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| Item ID | egyptian 1943 1008vol 25 #2.tif |
| Title | DARK MUSINGS |
| Author | By DOROTHY SYKES |
| Description | Easily the most dramatic episode in American history was the sudden move to free four million black slaves in an effort to stop a great civil war, to end 40 years of bitter controversy, and to appease the moral sense of civilization. |
| Original Publication Source | Daily Egyptian |
| Date | 1943 October 8 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Page(s) | 2 |
| Digital File Format | .TIF (Tagged Image Format) |
| Digital File Publisher | Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale |
| Rights Statement | All copyrights held by Southern Illinois University Carbondale. For permission to reproduce, distribute, or otherwise use this image, please contact the Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Phone: + 1 (618) 453-2516. Email: http://reftrack.lib.siu.edu/reft100.aspx?key=SCRCEmail&cllcid=SCRR |
| Collection | Daily Egyptian Diversity News Archive (Southern Illinois University Carbondale) |
| Transcript | DARK MUSINGS
By DOROTHY SYKES
Easily the most dramatic episode in American history was the sudden move to free four million black slaves in an effort to stop a great civil war, to end 40 years of bitter controversy, and to appease the moral sense of civilization.
From the day of its birth. slavery plagued a nation which asserted the equality of all men and sought to derive powers of government from the consent of those governed.
The black population at the time of the first census had risen to three—quarter of a million and there were over a million at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
As long as slavery was a matter of lace and color, it made the conscience of the nation uneasy and continually affronted its ideals. The men who wrote the constitution sought by every evasion and almost by subterfuge, to keep recognition of slavery out
of the basic form of the government. They founded their hopes on the prohibition of the slave trade, being sure that without continual addition from abroad, this tropical people would not
long survive, and thus the problem of slavery would disappear in death. Either they miscalculated or did not for see the changing economic world, and therefore, when they discovered that the Negroes were not dying out, there came, quite naturally, new
excuses and explanations. It was a matter of social condition.
However, in this rich land, wealth, and work multiplied, and the "black re-constructors" twisted new and intricate patterns around the earth. Slowly, hut mightily, these black workers were integrated into modern industry.
Back labor became the foundation stone, not only of the Southern social structure, but of Northern manufacture and commerce.
American whites shed tears over fallen Lidice and make the sad story of the wrongs that she received the theme of American poems and songs. Its sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate Lidices cause against the oppressor, but, in regards to
the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave. America would enforce the strictest silence, and
would hail him as an enemy of the nation. Who dares to make those wrongs the subjects of public discourse?
Above all, we must remember that the black worker was so ultimately exploited that he formed
that mass of labor which had neither wish nor power to escape—escape from labor status. Often they were driven back into the mass by racial prejudice before
they had reached a permanent foothold. It was then and now, that we consider the Negro as the most important and basic part of the American foundation.
Though little as we may hear about it. when thinking about it, we will find that the black man has been the very root or seed of American civilization.
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| Language | English |
| Type | Text |
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