Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/544

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536
THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

for securing the legitimate rights of the black man. It means to back resolutions and assertions with financial substance and intellectual power. The effort has been briefly referred to in this volume to prove to the reader that something is being done for the race by the Afro-American press. Is there one who will gainsay that the Afro-American press is not forging us to the front?

Contending for what he knows to be right and for what he believes to be the race's salvation, the Afro-American editor has thus far gained the merited "Well done." There is no one who can dare say that, with thorough and compact organization, with trusted leaders, this scheme may not prove the salvation and redemption of the black man. The unanimity with which our Afro-American editors took hold of the scheme means more than the average man suspects. The author's impression is, that these editors, with their pens of warfare, mean to press every man of the race into line of battle for a peaceable and aggressive warfare. These gentlemen of the press recognize the fact that the public conscience must be quickened, in the light of human freedom and happiness. We are supported in this assertion by the words of one of our ablest and most experienced editors, probably the oldest man of our race now editing a newspaper, namely, Rev. Mr. White of The Georgia Baptist. Says he:

"The time has now come for the colored man to organize effectively in the South for his own protection. Our hope in this respect must be in the creation of a public sentiment by which the better element of white people in the South shall combine to put down lawless treatment of colored people. Still, we have not a word to say against any movement that tends to impress the colored men of the country with the necessity of combined effort for bettering the present condition of the race."

Another one of our ablest contemporaries, The Indianapolis