have been given by the generous Christian people of the North for the
intellectual training of the black race in this land. Colleges and
universities have been built in the South, and hundreds of youth have
been gathered within their walls. The work of your own Church in this
regard has been magnificent and unrivaled, and the results which have
been attained have been grand and elevating to the entire Negro race in
America. The complement to all this generous and ennobling effort is the
elevation of the black woman. Up to this day and time your noble
philanthropy has touched, for the most part, the male population of the
South, given them superiority, and stimulated them to higher
aspirations. But a true civilization can only then be attained when the
life of woman is reached, her whole being permeated by noble ideas, her
fine taste enriched by culture, her tendencies to the beautiful
gratified and developed, her singular and delicate nature lifted up to
its full capacity; and then, when all these qualities are fully matured,
cultivated and sanctified, all their sacred influences shall circle
around ten thousand firesides, and the cabins of the humblest freedmen
shall become the homes of Christian refinement and of domestic elegance
through the influence and the charm of the uplifted and cultivated black
woman of the South!
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EDUCATIONAL LEAGUE OF GEORGIA[19]
BY JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN, of Boston, Mass.
_Founder of the National Association of Negro Women_
[Note 19: June, 1889.]
_Ladies of the Georgia Educational League:_
The telegram which you sent to Governor Northern to read to his
audience, informing the people of the North of your willingness to
undertake the moral training of the colored children of Georgia, merits
more than a passing notice. It is the first time, we believe, in the
history of the South where a body of representative Southern white women
have shown such interest in the moral welfare of the children of their
former slaves as to be willing to undertake to make them more worthy the
duties and responsibilities of citizenship. True, there have been
individual cases where courageous women have felt their moral
responsibility, and have nobly met it, but one of the saddest things
about the sad condition of affairs in the South has been the utter
indifference which Southern women, who were guarded with unheard of
fidelity during the war, have manifested to the mental and moral welfare
of the children of their faithful slaves, who, in the language of Henry
Grady, placed a black mass of loyalty between them and dishonor. This
was a rare opportunity for you to have shown your gratitude to your
slaves and your interest in their future welfare.
The children would have grown up in utter ignorance had not the North
sent thousands of her noblest daughters to the South on this mission of
heroic love and mercy; and it is worthy of remark of those fair
daughters of the North, that, often eating with Negroes, and in the
earlier days sleeping in their humble cabins, and always surrounded by
thousands of them, there is not one recorded instance where one has been
the victim of violence or insult. If because of the bitterness of your
feelings, of your deep poverty at the close of the war, conditions were
such that you could not do this work yourselves, you might have give a
Christian's welcome to the women who came a thousand miles to do the
work, that, in all gratitude and obligation belonged to you,--but
instead, these women were often persecuted, always they have been
ruthlessly ostracised, even until this day; often they were lonely,
often longed for a word of sympathy, often craved association with their
own race, but for thirty years they have been treated by the Christian
white women of the South,--simply because they were doing your
work,--the work committed to you by your Saviour, when he said,
"Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you
did it unto me,"--with a contempt that would serve to justify a
suspicion that instead of being the most cultured women, the purest,
bravest missionaries in America, they were outcasts and lepers.
But at last a change has come. And so you have "decided to take up the
work of moral and industrial training of the Negroes," as you "have been
doing this work among the whites with splendid results." This is one of
the most hopeful stars that have shot through the darkness of the
Southern sky. What untold blessings might not the educated Christian
women of the South prove to the Negro groping blindly in the darkness of
the swamps and bogs of prejudice for a highway out of servitude,
oppression, ignorance, and immorality!
* * * * *
The leading women of Georgia should not ask Northern charity to do what
they certainly must have the means for making a beginning of themselves.
If your heart is really in this work--and we do not question it--the
very best way for you to atone for your negligence in the past is to
make a start yourselves. Surely if the conditions are as serious as you
represent them to be, your husbands, who are men of large means, who are
able to run great expositions and big peace celebrations, will be
willing to provide you with the means to protect your virtue and that of
your daughters by the moral training you propose to give in the
kindergartens.
There is much you might do without the contribution of a dollar from any
pocket, Northern or Southern. On every plantation there are scores, if
not hundreds, of little colored children who could be gathered about
you on a Sabbath afternoon and given many helpful inspiring lessons in
morals and good conduct.
* * * * *
It is a good augury of better days, let us hope, when the intelligent,
broad-minded women of Georgia, spurning the incendiary advice of that
human firebrand who would lynch a thousand Negroes a month, are willing
to join in this great altruistic movement of the age and endeavor to
lift up the degraded and ignorant, rather than to exterminate them. Your
proposition implies that they may be uplifted and further, imports a
tacit confession that if you had done your duty to them at the close of
the war, which both gratitude and prudence should have prompted you to
do, you would not now be confronted with a condition which you feel it
necessary to check, in obedience to the great first law of
nature--self-protection. If you enter upon this work you will doubtless
be criticised by a class of your own people who think you are lowering
your own dignity, but the South has suffered too much already from that
kind of false pride to let it longer keep her recreant to the spirit of
the age.
