and controlled by, those least friendly to the Negro's progress.
Hence, a magnificent contribution is daily made from this quarter, to
his moral impeachment. I think it is never, perhaps, properly
considered, that the class generally held up by the press is one and
the same with that already noticed under the preceding head--the
criminal. Further, news gatherers are at great pains to ferret out and
dole out to the public daily whatever serves to excite, and especially
whatever shows the moral crookedness of the Negro, and that the years
of freedom already enjoyed by him have simply brought forth a
generation of vipers. Too often, from the lowest to the highest court,
the records are so manipulated as to show the moral obliquity of the
Negro. It is a potent fact that public opinion of the Negro is
largely, if not wholly, based upon press reports, whether it pertains
to religion, politics, morality, or otherwise. I hold, therefore, that
it is largely misinformation that brings the Negro into bad odor in
this regard, and earns for him the opinion that he is on the decline
or "moral lapse," if you please. Then, too, the dying testimony of
what is commonly called the worthless Negro, is given wider publicity
and greater credence than the precept and example of ten thousand
living, straightforward, upright Negroes. I say this because the
opinion obtains so widely that the Negro is growing worse.
Fourth: That the Negro is not as morally depraved as he is generally
reputed to be, and that those who are foremost to note and proclaim
it do not believe it themselves, I place in evidence the following:
1st. A considerable number of Southern states has passed laws
restrictive, if not prohibitive, of the removal of the Negro from his
holy (?) confines, and this, too, where most is seen and known of him.
What! Make it a misdemeanor to influence to emigrate or to deport a
people whose presence is a standing menace to the good morals of those
who enact measures and those who uphold them? Do not they make
themselves liable to mild criticism? Other countries and sections of
countries seek to rid themselves of all incubus of whatever kind. Of
this we have numerous examples in the scum from Europe and other parts
of the world unloaded upon our shores annually. 2d. Let the Negro with
all his moral depravity initiate any movement looking toward his
withdrawal even from one part of our country to another. The scene of
such activities attracts special attention, and unsought advice is
poured upon his "worthless" head; words of warning flow apace, and
direct steps are taken to defeat the end in view. In view of this
fact, the Negro is seldom allowed to organize, secretly, for mutual
protection and helpfulness, in some sections; and, when organized, he
is always looked upon with grave suspicions. That people should go so
far out of the way to circumvent the legitimate endeavors of the
undeserving, to my mind, is the most unnatural thing to be sure.
"Consistency, thou art a jewel!"
Fifth: What people regard as a most discouraging sign touching the
Negro of this country, I consider a most portentous and hopeful one. I
refer to it here, because it bears decidedly upon my answer, and is
strictly in line therewith. As shown by the census of 1890 and 1900,
the increase of the Negro has suffered a positive check, if not
back-set. In explanation of this, one theory and another has been
advanced. Some have seen that he, like the American Indian, is on the
road to a kindred fate--final and utter extinction. Others have
consigned him to this or that destiny, according as they have felt
kindly or unkindly towards him. True, he has increased less rapidly,
but more surely, because of his stricter observance and growing regard
for the proper and God-appointed channels to this end. His propagation
by marriage, in which case one man is the husband of one woman, and
one woman the wife of one man, would naturally lend to this.
I might record and add to what has already been said, a rich and
varied experience, growing out of actual contact with, and work for,
my people covering twenty-four years--a period in which no year has
passed without leaving something done or suffered. But time and space
will not permit.
Finally, out of the unfavorable moral conditions to which the Negro as
a child of Adam is heir; out of the most untoward circumstances,
surrounding him in the dark days of his enslavement; out of the
traductions to which he is exposed at the hands of a most cruel and
relentless foe--the printing press; out of the mock trials and false
convictions visited upon him by the courts, too often manned by his
oppressors; out of the barriers put in the way of his withdrawal from
the midst of those who pronounce him without moral worth; out of the
glaring inconsistency of all dissenters; out of the pure and spotless
lives of ten thousand women--the wives, mothers, sisters, and
lovers--of as high souled and moral men as the world ever saw or
produced, I here and now once again and forever record my most
unconditioned and emphatic _no_ to the query I have in some measure
tried to answer.
I have attempted no fine analysis of the case, but simply tried to
point out a few facts more or less familiar to all.
THIRD PAPER.
IS THE NEGRO AS MORALLY DEPRAVED AS HE IS REPUTED TO BE?
BY MRS. M. E. C. SMITH
[Illustration: Mrs. M. E. C. Smith.]
MRS. MARY E. C. SMITH.
