But I thought of my former
ignorance and prejudice, and said, "And such were some of you."
I will tell you some of the little incidents which meet one every day,
and which give you impressions respecting the relations between the
whites and blacks, full as instructive as those received in any other
way.
Crossing a public street, which is steep, in the city of ----, a
truckle-cart came by me at great speed, drawn by a white boy, with
another white boy pushing, and seated in it, erect and laughing, was a
fine-looking black boy of about the same age as his white playmates.
Around the corner of another street there came by me, with a
skip-and-jump step, two white girls, about thirteen years old, and
between them--the arms of the three all intertwined--was another girl of
the same age, as black as ebony. On they went jumping, and keeping step,
and singing.
I had not been accustomed to such sights in Beacon Street, on my visits
to Boston. "Friends of the slave," as we most surely are, and some of us
being decorated with that name by way of distinction, significant of our
all-absorbing business "to raise the black man at the South to the
condition of a human being," when we get them there we are not greeted
in the streets with pictures of white and black children on such terms
as appeared in these two casual incidents.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132