of nonsense than any lecturer that has come upon the stage
at this Chautauqua. From the first word to the last she has
something to say, and says it as a cultured lady in the best
of English, which has no tinge of the high falootin or the
sensational. Such speakers are rare. She should be paid to
travel as a model of good English and good manners."
Mrs. Terrell's eloquent utterances and chaste diction make a
deep impression, which must have influence in the final
shaping of the vexed problems that confront the Negro race
in this country. Her exceptional attainments and general
demeanor are a wonderful force in eradicating the prejudice
against colored women. She is making an opening for her
sisters as no one else is doing or has over done.
Should any one ask what special phase of the Negro's development makes
me most hopeful of his ultimate triumph over present obstacles, I
should answer unhesitatingly, it is the magnificent work the women are
doing to regenerate and uplift the race. Judge the future of colored
women by the past since their emancipation, and neither they nor their
friends have any cause for anxiety.
For years, either banding themselves into small companies or
struggling alone, colored women have worked with might and main to
improve the condition of their people. The necessity of systematizing
their efforts and working on a larger scale became apparent not many
years ago and they decided to unite their forces. Thus it happened
that in the summer of 1896 the National Association of Colored Women
was formed by the union of two large organizations, each of which has
done much to show our women the advantage of concerted action. So
tenderly has this daughter of the organized womanhood of the race been
nurtured and so wisely ministered unto, that it has grown to be a
child hale, hearty and strong, of which its fond mothers have every
reason to be proud. Handicapped though its members have been, because
they lacked both money and experience, their efforts have, for the
most part, been crowned with success in the twenty-six States where it
has been represented.
Kindergartens have been established by some of our organizations, from
which encouraging reports have come. A sanitarium with a training
school for nurses has been set on such a firm foundation by the
Phyllis Wheatley Club of New Orleans, Louisiana, and has proved itself
to be such a blessing to the entire community that the municipal
government has voted it an annual appropriation of several hundred
dollars. By the Tuskegee, Alabama, branch of the association the work
of bringing the light of knowledge and the gospel of cleanliness to
their poor benighted sisters on the plantations has been conducted
with signal success. Their efforts have thus far been confined to four
estates, comprising thousands of acres of land, on which live hundreds
of colored people, yet in the darkness of ignorance and the grip of
sin, miles away from churches and schools.
Plans for aiding the indigent, orphaned and aged have been projected
and in some instances have been carried into successful execution. One
club in Memphis, Tennessee, has purchased a large tract of land, on
which it intends to erect an old folk's home, part of the money for
which has already been raised. Splendid service has been rendered by
the Illinois Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, through whose
instrumentality schools have been visited, truant children looked
after, parents and teachers urged to co-operate with each other,
rescue and reform work engaged in, so as to reclaim unfortunate women
and tempted girls, public institutions investigated, garments cut,
made and distributed to the needy poor.
Questions affecting our legal status as a race are sometimes agitated
by our women. In Tennessee and Louisiana colored women have several
times petitioned the legislature of their respective States to repeal
the obnoxious Jim Crow car laws. In every way possible we are calling
attention to the barbarity of the convict lease system, of which
Negroes and especially the female prisoners are the principal victims,
with the hope that the conscience of the country may be touched and
this stain on its escutcheon be forever wiped away. Against the one
room cabin we have inaugurated a vigorous crusade. When families of
eight or ten men, women and children are all huddled promiscuously
together in a single apartment, a condition common among our poor all
over the land, there is little hope of inculcating morality and
modesty. And yet in spite of the fateful heritage of slavery, in spite
of the manifold pitfalls and peculiar temptations to which our girls
are subjected, and though the safeguards usually thrown around
maidenly youth and innocence are in some sections entirely withheld
from colored girls, statistics compiled by men not inclined to falsify
in favor of my race show that immorality among colored women is not so
great as among women in some foreign countries who are equally
ignorant, poor and oppressed.
Believing that it is only through the home that a people can become
really good and truly great the National Association has entered that
sacred domain. Homes, more homes, better homes, purer homes is the
text upon which sermons have been and will be preached. There has been
a determined effort to have heart to heart talks with our women that
we may strike at the root of evils, many of which lie at the
fireside. If the women of the dominant race, with all the centuries
of education, culture and refinement back of them, with all the wealth
of opportunity ever present with them, feel the need of a mother's
congress, that they may be enlightened upon the best methods of
rearing their children and conducting their homes, how much more do
our women, from whom shackles have but yesterday been stricken, need
information on the same vital subjects. And so the association is
working vigorously to establish mothers' congresses on a small scale,
wherever our women can be reached.
From this brief and meager account of the work which has been and is
still being accomplished by colored women through the medium of their
clubs, it is easy to observe how earnest and effective have been their
efforts to elevate their race. No people need ever despair whose women
are fully aroused to the duties which rest upon them and are willing
to shoulder responsibilities which they alone can successfully assume.
