improving their time and their talents. (Bishop Benjamin W.
Arnett.)
Among the elocutionists that I have known Miss H. V. Davis
holds the highest place in my estimation. Her
personification and rendition of character is complete in
whatever role she appears. (J. W. Hood, Bishop A.M.E. Zion
Church.)
TO HENRIETTA VINTON DAVIS.
As you stood in your womanly beauty,
In garments of glittering sheen,
Our hearts bowed down in gracious homage,
And we crowned you as our queen.
Although many have been before thee,
Thou beautiful dark-eyed queen,
None more worthy of allegiance
On the throne was ever seen.
For whether in joy or in sorrow
Thy magic art has been seen
We sat enslaved by thy sweet caprice,
Our fair, yes, charming queen.
We pledge thee our loyal allegiance,
We pledge thee our sympathy keen,
We pledge thee the love of a nation
And crown thee fore'er our queen!
(Katherine Davis Tillman, in New York Age.)
RICH THOUGHTS FROM GREAT RACE THINKERS.
Colored men should be encouraged by the outlook. Our friends are
multiplying. It is only ourselves that we must learn to control. (John
Mitchell, Richmond, Va.)
* * * * *
We are in favor of the saloons being closed twenty-four hours each day
and seven days in each week. (Rev. R. W. E. Ferguson.)
* * * * *
Let parents do their whole duty in bringing up their children, for
upon this depends the future welfare of our race. (Mrs. Virginia
Broughton.)
* * * * *
Our lives are measured by what we accomplish, and not by paltry years
of existence. (Prof. W. S. Scarborough.)
* * * * *
There is no such thing as black virtue, black intelligence or white
intelligence, black goodness or white goodness. Virtue has no color.
It is either virtue or no virtue, honesty or no honesty, and it
behooves our readers always to remember this when they regulate the
conduct of their lives. A bad act in a white man is not the less bad
because he is white, and a good act in a colored man is not the less
good because he is black. (Bishop W. B. Derrick.)
[Illustration: MRS. V. W. BROUGHTON, MEMPHIS, TENN.
Editor of _Woman's Messenger_ and Chairman of Educational Committee
Negro Department, Tennessee Centennial.]
Reading is to the mind what eating is to the body. So to eat without
giving nature time to assimilate is to rob her, first of health, then
of life; so to read without reflecting is to cram the intellect and
paralyze the mind. In all cases, dear friends, reflect more than you
read, in order to present what you read to your hearers. (S. A.
Wesson, Lincolnville, S. C.)
* * * * *
If you have never thought of race pride, think now. Not only think,
but act well your part. Without the ennobling power of our women we
can never be a great and noble race. If young men aspire to reach the
highest pinnacles of fame, they rise but to fall lower, unless the
women are pure and will demand respect. Learn to resent insults, young
women. Learn to respect and defend the women of our race, young men.
(Mary R. Phelps.)
* * * * *
Let us as Negroes educate, let us survive, let us live up to our
opportunities of doing good to ourselves and to others. So shall we
work out a glorious destiny upon earth and contribute our share of the
good and great immortals out of every nation that shall take their
places among "the spirits of just men made perfect who are without
fault before the throne." (Rev. William D. Johnson, D.D., Athens, Ga.)
* * * * *
We have learned in the hard school of adversity that we are not the
wards of any political body; that the improvement of our condition in
life is not the solicitude of any particular section of our country,
and that the days of our political bosses are over forever; that we
are the architects of our own fortunes and the arbiters of our own
destinies; that with the various walks of life thrown open to us we
are to enter and win victories or defeats upon equal conditions with
every other race or condition of people. (Hon. J. T. Settle.)
* * * * *
Young men, creation would be incomplete without you. From the
beginning God made you ruler over every living thing. Do you properly
appreciate the kingdom over which you reign? We know that these
thoughts do not take hold of you in boyhood, but there is a time when
they are fully realized and yet neglected. God has called you because
you are strong. Then exercise that strength, both spiritually and
temporally. (A. C. Davis, Rome, Ga.)
