’t let us imagine for a moment that our rights are going to be secured in any other way expect through our own exertions, assisted, or course, by our white friends, but principally through our own efforts.  We must bear the burden mainly, and must feel most keenly that responsibility of bringing it about, if the obstacles that now bar our way are to be removed.  Our white friends have been of great service to us, and can still be; but we must, in ever increasing measure, come to realize that the more we rely upon ourselves the stronger we will become, and the sooner will we reach the goal.  This widespread and ever-increasing interest in our rights, civil and political, is therefore a most hopeful sign, and one that should bring joy to all of our hearts.  This kind of thing can’t be going on as it has been going on for the past year, within the race, without producing some very positive results, and results not unfavorable to the race.  When the white man comes to realize that the Negro is a man just as he is, having the same capacities, the same desires, the same aspiration, the same desire to be respected as he has; and that what he under like conditions, would not be willing to submit to, the Negro is not going permanently to submit to, he will see the folly of attempting to proscribe him, to segregate him, to set him apart in a sphere by himself, and so stop his foolish, senseless, wicked opposition.

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(2).  Side by side with this growing interest, on the part of the race in securing its rights, there is another thing for which we should also be thankful as we think of the developments of the last year; and that is the evident purpose of the race, which has never before so clearly revealed itself as during the past few months, no longer to accept quietly, no longer to submit quietly to the acts of violence that a certain class of whites have felt free to inflict upon them, knowing that those in authority would never call them to account, and because of their numbers there would be no danger of being hurt by the victim or victims of their violence.  Thank God that time has passed!  The Negro has come at last, after years of patient suffering; after years of patient waiting for the civil authorities, both state and national, to throw around him the strong arm of official protection, to the realization of the fact, that there is such a thing as self-protection—a right, inherent in every human being, a right, God-given, God conferred, and a right to be exercised when there is no other way of escaping the danger which threatens.  This law of nature, by circumstances, over which he has had no control, has been forced upon his attention as his last and only refuge in the midst of a set of savages.  And he has now made up his mind, and that mind is becoming more and more the mind of an ever-increasing number of the race, that since this great white race with all the machinery of government in its hands will not protect him, he will protect himself.  Notice what I am saying.  PROTECT himself.  It is not his purpose to become the aggressor; but when he is assaulted it is no longer his purpose to fold his arms and allow the mob to shoot him down, to burn his home, and destroy his property; he is going to do what he can to protect himself and family, even though he may lose his own life in so doing.  Even where a Negro commits an offense, the most heinous, he has a right to the protection of the law—a right to be tried and his guilt established according to the forms of law, and, if found guilty, to be punished by those who are officially entrusted with the execution of the law, and not by irresponsible mobs. 

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This new spirit that is taking possession of the Negro is very clearly and forcibly brought out by Claude McKay, one of the real poets of the race, in a little poem of his, entitled, “If We Must Die.”  It was published in the July number of the Liberator, and is as follows:

If we must die—let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot.

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs.

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain: then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead

Oh, kinsmen!  We must meet the common foe:

Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave.

And for their thousand blows deal on death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave!

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but—fighting back

There is no mistaking the spirit reflected in this poem that comes straight from the heart.  It has been a long time coming, but it has come at last, as is evident from all the recent race riots.

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In an article, written by Mr. Charles Edward Russell, on the Chicago race riot, in the October number of Reconstruction, I was particularly struck with this paragraph:  “Throughout the disturbances it was noted that the Negroes did not run.  They were expected to run, but did not.  They stood and fought, often with astonishingly cool and desperate courage.”  In the November issue of the Crisis I find also these words, part of a letter written by a colored woman from the South:   “A week ago an old friend of mine whom I had not seen for twenty years came to see me.  After talking of old school days and friends, both of us asking and answering many questions, my friend asked, ‘And what did you think of the Washington and Chicago riots?’  “When I had answered that question, she said ‘I wish you would send that answer to the Crisis, just as you have told it to me, so that our men may know how we women have felt and how we feel now.  “I said this: ‘The Washington riot gave me the thrill that comes once in a lifetime.  I was alone when I read between the lines of the morning paper that at last our men had stood like men, struck back, were no longer dumb, driven cattle.  When I could no longer read for my streaming tears, I stood up, alone in my room, held both hands high over my head and exclaimed aloud, ‘Oh, I thank God, thank God!’  When I remembered anything after this, I was prone on my bed, beating the pillow with both fists, laughing and crying, whimpering like a whipped child, for sheer gladness and madness.  The pent-up humiliation, grief and horror of a lifetime—half a century—was being stripped from me.’”