The scope of our endeavors is constantly widening. Into the various
channels of generosity and beneficence we are entering more and more
every day.
Some of our women are now urging their clubs to establish day
nurseries, a charity of which there is an imperative need. Thousands
of our wage-earning mothers with large families dependent almost
entirely upon them for support are obliged to leave their children all
day, entrusted to the care of small brothers and sisters, or some
good-natured neighbor who promises much, but who does little. Some of
these infants are locked alone in the room from the time the mother
leaves in the morning, until she returns at night. Not long ago I read
in a Southern newspaper that an infant thus locked alone in a room all
day, while its mother went out to wash, had cried itself to death.
When one reflects upon the slaughter of the innocents which is
occurring with pitiless persistency every day and thinks of the
multitudes who are maimed for life or are rendered imbecile because of
the treatment received during their helpless infancy, it is evident
that by establishing day nurseries colored women will render one of
the greatest services possible to humanity and to the race.
Nothing lies nearer the heart of colored women than the children. We
feel keenly the need of kindergartens and are putting forth earnest
efforts to honey-comb this country with them from one extremity to the
other. The more unfavorable the environments of children the more
necessary is it that steps be taken to counteract baleful influences
upon innocent victims. How imperative is it then that as colored
women we inculcate correct principles and set good examples for our
own youth whose little feet will have so many thorny paths of
temptation, injustice and prejudice to tread. So keenly alive is the
National Association to the necessity of rescuing our little ones
whose evil nature alone is encouraged to develop and whose noble
qualities are deadened and dwarfed by the very atmosphere which they
breathe, that its officers are trying to raise money with which to
send out a kindergarten organizer, whose duty it shall be to arouse
the conscience of our women and to establish kindergartens wherever
means therefor can be secured.
Through the children of to-day we believe we can build the foundation
of the next generation upon such a rock of morality, intelligence and
strength, that the floods of proscription, prejudice and persecution
may descend upon it in torrents and yet it will not be moved. We hear
a great deal about the race problem and how to solve it. The real
solution of the race problem lies in the children, both so far as we
who are oppressed and those who oppress us are concerned. Some of our
women who have consecrated their lives to the elevation of their race
feel that neither individuals nor organizations working toward this
end should be entirely satisfied with their efforts unless some of
their energy, money or brain is used in the name and for the sake of
the children.
The National Association has chosen as its motto: Lifting as We Climb.
In order to live strictly up to this sentiment, its members have
determined to come into the closest possible touch with the masses of
our women, through whom the womanhood of our people is always judged.
It is unfortunate, but it is true, that the dominant race in this
country insists upon gauging the Negro's worth by his most illiterate
and vicious representatives rather than by the more intelligent and
worthy classes. Colored women of education and culture know that they
cannot escape altogether the consequences of the acts of their most
depraved sisters. They see that even if they were wicked enough to
turn a deaf ear to the call of duty, both policy and self-preservation
demand that they go down among the lowly, the illiterate and even the
vicious, to whom they are bound by the ties of race and sex, and put
forth every possible effort to reclaim them. By coming into close
touch with the masses of our women it is possible to correct many of
the evils which militate so seriously against us and inaugurate the
reforms, without which, as a race, we cannot hope to succeed.
Through the clubs we are studying the labor question and are calling
the attention of our women to the alarming rapidity with which the
Negro is losing ground in the world of labor. If this movement to
withhold employment from him continues to grow, the race will soon be
confronted by a condition of things disastrous and serious, indeed. We
are preaching in season and out that it is the duty of every
wage-earning colored woman to become thoroughly proficient in whatever
work she engages, so that she may render the best service of which she
is capable, and thus do her part toward establishing a reputation for
excellent workmanship among colored women.
Our clubs all over the country are being urged to establish schools of
domestic science. It is believed that by founding schools in which
colored girls could be trained to be skilled domestics, we should do
more toward solving the labor question as it affects our women, than
by using any other means it is in our power to employ. We intend to
lay the Negro's side of the labor question clearly before our
large-hearted, broad-minded sisters of the dominant race and appeal to
them to throw their influence on the right side. We shall ask that
they train their children to be broad and just enough to judge men and
women by their intrinsic merit rather than by the adventitious
circumstances of race or color or creed. Colored women are asking the
white mothers of the land to teach their children that when they when
they grow to be men and women, if they deliberately prevent their
fellow creatures from earning an honest living by closing their doors
of trade against them, the Father of all men will hold them
responsible for the crimes which are the result of their injustice and
for the human wrecks which the ruthless crushing of hope and ambition
always makes.
Through our clubs colored women hope to improve the social atmosphere
by showing the enormity of the double standard of morals, which
teaches that we should turn the cold shoulder upon a fallen sister,
but greet her destroyer with open arms and a gracious smile. The duty
of setting a high moral standard and living up to it devolves upon
colored women in a peculiar way. False accusations and malicious
slanders are circulated against them constantly, both by the press and
by the direct descendants of those who in years past were responsible
for the moral degradation of their female slaves.