* * * * *
We have no great reason to be discouraged, cast down, or hopeless
about our future, because of the many unfavorable happenings; we must
not expect to be entirely free from the struggles necessary to be
encountered to reach true greatness. It is our duty to use every
possible and legitimate effort to avert dangers and troubles. We are
earnestly persuaded to believe that the brightness of the future glory
of the Negro of America is heightened by the darkness of the present
clouds. All our sad experiences exhort us to proceed and inspire us
with animating hopes of success, should we seek to "lay the foundation
well." (Mrs. Julia A. Hooks, Memphis, Tenn.)
[Illustration: SUGAR PLANTATION OF EDWARD BUTLER, POTASH, LA.
One of the largest sugar cane growers in the state.]
* * * * *
There is a future before the race--a great and useful future, a future
fraught with results which shall touch every phase of the world's life
and bring men into sweeter harmony with each other and with God. (Rev.
George C. Rowe, Charleston, S. C.)
* * * * *
As soon as slavery ceased to be beneficial to the Negro, as soon as
slavery lifted the Negro as high as it could lift him, God came and
abolished it. When he was prepared for his deliverance the yoke of
bondage passed away. The race then passed into the glorious sunshine
of freedom, which has been getting more glorious every day since his
emancipation. (W. H. Council, Normal, Ala.)
* * * * *
I am exceedingly anxious that every young colored man and woman should
keep a hopeful and cheerful spirit as to the future. Despite all of
our disadvantages and hardships, ever since our forefathers set foot
upon American soil as slaves our pathway has been marked by progress.
Think of it. We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We
went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens.
We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the
proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. We went into slavery with slave chains
clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our
hands. (Prof. B. T. Washington.)
* * * * *
We are scarcely willing to admit the fact that our own prejudices and
lack of self-assertion are largely responsible for our separation from
the women who move the world by their intelligent progressiveness. If
we would join these women in good works, we should at least meet them
halfway by ridding ourselves of preconceived notions of their
hostility and prejudice against us. It would add much to our strength
and dignity of character and to our sense of importance among women if
we could understand that white women can be strengthened in their
generous impulses and made more exalted in their outlook to help weak
and struggling women if they knew more of our condition, capabilities,
and aspirations. The cause of women in all things needs the
co-operation of all women of all races and colors in order to work out
the conditions that all need and devoutly wish for. (Fannie Barrier
Williams.)
* * * * *
I most confidently affirm that no man can fail of hopefulness as to
the future of our race in this land who has broadly studied the
problems and the progress of human liberty and civil justice in the
world during the last three or four centuries. There has been a
constant warfare and many reverses, together with long seasons of
gloomy doubt: but the dominant fact in the whole record is that
throughout the long contest, on the forum, in the sacred pulpit, in
the hall of legislation, and on countless fields of bloody carnage,
the struggle has been substantially the same: a struggle for larger
liberty for the oppressed multitude, a better chance for the average
man. And this further, that in every century--aye, in almost every
generation--of this mighty conflict something has been gained for the
right. This gain, once made, has never been lost. These things being
so, it is foolish to say that these victories and this strifeful gain
are matters of merely racial application. It is not so. (Bishop
Embry.)
* * * * *
[Illustration: REV. M. VANN, D.D., CHATTANOOGA, TENN.]
I predict that the time will come and that it is not far off when we
will have a negro poet from the South. He will set the magnificent
splendor of the "Sunny South" to music. His muse will touch the lyre,
and you will hear the sweet murmur of the stream, the rippling waters,
and we shall see the beauty of that country as it was never seen
before. It will come; and after him other still greater men. But it
takes labor to become a great man just as it takes centuries to make a
great nation. Great men are not fashioned in heaven and thrown from
the hand of the Almighty to become potentates here on earth, nor are
they born rich. I admit that there is, in some parts of this country,
a prejudice against you on account of your color and former condition.
