from the officers and lynched, two of whom were women. Can a race of
people said to be friendly towards another race reach such hasty
conclusions? Would not friendship suggest an investigation in order
that the facts in the case may be had? But we are living in the midst
of a people whose civilization is christianized, thus having in it
that friendship which characterised Christ in taking the sins of
mankind upon himself. "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I
command you" (Bible). This text makes friendship conditional and
reciprocal; that is, there can be no friendship without mutuality; so
that the relation which now exists is not based upon friendship, for
the relation which is made to exist is not in accordance with that
moral rule given for the government of man, therefore things are not
what they seem to be in the Southland.
I tell you that the Negro is not satisfied with his condition and the
more he learns of the common rights of the human family, the more he
sees the great wrongs "perpetrated" upon him and the reasons for the
same. You cannot educate a people and crush them, history does not
narrate an instance.
THIRD PAPER.
HOW CAN THE FRIENDLY RELATIONS NOW EXISTING BETWEEN THE TWO RACES IN
THE SOUTH BE STRENGTHENED AND MAINTAINED?
BY REV. S. N. BROWN.
[Illustration: Rev. Sterling N. Brown]
REV. STERLING N. BROWN, A. M., B. D.
Rev. Sterling N. Brown was born in Roane County, East
Tennessee, November 21, 1857. He attended the first free
school ever taught in his county. He entered Fisk University
(Nashville, Tenn.) in 1875, and for some years, during his
terms of vacation, taught school to provide the means with
which to pursue his studies. He was converted when quite a
boy and has been able since, almost continuously, to lead
men to Christ. He began to preach early after his
conversion, and many revivals have followed his ministry.
The first great awakening where, under God, he was the
instrument, was at Kingston, Tenn., where every child in
school, of over one hundred in number, became Christians,
and when the whole town was stirred as never before. Many
hardened sinners were brought to Christ in the meeting.
Several of the converts are now actively engaged in the
ministry. Mr. Brown's acceptance as a preacher made it
possible for him to spend the entire vacations of his last
years at college in supplying the pulpits of his
denomination in different parts of the South.
He graduated from the college course of Fisk University in
1885, and took the degree of A. M. in 1891. He is also a
graduate from the Oberlin Theological Seminary with the
degree of B. D. He was called, June 1, 1885, to the Mount
Zion Congregational Church, Cleveland, Ohio, and was by that
Church ordained to the gospel ministry. This church was
composed of a few faithful but discouraged members. They
worshipped in a small frame chapel without either attraction
or convenience.
Soon the membership was increased, the church took new
courage and a great ingathering came, the old building was
torn away and in its place a beautiful and convenient house
of worship was erected. Mr. Brown served Mt. Zion for nearly
four years when he accepted a call from the Plymouth
Congregational Church, Washington, D. C., April 1, 1889.
This church, under his pastorate for eight years, had a
steady and most healthful growth. In January, 1897, he
gathered about him a few leading men and women of the race
and organized a church in Northwest Washington, in the midst
of a large unchurched population. Park Temple, the name of
the new church, at once took an important place in the
community and its influence for good was felt far and near.
For five years the work grew and throbbed with life. Its
lines of work, so practical and successful, awakened such
interest in an older sister church nearby that overtures
were made for a union, and so, October 1, 1901, the Lincoln
Church and Park Temple were merged into a new organization
to be known as Lincoln Temple, with the Rev. Mr. Brown as
pastor. The new Institutional Church with a large main
building and a branch work gives promise of an unusual
church movement. The pastor of this church is one of the
hardest worked men in the city. He was for three years a
most active and influential member of the Washington Board
of Education, and has been for seven years and is yet
Professor in the Theological Department of Howard
University. He is an able minister, a good pastor, and a
practical man of affairs. His long public life in the city
has added to his influence and in every best sense, he is
still a growing man. He is full of sympathy and helpfulness,
and so is continually drawn upon by all classes and
conditions of people. He is regarded highly by public men of
both races for his conservative views, good judgment and
genuine public spirit.
Mr. Brown is a tireless worker, and one who looks always
upon the bright side of things. He has an ear to hear man,
but keeps also an ear attentive to the voice from the
clouds. When he has settled upon a plan no discouragement
can change him. Once convinced of the righteousness of his
course he pushes ahead with no wavering. Many a time in his
works he seemed headed for a stone wall, insurmountable and
impassable, but he went up to the wall with as much courage
and faith, as if there lay before him a beautiful green
sward, inviting to his sandal. Thus through the years of
school life and the years of his active ministry he has gone
forward.
Any superficial or narrow view of the present conditions existing
between the Blacks and Whites of this country will surely be
discouraging. It is a time for an unbiased, comprehensive, and
discriminate study of the situation. This, I think, will point to a
basis of a coming final adjustment.
