Negro Nationality in Africa
Chicago Daily Tribune: July 11, 1891
Bishop Henry M. Turner of Georgia, a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is firmly of the opinion that the colored race can never secure its rights in the United States. He earnestly advocates the migration of a large part of the colored population to Africa.
In an interview today the Bishop said that the impression that he advocated a wholesale removal of the blacks was erroneous. What he did favor was that the most cultured, thoughtful, self-reliant, and progressive element of his race should project some plan for the establishment of a Negro nationality in Africa.
“That there is deep, racial prejudice between the whites and blacks in this country. No intelligent man will deny; and this prejudice is on the increase, thus widening the chasm which separates the two races. The white people know scarcely anything about the Negro or his merits for the reason that the bar of social contact is so severely maintained, and for this reason, the Negro knows comparatively little of the white race. I maintain that all history will justify my position that two alienated nations cannot occupy the same territory and be at peace, for one will dominate the other. In a few years from now, at the drift things are taking, the Negro will be disfranchised, and in less than twenty years States will be enacting laws for his enslavement. I see no remedy except for one hundred thousand or half a million of the higher type of Negro race to move off somewhere and establish a nationality and flag of their own. Nor do I see any place under heaven that promises success in this endeavor except Africa. I believe the Negro has the power, the pride, the virtue, and all the nobler instincts of manhood that can make the project a success. The white people of this country must either treat the negro as a civil and political equal-I am not talking of social equality-or the negro will remain here as a menace to the peace and harmony of this great government.”