In my opinion, the best way to overcome this is to show your
capability of doing everything that a white man does, and do it just
as well or better than he does. If a white man scorns you, show him
that you are too high-bred, too noble-hearted, to take notice of it;
and the first opportunity you have do him a favor, and I warrant you
that he will feel ashamed of himself, and never again will he make an
exhibition of his prejudice. The future is yours, and you have it in
which to rise to the heights or descend to the depths. (Senator John
A. Logan.)
* * * * *
At one time a ship was lost at sea for many days, when it hove in
sight of a friendly vessel. The signal of the distressed vessel was at
once hoisted, which read: "We want water; we die of thirst." The
answering signal read, "Cast down your bucket where you are;" but a
second time the distressed vessel signaled, "We want water, water,"
and a second time the other vessel answered: "Cast down your bucket
where you are." A third and fourth time the distressed vessel
signaled, "We want water, water; we die of thirst," and as many times
was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." At last the
command was obeyed, the bucket was cast down where the vessel stood,
and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the Amazon River.
My friends, we are failing to cast down our buckets for the help that
is right about us, and spend too much time in signaling for help that
is far off. Let us cast down our buckets here in our own Sunny South,
cast them down in agriculture, in truck gardening, dairying, poultry
raising, hog raising, laundrying, cooking, sewing, mechanical and
professional life, and the help that we think is far off will come,
and we will soon grow independent and useful. (Booker T. Washington.)
* * * * *
Song is the music of the soul, the harmonious vibrations of the deep
chords of the heart, and the melodies of the spirit life. It involves
the elevation of the affections and the utterances of the lips, by
which some theme, doctrine, or topic is proclaimed aloud and
exultingly before and in the presence of others. It is the divinity in
man rising to God. It is the better and higher nature of man springing
forward and leaping heavenward. It is the soul plodding the deep blue
sea upon its fiery pinions in search after God, its Maker, "who giveth
songs in the night." (Bishop Holsey.)
* * * * *
If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, the home is a great
field for woman. The Negro race needs homes, not hovels and pens.
Christian character is built most largely there. Beautify the home,
make it cheerful and cultured. Be economical in expenditures.
Cultivate economy in all lines. Be thrifty and industrious housewives.
We do not confine woman's work to the home. Her sphere is anywhere
that she can do good. As women are doing most of the teaching now,
here is a vast field for her activity that should be well cultivated.
Next to the home the schoolroom is probably the greatest factor in
character building. As Daniel Webster once said: "If we work upon
marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if
we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon
immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles, with a just fear of
God, and love of our fellow-man, we engrave on those tablets something
that will brighten to all eternity." Teachers, be faithful. Dress
neatly and well, if your income will allow. One can always be neat and
clean, however. It is certainly a miserable mistake that makes the
majority of our people think that they must dress so as to be
conspicuous for blocks away, wearing hats that are veritable flower
gardens. Tight lacing should be abandoned by all sensible women. The
thinking, solid women of our race ought to take some steps to save the
young girls of our race, especially that vast throng in the larger
cities who have no gentle home influences; thousands are being dragged
down to destruction every year. Raise the fallen, and so fulfill the
law of Christ. (Lillie E. Lovinggood, in Afro-American Encyclopedia.)
* * * * *
The time has come when physicians must be employed to prevent as well
as to cure. If this is done, there will be less sickness, and
epidemics will be a thing of the past. Then sanitary science, under
strict hygienic observance, will reach perfection. The rude, careless,
and gross habits of living will be corrected, and a system of perfect
drainage and pure ventilation will be inaugurated. Pure air and a good
water supply will be furnished to every public and private house. Then
only pure and unadulterated foods will be allowed in our markets and
grocery houses. Every hotel and private and public boarding house will
furnish properly prepared foods, and universal cleanliness will be the
law, and the death rate among our people will reach its minimum. (Dr.
