One Common Country for One Common People

About the Book

“The negro will not be alarmed at the unjust talk against him, as is often uttered by Mr. Tillman, of South Carolina. He will not be sent to the island of the sea to please Mr. Graves, of Georgia. The negro is here to stay, to work, to learn, to obey, to pray and to accumulate property and to become a responsible factor in his own country and nation.”

--Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood
September 25, 1903

“John J. Smallwood is the most eloquent negro orator that has ever spoken in Steubenville. He is dark in complexion, rather fine looking, a plain but substantial dresser, unassuming in his manners, a profound scholar, and a master of the pure English. He has a full round voice, very eloquent as a speaker, logical, graceful, and convincing. Upon the subject of the “Negro Problem” he has no equal in this country.”

The Steubenville Weekly Herald Star
September 25, 1903

“His style of oratory, which is dignified and graceful, is suggestive of that of Hon., Frederick Douglass, and his friends, of whom he has a host, numbering among them some of the leading men and women in New England, say that in time he will surpass Douglass.”

The Boston Globe November 16, 1890

“On my return to America, on the question of labor, I learned that a colored man could better represent his race upon such issues when they came before the public.”

Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood
The Boston Sunday Globe
November 16, 1890

“But through the broader knowledge which cultivated intelligence brings, Dr. Smallwood has not stopped at the race question, but has entered upon the agitation of temperance and labor, topics affecting American citizens, white and colored.”

The Boston Globe, November 16, 1890.

“I was only twelve years of age when I ran away from my birthplace of Rich Square, NC . . . I walked sixty miles from N.C. into the town of Franklin [VA] where my poor, slave-born father and mother once lived and where my great but misguided grandfather was executed Aug. [1831]. I speak of my grandfather (Nat Turner) who led the Southampton Insurrection in [1831] as being “great.” I do not mean in a foolish, unselfish way but as a fact.” November 16, 1890, Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood. December 26, 1903.

About the Author

Mary E.C. Drew is a native of Northampton County, North Carolina, and the great, great niece of Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood. She is also the author of Divine Will, Restless Heart: The Life and Works of Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood.