of the Negro in American life. Outstanding after the numerous
sociological studies and other contributions to periodical literature of
Dr. DuBois are the books of the late Booker T. Washington.
Representative of these are "The Future of the American Negro," "My
Larger Education," and "The Man Farthest Down." As early as 1829,
however, David Walker, of Boston, published his passionate "Appeal," a
protest against slavery that awakened Southern legislatures to action;
and in the years just before the Civil War, Henry Highland Garnet wrote
sermons and addresses on the status of the race in America, while
William Wells Brown wrote "Three Years in Europe," and various other
works, some of which will receive later mention. After the war,
Alexander Crummell became an outstanding figure by reason of his sermons
and addresses, many of which were preserved. He was followed by an
interesting group of scholarly men, represented especially by William S.
Scarborough, Kelly Miller, and Archibald H. Grimke. Mr. Scarborough is
now president of Wilberforce University. He has contributed numerous
articles to representative magazines. His work in more technical fields
is represented by his "First Lessons in Greek," a treatise on the
"Birds" of Aristophanes, and his paper in the _Arena_ (January, 1897) on
"Negro Folk-Lore and Dialect." Mr. Miller is Dean of the College of Arts
and Sciences at Howard University. He has collected his numerous and
cogent papers in two volumes, "Race Adjustment," and "Out of the House
of Bondage." The first is the more varied and interesting of the two
books, but the latter contains the poetic rhapsody, "I See and Am
Satisfied," first published in the _Independent_ (August 7, 1913). Mr.
A. H. Grimke, as well as Mr. Miller, has contributed to the _Atlantic_;
and he has written the lives of Garrison and Sumner in the American
Reformers Series. "Negro Culture in West Africa," by George W. Ellis, is
original and scholarly; "The Aftermath of Slavery," by William A.
Sinclair, is a volume of more than ordinary interest; and "The African
Abroad," by William H. Ferris, while confused in construction and form,
contains much thoughtful material. Within recent years there have been
published a great many works, frequently illustrated, on the progress
and achievements of the race. Very few of these books are scholarly.
Three collaborations, however, are of decided value. One is a little
volume entitled, "The Negro Problem," consisting of seven papers by
representative Negroes, and published in 1903 by James Pott & Co., of
New York. Another is "From Servitude to Service," published in 1905 by
the American Unitarian Association of Boston, and made up of the Old
South Lectures on the history and work of Southern institutions for the
education of the Negro; while the third collaboration is, "The Negro in
the South," published in 1907 by George W. Jacobs & Co., of
Philadelphia, and made up of four papers, two by Dr. Washington, and two
by Dr. DuBois, which were the William Levi Bull Lectures in the
Philadelphia Divinity School for the year 1907.
Halfway between works on the Negro Problem and those in history, are
those in the field of biography and autobiography. For decades before
the Civil War the experiences of fugitive slaves were used as a part of
the anti-slavery argument. In 1845 appeared the "Narrative of the Life
of Frederick Douglass," this being greatly enlarged and extended in 1881
as "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass." In similar vein was the
"Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro," by Samuel Ringgold Ward. Then
Josiah Henson (the original of Uncle Tom) and Sojourner Truth issued
their narratives. Collections of more than ordinary interest were
William Wells Brown's "The Black Man" (1863), James M. Trotter's "Music
and Some Highly Musical People" (1878), and William J. Simmons's "Men of
Mark" (1887). John Mercer Langston's "From the Virginia Plantation to
the National Capitol" is interesting and serviceable; special interest
attaches to Matthew Henson's "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole"; while
Maud Cuney Hare's "Norris Wright Cuney" was a distinct contribution to
the history of Southern politics. The most widely known work in this
field, however, is "Up From Slavery," by Booker T. Washington. The
unaffected and simple style of this book has made it a model of personal
writing, and it is by reason of merit that the work has gained unusual
currency.
The study, of course, becomes more special in the field of history.
