Harry McMillan Quotes
You could not let your masters see you read; but now [after Emancipation] the colored people are fond of sending their children to school. Because the children in after years will be able to tell us ignorant ones how to do for ourselves.
Harry McMillan, Mid 19th Century, Former Slave of Southern General Eustis, Testimony to the Freedman’s Commission, Beaufort, S.C. June 1863, Testimony of a South Carolina Freedman before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission
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By 1870 there were over 1000 schools in the South that had been founded and operated by the Freedmen’s Bureau. Despite the racist, negative stereotypes of Negroes, many of them were just the opposite from the stereotype as this quotation demonstrates.
Lincoln, just before the Civil War, quoted Jefferson that if slavery were not ended in America the results would be disastrous. But Lincoln at the time probably did not imagine how right Jefferson was, and Jefferson himself probably 1 how terrible the Civil War would be.
Illinois Democrats had made a few visible appointments of Blacks to patronage positions during the campaign, but who were generally opposed to Civil Rights Legislation or any economic reforms that would help the majority of Blacks—some would argue that this was the obverse of the party situation entering the third millennium.
Incredibly enough, after the Civil War and emancipation, most Virginia leaders opposed any form of rights for Blacks with one of the major reasons being that they were ignorant and uneducated. It was actually a crime to teach even a free Black to read.
The letter was written in the supposed style of a Black after Emancipation and includes most of the ugly false stereotypes of the worst of the racists of the present and the slaveowners of past times. Williams stated that he was not a racist and was trying to make a point about freedom required risk and responsibility. However, the effort was interpreted by many people, Black and white, to be insulting and a put down of African Americans. At the same time, although most of the Tea Party members were not racists, most of the racists in America were supporters of the Tea Party. Those people interpreted the quotation as "telling it like it is" about Blacks who do not want the responsiblities and risks of freedom and are not yet developed sufficiently to be equal citizens in a democracy.
This quotation is very interesting historically. Despite the fact that Washington DC was a thoroughly racially segregated city, and the Southern racists controlled much of Congress, Blacks as well as whites were welcome in the Congressional galleries, and they attended many debates. Slavery and equality were not just debated in the 1850s but the issue was in constant friction from the earliest Congress.
He was the Russian Reformer who ended serfdom and gave land to the peasants and then was assassinated. Ironically, both Alexander II and Lincoln were assassinated—because of their reform efforts—Lincoln for going too far; the Czar for not going far enough. See the Nickname that was given to the Czar: {622809}.
Jamaica, then part of the British Empire which had outlawed slavery, was quite racially integrated with negroes and mulattos in civil positions such as magistrate. When the ship landed, the slave, John Anderson, was kept locked below deck since if he ran off and reached shore, the Jamaican authorities would have declared him a free man. The presence of the captive negro slave leaked out and a group of Jamaicans boarded the ship uninvited and forcibly removed Anderson, He was taken before a Jamaican magistrate who declared him a free person. The ship’s captain demanded that the authorities return the American private property which had been stolen from an American ship by a “mob”. Harrison, the US Counsel complained to the Jamaican Governor of the “Insult” to the American Flag that had taken place and demanded redress. In both efforts, the original decision of the magistrate was supported and Anderson was a free man. Harrison, an ardent Southerner from Virginia was apoplectic and asked the State Department to make this case a major issue in relations with London. His description of the public opinion then in Jamaica was classic. His racial bias was even supplemented by a virulent anti-Semitism because not only had Jewish Jamaican merchants supported abolition of slavery but some had intermarried with Negroes who had converted to Judaism.
For more about the Bureau. See {629185}.and {629187}.
The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.
One of the most amazing things about Abraham Lincoln is the way he grew and matured over time. In 1854 he was not sure that the Negro could be the equal of the white. As he met more Black leaders, saw more, reflected more, and had more responsibility, he grew and developed his views on race. But it was statements like this that led to the great distrust that the very strong abolitionists like Wendell Phillips had in him.
By 1863, Negro troops were being used to fill in gaps in the Union forces. Many union generals resisted having colored troops under their command. Thomas, however, welcomed them, and won several major battles where black soldiers were instrumental in victory.
