For many years past, I have been a close and interested observer of my
race, both free and enslaved. I have observed with great pleasure, the
gradual improvement in intelligence and condition of the free colored
people of the North. In proportion as prejudice has diminished, they have
gradually advanced; nor can I believe that there is any other great
impediment in the way to a higher state of improvement. That prejudice
against color is not destroyed, we very well know. Its effects may be
seen in our down-cast, discouraged, and groveling countrymen, if no where
else. Notwithstanding the late diminution, it exists in many of our
hotels: some of them would as soon admit the dog from his kennel, at
table, as the colored man; nevertheless, he is sought as a waiter;
allowed to prepare their choicest dishes, and permitted to serve the white
man, who would sneer and scorn to eat beside him. Prejudice is found also,
in many of our schools,--even in those to which colored children are
admitted; there is so much distinction made by prejudice, that the poor,
timid colored children might about as well stay at home, as go to a school
where they feel that they are looked upon as inferior, however much they
may try to excel.
Nor is that hateful prejudice--so injurious to the soul, and all the best
interests of the negro--excluded from the professed church of Christ.
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