Interest from the first was shown in church history. This was
represented immediately after the war by Bishop Daniel A. Payne's
studies in the history of the A. M. E. Church, and twenty-five years
later, for the Baptist denomination, by E. M. Brawley's "The Negro
Baptist Pulpit." One of the earliest writers of merit was William C.
Nell, who, in 1851, published his pamphlet, "Services of Colored
Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812." "The Rising Son," by William
Wells Brown, was an account of "the antecedents and advancement of the
colored race"; the work gave considerable attention to Africa, Hayti,
and the colonies, and was quite scholarly in method. Then, in 1872, full
of personal experience, appeared William Still's "The Underground
Railroad." The epoch-making work in history, however, was the two-volume
"History of the Negro Race in America," by George W. Williams, which was
issued in 1883. This work was the exploration of a new field and the
result of seven years of study. The historian more than once wrote
subjectively, but his work was, on the whole, written with unusually
good taste. After thirty years some of his pages have, of course, been
superseded; but his work is even yet the great storehouse for students
of Negro history. Technical study within recent years is best
represented by the Harvard doctorate theses of Dr. DuBois and Dr.
Carter G. Woodson. That of Dr. DuBois has already been mentioned. That
of Dr. Woodson was entitled "The Disruption of Virginia." Dr. Woodson is
the editor of the _Journal of Negro History_, a quarterly magazine that
began to appear in 1916, and that has already published several articles
of the first order of merit. He has also written "The Education of the
Negro Prior to 1861," a work in the most scientific spirit of modern
historical study, to which a companion volume for the later period is
expected. Largely original also in the nature of their contribution have
been "The Haitian Revolution," by T. G. Steward, and "The Facts of
Reconstruction," by John R. Lynch; and, while less intensive,
interesting throughout is J. W. Cromwell's "The Negro in American
History."
Many of the younger writers are cultivating the short story. Especially
have two or three, as yet unknown to the wider public, done excellent
work in connection with syndicates of great newspapers. "The Goodness of
St. Rocque, and Other Stories," by Alice Moore Dunbar (now Mrs. Nelson),
is representative of the stronger work in this field. Numerous attempts
at the composition of novels have also been made. Even before the Civil
War was over appeared William Wells Brown's "Clotille: A Tale of the
Southern States." It is in this special department, however, that a
sense of literary form has frequently been most lacking. The
distinctively literary essay has not unnaturally suffered from the
general pressure of the Problem. A paper in the _Atlantic Monthly_
(February, 1906), however, "The Joys of Being a Negro," by Edward E.
Wilson, a Chicago lawyer, was of outstanding brilliancy. A. O. Stafford,
of Washington, is a special student of the folklore of Africa. He has
contributed several scholarly papers to the _Journal of Negro History_,
and he has also published through the American Book Company an
interesting supplementary reader, "Animal Fables From the Dark
Continent." Alain Locke is interested in both philosophical and literary
studies, represented by "The American Temperament," a paper contributed
to the _North American Review_ (August, 1911), and a paper on Emile
Verhaeren in the _Poetry Review_ (January, 1917).
Little has been accomplished in sustained poetic flight. Of shorter
lyric verse, however, many booklets have appeared. As this is the field
that offers peculiar opportunity for subjective expression, more has
been attempted in it than in any other department of artistic endeavor.
It demands, therefore, special attention, and the study will take us
back before the Civil War.
The first person to attract much attention after Phillis Wheatley was
George Moses Horton, of North Carolina, who was born in 1797 and died
about 1880 (or 1883). He was ambitious to learn, was the possessor of
unusual literary talent, and in one way or another received instruction
from various persons. He very soon began to write verse, all of which
was infused with his desire for freedom, and much of which was suggested
by the common evangelical hymns, as were the following lines:
Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil, and pain?
How long have I in bondage lain,
And languished to be free!
Alas! and must I still complain,
Deprived of liberty?
* * * * *
Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound,
Roll through my ravished ears;
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
And drive away my fears.