R. F. Boyd.)
* * * * *
The one thing that should appeal most strongly to our hearts is the
need of a better and purer home life among our people in many parts of
the South. I scarcely need tell you that our most embarrassing
heritage from slavery was a homelessness and a lack of home ties. All
the sanctities of marriage, the precious instincts of motherhood, the
spirit of family alliance, and the upbuilding of home as an
institution of the human heart were all ruthlessly ignored and
fiercely prohibited by the requirements of slavery. Colored people in
bondage were only as men, women, and children, and not as fathers and
mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. Family
relationships and home sentiments were thus no part of the preparation
of colored people for freedom and citizenship. It is not agreeable to
refer to these things, but they are mentioned merely to suggest to you
how urgent and immensely important it is that we should be actively
and helpfully interested in those poor women of the rural South, who
in darkness and without guides are struggling to build homes and rear
families. When we properly appreciate the fact that there can be no
real advancement of the colored race without homes that are purified
by all the influences of Christian virtues, it will seem strange that
no large, earnest, direct, and organized effort has been made to teach
men and women the blessed meaning of home. Preachers have been too
busy with their churches and collections, and teachers too much
harassed by lack of facilities, and politicians too much burdened with
the affairs of state and the want of offices to think about the
feminine consideration of good homes. Money, thought, prayer, and men
and women are all freely and nobly given in the upbuilding of schools
and churches, but no expenditures to teach the lesson of home making.
Colored women can scarcely escape the conclusion that this work has
been left for them, and its importance and their responsibilities
should arouse and stir them as nothing else can do. Let us not be
confused and embarrassed by the thought that what needs to be done is
too difficult or far away. There should be no limitations of time and
space when man needs the helping sympathy of man. If our hearts are
strong for good works, ways and means will readily appear for the
exercise of our talents, our love, and our heroism. (Mrs. Fannie B.
Williams.)
[Illustration: F. A. STEWART, M.D., NASHVILLE, TENN.]
THE COLORED PHYSICIAN IN THE SOUTH.
BY H. R. BUTLER.
When the civil war was over and the smoke of battle had cleared away,
the field in the South was occupied by the red-eyed voodoo, who styled
himself a "doctor." There were at that time possibly two or three
exceptions to this rule, but only two or three.
Should you ask one of these voodoo doctors, better known among the
illiterate as "root workers," what might be his business, the answer
would quickly be given something like this: "My trade? Dat am a
doctor."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, sar; I is a root doctor from way back; and when I gits done
standin' at de forks ob de road at midnight pullin' up roots, twixt de
hollowin' ob de owls, and gittin' a little fresh dirt frum de
graveyard--honey, dar am su'thin' agwinter drop."
The above is part of a conversation held with me by one of these "herb
kings" in South Carolina in 1890. Hence you can see that, like all
other evils, these voodoo doctors do not die fast; and even to-day not
a few still live.
This being with his weird stories went forth among a people who were
rocked, as it were, in the cradle of superstition, and early became
monarch of all he surveyed. He or she was known and feared throughout
the country. They claimed to be able to cure anything from consumption
to an unruly wife or husband, and furnishing charms to make love
matches and to keep the wife or husband at home was one of their
specialties.
Every patient they called on they diagnosed the trouble thus: he or
she was tricked; if pneumonia, they were tricked; if a fever, they
were tricked; or if a case of consumption, they were tricked.
Their stock of medicines, if such we must call them, generally
consisted of such things as small bags of graveyard soil, rusty nails,
needles, pins, goose grease, rabbits' feet, snake skins, and many
other such things.
