I speak of this to-night because when I was a little boy I could read nothing to make me know of their bravery. It helps a young man to be true and loyal, to know the blood of brave men is in his veins. When a white man speaks he says, "My father fought for this country and for constitutional liberty." Our fathers fought for it as well, America's glory is ours. When I used to study history in school no honorable mention was made of us there, our boys and girls must write some history. We were only mentioned in that book twice, and then we were mentioned in pictures, one was the picture of a Negro boy butting Gen. Prescott's door down. Then there was a large and pretty illustration of Gen. Perry on Lake Erie, in this they had a Negro crouching in the bow of a boat, while the white men fearlessly faced the enemy's guns. Those of you who have read history know how valorous and brave the black man was in this struggle, and this picture is a printed lie. Every time I go down street and pass the Soldiers' Monument on the Square I feel about an inch taller, some people don't like the bronze figure of the negro there. It pleases me to see it, and I am glad that the time has come that you cannot build a monument to the soldiers, and tell the truth, without putting the black man there. That is demonstrated ability in another field. Frederick Douglass says there are three boxes the Negro must control: "the knowledge box, the money box and the ballot box." But you need another box in order to take care of the other three, it comes in very handy some times, it is the cartridge box. Another field of endeavor where our ability has been demonstrated is _the field of business_. We have brought grapes from that domain. We have been busy trying to get a good foothold in business.
One thing I wish to speak of in this connection is prejudice, especially in the south land, it has been a great blessing to our people. For example: as some of you know, there are few southern cities where they will haul your dead body in the hearse that they use for the whites. Not for love nor money would they do it, and the result is, that our people are buying hearses and going into the undertaking business. The money that flowed into the other people's pockets is flowing into ours. Our people are also beginning to keep drug stores, so you can see that prejudice has been a blessing to us, by forcing us to go into business for ourselves. If they had laid aside this prejudice we would not have made this advance, but God has helped us and we are getting along right well.