Some of Horton's friends became interested in him and desired to help
him publish a volume of his poems, so that from the sale of these he
might purchase his freedom and go to the new colony of Liberia. The
young man became fired with ambition and inspiration. Thrilled by the
new hope, he wrote:
'Twas like the salutation of the dove,
Borne on the zephyr through some lonesome grove,
When spring returns, and winter's chill is past,
And vegetation smiles above the blast.
Horton's master, however, demanded for him an exorbitant price, and when
"The Hope of Liberty" appeared in 1829 it had nothing of the sale that
was hoped for. Disappointed in his great desire, the poet seems to have
lost ambition. He became a janitor around the state university at Chapel
Hill, executed small commissions for verse from the students, who
treated him kindly, and in later years went to Philadelphia; but his old
dreams had faded. Several reprintings of his poems were made, however,
and one of these was bound with the 1838 edition of Phillis Wheatley's
poems.
In 1854 appeared the first edition of "Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects,"
by Frances Ellen Watkins, commonly known as Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper.
Mrs. Harper was a woman of exceptionally strong personality and could
read her poems to advantage. Her verse was very popular, not less than
ten thousand copies of her booklets being sold. It was decidedly lacking
in technique, however, and much in the style of Mrs. Hemans. Mrs. Harper
was best when most simple, as when in writing of children she said:
I almost think the angels
Who tend life's garden fair,
Drop down the sweet white blossoms
That bloom around us here.
The secret of her popularity was to be seen in such lines as the
following from "Bury Me in a Free Land":
Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.
Of the Emancipation Proclamation she wrote:
It shall flash through coming ages,
It shall light the distant years;
And eyes now dim with sorrow
Shall be brighter through their tears.
While Mrs. Harper was still prominently before the public appeared
Albery A. Whitman, a Methodist minister, whose "Not a Man and Yet a Man"
appeared in 1877. The work of this writer is the most baffling with
which this book has to deal. It is diffuse, exhibits many lapses in
taste, is uneven metrically, as if done in haste, and shows imitation on
every hand. It imitates Whittier, Longfellow, Tennyson, Scott, Byron and
Moore. "The Old Sac Village" and "Nanawawa's Suitors" are very evidently
"Hiawatha" over again; and "Custer's Last Ride" is simply another
version of "The Charge of the Light Brigade." "The Rape of Florida"
exhibits the same general characteristics as the earlier poems. And
yet, whenever one has about decided that Whitman is not worthy of
consideration, he insists on a revision of judgment. The fact is that he
shows a decided faculty for brisk narration. This may be seen in "The
House of the Aylors." He has, moreover, a romantic lavishness of
description that, in spite of all technical faults, still has some
degree of merit. The following quotations, taken respectively from "The
Mowers" and "The Flight of Leeona," will exemplify both his extravagance
and his possibilities in description:
The tall forests swim in a crimson sea,
Out of whose bright depths rising silently,
Great golden spires shoot into the skies,
Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise,
Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade,
Deep in the twilight, shade succeeding shade.
* * * * *
And now she turns upon a mossy seat,
Where sings a fern-bound stream beneath her feet,
And breathes the orange in the swooning air;
Where in her queenly pride the rose blooms fair,
And sweet geranium waves her scented hair;
There, gazing in the bright face of the stream,
Her thoughts swim onward in a gentle dream.
In "A Dream of Glory" occur the lines:
The fairest blooms are born of humble weeds,
That faint and perish in the pathless wood;
And out of bitter life grow noble deeds
To pass unnoticed in the multitude.
Whitman's shortcomings become readily apparent when he attempts
sustained work. "The Rape of Florida" is the longest poem yet written by
a Negro in America, and also the only attempt by a member of the race to
use the elaborate Spenserian stanza throughout a long piece of work. The
story is concerned with the capture of the Seminoles in Florida through
perfidy and the taking of them away to their new home in the West. It
centers around three characters, Palmecho, an old chief, Ewald, his
daughter, and Atlassa, a young Seminole who is Ewald's lover. The poem
is decidedly diffuse; there is too much subjective description, too
little strong characterization. Palmecho, instead of being a stout
warrior, is a "chief of peace and kindly deeds." Stanzas of merit,
however, occasionally strike the eye. The boat-song forces recognition
as genuine poetry:
"Come now, my love, the moon is on the lake;
Upon the waters is my light canoe;
Come with me, love, and gladsome oars shall make
A music on the parting wave for you,--
Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue;
Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung,
Come with me, love, for Oh, my love is true!"
