The first Spring Conference of the Association for the Study of Negro
Life and History was held in the city of New York on April 3d and 4th.
There was a preliminary mass meeting on Sunday, the 2d, at the Mother
A. M. E. Zion Church, where Mr. James F. Morton, Prof. John R.
Hawkins, and Dr. C. G. Woodson delivered addresses which were
enthusiastically received.
On Monday and Tuesday, the 3d and 4th, when the actual meeting began,
a larger number of persons from afar were present. The day sessions
were held at the 135th Street Branch Library where, on Tuesday
morning, Dr. George E. Haynes, Secretary of the Race Commission of the
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ, opened the discussion of
the question "Why one race should know the other one." Other persons
participating in the discussion and giving additional information as
to the bright prospects for the cooperation of the races in the
country were Bishop R. A. Carter, and Cleveland Allen who availed
himself of the opportunity to emphasize the importance of placing the
bust of Frederick Douglass in the New York Hall of Fame.
At the first evening session held at the Concord Baptist Church in
Brooklyn the following evening there was a large attendance. The
meeting was opened by preliminary remarks by the Director. He was
followed by Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart of Harvard University who
delivered an informing address on "Involuntary Servitude." Remarks as
to the importance of this organization and how the work may be more
successfully prosecuted were made by Bishop R. A. Carter of the C. M.
E. Church, Bishop Lee of the A. M. E. Z. Church and by Dr. George
Frazier Miller, Dr. H. H. Proctor, Dr. W. H. Brown, and Rev. J. B.
Adams.
On the following day, the morning session opened with a discussion on
"How to promote the Study of Negro History in the Schools," led by Mr.
Thomas C. Williams of the Bordentown Industrial School. He brought
forward valuable statistics out of his own experience as a teacher in
this field and presented several suggestions and plans for the
promotion of this work. There followed some discussion of an informing
nature by Dr. I. Garland Penn, Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal
Church Board of Education for Negroes, and by Dr. W. Y. Bell, who
spoke of his researches in the sources bearing on the history of the
Negro in Africa.
The Conference closed with an evening session at the Mother A. M. E.
Zion Church where addresses were delivered by Dr. I. Garland Penn and
Dr. C. G. Woodson. The address of Dr. Penn dealt primarily with the
Negro as a factor in church history. Beginning with the early
struggles of the denominations and their relations to the Negroes, Dr.
Penn enlightened the audience on facts which are not generally known
to the public. He closed his informing address with the expression of
faith in the importance of the church as a factor in the progress of
the Negro. The address by the Director had to do primarily with the
history of the Negro by cycles, showing the varying attitude of the
white man toward the Negro and the successful efforts of the Negroes
to rise in the midst of trying difficulties and to convince the world
of their worth. On the whole, this first Spring Conference was a
success and justified itself as an innovation.
* * * * *
The Quadrennial Address of the Bishops of the Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church to the Fourteenth Session of the General Conference,
held in St. Louis on the 3d of May, contains not only the information
bearing on the church but a valuable retrospect as to the conditions
among the Negroes after the World War. Among other topics are
mentioned racial retrospect, race prejudice and race superiority, the
aftermath of the war, the church and world conditions, and the
reaction of white Christianity to lawlessness.