Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Debbie Stoddart,
Diane Monico, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: AS IT ONCE WAS--THE LIFE OF A SLAVE.]
SPARKLING GEMS
OF
RACE KNOWLEDGE WORTH READING.
A COMPENDIUM OF VALUABLE INFORMATION AND WISE
SUGGESTIONS THAT WILL INSPIRE NOBLE EFFORT AT
THE HANDS OF EVERY RACE-LOVING
MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
ILLUSTRATED WITH SUPERB HALF-TONE ENGRAVINGS.
COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY
JAMES T. HALEY.
SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION,
PRICE, $1.25.
"_Give attendance to reading._" (_1 Tim. iv. 13._)
"_No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding
them with good books. A book is better than sleep for weariness._"
(_Henry Ward Beecher._)
NASHVILLE, TENN.:
J. T. HALEY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.
1897.
DEDICATION.
_To every Son and Daughter of the Race,
whose noble aspirations are to do good and be good,
This Little Volume Is Dedicated
By the Compiler._
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY J. T. HALEY & COMPANY.
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT.
If, as Lord Bacon says, "reading makes a full man," then it behooves
every one who has any aspirations to read.
The negro is just passing, as it were, through the gateway that enters
upon life's great work, and the publishers of this little volume are
anxious to see our "brother in black" develop, both from an
intellectual and a moral standpoint, and are ready to do what they can
to stimulate the race on to still greater achievements than they have
ever before accomplished. In launching "Sparkling Gems" we are simply
putting forth to the world what we hope may, in some measure, instruct
and encourage the colored people. We have compressed a vast amount of
valuable race information into a small compass. The style of the work
is good, and its moral tone is excellent. It can scarcely fail to
profit every member of the race who will read it, hence it should be
in every family, in every office, and in every library.
It has been the earnest aim of the compiler to embody in these pages
the latest conclusions of some of the most prominent Afro-American
scholars on several of the mooted subjects pertaining to the race.
We owe a debt of lasting gratitude to many of our friends who have so
generously furnished us valuable assistance in the collection of
_data_ for this volume, among whom we may mention W. B. Rust and T. B.
Mears as among the most enthusiastic.
Believing that there is a genuine need for such a work as we have
produced, we offer it to our colored friends and their white friends,
praying God's blessing upon it. THE PUBLISHERS.
[Illustration: AS IT NOW IS--HOME OF A FREEMAN.
Residence of R. R. Church, Memphis, Tenn., the wealthiest colored man
in the state; estimated at $250,000.]
CONTENTS.
THE NEED OF NEW IDEAS AND NEW AIMS FOR A NEW ERA 11
The Status of the Family--The Conditions of
Labor--Higher Plane of Morality.
LAYING THE CORNER STONE 23
THE TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL 31
Negro Building--History and Old Relics--Department
of Arts--Mines and Minerals--Department of
Dentistry--The Woman's Board.
COTTON STATES INDUSTRIAL EXPOSITION 45
THE NEED OF THE HOUR 47
UNITY 49
NEGRO BUSINESS ASSOCIATION 51
NEGRO BANKS 53
NEGRO WEALTH BY STATES 54
NEGRO SCHOOL-TEACHERS 55
HOW TO TEACH OBEDIENCE 57
HINTS FOR OUR GIRLS 59
WHAT NEGRO WOMEN ARE DOING 61
WHAT RACE NEWSPAPERS HAVE DONE 62
RACE EVILS 62
TWO CULTURED RACES 67
THE NEW COLORED WOMAN 69
HAVE COURAGE 72
THE SOUTH GIVEN THE PREFERENCE 74
MRS. GEORGIA GORDON TAYLOR 75
THREE GREAT NEGROES 76
POINTED PARAGRAPHS FROM RACE NEWSPAPERS 79
MADAM SISSIRETTA JONES 89
MISS HALLIE Q. BROWN 91
MISS HENRIETTA VINTON DAVIS 95
Indorsement--To Henrietta Vinton Davis.
RICH THOUGHTS FROM GREAT RACE THINKERS 98
THE COLORED PHYSICIAN IN THE SOUTH 113
THE FIRST COLORED SPECIALIST 118
ESPECIAL COMPANY 119
THE SPHERE OF WOMAN 121
THE MOURNING PREACHER 124
OUR GREATEST DRAWBACK 127
THE RACE PROBLEM 128
MOTHER'S TREASURES 146
GEN. ANTONIO MACEO 149
MARRIED LIFE--ITS JOYS AND SORROWS 157
INTEMPERANCE 160
RACE NAME--WHAT SHALL IT BE? 167
THE NATION'S DUTY TO THE NEGRO 176
The Negro as a Slave--The Negro as a Common
Laborer--The Negro as a Soldier--The
Negro as a Citizen--The Negro as a Southerner--The
Negro in Politics.