This is the song that on the lake was sung,
The boatman sang it over when his heart was young.
In 1890 Whitman brought out an edition of "Not a Man and Yet a Man" and
"The Rape of Florida," adding to these a collection of miscellaneous
poems, "Drifted Leaves," and in 1901 he published "An Idyl of the
South," an epic poem in two parts. It is to be regretted that he did not
have the training that comes from the best university education. He had
the taste and the talent to benefit from such culture in the greatest
degree.
All who went before him were, of course, superseded in 1896 by Paul
Laurence Dunbar; and Dunbar started a tradition. Throughout the country
there sprang up imitators, and some of the imitations were more than
fair. All of this, however, was a passing phenomenon. Those who are
writing at the present day almost invariably eschew dialect and insist
upon classics forms and measures. Prominent among these is James Weldon
Johnson. Mr. Johnson has seen a varied career as teacher, writer, consul
for the United States in foreign countries, especially Nicaragua, and
national organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People. He has written numerous songs, which have been set to
music by his brother, Rosamond Johnson, or Harry T. Burleigh; he made
for the Metropolitan Opera the English translation of the Spanish opera,
"Goyescas," by Granados and Periquet; and in 1916, while associated with
the _Age_, of New York, in a contest opened by the _Public Ledger_, of
Philadelphia, to editorial writers all over the country, he won a third
prize of two hundred dollars for a campaign editorial. The remarkable
book, "Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man," half fact, half fiction, was
published anonymously, but is generally credited to Mr. Johnson. Very
recently (December, 1917) has appeared this writer's collection, "Fifty
Years and Other Poems." In pure lyric flow he is best represented by two
poems in the _Century_. One was a sonnet entitled, "Mother Night"
(February, 1910):
Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A brooding mother over chaos lay.
And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay,
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim
The haven of the darkness whence they came;
Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,
I shall, full weary of the feverish light,
Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt,
And, heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep
Into the quiet bosom of the Night.
When we think of the large number of those who have longed for success
in artistic expression, and especially of the first singer of the old
melodies, we could close this review with nothing better than Mr.
Johnson's tribute, "O Black and Unknown Bards" (_Century_, November,
1908):
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?
Who first from 'midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?
There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,
That from degraded rest and servile toil,
The fiery spirit of the seer should call
These simple children of the sun and soil.
O black singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,
You--you alone, of all the long, long line
Of those who've sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,
Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.
You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings:
No chant of bloody war, nor exulting paean
Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings
You touched in chords with music empyrean.
You sang far better than you knew, the songs
That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed
Still live--but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.
VIII
ORATORS.--DOUGLASS AND WASHINGTON
The Negro is peculiarly gifted as an orator. To magnificent gifts of
voice he adds a fervor of sentiment and an appreciation of the
possibilities of a great occasion that are indispensable in the work of
one who excels in this field. Greater than any of these things, however,
is the romantic quality that finds an outlet in vast reaches of imagery
and a singularly figurative power of expression. Only this innate gift
of rhetorical expression has accounted for the tremendous effects
sometimes realized even by untutored members of the race. Its
possibilities under the influences of culture and education are
illimitable.
On one occasion Harriet Tubman, famous for her work in the Underground
Railroad, was addressing an audience and describing a great battle in
the Civil War. "And then," said she, "we saw the lightning, and that
was the guns; and then we heard the thunder, and that was the big guns;
and then we heard the rain falling, and that was drops of blood falling;
and when we came to git in the craps, it was dead men that we
reaped."[2] All through the familiar melodies one finds the pathos and
the poetry of this imagery. Two unusual individuals, untutored but
highly gifted in their own spheres, in the course of the last century
proved eminently successful by joining this rhetorical faculty to their
native earnestness. One of these was the anti-slavery speaker, Sojourner
Truth. Tall, majestic, and yet quite uneducated, this interesting woman
sometimes dazzled her audiences by her sudden turns of expression.
