To you, of the younger generation, what a marvel, what a world of meaning in those words—"I have been taught patience." We, who fret and chafe because the whole world will not bend its will to our puny strivings, and turn its whole course that we might have our unripe desires fulfilled, should read and re-read of the man who could wait, because he knew that time and all eternity would be bent to meet his desires in time.

Livingstone's is a character that we cannot help but venerate; that calls forth all one's enthusiasm; that evokes nothing but sincerest admiration. He was sensitive, but so is any man of a high mind and generous nature; he was sensitive on the point of being doubted or criticised by the easy-chair geographers, lolling comfortably in their clubs and scanning through their monocles the maps which the hard working travellers had made. He was humble-souled, as are all the truly great. His gentleness never forsook him; his hopefulness never deserted him. No harassing anxiety, distraction of mind, long separation from home and kindred, could make him complain. He thought all would come out right at last, such faith had he in the goodness of Providence. The sport of adverse circumstances; the plaything of the miserable slaves, which were persistently sent him from Zanzibar, baffled and worried, even almost to the grave; yet he would not desert the charge imposed upon him. To the stern dictates of duty alone did he sacrifice his home and ease, the pleasures, refinements, and luxuries of civilized life. His was the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring heroism of the Englishman—never to relinquish his work, though his heart yearned for home; never to surrender his obligations, until he could write "Finis" to his work.

Yet who shall say that the years spent alone at the very heart of Nature had not made him the possessor of that "inward eye," which, as Wordsworth says, "is the bliss of solitude." For many years he lived in Africa deprived of books, and yet when Stanley found him, he learned to his surprise, that Livingstone could still recite whole poems from Byron, Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, and other great poets. The reason is found in the fact that all his life he lived within himself. He lived in a world in which he revolved inwardly, out of which he awoke only to attend to his immediate practical necessities. It was a happy inner world, peopled with his own friends, acquaintances, relatives, readings, ideas, and associations. Blessed is the man who has found the inner life more real than the trivial outer one. To him mere external annoyances are but as the little insects, which he may brush away at will. No man can be truly great who has not built up for himself a subjective world into which he may retire at will. The little child absorbed in a mythical land peopled by fairies and Prince Charmings is nearest to possessing such an inner life; and we must become as little children. To some it is a God-given gift; others may acquire it, as Jack London tells us, by "going into the waste places, and there sitting down with our souls." There comes then, the overwhelming realization of the charms and beauties of nature—man is a pygmy, an abstraction, an unreality. This had come to our hero. Added to the strength of his inner life Livingstone had the deep sympathy with Nature in all her moods. He became enthusiastic when he described the beauties of the Moero scenery. The splendid mountains, tropical vegetation, thundering cataracts, noble rivers, stirred his soul into poetic expression. His tired spirit expanded in the presence of the charms of nature. He could never pass through an African forest, with its solemn stillness and serenity, without wishing to be buried quietly under the dead leaves where he would be sure to rest undisturbed. In England, there was no elbow-room, the graves were often desecrated, and ever since he had buried his wife in the woods of Shupanga, he had sighed for just such a spot, where his weary bones would receive the eternal rest they coveted. But even this last wish was denied him, and the noisy honors and crowded crypt of Westminster Abbey claimed him, far away from the splendid solitude he craved. All Africa should have been his tomb. He should never have been forced to share with hundreds of others a meagre and scant resting-place. Yet there is food for rejoicing in the knowledge, that though his body was borne away, his heart was buried by his beloved natives in the forest.

The study of Dr. Livingstone would not be even superficially complete if we did not take the religious side of his character into consideration. By religion, we do not mean the faith he professed, the particular tenets he believed, the especial catechism he studied, or any hair-splitting doctrine he might have upheld, but that deeper ethical side of manhood, without which there can be no true manhood. Livingstone's religion was not of the theoretical kind, but it was a constant, earnest, sincere practise. It was neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifested itself in a quiet, practical way, and was always at work. It was not aggressive, nor troublesome, nor impertinent. In him, religion exhibited its loveliest features; it governed his conduct not only towards his servants, but towards the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all with whom he came in contact. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent temperament, his enthusiasm, his high spirit and courage, must have become uncompanionable, and a hard master. Religion had tamed him, and made him a Christian gentleman; the crude and wilful were refined and subdued; religion had made him the most companionable of men and indulgent of masters—a man whose society was pleasurable to a high degree.

If his life held for us no other message than this, it would hold enough. Unfortunately the youth of to-day is apt to chafe when the ideal of Christianity and manly religion is held up to him. He thinks of the religious man as a milksop, a mollycoddle. He cannot associate him in his mind with the doing of great deeds, the thinking of great thoughts. His ideal of manhood is the ruthless Man on Horseback, with too often a disregard of the sacred things of life. Sometimes, if the youth of to-day thinks at all, he runs riot into ethics, forgetting that, after all, there could be no ethics without a firm base of religion. And so he wastes many precious years before he learns that all the greatest men whom the world has known drew their strength and power from the unseen and the spiritual.

We have noticed that Livingstone's religion was not aggressive nor impertinent. Early in his career as a missionary, he recognized the truth that if he were to exercise any influence on the native Africans, it would not be by bringing to them an abstraction in place of their own savage ideals. His influence depended entirely upon persuasion, and by awakening within their minds the sense of right and wrong. "We never wished them to do right," he says, "because it would be pleasing to us, nor think themselves to blame when they did wrong." Worldly affairs, and temporal benefits with the natives were paramount, so he did not force abstractions upon them but, with a keen insight into human nature, as well as into savage human nature, he reached their higher selves through the more worldly.

His was a pure and tender-hearted nature, full of humanity and sympathy, modest as a maiden, unconscious of his own greatness, with the simplicity we have noted before, the simplicity of the truly great. His soul could be touched to its depths by the atrocities of the Arab slave-traders, yet he forgot his own sufferings in the desire to make others immune from suffering. He had but one rule of life, that which he gave to the Scotch school children, whom he once addressed:

"Fear God and work hard!"

* * * * *

It is one hundred years since this quiet, high-souled man was given the world, in the little Scotch village, and yet another hundred may pass away and still his life will be as a clarion call to the youth of the world to emulate his manhood. For the world needs men now, as it never needed them before,

"Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest brake or den, as beasts excel cold rocks and rambles rude."

Such a man was Livingstone, not afraid to be meek in order to be great; not afraid to "fear God and work hard;" not ashamed to stoop in order that he might raise others to his high estate. He gave the world a continent and a conscience; with the lavishness almost of Nature herself he bestowed cataracts and rivers, lakes and mountains, forests and valleys, upon his native land. He stirred the soul of the civilized world to the atrocities of the slave trade, and he made it realize that humanity may be found even in the breast of a savage. When he laid down his life in the forest he loved, he laid upon the altar of humanity and science the costliest and sweetest sacrifice that it had known for many a weary age.

What message has this life for us to-day, we the commonplace, the mediocre, the unknown to fame and fortune? Shall we fold our hands when we read of such heroes and say, "Ah, yes, he could be great, but I? I am weak and humble, I have not the opportunity?" Who was more humble than the poor boy spinning in the cotton-mill; who was less constrained by Fortune's frowns than the humble missionary? His life brings to us the message of doing well with that little we have.

We cannot all be with Peary at the North Pole, nor die the death of the hero, Scott, on the frozen Antarctic continent. It is not given to us to be explorers; it is not given us to be pioneers; we may not discover vast continents, name great lakes, nor gaze with wonder-stricken eyes upon the rolling of a mighty unknown river. But to each and all of us comes the divine opportunity to carve for himself a niche, be it ever so tiny, in the memories of men. We can heed the admonition of Carlyle, "Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, or even a Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee, out with it then!"

The life of service; the life of unselfish giving—this must Livingstone's life mean to us. Unselfish, ungrudging lavishing of life and soul, even to the last drop of heart's blood. Service that does not hesitate because the task seems small, or the waiting weary; service that does not fear to be of no account in the eyes of the world. Truly, indeed, might Wordsworth's apostrophe to Milton be ascribed to him:

"Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness, and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay."



EDUCATION FOR MANHOOD[48]

BY KELLY MILLER

[Note 48: Reprinted from Kelly Miller's Monographic Magazine, April, 1913.]

We must keep clearly in mind the proposition that the educational process is always under domination of contemporary opinion. The education prescribed for any class is likely to be conditioned upon the presumed relationship of that class to the social body. When woman was regarded as an inferior creature, whose destiny was to serve as a tool and plaything of man, she was accorded only such education as would fit her for this subsidiary function. Any other training was regarded as unnecessary and mischievous. It is only within comparatively recent times, when man began to realize the essential human quality and powers of the female sex, and deemed it not mockery to place her on the same footing with himself, that the comprehensive education of woman has become a possibility.

