Happy Thanksgiving!
An African-American Perspective
Thanksgiving Sermon - 1876
Quoting From The Centennial Thanksgiving Sermon, delivered by Rev. B.W. Arnett, B.D., at St. Paul A.M.E. Church, Urbana, Ohio, in 1876 Text: Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.
--Prov. xiv: 34"These are words of wisdom, and were the expression of the wisest King that ever sat on a throne or ruled over a nation."
Reasons Why the American Negro Should Rejoice
in this Hour of Thanksgiving"We are in a peculiar situation as a race. Our way has been one of toil, sorrow and pain; we have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, the laborers in the field of toil; we have been the bone and sinew in the Southern States; we have moistened the soil with our salt tears, forced by the wrong and oppression from our sorrowful and bleeding hearts; we have consecrated the field with the crystal drops of labor, and baptized the whole with the blood drawn from our backs by the gory lash. The temples of learning have been closed against us; the word of life and light sealed by wicked law, and we have been compelled to find the way to heaven by the flickering light of inspiration or intuition, rather than by the brilliant and luminous rays of revelation; we were chained and whipped because we could not walk nor run. The hymenial altars were burned in our presence; the sacred ashes were scattered to the winds of heaven; our wives were not our own; our children were not our own; the virtue of our daughters were sold to the highest bidder; but amid all of this we have had a strong faith in God, and lively hope of the final triumph of right over wrong.
"To-day we can say: "The Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad." Every heart can rejoice in the position we occupy, that of citizens, with all the obligations and all the privileges that are ours. If we cannot exercise them everywhere, they belong to us and by the blessing of God,
"1st. We should be thankful that the new century finds us not as the old one found our fathers, then they were slaves, now there is no slave within our borders, no master in our land, every man is free, owning no master but his God above him and his own free will.
"2nd. The great change in public sentiment in favor of the equality of man, and the general feeling that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." While the iron hand of war wrung from many unwilling lips the expression of Peter, "I perceive of a truth that God is no respecter of persons." The sentiments is now embedded in the constitution of our country and crystallized in the Civil Rights Bill.
"3rd. The political status of the Negro is something to make us thankful. The recognition of his manhood in the election and appointment to offices of trust, honor and emolument. We have in the short time we have been out of the house of bondage, furnished, what no race of men ever did, in so short a period from their emancipation, men who have filled with credit to the race, satisfaction to the government, and honor to themselves, the positions of Representatives, Congressmen, States Senators, United States Senators, Secretaries of State, Commissioners of Education, Lieutenant Governors, Judges of Circuit and Supreme Courts, in fact we have almost every office from a Constable to United State Senator. This in the short space of thirteen years. Thus we close up the old century and meet the new as men, taking a part in the administration of the laws of this grand State of ours.
"4th. Educationally we have reason to rejoice with the rest of the progressive men and women of our land. The facilities for the acquisition of a common school education are of a very superior kind, and the teachers in the school are an improvement on those of my day. The methods of instruction are far superior to those of ten years ago. We have comfortable houses and good teachers for our children and if we can only give them a little corn bread and meat and keep their backs covered, they can go to school and qualify themselves for usefulness and honor in this life, and for glory in the one to come. We must educate! We must educate! I say with all the earnestness of the soul, or short will our position of honor in this country be. We must be able to meet thought with thought, reason with reason, fact with fact, argument with argument, on the platform and in the pulpit. Let our banners be thrown out, and on their ample folds written in letters of living light, educate the head to think, the heart to feel and the hands to work."
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