Mrs. Mary E. C. Smith, daughter of Peter H. Day, was a
native of New York city. Her education was provided for by
her energetic widowed mother, to whom she ascribes the
secret of her success. From early childhood she showed
strong power of mind, and inherited from her mother that
force and determination of purpose which prefigure success
in whatever is undertaken. As a pupil, she was prompt and
energetic, and never failed to win one of the Ridgeway
prizes for good scholarship, which were given annually to
successful contestants. She was an excellent Bible student,
and when ten years old was elected a teacher in the
Sunday-school. At this age she was impressed with the idea
that it was her duty to go to the South to instruct her
people, who were just emerging from bondage.
By a strange coincidence she was led to Florida, when she
had finished her school course, the very place she had named
when in an outburst of childish enthusiasm, while preparing
a geography lesson, she had said: "O, mother, how I long to
go there and teach my people!" The "land of flowers" has
been the principal field of her labors as a teacher. Her
ability as a teacher was soon discovered, and in 1890 she
became principal of the Normal Department of the Edward
Waters College, under the presidency of Prof. B. W. Arnett,
Jr. Hundreds of students are better citizens because of her
faithful teaching and Christian influence. As a church and
Sunday-school worker she has few equals. The earnestness of
purpose with which she performs the slightest duty is an
example worthy of imitation.
This question is as grave as it is suggestive. There being a marked
difference between _character_ and _reputation_, its discussion
naturally leads to a consideration of the Negro as he really is, and
not as he is represented. The delineation of the Negro's true
character is one of the most effectual means of refuting the
columnious epithets so constantly hurled at him--a veritable blasphemy
against his higher and better nature.
Has the Negro a higher and better nature? We shall see.
To separate him from the rest of the human family would be to dispute
the great truth, that has been so long accepted, by all thoroughly
Christianized nations--the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of
man. "Of one blood God formed all nations, for to dwell upon the face
of the earth." Man, in his first estate, was supremely moral, being
created in the righteous image of his Maker; had man continued in
this condition, he would have been perfectly innocent and happy,
favored with the exalted privilege of direct communion with God,
inspired only by Him who is the Great Source, all light and
perfection, from whom emanates nothing dark, unholy or unclean.
But man fell, and was driven from Eden. Hence, he began to wander away
from God, in spirit and purpose; the tempter had been admitted and
man's heart grew very deceitful and desperately wicked. The command of
God, however, as written in Genesis, 1st chap., 28th verse, was
inviolable. The earth _must_ be peopled; thus man continued to wander,
and his heart became proud and defiant, even to the resistance of the
will and purpose or God. So far did the distance become between man
and his Maker and so greatly abounded his wickedness, that at last God
gave him over to his own evil imaginations.
The inhabitants of the antediluvian world, as a consequence of man's
first transgression, fell lower and lower in the scale of good morals.
They became so confirmed in wickedness, so totally depraved, that God
destroyed them all, save one man and his family, whom He accounted as
righteous, for the sake of his faithful obedience, and whose seed He
preserved for the repeopling of the earth. The races, whether Semitic,
Hamitic or Japhetic, as springing from the three sons of Noah, all
partook of some of the natural proclivities of their revered and
ancient grand-sire. What Canaan lacked in the line of perfection in
the moral ethics of his day, may be directly attributed to heredity.
The lineage of the Negro has been directly traced through Cush to Ham;
hence, to argue the total moral depravity of the sons of Ham is but to
concede the total moral depravity of the entire human race, as
emanated from Noah in the postdiluvian age.
To assert that the Negro has no defects, and is morally good, would be
to deny him as one of the legitimate heirs of the family of Noah, and
deprive him of his natural inheritance. On the contrary, the Negro is
joint-heir to _all_ the virtues and _all_ the infirmities of the other
members of the human family. He is just as good and equally as bad as
his fairer-complexioned brothers.
"Multiply and replenish the earth," was the eternal fiat. The
subsequent confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of the people even
to the remotest parts of the globe, were but links in the chain of
God's design. The entire globe must be peopled, not a portion of it;
hence the sons of man continued their migration until they were lost
to each other.
The history of civilization discloses to us the land of the Hamites,
as the cradle from whence sprang all learning, literature and arts,
but man's heart still being deceitful, proud and wicked, continued to
wander away from the true God; and, notwithstanding his acquired
knowledge, and the very high state of civilization to which he had
attained, he forgot God, and was allowed to drift into pagan darkness
and superstition. These people were scattered, and their land
despoiled, and they fled for refuge far into the wilderness where they
were left in thick darkness:
"Grouping in ignorance, dark as the night," with
"No blessed Bible to give them the light."