The traditional relation of the American Negro to the society of which he forms a part is too well known to need extensive treatment in this connection. The African slave was introduced into this country as a pure animal instrumentality to perform the rougher work under dominion of his white lord and master. There was not the remotest thought of his human personality. No more account was taken of his higher qualities than of the higher susceptibilities of the lower animals. His mission was considered to be as purely mechanical as that of the ox which pulls the plow. Indeed, his human capabilities were emphatically denied. It was stoutly contended that he did not possess a soul to be saved in the world to come nor a mind to be enlightened in the world that now is. Under the dominion of this dogma, education was absolutely forbidden him. It became a crime even to attempt to educate this tertium quid which was regarded as little more than brute and little less than human. The white race, in its arrogant conceit, constituted the personalities and the Negro the instrumentalities. Man may be defined as a distinction-making animal. He is ever prone to set up barriers between members of his own species and to deny one part of God's human creatures the inalienable birthright vouchsafed to all alike. But the process was entirely logical and consistent with the prevailing philosophy.

The anti-slavery struggle stimulated the moral energy of the American people in a manner that perhaps has never had a parallel in the history of vicarious endeavor. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." In dealing with fundamental principles of human rights and human wrongs involved in the issue of slavery, these moral reformers found that the Negro was a human being, endowed with heart and mind and conscience like as themselves; albeit these powers of personality had long been smothered and imbruted by centuries of suppression and harsh usage. These philanthropists believed in the essential manhood of the Negro. This belief was the chief dynamic of their endeavor. Upon this foundation they not only broke the Negro's chain, but clothed him with political and civic prerogative as an American citizen. They established schools and colleges and universities for him because they believed in his higher susceptibilities. To-day we are almost astounded at the audacity of their faith. They projected a scheme of education comparable with the standards set up for the choicest European youth for a race which had hitherto been submerged below the zero point of intelligence. These schools and colleges founded and fostered on this basis were the beginnings of the best that there is in the race and the highest which it can hope to be.

But, alas, as the passion engendered by the war grew weaker and weaker, the corresponding belief in the Negro has also declined, and the old dogma concerning his mission as a human tool has begun to reassert itself. In certain sections the white race has always claimed that the Negro should not be encouraged in the development of personality. The denial of the designation "mister" is suggestive of this disposition. With them the term "mister" is made to mean a direct designation of personality. There is no objection to such titles as "doctor," "reverend" or "professor," as these connote professional rather than personal quality.

Our whole educational activities are under the thrall of this retrograde spirit. We are marking time rather than moving forward. The work is being carried on rather than up. Our bepuzzled pedagogues are seriously reflecting over the query, Cui bono?—Is it worth while? Few, indeed, are left who have the intensity of belief and the intrepidity of spirit to defend the higher pretentions of the Negro without apology or equivocation. The old form of appeal has become insipid and uninspiring; the ear has become dull to its dinging. The old blade has become blunt and needs a new sharpness of point and keenness of edge. Where now is heard the tocsin call whose key-note a generation ago resounded from the highlands of Kentucky and Tennessee to the plains of the Carolinas calling the black youths, whose hopes ran high within their bosoms, to rise and make for higher things? This clarion note, though still for the nonce, shall not become a lost chord. Its inspiring tones must again appeal to the youth to arise to their higher assertion and exertion. If you wish to reach and inspire the life of the people, the approach must be made not to the intellectual, nor yet to the feelings, as the final basis of appeal, but to the manhood that lies back of these. That education of youth, especially the suppressed class, that does not make insistent and incessant appeals to the smothered manhood (I had almost said godhood) within, will prove to be but vanity and vexation of spirit. What boots a few chapters in Chemistry, or pages in History, or paragraphs in Philosophy, unless they result in an enlarged appreciation of one's own manhood? Those who are to stand in the high places of intellectual, moral, and spiritual leadership of such a people in such a time as this must be made to feel deep down in their own souls their own essential manhood. They must believe that they are created in the image of God and that nothing clothed in human guise is a more faithful likeness of the original. This must be the dominant note in the education of the Negro. If the note itself is not new, there must at least be a newness of emphasis and insistence. The Negro must learn in school what the white boy absorbs from association and environment. The American white man in his ordinary state is supremely conscious of his manhood prerogative. He may be ignorant or poor or vicious; yet he never forgets that he is a man. But every feature of our civilization is calculated to impress upon the Negro a sense of his inferiority and to make him feel and believe that he is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of other men. A race, like an individual, that compromises its own self-respect, paralyzes and enfeebles its own energies. The motto which should be engraved upon the conscience of every American Negro is that which Milton places in the mouth of His Satanic Majesty: "The mind is its own place and of itself can make a heaven of hell; a hell of heaven." To inculcate this principle is the highest mission of the higher education. The old theologians used to insist upon the freedom of the will, but the demand of the Negro to-day is for the freedom and independence of his own spirit. Destroy this and all is lost; preserve it, and though political rights, civil privileges, industrial opportunities be taken away for the time, they will all be regained.

By the development of manhood on the part of the Negro nothing is farther from my thought than the inculcation of that pugnacious, defiant disposition which vents itself in wild ejaculations and impotent screaming against the evils of society. I mean the full appreciation of essential human qualities and claims, and the firm, unyielding determination to press forward to the mark of this calling, and not to be swerved from its pursuit by doubt, denial, danger, rebuff, ridicule, insult, and contemptuous treatment. While the Negro may not have it within his power to resist or overcome these things, he must preserve the integrity of his own soul.

The higher education of the Negro up to this point has been very largely under the direction and control of philanthropy. The support has come almost wholly from that source. The development of this sense of manhood should be the highest concern of a wise, discriminating philanthropy, for if this is once developed the Negro will be able to handle his own situation and relieve his philanthropic friends from further consideration or concern; but, if he fails to develop this spirit of manhood, he will be but a drag upon the resources of philanthropy for all times to come.

The Negro must develop courage and self-confidence. A grasp upon the principles of knowledge gives the possessor the requisite spirit of confidence. To the timid, the world is full of mystery manipulated and controlled by forces and powers beyond their ken to comprehend. But knowledge convinces us that there is no mystery in civilization. The railroad, the steamship, and the practical projects that loom so large to the unreflecting, are but the result of the application of thought to things. The mechanical powers and forces of Nature are open secrets for all who will undertake to unravel the mystery. And so it is with essential and moral principles. The one who will have himself rooted and grounded in the fundamental principles of things can look with complacence upon the panorama of the world's progress. The Negro should plant one foot on the Ten Commandments and the other on the Binomial Theorem: he can then stand steadfast and immovable, however the rain of racial wrath may fall or the angry winds of prejudice may blow and beat upon him.

The educated Negro must learn to state his own case and to plead his own cause before the bar of public opinion. No people who raise up from out their midst a cultivated class, who can plead their own cause and state their own case, will fail of a hearing before the just judgment of mankind.

The educated Negro to-day represents the first generation grown to the fullness of the stature of manhood under the influence and power of education. They are the first ripened fruit of philanthropy, and by them alone will the wisdom or folly of that philanthropy be justified. The hope of the race is focused in them. They are the headlight to direct the pathway through the dangers and vicissitudes of the wilderness. For want of vision, the people perish; for want of wise direction, they stumble and fall. There is no body of men in the world to-day, nor in the history of the world, who have, or ever have had, greater responsibilities or more coveted opportunities than devolves upon the educated Negro to-day. It is, indeed, a privilege to be a Negro of light and leading in such a time as this. The incidental embarrassments and disadvantages which for the time being must be endured are not to be compared with the far more exceeding weight of privileges and glory which awaits him if he rises to these high demands. For such a privilege well may he forego the pleasure of civilization for a season.

His world consists of 10,000,000 souls, who have wrapped up in them all the needs and necessities, powers and possibilities, of human nature; they contain all the norms of civilization, from its roots to its florescence. His is the task to develop and vitalize these smothered faculties and potentialities. His education will prove to be but vanity and vexation of spirit, unless it ultimates in this task. He is the salt of the earth, and if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? If the light within the racial world be darkness, how great is that darkness?

The highest call of the civilization of the world to-day is to the educated young men of the belated races. The educated young manhood of Japan, China, India, Egypt, and Turkey must lift their own people up to the level of their own high conception. They must partake of the best things in the civilization of Europe and show them unto their own people. The task of the educated American Negro is the same as theirs, intensified, perhaps, by the more difficult and intricate tangle of circumstances and conditions with which he has to deal.

He cannot afford to sink into slothful satisfaction and enjoy a tasteless leisure or with inane self-deception hide his head under the shadows of his wings, like the foolish bird, which thereby hopes to escape the wrath to come. The white race, through philanthropy, has done much; but its vicarious task culminated when it developed the first generation of educated men and women. They must do the rest.

These philanthropists spoke for us when our tongues were tied. They pleaded our cause when we were speechless; but now our faculties have been unloosed. We must stand upon our own footing. In buffeting the tempestuous torrents of the world we must either swim on the surface or sink out of sight. The greatest gratitude that the beneficiary can show to the benefactor is, as soon as possible, to do without his benefaction. The task of race statesmanship and reclamation devolves upon the educated Negro of this day and generation. Moral energy must be brought to bear upon the task, whether the Negro be engaged in the production of wealth or in the more recondite pursuits which minister to the higher needs of man.