FACTS FOR COLORED PEOPLE 185
DR. WILLIAM KEY 195
JIM KEY 196
A SOUL AT AUCTION 199
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
HUT OF A SLAVE 2
HOME OF A FREEMAN 6
DR. ALEX CRUMMELL, WASHINGTON, D. C. 10
PROF. W. H. COUNCIL, NORMAL, ALA. 24
NEGRO BUILDING, TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL 28
RICHARD HILL, CHIEF, NASHVILLE, TENN. 32
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 36
CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES 38
CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES 40
OFFICERS OF THE WOMAN'S BOARD 42
CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES, WOMAN'S BOARD 44
NEGRO BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA. 46
A. MEANS, MEMPHIS, TENN. 48
E. W. JACKSON, ORLANDO, FLA. 52
EMMA O. KENNEDY, MEMPHIS, TENN. 56
IDA B. WELLS BARNETT 60
L. J. BROWN, WASHINGTON, D. C. 68
DR. GEORGIA E. L. PATTON, MEMPHIS, TENN. 71
MRS. GEORGIA GORDON TAYLOR 75
FREDERICK DOUGLASS 77
REV. C. A. A. TAYLOR, OCALA, FLA. 80
MADAM SISSIRETTA JONES 88
HALLIE Q. BROWN 92
HENRIETTA VINTON DAVIS 96
MRS. V. W. BROUGHTON, MEMPHIS, TENN. 99
CANE FIELD IN LOUISIANA 102
REV. M. VANN, D.D., CHATTANOOGA, TENN. 106
F. A. STEWART, M.D., NASHVILLE, TENN. 112
CHARLIE JOHNSON, LOUISIANA 120
REV. J. M. CONNER, LITTLE ROCK, ARK. 125
J. P. NEWTON, MEMPHIS, TENN. 129
PROF. B. T. WASHINGTON, TUSKEGEE, ALA. 132
PROF. DENNIS S. THOMPSON, KANSAS CITY, MO. 140
GEN. ANTONIO MACEO 148
MRS. M. A. MCCURDY, ROME, GA. 162
EDWARD SEABROOK, SAVANNAH, GA. 166
JOHN Q. ADAMS, CHICAGO, ILL. 189
JOHN G. JONES, CHICAGO, ILL. 191
REV. R. H. BOYD, D.D., SAN ANTONIO, TEX. 193
DR. WILLIAM KEY, SHELBYVILLE, TENN. 195
JIM KEY, SHELBYVILLE, TENN. 197
REV. JOHN HENRY DICKERSON, OCALA, FLA. 200
[Illustration: DR. ALEX CRUMMELL, WASHINGTON, D. C.]
SPARKLING GEMS.
THE NEED OF NEW IDEAS AND NEW AIMS FOR A NEW ERA.
BY ALEX CRUMMELL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
This subject divides itself into two heads: (1) The "Need" suggested;
and (2) The "Aims for a New Era," which shall meet the need.
It seems to me that there is an irresistible tendency in the Negro
mind in this land to dwell morbidly and absorbingly upon the servile
past. The urgent needs of the present, the fast-crowding and momentous
interests of the future appear to be forgotten. Duty for to-day, hope
for to-morrow, are ideas which seem oblivious to even leading minds
among us. Enter our schools, and the theme which too generally
occupies the youthful mind is some painful memory of servitude. Listen
to the voices of the pulpit, and how large a portion of its utterances
are pitched in the same doleful strain! Send a Negro to Congress, and
observe how seldom possible it is for him to speak upon any other
topic than slavery. We are fashioning our life too much after the
conduct of the children of Israel. Long after the exodus from bondage,
long after the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, they kept turning
back, in memory and longings, after Egypt, when they should have kept
both eye and aspiration bent toward the land of promise and of
freedom.
Now I know, my brethren, that all this is natural to man. God gave us
judgment, fancy, and memory, and we cannot free ourselves from the
inheritance of these or of any other faculty of our being; but we were
made to live in the future as well as in the past.
Nothing can be more hurtful for any people than to dwell upon
repulsive things. To hang upon that which is dark, direful, and
saddening tends to degeneracy. There are few things which tend so much
to dwarf a people as the constant dwelling upon personal sorrows and
interests, whether they be real or imaginary.
The Southern people of this nation have given as evident signs of
genius and talent as the people of the North; but for nigh three
generations they gave themselves up to morbid and fanatical anxieties
upon the subject of slavery. To that one single subject they gave the
whole bent and sharpness of their intellect, and history records the
result.
For more than two hundred years the misfortune of the black race was
the confinement of its mind in the pent-up prison of human bondage.
The morbid, absorbing, and abiding recollection of that condition is
but the continuance of that same condition in memory and dark
imagination. But some intelligent reader of our race will ask, Would
you have us as a people forget that we have been an oppressed race?
No. God gave us memory, and it is impossible to forget the slavery of
our race. The memory of this fact may ofttimes serve as a stimulant to
high endeavor. What I would have you guard against is not the memory
of slavery, but the constant recollection of it, as the commanding
thought of a new people, who should be marching on to the broadest
freedom of thought in a new and glorious present, and a still more
magnificent future. You will notice here that there is a broad
distinction between memory and recollection. Memory is a passive act
of the mind, while recollection is the actual seeking of the facts,
the endeavor of the mind to bring them back again to consciousness.
