"
Before closing I cannot forebear a further word with regard to New York
Central College. During the four years I was in connexion with that
college as professor, I never experienced the slightest disrespect from
trustees, professors or students. All treated me kindly, so kindly
indeed that I can truly say that the period of my professorship forms
one of the pleasantest remembrances of my life. Terrible as prejudice
against color is, my experience has taught me that it is not invincible;
though, as it is the offspring of slavery, it will never be fully
vanquished until slavery has been abolished.
In illustration of the direct influences of slavery as they affect the
free man of color, I again go back for a single moment. Having spent
three years at Oneida Institute, I proposed to myself a visit to
Virginia, to look once more into the faces of beloved parents, relatives
and friends, to walk again upon the strand at Fortress Monroe, where I
had so often in childhood beheld the sunbeams play upon the coves and
inlets, and seen the surf beat upon the rocks. I, at first, had some
difficulty in getting a passage to Virginia, most of the masters of the
New York vessels to whom I applied seeming to be of a friendly nature,
and not willing to expose me to the slave laws of Virginia. I, however,
succeeded at last--the captain of a Philadelphia vessel consenting to
land me at the fortress of Monroe. I remained in the home of my
childhood and youth seven days in peace; but on the morning of the
eighth day, while walking on the strand, I was rudely assaulted by a
person who had known me from my infancy.
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