rare privilege, when she must distribute her powers and talents for race
good.
Whatever the colored mother is, millions of colored children will be. A
colored mother lives not only for herself and for her own children, but
she must live for the race. A colored mother is a success as she
measures up to her relation and obligation to the race.
Negro children of all children need mothers who are strong spiritually,
physically, and intellectually. Enough colored children have been born
under bad or careless conditions. The child born under bad conditions
can not be expected to hold his own among other children.
No woman has a right to blight the future of her race. Not even her body
may be abused--this beautiful casket--the treasure house of future
souls. Any crime that she commits against herself or her body she
commits against the race.
Almost any colored mother would lay down her life for her children but
she must have a wider vision into the scheme of life and the world, and
must deliberately plan to make her grand-children and great
grand-children healthier, happier and more useful.
While it is admitted that heredity is not all, yet inherited tendencies
have great influence.
The colored mother beautiful must be a living example of all that is
progressive. She must study more about the laws of heredity, and child
culture to prepare the child for its race battle, unhampered by
inherited mental or physical tendencies.
The "gray matter" in the colored woman's head is the same as the gray
matter in any woman's head. Through the exercise of will power she may
conquer inherited tendencies and even command nature as other women are
doing.
There are many books which will guide and instruct a prospective mother
who should read and learn all she can on the laws of reproduction. She
should absorb this knowledge that she may be able to impart it to less
informed women.
The early Romans are said to have surrounded a prospective mother with
examples of courage and strength.
The mother of Napoleon is an example of the power of pre-natal
direction. She is said to have studied military tactics and to have
visited battlefields. The mother of Michael Angelo is said to have
watched the painters of pictures in the Cathedral. The result was the
greatest artist of the time.
As mental impressions are as active during the night as in the day, no
prospective mother should carry unpleasant thoughts to bed. The
sub-conscious mind receives the bad thought at bed time and acts all
night under this influence. Its forces affect the same as thoughts
during the day.
The prospective mother should read good books, think right, live right,
and keep a pure mind and heart, thus developing a deeper nature to
bequeath.
More than anything else, the prospective colored mother must practice
self-control. All worry is poisonous. Strong thoughts of disgust and
hatred if not controlled during the pre-natal period are liable to leave
disastrous affects. The aim should be to train herself to change any
thought which will create a physical disturbance.
Mothers who fail to control their tempers, passions, and indulgences too
often weep bitter tears as they see in their off-spring the consequences
of their own wrong doing.
Someone has said: "Parents transmit deviltry to children and then punish
them for it." Instance after instance of such cruelty could be cited.
Why should parents expect their children to be better than they?
Anger causes a chemical change which acts like poison to the system of
an adult. It affects the heart, stomach, blood, and nerves and causes
many other disturbances.
"Often the unborn child's little organism is flooded with shocks of
passion and disturbed by nervous movements which cause unsound mind and
body."
Altho inheritance comes from two lines of ancestry, the prospective
mother may be able to control and supervise the tendencies from her
line. She must do all in her power before the birth of a child to sway
it for good. She may then save herself years of worry and sorrow and the
race an unworthy example.
Before and after birth the colored mother beautiful will cultivate and
give out the best in her. No contrary or selfish thought will be
permitted because of the bad effect upon the child. These unpleasant
things will enter soon enough into its life. The mother will faithfully
endeavor to be an example to her children in thought, poise, speech,
personal appearance and in all forms of cleanliness and politeness.
A child's ideal seldom goes higher than that of its mother. Children
very accurately reflect the thought of their parents.
How can the child have high ideals and elevating thoughts unless the
mother has them?
Taste is said to be a faculty of the soul. The mother bequeaths her
taste.
How can the colored mother beautiful expect her children to have habits
of observation and appreciation of the beautiful in Nature, Art,
Science, Music and Literature, unless the mother has "walked and talked
with nature, has heard the tongues in trees and brooks" as Shakespeare
has said, and has pointed these out to the child?
If the starlight, the moonlight, the dawn, the sunrise, the sunset, the
blue sky, the tranquility of a summer day or the grandeur of a storm
have no response in the mother's soul, then how can a child be expected
to lift its eyes and see the beautiful everywhere, every day and absorb
the benefits from such communion?
The physical feeding of a child occurs but three times a day but the
spiritual, mental and moral feeding goes on all the rest of the time.