The white race is fast losing faith in the Negro as an efficient and suitable factor in the equation of our civilization. Curtailment of political, civil, and religious privilege and opportunity is but the outward expression of this apostasy. As the white man's faith decreases, our belief in ourselves must increase. Every Negro in America should utter this prayer, with his face turned toward the light: "Lord, I believe in my own inherent manhood; help Thou my unbelief." The educated Negro must express his manhood in terms of courage, in the active as well as in the passive voice: courage to do, as well as to endure; courage to contend for the right while suffering wrong; the courage of self-belief that is always commensurate with the imposed task. The world believes in a race that believes in itself; but justly despises the self-bemeaned. Such is the mark and the high calling to which the educated Negro of to-day is called. May he rise to the high level of it. Never was there a field whiter unto harvest; never was there louder cry for laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.



A FEW REMARKS ON MAKING A LIFE[49]

BY ROBERT E. JONES, LL. D.

Editor Southwestern Christian Advocate, New Orleans, La.

[Note 49: Extracts from Commencement address delivered at Tuskegee Institute, May 29, 1913.]

I have a story to relate, and at once I want to present to you my hero,—a hero more inspiring than Achilles of the "Iliad," or Odysseus of the "Odyssey," or AEneas of the "AEneid."

My hero is not a myth, not a creation of literature, not a tradition, but not unlike the Grecian hero in that he sprung from the union of a god and a mortal. My hero is not reckoned among the high and mighty nor will his name ever be carved on stone or raised on bronze. Neither has my hero accomplished startling feats. As a hero he may be a paradox. Inconspicuous, humble in station, modest, hid far away from the maddening, jealous, curious, bickering, taunting, striving, restless crowd of life. Too long already I have held him from you. His name? I do not know. His birthplace? I do not know. His age? I do not know. Is he living now? Here my ignorance is painful. I do not know. My hero, however, is an actual man of flesh and blood. I met him but twice in life, but was so charmed I did not ask his name. His personality thrilled and he in a measure has become my patron saint. He is not a hero of large and commanding stature, but a cripple—doubly so. His arms were palsied and turned in so that he could not use a crutch, his lower limbs turned in also. He sat in an ordinary cane-bottomed chair and could easily move himself about by throwing the weight of his body from one back leg of the chair to the other, lifting the front legs at the same time. I saw him along the train side at Spartanburg, S. C.

A beggar? No, my young friends, beggars are seldom heroes. He was a merchant prince. He carried his goods around his neck and shoulders and in his outer coat pockets. He was selling shoe-strings and pencils. If you gave him a dime he would insist on your taking one or both of the articles he had for sale. In his activities he was a fine lesson of the first requirement of life. He was self-sustaining. By the sweat of his brow he earned his bread.

Did he complain of his lot? Not a bit of it. His handicap he did not make nor could undo. He therefore accepted his condition philosophically; he was self-respecting. He knew his limitations; he knew what he could do and what he could not do; he was self-knowing. Knowing his handicap and that it was quite unlike any other man's and that he needed a means of locomotion, he found it; he had, therefore, initiative. He leaned not upon the strength of others, but used his own resources; he was therefore self-reliant. He did not wait for business to come to him, he put himself in the path of business; he was a hustler. He saw life through a cheerful lens and kept a stout heart; he was optimistic. He recognized his own personality apart from the personalities of the crowded throng through which he passed; he was a self-contented individual. He had but one life to live and he was making the most of life. When I left him I crowned him, honored him, and I love him for his worth as a true man.

"I like a man who faces what he must, With step triumphant and a heart of cheer; Who fights the daily battles without fear; Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, Nor ever murmurs at his humble lot, But, with a smile, and words of hope, gives zest To every toiler; he alone is great Who by a life heroic conquers fate."

When once away from my hero, as I thought of him in my deepest soul, I cried:

"Thou art my chastiser and my inspirator. Thou art simple yet great; untaught thyself, thou art the teacher of all. Henceforth thou shalt be my hero and guide. Doubting myself, bemoaning my limitations, depressed by my failure, ashamed of my achievements, my seeing you has given me a new interpretation of life. I own you my friend, my life's inspiration and hero."

There is my hero. You ask his color? What difference does it make? Men have often refused to recognize worth because of color. But to satisfy you I will tell you. He is a Negro. Give a seat of honor to my hero. Gather inspiration and learn from him the lessons of life, if you will. Here is an individual doubly afflicted, without a word of complaint, or a fret or whine, depending upon his own initiative and resources, making the most of life under the circumstances which surround him.

Upon the basis of what has been said, in closing this address to the graduating Class of 1913 of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute I desire to offer a personal word:

In the first place, you will know a year from now, more than you can realize at this present moment, that this is a commencement. This is not the climax of your life. It is but the beginning, and however paradoxical it may seem, you are not at the top of the ladder, you are at the foot. We are here to applaud you to-day not so much on what you have already accomplished as to give you a send-off for the strenuous tasks that lie before you. To be frank with you, young men and young women, the life in earnest that awaits you without will tax every bit of your strength. Your moral strength will be drawn upon, as well as your intellectual resources.

Secondly; had I my way I would have each of you burn your diploma and never refer to it as an indication of what you are and what you know. Do not attempt to pass through the world on your diploma or your class standing. The world cares little for these. I would urge that you prove to the world what you are by what you can do—that you let your achievements point to your diploma.

Thirdly; you go forth to-day as a representative of this institution, mantled with all the sacred honors, prestige, and commendation that this institution, State, and your admirers can bestow. See to it that you keep the honors of this hour unsoiled and that you disgrace not the noble history of your alma mater.

Fourthly; I do not believe that this institution is fostered with the idea that the few students who gather here from time to time only shall be reached. I rather suspect that the dollars that come from the State and generous friends come with the hope that as you have been helped and lifted to culture and refinement, you in turn will carry culture to those who may never be permitted to stay in these walls. You are to carry light into dark places and unto those who sit in darkness. By your arm of strength you are to lift the poor who are beneath you. And then your education comes not for self-culture, not for self-enjoyment, not for self-use, but for the betterment of those who are about you.

Fifthly; you go forth as the embodiment of a new generation. You stand to-day upon the foundation built by those who have gone before you. They have wrought well. By their toil and suffering you are blest. You are to carry your generation one notch higher and thus help the onward march of the world's progress. Be thou faithful. Lift your eyes heavenward and aspire to do the best and be the noblest according to God's heritage to you. There are no chosen depths, no prescribed heights to which you may climb.

"Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your part, there all the honor lies."

Make the most of life!



EMANCIPATION AND RACIAL ADVANCEMENT[50]

BY THE REV. ERNEST LYON, D.D., LL.D.

[Note 50: An address delivered upon the invitation of the citizens of Brownsville, Pa., on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and also to celebrate the event of Decoration Day, May 30, 1913.]

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Celebration Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen:

We are not here to-day in the capacity of the priest performing the funeral rights over the graves of the dead; neither are we here simply to offer tribute to their memory, by the time-honored custom of decorating their graves with the faded tokens of a nation's love and gratitude; but we are here, ladies and gentlemen, to cheer the hearts of the living—not by an optimism impossible of realization—but by a candid and truthful report of the conduct of that legacy of freedom, which came to us fifty years ago, through the sacrifice and death of the patriots, living and dead, whose memories are honored to-day all over this broad land of ours.

The civilized world will watch for the newspaper reports of to-morrow to learn the sentiments of the American people uttered to-day upon many of the burning issues before the Congress of the United States, relating to our domestic and foreign policies. The opportunities, which this day gives, will be seized by national orators to record their convictions upon matters of morality, politics, and diplomacy. Japan will listen with keen, diplomatic interest to every utterance, official or unofficial, touching the vexing problems involved in the so-called "Yellow Peril" and in the Anti-Alien Land legislation, which, like Segregation and the Jimcrowism of the South, have been enacted into laws discriminating against citizens, not aliens, but citizens of the United States of America, such as we are.

Many to-day believe that the gravity of these international matters will force the Decoration Day orators to ignore the Negro question, which, in some form or other, has been the livest question in American politics for nearly three centuries. In this belief I think they will be disappointed, for no question before the American people to-day, whether national or international, can overshadow the Negro question in America, and no day as historic as this would be complete in its observance without some reference to it.

We, therefore, gladly welcome the Japanese, or any other members of the colored race in the earth, to come and share with us that notoriety which our presence begets in this country, for no other people on the face of the globe, so far as the United States is concerned, will be able to dispossess us from the limelight of public discussion. We have not only helped, but we have made history in this country. We are wrapped up in the history of the United States of America, despite the attempt in certain quarters to deny us a respectful place therein. There is not a single page, from the period of its colonial existence to its present standard of greatness and renown, from which we are absent. From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to the advent of the Cavaliers at Jamestown; from the stirring periods of the Revolution, which resulted in the emancipation of the colonists from British imperialism, to the Rebellion in 1860—resulting in the salvation of the Federal Union—we have ever and always been a potent factor in the history of this country.