Carefully and conscientiously we shall study the questions which
affect the race most deeply and directly. Against the convict lease
system, the Jim Crow car laws, lynchings and all other barbarities
which degrade us, we shall protest with such force of logic and
intensity of soul that those who oppress us will either cease to
disavow the inalienability and equality of human rights, or be ashamed
to openly violate the very principles upon which this government was
founded. By discharging our obligation to the children, by coming into
the closest possible touch with the masses of our people, by studying
the labor question as it affects the race, by establishing schools of
domestic science, by setting a high moral standard and living up to
it, by purifying the home, colored women will render their race a
service whose value it is not in my power to estimate or express. The
National Association is being cherished with such loyalty and zeal by
our women that there is every reason to hope it will soon become the
power for good, the tower of strength and the source of inspiration to
which it is destined.
And so lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and
striving and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will
burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage born of success
achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we
must continue to assume we look forward to the future, large with
promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color or patronage
because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice and ask for an
equal chance.
THIRD PAPER.
WHAT ROLE IS THE EDUCATED NEGRO WOMAN TO PLAY IN THE UPLIFTING OF HER
RACE?
BY MRS. ROSA D. BOWSER, OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.
[Illustration: Mrs. Rosa D. Bowser.]
MRS. ROSA D. BOWSER.
The writer of the subjoined article is a native of Virginia,
and belongs in the front rank of educators of her race in
this grand old commonwealth, which may justly boast of the
eminence to which its black as well as white citizens
attained before and since the war. The first president of
the black republic on the West Coast of Africa, Joseph
Jenkins Roberts, as well as the foremost Baptist leader,
Lott Carey, were Virginians.
Mrs. Rosa D. Bowser was born in Amelia County, and was
reared in the city of Richmond. She passed through the
grades of the public schools, and completed her school work
at the Normal School of that city under the instruction of
its founder, Mr. Ralza Morse Manly, of Vermont, a
distinguished educator in the North as well as the pioneer
educator in Virginia among the Negro race. Mrs. Bowser
received special training from Mr. Manly, having been
instructed by him in the higher mathematics and Latin. She
early developed a taste for drawing, painting and music, and
made commendable progress in the fine arts. Mrs. Bowser's
work as an educator has not been limited to the school room,
in which she has been so efficient for the last twenty-five
years, but she has been conspicuous in other and wider
fields of usefulness among her people within and without the
State.
This is evidenced by the following facts: She founded the
Woman's League, which rendered signal service in the
Lunenburg trials; she is President of the Richmond Mothers'
Club; she is a member of the Executive Board of the Southern
Federation of Colored Women; she is Chairman of the
Executive Board of the Women's Educational and Missionary
Association of Virginia; she is Chairman of the standing
Committee of Domestic Economy, for the Hampton Conference;
she is President of the Woman's Department of the Negro
Reformatory Association of Virginia; and is one of the most
conspicuous members of many benevolent organizations in
Richmond. She is an eloquent and fascinating orator,
bringing to that accomplishment, earnestness of manner,
grace of gesture, and a charming personality.
In all ages of the world woman has been the central figure around
which all joys and sorrows, all inspirations, all aspirations, and all
accomplishments have circled. In all conditions of life, in all
climes, in all Christian epochs, in all countries, she holds this
position indisputable among the nations of the earth. For without her
there would be no home circles, without the home circles there would
be no races nor nations. Her office, of divine institution for the
perpetuation of the human family, should not be lightly regarded by
any class of people. Woman's primary duty is the systematic and wise
ordering of the household. The infant looks into its mother's face and
there receives its first impressions. These impressions are stamped
upon the mind and heart of the child. The mother notices all the
little disorders and griefs of the child from its birth throughout its
life. The conscientious mother is ever ready to console, advise and
sympathize in all grievances and perplexities which may confront her
offspring. Hence there is great need for proper instruction to wives,
mothers, and, in fact, to all women in anticipation of the
responsibilities of a home, and the obligations of motherhood. It has
been well said that the training of children should begin with their
grandparents. The character of the homes of the land, the moral and
immoral bearing of every settlement, town, and city, in a large
measure depend upon the class of women--upon the idiosyncrasies of
wives, mothers, and women in general, who by nature mould the
sentiment of every department of human control. That society is ruled
by women cannot be questioned. The age of complete dependence of women
upon the stronger sex, has so far passed as to be foreign to the minds
of the present generation. Not that the gentler sex is averse to the
protection and tender solicitudes of the father, husband and brother,
but it is of such common occurrence that women are thrown upon their
own resources in the maintenance of the home, that they of necessity
rather than from choice assume a degree of independence in various
avenues of life.