Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/506

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498
THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

mentioned in The Journal. The same thing came near happening last week at Cornell. Prof. Langston, of Virginia, who is now making speeches in Ohio, surprises the people of that State by his cultivated oratory and eloquence. Prof. W. S. Scarborough, a negro of unmixed blood, who fills the chair of Greek and Latin in Wilberforce University, is one of the finest Greek scholars in this country, the author of a Greek text-book now used in Harvard, Yale, and other colleges, the translator of many Greek classics, and, though less than forty years old, a recognized authority in Greek literature. He ranks high as an essayist and lecturer, and has published papers which have attracted attention, on "Andocides and the Andocidean orations," the "Eclogues of Virgil," the "Greek Verb" and "Fatalism in Homer and Virgil." Prof. Scarborough was born a slave in Georgia in 1852, and is a graduate of Oberlin College, Ohio. He has pursued the right course to obtain recognition for his race and himself, and nobody can make him believe that the negro is incapable of progress, or that the way is not open for him if he has the qualities to win."

On the question of Afro-American emigration, The Journal further remarks: "The Journal sees no reason why colored people should desire to emigrate from the United States to Mexico. This is a better country than Mexico, in every way,—better to be born in, to live in, and to die in. It is better for the black man, as well as the white man. Circumstances have made it the black man's home, as much as the white man's. The colored people have done their share towards contributing to the prosperity of the country, and have a right to stay here. There is work for them here, as well as in Mexico. There is abundance of room for them here, and more avenues of usefulness and happiness open to them than they would find in Mexico."

In various editorial articles on this subject, The Hartford