If, when you have entered upon it, you need the co-operation, either by
advice or other assistance, of the colored women of the North, we beg to
assure you that they will not be lacking,--until then, the earnest hope
goes out that you will bravely face and sternly conquer your former
prejudices and quickly undertake this missionary work which belongs to
you.
IN THE WAKE OF THE COMING AGES[20]
BY J. MADISON VANCE, of New Orleans, La.
[Note 20: Extract from an address delivered at the Music Hall,
Boston, Mass., October 4, 1894, before the Seventh Biennial Meeting of
the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of America.]
In these trying times of peace with tears of blood; these times of
crimes so horrible and fiendish that Christianity bows in supplication
for surcease of sorrow, and the advance of civilization seems in vain;
in these times when the Negro is compared to the brute, and his
mentality limited to the ordinary; in these times when the holy robes of
the Church are used to decry, villify and malign the race; in these
times when the subsidized press of the country loudly proclaims the
Negro's incapacity for government; in these times I turn with pardonable
pride to the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, an organization the
affairs of which are administered entirely by colored men, an
organization that typifies the possibilities of the race; the
organization whose very existence gives the lie to the damnable
aspersions cast upon us by the enemies of humanity.
This grand organization is but a collection of individuals, and as
individuals we must shape our destiny. The time is past for pleading;
these are days of action. The higher we rise, the sharper will become
the prejudice of color. The laboring white is jealous of the
competition of the blacks. The problem is to be worked out _in the
South_, and largely by ourselves. With all the disadvantages and
proscriptive doctrines that encroach upon us in that Southland, I
honestly believe that this land with all its natural beauties and
advantages, this land below the mountains; this land of passion and
pleasure, of fever and fret, this land famed in history, song, and story
as the "land of Dixie," is the Negro's coming Arcadia. From its lowlands
and marshes will yet come forth the peerless leader, who will not only
point out the way, but will climb the battlements of tolerance and race
prejudice, backed by the march of civilization, and, with his face to
the enemy, fight the battle of common humanity.
The romance of "Emancipation" is fading out. The old slave is rapidly
passing. The mythology of his period is extinct. The Republic has
declared against the "Force Bill." The "Praetorian Guard" is mustered
out, and the sentiment of the times is against paternalism. "Every tub
must stand on its own bottom," and the eloquence of the orator cannot
arrest the trend of the times. A problem is half solved when facts are
apprehended; it is more than half solved when the facts are
comprehended, and practical sense succeeds sentiment.
The Negro confronts destiny. He must be the architect of his own
fortune. He must demonstrate capacity and independence, because
mendicancy is always destructive. The living present calls us away from
the ashes of the dead and buried past. Our hopes are brighter and our
ambitions higher. Let us stand on our own racial pride, and prove our
claim for equality by showing the fruits of thrift, talent, and
frugality. The brotherhood of genius will not refuse the need of merit,
and within the sweep of our constant observations great artists,
musicians, poets, and orators are more than hinted possibilities. We
would be criminals to despair. The Negro is here, and here to stay, and
traveling rapidly in "the wake of coming ages." We know not how far the
goal may still be distant, but at least we think we see it and our most
fervent hope is to approach it more and more nearly--
"Till each man find his own in all men's good,
And all men work in noble brotherhood,
Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers,
And ruling by obeying nature's powers,
And gathering all the fruits of earth and crowned with her flowers."
As the shadows come creeping over the dial of time, the nineteenth
century faces the setting sun; a century replete with the grandest
inventions of modern times, and with a fullness of scientific
investigation beyond the possible conception of man one hundred years
ago. This century has emancipated woman, and like the "Dreamers on the
brow of Parnassus," she is not forgetful of the toilers on other
altitudes within the horizon's rim. She is not blind to the signal
lights, which in their blaze proclaim new knowledge, new power for man,
new triumphs, new glory for the human spirit in its march on chaos and
the dark. Any message of love would be incomplete without her gentle
voice. Her love is her life, white-winged and eternal. Her welcome is
spontaneous, fervid, whole-souled, generous. Her influence is felt
everywhere, throughout the ramifications of our "Order." The wholesome
power of her persuasive counsel is ofttimes needed, and the tender
mercies of her tireless devotion have smoothed away the grim visage of
discontent, brought solace to the fevered brain, and made peaceful that
dreary journey from life to death.
* * * * *
We look out upon our vast army of followers, and glory in our stalwart
band. * * * * * Out of the darkness of the night, imposing in our
numbers, stand we forth, splendid and terrible, in "The Wake of the
Coming Ages." And when we look at all the magnificent fabric we call
civilization, its incalculable material, its wealth, its amazing
mechanical resources, its wonderful scientific discoveries, its
many-sided literature, its sleepless and ubiquitous journalism, its
lovely art, its abounding charities, its awful fears and sublime hopes,
we get a magnificent conception of the possibilities of life, as this
latest of the centuries draws its purple robe about its majestic form
and stands up to die as the old Roman Caesar stood, in all the
magnificence of its riches, and the plenitude of its power.