Children should be fed ideals of thought and affection to counteract
the evil effect of thoughts of passion.
The colored child should be taught to think and should be given
opportunity for a quiet hour for self communion and self entertainment.
It should be taught to live a period of solitude so that in after life
it may not always be compelled to hunt around for entertainment and
excitement.
How can the child be expected to love reading if the mother does not
read to it?
How can the child love music if the mother does not play or sing to it
or teach it songs?
How many nights are wasted that might be spent in giving colored
children ideals of home life and right habits in reading and home study?
Colored children have been left alone too much.
How many of them have a children's hour? How many have been given
something to think about? How many spend their spare moments in
reading? How many can recite poems or give quotations from the master
writers?
The mothers themselves must put some time in exerting their minds in
reading and thinking with a view towards mentally improving the next
generation. They must observe and note what is passing on in the great
world. History is being made every day. How can the child resist the
desires of the lower nature when its mother has tantrums? The colored
mother must refuse to express passion. A mother can not shame or beat
her child into gentle manners when she is rough or coarse.
How can the child be careful and controlled in speech if the mother has
not the power of expressing herself in good English. Language is too
powerful a weapon in reaching, compelling and swaying the feelings of
others and in winning friends--to be neglected.
Children always betray home training. If they have not been trained
properly as they are not adepts in dissembling and they reflect their
mothers in all their thought, speech and actions.
The mother who is strict in her own conduct and who pays careful
attention to the home conduct of her children will seldom be ashamed of
their deportment. Good habits may not be assumed at a moment's notice.
The good breeding of parents is very truly reflected in the manners of
their children.
It is sad to have the children learn the laws of politeness and good
breeding outside the home, and to watch them assume that which should be
innate.
It is sad to hear little children lie about their home training
pretending that "My mother makes me do this or that" when they know that
the mother has failed to make a strong point of this particular fault.
It is sadder still to hear colored children say, "I can't." The colored
mother should put success in the child's thought and teach it to believe
in himself and his race. It is the duty of every mother to preach
success and one's duty to aim to excel along all lines.
How can the child be clean and love cleanliness when its mother is
habitually untidy and slovenly? The colored mother beautiful would no
more exhibit herself unclean than naked. She would no more walk slovenly
than to dress slovenly. If a mother wears unclean clothes, has unclean
thoughts or unclean manners, her children will reflect her.
How can a child hold her head up and her back straight when her mother
slouches around and forgets that her body belongs to God as well as her
soul.
The colored mother beautiful makes a point of teaching her child to be
true and helpful to the race, and to speak up for the good points and
keep silent about the weaknesses when before other races. Every race has
strong and weak points.
She should take part in efforts for the advancement of the race. No one
can lift the race unless he stays in it. A child should be taught not to
depreciate the race any more than it would itself.
No one is so big and strong that he can exist alone. All of us are
dependent to a degree. Each one will need friends. There are no friends
which mean so much to us as those of our own race.
The percentage of physical deformities in colored children is lessening.
Colored mothers are learning to study children's faces and bodies in
order to change and correct their physical defects. Bowed and weak legs,
outstanding ears, misshapen mouths, noses and teeth are being corrected
according to scientific rules. Then, too, they are training children to
do things to improve their own physical defects without--of
course--causing them to be over conscious.
The colored mother beautiful is the health officer of the race as well
as her own posterity. It is her duty to see to it that her children have
clean bodies inside and outside. She will see to it that in her
neighborhood there will be more regard for health, drainage, and other
sanitary conditions. She will pursue the deadly fly and cause this pest
and all vermin to be eradicated.
She will study up on the kinds and amounts of food to give children that
they may not be fed the coarse, greasy food which coarsens the instinct,
or may make them gluttonous, which will abuse the stomach and cause
unnatural heat that may wreck them morally. Instead, she advocates the
light brain forming food to lift them above the dominant animal
tendencies.
She controls the child's play which is so necessary to health and which
at the present day aims for educational results.
A colored girl's estimate and idea of colored womanhood comes from her
mother.
The colored mother beautiful will not give the best to strangers in
preference to home folks, nor will she expect her daughter to receive
politeness from other boys and men when her brothers and men in the
house keep their hats on, smoke and talk in loud disrespectful tones
before her.
