Page:The future of Africa.djvu/222

216 connected with Africa. I see that no one else of our race has done it; perhaps I may be pardoned for assuming so great a task.

I may add here that I address the "Free Colored Men of America," because I am identified with them; and not because I feel that they, especially, and above all the other sons of Africa, in distant lands, are called upon for zeal and interest in her behalf. It is the exasperation of the relation of American black men to Africa, which has turned the hearts of many of her own children from her. Your duties, in this respect, are no greater than those of our West Indian, Haytian, and eventually our Brazilian brethren. Whatever in this letter applies to our brethren in the United States, applies in an equal degree to them. But I am not the man to address them. I fear I presume even in writing this letter to American black men, and have only just now concluded to do so by the encouragement I have received in two jdeasant interviews with Mr. Campbell and Dr. Delany. And even now it is Avith doubt and diffidence that I conclude to send you this communication. My reluctancy has arisen chiefly from a consideration of the claim put forth by leading colored men in the United States, to the effect "that it is unjust to disturb their residence in the land of their birth by a continual call to go to Africa." This claim is, in my opinion, a most just one. Three centuries' residence in a country seems clearly to give any people a right to their nationality therein without disturbance. Our brethren in America have other claims besides this; they have made large contributions to the clearing of their