“Why Is the Negro Lynched?” from “The Lessons of the Hour”
Pamphlet/Speech | 1895
In one of his final addresses, Douglass uncovered the crime of Southern lynchings, implicating the entire nation for continued prejudices toward Black folks. The concept of the ‘Negro Problem’ blamed the mere existence of Black Americans for the violence they endured.
The charge is not so much against the crime itself, as against the colour of the people alleged to be guilty of it. Slavery itself, you will remember, was a system of unmitigated, legalised outrage upon black women of the South, and no white man was ever shot, burned or hanged for availing himself of all the power that slavery him at this point.
To sum up my argument on this lynching business, it remains to be said that I have shown that the Negro’s accusers in this case have violated their oaths, and have cheated the Negro out of his vote; that they have robbed and defrauded the Negro systematically and persistently, and have boasted of it. I have shown that when the Negro had every opportunity to commit the crime now charged against him, he was never accused of it by his bitterest enemies. I have shown that during all the years of reconstruction, when he was being murdered at Hamburg, Yazoo, New Orleans, Copiah and elsewhere, he was never accused at that time of the crime now charged against him. I have shown that in the nature of things no such change in the character and composition of a whole people, as this implies, could have taken place within the limited period allowed for it. I have shown that those who accuse him dare not confront him in a court of law and have their witnesses subjected to proper legal inquiry. I have shown from the very constitution of a mob, the slight causes by which it may be created, and the sentiment by which it is impelled, it cannot be depended sole aim is to execute, not to find a true verdict. . . .
I now come to the so-called, but mis-called ‘Negro Problem,’ as a characterization of the relations existing in the Southern States. […] It is a formula of Southern origin and has a strong bias against the Negro. It handicaps his cause with all the prejudice known to exist and anything to which he is a party. It has been accepted by the good people of the North, as I think, without proper thought and investigation. It is a crafty invention and is in every way worthy of its inventors.
It springs out of a desire to throw off just responsibility and to evade the performance of disagreeable but manifest duty. Its natural effect and purpose is to divert attention from the true issue now before the American people. It does this by holding up and pre-occupying the public mind with an issue entirely different from the real one in question. That which is really a great national problem and which ought to be so considered by the whole American people, dwarfs into a ‘Negro Problem.’ The device is not new. It is an old trick. It has been oft repeated and with a similar purpose and effect. For truth, it gives us falsehood. For innocence, it gives us guilt. It removes the burden of proof from the old master class and imposes it upon the Negro. It puts upon the race a work which belongs to the nation. . . .
The South has always known how to have a dog hanged by giving him a bad name. When it prefixed ‘Negro’ to the national problem, it knew that the device would awaken and increase a deep-seated prejudice at once and that it would repel fair and candid investigation. As it stands, it implies that the Negro is the cause of whatever trouble there is in the South. In old slave times, when a little white child lost his temper, he was given a little whip and told to go and whip ‘Jim,’ or ‘Sal,’ and he thus regained his temper. The same is true to day on a large scale.
I repeat, and my contention is that this Negro problem formula lays the fault at the door of the Negro and removes it from the door of the white man, shields the guilty and blames the innocent, makes the Negro responsible, when it should so make the nation. . . .
. . . But could I be heard by this great nation, I would call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted and startled a listening world. Its voice, then, was as the trump of an archangel, summoning hoary forms of oppression and time honoured tyranny, to judgment. Crowned heads heard it and shrieked. Toiling millions heard it and clapped their hands for joy. It announced the advent of a nation, based upon human brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and equality. Its mission was the redemption of the world from the bondage of ages. Apply these sublime and glorious truths to the situation now before you. Put away your race prejudice. Banish the idea that one class must rule over another. Recognize the fact that the rights of the humblest citizens are as worthy of protection as are those of the highest and your problem will be solved, and––whatever may be in store for you in the future, whether prosperity or adversity, whether you have foes without or foes within, whether there shall be peace or war––based upon the eternal principles of truth, justice and humanity, with no class having cause for complaint or grievance, your Republic will stand and flourish for ever.
Frederick Douglass, “Why is the Negro Lynched,” Pamphlet (PDF), (Bridgwater, England: John Whitby and Sons, Limited, 1895), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59116/59116-h/59116-h.htm.
