Fig. 19. Men of Color! To Arms! To Arms! (Philadelphia 1863), Library of Congress
Men like Frederick Douglass believed that black Americans must earn their own freedom, or else black youth would inherit a history of shame. These men used words similar to the following to recruit free blacks into the Union army. This is a copy of a 8 foot tall sign that appeared on a Philadelphia building in 1863:
“’Men of color. To arms! To arms! Now or never…For generations we have suffered under the horrors of slavery, outrage and wrong; our manhood has been denied, our citizenship blotted out, our souls scared and burned, our spirits cowed and crushed, and the hopes of the future of our race involved in doubts and darkness. But now the whole aspect of our of our relations to the white race is changed. Now therefore is our most precious moment. Let us, Rush to Arms! Fail Now and Our Race is Doomed on this the soil of our birth. We must now awake, arise, or be forever fallen. If we value liberty, if we wish to be free in this land if we love our country, if we love our families, our children, our homes, we must strike NOW while the Country calls : must rise up in the dignity of our manhood, and show by our own right arms that we are worthy to be freemen. Our enemies have made the country believe that we are craven cowards, without soul, without manhood, without the spirit of soldiers. Shall we die with this stigma resting on our graves? Shall we leave this inheritance of shame to our children? No! A thousand times No ! We WILL Rise!”[1]
[1] W. A. Gladstone, Men of Color (Gettysburg, PA: Thomas, 1993) 110.