regarding the Southern colored people.

There

[Pg viii]

The second reason for this erroneous impression regarding the condition of the colored people of the South, lies in the fact that white people never look in the right direction for evidences of race progress, but are continually drawing their comparisons from the lowest types and judging the whole race by a few who occupy only the lowest levels in common society. For an illustration: A country girl from the South, who has never spent six days of her life in a school-room, is employed in a Northern family to do menial work. The mistress of the household finds her ignorant and sometimes absolutely stupid, and instead of classing this girl where she belongs, as all races are divided into classes, she immediately arrives at the conclusion that because the girl hails from the South, she must be a fair specimen and a true representative of all the colored people in that section. And she further concludes that all this talk about the wonderful progress made by the Negro since the war is mere talk, having no foundation in fact, and that this talk is kept up in order that the people may be misled into subscribing their money for educational work.

I have talked with a great many white people on this subject, and they have, in almost every instance, expressed about the same sentiment I have given above. One lady, in Boston, Mass., said to me: "But colored people are so ignorant." I asked her with whom she was acquainted among colored people.[Pg ix] "Why," said she, "we have employed colored help for years, and one colored woman has washed for our family ever since I was a child." It will be seen that her conclusions were drawn from a very low level, and that her contact with colored people had always been limited to the poorer, working classes. Indeed, so general is the impression among white people that no real progress has been made by the ex-slaves, that at least seven out of every ten seem to think of the colored people as a worthless, inflexible element, incapable of mental, moral and other developments essential to a high state of civilization.

[Pg ix]

I think that I can safely say that the only white people who are willing to admit that there is a better class of colored people, are those who have either taught in their institutions, or have intimate friends engaged in that kind of work. Friends who are anxious to help the race, find that these wrong impressions have been so thoroughly established, that the educational 

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