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The Negro is no longer running as he used to do.  A new spirit is taking possession of him.  He is now standing; and will stand in his own defense in the future.  And the men are not standing alone, the women are back of them.

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This change in his mental and moral attitude towards his assailants is, I say, a ground for thanksgiving; and for the simple reason, when the white man gets firmly fixed in his mind, as he will after a few sad experiences, that the Negro is not going to run, but is going to defend himself, there won’t be so many lynchings; there will be a growing disposition to allow the law to take its course, to act like civilized beings, and not like savages.  These men who go in crowds to lynch a lone Negro are all cowards.  Not one of them would go if he thought there was any danger of his being harmed, or of his losing his life.  The firm resolve on the part of the Negro to protect himself is the only way now, so far as I can see, that seems to offer any hope of checking this spirit of lawlessness that is rampant in the South, and that is steadily spreading all over the country.  The United States Government, as well as the State governments, have no wish to suppress such outrages, judging from the mild, the pusillanimous manner in which they deal with them, or else they are powerless to do so, which is not true.  It is not from lack of power, but from lack of disposition on the part of most of the public officials, as well as of the people who are responsible for the election of and continuance of such officials.  When lynchings become so dangerous that those who take part in them can hardly hope to escape unscathed, there will be less disposition to engage in them.  The Negro ought therefore to be encouraged, as long as the State is powerless to protect him, or is unwilling to protect him, to protect himself not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of the community; for a spirit of lawlessness is a disgrace to any community.  And whatever helps to prevent that disgrace or to restore ordered government in the community is or ought to be a ground for thanksgiving.  We ought to rejoice therefore because of this new force which is now coming into play, in what has hitherto seemed a hopeless situation.

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(3).  There is still one other thing that I want to mention in the events of the past year for which, as a race, we ought to be thankful: I refer to the appeal that has been sent out by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America.

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Much time, we are told, was given to a full and free discussion of the racial situation, out of which came this address, which represents, we are told, “the thought of these leaders, and the deliberative judgment of the Administrative Committee of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America.”  This Federal Council of Churches represents practically all of the Protestant churches in the United States and therefore the great bulk of white Christians.

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I want to quote a few paragraphs from this address and then follow with some observations on the address as a whole.  It begins: “The recent race conflicts in some of our cities challenge the attention of the Churches of Jesus Christ to their responsibility respecting an amicable adjustment of race relations in America.

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“The present situation is a challenge to the churches charge with the promotion of the brotherhood of man, which look upon all men as entitled to a footing of equality of opportunity.  This calls for preaching the duty of economic and community justice for the colored man, thus securing peace and good will between the races.  Beyond all else the present situation calls for confession on the part of Christian men and women of failure to live up to the standard of universal brotherhood taught by Jesus Christ.    

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“The actual practice of the principles of brotherhood can prevent race conflicts and nothing else will.  The Church must offer ideals, the program and the leadership in this crisis.  The Church must meet its obligation, or leadership will pass not only to secular agencies, economic or socialistic, but to forces that are destructive of civilization.”

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The simple fact is, it is already passing to forces that are destructive of civilization.  These forces and agencies have been actively at work, while the Church has been looking idly on.

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The address continues: “We must confess that the church and its ministry, as related to the welfare of the colored people, has been too little inspired by the fundamental principles and ideals of Jesus Christ.  Communities that have expressed horror over atrocities abroad, have seen, almost unmoved and silent, men, beaten, hanged and burned by the mob.”

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It then goes on to outline a program embracing some eight different items, all of which are important, and which, if carried out, will result in great good, in bettering immensely, present conditions.  I am not going to stop, however, to discuss this very excellent programme, to take up the separate items embraced in it.  Time will not permit.  There are one or two things in regard to it, however, to which I do desire at this time to direct attention as especially significant, and as forming a ground for thanksgiving on our part, as a race.

