opulation in a ratio of five to one. In the town in which I live
(Mound Bayou) we outnumber the white population in a ratio of five to
nothing. (Laughter and applause.)

"Instead of whining and lamenting our lot, and bemoaning the racial
prejudice which exists in our section of the country, we are taking
advantage of some of the opposition and the tendency to segregate us
and we are trying to show, through the leadership of this ex-slave of
Jefferson Davis, that it is possible for us to build up a Negro
community, a town owned and controlled by Negroes right there under
his direct supervision. And as a result, on the Yazoo and Mound Bayou
Branch of the Yazoo Central Railroad, we have one of the best-governed
and most prosperous towns on the whole line. We have something like
thirty to forty thousand acres of land in that rich and fertile
country owned and controlled exclusively by Negro men and women. We
have there the little town of Mound Bayou, which it is our privilege
to represent, and so far as its management or government is concerned,
we have control of everything. There we have a Negro Depot Agent, a
Negro Express Agent, a Negro Postmaster, a Negro Mayor, a Board of
Negro Aldermen and City Councilmen, and every other official of the
city administration is a full-fledged Negro. In that town I am the
banker, and I pass for a Negro." (Laughter and applause followed this
sally, as the speaker is the blackest of full-blooded Africans.)

In concluding his address of welcome on this occasion Mr. Wanamaker
said: "I do hope that meetings like this will come often and be held
in every large city in the North. In exhibiting to the world the
successful business men and women of your race, your league is doing
exactly what every good merchant legitimately does, that is--you are
showing your goods. (Laughter.) And you are delivering the goods.
(Prolonged applause.) Your league is making an 'Annual Report' as it
were; it is making a 'Yearly Inventory' of what your race has on hand,
and though this large hall has been the scene of many delightful
occasions (mainly connected with this business) your coming here
to-day is the first meeting of its kind. (Applause.) I believe that
this meeting ought to be put down as historical, and should serve as a
set-off--in striking contrast to the stoning of William Lloyd
Garrison, in the streets of Philadelphia, scarcely more than fifty
years ago. (Prolonged applause.) This meeting will sim