No people have ever achieved lasting distinction or greatness without
hardships. God's way of development seems to be through trial. The
Negro has not been, and will not be, excepted in this regard. The
tests of life have been well borne by him and he has clearly
demonstrated certain essential elementary characteristics. From
slavery is learned his amiability, vitality and patient endurance, and
from freedom, the spirit of hope, forgiveness, and his ability for the
highest improvement.
At this time, when the race problem is demanding renewed
consideration, we note with interest the extreme as well as
conservative views. The unfriendly discuss the Negro in the light of
his savagery, his bondage and his mistakes. They read history "with
their prejudices and not with their eyes."
Just as white men candidly and otherwise hold their individual
viewpoint of the subject, so do colored men differ as to their
opinions. We, too, have extremists and conservatives among ourselves
and friends. This is what ought to be expected. Why should an
intelligent colored man be different in his thoughts and conclusions
from his white brother of equal intelligence? What the American school
and spirit do for the one may be expected for the other. There are
certainly strong grounds for extreme views and for even more extreme
measures. But who can rationally deny the wisdom of moderation and
sensible counsel? Personally I cannot bring myself to accord with
either one of these views. The extremist spits fire, swears vengeance
and talks loudly. He might offer his life as a sacrifice, and yet he
reckons without his host. The conservative builds without hope, is
easily cast down, and thoroughly pessimistic. There is a middle ground
that can and must be taken.
Were it not that we have unshaken faith in the great heart of our
American government, we might, like the captive Jews, hang our harps
upon the willows, and, as if in a strange land, find no song to sing.
The fact that the very warp and woof of American institutions are the
eternal principles of right and justice encourages the hope that the
incident of color, race or previous condition can not always be a bar
to preferment. An equal chance and fair play to all the citizens are
absolute essentials to the continued life of a republic such as ours
is to be. It is in this self-evident truth that is found a sure ground
of confidence. Upon this bed-rock of America's boasted pride for
interest in her humblest citizen may be built the superstructure of
the future of the race.
I do not share in any disparaging view of the ultimate outcome of
conditions. The white man's attitude North and South towards the Negro
is now well defined. There is to be no more special legislation in his
direct interest; he will be expected more than ever "to weed his own
row," and by self-endeavor continue to prove his right to be.
It would be amusing, if it were not so serious, to find the varied,
strange theories for the black man's future well-being. Deportation,
colonization, and a voluntary political self-effacement have all been
advocated.
There is much said and written that would imply the need of some
special kind of training suited alone for the Negro. If he has any
special need whatsoever above his brother in white it is due to
mistreatment and not to natural conditions. His phenomenal development
along all lines indicates what is in him and what may be possible for
him.
The race numbers from eight to ten millions, pays taxes upon property
to the amount of nearly $300,000,000. They have graduated from
universities, colleges, high, normal and professional schools about
forty thousand. There are in all grades from the common school up
about one and a half million pupils.
Men of the race own and control about three hundred newspapers,
journals and periodicals. This is substantial progress for only
thirty-six years, and yet this is no day for boasting or fine-spun
flattery. As long as the great bulk of the race are in abject poverty
and ignorance, and while more than a million of colored children of
school age are not attending school for want of accommodation, and the
number increasing more rapidly than facilities for education, and so
long as the unsettled race question seriously agitates the American
mind we do well to be deeply concerned. But it is unreasonable and not
helpful to be over alarmed. It is time for the race to be sober and
thoughtful, and if present conditions bring this about a sure blessing
will result.
Among the mistakes of our years of freedom have been the surface view
of life, and an ever present dependence upon politics and by-gone
friends. The present shock from eliminating certain manhood rights in
the Southland necessarily creates a sensation, but is also sure to
quicken for us new life, purpose and hope.
The Negro question is only one aspect of America's larger problem. Can
it be truthfully said that every worthy citizen shall have an equally
fair opportunity in the race of life? It seems to me clear that racial
adjustment at the South may be reasonably hoped for when the parties
most interested unite upon the spirit of the golden rule. This and
this alone will insure friendly relationship. The white man must make
up in his mind to be fair, and just, and to recognize the fact that
the Negro deserves a chance for the highest, broadest and best
possible life. Will the Southern white man ever willingly accord this
common right? Yes, I think so. But the alienation is not all on one
side. For thirty-six years the fact has been specially emphasized that
the Southern white man is the black man's enemy. The result is a
natural one. Antagonism and race friction have enlarged rather than
lessened. The time has fully come when the colored pulpit, press and
leadership throughout the country and specially in the South should
seek to make friends of these people with whom the blacks must
necessarily live. We can not over-estimate the value of education and
the getting hold of homesteads in the progress of the race, but these
alone are not sufficient.
