the charm to family life, and
which, by the refinement and delicacy of womanhood, preserve the
civilization of nations, have not come to _her_. She has still the rude,
coarse labor of men. With her rude husband she still shares the hard
service of a field-hand. Her house, which shelters, perhaps, some six or
eight children, embraces but two rooms. Her furniture is of the rudest
kind. The clothing of the household is scant and of the coarsest
material, has ofttimes the garniture of rags; and for herself and
offspring is marked, not seldom, by the absence of both hats and shoes.
She has rarely been taught to sew, and the field labor of slavery times
has kept her ignorant of the habitudes of neatness, and the requirements
of order. Indeed, coarse food, coarse clothes, coarse living, coarse
manners, coarse companions, coarse surroundings, coarse neighbors, both
black and white, yea, every thing coarse, down to the coarse, ignorant,
senseless religion, which excites her sensibilities and starts her
passions, go to make up the life of the masses of black women in the
hamlets and villages of the rural South.

This is the state of black womanhood. Take the girlhood of this same
region, and it presents the same aspect, save that in large districts
the white man has not forgotten the olden times of slavery and with
indeed the deepest sentimental abhorrence of "amalgamation," still
thinks that the black girl is to be perpetually the victim of his lust!
In the larger towns and in cities our girls in common schools and
academies are receiving superior culture. Of the 15,000 colored school
teachers in the South, more than half are colored young women, educated
since emancipation. But even these girls, as well as their more ignorant
sisters in rude huts, are followed and tempted and insulted by the
ruffianly element of Southern society, who think that black _men_ have
no rights which white men should regard, and black _women_ no virtue
which white men should respect!

And now look at the _vastness_ of this degradation. If I had been
speaking of the population of a city, or a town, or even a village, the
tale would be a sad and melancholy one. But I have brought before you
the condition of millions of women. According to the census of 1880
there were, in the Southern States, 3,327,678 females of all ages of the
African race. Of these there were 674,365 girls between twelve and
twenty, 1,522,696 between twenty and eighty. "These figur