Ethiop [William J. Wilson] to Frederick Douglass, September 14, 1855

ETHIOP BEFORE THE CONVENTION---NO. III.

BROOKLYN, Sept. 14th, 1855.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—In my last, I spoke of the Church as one of the agencies by which we have arrived at our present stage. Nearly contemporaneous with the Church sprang into being the benevolent associations among the people of color. It was the best possible evidence of a high, social quality, a superior principle, inherent in the colored man, that almost the first effort, after his disentanglement from the meshes of bondage, was to take measures for the mutual support and care of himself and his brethren in sickness and death. It was a development of character worthy of more than a passing notice, that almost the first dollar, after the feet were shod, was contributed to the work of soothing the dying pillow and decent burial. It is noteworthy, that while the town hearse almost invariably drove to the door of the poor white man's house, the remains of him who but yesterday was the dusky slave, were borne to their last resting place, if not with the pride and pomp of the wealthy, certainly with great decency and order—troops of sympathizing friends following, sustained by the thought that mutuality of support, rather than cold charity, gave the last consolation to their dying friend.

Such was the first period of benevolent societies among the people of color. They sprang up in every city, and many of the towns in the free States, and flourished to an extent scarcely creditable. Facts, however, dispel our doubts, and prepare us for another view of these societies. Not the affording of aid to the sick, and burial to the dead merely—but these societies were of additional and higher service. They assisted to reduce us who, at the outset of our career as freemen, were but little more than chaotic masses to system. Little ought to have been expected of man, the terms of whose previous condition was disarrangement, distraction and division; but, through the instrumentality of these associations, these masses began to systematize their minds, their acts, and their general affairs.

As the Church was a spiritual, so was the association a kind of moral and mental school to the men who priorly knew no school, but the school of oppression and wrong. He who previously knew nothing of a responsible post, or any other name, than Dick, Tom or Harry —and scarcely that beyond his master's old Square B.'s kitchen corner, now (in dignity even surpassing the veritable Square himself) sits bolt upright at the upper end of a long room, with gavel in hand, giving orders to a gathering of associated brethren—a full-grown President. True, his fine granite head contrasts strangely with the barrenness of intelligence he at first exhibits. No fault of his.— But he has to begin—he has already began—he succeeds—he proves himself a man. And there is Jack, too, who—having learned to spell by the help of huge apologies for letters executed with his finger in the sand field and to read from laborious and unwearied spellings out of bits of torn papers, picked up from around the barn-yard—looks a little funny, and not a little amazed at finding himself raised to the high post of first Grand Secretary for his associated brethren. I shall not speak of the books of Record. I shall say nothing of their neatness, or accuracy. The association has been formed, and colored men are beginning to learn and value law, order, and the utility of mutual confidence, and mutual dependence. It had, at first, for our men, all the charm and freshness of a new novelty; and they rushed into it from every direction, like so many children into a school-room on a mid-summer's day, after the bell had rang; and they were not without their lessons. Within this pale, these men first learned to think, to reason and to act. From hence have arisen some of the brightest ornaments that have yet adorned colored society.

We may, as a mass, outgrow the original association, or most of its phases; but as a cultivator and producer of good to us, it is too obvious; and the results thereof, we have standing out to-day, in bold offset, against the darker sky of the yet prevailing ignorance around. In our onslaught upon what we term separate institutions, we too frequently lose sight of the fact that, to our church, association and school, chiefly we are this hour indebted for whatever of preparation we have made for the great battle of to-day.

I admit both the necessity and the utility often changes for the better; but it cannot shut out of sight, as useless, the steps taken or the agencies used to produce that state or condition in the affairs of a people for such changes.— Let me illustrate a little. A friend of mine, (and an old man when I gained his friendship,) whose only cognomen, while on his master's farm, was Jake, obtained in course of time his freedom. He soon thereafter became exceedingly pious and joined the church. Not long after, he purchased a little farm, and by perseverance and industry paid for it. He was unusually shrewd for his advantages, and thrived rapidly, and was every way a worthy citizen and a good Christian. For thirty years did he go in and out before his white brethren, blameless, without every being called upon to so much as even offer one prayer. For thirty long years was he instant in season and out of season an attendant on the ministrations of a single pastor, without once being requested or permitted to open his mouth in public for his Redeemer's sake. Nor was he alone. There were others of his black brethren in the vicinity who walked in the same meek and lowly path of this white church institution. But there arrived a period in the history of that town, when a pious and intelligent minister, with a skin colored like their own, came and established a church, and my old friend Jake, now Mr. P—, was ordained deacon therein. It is useless to say that he soon became not only passingly, but an intelligently pious and wonderfully useful man among his own church brethren, and the whites as well—the latter seeking of him that advice and counsel they needed, but often failed to obtain elsewhere. He grew and strengthened in all the manly graces, and was alive to every good work. He was freely permitted—nay, pressed into the councils and doings of his white brethren who once knew not of his hidden worth—who scarcely recognized him as a man. Who shall say that but for the circumstance of the church—this black church—he would have died unknown, and his good deeds, which now stand a noble monument to his memory and worth, would ever have been done? Who shall say that the whites would, even to this day, have been convinced of the ability of a colored man, or the propriety of a proper and equitable relation to one, but for this occcurence? and who is he that will despise and contemn these agencies—the church, the Baptist Association, the school? Hundreds there are like this man, have been made by them, and are now doing good service in the country.— More anon.

Yours truly,

ETHIOP.