Our churches must mean more for right living. The sacredness of the
home, of the married life, of honesty, of integrity, of uprightness
and of right character must more than ever be impressed. The churches
must be more practical and less sentimental. Instead of encouraging
late hours--thus opening the evil way to our young--and spending long
seasons in mere shouts and gesticulations, let there be training
classes, mothers' and children's meetings, and those within reasonable
hours. Let our pulpits and press rebuke crime among us as well as away
from us. Let us organize and encourage good citizenship committees in
all our churches and in every community. Let us draw the line between
the idle and industrious among us. Let us urge vagrant laws upon that
set of men who will not work but form the criminal class in all our
cities. Let us more than ever show ourselves ready to help rid the
community of objectionable persons and places. Let us not say less--if
well said--for right public sentiment must be made, but let us do
more. There must be a studied use of "Yankee" common sense. It is not
to be expected that the Southern man's training, relative to the
Negro, can be readily displayed. But having been born and reared under
Southern skies and for parts of ten successive years taught there is
one country, and having former slaveholders among some of my warmest
friends, I am prepared to believe that there is no innate hindrance to
a life of peace between the races.
I can not think that the best people of the South will long endure the
savage methods of avenging their madness. They must have a better
second thought and will ultimately welcome the spirit of maintaining
law and order.
With all, there is but one way to settle the race question. It must be
squarely and justly met upon the uncompromising basis of right. The
Negro is a human being with clearly demonstrated capabilities, and it
can not be that the world's foremost nation will need to further climb
the ladder of fame by keeping the foot of the strong upon the neck of
the weak.
When men are possessed and led by the Gospel of Jesus Christ then will
there be peace and harmony and good will among all the people. "They
shall" then "neither hurt nor destroy in all" His "holy mountain;"
"for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea." God hasten that better day! Amen.
TOPIC IV.
SHOULD THE NEGRO BE GIVEN AN EDUCATION DIFFERENT FROM THAT GIVEN TO
THE WHITES?
BY JAMES W. JOHNSON.
[Illustration: Prof. J. W. Johnson]
J. W. JOHNSON, A. B.
J. W. Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Fla., and after
finishing the public schools of his native city he went to
Atlanta University, from which institution he graduated with
the degree of A. B. in 1894. The same year he was appointed
principal of the Central Colored Grammar School, which
position he now holds. In 1895 he edited and published the
"Daily American," an afternoon paper. The publishing of this
paper was one of the greatest and most creditable efforts in
journalism ever made by any member of the race. In 1898 he
was admitted to the bar, and in 1899 to the Supreme Court of
Florida. In 1901 he was elected President of the Florida
State Teachers' Association.
Mr. Johnson is a man of varied talents. He has a reputation
as a pleasing speaker and fluent writer. He has devoted much
of his time to literature, and is a contributor to the
leading magazines. Mr. Johnson is a poet of more than
ordinary talent and ability, and is widely known as the
writer of the words of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a
national hymn for the Colored people of America. He is also
the author of many songs and ballads, and also of the lyrics
of two comic operas.
In answering the question involved in the above subject it becomes
necessary to define the word "education"; for the term, "education
given to the whites," is too loose and broad to be easily or logically
handled. If the word is used in its ordinary sense, then it embraces
every known form of education, from instruction in the elementary
English branches on up through to instruction in the most abstruse
sciences; and I can see no reason why the blacks should not receive
the same instruction as the corresponding class among the whites. Mark
you, I say, as the corresponding class among the whites.
If by the term, "education given to the whites," is meant higher
education as opposed to industrial training, the question can not be
answered in the form in which it is stated; for there is no "the
Negroes" in the unit sense. Since its freedom the colored race has
classified itself into almost as many grades, as regards ability and
capacity, as there are to be found among the whites; it is, therefore,
no longer possible to speak of "the Negroes," meaning that they are
all upon the same mental and moral plain. It is as absurd to say that
every Negro should be made to receive an industrial training as it is
to say that every Negro should be given a college education.
The question of higher education or industrial training is one that
depends entirely upon the individual; and there should be no limit
placed upon the individual's right of development. I think it a great
folly to educate a colored man beyond his capacity; I think it an
equally great folly to so educate a white man.
It is needless, and not within the limits of the subject, for me to
make any defense of higher education for Negroes; but, I do say that
every man, be he black or white, should be allowed to make the most of
all of his powers, his possibilities, and his opportunities. I
recognize the fact that the great majority of Negroes must, and, I
hope, will be engaged in agriculture and the trades; that is true of
every race; but there is, and ought to be, no power to say that
this or that individual in any grade of society shall not break
through his environments, and rise above his conditions. And I think
it safe to say that the proportion of colored men and women who have
been given an education beyond their capacity for receiving and using,
is very little larger than the same among the whites; and, in the
years to come, as the race shall more and more fit itself to the
grinding process which it takes to turn out a people, that proportion
will become less and less, and each individual will settle to his
level, or rise triumphant over obstacles and circumstances to the
place for which his ability and aspirations fit him.