Our presence here has made this day possible. There would have been no Decoration Day had the American kidnappers left us in Africa—our fatherland. The world must, therefore, hear from us upon these special occasions. So, like other elements of the population, we come to-day to make our annual report. We come, in company with the others, to review the past, to study the present, and, if possible, to forecast the future. In measuring the progress of any successful commercial enterprise, the mode of procedure is to compare beginnings with balance-sheets. Commercially speaking, it is to take an inventory. What, therefore, is true of any commercial enterprise is equally true of races and individuals. The modus operandi is the same. In fact, we proceed by comparing beginnings with beginnings; environments with environments, and the advantages and disadvantages of the past and present. This is the mode by which the progress of a race or the attainments of an individual must be measured, and the Negro race offers no exception to this rule.

It was Wendell Phillips, one of America's greatest statesmen, jurists, and orators, who said in that marvellous lecture on Toussaint L'Ouverture—beyond doubt the greatest military genius of the nineteenth century—that there are two ways by which Anglo-Saxon civilization measures races. First, by the great men produced by that race; secondly, by the average merit of the mass of that race. In support of the first he bravely summoned to his presence, from the regions of the dead, the immortal Bacon, Shakespeare, Hampden, Hancock, Washington, and Franklin, offering them as stars, who, in their day, had lent lustre in the galaxy of history. And with equal pride he gloried in the average merit of Anglo-Saxon blood, since it first streamed from its German home, in support of the contention of the second way.

As a race, we shall offer no objection to this principle of judgment. In fact, we cannot even if we so desired. We shall, therefore, accept it without any reluctance. We think it is a good principle upon which to base a judgment. The only consideration we demand, in connection with it, is that the white American, in his judgment of the Afro-American, shall strictly observe the rule which the race he represents has set for itself; that is to say, let him measure our race by the great and useful men it has produced, since the immortal Abraham Lincoln issued that Proclamation, whose fiftieth anniversary we celebrate to-day, giving freedom to four and one-half millions of human beings. Let him measure us by the average merit of Afro-American blood, since it first streamed from the land of the Pharaohs, whose wills were inscribed in hieroglyphics—long before Ph[oe]nicia invented the alphabet; long before the conquest of Alexander the Great had enabled Eratosthenes and Appollodorus to construct their synchrony of Egyptian antiquity; long before the construction of the Pyramids (those silent but eloquent tributes to the grandeur and majesty of the African intellect) had proclaimed the immortality of the soul.

Our record in this country, Mr. Chairman, must begin with the Emancipation period. The Emancipation is our birthday. Mankind, therefore, in measuring our progress, must, in order to be just, make Emancipation its starting point. Previous to that period we were like the earth in its primeval condition, as described by Moses, the great Lawgiver, in the Book of the Generations; namely, that the "Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." So, too, were we before the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation; we were without national form; void of civic rights; and moral and intellectual darkness covered the minds and souls and spirits of the race.

What was the condition of the race when the Emancipation Proclamation was first issued, a half century ago? Commercially speaking, what were the assets of this race? Had it anything to its credit in the balance-sheets of human progress, save the evils accruing from a long period of bondage? The facts will prove that it had nothing to its credit but the virtues of patience and endurance, under trials and afflictions, the horrors of which will form one of the darkest chapters in the history of this country.

The twenty Africans, brought by the slave-traders to Jamestown, in 1620, representing the introduction of African slavery into the United States, in two hundred and forty-three years had increased to four and one-half millions of human souls; and it is fair to presume that an equal, if not a greater number than this, had perished on account of the rigors of transmission in crossing the Atlantic Ocean and the indescribable cruelties of the slave system at home.

The Proclamation of Emancipation found these four and one-half millions of human beings practically homeless, penniless, and friendless, and absolutely dependent upon the very same people to whom they were in bondage for two hundred and forty years, and against whom they had taken up arms in a civil war. The forty acres of land and two mules, which were promised by the Federal Government, never materialized. That promise was like the proverbial pie-crust, made to be broken; and the descendants of these four and a half millions are to-day entitled, by every humane consideration, to all the benefits and the equities in the case. The Federal Government at Washington can only purge itself of this breach of promise by paying the bill, with legal interest; if not, according to the legal terms of the agreement (forty acres and two mules), then in its just equivalents, either by pensioning the survivors of the slave system—many who are to-day in abject squalor and want—or by a liberal grant of money to the schools of the land charged with the educational development of their much proscribed posterity.

What of the race's mental condition at the time of its civic birth? There were scarcely any at that time who could either read or write with any degree of proficiency. Not because they were incapable of learning; not because of any mental inferiority; but because of the cruel and unjust law prohibiting their education and making it a criminal offense, not only for the Negro himself, but for any white man who should undertake to instruct him. Punishment was so severe along this line that the very sight of a book awed him into fear and fright. The very existence of such a law was, indeed, an admission of the educational possibilities of the race. In the year 1863 there were about twenty members of the race who had received collegiate training. Mathematically speaking, it took three hundred years to pull twenty Negroes through the colleges of the land, so great was the combination against our mental development.

What was our status in the business pursuits and gainful occupations at that time? The year 1863 is as far back as we desire to go for this enquiry, when the entire race, with but a few exceptions, were servants, restricted to menial employment and plantation occupations.

What was the moral status of the race at that period? Here there are two sides involved in any answer which might be given to this question. The evidences of unlawful miscegenation present themselves to every traveler throughout this country, and is in itself a pertinent answer to this query. Our women have had to fight against indescribable odds in order to preserve their womanhood from the attacks of moral lepers, who, very often, were their masters and overseers. Yet, in spite of these well-known facts, we have produced women among us of pure and good morals, with unimpeachable reputation for virtue and purity. Sometimes it is a little amusing to hear the white American expatiate on the immorality of Negro women. They certainly cannot forget their own record in their dealings with the helpless Negro women of this country. But here, we will let the curtain of secrecy fall upon such a scene, while we shall advance to a higher and nobler plane upon this day when nothing but good feeling must be allowed a place on the programme.

"Watchman, what of the night?" What tidings does the morning bring, if any? Has the future nothing in store for America's greatest factors in her industrial and commercial development?

Let us turn from the past; what of the present? In spite of the dehumanizing and other efforts to destroy the fecundity of the race, the twenty Africans of 1620, by the close of the Revolution, had increased to 650,000, and these 650,000, at the close of the Civil War, had reached the alarming number of four and one-half millions; and these four and a half millions, had, according to the last Federal Census, reached the astonishing number of ten millions or more of native-born citizens—entitled, though sometimes denied, to every right and privilege granted by the Constitution of the United States and by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments thereof; the making and sustaining of which our fathers contributed much of their blood and sacrifice, in peace, as well as in war.

For we have been present, not only as spectators, but as active participants in every trying crisis in the history of this nation. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, when labor troubles threatened the very life of the infant colony and continuing to the founding of the Republic—when white men were held in peonage or actual bondage for the uncanceled financial obligations due to the nobility of Great Britain—who furnished the labor which solved the vexed problem? Who furnished the brawn and muscle which cleared the forests, leveled the hills, tunneled the mountains, bridged the rivers, laid the tracks and cultivated the fields, until this broad land had become as beautiful as the lily of the valley and as fragrant as the rose of Sharon?

In 1776, when despotism was enthroned and liberty languished in the streets of Boston, was it not the blood of a Negro—Crispus Attucks—which animated the sinking spirit of the Goddess, who was almost ready to die under the oppression of King George and the despotism of Cornwallis?

In the Sixties—when Lincoln, despairing of the outcome of the Civil War, on account of the treachery in his own ranks and repeated reverses on the battle-field, called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the Rebellion in the South—who came to the rescue of the Union? In spite of the effort of McClellan and his company of 50,000 soldiers, who went to Richmond to prevent "niggers," as they were called, from enlisting, who came to the rescue of the Union? Whose blood helped to render the testament of liberty valid? Ask Port Hudson and Milligan's Bend, and Fort Wagner, and Fort Pillow, and Pittsburg Landing, how the nearly 200,000 Negro soldiers behaved themselves under the fire of the enemy on these memorable battlefields—rendered sacred by their patriotic blood.

Who saved the Rough Riders and Colonel Roosevelt in the late Spanish-American War, when San Juan was illuminated with the fire of Spanish cannonading? Hark! Methinks I hear the tramp of the black boys of the 24th and the 25th Cavalry, chanting to the strains of martial music,—"Glory Hallelujah, we are going to have a hot time in the old town to-night," as they dashed up the dangerous parapet to defend the honor of their country, and to keep "Old Glory" from trailing in the dust.

