ORATION

DELIVERED ON EMANCIPATION DAY, JANUARY 2ND 1888, By Rev. E. K. LOVE. [FROM THE SAVANNAH TRIBUTE.]

Last Monday the Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation was celebrated in grand style by our people. The military was out in full force together with a large number of civic societies. The procession marched through the principal streets to the Park Extension, where an immense concourse of people had assembled to do honor to the occasion. The Georgia Artillery fired a salute of thirty-eight guns, after which Col. J. H. Deveaux, Chairman of the Committee on Arrangements, called the meeting to order. Prayer was offered by Rev. M. R. Wilson, and the Proclamation was read by Judge J. M. Simms, after which a powerful and eloquent address was delivered by Rev E. K. Love, the Orator of the day. Revs. S. H. Robertson, David Waters, William Nevle, J. S. Habersham. Sr., W. L. P. Weston, James A. Wood, Henry H. Taylor and other distinguished gentlemen occupied seats on the platform. The programme was completed with a grand dress parade by the military. Following is the

ADDRESS OF REV. E. K. LOVE.

Fellow Citizens: I feel highly honored in being permitted to speak to you to-day [on?] this auspicious occasion. The [shortness?] of the notice makes me fear that I shall not be able to interest you. Every people have a day to celebrate some great event in their history. The Negro, in this is not alone. We are brought together today to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation. That was the greatest event that has occurred in our history in this country. In celebrating this [day?] we cannot help thinking of the [days?] 0002 2past, [???]vey the present and taking as best we can a peep into the future.

While this day's celebration necessarily calls up the past. I need not consume much time in speaking of it. The present and future concern us most.

Slavery with all of its inhuman hardships, wounds, bruises, cowhides, bull-whips, patrols and every course which the dammable system of slavery in this country had, are forever gone. Fading away as the stars of the morning, losing their light in the glorious dawn so has slavery passed away weepingly and sorrowfully only remembered by what it has done; to be supplanted by a more glorious epoch. The reign of the child of liberty.—Long let this hallowed child live—Let its praise be on every tongue, its inspiring love in every breast, its benign influence admired by all, and let the majestic sway of its golden scepter be universal. The mighty God said to the raging billows of slavery thus far shalt thou go and no further and in 1865 there was a great calm on this disturbed sea.

We should thank God that we are free and have some of the privileges of American citizens. We enjoy a liberty dearly bought. The child of liberty was born hard. This country travailed for four years, and lost some as pure and noble blood as ever coursed through the vein of mortal and amidst the awful clash of arms and the dying groans of the nation at Appomattox, this child of liberty was born. That which characterized the birth of this child cannot be entirely dispensed with in its life. That is to say, the child was born hard and it must live hard. The enemies who opposed its birth can hardly be expected to tacitly submit to its success in life (without throwing some hindrances in its way) as they would of a child born at the mutual consent of all concerned. No man is more willing to honor the means which God used in our emancipation than I—but I am not willing to give any man more honor than I candidly believe he deserves. Our people have learned to think that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest champion of our cause. But such is not true. The thing that was uppermost in the mind of Mr. Lincoln was the salvation of the Union. So far as Mr. Lincoln was concerned the Emancipation Proclamation was purely a war measure—for he would “save the Union with or without freeing the slaves.” From this single statement, it must be clear to you that our freedom was not first in Mr. Lincoln's mind, yet I thank God for Mr. Lincoln for his election which had much to do with kindling the fire between the two sections which resulted in a bloody war whose crimson stream washed away the black stain of slavery. I thank God for a Charles Summer, whose persistent efforts, sweeping influence, true patriotism and far seeing sagacity almost compelled Mr. Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which we celebrate to-day. We have never had a truer nor abler friend than Charles Summer. I honor Mr. Lincoln, but I honor Charles Summer more. I thank God for that brave man and soldier Jeff Davis. I thank God for his election. Had the Southern Confederacy placed a coward at its 0003 3head, we would not have been freed as the results of that four years of bloody war. If Jeff Davis had not been brave, great man fighting from what he conceived to be a principle of right and justice (although he was wrong) he would have accepted Lincoln's offer of surrender in ninety days. If he had accepted, it is hard for me to see from a human standpoint how or when we would have been freed. The odds were against Jeff Davis. He confronted a greater army than his, far more skilled in the science of war and far more skilled in the manufacture of arms and with all the power the shattered government had, at its back. This would have been a sufficient inducement for, perhaps any body but Jeff Davis to have accepted Mr. Lincoln's (inglorious offer). I call it inglorious from my stand point, for had Jeff Davis accepted it I do not see how I could have been freed. The truth of it is that God was using both Abraham Lincoln and Jeff Davis to bring to light this child of freedom the birth of which we celebrate to-day. Our past is shrouded in shame, degradation, ignominy, ignorance, outrages on our virtue and inexplicable suffering. The Emancipation Proclamation has only served to check some of this treatment. In many instances the suffering has only been changed in form. Emancipation only gave us the key to greatness but did not make us great. It did not unlock the great house of honor, fame, wealth, culture, elevation, moral stamina, civil rights, social equality nor respectability. must do for ourselves. The mother may give birth to the child, but can not give it growth and strength. The Federal army nor the Grand Old Party can give us these things. They are not given. They must be dearly bought by diligent application to business, economy, truthfulness, soberness, honesty 2nd virtue. For the kingdom of prosperity influence elevation, culture and wealth “suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.” Let us go up as a united army and take the city, God has willed it and it shall be ours.