I say that a little more than a generation ago this was the class of
so-called colored doctors that predominated in the South, and which
for many years was a great stumbling-block to the educated physicians
of our race, because it seemed to be understood that all colored
doctors were and must be root doctors. But, thanks to Him who holds
the destiny of races in his hands, in the flight of years and in this
electric age of progress this voodoo doctor has almost--not entirely,
but almost--passed away; while his territory is being occupied by
colored physicians whose qualifications in education, character, and
honor are equal to similar qualifications in the physicians of any
other race.
The colored physicians in the South to-day are men and women fully
equipped in education, morals, and integrity for the high calling they
have elected, as their noble work will show. In the United States
to-day there are about one thousand colored physicians, men and women,
and more than seven hundred of them are located in the Southern
States. While they represent the homeopathic and eclectic schools, yet
the regulars are largely in the majority.
The majority of the colored physicians now operating in the South took
a college course of education before taking up the study of medicine.
Hence, as a general rule, they are exceedingly fine scholars. It is a
sad fact, yet it is a hard fact, that less than one-third of the white
physicians now practicing in the South, together with those preparing
to come out, are college graduates. This cannot be said of the colored
physicians. We have them from the leading medical institutions in
America. They are here from the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard
Medical College, Yale School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College,
Howard Medical College, Ann Arbor Medical College, Lenard Medical
College, and many of the medical schools of Chicago, Cleveland, and
New Orleans. The examinations they pass, often before a prejudiced
board, and their excellent record as physicians go to show that these
schools are sending us no mean material.
These good men and women are, by their skill and God's help, reducing
the death rate of the colored people to a wonderful degree. They are
teaching the people the common laws of hygiene, and many other things
pertaining to the health of their people that they were never taught
before. They are lecturing in the schools in their cities on important
topics relative to the care of school buildings and school children.
They are in many places school commissioners and city and county
physicians. As skilled physicians the fame of some is known far and
wide. The whites frequently call a colored physician now. The question
now is not, What is his color? but, Can he do me any good? Right here
in Atlanta, Ga., I am frequently called to see white patients. Think
of it! a colored physician attending white patients here in a city
where not forty years ago members of his race were sold like cattle.
If thirty-five years have brought this change, what will thirty-five
years more bring? Yes, it has not been three hours since two white
patients left my office.
The white profession in the South, especially the better class of
them, give the colored members of the profession a hearty welcome to
the field. They always have a kind word for them. They will consult
with them, lend them books or instruments, and do anything they can to
push the colored brother forward. This, I say, is the best element.
The poor, half-starved fellow will not do this; but, on the contrary,
will do all that he can to pull the colored physician down. Hence we
have this class to watch, and for this reason I always consult with
the best in my city, and would advise all other colored physicians to
do the same.
The colored physicians have fine horses, carriages, and beautiful
homes. Some own plantations, and others run large bank accounts.
As professors, the colored physicians of the South are holding some
high positions with honor to themselves and their race. At New Orleans
University Dr. Mellin is dean of the medical department of that
institution. At Meharry Medical College we have Dr. R. F. Boyd,
professor of the diseases of women and clinical medicine; Dr. H. T.
Noel, demonstrator of anatomy; Dr. W. P. Stewart, professor of
pathology, and there are other professors in the pharmaceutical and
dental departments. Dr. Scruggs is a professor at Lenard Medical
School. Besides these, there are several of the colored physicians
delivering courses of lectures on various topics in different schools.
The colored physician in the South, for fear of being refused, has
never made an application to become a member of any of the medical
associations; but, knowing the great good that comes from contact, in
several of the states they have organized themselves into
associations, and are doing a noble work in their yearly meetings.
Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia have excellent state medical
associations, composed entirely of colored physicians. One of the
beautiful points about the colored physicians of the South is that the
majority of them are Christian men and women. This has much to do with
their success.
The South is the field for well-equipped colored physicians. If they
want to do good work, let them come South; if they want to be felt as
a leader of the people, let them come South; if they want to make
money, let them come South; if they are looking for work, let them
come South; and if they wish to do charity work, the South is the
field.
THE FIRST COLORED SPECIALIST.