At the close of the Civil War we were without homes, lands, or money. To-day, according to the last census of the United States, we own 600,000 homes, 20,000,000 acres of farm land, covering an area equal to the political dominions of the kingdoms of Belgium and Holland. We have under cultivation 40,000,000 acres of farm lands, including those farms rented by our people and those owned in fee-simple, and worth $500,000,000. The gross incomes from the farms conducted by Negroes amount to $250,000,000 annually. We own 10,000 business establishments, 300 drug stores, and 57 banks.

At the close of the Civil War we were without schools, without men of letters, without men in the various professions and lucrative avocations of life. To-day, we have 200 universities, colleges, and schools of lower grade supported by the race. We have 3,000,000 Negro children attending these schools and the public schools of the land. We have written 2,000 books. We edit and conduct 200 periodicals and magazines. In forty years we have contributed, as levies for school purposes, $45,000,000. With a membership of 4,000,000 we have 35,000 churches, valued at $56,000,000, and contribute annually $7,500,000 to their support. We contribute annually $6,000,000 to secret and benevolent societies. We have about 40,000 teachers, 1,500 lawyers, 2,500 doctors, 20,000 preachers, and 80,000 business men—Marvellous!—Marvellous!

A race that can produce in fifty years, beginning with nothing, such a report as this, whose minutest detail is supported by official statistics, needs no pity, Mr. Chairman. A race that can produce a Douglass, a Langston, a Hood, a Scott, a Turner, a Harvey Johnson, a Bruce, a Payne, an Arnett, a Revells, a Price, an Elliott, a Montgomery, a Bowen, a Mason, a Dunbar, a Du Bois, and last but not least, a Booker T. Washington—the foremost genius of our vocational and industrial training—asks not for pity. It only asks for an equal opportunity in the race of life; it asks not for special legislation to accommodate any necessity; it simply asks for a just application of existing laws to all citizens alike, without any reference to race or color or previous condition of servitude. The representatives of this race, in this year of Our Lord, 1913, ask the American people to judge them upon the record of their great and useful men and women which the race has produced in less than a half century—and upon the average merit of the mass of the race since the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by the immortal Lincoln.

In concluding this brief summary—for at best it can only be regarded as a brief summary of the doings of the race—and standing on the threshold of a new era in politics, in commerce, in religion and in ethics—a new era in the feeling and temper of the white American towards the Afro-American, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what shall be our conduct in the future? Watchman, what shall be the forecast?

Mr. Chairman, the forecast is bright—brighter than it has ever been in any previous period of the race's history in this nation—and I make this statement in the fullest appreciation of the efforts which are being made all over this land, by adverse legislation, to weed us out of politics and other public preferments; to push us into a corner to ourselves, in both Church and State—a propaganda which has brought gloom to many of our leaders, producing a pessimism inimical to progress.

But why a pessimistic outlook, Mr. Chairman? Is it possible to deprive ten million native-born American citizens from the enjoyment of their rights and privileges, guaranteed alike to all by the Constitution of the United States? I think not. Such a condition, Mr. Chairman, would be like an established government with no diplomatic representative at court. No matter what methods are adopted, some of the representative men of our race, unexpectedly or otherwise, in the final analysis, will slip in; if not in the Congress of the United States, then in the legislatures and in the municipal governments of the State—such, for example, as Lawyer Bass in Philadelphia, Pa.; Councilman Cummings in Baltimore; Smith in the legislature of Ohio; Fitzgerald in New Jersey, and Jackson in Illinois. No arrangement, no matter how planned, can ultimately defeat this logical result which patience alone will produce.

God and Time, ladies and gentlemen, are important factors in the solution of these questions. Fifty years are not sufficient to determine the possibilities of a race. No seer who knew the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons as Caesar knew them, would have foretold such a future as they now enjoy. This Anglo-Saxon race, whose ancestors worshipped the mistletoe, offered human sacrifices, and drank wine out of human skulls, have now become the conquerors and the dominant race on the earth. Their literature is the cream of the human intellect, and their tongue promises to become the official lingua of the earth. God and Time have wrought these things for them, and what God and Time have wrought for one race, God and Time can accomplish for another race—if that race remain true to itself and to God.

If you ask me for the ground of my optimism, I reply it is based upon two things, namely, the ability of the race itself to overcome difficulties and obstacles, and the over-ruling Providence of God, based upon His justice and His righteousness. It is hardly possible for this Negro race to experience any greater difficulties and obstacles in the future than it has already experienced in the past. It has overcome every obstacle with heroic courage—from slavery to the present period of its marvellous success. Without discounting the human efforts of the race, it has accomplished all of this by an heroic faith in God and in the justice and righteousness of His character as practised by our ancestors in the days of their bitterest afflictions—when weakness characterized the arm of flesh. Personally, I believe in God and in His justice and righteousness, and I have never lost faith in the benevolent brotherhood of mankind. I believe that "Right, like God is eternal and unchangeable; and since Right is Right and God is God, Right must ultimately prevail; though its final triumph may be retarded by the operation of wicked devices—nevertheless—it must prevail."



THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO CHURCH[51]

BY HON. JOHN C. DANCY, LL.D.

Secretary Church Extension Society, A. M. E. Church

[Note 51: Delivered at the Celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, Philadelphia, September, 1913.]

There is only one safe way to judge the future of the Negro Church, and that is by its past. And the past of this Church, despite its shortcomings, is safe.

To the curious it would seem strange that the Negro Church as such should exist at all. But in the light of its history, covering almost the entire history of this Government, its existence has been proved a necessity, as its records abundantly testify.

Until we had the Negro Church we had nothing of which the race could boast. We early discovered that it was religious rights which first opened our eyes to all our rights, but until we were secure in the enjoyment of our religious liberty, we were not fully aroused to the importance and value of civil liberty. We had not learned that they were twin blessings often dearly bought, but of inestimable value.

The Negro Church, therefore, became the basis upon which would be reared the superstructure of all our subsequent achievements. The men who laid the foundation for the Negro Church, whether of Methodist, or Baptist, or Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or of Congregational predilection, were wise in their day and generation, and paved the way for the best work of Negro development ever undertaken in this country. Until we had the Negro Church, we had not the Negro school, and the one was the natural forerunner and concomitant of the other, opening up avenues for the preacher, the teacher, the lawyer, the physician, the editor, the orator, and the spokesman of and for the race.

* * * * *

The Negro Church has passed the experimental stage. It is no longer in a stage of incubation. It is an actuality,—an active, aggressive, and progressive reality. It has thoroughly established its rights to existence and its indispensability as a religious force and influence. Our religious fervor may at times appear to be unduly emotional and lacking in solemnity, but even this is pardonable, and we are reminded that this is an emotional age, and we must not forget that the great Penticostal awakening, in the early days of Christianity, provoked a similar criticism from the unaroused and unaffected unbelievers. The Negro Church of the future may be less emotional, but if the Church is to survive and throw off a cold formality which threatens to sap its very life-blood, it must not get away from its time-honored, deep spirituality, for without the Spirit the seemingly religious body is dead. Our Church of the future as well as our Church of the present will take care that no new dogmas of exotic growth will deprive it of those eternal verities which constitute the fundamentals of our Christian faith. These verities of our religion have their foundation in the teachings of our Great Redeemer himself, who is the very embodiment of all Truth.

The Negro Church of the future will address itself to the correction of present-day evils in both Church and State. It will emphasize the teaching that the highest form of virtue is the purest form of love. It will demand that men and women, and Christian professors especially, exemplify in their own lives and habits the religion they make bold to proclaim. It will insist upon the remedying of great wrongs from which countless numbers suffer,—whether these wrongs be unfair and unjust discriminations in public places, on the common thoroughfares, in the courts and halls of justice, in the Congress, the legislature or the municipal councils,—everywhere the Church will condemn and protest and fulminate against these injustices, until they melt away with the certainty of April snow. The Church of the future will more fully realize that where great principles are involved, concessions are dangerous and compromises disastrous.

The future will disclose a Negro Church with men in all its pulpits equal to the great task which the responsibilities thereof impose. They will be qualified men from every viewpoint—deeply spiritual, well trained, pious, influential, impressive, strong. They will lead their people, and be a part of their life, their indomitable spirit, their ambitions, their achievements. They will be absolutely trusted and trustworthy. They will be an inspiration to our youth, to our manhood and our womanhood. They will speak as one having authority and they will boldly assert their authority to speak. They will take up where the fathers left off, and they in their possession of so great an inheritance of religious fervor and unshrinking faith, will arouse Christianity from its lethargy, and start as a nation of believers, arousing, as it were, from its spell of years. They will be as bold as lions, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. They will win their way because the things for which they stand and the gospel which they preach, will deserve to win. They will not seek so much to impress their own personality, but their cause, and they will lose themselves in the cause by magnifying the cause.