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(1).  This address, coming as it does from the representatives of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, shows that the so-called Christian church in this country, that white American Christianity, has at least awakened to a realization of the fact that the religion of Jesus Christ has something to do with this race question in this country.  It has been so difficult, difficult to get our white brethren to see that it had.  For years I have been hammering away at it, endeavoring in every possible way to arouse them from their stupor, from their insensibility, their blindness, on this matter.  I have spoken on it; I have written on it; I have sent articles to religious journals on it; I have published tracts and circulated them on it, all with this end in view.  The very first time Rev. Billy Sunday was announced to visit our city, before he began his revival campaign here, I wrote him; I said to him, “I notice you are to be in our city.  Race prejudice is rampant in this city; if flaunts itself everywhere.  Has Christianity no message on the subject?  Is this evil, this ever-growing evil that is doing almost more than anything else to destroy the self-respect and to increase the burdens of ten millions of colored people in this country, to go unrebuked by the representatives of religion?  Will you not say a word on the subject while you are in our midst? I notice that you have been striking with sledge-hammer blows some of the great evils of today—intemperance, impurity, gambling, the lust for gold, frivolity, political corruption, the tobacco habit, and the like.  Will it be asking too much of you to turn for a moment to this gigantic evil.  RACE PREJUDICE, and deal it also one of those sledge-hammer blows?  It is difficult to get anyone to speak on the subject.  All seem to be afraid.”

30

After the close of a great BIBLE CONFERENCE in our city, the purpose of which was to magnify the Bible and Christianity, at which there were several distinguished men, not only from our own country, but from abroad, I wrote an article to the New York Independent, which, however, was not published; it was after that intrepid leader and tried friend of the race, Dr. William Hayes Ward, ceased to be connected with the paper.  It was afterwards published in tract form and widely circulated.  In that article, among other things I said: “The colored people here, after such a conference, after such a flood of light upon the Word of God from so many eminent preachers and teachers, ought to see the effect of it in lessening race prejudice, in creating a more friendly feeling towards them; but it will have no such effect.  Race prejudice will be just as strong, just as pronounced and aggressive in the community and in the churches as before.  The wonderful enthusiasm with which these meetings were attended, in view of the little effect which they will have upon the moral and spiritual life of the community, makes them seem almost like a farce.  The best way to teach people the value of the Bible and of Christianity is not by holding Bible conferences, but by living the truths of the Bible, by exemplifying the spirit of its Founder.  The cause of Christianity and of the Bible is not to be helped by verbal eulogies, but by eloquent examples of Christly living.

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Of what value is a Bible conference in a community, cursed by race prejudice, that begins and closes with not one word on the subject?  If it were a little evil, hid out of sight, scarcely perceptible, there might be some excuse; but when it stinks to heaven, when it flaunts itself everywhere, when the very churches are full of it, what possible excuse can there be for silence?  Think of a Bible conference aiming to magnify the Bible and Christianity, and yet afraid to deal with one of the greatest evils in the land today!  Instead of magnifying the Bible and Christianity, it is the best way to bring them into contempt.  The whole thing looks like a sham, a make-believe effort with no real, earnest, honest purpose of carrying out the principles of Christianity.  We need everywhere, not Bible conferences that will pass over in silence a sin like race prejudice, but Bible conferences that will lift up a standard for the people; that will cry aloud and spar not.

32

Only last summer, in an article on the race riots, that was published in The Evening Bulletin at Philadelphia, I said: “The thing that astonishes me most is that this vile treatment of colored people goes on, and goes on unchecked, in democratic and Christian America.  What becomes of our boast of making the world safe for democracy?  Where are the forty million professing Christians in this land?  The so-called Christian Church, that ought to have the greatest influence in molding public sentiment in the right direction; that ought too be the greatest militant force against evil (and what greater evil is there than race prejudice?) is resting on its arms, is doing nothing, or comparatively nothing to arrest the evil and to lift up the true standard of brotherhood.  We talk about sending missionaries abroad to convert the heathen, where is there in all the world a greater field for Christian missionaries of the right stamp than here in these United States?  If every church in this land could be made a missionary center, as it should be, and every minister and Sunday school teacher and church official would become real missionaries after the pattern of Jesus Christ, for one year only, I cannot help feeling that there would be a decided change for the better all over the land.  The trouble is the church itself is in the grip of this awful race-hating spirit, and unfortunately, and to its shame, is doing little or nothing to counteract this evil, but is throwing the weight of its influence rather in favor of it.”

