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NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, 1967-1970

1968-09-13 Newsletter, Fort Madison Branch of the NAACP Page 3

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according to the suggestion of expediency, Brethren, adieu! Trust in the living God. Labor for the peace of the human race, and remember that you are Four Million.


From a letter written to Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist by Frederick Douglas 1849

"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progree of human liberty shows that all concessions, yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom; and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the mighty roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted in the North, and held and flogged at the South, so long as they submit to these devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral and physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives, and by the lives of others. "

From a speech delivered in Boston by Dr. John S. Rock, a Boston Physician and Lawyer and the first black attorney admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court - in 1858

"... I would have you understand, that I not only love my race, but am pleased with my color; and while many colored persons may feel degraded by being called Negroes, and wished to be classed among other races more favored, I shall feel it my duty, my pleasure and my pride, to concentrate my feeble efforts in elevating to a fair position a race to which I am especially identified by feelings and blood... In this country, where money is the great sympathetic nerve which ramifies society, and has a ganglia in every man's pocket, a man is respected in proportion to his success in business. When the avenues to wealth are opened to us, we will then become educated and wealthy, and then the roughest looking colored man that you ever saw, or ever will see, will be pleasanter than the harmonies or Orpheus, and black will be a very pretty color. It will make our jargon, wit - our words oracle flattery will then take the place of slander, and you will find no prejudice in the Yankee whatever. We do not expect to occupy a much better position than we now do, until we shall have our educated and wealthy men, who can wield a power that cannot be misunderstood. Then, and not till then, will the tongue of slander be silenced, and the lip of prejudice be sealed. Then, and not till then. will we be able to enjoy true equality, which can exist only among peers. "

From a speech delivered by John E. Bruce, a journalist in 1889

" ... I fully realize the delicacy of the position I occupy in this discussion and know too well that those who are to follow me will largely benefit by what I shall have to say in respect to the application of force as one of the means to the solution of the problem known as the Negro problem. I am not unmindful of the fact that there are those living who have faith in the efficacy of submission, who are

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-3- according to the suggestion of expediency, Brethren, adieu! Trust in the living God. Labor for the peace of the human race, and remember that you are Four Million. From a letter written to Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist by Frederick Douglas 1849 "Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progree of human liberty shows that all concessions, yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom; and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the mighty roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted in the North, and held and flogged at the South, so long as they submit to these devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral and physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives, and by the lives of others. " From a speech delivered in Boston by Dr. John S. Rock, a Boston Physician and Lawyer and the first black attorney admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court - in 1858 "... I would have you understand, that I not only love my race, but am pleased with my color; and while many colored persons may feel degraded by being called Negroes, and wished to be classed among other races more favored, I shall feel it my duty, my pleasure and my pride, to concentrate my feeble efforts in elevating to a fair position a race to which I am especially identified by feelings and blood... In this country, where money is the great sympathetic nerve which ramifies society, and has a ganglia in every man's pocket, a man is respected in proportion to his success in business. When the avenues to wealth are opened to us, we will then become educated and wealthy, and then the roughest looking colored man that you ever saw, or ever will see, will be pleasanter than the harmonies or Orpheus, and black will be a very pretty color. It will make our jargon, wit - our words oracle flattery will then take the place of slander, and you will find no prejudice in the Yankee whatever. We do not expect to occupy a much better position than we now do, until we shall have our educated and wealthy men, who can wield a power that cannot be misunderstood. Then, and not till then, will the tongue of slander be silenced, and the lip of prejudice be sealed. Then, and not till then. will we be able to enjoy true equality, which can exist only among peers. " From a speech delivered by John E. Bruce, a journalist in 1889 " ... I fully realize the delicacy of the position I occupy in this discussion and know too well that those who are to follow me will largely benefit by what I shall have to say in respect to the application of force as one of the means to the solution of the problem known as the Negro problem. I am not unmindful of the fact that there are those living who have faith in the efficacy of submission, who are