The fact of slavery is that which cannot be faulted. What I object to
is the unnecessary recollection of it. The pernicious habit I protest
against as most injurious and degrading. As slavery was a degrading
thing, the constant recalling of it to the mind serves by the law of
association to degradation. My desire is that we shall, as far as
possible, avoid the thought of slavery. As a people, we have had an
exodus from it. We have been permitted by a gracious Providence to
enter the new and exalted pathways of freedom. We have new conditions
of life and new relations in society. These changed circumstances
bring to us thoughts, new ideas, new projects, new purposes, and new
ambitions, of which our fathers never thought. We have need,
therefore, of new adjustments in life. The law of fitness comes up
before us at this point, and we are called upon, as a people, to
change the currents of life and to shift them into new and broader
channels. I do not ignore the intellectual evils which have fallen
upon us. Neither am I indifferent to the political disasters we are
still suffering. But when I take a general survey of our race in the
United States I can see that there are evils which lie deeper than
intellectual neglect or political injury.
We have three special points of weakness in our race: 1. The Status of
the Family. 2. The Conditions of Labor. 3. The Element of Morals.
It is my firm conviction that it is our duty to address ourselves more
earnestly to the duties involved in these considerations than to any
and all other considerations. Let us notice first
THE STATUS OF THE FAMILY.
I shall not pause to detail the calamities which slavery has entailed
upon our race in the domain of the family. Every one knows how it has
pulled down every pillar and shattered every priceless fabric. But now
that we have begun the life of freedom we should attempt the repair of
this, the noblest of all the structures of human life. The basis of
all human progress and of all civilization is the family. Despoil the
idea of family, assail rudely its elements, its framework, and its
essential principles, and nothing but degradation and barbarism can
come to any people. If you will think but for a moment of all that is
included in this word "family," you will see at once that it is the
root idea of all civility, of all the humanities, of all organized
society. In the family are included all the loves, the cares, the
sympathies, the solicitudes of parents and wives and husbands; all the
active industries, the prudent economies, and the painful
self-sacrifices of households; all the sweet memories, the gentle
refinements, the pure speech, and the godly anxieties of womanhood;
all the endurance, the courage, and the hardy toil of men; all these
have their roots in the family.
Alas! how widely have these traits and qualities been lost to our race
in this land! How numerous are the households where they have never
been known or recognized! The beginning of all organized society is in
the family. The school, the college, the professions, suffrage, civil
office, are all valuable things; but what are they compared to the
family? Here, then, where we have suffered the greatest, is a
world-wide field for our intellectual anxieties and our most
intelligent effort.
Secondly we will consider
THE CONDITIONS OF LABOR.
I refer to the industrial conditions of our race. No topic is exciting
more interest and anxiety than the labor question. Almost an angry
contest is going on upon the relations of capital to labor. Into this
topic all the other kindred questions of wages, hours of labor,
co-operation, distribution of wealth--all are canvassed in behalf of
the labor element of the country, but all, I may say exclusively, for
the white labor of this great nation. The white labor is organized
labor; it is intelligent labor; it is skilled labor; it is protected
labor. It is labor nourished, guarded, shielded, rooted in national
institutions, propped up by the suffrage of the laboring population,
and needs no extraordinary succors. But, my friends, just look at the
black labor of this country, and consider its sad conditions, its
disorganized and rude characteristics, its almost servile status.
What gives labor, in any land, dignity and healthiness? It is the
qualities of skill and enlightenment. It is only by these qualities
that men can work in the best manner, with the least waste, and for
the largest remuneration. Where the laborer is uninformed and merely
mechanical in his work, there he knows labor somewhat as an animal
does; and he is led almost blindly to the same dull, animal-like
endurance of toil, which is the characteristic of the beast of the
field. His work, moreover, is not self-directed, for it has no inward
spring. It is not the outcome of the knowing mind and the trained and
cunning hand. It is labor directed by overseeing and commanding skill
and knowledge. Multitudes in every land under the sun know labor
precisely in the same way that domestic animals do. They know the mere
physical toil. They know the severest tasks. They know the iron
routine of service. They know the soulless submission of drudgery. But
alas! they have never come to know the dignity of labor; they have
never been permitted to share its golden values and its lofty
requitals.
Now, if I do not make the very greatest of mistakes, this is the
marked peculiarity of the black labor of this country. I am not
unmindful of the fact that the Negro is a laborer. I repel the
imputation that our race, as a class, is lazy and slothful. I know,
too, that, to a partial extent, the black man, in the Southern States,
is a craftsman, especially in the cities. I am speaking now of
aggregates. I am looking at the race in the mass, and I affirm that
the sad peculiarity of our labor in this country is that it is rude,
untutored, and debased.