Had any other division of the human family been subjected to the
influences of the same depressing climate, for an equal length of
time, as were the Hamites, and surrounded by the same degrading
circumstances, having no light without the assistance of divine
counsel, their degeneration would have been equally as great as these
descendants of Ham, when first began their involuntary migration into
this country. The subsequent training which the Negro received in the
school of bondage, while, in some respects, may have been a very
potent lever in raising them from the pit of darkness and
superstition, was not that which would best serve in the development
of his higher moral nature.
Prior to the beginning of colonial slave traffic, the Negro, as found
in his original home, the dark continent, was innocent and simple in
his habits, possessed of a very high regard for truth and virtue. And,
though very ignorant and superstitious, the result of his paganistic
worship, vice and immorality was to him almost unknown. He was a lover
of the beautiful, and in disposition easily entreated; and, because of
these _very_ tractile elements in his character, he fell an easy prey
to the machinations of his more wily and crafty brother Japhet.
A study of the American Negro since his most remarkable advent into
this country, after being decoyed from his fatherland, portrays him as
a mild, impressionable and submissive being--extremely imitative and
very easily led or controlled. Those who speculated upon him, as human
chattel, very often took advantage of his traits of character in order
to further their own interests, and perpetuate the abominable
institution of slavery.
The Negro was so tractile in disposition and so easily trained for
good or bad that he was frequently developed in the practice of
deceit, hypocrisy, tattling and numerous other weaknesses, as the
result of the course of training which he received from those who were
directly responsible for his physical and moral well being. That
peculiar nature of his education in the school of bondage, which
taught him that his owner's will was supreme, divested him of his very
high regard for virtue; and, wherever resistance was presumed,
coercion soon forced him to yield, and he instinctively bowed to the
inevitable. Thus, the females drifted into the belief that their
bodies were the absolute property of their owners, and that they had
no sacred personal rights which he, their self-imposed master, was
bound to respect. But, like begets like. What wonder, then, that the
seed of unrighteousness, which was implanted in the modern American
Negro, before his birth, should spring up and bring forth abundantly
of the same kind? Whatever is immoral about the American Negro of
to-day was bequeathed to him by his unrighteous ancestors of fairer
hue.
A closer inspection of the Negro's home life reveals him as an
upright, religious character, and, even under the most adverse
circumstances of his unholy environments, he was in many instances so
tenacious of his preconceived standard of good morals that he defended
his principles even to the extent of yielding his life.
The Negro's native integrity and fidelity were so thoroughly relied
upon that during the Civil War, which arrayed in fratricidal strife
the two sections of our beloved country, the heroes of the South left
their homes and went forth to battle, feeling perfectly secure in
entrusting their wives, their daughters, and, in many instances, their
fortunes, in the hands of their faithful Negro servants, who remained
true to their trusts, caring for, and defending, their precious
charges, even at the risk of their own lives. To their credit, it may
be inscribed that, although they were aware that victory for the South
and the return of their masters meant the prolongation, if not the
perpetuation, of their unjust bondage, they swerved not from their
posts of duty, and took no advantage of the situation, thus proving
the high standard of their moral character.
In the darkest days of thralldom the dominant powers relied upon the
Negro's higher moral sense; to the nurse was entrusted almost the
entire care of their offspring, and numerous other duties of great
responsibility were frequently imposed upon their male and female
Negro servants, who invariably proved their high sense of honor,
based upon their highest conception of good morals.
Notwithstanding the efforts made to keep the Negro ignorant and
degraded, ever and anon, the scintillations from his superior nature
would flash out like a burning meteor and exhibit him as he was
designed by God his Father, who is no respector of persons. In this
connection, we cannot help referring to the beautiful character of
Phyllis Wheatley, whose life was absolutely pure, and who was so
remarkably inspired by the poetic muse that, even in the darkest days
of Negro bondage, she forced the recognition of mankind. Her genius
flashed forth as a beacon light to her benighted brethren as a token
of assurance to them of the fulfillment of the promise, "Ethiopia
shall again stretch forth her hand unto God." Benjamin Banneker, the
great mathematician and astronomer, was another instance, in those
remote days of darkness, that the Great Dispenser of all light, and
truth, imparted His gifts alike to all; and there were others, but for
our purpose, these names must forever stand as exponents of that
higher and better life that was pent up within the Negro's breast, as
a dimly-lighted torch, enshrouded under the mantle of slavery, which
needed only the removal of the garment to be clearly seen; and thus,
surrounded by the igniting influences of the atmosphere of liberty,
would burst forth into all the effulgency of a brilliant light.
