Chapter 25

_Various Incidents_

NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE--UNEXPECTED OPPOSITION--THE OBJECTIONS TO
IT--THEIR PLAUSIBILITY ADMITTED--MOTIVES FOR COMING TO
ROCHESTER--DISCIPLE OF MR. GARRISON--CHANGE OF OPINION--CAUSES
LEADING TO IT--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHANGE--PREJUDICE AGAINST
COLOR--AMUSING CONDESCENSION--"JIM CROW CARS"--COLLISIONS WITH
CONDUCTORS AND BRAKEMEN--TRAINS ORDERED NOT TO STOP AT LYNN--
AMUSING DOMESTIC SCENE--SEPARATE TABLES FOR MASTER AND MAN--
PREJUDICE UNNATURAL--ILLUSTRATIONS--IN HIGH COMPANY--ELEVATION OF
THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR--PLEDGE FOR THE FUTURE.

I have now given the reader an imperfect sketch of nine years'
experience in freedom--three years as a common laborer on the
wharves of New Bedford, four years as a lecturer in New England,
and two years of semi-exile in Great Britain and Ireland. A
single ray of light remains to be flung upon my life during the
last eight years, and my story will be done.

A trial awaited me on my return from England to the United
States, for which I was but very imperfectly prepared. My plans
for my then future usefulness as an anti-slavery advocate were
all settled. My friends in England had resolved to raise a given
sum to purchase for me a press and printing materials; and I
already saw myself wielding my pen, as well as my voice, in the
great work of renovating the public mind, and building up a
public sentiment which should, at least, send slavery and
oppression to the grave, and restore to "liberty and the pursuit
of happiness" the people with whom I had suffered, both as a OBJECTIONS TO MY NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE>slave and as a freeman.
Intimation had reached my friends in Boston of what I intended to
do, before my arrival, and I was prepared to find them favorably
disposed toward my much cherished enterprise. In this I was
mistaken. I found them very earnestly opposed to the idea of my
starting a paper, and for several reasons. First, the paper was
not needed; secondly, it would interfere with my usefulness as a
lecturer; thirdly, I was better fitted to speak than to write;
fourthly, the paper could not succeed. This opposition, from a
quarter so highly esteemed, and to which I had been accustomed to
look for advice and direction, caused me not only to hesitate,
but inclined me to abandon the enterprise. All previous attempts
to establish such a journal having failed, I felt that probably I
should but add another to the list of failures, and thus
contribute another proof of the mental and moral deficiencies of
my race. Very much that was said to me in respect to my
imperfect literary acquirements, I felt to be most painfully
true. The unsuccessful projectors of all the previous colored
newspapers were my superiors in point of