While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past,
that you and your families will be surrounded by the most
patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the
world has seen. . . . so in the future, in our humble way, we
shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can
approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of
yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and
religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests
of both races one."
He summed up his plea for racial cooperation with the second
pictorial image. He told the audience that "In all things that
are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet as
one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." This
proposal brought forth thunderous applause. He went on to say
that the wisest in his race were aware that fighting for social
equality was folly. The ex-slave, he believed, must first
struggle and prepare himself for the assumption of his rights,
which were privileges to be earned. While he did believe that his
people would receive their full rights at some future date, he
insisted that "The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory
just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a
dollar in an opera-house.
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