Here, then, is a great problem which is to be settled before the Negro
race can make the advance of a single step. Without the solution of
this enormous question, neither individual nor family life can secure
its proper conditions in this country. Who are the men who shall
undertake to settle this momentous question? How are they to bring
about the settlement of it? I answer, first of all, that the rising
intelligence of this race, the educated, thinking, scholarly men, who
come out of our schools trained and equipped by reading culture; they
are the men who are to handle this great subject. Who else can be
expected to attempt it? Do you think that men of other races will
encourage our cultivated men to parade themselves as mere carpet
knights of politics, and they themselves assume the added duty of the
moral and material restoration of our race? Never! They expect every
people to bear somewhat the burdens of their own restoration and
upbuilding; and rightly so. And next, as to the other question, How is
this problem of labor to be settled? I reply, in all candor, that I am
unable to answer so intricate a question. But this I do say: (1) That
you have got to bring to the settlement of it all the brain power, all
the penetration, all the historical reading, and all the generous
devotedness of heart that you can command; and (2) that in the
endeavor to settle this question that you are not to make the mistake
that it is external forces which are chiefly to be brought to bear
upon this enormity. No race of people can be lifted up by others to
grand civility. The elevation of a people, their thorough
civilization, comes chiefly from internal qualities. If there is no
receptive and living quality in them which can be evoked for their
elevation, then they must die! The emancipation of the black race in
this land from the injustice and grinding tyranny of their labor
servitude is to be effected mainly by the development of such personal
qualities, such thrift, energy, and manliness as shall, in the first
place, raise them above the dependence and the penury of their present
vassalage, and next shall bring forth such manliness and dignity in
the race as may command the respect of their oppressors.
To bring about these results we need intelligent men and women, so
filled with philanthropy that they will go down to the humblest
conditions of their race, and carry to their lowly huts and cabins all
the resources of science, all the suggestions of domestic, social, and
political economies, all the appliances of school and industries in
order to raise and elevate the most abject and needy race on American
soil. If the scholarly and enlightened colored men and women care not
to devote themselves to these lowly but noble duties, to these humble
but sacred conditions, what is the use of their schooling and
enlightenment? Why, in the course of Providence, have they had their
large advantages and their superior opportunities?
I bring to your notice one other requirement of the black race in this
country, and that is the need of a
HIGHER PLANE OF MORALITY.
I make no excuse for introducing so delicate and, perchance, so
offensive, a topic; a topic which necessarily implies a state of
serious moral defectiveness. If the system of slavery did not do us
harm in every segment and section of our being, why have we for
generations complained of it? And if it did do us moral as well as
intellectual harm, why, when attempting by education to rectify the
injury to the mental nature, should we neglect the reparation of the
moral condition of the race? We have suffered, my brethren, in the
whole domain of morals. We are still suffering as a race in this
regard. Take the sanctity of marriage, the facility of divorce, the
chastity of woman, the shame, modesty, and bashfulness of girlhood,
the abhorrence of illegitimacy, and there is no people in this land
who, in these regards, have received such deadly thrusts as this race
of ours. And these qualities are the grandest qualities of all
superior people.
This moral elevation should be the highest ambition of our people.
They make the greatest mistakes who tell you that money is the master
need of our race. They equally err who would fain fasten your
attention upon the acknowledged political difficulties which confront
us in the lawless sections of the land. I acknowledge both of these
grievances. But the one grand result of all my historic readings has
brought me to this single and distinct conviction that "by the soul
only the nations shall be free."
If I am not greatly at error, a mighty revolution is demanded of our
race in this country. The whole status of our condition is to be
transformed and elevated. The change which is demanded is a deeper one
than that of emancipation. That was a change of state or condition,
valuable and important indeed, but affecting mainly the outer
conditions of our people; and that is all that a civil status can do.
But outward condition does not necessarily touch the springs of life.
That requires other, nobler, more spiritual agencies. What we need is
a grand moral revolution, which shall touch and vivify the inner life
of a people, which shall give them dissatisfaction with ignoble
motives and sensual desires, which shall bring to them a resurrection
from inferior ideas and lowly ambitions; which shall shed illumination
through all the chambers of their souls, which shall lift them up to
lofty aspirations, which shall put them in the race for manly moral
superiority. A revolution of this kind is not a gift which can be
handed over by one people, and placed as a new deposit in the
constitution of another. Nor is it an acquisition to be gained by
storm, by excitement, or frantic and convulsive agitation, political
or religious. The revolution of which I speak must find its primal
elements in qualities, latent though they be, which reside in the
people who need this revolution, and which can be drawn out of them,
and thus secure form and reality.
The basis of this revolution must be character. That is the rock on
which our whole race in America is to be built up. Our leaders are to
address themselves to this main and master endeavor--viz., to free
them from false ideas and injurious habits, to persuade them to the
adoption of correct principles, to lift them up to superior modes of
living, and so bring forth, as permanent factors in their life, the
qualities of thrift, order, virtue, and manliness.
But who are the agents to bring about this grand change in the Negro
race? Remember, just here, that all effectual revolutions in a people
must be racial in their characteristics. You can't take the essential
qualities of one people and transfuse them into the blood of another
people, and make them indigenous to them. The primal qualities of a
family, a race, a nation are heritable qualities. They abide in their
constitution. They remain, notwithstanding the conditions and the
changes of rudeness, slavery, civilizations, and enlightenment. It is
a law of moral elevation that you must allow the constant abidance of
the essential elements of a people's character; therefore when I put
the query, Who shall be the agent to raise and elevate our race to a
higher plane of being? the answer will at once flash upon your
intelligence. It is to be effected by the scholars and philanthropists
which come forth in these days from the schools. They are the people
to transform, stimulate, and uplift, because it is a work of
intelligence; it is a work which demands historic facts and their
application to new circumstances.