A colored mother will teach her daughter to command respect from all
boys and men and not to capitulate in any way. To do this she will teach
her daughter that she must conquer or control her lower nature and not
permit privileges with her body or her given name. Her conduct at home
and on the street must also command this. Her daughter will no more use
the Lord's name in exclamation than any other profanity. She must be
taught not to hang out or talk outside of the windows.
She must be taught that she is never to stand and talk to men on the
street, also that she must not continue a conversation with a man or boy
who shows he has no respect for her. She will demand a respectful
attitude if she is a good girl or else she should excuse herself from
further conversation and association.
The daughter of the colored woman beautiful will be taught to expect
boys and men to tip their hats in meeting and parting, and she will not
encourage them to sit in her presence if she stands unless they are her
elders, superiors, or invalids. If necessary she will exaggerate the
importance of these seemingly small courtesies to impress them upon
other younger and less thoughtful girls.
Such a daughter will be taught to count for something besides clothes
and looks. She will pass an intemperate or immoral man as she would
something polluted, for both are irresponsible and she may suffer from
even a moment's contact.
This daughter must be taught not to marry for support or for money. That
is selfish and cowardly. Love should be the basis of marriage because
after the honeymoon is past there are responsibilities, troubles,
sorrows and self-sacrifice which need the stimulation of the "Love
light."
The daughter of the colored woman beautiful will aim to marry a man
mentally and physically fit to be the father of her children. An
immoral, vile-tongued, untruthful or diseased father is a curse to his
race. It is her duty and aim to improve racial stock.
This daughter will study the ethics of the period of engagement and will
not abuse or destroy the mysterious charm which belongs alone to the
early period of wife-hood.
A girl should be taught the duties of married life; to fulfil the
beautiful aim of motherhood should be her ambition and her daily prayer.
Boys, also, get their estimate of colored womanhood from their mothers.
A whipping, striking, scolding, threatening, "shut-up" mother presents
him a wrong view point of real motherhood.
The colored mother beautiful will teach her son to respect colored
womanhood and to show this respect in every word and action. He is not
supposed to know the "wheat from the tare." To any woman in all the
small courtesies of life he will reflect his mother's home training. He
will be taught to look up to, and to show special respect and reverence
for the great women and men of the race.
Even in the way he puts on or takes off his hat he reflects his mother.
If a colored boy is expected to tip his hat to any woman, he should tip
it to the women of his mother's race.
If it is expected that he should stand erect before any woman, he should
before the women of his mother's race. Off will go his hat, if even
asked a question. His voice, his eyes, his backbone, his heels, all
reflect his mother and her training. In spite of protest he will never
sit if a woman is standing unless he is ill or a cripple. Especially
does he exhibit the mother training he has received from his manner in
his actions to colored women.
If he is expected to speak respectfully to any woman he should to the
women of his mother's race.
If he works faithfully for any woman who employs him he should work
faithfully for a woman of his mother's race.
When he marries he should select a woman of his mother's race--a Colored
Woman. His mother will teach him that a good wife is about the best
thing in the world.
He will be taught to support and trust his wife as he did his mother
and never doubt her until he has positive proof that she is unworthy.
He will never publicly put another woman before his wife if he lives
with her. As long as a wife bears his name and stays under his roof she
is entitled to the respect that her title is supposed to carry. He would
never go about complaining of his wife for that is small and cowardly.
He will tip his hat as gallantly to his wife as to another woman and
kiss her with uncovered head to show his respect to the woman he has
chosen to bear his name.
The son of the colored mother beautiful will not smoke in the presence
of his wife or friends unless he is sure it is unobjectionable and he
should regard this as a privilege rather than a masculine right. He will
be taught to wear his coat at table and regard it also as a privilege if
he appears otherwise. He will be taught that it is unmanly to tattle and
gossip.
He will be taught that it is vulgar and low to quarrel especially in
the home. No man will strike a woman no matter what the provocation
might be any more than it would have been right for his father to strike
his mother. A man who is unable to control himself in anger is a weak
man and is hardly fit to be a husband, much less father. Belonging to a
race full of impulse and emotion he must be taught to control his
emotions as he would his appetite. Culture and manliness are really
restraint.
He will be taught to remember the vital sex difference in strength and
physique and will not permit a woman to lift or reach unnecessarily--not
even to help with his coat. He will not preach a double standard of
morality for the men and women unless he practices what he preaches and
has always been pure.
