Bourbon Democracy is a curse to our land.

Any party is a curse which arrays itself in opposition to human freedom, to the universal brotherhood of man.

No colored man can ever claim truthfully to be a Bourbon Democrat.

It is a fundamental impossibility.

But he can be an independent, a progressive Democrat.
The hour has arrived when thoughtful colored men should cease to put their faith upon broken straws; when they should cease to be the willing tools of a treacherous and corrupt party; when they should cease to support men and measures which do not benefit them or the race; when they should cease to be duped by one faction and shot by the other.