But these reformers must not be mere scholars. The intellect is to be
used, but mainly as the vehicle of mind and spiritual aims, and hence
these men must needs be both scholars and philanthropists.
Allow me, in the conclusion of this article, to express the hope that
He who holds the hearts of all men will give you the spirit to forget
yourselves, and live for the good of man and the glory of God. Such a
field and opportunity are graciously opened to you in the conditions
and needs of our race in this country. May you and I be equal to them!
LAYING THE CORNER STONE.[A]
(FROM THE DAILY AMERICAN.)
Prof. W. H. Council, Principal of the Normal Industrial School, was
the principal speaker of the day. Perhaps few men possess such power
over an audience. The manuscript part of his address is herewith
given. But the most enthusiastic parts of his speech and the most
effective with the audience were his extemporaneous effusions that
accompanied the delivery.
[Footnote A: Extract from the speech of W. H. Council delivered at the
laying of the corner stone of the Negro Building of the Tennessee
Centennial, Nashville, Tenn., March 13, 1897.]
[Illustration: PROF. W. H. COUNCIL, NORMAL, ALA.]
_ADDRESS._
These occasions mark the evolution of Southern thought and industry,
and the result of the self-directed energy of the negro. Here on this
spot the world may see the other side of Negro life than "Sam Johnson,
the chicken thief." Here it may see the healthful buds of Negro
handicraft, Negro art, science, literature, invention. Here the world
may see the hitherto giant energies of a mighty people waking into
conscious activity. Here on this spot the nations may place their ears
to the ground and hear the industrious tread of millions of black
feet--hear the beats of millions of noble hearts beneath black skins
and catch the thrill of these on coming millions to be felt in the
industrial and literary world.
Here on this spot the old master who followed Lee's tattered banners
over the snow-covered hills of Virginia down to Appomattox sacrifices
his pro-slavery ideas, and builds a monument to Negro fidelity and
industry; and here the Negro brings the product of his brain and hand
in grateful testimony to the friendly feelings between us. I challenge
the annals of man to present so beautiful a spectacle!
This opportunity given to us to display what we have accomplished in
our three hundred years' struggle from barbarism to industrious
Christian liberty, right here in the Egypt of our bondage, is one of
the bravest acts of the brave and chivalrous people. And I am not slow
to recognize the fact that we received much more from slavery than did
the slaveholder. Only as we recede from Appomattox, and only as the
echoes of Fort Sumter's bloody guns die away in gentle murmurs of the
music of love around the altars of faith and hope, only as memories of
former hates shall have been drowned in the Red Sea of brotherly love,
and the good things which we have done for each other come like angels
into conscious view, will the old master and the old slave know what
helps they have been to each other. We must love. We cannot afford to
hate.
Negro history has solved the Negro problem from the Negro side. There
still remains the Caucasian problem. In view of what the Negro has
done for this country, in view of what the white man has done for the
Negro, will the white man continue and enlarge the work of
encouragement to this struggling race? Or will he use the shotgun
instead of the Holy Bible; the bloody knife instead of the spelling
book? These are problems for Caucasian brains.
I know of no element in noble human character which is not found in
the Negro race. Indeed, he has been placed under greater strains of
conscience and taxed more severely in honor and integrity than any
other race known to history. Did it ever occur to you that the South
is even wild in its praises of negro fidelity in the days when it was
prostrate in civil strife and its defenseless women and children
committed to the care of the black men of the South? Is there a single
case of treachery or infidelity recorded against us? Did it ever occur
to you that the Northern soldier could always trust his life in the
hands of a black man, wherever found? Is there a single case of
treachery or infidelity recorded against us by the North? He would
defend and feed "old mistress" committed to his charge. He would hide
the cattle and food and valuables in the hollows and in the thickets,
and then pilot the Northern army by these hidden goods safely through
the mountains out of danger. Has ever human nature been so taxed
before? No other citizens in this great country have better right to
rejoice at her prosperity than the Negro.
The South owes her industrial significance largely to the Negro. King
Cotton sits on a throne of gold held aloft by the strong black arms of
the Negro and shakes his snowy locks over the commercial world. And
our beloved South may yet call upon ebony sinews to beat back the
enemies of her peace, prosperity, and happiness, and again stand
between starvation, danger, and death, and her defenseless wives and
little ones; and the Negro will again manfully, cheerfully, faithfully
answer the call.
From this spot must radiate higher hopes, broader ideas, nobler aims
to teach, inspire, and exalt Negro muscle, Negro brain, Negro
heart--to soften asperities, to generate greater tolerance, and to
make the South a "new earth" until the "Fatherhood of God" and the
"brotherhood of man" shall bring the "new heaven."
[Illustration: NEGRO BUILDING, TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL.]
No people can rise in the world and maintain creditable standing alone
with the saw, the hammer, and the plane; as cooks, washerwomen, and
nurses; as farmers, bootblacks, hotel boys, and barbers. These are
necessary, but there must be strong intellectual giants in the pulpit,
at the bar, in the schoolroom, in medicine--as scientists, linguists,
artists, inventors--in order that any people may be accorded a
creditable standing in the society of races.
