Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 19—In a speech before the Interracial convention here, Bishop Thos. Gailor declared that the Negroes should “be themselves,” stop imitating the white man, and that slavery had its virtues as well as its vices.
“Ne Negro’s future lies, not in imitation of the white man, but in independent development along is own lines,” the bishop explained to his hearers.
“The reason I am here tonight is because I feel that it is the bounden duty of all of us to aid in working out problems in the community in which we live and the Negro is a part of his community and in a way is problems are my problems.
“Let me say that the crime element among us is only the scum on the surface of our body social When we all get right down to work and hard work we can sweep it away.
“These are not times when we should be harping on dead old wrongs such as slavery, for slavery accomplished much good. It brought the Negro in touch with civilization. In Africa the Negro was continually whipped by inter-tribal wars, they were captured into slavery by other members of their own race and so held until they happened to be recaptured or death put an end to their miseries.
“Slavery brought the Negro to America and welded him into a heterogeneous whole and give him a racial consciousness.
“It should be the ambition of each race to contribute its own individual contribution to civilization and allow me to say again that those contributions are likely to be widely divergent.”
From the front page of The Star of Zion, The Official Organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Charlotte, N.C., Jan. 21, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sf88092969/1926-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/
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