But let us consider our subject in a deeper sense; if by education is
meant that training, those influences by which the habits, the
character, the thoughts, and the ideals of a people are formed and
developed, then, the answer hinges upon the answer to another
question: Is the Negro to remain in this country a separate and
distinct race, or is he to become one of the elements in the future
composite American?
If, as some claim, the Negro is to remain in this country a separate
and distinct race, then, in this deeper sense of the word, he should
receive an education different from that given to the whites.
Because the Negro and the white race, although they have the same
inherent powers, possess widely different characteristics. There are
some things which the white race can do better than the Negro, and
there are some things which the Negro can do better than the white
race. This is no disparagement to either. It is no fault of the Negro
that he has not that daring and restless spirit, that desire for
founding new empires, that craving for power over weaker races, which
makes the white race a pioneer; neither is it the fault of the white
race that it has not that buoyancy of spirit, that cheerful patience,
that music in the soul, that faith in a Higher Power, which supports
the Negro under hardships that would crush or make pessimists of
almost any other race on earth.
There have been given to each race certain talents, and for them each
will be held accountable, and rewarded accordingly as they shall use
them. Two boys in the same family may be gifted differently, one with
an artistic, the other with a scientific, turn of mind; both cannot
become artists, nor both scientists, yet they may each become equally
great in their respective spheres. It is for the Negro to find out his
own best and strongest powers, and make the most of them. He cannot by
merely imitating the white man arrive at his fullest and truest racial
development. He cannot and will not, as an absolutely distinct race,
evolve, along the same lines, the _identical_ civilization of the
white race, but who shall say that along his own lines he may not
evolve one equally as glorious and grand?
It is true, situated as he is among the most advanced people of the
world in the very height of their power, with almost all of the ideals
before him belonging to that people, the American Negro is greatly
handicapped in distinct racial development; but the task is, perhaps,
not an impossible one. Some of the most accessible means have not yet
been fully employed; for instance, the race has never been made
entirely familiar with the deeds and thoughts of the few men of mark
it has already produced. In this deeper sense of education the knowing
of one Crispus Attucks is worth more to the race than the knowing of
one George Washington; and the knowing of one Dunbar is worth more
than the knowing of all the Longfellows that America will ever
produce.
If the Negro is to remain in this country a separate and distinct
race, and is, as such, to reach the highest development of his powers,
he ought to be given an education different from that given to the
whites; in that, in addition to whatever other instruction he may
receive, those virtuous traits and characteristics which are
peculiarly his should be developed to the highest degree possible.
If, on the other hand, he is to become, in time, one of the elements
in the future American race--and this seems the more plausible answer
to the question--his education ought to be purely American and not in
any special way Negro.
History affords no precedent of two races, distinct yet equally
powerful, living together in harmony; one has always reduced to a
secondary position or destroyed the other, or the two have united. So
it will be a question, if the Negro succeeds in making himself the
equal of the white man in intellectual attainment, wealth, and power,
whether or not what is now antipathy between the two races will
develop into outright antagonism; and if we are to judge from human
experience through all the past we must say that it will. If the Negro
shall succeed in making a new record in history so well and so good;
but if he is to follow the precedents of the past, it will be a far
nobler destiny for him to become an integral part of the future
American type than to drop into an acknowledged and permanent
secondary position.
And may it not be in the great plan of Providence that the Negro
shall supply in the future American race the very elements that it
shall lack and require to make it the most perfect race the world
shall have seen?
If the Negro is to become an inseparable part of the great American
nation his education should be in every way the same as that of other
American citizens.
SECOND PAPER.
SHOULD THE NEGRO BE GIVEN AN EDUCATION DIFFERENT FROM THAT GIVEN TO
THE WHITES?
BY PROF. JAMES STORUM, OF WASHINGTON, D. C.
[Illustration: Prof. James Storum]
PROF. JAMES STORUM.
Prof. James Storum was born in the city of Buffalo, New
York, March 31, 1847. His mother, Mary Cannady, was a native
of Sussex County, Virginia, where she lived for twelve
years, when her father sold his farm and moved to Ohio and
located with his wife and eight children near Urbana. His
mother was a woman of strong character, deep religious
convictions, and piety, and full of energy and enterprise, a
counterpart of which is seen in her worthy son.
His grandfather, Charles Storum, of Duchess County, New
York, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and did
valiant service for the independence of this Republic. He
died in 1843 at the age of one hundred years. Prof. Storum
began his school life in the public schools of his native
city. He was admired by his associates for his manly
qualities and good fellowship, and was held in high esteem
by his teachers for his studious habit and exemplary
deportment. At the age of thirteen he embraced religion and
united with the Michigan Street Baptist Church, where both
his parents were useful and active members.