Whatever any other people need the Negro needs. We want the Negro to
have higher industrial education. He must be taught to smelt iron ore,
build locomotives, ships, telescopes, microscopes, steam engines of
every class, all kinds of mechanical engineering, farming machinery
and appliances, and do all work in glass, brass, gold, and silver.
This kind of higher industrial education is the only kind that he
needs now and is essential to his salvation. This kind of industrial
education is the only kind that can give a people permanent strength.
Teach the Negro boy the sacredness of human life. Teach him that man
must be as precious in the sight of man as he is in the sight of God.
Teach obedience to law, obedience to legally constituted authority,
which alone can give protection to life and property and security to
society. Teach him that the human mind can form no loftier ideal than
that of the triumph of right through the supremacy of law--that no one
who violates the humblest law of the land can be an ideal man. Teach
him that the transmission of a disregard for law is the transmission
of the spirit of the mob, the spirit of riot, the spirit of hate, the
spirit of internecine murder, the overthrow of the state, the birth of
chaos and pandemonium. Teach him that men and races grew from within;
that man grows by expansion from within; that congressional enactments
cannot make us a race. The race must make itself. Teach him that he
belongs to a glorious race, which stands before its God with its hands
unstained in human blood. Teach him to honor and revere this record,
and hand it untarnished down to the remotest posterity. Teach him that
it is better to be persecuted than to persecute. Teach that neither
race nor color will rule future man, who will be the evolution of the
wisdom of all the past ages; but that man, that race, which will
furnish the most brains, the most virtue, the most honor, the most
truth, the most industry, will stand highest and longest before God
and the judgment bar of the future righteous intelligence of the
world.
Teach him to love, not to hate. Teach him that the man who hates him
on account of his color is far beneath him, but the man who hates his
condition and strives to lift him up may be his superior. Teach him
that any coward may insult him, may wrong him, may send a bullet
crashing through a man's brain, may warm his dagger in a brother's
lifeblood, but it takes a strong man to take the weak and unfortunate
by the hand and say: "Stand on your feet, my brother, and be a man."
Teach him that that man, that race, is superior which does superior
things to lift mankind to superior conditions. Teach him that that is
the superior man, the superior race, which does most for its country,
fights noblest for man, and lives closest to God.
THE TENNESSEE CENTENNIAL.
Its Benefits to the Negro.
The people of Tennessee will celebrate the one hundredth anniversary
of the admission of their State into the Union by holding, at
Nashville, the capital, in 1897, for a period of six months from the
1st day of May, a great Centennial and International Exposition.
A structure to be known as the
NEGRO BUILDING
will be one of the most attractive in the exposition, and will occupy
a delightful and commanding position on the east bank of Lake Watauga.
The cut on page 28 will give the reader some idea of its magnitude. It
is amply sufficient to accommodate the vast variety of exhibits which
the Afro-American will have to display to the world. The purpose of
this department is to show the progress of our race in the United
States from the old plantation days to the present.
[Illustration: RICHARD HILL, CHIEF.]
This building was erected at a cost of over $12,000, and is the work
of the management, without any solicitation or money from the Negro
himself, which demonstrates an earnest anxiety for our participation
in the event. It is expedient that we respond to the invitation by
bringing forward the very best specimens of our merit and
progress--not for the sake of the temporary praise which our displays
may elicit, but for the more substantial benefits which we hope will
follow.
The same capabilities which are in other people exist in us, and only
want ampler avenues afforded for their exercise. We have abiding faith
in the ultimate amelioration of the present conditions by the best
sentiments of the American people. But the influencing of that
sentiment to a more favorable attitude is in ourselves, and is
accomplished more and more as we cause our usefulness to be seen and
appreciated.
We hope that our participation in the great event will contribute
largely toward establishing a feeling of more tolerance and
consideration. This is the key of the aim. If, as we believe, the best
impulses of the people are on the side of struggling humanity, and,
when awakened, are easily moved to its succor, then a creditable
display from us is bound to lead toward this result, both at home and
abroad. If the Southern States afford conditions friendly to its
ex-slave element, then there could be no stronger proof of it than an
exhibition of the progress of the Negro himself. Such an exhibition
would not only verify the claims of our home people, and help displace
the stigma which perhaps attaches to them abroad on the race question,
but its effect is bound to extend further. It elevates us at the same
time it elevates them, and creates a current of good will in the
direction of a better understanding.
HISTORY AND OLD RELICS.
It is intended to make this department one of the most attractive
features in the building. All relics of interest that are owned by
colored people are wanted on exhibition. All contributions that will
tend toward completing the history of the race are solicited for
exhibition.
We desire to have:
1. Sketches of the faithfulness and devotion of the Negro.
2. Biographical sketches of every Tennessee nonagenarian and
centenarian Negro.
3. A copy of every book, magazine, and paper published and edited by
Negroes.
4. Coins of Negro governments.
5. Stamps of Negro governments.
6. Sketches of Negroes by missionaries.
7. Pottery and utensils used by Negroes everywhere.
8. Sketches and photographs of Negroes prominent in Tennessee history,
or any other State.