As a rule, the modern Negro of America, since his liberation from the
shackles of his unjust bondage, has put forth strenuous efforts to
uplift himself. And he has succeeded beyond his own most sanguine
expectations; having had so many obstacles to overcome, he should not
be measured by the heights he has attained, but by the depths from
which he came. Out of the depths cried the Negro unto God; and He
heard him! A few have arisen far above the masses, and are by their
noble examples beckoning the others to come on. The general response
is, "We are coming," up out of the cesspool of darkness, ignorance and
immorality to the higher plane of virtue, knowledge, purity, and true
righteousness which exalteth nations.
That there are dark sides to the picture of the Negro's career since
his emergency from that dreary school of bondage, must be admitted,
but many of his defects are directly traceable to his imitative
propensity. To his own sorrow, he imitates the BAD, as well as the
good.
Like the Indian, the fire-water which he has learned to imbibe has
divested him of his manhood, and robbed him of his virtue, and it is
a sad truth that he is encouraged in this personal debasement of
himself by his brother in white, who is still, in many instances,
taking advantages of his weak traits, offering him every inducement to
continue in his course of self-degradation.
Thirty-six years of light and privilege have wrought wonders for the
Negro, but these are scarcely a day, when compared with the long night
of over two hundred years of bondage; it is impossible for him in this
short period to have totally eradicated the evils for which he was not
wholly responsible, but which were entailed upon him at his birth.
Those deflections in the Negro's practice of his code of good morals,
which are so often exhibited as an argument against the entire race,
are but the results of the development of his weaknesses, by the
methods of former years, which he now, finds it so hard to overcome.
But those who transgress the general rule of uplifting are the
exceptions. To God be the glory for the present Negro, measured, not
by the few, who have overlooked their most sacred rights and
privileges, but by the many who are daily demonstrating, by honest
toil and labor, that they have the highest regard for all that is
pure, ennobling, and virtuous.
The Negro's inspiration for poetry, music and the fine arts, proves
conclusively that there dwells within him a higher and better nature,
which needs only to be developed to its fullest capacity to convince
the world beyond the possibility of a successful contradiction that
his standard of good morals is as elevated as that of mankind in
general. As it is impossible for any fountain to pour forth pure and
impure water at the same time, so is it impossible for total depravity
to exist in the same mind where dwells that finer sense or
appreciation of the beautiful, which originates music, poetry and the
fine arts. Again, we refer the world to such beautiful examples as our
own dear Edmonia Lewis, B. T. Tanner, now abroad; Paul Lawrence
Dunbar, Frances W. Harper, Madam Salika, Flora Batsen Bergen, Nellie
Brown Mitchell, Virginia Adele Montgomery, Hallie Quinn Brown, and
scores of others; some, perhaps not quite so famous as those
mentioned, but who along the line of the higher inspiration of the
Negro, refute any argument that may be opposed. As an ensign of the
very high standard of Christian ethics attainable by the race, we
mention with heart-felt gratitude our dear Amanda Smith, the leader
among hundreds of other noble Christian women, who have given not only
their lives to God and their race, but feel themselves responsible for
the general uplifting of mankind wherever found, knowing that there
is no difference with Him, for whom they labor, "whether Greek or
Jew." There is no difference, whether high or low, rich or poor, bond
or free, white or black; all have a part in the common salvation of
Him who came to lift the world up to its original standard of morality
by sacrificing His own pure life, and who said, "And I, if I be lifted
up, will draw _all_ men unto me." The essential need of the human
family is charity. Our Saviour said of the Christian graces, "And now
abideth these three, Faith, Hope and Charity, but the greatest of
these is CHARITY." The time was when there was very little, if any,
faith in the Negro's ability to rise and equip himself as a man;
afterwards there came a faint glimmer of hope, which commingled with
the slowly but gradually increasing faith, proved a blessed and
powerful agent in the line of effectual assistance. The Negro began to
rise, and he has, with the omnipotent aid of God, his Father,
continued his rising until the present, with wonderfully good results,
as must be conceded by all minds unbiased by prejudice.
Still there is much land to be possessed, and one thing is yet lacking
in the attitude of those who scrutinize him daily for the purpose of
rendering an unfavorable judgment. "Charity suffereth long and is
kind." Suffer in this connection means to bear; those who claim to
have attained a higher standard of morality should bear patiently the
infirmities of the Negro, while he is rising, knowing full well that
his inherent weaknesses are not of his own begetting, and that it will
require some time to overcome the inertia of wrong instruction and
practice. But "thanks be unto God, who giveth the victory," to all who
obey Him, the Negro as well, God requires simply the earnest effort on
his part, and then accomplishes the work Himself.