BLACK AND WHITE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2411, 13 October 1892, Page 3

BLACK AND WHITE.

A San Francisco contemporary publishes details of a remarkable meeting of one thousand colored people in Chicago on March 27. The purpose of the gathering was “ to consider the recent outrages, and to express their sentiments in reference to the betterment of the conditions of the colored people.” The pastor of the African Methodist Church exhorted the people to consider these matters with Christian forbearance. A decided sensation occurred when the pastor stepped forward and asked the audience to join in singing “ My country, ’tis of thee.” A number of voices indicated decided opposition to this part of the programme. The parson did not comprehend the situation, and asked, “ Don’t you want to sing ‘ America V ” to which question a dozen voices in different parts of the house answered “ No.” One man in the audience rose and said ; —“ I don’t want to sing that song until this countiy is what it claims to be, * Sweet land of liberty.’ ” The preacher then started “ John Brown,” in which the entire audience joined.

The first speaker was Colonel A. A. Jones. He said the lynching of three men at Memphis, of a young negro and negress at Rayville, La., and the burning of a negro at Texarkana, should cause the colored people throughout the country to join in one voice of protest and in sending a committee to Washington to see if some plan could not be devised to protect American citizens in Lousiana as well as in Chili. He was followed by E. H. Morris, who claimed that the laws were in the hands of the people, and that the colored people should organise themselves into leagues and associations, and thus be enabled by their united efforts to resist such outrages.

Other fiery speeches were made, but the most ardent was one delivered by F. L. Barnett, It was a masterpiece in its way. Among other things, Barnett said: “ Lynch Law, hanging, and burning will continue in the South until the Southern white man finds out that it does not pay. How he is to learn that lesson rests with him; but learn it he must and shall. This much must we resolve, not with boast or threat, but with cool, calm, calculating courage, which, having discerned the light, dares to do it or die. During the years of our freedom more than IU,OOO of our race have met with violent and unlawful deaths. ‘ Ten thousand ’ toys lightly upon the tongue, but to the thoughtful man 10,000 murders means something. It means 10,000 homes shocked by the brutal buchery of loved ones, 10,000 families nursing the smouldering embers of hate to keep them warm, 10,000 crimes for which someone must pay. To-day the South stands with reckless feet upon a blood-stained crust, beneath wich seethe and swell the crushed pent-up and pitiless energy of humanity. Oae murder too many, and that spirit will break forth in one remorseless sweep of devastation and death. Ten Thousand more victims may die, but there will be 10,000 black and white in ‘one red burial blent.’ God forbid that day, but if it must come let it come,”