9. Records of houses and localities connected with Negroes.
10. Bills of sales, passes, manumittance papers of Negroes, and laws
of cities and states before and since the war, for or against the
Negro.
11. Old papers with advertisements of runaway Negroes.
12. Articles on the Negro problem.
13. Relics.
14. The loan of medals awarded by Congress to Negroes for heroism,
also votes of thanks.
15. Histories of slave insurrections.
16. The number of acres of land owned by Negroes, and whether
incumbered or unincumbered.
17. Catalogues of schools owned and officered by Negroes, or schools
where Negroes are being instructed.
DEPARTMENT OF ARTS.
The managers have designated for this department a space sufficient to
show hundreds of pictures and pieces of sculpture. The Art Committee
is now receiving paintings, sculpture, and other works of the highest
quality from owners and artists of the colored race. The high-class
works of art in this department will mark the progress of our
education.
MINES AND MINERALS.
We propose to display on a magnificent scale the best specimens of our
workmanship. It is the intention of this department to obtain an
exhibit from the mine or ore bed in which our people are at work,
whether it be coal, slate, marble, fine sand and gravel, ore of iron,
copper, tin, zinc, silver or gold, or any peculiar geological deposit.
[Illustration: EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE--1. Rev. T. E. Crawley; 2. Dr. F.
A. Stewart; 3. Rev. Preston Taylor; 4. S. A. Walker; 5. W. T.
Hightower; 6. Rev. R. B. Vandervill; 7. Thomas Tyree.]
DEPARTMENT OF DENTISTRY.
The Afro-American will also make an exhibit of dentistry. In this
department will be seen gold plates, porcelain plates, rubber and
brass plates, gold and brass crowns, gold and amalgam filled teeth,
and bridges of various kinds. We expect that this department will help
us to show to the civilized world that the Negro is not a failure, nor
is he lagging in any of the skillful and most highly honored
professions.
THE WOMAN'S BOARD.
Those of our race who have given their time and energy toward
brightening the prospects and bettering the conditions of the Negro
have all along advocated equal opportunities and advantages for male
and female.
No other course would be consistent. No other line would be logical.
If the Negro advocates the idea of equal opportunities and advantages
for white and black, he must, to be consistent, urge equal
opportunities for male and female. He says by this that every human
being should be allowed the same privileges and prerogatives, which
carries with it the same possibilities and promise in life for every
human, all things else being equal.
Those planning the Negro Department acted wisely in establishing a
Woman's Department.
[Illustration: CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES.--1. J. B. Battle, Agriculture;
2. Dr. E. B. Jefferson, Dentistry; 3. Prof. D. W. Byrd, Educational;
4. Dr. William Sevier, Medicine; 5. Robert A. Walker, Poultry.]
Besides the departments already mentioned, there will be a number of
others equally interesting, such as Department of Clubs, Department of
Agriculture, Department of Live Stock, Department of Marble and Stone,
etc.
The members of the Negro Department of the Tennessee Centennial
earnestly request the encouragement, co-operation, and assistance of
the Negroes of the United States and of America. It is very essential
that we show to the world what we can do. We have always been willing
and ready to help to push the lever of progress, but every one does
not see it in that light. This is a way by which we can make the world
see, understand, and realize our importance. In the Negro Department
we have the privilege of showing our work to such an advantage that it
cannot fail to represent us. Therefore we appeal to every Negro man
and woman, who has any real pride, to do all in his or her power to
make this department a success. Before another centennial celebration
others will have our place in the arena of life, and they will love
and honor us for this and other examples of patriotism that we may
leave on record for their inspiration.
Though the examples we leave them may have been given under adverse
circumstances, they will understand it. They will know as well as we
that there is no reward without labor, no prize without a struggle, no
victory without a battle.
[Illustration: CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES.--1. W. L. Causler,
Horticulture; 2. H. G. Scales, Marble and Building Stone; 3. J. Ira
Watson, Minerals and Mines; 4. Dr. R. S. White, Art; 5. T. L. Jones,
Floriculture; 6. H. C. Ganaway, Clubs and Publicity.]
We as a race cannot afford to let this great undertaking fail. We will
not let it fail. Do not hesitate to send your exhibits because you
feel that they are not perfect. Do the best you can in getting them
up, send them, and leave the result of their defects to the Great
Judge, who knows the depths from which we have come, the heights to
which we are aspiring, and the condition of our environment. We have
the ability, the means, and the opportunity is at hand to erect a
monument to the race. During the century we are about to celebrate, we
acted as heroes for others. Why not play the man for ourselves now?
Why not as citizens of Tennessee join in the celebration of the birth
of our State? She was born into the Union June 1, 1796. She has been
in one hundred years (minus the year of secession), and we, as a race,
have been right along with her. Not only have we been connected with
Tennessee, but we have been identified with the whole country since
1620, and have assisted in producing peace, prosperity. We have helped
to clear the forests, till the soil, level the mountains, fill the
valleys, bridge rivers, build railroads, factories, schoolhouses,
churches, towns, and cities. We have labored assiduously to make this
country bloom as a rose. This fact is admitted by multiplied thousands
of the best white people in the whole South. We are not ashamed of our
record in the history of our State, neither do we wish it to be
ashamed of us.
