John E. Bruce: African American Plea for Organized Resistance to White Men (1889)

▪ Primary Source

      When reactionary white supremacists regained political power in the South after Reconstruction, they imposed upon African Americans a regime of terror and disfranchisement calculated to override the legal provisions of the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Although African American leaders proposed numerous programs to challenge the economic, social, and political policies of the white power structure, some African Americans felt helpless. Under these conditions, there was a certain appeal in proposals for direct retaliation such as those in the following speech by African American journalist John Bruce. The manuscript is dated October 5, 1889.

      I fully realize the delicacy of the position I occupy in this discussion and know too well that those who are to follow me will largely benefit by what I shall have to say in respect to the application of force as one of the means to the solution of the problem known as the “Negro problem.”

      I am not unmindful of the fact that there are those living who have faith in the efficacy of submission, who are still pregnated with the slavish fear which had its origin in oppression and the peculiar environments of the slave period. Those who are thus minded will advise a pacific policy in order as they believe to affect a settlement of this question, with which the statesmanship of a century has grappled without any particularly gratifying results. Agitation is a good thing, organization is a better thing. The million Negro voters of Georgia, and the undiscovered millions in other Southern states—undiscovered so far as our knowledge of their numbers exists—could, with proper organization and intelligent leadership, meet force with force with most beneficial results.

      The issue upon us cannot be misunderstood by those who are watching current events. To us it is not a theory (to quote a distinguished Democrat), but a condition that confronts us; a condition big with hope and fear; a condition where cowards quail and brave men stand their ground; a condition demanding the highest courage, the greatest sacrifices, the noblest ambition to overcome, and to set forever at rest the question of the Negro s right to the titles of manhood, self-respect, and honor. The man who will not fight for the protection of his wife and children is a coward and deserves to be ill-treated. The man who takes his life in his hand and stands up for what he knows to be right will always command the respect of his enemy.

      Submission to the dicta of Southern bulldozers is the basest cowardice, and there is no just reason why manly men of any race should allow themselves to be continually outraged and oppressed by their equals before the law. . . . In all our homogeneous population no race or class has been more loyal, has shown a greater respect for law and order, has been more willing to write its benefits in marble and its injuries in dust than the Negroes of the United States. . . .

      Under the present condition of affairs the only hope, the only salvation for the Negro is to be found in a resort to force under wise and discreet leaders. He must sooner or later come to this in order to set at rest, for all time to come, the charge that he is a moral coward. . . . I hate namby-pambyism, or anything that looks like temporizing, when duty calls.

      To settle this Southern problem, the Negro must not be rash and indiscreet either in action or in words, but he must be very determined and terribly in earnest, and of one mind to bring order out of chaos and to convince Southern rowdies and cut-throats that more than two can play at the game with which they have amused their fellow conspirators in crime for nearly a quarter of a century.

      Under the Mosaic dispensation, it was the custom to require an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Under a no less barbarous civilization than that which existed at that period of the world s history, let the Negro require at the hands of every white murderer in the South or elsewhere a life for a life. If they burn our houses, burn theirs; if they kill our wives and children, kill theirs; pursue them relentlessly, meet force with force everywhere it is offered. If they demand blood, exchange with them until they are satiated. By a vigorous adherence to this course the shedding of human blood by white men will soon become a thing of the past.

      Wherever and whenever the Negro shows himself to be a man, he can always command the respect even of a cutthroat. Organized resistance to organized resistance is the best remedy for the solution of the vexed problem of the century, which to me seems practicable and feasible; and I submit this view of the question, ladies and gentlemen, for your careful consideration.

Source: Manuscript in John E. Bruce Collection, Folder No. 7, Shomburg Collection, New York Public Library, 103 West 135th Street, New York, N.Y.

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