THE PRESENT.

A people cannot be collectively great until they are individually great. That we should be met with obstacles in the way to greatness is most natural. Greatness is personal and does not come by dint of accident. It must be personally battled for and personally won. The days of miracles are over and a people need not now expect to get what they do not merit. The man who gets drunk and fall in the ditch and wallow in the mud, and enjoys it and love to be there ought not to complain that the law does not compel me to live in the muddy ditch with him. No people is prepared for greatness until they themselves become great. No man should rule another's property. Hence if a people worth nothing they will rule nothing. No people should rule except they know how to rule. It seems to be heaven's law that intelligence shall rule. This bears fairness on its face.

Politics cannot make us a people, Congress cannot make us great. No law can make us what we are not 0004 4We are just what we make ourselves. So far as equitable laws are concerned, I am not able to suggest an improvement. If I had the remodeling of the Constitution of the Country, I do not think of a single change I would make. Hence the fault is not found in the law. It is true, that there is much in the administration and interpretation of the law. And if unworthy men who an oath cannot bind of another race administered and interpret it wrongly, the remedy would be to put some of our race as lawyers in the Court House to see that the law is properly administered. In any way, I look at the subject, I am inclined to think that the responsibility is upon us. We change this thing ourselves and until we do, it will never be changed, and ought not to be. I happen to think of what I candidly believe to be an unfair administration of the law. I changed some time ago to be in the Superior Court of this city, two Negro boys were put on trial for stealing stair carpet The evidence said they sold it to a white lady of this city. The merchant swore to stair carpet being stolen. The State to all appearance had made out its case and only lacked the evidence of the lady who bought the carpet to cap the climax upon the case in order to procure a free ride for these boys on a northern visit, for some years, to the coal mine. When the lady was put on the stand she swore that she did not buy stair-carpet at all. That it was coco matting that was left at her house. The State then remarked that under that evidence it would have to submit to a verdict of not guilty and asked his honor to hold the prisoners until he could get out an indictment charging them with Coco matting and Judge Adams ordered the prisoners detained notwithstanding the verdict of the jury read: “We the jury find the defendants not guilty.” This to me was as unfair as it is possible for a thing to be. There was no body in court asking for Coco matting, and the prosecution swore that they missed stair-carpet and not Coco matting.

Jones swears that Johnson stole a horse from him and sold it to Williams An indictment is sworn out against Johnson, the Grand Jury finds a true bill. Johnson is arrested. On the trial Williams swears that he did not buy a horse but an ox. The jury finds Johnson not guilty. Jones now wishes to change his oath and swear that he missed an ox, and not a horse and the State wishes to change its indictment from a horse to an ox, and wishes the judge to order the prisoners arrested upon no indictment (for they had just been acquitted and were as free as the judge) and Judge Adams so ordered.

