Advice to Black Youth: An Address Delivered in New York, New York, on February 1, 1855
ADVICE TO BLACK YOUTH: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK, ON 1 FEBRUARY 1855
New York Daily Times, 3 February 1855.
The Young Men’s Literary and Productive Society, organized by the Reverend Levin Tilmon among the youth of his First Colored American Congregational Methodist Church in New York City, invited Douglass to present a series of lectures “on the great question of Education and Human Liberty” during the Society’s annual “Literary Festival” in the winter of 1854—55. Large audiences attended the two lectures that Douglass offered at Tilmon’s church on Sixth Street on 28 January and 1 February 1855. Glasgow-educated physician James McCune Smith, who joined Douglass and Tilmon on the platform on the second occasion, later informed readers of Frederick Douglass’ Paper that he found the lecture “a very able and eloquent treatment of the argument that condition and not complexion is the chief cause of prejudice and caste in our land.” After Douglass’s speech, the meeting adopted ten resolutions, several of which expressed support for Douglass’s newspaper. Recalling that in 1831 Garrison had argued that black people required “a band of educated (colored) men . . . [to] vindicate our rights in a manner which no white man can,” the meeting unanimously affirmed “that we find in Frederick Douglass. a graduate of the University of Maryland, the accomplished advocate contemplated." FDP, 27 October 1854, 19 January, 9 February 1855; H. Wilson, comp., Trow's New York City Directory (New York, 1855), Appendix, 47.
Mr. Douglass commenced by remarking on his lack of literary attainment, for he was deprived of all means of education. He therefore attributed the invitation which he had received from the Young Men’s Literary Club to an acknowledgement of his labors in behalf of the colored race with whom he felt proud to be identified. He rejoiced to see in New York a society like the one which he had the honor to address.
The colored people, he continued, had a special mission to perform in the United States—a mission which none but themselves could perform. Many people, even persons of color, thought that any effort of the colored people exclusively to alleviate their present condition was mischievous, and only served to make their bondage more galling. He did not believe in such an idea. All experience taught that if a man could not stand he must fall, and that if he stood it must be on his own legs. The Abolitionists did not act rightly; they attempted to support, to bear up, the colored people, and looked upon any other method as an impeachment of their cause.
He argued strongly that the prejudice of, or hatred to. the colored people in this country was not on account of their color, but because the color was an indicator in the Southern States of Slavery, and in the Northern States of isolation. The history of nations proved that an oppressed people were always looked down upon by their oppressors. As an instance, in Britain, and even in this country, an Irishman was generally spoken of contemptuously, yet the Irish were not, in intellect, an inferior people. History proved the contrary. Many of the most eminent men that the world has ever seen were natives of Ireland. The fact being then that the hostility to negroes,—he was not ashamed to be called a negro, he believed the name would yet be honorable—was not because their skin was black, but because their black skin indicated an inferiority of caste, should be sufficient to induce every individual of the African race to exertion in self-culture, that they might rise in the social scale above their present condition. To this end he applauded the establishment of literary and kindred societies among the colored people.
He felt convinced that the colored man, by proper exertion, would vindicate himself against the assertions now so common, that they were an inferior people intellectually and morally. He must confess that this feeling was general. How could it be otherwise when it was constantly in the mouth of every shallow spouter and scribbler—when it was shouted from the rostrums and preached from the press—when even “star-eyed science” was enlisted in the crusade—when the NOTTS, the GLIDDONS, the AGASSIZS, the FLETCHERS and GORDONS,1Douglass refers to Josiah Clark Nott, George R. Gliddon, and Louis Jean Rodolphe Agassiz. “Fletchers and Gordons" is probably a garbled reference to James Cowles Prichard and Samuel George Morton. upheld it by plausible reasoning—upheld it even in contradiction to the statements of the Bible. He believed the negro race equal in every and all respects to the so-called Anglo-Saxon, the superiority of which was dinned so constantly in the public ear.
In conclusion, he advised the Society to keep on their good work—to learn, to improve—that they might prove themselves men as good as the best. Money he regarded as a great power. He who had money would not occupy a degraded position; hence he advised his young hearers to be economical to become rich, for the possession of wealth would tend greatly to advance them to that position, socially, to which they were entitled.