Independent—"Should the negro be disfranchised?" takes up the Afro-American and his relation to this country, in the issue of May 9, and discusses him thus:
"The Independent came to us this week, asking the question 'Should the negro be disfranchised?' There is as much absurdity in thinking of his disfranchisement, as there is in thinking of placing the United States in the center of Africa, There have been some curious exaggerations prevailing concerning the negro, and many have been the controversies relating to him; but if he is examined with the view of discovering his noble qualities, he will be found a being made in the image of God, placed in the United States there to stay. This is a very broad assertion, but nevertheless true, and will be fully demonstrated by his not leaving. The negro is not confined to one locality, but his home or resting-place will be wherever the white man is found. The South is the place for the negro. It is his home; and as long as one grain of corn is found there, so long will the negro be found.
"The charge brought against the negro that he has not property, and can be gobbled up by the lower class of whites, is true of a very few. There are as true, noble-hearted men in the negro race as can be found in the white. There is no disfranchisement for the negro. He, as the white man, or one of any nation, has his aim in life, and he intends to reach it. If honesty is equally practiced by the white race, as well as by the negro, there will be no need to disfranchise either party. But bear in mind, that if the white man doesn't tire of the South, the negro will not. He is going to stay, and ere long the many wrongs done him will be turned into justice. The negro (the upper class I speak of, for the lower class of her sister race has never done anything, and, I think, never will) is not waiting for his power to bring it. Justice is what the negro calls for. Give him that,