Here was a judge acting as sheriff and orders freemen arrested for no crime that he had any knowledge of having been committed It seems to me that if the judge had a knowledge of a violation of law. If it was in his presence in court, he might be justifiable in issuing such an order, otherwise I think, he exceeded his authority. If this is law then I beg your pardon for saying that I see no improvement that can be made in the law I am not enough of a lawyer to say whether this is law or not but I do not believe it is. If it is, it is bad law. When I came out of the Court House I felt more impressed than ever that what we needed was a union among us and a determination to stand by each other and see that justice is done. If these boys had had at their backs a united race with money and education and manhood, I believe they could have had the error of Judge Adams corrected by the Supreme Court There are many such cases but we can correct them all.

WHAT WE MUST DO.

What we must do. We had just as well turn our eyes from Washington. All that was for us in Washington I believe, we have gotten 0005 5long long since. Neither one of the great political parties in this country will make the Negro great. So far as house rent meat and bread are concerned it does not interest the Negro as to whom is president president. Do not understand me to urge or advocate a division of the Negro vote. The time for that, in my opinion, has not come yet, and will not come with the true-hearted Negro while memory holds its sway. All talk of such division is idle folly and the hope of such is a vain delusion. It looks better on newspaper than any where else, and will be seen no where else, as long as we can remember that the boys in blue, the brave and true, bled and died for us. Before the Negro changes his vote, let him wait for the party to which he would go to do as much for him as the party which he would leave. This would require him to wait 25 years yes, he would need to give the party to which we would go 25 years probation to ascertain whether it would do as much for us as the Republican Party has done. But for that Party we would not have been free to-day (from a human standpoint) and would have no Emancipation Proclamation to celebrate. If I did not vote a Republican ticket, I would vote none. This should not create any bitter feeling between the races While we should strive in every manly way to retain the confidence and friendship of those who fought to purchase the liberty which we now enjoy, it is good sense to cultivate the confidence and friendship of those who live nearest us In both cases, we should be manly, and the friendship thus obtained will be far more genuine and lasting. Those who live nearest to us, can do us most good if they would and most harm if they try, We should not allow any party to hood-wink us and lead us at will. We should be more independent and think and act for ourselves. No people can be great by proxy and should not think nor act by proxy. The proxy will get all the honor and fame and the glory and pay. Let us cease to be tools and be men and we will be felt more. Let it be no longer said that our votes can be bought for whiskey, tobacco or money. Let us cease to be Esau who sold his birth right which laid the foundation for loosing the blessing for which he found no repentance, though he sought it in sorrow and in tears.

If the Negro is anything he is and must be a Republican Gratitude alone, would make the Negro a Republican I don't think I could be anything else. But to tell the truth I do not see that it is paying the Negro anything to be either. I mean the masses. A very few get something out of it. All Fred Douglas got out of it he gave to the white race by marrying a white Woman who really had more sense than he had He testified in this one single act that he believed his own race so inferior that the money—that he had made by mere accident and good luck to be used by great men at an opportune time, not a Negro woman in all the land was worthy to share its comforts with him.

