For Frederick Douglass' Paper.

FROM OUR BROOKLYN CORRESPONDENT.

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, Nov. 25, 1854.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS: Illinois is the land of giants.

"White giants and black giants, and giants of every hue;"
Big giants and little giants, and giants not a few,

abound, as you know, in the young giant State of Illinois. One of these (of what size or color, it matters not) has shot an arrow from his quiver, at the unoffending head of Ethiop. The attempt was manly—the move bold—open. There is no skulking; no dodging behind the huge western trees; no sitting astride the ramparts, like a cowardly general ready to jump where victory leads; no skulking like a weak leader behind the unthinking crowd.

"With puny arm his bow Achilles-like he bent,
But insufficient for his good and great intent;
Yet in his aim hath done this new Achilles well,
Though harmless at my feet his pointed arrow fell."

But what am I saying? whither am I verging? I seized my pen merely to send a word greeting to our mutual friend, good Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, who, some how or other, has imbibed the notion that some certain principle maintained by me, is both in its natural [illegible] to the common weal. What precise principle, my good Mr. Richardson, you refer to, I am quite unable to conceive. If it be the one involved in the maintenance of such institutions (be they schools, churches, or what not) as have for their basis the idea of entire equality of the race, regardless of clime or color—or such as have this principle at their base, and boldly recognize and enforce the same, then I fail to perceive the destructive tendencies you so tremblingly speak of; on the contrary, on the outer walls of such institutions, and such communities where they exist, I trace the hand-writing, peace, prosperity and good neighborhood, whether they be in the western prairies or on Brooklyn Heights. I, my good sir, have set forth views, having for their basis, this principle only; no other; and have claimed that such, and such only, should meet our support. But if, sir, when you say in substance, "we blacks must cling fast to the whites, whether or no, for whatever leavings they may have to spare us, and that our safety depends upon our being the recipients of such gifts"—if by your whole letter, you mean to be understood, that schools, churches, and institutions generally, such as I have from time to time depicted in this latitude, are founded for and supported by the prejudiced portions of the community, whose every foundation stone is a compound prejudice—whose rule is injustice—whose standard is inequality—whose aim is oppression—and whose altars burn with hatred, the smoke of which impregnates the very air with wrongs, deep wrongs; if you

mean to say these are the places for the mental, moral and religious culture of our people, or of any people, then I beg leave to differ most widely from you. We want the article of education, you say. Is it such as is generated in such places as these, you demanded in the name of education? What, my dear Mr. Richardson, is education? Do not, my good sir, mistake its nature, its aim and its office-work. It is not to make men what they often are, but what they ought to be. It is, I apprehend, the enlightenment of the mind, the enforcement of truth, not only into the mind, but the philosophy and use of these truths as well. It is not all education that passes for that article, though it be found in marble halls, and produced from Anglo-Saxon craniums; and we, poor mortals, guilty of a skin tinged with ebon or with brown, sigh through the gilded casements for it. The method by which education is imparted, is of infinitely more value to us than the education itself, since therein is the proper or improper use of education ingrafted into the mind. To us the process is far beyond the possession. I speak, of course, for the up-struggling masses—not the
delicate fingered and silk stockend few.

Of what worth are bare, empty facts to us or anybody else, though piled up as high as was the tower of Babel, unaccompanied by a proper knowledge of their disposition?—This tagging fast of the whites, merely because they are white, and begging of them a boon which they grant only with an equivalent of evil accompanying it, is the worst possible thing we can do, and is most pernicious in its tendencies upon our youth.—As well may we expect them to drink pure and wholesome waters from the streams of the mountain base, whose source at the top is poisonous. As well have we a right to expect them to be self-dependent, and self-reliant, when in their whole course they had been taught to depend, and rely upon others, whom they have been also taught to regard but as superiors. There is more than a rhetorical flourish in the sentiment, "They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." Let me tell you, my dear Mr. Richardson, that they who would rise, themselves must do the work whereby to rise. The mingling of spirits, white, black or grey, or those of other hues which you so earnestly require, is not at all the question at issue; but the manner of this mingling, the terms, &c. True, as you say, my good sir, this is an important question, and must be looked fairly in the face; still I think it requires no such sagacity as you seem to imagine to solve it. I know that when men, in their devious course, come to it, they look one way and row the other over it; still this is no proof of its difficult solution. What are the facts in the case?—

Why, simply these: The institutions of the country are of two classes. I speak for this latitude. I own I know more of the Heights and Gotham vicinity, over which I survey, than of the luxuriant West; still the differences amount to nothing in the argument.—One class of these institutions is the exponent of equality, fraternity, common manhood; the other, of inequality, prejudice, oppression. I recognise no other distinction[.]—What though that which the world calls feebleness, is on the one side? it has its foundation in right; what though the other class have what the world calls power? that power is wielded on the side of wrong. In which class shall we draw our instruction? in which school shall our youth be trained for the task of useful life? Much that passes current for learning, progress, and utility, is all bosh, and can well be spared. The well being of society has never depended upon it, and never will. Careful culture of the right sort, and a judicious exercise of parental authority, and restraints, and a proper inurement to the world as it is, with a view to render it better, are more needed and of more value to us that all of the stuff so much prated about to be had in the schools as they at present exist. Leave, then, I beseech you, my dear sir, these superficial views, so popular at present among our people, and look more deeply into this matter, and you may increase your sphere of usefulness among us.

So, my dear Douglass, Ethiop has really called up the spirits of the past. We have again the philosophical and grave Observer: the able, and witty, and learned CommunipawSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. in all their pristine freshness. Where, Oh where are the rest of these master spirits? Of Fanny Homewood—but I forbear. I cannot say in this short space what duty and respect to her and her talents require of me, though short was my acquaintance; and hence I lay my pen aside to reflect upon the sad breach made by her absence from us.

Yours truly,

ETHIOPWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. .