33

And so I might go on, filling page after page with things that I have been saying on the subject for years.  And resulting in what?  In simply getting myself written down by the whites as a fanatic, as a man who is clamoring for social equality, as a pessimist, as one who is all the time looking on the dark side.  I received a letter once from a man by the name of the Rev. Sol. C. Dickey, D.D., the leading spirit in Winona Park, a great religious center in the West, in which he said: “I wish you would let me know what you consider the Negro problem, and if you really insist on social equality, by which is meant inter-marriage of the races.”  My reply to him, in part, was: “Why do you ask me that Question?  Have you ever seen any statement of mine, in any shape or form, intimating in any way that such a though was even remotely in my mind?  Instead of facing the issue squarely that is involved in this so-called Negro question, and handling it fearlessly in the light of Christian principles, the whole tendency is to evade the question, to dodge the issue, as you are doing by mixing it up with the matter of social equality and the inter-marriage of the races.  A Christian man ought to be ashamed to deal with a great issue like this in the pusillanimous spirit in which you are attempting to deal with it.  Isn’t it time to end this pitiable exhibition of weakness and cowardice?”  I never heard from him afterwards.

34

There used to be a man connected with Howard University—he may still be connected with it—in many respects a very good man, who after reading one of my tracts (it was handed to him by one of the colored professors), said, “Grimke used to be a very nice fellow, but he seems in these late years to have gotten soured for some reason.”  Instead of weighing carefully what I was saying in the tract which he read, in dealing with the subject of race prejudice, all that he could see in it was that I was getting soured, which simply meant that I didn’t see things as he saw them, which simply meant that the prejudice against which I was complaining and which I asserted was contrary to Christian principle, to the spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ, he didn’t object to, nor did he see any inconsistency between it and the principles of the Christianity in which he believed.

35

And that, unfortunately, has been the attitude of the so-called Christian Church all along.  Its record on the race question has been anything but creditable to it.  The weight of its great influence has been steadily thrown in favor of race discrimination.  It has never attempted in any serious way to register its disapproval.  Its representatives in the pulpits of the land have, mostly, been silent on the subject.  The whole matter of the relation of the races has been ignored by the church, or treated as a matter with which Christianity had no necessary connection.  So that the intolerable treatment to which colored people are subjected, the humiliating and debasing discriminations have not only gone on unrebuked by the church, but among those who practice these discriminations, who are guilty of these meanness, are to be found in large numbers, members of Christian churches.  And where they are not, they are rarely or never rebuked by those who are church members about them.  The simple fact is the masses of so-called Christian people are the very ones who are the guilty parties, or who quietly acquiesce in what others are doing, and so are, in a measure, responsible for conditions as they at present exist, and have existed for a long time.

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And this has arisen from the fact that the Church has never seriously sought to guide the people aright in this matter, to give them the proper instruction, from the pulpit and in the Sabbath school in the great principle of brotherhood, in the proper relation that should exist between man and man, regardless of race or color.  It has simply been afraid to touch the subject, and because of its cowardice, its unfaithfulness to the plain teaching of the Word of God, it more than any other single agency, is responsible for present conditions, for the unfortunate race relations now existing in this country and which has now reached such a crisis that something will have to be done.

37

Such has been its past record; but now what do I see?  If I may judge from the tenor of this address, sent out by representative of practically the whole of white Protestant Christianity in this country, it looks as if the scales are really beginning at last to fall from the eyes of the church; and that it means, in the future, to be true to its great mission as the representative of Jesus Christ on the earth; as the fearless and uncompromising exponent of Christian principles and ideals; as the living representative of a brotherhood that knows no man by the color of his skin, or by his race identity.  It looks that way, I say; that is what it seems to mean.

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And, if that is what it really means; if this noble declaration of principle is to be followed by a campaign of education, begun at once, and carried on in all the churches, in all the Sabbath schools, in all the endeavor societies, in all the homes, represented in all these churches included in the Federal Council of Churches in America, in every city, town, hamlet, village, and rural district, with a view of realizing in the actual every-day life of the people the principles and ideals of Christianity set forth in this address, then is there not only reason for us as a race to rejoice, but a ground of rejoicing and thanksgiving for all, white as well as black.  A great organization like the Christian Church cannot address itself seriously to the solution of any problem without bettering conditions.  It is the best, the most fitting instrument to deal with this race problem, as with every other problem, if it will only be true, and true always to Christian ideals and principles, giving itself no concern as to results.  Whatever the results may be, whatever consequences may flow from loyalty to the spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ, will always be in the line of progress, will always be to the best interest of the individual and of the community.  All it needs to be concerned about, if it is to fulfill its high mission as the light of the world, as the salt of the earth, is to see to it that it turns a deaf ear to every other voice except the voice of God, and that it goes forward fearlessly, courageously under its direction.  And, it looks, as I have said, as if this is about what it has made up its mind to do.