Amalgamation whether legal or illegal is damaging alike to both races While we should be friendly as common citizens of a common country, socially, we ought to be as distinct as a race as the turkey and the chicken They may roost upon the same pole and drink out of the same trough, but they never forget their nationality. The Negro should be as wise. I believe miscegeneration is a [site?] discountenanced by heaven. Things are purest unmixed I believe that God would not have allowed these different races to have sprung up, if he intended to make them one again by miscegeneration. The Gospel of Christ alone is ordained to make them one again, and heaven is the place. One, as a race. I mean and that is time enough for me, and heaven is close enough for me, to wait wait with Job like patience to become a white man, and if I am to die to get this, I do not care how often the Supreme Judge continues my case. Do not understand me to put all the blame at the door of the Negroes. In the dreadful sin of Amalgamation the white man and the Negro are partners and the white man is senior member of the firm. They are equally guilty and both deserve to be frowned out of society. I wish I could see in some intelligent, candid and fearless newspaper the position of the products of what race do they belong? The father is white and the mother is black. If it is the rule that the child takes the mother's name, it must be consigned to our race. If it takes the name of the father then it must be consigned to the white race. If equally divided, it belongs just half-way between. It appears to me that a father is morally bound to love and support his children regardless of who the mother is. They belong to his family, They are those the Lord has given him (?) and morally have as much right in his house, to his property or any where he is. They could not be more his. The Negro must work out his own destiny. The greatness of any people must come from within them. No people have ever become great that did not protect the virtue of their women. If the women are not great the nation will not be It is said that men rule the world Let it be added that the women rule the men. The saying is true that “The hand that rocks the cradle governs the world. If lynch law must prevail in this age as a result of advance civilization, then let the Negroes apply this law to those who destroy the virtue of their women. I repeat it that the Negro must look away from any and every political party for personal worth and greatness. He must look to himself. I urge that our people get an education, save their money, live within their income, buy homes, be honest and virtuous, unite together in doing a business, form real estate and mercantile associations, have confidence in each other be true to the race, have faith in our great possibilities, have undying love for race pride, scorn legal or illegal amalgamation, be sober, stop being millionaires on the streets, and paupers at home, pay your debts, contract no more than you can pay and protect to the extent of the last drop of blood in your veins the virtue of our women and we will get all the respect, rights and recognition we want. Make a man feel that you are his equal and you thereby compel him to respect you. The Negro has been free twenty-two years and if he ever intends to marry his own cause, it is high time

He is fully of age. The Negro ought to have his own stores, banks and loan associations. There ought to be lawyers and doctors 0006 6men in every profession. ought to own and patronize his own papers and have a pride in building up his own race. No people have ever become truly great without a well supported, well conducted press. The few papers among us are so poorly supported and patronize that they have nothing like the power and influence they should have. The press of the country is ruling the country. The Negro cannot hope to help rule, therefore, if he does not use the press. In last Thursday's issue of the Morning News of this city, a long scurrilous article appeared from some farmer in Screve County. Affirming that the Negro was rapidly dying out. That he was dishonest, unreliable and thriftless. The grumbler says “Here there were formerly eighty Negroes. To-day there are only two. My neighbor, Maj. Gibbons, a Massachusetts gentlemen, had some four hundred; the Wade's and the Joneses had some three hundred each; the Herrington's one hundred; The Bostics, over the Savannah river, some seven hundred, and the Martin's, about five hundred. Where are they all today? Why on the plantations referred to there is hardly to be found a Negro to hitch up one's horse.” He thinks that they are all dead and asks in the sorrow of his great heart “Where are they.”? They are not dead. I will tell him free of charge where they are. They have gone to seek better wages, better treatment and surer pay. It is a well established fact that if the Negro is certain of good wages and sure pay, he will work. The complainer continues to weep over the emigration of the Negroes to Kansas, Arkansas, Texas and Florida. I have always opposed emigration as beneficial to the race. We change our condition. Do this and our natal air will be the best for us to inhale. Meanwhile this restlessness among the Negro is the plainest index to their feeling of contempt at the treatment they receive. But they ought to stop and consider that a white man is a white man everywhere you find him, just as truly as a Negro is a Negro everywhere you find him. Let the Negro take take newspaper from their leading men who will constantly advise them on subjects of interest. In the cities and towns the Negroes ought to be conducting their own stores and have their own undertaker's establishment and bury their own dead. I marvel that such things have not been going on in Savannah for years. Why grumble that the white man will not white man will not let you drink soda with him? Why not club together and have a soda fountain of your own? The white man himself would have more respect for you if you would pursue a course like this. If you are refused the sale of one thing, should you have the manhood to refuse to buy everything from such places you would force respect as you can not get by grumbling. If one of us cannot operate a business let a thousand of us come together and do it. Yea, let us do it, if it requires the race to a man to do it. This is the polities I am interested in and this is the party to which I belong. You may call it Republican Democrat, Conservative, Independent, Prohibitionist or what not. This is my politics if that is the right name to call it. Until we do something like this we will look for recognition, civil rights and respect until our eyes grow dim with age and then die without the right. We have too much faith. We have been awaiting for Providence to do it all for us. Providence does only that for us which we can not do for ourselves. We are thrown in the world on our own resources and we must root or die poor. No political party is going to adjust the social question between the races in this country. After all of the blood shed and bitter feeling that have been engendered that question will have to be left to take care of itself. We must settle it here. It is a home question, let us bury it in its natal soil. The Negroes are in the South and it is the best place for them. They can get employment here the whole year round, and the climate is never so that they can't find some sort of work to do, and there is always some one that to hire them. It is true the wages are small, but if they will keep knocking at it, it will count up by and by. Why, my friends just think of it, if a man will only save five cents a day in one year he would have saved Eighteen Dollars and twenty-five cents, and in twenty-two years he would have saved four hundred, one dollars and fifty cents. There are plenty of us that have not Four Hundred One Dollars and Fifty cents and hence have not saved five cents a day. It can hardly be questioned that anybody who is able to work at all, is able to save five cents a day. Can a people except recognition and respect as being great who do not save five cents a day? I tell you my friends, if you want to help rule the country, you must help own it. This is the lesson that we should have learned long since, People will respect us for what we prove that we are. We can demand respect only upon real worth.

