Rev. Theodore S. Wright, (1797-1847) was
born to free parents in Providence, Rhode Island. By the 1830s Wright was
pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City and a conductor on the
Underground Railroad. Wright, a dedicated abolitionist, attended the New York
State Anti-Slavery Society convention held in Utica, on September 20, 1837.
However he also recognized the growing racial prejudice directed against free
blacks in the North. In the speech below Wright supported a resolution
introduced into the convention which said anti-black prejudice was
"nefarious and wicked and should be practically reprobated and
discountenanced." His speech appears below.
Mr. President, with much feeling do I
rise to address the society on this resolution, and I should hardly have been
induced to have done it had I not been requested. I confess I am personally
interested in this resolution. But were it not for the fact that none can feel
the lash but those who have it upon them, that none know where the chain galls
but those who wear it, I would not address you.
This is a serious business, sir. The prejudice which exists against the colored man, the free man is like the atmosphere, everywhere felt by him. It is true that in these United States and in this State, there are men, like myself, colored with the skin like my own, who are not subjected to the lash, who are not liable to have their wives and their infants torn from them; from whose hand the Bible is not taken. It is true that we may walk abroad; we may enjoy our domestic comforts, our families; retire to the closet; visit the sanctuary, and may be permitted to urge on our children and our neighbors in well doing. But sir, still we are slaves—everywhere we feel the chain galling us. It is by that prejudice which the resolution condemns, the spirit of slavery, the law which has been enacted here, by a corrupt public sentiment, through the influence of slavery which treats moral agents different from the rule of God, which treats them irrespective of their morals or intellectual cultivation. This spirit is withering all our hopes and oft-times causes the colored parent as he looks upon his child, to wish he had never been born. Often is the heart of the colored mother, as she presses her child to her bosom, filled with sorrow to think that, by reason of this prejudice, it is cut off from all hopes of usefulness in this land. Sir, this prejudice is wicked.
If the nation and church understood this matter, I would not speak a word about that killing influence that destroys the colored man's reputation. This influence cuts us off from everything; it follows us up from childhood to manhood; it excludes us from all stations of profit, usefulness and honor; takes away from us all motive for pressing forward in enterprises, useful and important to the world and to ourselves.
In the first place, it cuts us off from the advantages of the mechanic arts almost entirely. A colored man can hardly learn a trade, and if he does it is difficult for him to find anyone who will employ him to work at that trade, in any part of the State. In most of our large cities there are associations of mechanics who legislate out of their society colored men. And in many cases where our young men have learned trades, they have had to come to low employments for want of encouragement in those trades.
It must be a matter of rejoicing to know that in this vicinity colored fathers and mothers have the privileges of education. It must be a matter of rejoicing that in this vicinity colored parents can have their children trained up in schools.--At present, we find the colleges barred against them.
Click here for the full speech.
Source: BlackPast.org
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