* * * * *

The Negro Church of the future will take greater interest in the young people, will give greater attention to the Sunday-school work, to the young people's societies, to the Young Men's Christian Association, to the full development of all the departments of all the churches of whatever denomination, to the end that the churches will be thoroughly organized for work, and such work as will lead eventually to the thorough evangelization of the world. The redemption of Africa, one of the forward movements of the world to-day, must come largely through the efforts, the service, and the personal sacrifices of our own churches, our own ministers and teachers, our own men and women. Once fully aroused to the importance of the obligation we owe to the land of our forefathers, we will enter upon the task with all the zest and spirit of David Livingstone, whose one hundredth anniversary we are celebrating this year, as we are also celebrating the first half century of our emancipation from human slavery. Livingstone sacrificed himself in the heart of Africa in order to give life and light to the aborigines of the Dark Continent. Our Church of the future must take up the task so grandly undertaken by him, and cease not until the work he so nobly began finds its full fruitage in Africa's redemption from heathendom, superstition, and ignorance, that she may take her place among the civilized and enlightened people of the world.

* * * * *

The Church of the future will have to do with the life of its membership. It will take heed to its health, and will teach hygiene and the laws which safeguard one's health in the home, in the Church, in the public schools and public places, in the open air and where not. It will impress the lesson of a sound mind in a sound body, and the great need of a sound body in order to have a sound mind. It will not fear to declare in favor of pure athletics as a means of developing the physical system, which is so essential to sound health and a strong manhood. The boys and young men will be urged to identify themselves with Young Men's Christian Associations so as to have advantage of the reading-rooms, the swimming-pools, the gymnasiums, and other young men's society, thus eschewing the dens of vice and haunts of infamy which might otherwise attract them and blight their precious young lives for all time, it may be. It will take knowledge of human life and its means of existence everywhere. It will seek to know what the man and woman in the alley as well as those on the broad thoroughfare are doing,—whether they are oppressed or distressed in body or in mind, and to go to their relief. It will discover that man is his brother's keeper, and is largely responsible for him and must seek to take care of him. The Church, yea, will come to itself and be shorn of a great part of its pride, when it fully realizes that its real growth and prosperity are dependent upon the attention it pays to God's poor and God's neglected. Our churches will re-echo with the sentiment of that song, "God Will Take Care of You," but there must be a refreshing application of it, knowing that caretaking reaches further than ourselves and extends to our neglected brother, whom we, so oftentimes, have forgotten. If the Church is no stronger than it is to-day it is due chiefly to the neglect of the unfortunate many who have been unreached and need to be reached.

The Church of the future must humble its pride, buckle on its armor, and cease not in its labors until this great army of unreached is reached and helped, and impressed and convinced and saved. "Go ye into all the world and preach my Gospel," does not mean to distant people merely, but to people at home as well, many of whom know as little of the Gospel as many others in distant Africa. There must be, there will be, a religious awakening along this line, so that if the people do not go to the Church, then the Church must go to the people, and there will be thousands, in the next few years in answer to the question, "Who will go?" who will answer in language which cannot be misunderstood, "Here am I, send me."

The Church of the future will have to do with the greater problems of every day life. It will have to aid in teaching the people life and duty and how best to meet and battle with these. It will have to impress the importance of home-getting,—whether in city or on farm,—and the possessing of these in fee simple, by actual purchase, and we will become more valuable as citizens as we acquire more in our individual right in real and personal property.

* * * * *

The Church of the future will urge the starting of savings accounts with the youth, and the organization of savings banks among our people in all sections, and the opening, incidentally, of opportunities for our boys and girls to get in close touch with business life and business habits. We will thus make the Church an influence, as it has been in the past, in paving the way for the future financial and substantial importance of the race. The Negro Church of the future will be less fettered by denominational lines and possessed of a broader Christian spirit, recognizing denominational names of course, but laying greater stress on Christianity, than on any church allegiance. Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, and Episcopalians will interchange pulpits and preach one Gospel in the name of our common Lord, Who is in all, and through all and over all. There will be inter-denominational Sunday-school unions, Church conventions and conferences, and the ministers and congregations will be in closer union, praying for the same spiritual power, the same common blessings, and the removal of the same great evils. Judah will not vex Ephraim, and Ephraim will not vex Judah. Under the mighty influence of this commingling and oneness of heart and purpose

"Error will decay and Truth grow strong And right shall rule supreme and conquer wrong."

* * * * *

To Thee! God of our fathers, we render praise and thanksgiving for such abundant evidence of Thy guiding presence during these fifty years of freedom and civil liberty. We predict for the future on the basis of our achievement during the past; and since the Negro Church has been a great factor in lifting us up and enabling us to see the new light, in spite of many obstacles, we are confident that by following the same Omnipotent Hand, that never errs and never fails, we will, in the coming years, prove that no sacrifice, either in war or in peace, made in our behalf has been made in vain, and no service rendered us has been without its subsequent reward. We rejoice, and are glad in our gladness and rich in our wealth. In the midst of it all, the Negro Church survives and is steadily moving on.



THE NEGRO LAWYER; HIS OPPORTUNITY, HIS DUTY[52]

BY W. ASHBIE HAWKINS

Of the Baltimore Bar

[Note 52: An address at the opening of Howard University Law School, Washington, D. C., Oct. 1st, 1913.]

Gentlemen:

The legal profession is without doubt in the lead. Its devotees outrank all others in service to the government and they come the closest in personal contact to the individual. This is denied of course, and always will be denied by men of all other professions, but when the roster of the world's lawyers who have faithfully and efficiently served humanity in every conceivable way is pitted against that of the others, the question is relieved of all doubt. The Negro lawyer is no longer an experiment. He has been severely tried from within and without, and he has proved his worth. His place in our economy is fixed. He has demonstrated his capacity to serve, and to serve well, and for all of this both the lawyer and the race he is helping to advance are under lasting obligations to Howard University. She has to her credit more men who are actively and successfully pursuing their calling than any other institution of learning in this land.

* * * * *

The Negro race is probably to-day in greater need of consecrated lawyers than it is of pious priests. The time has come for the lawyer to take his place in the lead. We are celebrating this year the 50th anniversary of our emancipation, and, paradoxical though it may be, we appear further from emancipation to-day than when Lincoln signed his Emancipation Proclamation, or when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. It is quite true that we have an immensely larger realty-holding to our credit, that our financial worth is constantly on the increase, that our illiteracy is rapidly reaching the vanishing-point, and that in all matters, spiritual as well as temporal, we seem to have improved, but the closer we approximate the standard of life and living of the dominant race, all the harder apparently have we to fight to maintain our self-respect, and preserve the rights and privileges which the letter of our American law guarantees. When we were slaves and had nothing except our muscles, there was no thought of separate-car laws. When we were ignorant and powerless to think coherently, there were no efforts at our disfranchisement. When we were poverty-stricken and satisfied if we might live in the alleys of our great American cities, there was no thought of segregation, whether in the matter of our residences, or in that of the employees of our much-heralded republican government. With every increase in accomplishment, or worth, or demand for the better things of life, comes the burden of wrongs, injustice, and rash discrimination. It would be idle here to attempt to recount in detail the grievances we justly have against the government in city, state and nation; to do so further than the purpose I have in view would be but to tell you what you full well know. The Negro race needs a change of viewpoint; another leadership is an absolute necessity, and I see no reason why men of our profession should not attain it. For years we have had in the ascendency the prophets of submission and silence, and we have been taught to declare for peace when we knew there was no peace. No other element in our great nation, except that of ourselves is content with things as they are, accepting without protest every new injustice, in the vain hope that some day would bring about a change for the better. We have lulled ourselves to sleep with this fatalism, and what is the result? We have noted the practical nullification of every act suggested or inspired by the changing conditions in the lives and property of freedmen brought about by the Civil War. Disfranchisement in every Southern State is as fixed and determinate, as the indifference of the Negroes of those sections, or the practises of all political parties can make it. Separate, and therefore inferior, accommodations on public conveyances are the rule, and we have endured these conditions so long that it would appear almost cruel now to undertake, or to ask a change. We have noted further, and this is the saddest of all, that our inactivity in claiming our rights, or our indifference about their recognition, has not only emboldened our enemies, but it has silenced our friends.

