“Go to Africa?” repeated Professor Langhorne, of Georgia.  “Does the United States own one foot of African soil?  And have we not been investing our blood in the country for ages?”

“I am in favor of missionary efforts,” said Professor Gradnor, of North Carolina, “for the redemption of Africa, but I see no reason for expatriating ourselves because some persons do not admire the color of our skins.”

“I do not believe,” said Mr. Stillman, “in emptying on the shores of Africa a horde of ignorant, poverty-stricken people, as missionaries of civilization or Christianity.  And while I am in favor of missionary efforts, there is need here for the best heart and brain to work in unison for justice and righteousness.”

“America,” said Miss Delany, “is the best field for human development.  God has not heaped up our mountains with such grandeur, flooded our rivers with such majesty, crowned our valleys with such fertility, enriched our mines with such wealth, that they should only minister to grasping greed and sensuous enjoyment.”

“Climate, soil, and physical environments,” said Professor Gradnor, “have much to do with shaping national characteristics.  If in Africa, under a tropical sun, the negro has lagged behind other races in the march of civilization, at least for once in his history he has, in this country, the privilege of using climatic advantages and developing under new conditions.”

“Yes,” replied Dr. Latimer, “and I do not wish our people to become restless and unsettled before they have tried one generation of freedom.”

“I am always glad,” said Mr. Forest, a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman from New York, “when I hear of people who are ill treated in one section of the country emigrating to another.  Men who are deaf to the claims of mercy, and oblivious to the demands of justice, can feel when money is slipping from their pockets.”

“The negro,” said Hon. Dugdale, “does not present to my mind the picture of an effete and exhausted people, destined to die out before a stronger race.  Gilbert Haven once saw a statue which suggested this thought, ’I am black, but comely; the sun has looked down upon me, but I will teach you who despise me to feel that I am your superior.’  The men who are acquiring property and building up homes in the South show us what energy and determination may do even in that part of the country.  I believe such men can do more to conquer prejudice than if they spent all their lives in shouting for their rights and ignoring their duties.  No! as there are millions of us in this country, I think it best to settle down and work out our own salvation here.”

“How many of us to-day,” asked Professor Langhorne, “would be teaching in the South, if every field of labor in the North was as accessible to us as to the whites?  It has been estimated that a million young white men have left the South since the war, and, had our chances been equal to theirs, would we have been any more willing to stay in the South with those who need us than they?  But this prejudice, by impacting us together, gives us a common cause and brings our intellect in contact with the less favored of our race.”