UNION OF THE RACE:

We cannot hope to succeed single handed and alone. There must be a closer union of our race. I believe that there is not a race under heaven so divided as we are. In this much of our weakness consists. A divided people are a weak people. Until we are inseparably tied together as a race, and feel that our interest is one, our destiny the same and that whatever injure one, injures the race, we strive in vain to rise. We must cultivate the grace of concentration. Concentration of interest, of act on and money. By this means the Negroes could start a business and Savannah alone handle a million of dollars a year. It is time for us to undertake great things. I see no good reason why we should not own stores, coal and wood yards and sell all the woods and coals, kerosene, clothes, and provision that every Negro in Savannah and its vicinity to buy. All we need is a proper organization and concentration. If we would be something we must do something. If we will do nothing, we will be nothing. The unlearned and poor will have to serve the rich and learned it does not matter where they go, We may complain of our position in this country, but it will remain the same unless we change our condition. At the shortest notice the leaders of the white race can pack any house in this city to consider a question that tends to enhance their interest. When it will take a thunderstorm, an earthquake, or death to convene us. We must change this before we can hope to rise. I am proud that I am a Negro and I love that race better than I do any race in the 0007 7world I believe that there is a pleasing bright future for my race even in this country, but this will not be realized without personal efforts. There is no work that is unbecoming to the Negro. If does not matter what you put him at, it just fits him. If you put him on a carriage of the finest kind and the finest blooded horses it just fits him, Take him down from there and throw him on a dray and he is at home Put him on a ship, in a store, in the finest dwellings, on the trains, on the railroad's behind the plow whether an ox, mule or horse is before it or wherever you place him he looks becoming. Since his books accommodates themselves to every position and since he can do anything, no glorious accomplishments will be too great for him. The Negro is obliged to make the money because he does the work When the capitalists can turn over their money the Negro can turn over his capital which is in his muscle every day. If he will but save his money he is obliged to be the capitalists of the next generation, I know of no better way to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation than making a determined resolution to do more for race elevation in the future than we have done in the past. For this child of liberty was born to live. It will have to work to live. I need not urge upon you to work for the Negro is anything but lazy. But I urge you to save your money. We are the hearted people in the world and this may account for the fact that we are so religiously inclined. We have had the worst things done to us and we have pardoned the grossest insults I deplore the fact however, that we are such cowards and so afraid to die in vindication of our virtue and rights. We can change things by true manhood I would not council violence except in self-defence, No people have much respect for cowards. They are the true and the brave that men will respect. While life is precious character and virtue are far more precious We could bury any member of our race with far more grace and less regret and less loss than to have him to dishonor and disgrace the race. Let me congratulate you upon the degree of peace and prosperity that through these twentytwo years of gloom and doubt and of political struggles and defeat and perplexity that have attended this heretofore ill-fated race that has everywhere been evil spoken of While we have made very commendable progress there is much which we could have said and should have done. While we have to complain of . We have much of which we should be be proud. No race upper heaven has, under similar circumstances made as rapid strides as we have. We have been called an inferior race. There is not much truth in that and then there is much truth in it if it is meant that we were created inferior, then there is no truth in it If it is meant we we are inferior to the white man by long continued influence, training and wealth, then there is truth in it. It is claimed that the Negro is dishonest. I would simply ask how many bank robbers and bank defaulters were Negroes that have skipped the country and gone to Canada? How many safe blowers are Negroes, and how much railroad stock have Negroes watered? and how many of the New York Bribers were Negroes? If all of them were not Negroes, then I have made out the case that some body else is dishonest besides the Negroes. A man is what he is, regardless of his color, and should be put on his merits and thus treated regardless at his colour. A man is a man regardless of his color, as a horse is a horse, regardless of his color. No sensible person thinks of a horse being inferior and mis-treating it because it is black. No sensible person inquires of the butcher, what was the color of the cow's hair or hide whose meat he wishes to buy. This is ado about color is all nonsense. I hope the day is rapidly coming when my brethren will cease to hate me because I am black—will cease to judge me by my color, will take my color, which is but air, out of the scale of justice and throw me the real man, therein and let me stand or fall by what I am. Character makes men and not color. If I could print this upon the flying clouds and give it to the whistling winds, I would send them on a special mission to the brother in white man in the United States had learned that character makes men and not color, and that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth"—Let us be true to our God, true to ourselves, true to ail around us and true to our country and we shall be honored of heaven and earth. Let us give more attention to buying homes, beautify them, making them attractive, comfortable and pleasant bringing our children up right and we will be influential and great right here in this country. Let us make friends by proving ourselves worthy and being friendly. Let us be upright, candid and fearless remembering that right is immortal and will prevail. I believe that the Negro is the child of the future and that the next generation, will find things far different to what they are now. Especially will this be true if we dig deep down and lay solidly the foundation upon which they must build their superstructure of moral worth and greatness.

