The colored
people must stand or fall together. Those who have been as fortunate
as our Brother Nimbus may breast the tempest, and we must all
struggle on and up to stand beside them. It will not do to weakly
yield or rashly fight. Remember that our people are on trial, and
more than mortal wisdom is required of us by those who have stood
our friends. Let us show them that we are men, not only in courage
to do and dare, but also to wait and suffer. Let the young and
strong, and those who have few children, who have their own homes
or a few months' provision, let them bid defiance to those who
would oppress us; but let us not require those to join us who are
not able or willing to take the worst that may come. Remember that
while others have given us freedom, we must work and struggle and
wait for liberty--that liberty which gives as well as receives,
self-supporting, self-protecting, holding the present and looking
to the future with confidence. We must be as free of the employer
as we are of the master--free of the white people as they are of
us. It will be a long, hard struggle, longer and harder than we
have known perhaps; but as God lives, we shall triumph if we do but
persevere with wisdom and patience, and trust in Him who brought us
up out of the Egypt of bondage and set before our eyes the Canaan
of liberty."
The effect of this address was the very opposite of what Eliab had
intended.
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