“The Color Question”
Speech | Washington, D.C. | July 5, 1875
In another famous Independence Day speech, Douglass lamented the condition of Black Americans following Union victory in the Civil War. Acknowledging the failure of Black organizations and leaders to protect freedpeople during Reconstruction, he reiterated the importance of self-reliance, industry, and advocacy in this Hillsdale address.
Now when this mighty quarrel has ceased, when all the asperities and resentiments have gone as they are sure to go, when all the clouds that a few years ago lowered about our national house, shall be in the deep bosom of the ocean buried, when this great white race has renewed its vows of patriotism and flowed back into its accustomed channels, the question for us is: in what position will this stupendous reconciliation leave the colored people? What tendencies will spring out of it, and how will they affect us? If war among the white brought peace and liberty to the blacks, what will peace among the white bring? Has justice so deep a hold upon the nation, has reconstruction of the basis of liberty and equality become so strong that the rushing together of these mighty waves will not disturb its foundations? These questions, my friends, make me thoughtful. The signs of the times are not all in our favor. . . .
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain [un]alienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights various organizations are instituted among men, deriving their power from the consent of those in whose interests they have been professedly created; that whenever any such organization becomes destructive of these ends it is the right and duty of such people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new organizations, laying their foundations in such principles as to them shall seem most likely to promote their safety and welfare.
While we were the victims of slavery, and had no voice or vote in shaping out destiny, we had good reason to appeal to
THE BENEVOLENCE OF MANKIND
To ask for help in that condition involved no disgrace. But all is changed now. We are no longer slaves, but freemen; no longer subjects, but citizens, and have a voice and vote with all other citizens. A new condition has brought new duties. A character which might pass without censure as a slave cannot so pass as a freeman. We must not beg men to do for us what we ought to do for ourselves. The prostrate form, the uncovered head, the cringing attitude, the bated breath, the suppliant, outstretched hand of beggary does not become an American freeman, and does not become us as a class, and we will not consent to be any longer represented in that position. No people can make desirable progress or have permanent welfare outside of their own independent and earnest efforts.
Frederick Douglass, “THE COLOR QUESTION,” Speech, July 5, 1875, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, Volume 4: 1864-1880, by Frederick Douglass, John W. Blassingame, and John R. McKivigan, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 417-420.