[Illustration: OFFICERS OF THE WOMAN'S BOARD.--1. Mrs J. C. Thompson,
President; 2. Mrs. J. S. Lovell, Fifth Vice President; 3. Mrs. W. H.
Key, Treasurer; 4. Mrs. Lizzie E. Robinson, Seventh Vice President;
5. Miss Nannie E. Perkins, Recording Secretary; 6. Mrs J. Ira Watson,
Sixth Vice President; 7. Mrs. J. C. Tate, First Vice President; 8.
Miss Laura B. Hobson, Corresponding Secretary.]
We have done well, but we can do better. A thousand years shall not
erase from the pages of history the part that we have played upon the
American stage of action. Do not falter now, my brethren, but rush to
the help of the Negro Department with your banners floating in the
breeze. We are pronounced an unsolved problem. We are quoted as a
vexatious question, and the eyes of the world are upon us. We can
solve this problem, we can answer this question, and we can charm the
gaze of the world. When? May 1, 1897. Where? In the Negro Building.
How? By filling it with suitable exhibits.
We are making history. The historian may neglect us, but there is a
hand that is writing upon the wall--not our destruction, neither does
it require a Daniel to read it. With the golden pen of time it dips
into the crystal fluid of sympathy, and writes us as a nation, making
rapid strides
Out of darkness into light,
Out of weakness into might.
It writes us as a nation upon the ocean of time, landing without
anchor, oar, or sail. Thirty-three years ago, when we started out from
the bonds of slavery with a legacy of poverty and ignorance, the
canopy of heaven for our shelter, we were in a miserable, helpless
condition. To-day we are a great nation, nearly 10,000,000 strong,
with nearly $1,000,000,000 wealth. When the products of our hands are
seen in the Tennessee Centennial, our government may be constrained to
pay not only the debt of gratitude, but the debt of money that she
owes us for the two hundred and forty-four years that we served her.
Peradventure, she may be persuaded to protect us better as American
citizens, and love us more as her hard-working, earnest, loyal sons
and daughters, not of Africa, but of beautiful America, the queen of
the world.
[Illustration: CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES.--Mrs. Carter, Music; Mrs.
Mills, Domestic Science; Mrs. Davis, Assignment; Mrs. Evans,
Horticulture; Mrs. Henderson, Ways and Means; Mrs. Adams, Patents and
Inventions.]
COTTON STATES INDUSTRIAL EXPOSITION.
Atlanta, Ga., September 19 to December 31, 1895.
This was the first opportunity that the colored people ever had to
show the world what they have learned and accomplished since their
emancipation, and they made the most of it. Their exhibition attracted
as much attention as any other feature of the great exposition. This
building was erected by Negro hands, supervised by Negro skill and
brain, filled with products, evincing beyond a shadow of doubt the
Negro's advancement, and all a decided proof that he is a factor in
the American nation--a part of it, and an indispensable part. This
building covered a floor space of more than 25,000 square feet, and
was erected at a cost of $9,923. There was no charge made for entrance
or rent fees. In every State in the South the Negroes were thoroughly
organized for the collection of their exhibit, which consisted of all
farm products, needlework of all kinds, paintings, inventions,
carpentering, blacksmithing, silversmithing, dentistry, surgical
skill, pictures of colored men's places of business and residences,
industrial products from their schools, and hundreds of other things
that show the genius and thrift of the race. Registered stock, such as
horses, cows, sheep, and hogs, were on exhibition. All told, there
were 110 commissioners appointed, representing the various States.
Prof. I. Garland Penn, of Lynchburg, Va., was chief of the department.
[Illustration: NEGRO BUILDING.]
Every colored lady and gentleman who visited the exposition received
an inspiration which has made them enterprising and progressive.
THE NEED OF THE HOUR
It is high time that the colored people were looking more seriously to
their material interest. We have need to build more wisely in the
future in this regard than we have in the past, if we would receive
the attention and recognition of the dominant race, which our relation
to the body politic deserves. We dress well, we look well, and talk
well; but in far too many cases that is all of it--there is nothing
behind it. The Negro must learn the importance of doing business for
himself, accumulating property, supporting race enterprises, of
providing employment for our sons and daughters after they shall come
forth from the schools. We all cannot be school-teachers, lawyers, and
doctors. We need good stores and business houses of every description;
we must get money. It carries with it that power and influence which
we, as a race, so much need. The demands for positions among our young
girls and boys are becoming so great that the parents will soon be
taught the necessity of preparing a place before they complete their
schooling. It is to be regretted that we do not think of this until
our sons and daughters have completed their education. Places owned
and run by Negroes are the need of the hour. (Christian Banner,
Philadelphia, Pa.)
[Illustration: A. MEANS, MEMPHIS, TENN.
The only Afro-American Hatter known in the South.]
UNITY.
As a rule, the colored people all over this country are getting very
small wages; therefore they cannot save sufficient money to enter
large financial enterprises; but we must organize co-operate
associations, and from this will come assistance to build grocery,
shoe, dry goods, and commission houses.
We must come together. The colored people must unite, and the quicker
the better. Every other race on earth is uniting. Why not the Negro?