We have seen with increasing alarm the judicial construction of statutes and the Constitution itself, which all but vitiate and annul the basis of our citizenship; we have seen repeated attempts made to discredit the War amendments to the national Constitution, and some have in all seriousness gone so far even as to question their constitutionality. Every student of our common law has always been sure of the right to private property, and the corollaries thereto, but it is just in the present year that a court of last resort in a neighboring State, in an interpretation of one of these new conceptions, a segregation ordinance, declared that while the one under investigation was invalid, that the municipality enacting it might under its police powers make provision for the segregation of the races in the matter of their residences, schools, churches, and places of public assembly. The law is not a fixed science; it is more properly growth, a development. What is not regarded as law to-day may, by the inactivity or indifference of those most deeply concerned, become the law of the next decade. So we behold to-day our rights and liberties drifting away from us, and that regarded as the law which years ago we deemed impossible. What are we to do, you say? What can we do? The lawyers trained here and in other institutions of learning must answer these questions, and in finding their answers will be their opportunity. The adjudication of the conflicting interests of mankind, the interpretation of our statutes and our common law the determination of rights and privileges of all men, is a judicial function. What rights we enjoy to-day have come in the final analysis from the courts. What rights we find ourselves to-day deprived of, and which we hope to enjoy to-morrow, must come, if at all, from the same source. The courts have the last word, and it is to that instrument of government we must appeal, and to that last word we must look for our safety, or fear our doom. But courts are not self-acting institutions, and they are not engaged in academic discussions of abstractions. They are severely serious. It may be that, like so many Americans, we have lost faith in the courts, and Heaven knows we have had abundant reason for so doing, but there's hope. They have too often and too long listened to the clamors of public opinion, put too much faith and credit in the utterances of latter-day journalism, coloring their opinions to suit the one, or to escape the criticism of the other. Under the pernicious doctrine of public policy and in fortifying that undefined and indefinable legal notion of police power, courts have wiped aside Constitutional limitations, and disregarded what the profession at least had learned to consider as almost fixed precedents of the law, but even with all these defects admitted, there remains the startling truth that to these governmental agencies we must look for the righting of our wrongs and the redress of our grievances. We have shunned the courts too often in our temporal affairs, fearing, it seems, further adverse decisions, or waiting a proper adjustment at some other forum. In my own State it might now be compulsory upon you, or any other decent self-respecting person of the race, in travelling from here to New York or elsewhere in the North, to ride in the so-called "Jim-Crow" cars provided by an indulgent Maryland legislature for Negro patrons of its railroads, had it not have been for a member of the Faculty of this institution. William H. H. Hart knew that legislation of that character was an attempt to restrict interstate traffic, and the Court of Appeals of Maryland agreed with him. The case of State vs. Hart, reported in 100 Md. at page 595, is a landmark in our Maryland law, and under its influence "Jim-Crow" cars have almost disappeared from the railroads of our State. Another distinguished member of the Faculty of Howard University, but of another department, in travelling over the railroads in the eastern part of our State last fall, discovered that the compartments provided by the roads for their colored passengers, in point of cleanliness, appointment, and convenience, were notably inferior to those furnished others. He complained to the Public Service Commission and, after a full hearing, the Commission passed a decree requiring these railroads to furnish accommodations to its colored passengers equal in all respects to that furnished others. This is exactly what the Separate-Car Law provides, but it is exactly what the railroads had never intended to furnish and, without the complaint of Professor T. W. Turner, no other course would have been followed. Here are two, and there are numerous other concrete examples of what may be accomplished by sane and timely appeals to our judicial tribunals. Our government has three well defined departments separate and distinct, each operating in a manner as a check on the other, and all together working for the common good of the whole. We have resorted generally to the executive and have been satisfied with its appointment of a few men to office, and with its passive execution of the laws affecting us. In recent years we have arisen to the point of seeking legislation in the defense of our civil rights, and it is hoped that as the years pass more of this will be done. But in the judicial branch of the government is where, after all, we must place our reliance. We need a body of trained lawyers in full sympathy with our community life, eager, anxious, and capable, prepared at any emergency to present our cause fairly and intelligently before any tribunal; and with this accomplished, I have faith in the American people that justice will prevail, and right triumph over every wrong. I do not mean that the lawyer is to seek such service by the fomenting of litigation; far from it, but let him be prepared for it by study and devotion to racial ideals, and when the hour comes he will be called on to marshal its forces and take charge of the legal contests of a race. This will never be if he dreams only of his money, if he thinks only of present material gain, if he counts his successes in terms of houses and lands. He must be willing to serve for the sake of the service. The failures in our professional life come almost wholly from those who had no high ideals of their calling, and no devotion to the interests of their race or country. Country and race in this matter are synonymous; you can't serve one without at the same time serving the other. The lawyer who advocates the protection of the lives, the property, and the civic welfare of ten millions of Americans of whatever hue, or origin, is not a racial zealot, but a patriot of the highest character, and his worth in preserving the nation's ideals is beyond calculation.

Young men, you who are either about to leave these halls for the active life of the lawyer, or you who are just beginning the pursuit of your studies here looking to the same end, I bring you, I hope, no discouraging note. My aim is to do the contrary. The heavy burdens the race is bearing in the form of unjust laws and practises, in strained constructions of statutes, constitutions, and the common law; in the thousand ways which the ingenuity of the prejudiced find to bar us from the full enjoyment of American liberty and freedom, these will some day, along with those of us who are now at the bar, furnish your greatest opportunity. Your duty then, as now, will be to fortify yourselves with all the learning which this institution provides, with all that the libraries in your reach contain, with all that close and intimate association with others of your profession will secure, with sincere devotion to the ideals and traditions of our noble profession, and with no less devotion to the interest of your clients, and a determination faithfully and loyally and efficiently to serve your race, your nation and your God.



THE TRAINING OF NEGROES FOR SOCIAL REFORM[53]

BY W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS, PH. D.

Editor and Founder "The Crisis"

[Note 53: From the New York Outlook.]

The responsibility for their own social regeneration ought to be placed largely upon the shoulders of the Negro people. But such responsibility must carry with it a grant of power; responsibility without power is a mockery and a farce. If, therefore, the American people are sincerely anxious that the Negro shall put forth his best efforts to help himself, they must see to it that he is not deprived of the freedom and power to strive. The responsibility for dispelling their own ignorance implies that the power to overcome ignorance is to be placed in black men's hands; the lessening of poverty calls for the power of effective work; and the responsibility for lessening crime calls for control over social forces which produce crime.

Such social power means, assuredly, the growth of initiative among Negroes, the spread of independent thought, the expanding consciousness of manhood; and these things to-day are looked upon by many with apprehension and distrust. Men openly declare their design to train these millions as a subject caste, as men to be thought for, but not to think; to be led, but not to lead themselves.

Those who advocate these things forget that such a solution flings them squarely on the other horn of the dilemma: such a subject child-race could never be held accountable for its own misdeeds and shortcomings; its ignorance would be part of the nation's design, its poverty would arise partly from the direct oppression of the strong and partly from thriftlessness which such oppression breeds; and, above all, its crime would be the legitimate child of that lack of self-respect which caste systems engender. Such a solution of the Negro problem is not one which the saner sense of the nation for a moment contemplates; it is utterly foreign to American institutions, and is unthinkable as a future for any self-respecting race of men. The sound afterthought of the American people must come to realize that the responsibility for dispelling ignorance and poverty, and uprooting crime among Negroes cannot be put upon their own shoulders unless they are given such independent leadership in intelligence, skill, and morality as will inevitably lead to an independent manhood which cannot and will not rest in bonds.

Let me illustrate my meaning particularly in the matter of educating Negro youth.

The Negro problem, it has often been said, is largely a problem of ignorance—not simply of illiteracy, but a deeper ignorance of the world and its ways, of the thought and experience of men; an ignorance of self and the possibilities of human souls. This can be gotten rid of only by training; and primarily such training must take the form of that sort of social leadership which we call education. To apply such leadership to themselves and to profit by it, means that Negroes would have among themselves men of careful training and broad culture, as teachers and teachers of teachers. There are always periods of educational evolution when it is deemed quite proper for pupils in the fourth reader to teach those in the third. But such a method, wasteful and ineffective at all times, is peculiarly dangerous when ignorance is widespread and when there are few homes and public institutions to supplement the work of the school. It is, therefore, of crying necessity among Negroes that the heads of their educational system—the teachers in the normal schools, the heads of high schools, the principals of public systems, should be unusually well trained men; men trained not simply in common-school branches, not simply in the technique of school management and normal methods, but trained beyond this, broadly and carefully, into the meaning of the age whose civilization it is their peculiar duty to interpret to the youth of a new race, to the minds of untrained people. Such educational leaders should be prepared by long and rigorous courses of study similar to those which the world over have been designed to strengthen the intellectual powers, fortify character, and facilitate the transmission from age to age of the stores of the world's knowledge.

Not all men—indeed, not the majority of men, only the exceptional few among American Negroes or among any other people—are adapted to this higher training, as, indeed, only the exceptional few are adapted to higher training in any line; but the significance of such men is not to be measured by their numbers, but rather by the numbers of their pupils and followers who are destined to see the world through their eyes, hear it through their trained ears, and speak to it through the music of their words.

Such men, teachers of teachers and leaders of the untaught, Atlanta University and similar colleges seek to train. We seek to do our work thoroughly and carefully. We have no predilections or prejudices as to particular studies or methods, but we do cling to those time-honored sorts of discipline which the experience of the world has long since proven to be of especial value. We sift as carefully as possible the student material which offers itself, and we try by every conscientious method to give to students who have character and ability such years of discipline as shall make them stronger, keener, and better for their peculiar mission. The history of civilization seems to prove that no group or nation which seeks advancement and true development can despise or neglect the power of well-trained minds; and this power of intellectual leadership must be given to the talented tenth among American Negroes before this race can seriously be asked to assume the responsibility of dispelling its own ignorance. Upon the foundation-stone of a few well-equipped Negro colleges of high and honest standards can be built a proper system of free common schools in the South for the masses of the Negro people; any attempt to found a system of public schools on anything less than this—on narrow ideals, limited or merely technical training—is to call blind leaders for the blind.