Anecdotes of her quick and startling replies are numberless. The other
character was John Jasper, of Richmond, Va., famous three decades ago
for his "Sun do move" sermon. Jasper preached not only on this theme,
but also on "Dry bones in the valley," the glories of the New Jerusalem,
and many similar subjects that have been used by other preachers,
sometimes with hardly less effect, throughout the South. When one made
all discount for the tinsel and the dialect, he still would have found
in the work of John Jasper much of the power of the true orator.
[Footnote 2: Reported by A. B. Hart, in "Slavery and Abolition," 209.]
Other men have joined to this love for figurative expression the
advantages of culture; and a common characteristic, thoroughly typical
of the romantic quality constantly present, is a fondness for biblical
phrase. As representative might be remarked Robert B. Elliott, famous
for his speech in Congress on the constitutionality of the Civil Rights
Bill; John Mercer Langston, also distinguished for many political
addresses; M. C. B. Mason, for years a prominent representative of the
Methodist Episcopal Church; and Charles T. Walker, still the most
popular preacher of the Negro Baptists. A new and telling form of public
speaking, destined to have more and more importance, is that just now
best cultivated by Dr. DuBois, who, with little play of voice or
gesture, but with the earnestness of conviction, drives home his message
with instant effect.
In any consideration of oratory one must constantly bear in mind, of
course, the importance of the spoken word and the personal equation. At
the same time it must be remembered that many of the most worthy
addresses made by Negroes have not been preserved in accessible form.
Again and again, in some remote community, with true eloquence has an
untutored preacher brought comfort and inspiration to a struggling
people. J. C. Price, for years president of Livingstone College in North
Carolina, was one of the truest orators the Negro race ever had, and
many who heard him will insist that he was foremost. His name has become
in some quarters a synonym for eloquence, and he certainly appeared on
many noteworthy occasions with marked effect. His reputation will
finally suffer, however, for the reason given, that his speeches are not
now generally accessible. Not one is in Mrs. Dunbar's "Masterpieces of
Negro Eloquence."
One of the most effective occasional speakers within recent years has
been Reverdy C. Ransom, of the A. M. E. Church. In his great moments Mr.
Ransom has given the impression of the true orator. He has little humor,
is stately and dignified, but bitter in satire and invective. There is,
in fact, much in his speaking to remind one of Frederick Douglass. One
of his greatest efforts was that on the occasion of the celebration of
the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Garrison, in Faneuil Hall,
Boston, December 11, 1905. Said he, in part:
What kind of Negroes do the American people want? That they
must have the Negro in some relation is no longer a question of
serious debate. What kind of Negroes do the American people
want? Do they want a voteless Negro in a republic founded upon
universal suffrage? Do they want a Negro who shall not be
permitted to participate in the government which he must
support with his treasure and defend with his blood? Do they
want a Negro who shall consent to be set aside as forming a
distinct industrial class, permitted to rise no higher than the
level of serfs or peasants? Do they want a Negro who shall
accept an inferior social position, not as a degradation, but
as the just operation of the laws of caste based on color? Do
they want a Negro who will avoid friction between the races by
consenting to occupy the place to which white men may choose to
assign him? What kind of a Negro do the American people want?
... Taught by the Declaration of Independence, sustained by the
Constitution of the United States, enlightened by the education
of our schools, this nation can no more resist the advancing
tread of the hosts of the oncoming blacks than it can bind the
stars or halt the resistless motion of the tide.[3]
[Footnote 3: Quoted from "Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence," 314-5.]
Two men, by reason of great natural endowment, a fitting appreciation of
great occasions, and the consistency with which they produced their
effects, have won an undisputed place in any consideration of American
orators. These men were Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.