nois, to propose similar celebrations, and their representatives,
both white and colored, came to the Pennsylvania colored men to
study their plans.
  The exhibits at the exposition came from all parts of the
Commonwealth, and from distant States as well as from Africa.
There were four thousand different exhibits from nearly nine-
teen hundred persons. The exposition was a revelation of prog-
ress made by the colored people in the great Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, and in the country at large.


              Inventors of the Negro Race

  Nearly two thousand patents of negro inventors were ex-
hibited and Pennsylvania was found to be in the lead. The in-
dustry of paper bags, the calculator on the adding machine, and
the system of communication between moving trains were a few
of the inventions of the Pennsylvania negro commercially profit-
able, and creditable to the race.
  We learned on this occasion that in 1863 when the negro
race came out of slavery only six in one hundred were able to
read and write, while in 1813 there were 76 out of every one hun-
dred who could read and write. Surely no other nation or race
on the face of the globe can exhibit such an astounding progress
from illiteracy to a comparative degree of educational standards.
  Sociologists charge that the exposition demonstrated that the
negroes who came out of slavery penniless, in 1913 owned over
one billion dollars worth of property in this country, and in
proportion to population the State of Pennsylvania leads all the
States, and the city of Philadelphia all the cities, of our country.
  Today the negro conducts more than 250 newspapers, the
oldest being in the city of Philadelphia. The negro race has
graduated over 8,000 negro boys and girls, and the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy has been won from Harvard, Yale, Chicago,
and the University of Pennsylvania, and here again Pennsylvania
still leads.
  Negroes from Pennsylvania have studied abroad in the uni-
versities of England, Germany, France and Italy, and Pennsyl-
vania has led all States in being first to have a negro win the
famous Cecil Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, England.
                               17




			

OHS Archives/Library Pamphlet Collection

Progress of the Negro Race: Address at a Patriotic Race Service, Philadelphia