The very first step toward the settlement of the Negro problem is the spread of intelligence. The first step toward wider intelligence is a free public-school system; and the first and most important step toward a public-school system is the equipment and adequate support of a sufficient number of Negro colleges. These are first steps, and they involve great movements: first, the best of the existent colleges must not be abandoned to slow atrophy and death, as the tendency is to-day; secondly, systematic attempt must be made to organize secondary education. Below the colleges and connected with them must come the normal and high schools, judiciously distributed and carefully manned. In no essential particular should this system of common and secondary schools differ from educational systems the world over. Their chief function is the quickening and training of human intelligence; they can do much in the teaching of morals and manners incidentally, but they cannot and ought not to replace the home as the chief moral teacher; they can teach valuable lessons as to the meaning of work in the world, but they cannot replace technical schools and apprenticeship in actual life, which are the real schools of work. Manual training can and ought to be used in these schools, but as a means and not as an end—to quicken intelligence and self-knowledge and not to teach carpentry; just as arithmetic is used to train minds and not skilled accountants.

Whence, now, is the money coming for this educational system? For the common schools the support should come from local communities, the State governments, and the United States Government; for secondary education, support should come from local and State governments and private philanthropy; for the colleges, from private philanthropy and the United States Government. I make no apology for bringing the United States Government in thus conspicuously. The General Government must give aid to Southern education if illiteracy and ignorance are to cease threatening the very foundations of civilization within any reasonable time. Aid to common school education could be appropriated to the different States on the basis of illiteracy. The fund could be administered by State officials, and the results and needs reported upon by United States educational inspectors under the Bureau of Education. The States could easily distribute the funds so as to encourage local taxation and enterprise and not result in pauperizing the communities. As to higher training, it must be remembered that the cost of a single battle-ship like the Massachusetts would endow all the distinctively college work necessary for Negroes during the next half-century; and it is without doubt true that the unpaid balance from bounties withheld from Negroes in the Civil War would, with interest, easily supply this sum.

But spread of intelligence alone will not solve the Negro problem. If this problem is largely a question of ignorance, it is also scarcely less a problem of poverty. If Negroes are to assume the responsibility of raising the standards of living among themselves, the power of intelligent work and leadership toward proper industrial ideals must be placed in their hands. Economic efficiency depends on intelligence, skill and thrift. The public school system is designed to furnish the necessary intelligence for the ordinary worker, the secondary school for the more gifted workers, and the college for the exceptional few. Technical knowledge and manual dexterity in learning branches of the world's work are taught by industrial and trade schools, and such schools are of prime importance in the training of colored children. Trade-teaching can not be effectively combined with the work of the common schools because the primary curriculum is already too crowded, and thorough common-school training should precede trade-teaching. It is, however, quite possible to combine some of the work of the secondary schools with purely technical training, the necessary limitations being matters of time and cost: e. g., the question whether the boy can afford to stay in school long enough to add parts of a high-school course to the trade course, and particularly the question whether the school can afford or ought to afford to give trade training to high-school students who do not intend to become artisans. A system of trade-schools, therefore, supported by State and private aid, should be added to the secondary school system.

An industrial school, however, does not merely teach technique. It is also a school—a center of moral influence and of mental discipline. As such it has peculiar problems in securing the proper teaching force. It demands broadly trained men: the teacher of carpentry must be more than a carpenter, and the teacher of the domestic arts more than a cook; for such teachers must instruct, not simply in manual dexterity, but in mental quickness and moral habits. In other words, they must be teachers as well as artisans. It thus happens that college-bred men and men from other higher schools have always been in demand in technical schools. If the college graduates were to-day withdrawn from the teaching force of the chief Negro industrial schools, nearly every one of them would have to close its doors. These facts are forgotten by such advocates of industrial training as oppose the higher schools. Strong as the argument for industrial schools is—and its strength is undeniable—its cogency simply increases the urgency of the plea for higher training-schools and colleges to furnish broadly educated teachers.

But intelligence and skill alone will not solve the Southern problem of poverty. With these must go that combination of homely habits and virtues which we may loosely call thrift. Something of thrift may be taught in school, more must be taught at home; but both these agencies are helpless when organized economic society denies to workers the just rewards of thrift and efficiency. And this has been true of black laborers in the South from the time of slavery down through the scandal of the Freedmen's Bank to the peonage and crop-lien system of to-day. If the Southern Negro is shiftless, it is primarily because over large areas a shiftless Negro can get on in the world about as well as an industrious black man. This is not universally true in the South, but it is true to so large an extent as to discourage striving in precisely that class of Negroes who most need encouragement. What is the remedy? Intelligence—not simply the ability to read and write or to sew—but the intelligence of a society permeated by that larger vision of life and broader tolerance which are fostered by the college and university. Not that all men must be college-bred, but that some men, black and white, must be, to leaven the ideals of the lump. Can any serious student of the economic South doubt that this to-day is her crying need?

Ignorance and poverty are the vastest of the Negro problems. But to these later years have added a third—the problem of Negro crime. That a great problem of social morality must have become eventually the central problem of emancipation is as clear as day to any student of history. In its grosser form as a problem of serious crime it is already upon us. Of course it is false and silly to represent that white women in the South are in daily danger of black assaulters. On the contrary, white womanhood in the South is absolutely safe in the hands of ninety-five per cent. of the black men—ten times safer than black womanhood is in the hands of white men. Nevertheless, there is a large and dangerous class of Negro criminals, paupers, and outcasts. The existence and growth of such a class far from causing surprise, should be recognized as the natural result of that social disease called the Negro problem; nearly every untoward circumstance known to human experience has united to increase Negro crime: the slavery of the past, the sudden emancipation, the narrowing of economic opportunity, the lawless environment of wide regions, the stifling of natural ambition, the curtailment of political privilege, the disregard of the sanctity of black men's homes, and, above all, a system of treatment for criminals calculated to breed crime far faster than all other available agencies could repress it. Such a combination of circumstances is as sure to increase the numbers of the vicious and outcast as the rain is to wet the earth. The phenomenon calls for no delicately drawn theories of race differences; it is a plain case of cause and effect.

But plain as the causes may be, the results are just as deplorable, and repeatedly to-day the criticism is made that Negroes do not recognize sufficiently their responsibility in this matter. Such critics forget how little power to-day Negroes have over their own lower classes. Before the black murderer who strikes his victim to-day, the average black man stands far more helpless than the average white, and, too, suffers ten times more from the effects of the deed. The white man has political power, accumulated wealth, and knowledge of social forces; the black man is practically disfranchised, poor, and unable to discriminate between the criminal and the martyr. The Negro needs the defense of the ballot, the conserving power of property, and, above all, the ability to cope intelligently with such vast questions of social regeneration and moral reform as confront him. If social reform among Negroes be without organization or trained leadership from within, if the administration of law is always for the avenging of the white victim and seldom for the reformation of the black criminal, if ignorant black men misunderstand the functions of government because they have had no decent instruction, and intelligent black men are denied a voice in government because they are black—under such circumstances to hold Negroes responsible for the suppression of crime among themselves is the cruelest of mockeries.

On the other hand, a sincere desire among the American people to help the Negroes undertake their own social regeneration means, first, that the Negro be given the ballot on the same terms as other men, to protect him against injustice and to safeguard his interests in the administration of law; secondly, that through education and social organization he be trained to work, and save, and earn a decent living. But these are not all: wealth is not the only thing worth accumulating; experience and knowledge can be accumulated and handed down, and no people can be truly rich without them. Can the Negro do without these? Can this training in work and thrift be truly effective without the guidance of trained intelligence and deep knowledge—without that same efficiency which has enabled modern peoples to grapple so successfully with the problems of the Submerged Tenth? There must surely be among Negro leaders the philanthropic impulse, the uprightness of character and strength of purpose, but there must be more than these; philanthropy and purpose among blacks as well as among whites must be guided and curbed by knowledge and mental discipline—knowledge of the forces of civilization that make for survival, ability to organize and guide those forces, and realization of the true meaning of those broader ideals of human betterment which may in time bring heaven and earth a little nearer. This is social power—it is gotten in many ways by experience, by social contact, by what we loosely call the chances of life. But the systematic method of acquiring and imparting it is by the training of youth to thought, power, and knowledge in the school and college. And that group of people whose mental grasp is by heredity weakest, and whose knowledge of the past is for historic reasons most imperfect, that group is the very one which needs above all, for the talented of its youth, this severe and careful course of training; especially if they are expected to take immediate part in modern competitive life, if they are to hasten the slower courses of human development, and if the responsibility for this is to be in their own hands.