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In reading recently Dr. Cornelius II. Patton’s admirable volume, World Facts and America’s Responsibility, I was very much impressed, deeply touched, by a paragraph which occurs in the chapter entitled, “The East and the West Fight for a Common Cause.”  This is the paragraph: “Nothing that came out of France is more reassuring than that extract from a letter of an American Negro soldier to his mother at home, which caught the eye of a thoughtful censor and so was given to the public.  What he said was this: ‘I tell you, mammy, they treat us fine.  There’s plenty of fighting, but we’s jest as good as anybody else.  We don’t ever know we’s black unless we look in the glass.’  Still better is this incident from our own Southland.  In a certain aristocratic home of the South when the colored houseboy entered the Army, in recognition of the event, the lady of the house hung a service flag in the kitchen window, having previously hanging a service flag in the parlor window in honor of her son’s enlistment.  Later the son returned home and inquired what the flag in the kitchen meant.  When he was told that it stood for Jim, their servant, he said, ‘Mother, no service flag shall hang in the kitchen of this house.  Jim and I are fighting side by side in this war.’  And, taking the colored servant’s flag, he placed it in the parlor window beside his own.”

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After I had finished reading these lines I said to myself, that is just as it should be.  As that American Negro soldier and his comrades were treated fine by the French people; as they were made to feel that they were as good as anybody else; as they were never made conscious of the color of their skins, so ought it be in this country.  Every American citizen, white or black, ought to be made to feel, and would be made to feel, if America lived up to its professed democratic principles, the same sense of equality as every French citizen feels, white or black, with nothing in any part of the French Republic to remind them of anything different.

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And so the spirit exhibited by this white southern aristocrat in refusing to permit a distinction to be drawn between himself and the colored man who had been a servant in his family, since they were both American citizens, and were both fighting side by side under the same flag, is the new spirit that must take the place of the old Bourbon spirit represented by his mother.  Under the flag there must be no distinction between citizens, based on race or color.  Men who fight side by side under the same flag, and upon whom the same duties and responsibilities are imposed, there never can be any good or sufficient reason why the one should be accorded rights, privileges not accorded to the other.  Duties and responsibilities of citizens cannot be made the same, without according to each the same rights and privileges, except by an act of injustice, by the exercise of arbitrary and despotic power.

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These two incidents clearly indicate what the problem is which confronts us in this country in dealing with this race question.  And, if the Church is worth its salt; if it means business; if these declarations, as embodied in this address to the country, are not mere camouflage, but the expression of a real earnest purpose on its forth in the life, character and teachings of Jesus Christ, in the course of time there is bound to be a decided change for the better.  There would have been a change long ago for the better if the Church had done its duty, if it had not, in so many respects, played false to its great Head and to its avowed principles.  But I must stop.  I have spoken quite long enough.

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We can all; I am sure, not only as American citizens, but as colored Americans, life up our hearts today in gratitude to God.  We thank Him, that the great war is over; we thank Him that so few of our soldiers, as compared with other countries, perished during the great conflict; we thank Him for the many homes in our land that have been made glad by the return of loved ones out of the blood and smoke of battle; we thank Him for the part which as a nation, we were permitted to play in the momentous struggle between autocracy and democracy in the great world contest.

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And we thank Him also and especially for the clear and unmistakable evidences of a growing, ever-deepening interest of the race in its rights—in the estimate it puts upon them; we thank Him for the new spirit that is taking possession of the race—the spirit that is no longer running away from its assailants, but is now standing in its own defense, since the law is powerless to defend it, or is unwilling to do so; we thank Him that the so-called Christian Church in this land is at last awaking to a sense of its shortcomings, and of its responsibilities in properly expounding and in worthily living out the principles of Christianity.  For all these things we thank Him.

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And, as a race, in the future as in the past, as an expression of our gratitude to Him, let us resolve to continue unfalteringly to trust Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, remembering, never forgetting the great truth,

            “Except the Lord build the house,

            They labor in vain that build it;

            Except the Lord keep the city,

            The watchmen waketh but in vain.

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Whatever other races may do, or other individuals may do, let us make up our minds that we will serve the Lord, and that we will train our children to do the same.  Linked with God; yielding ourselves in loving obedience to God, the gates of hell, all the powers of darkness, in high places as well as low places, will not be able to prevail against us; we will still be pressing on the upward way, as we have been doing ever since Lincoln’s great Emancipation Proclamation was issued and the three great war amendments to the Constitution were ratified.

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Let us be thankful; let us be ever praising the Lord!