But after all, the measure of its value is the character of it
humanity.
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE COTTON STATES AND
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION[21]
BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, A. M. LL.D.
_of Tuskegee Institute_
[Note 21: Atlanta, Georgia, September 18, 1895.]
_Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors, and Citizens:_
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No
enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section
can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest
success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment
of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and
manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously
recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every
stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement
the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of
our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a
new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not
strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top
instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the State
Legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that
the political convention or stump-speaking had more attractions than
starting a dairy-farm or truck-garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel.
From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: "Water,
water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once
came back: "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the
signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed
vessel, and was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a
third and fourth signal for water was answered: "Cast down your bucket
where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding
the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,
sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race
who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who
underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the
Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast
down your bucket where you are"--cast it down in making friends in every
manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic
service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to
bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear,
when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the
Negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing
is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our
greatest danger is, that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we
may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the
productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper
in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put
brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in
proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the
substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can
prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field
as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not
at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our
opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign
birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South,
were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down
your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the 8,000,000 Negroes
whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days
when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast
down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor
wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads
and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth and
helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of
the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and
encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of
head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus
land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your
factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the
past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient,
faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen.
As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your
children, watching by the sick-beds of your mothers and fathers, and
often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the
future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no
foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in
defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and
religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both
races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as
the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual
progress.
There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest
intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts
tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be
turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and
intelligent citizen. Efforts or means so invested will pay a thousand
per cent. interest. These efforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him
that gives and him that takes."
There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:
"The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast."
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load
upwards, or they will pull against you the load downwards. We shall
constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South,
or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute
one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we
shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding
every effort to advance the body politic.
Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at
an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting
thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and
pumpkins and chickens, remember the path, that has led from these to the
invention and production of agricultural implements, buggies,
steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the
management of drug stores and banks, has not been trodden without
contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit
as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget
that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your
expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational
life, not only from the Southern States, but especially from Northern
philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing
and encouragement.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of
social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the
enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result
of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No
race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long
in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges
of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared
for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar
in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to
spend a dollar in an opera-house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us
more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white
race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending,
as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles
of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three
decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and
intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South you shall
have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let
this be constantly in the mind that, while from representations in these
buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory,
letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material
benefits will be that higher good, that let us pray God will come, in a
blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and
suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a
willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this,
coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved
Southland a new heaven and a new earth.
THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER[22]
BY CHRISTIAN A. FLEETWOOD
CHRISTIAN A. FLEETWOOD, _Sergeant-Major, United States Volunteer
Infantry, 1863-1866. Received a Medal of Honor from Congress for
meritorious action in saving the colors at Chapin Farm, September 29,
1864, where he seized them after two color-bearers had been shot down,
and bore them throughout the fight. Also has a General B. F. Butler
Medal for bravery and courage before Richmond._
[Note 22: Delivered at the Negro Congress, at the Cotton States and
International Exposition, Atlanta Ga., November 11 to November 23,
1895.]
For 1600 years prior to the war between Great Britain and the Colonies,
the pages of history bear no record of the Negro as a soldier. Tracing
his separate history in the Revolutionary War is a task of much
difficulty, for the reason that while individual instances of valor and
patriotism abound, there were so few separate bodies of Negro troops
that no separate record appears to have been made. The simple fact is
that the fathers as a rule enlisted men both for the Army and Navy, just
as now it is only continued by the Navy; that is to say, they were
assigned wherever needed, without regard to race or color. Varner's
Rhode Island Battalion appears to have been the only large aggregation
of Negroes in this war, though Connecticut, New York, and New Hampshire
each furnished one separate company in addition to individuals scattered
through their other organizations, so that ere the close of the war,
there were very few brigades, regiments, or companies in which the
Negro was not in evidence.
The free Negro appears to have gone in from the beginning without
attracting or calling out special comment. Later, as men grew scarcer
and necessity more pressing, slaves were taken in also, and then the
trouble began. Those who held slaves did not care to lose them in this
way. Others who had not did not think it just the thing in a war for
avowed freedom to place an actual slave in the ranks to fight. Some did
not want the Negro, bonded or free, to take part as a soldier in the
struggle. So that in May, 1775, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety
voted that thereafter only free men should be enlisted. In July, General
Gates issued an order prohibiting further enlistments of Negroes, but
saying nothing of those already in the service.
In October a council of war presided over by General Washington,
comprising three major-generals and six brigadier-generals, voted
unanimously against the enlistment of slaves, and by a decided majority
against further enlistments of Negroes. Ten days later in a conference
held at Cambridge, Mass., participated in by General Washington,
Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Lynch, and the deputy
governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island, a similar action was taken.