One Common Country for One Common People

<p>“The negro will not be alarmed at the unjust talk against him as is often uttered by Mr. Tillman of South Carolina. He will not be sent to the island of the sea to please Mr. Graves of Georgia. The negro is here to stay to work to learn to obey to pray and to accumulate property and to become a responsible factor in his own country and nation.”<p>--Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood<br>September 25 1903<p>“John J. Smallwood is the most eloquent negro orator that has ever spoken in Steubenville. He is dark in complexion rather fine looking a plain but substantial dresser unassuming in his manners a profound scholar and a master of the pure English. He has a full round voice very eloquent as a speaker logical graceful and convincing. Upon the subject of the “Negro Problem” he has no equal in this country.”<p><br>The Steubenville Weekly Herald Star<br>September 25 1903<p><br>“His style of oratory which is dignified and graceful is suggestive of that of Hon. Frederick Douglass and his friends of whom he has a host numbering among them some of the leading men and women in New England say that in time he will surpass Douglass.”<p>The Boston Globe November 16 1890<p><br>“On my return to America on the question of labor I learned that a colored man could better represent his race upon such issues when they came before the public.”<p>Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood<br>The Boston Sunday Globe<br>November 16 1890<p>“But through the broader knowledge which cultivated intelligence brings Dr. Smallwood has not stopped at the race question but has entered upon the agitation of temperance and labor topics affecting American citizens white and colored.”<p> The Boston Globe<br>November 16 1890<br>The Boston Gl<br>“I was only twelve years of age when I ran away from my birthplace of Rich Square NC . . . I walked sixty miles from N.C. into the town of Franklin [VA] where my poor slave-born father and mother once lived and where my great but misguided grandfather was executed Aug. [1831]. I speak of my grandfather (Nat Turner) who led the Southampton Insurrection in [1831] as being “great.” I do not mean in a foolish unselfish way but as a fact.” November 16 1890<br>DDDDr. John Jefferson Smallwood<br>December 26 1903.</p>