The first duty is ours—to lay the foundation. The old fear that was entailed upon our fathers by slavery, will have entirely disappeared by the next generation, and a man will be a man regardless of his color, or nationality. Then and not until then, will this country be the glory of all the earth. It will then be indeed “The Land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The sensible Negro and the sensible white man, should meet on mutual I grounds and away with this foolishness and mutually work to make this country glorious. This does not include intermarriage nor co-education. The Negro does not want that any more than the white man does He wants his share of the public money for education and to marry his own women, they are good enough for him. If intermarriage was submitted to the popular vote, the Negro would almost to a man vote against it. He can afford to oppose it. He has a garden with a larger variety from which to choose the flower of life's joy. He can get a wife of his race as black as dye, as white as they are made and of various colors all between. No other race is so highly favored by nature We can afford to to oppose intermarriage. We have all we want at home. The Glenn Bill was simply beating the air, and a prosecuting the defendant during his absence. It was uncalled for. No body was contending for co-educational and nobody looked for it in Georgia at any rates. It deserved to have been defeated and Mr. Glenn deserves to be buried in a grave of forgetfulness. A man with such a heart ought to be left at home with his mother to hear her soothing song “By, by baby go to sleep No there needs be no alarm about these things. [We?] [do?] 0008 8not want them. We only want a fair deal in the game of life. I speak the sentiment of the Negroes generally, Fred Douglass, perhaps excepted, when I say that we are happiest when we are with our own people. I trust that when we shall celebrate our Emancipation next year, we will be able to look with pleasing pride upon some great enterprise owned and operated by Negroes and for Negroes. In this way we shall not any longer be regarded as passive but active citizens of this great country. For if we own no property, when a convention of property owners is called we can not be members and should not go growling around when we own none of the ground

May God bless every one of you and grant you great peace, prosperity during this year, and when the battle of life is over, may you receive victor's crowns and having trod all the powers of darkness down, may you be brought home with everlasting joy and singing and in unspeakable peace receive Eden's wreath and with the innumerable throng join the everlasting song to crown Him Lord of all.