Early in the boy's life the colored mother beautiful will teach him to
keep as pure in thought and deed as girls are expected to be. He will
be given a right idea of the sacred sex organs and will be taught their
health--value and the price of their abuse. Self mastery will be the
watchword in thought, even in sleep and recreation.
The colored mother beautiful will teach her son not to lie and steal or
to use intoxicants and profane language. She will teach him to keep both
his inward and outward body clean. She shall insist that he keep his
lips "in" while his chest will be out. The son will be taught the value
of a good name and that fondness for work is one of the best
recommendations in the world. He will be taught not to scorn or neglect
his chores and to help his mother in the housework, not only because it
is his duty but because it will prepare him for the duties of married
life when he may be able to help his wife or instruct her if it should
be necessary.
The colored mother beautiful will teach her son to be a little man and
not to receive "penny tips" like a beggar. He should be taught to do
neighborly favors without pay, after first asking his mother for
permission. If he must have money let him work for wages that he may be
his own business boss. He should never be permitted to ask any one but
his parents for pennies and he should be encouraged not to expect or
accept them.
A boy should be expected to walk with a graceful carriage and present an
attractive personal appearance in the way of clothes, teeth, hair and
nails as well as a girl.
Early in life he should be taught to invest in a savings bank, to get
the saving habit.
The habit of reading good books should be made a part of his daily work
as a preparation for the idle hour when he would otherwise seek
excitement and harmful association.
A boy should be taught the duties of married life and what to expect
from a good wife.
He should be warned of pitfalls and how vicious girls and women play
upon men's physical weaknesses for selfish purposes. Any abuse or excess
may ruin his health and happiness.
He should be taught to appreciate the qualities in a girl which will
make congeniality during the long married life which has trials of which
courtship never dreams.
He should be taught to seek and appreciate good, respectable girls and
to associate with the best people.
If the day should come to the colored Mother Beautiful when after years
of patient sacrifice and toil, all her hopes and dreams are cruelly
dashed to earth and the child so carefully nurtured refuses to do her
duty to parent and race and will not help to make the race and world
better by having lived in it, or, when perhaps, the child is a disgrace
to her parents and the race, the mother must conceal her agony and
grief and still keep a serene countenance.
In silent meditation she looks back over all the years in which she has
tried to rear a creditable member of the race and society. If, after
honest review, down in her heart she can truthfully say, "I have raised
my child to the best of my knowledge," then she may leave the rest in
the hands of the "Creator." Perhaps he will reward her efforts, in a
future generation, while she is yet on earth.
A disappointed colored Mother Beautiful does not envy other Mothers nor
does she criticise their daughters.
Suffering opens the door to a wider vision in life and if she looks
around she will find forgetfulness in helping others. It is never too
late to begin.
Perhaps the Colored Mother Beautiful will be spared to see the day when
her children leave the home honorably. Although it almost breaks her
heart because she is no more to be the guiding light and comforter, she
yields the sceptre of authority gracefully and willingly and steps into
the background. She may see a rough voyage ahead for the young life
travelers, but she may not interfere nor advise these loved ones unless
asked. Even then she remembers that experience is the greatest teacher
and strengthener and that it is best for them to walk life's journey
alone.
The peace and contentment that comes from having done her whole duty
gives her a spiritual beauty of countenance that comes from the other
world; the habit of right living through right thought, reflects in her
face and gives her a physical beauty that comes in no other way.
At the last, the Still Small Voice Whispers, "Well done, thou good and
faithful servant of a persecuted race. You have done what you could. No
one can do more. Receive your eternal reward," and the face is illumined
with the beauty that shall endure forever.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note
The following changes have been made to the text:
p. 13: "Laws of Attraction" changed to "Law of Attraction".
p. 25: "pyschically" changed to "psychically".
p. 66: "I wont" changed to "I won't".
p. 93: "so called friends" changed to "so-called friends".
p. 97: "perservere" changed to "persevere".
p. 104: "abcesses" changed to "abscesses".
p. 154: "parents roof" changed to "parents' roof".
p. 178: "posterity then" changed to "posterity than".
p. 187: "that that" changed to "than that".
End of Project Gutenberg's The Colored Girl Beautiful, by E. Azalia Hackley