the part of its possessor to have compassion for the lowly and extend
a helping hand toward the elevation, comfort and restoration of their
inferiors. It has been wisely asserted that "an idle brain is the
devil's work-shop." In view of this truism it is wisdom to keep the
hand and brain well employed. Booker T. Washington comprehended this
fully when he commenced the great work which he is now so successfully
prosecuting at Tuskegee. Like the sainted bishop, Daniel A. Payne's,
Booker T. Washington's standard of true morality was far above the
average of his race. The range of his vision being so extensive, he
saw clearly the situation of his people, and without hesitation
undertook, in his own way, the work of ameliorating the condition of
the masses with the hope of uplifting them to a higher plane of truth
and virtue. His motives being pure, his success has been thus far
commensurate with the scope of his prodigious undertaking.
Notwithstanding his being misunderstood and misinterpreted by many, he
has, with unswerving purpose, pursued the trend of his own honest
convictions, proved his fidelity to the race, and convinced the world
of his unshaken faith in the ultimate success of his enterprise. He is
still practically demonstrating his obedience to the Moral Law, as
summed up in the Divine command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." Many noble women, also of the race, having outrun their
less-favored sisters and reached the highest standard, are now
extending their hands to assist others in making their ascent into the
more etherial atmosphere of that highest sense of good morals.
Thousands, with organization as their watchword, have banded
themselves into associations and federations under the significant
motto, "Lifting as we climb." The Negro race, under the combined
influence of its army of noble workers, both male and female, is fast
journeying the upward way of truth and virtue; new heights it is
gaining every day.
The little leaven of purity will be unceasingly applied until the
whole lump of Negro humanity is raised upon the lofty plane which will
force the recognition of his antagonistic brother and convince him
that the same high sense of morality governs the Negro as does the
Caucasian, or any other highly civilized race upon the globe.
God grant that the refining fires of truth may burn until all the
dross of prejudice shall be melted and consumed, when,
"Man to man united,
The whole world shall be lighted,
As Eden was of old."
TOPIC XV.
IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER?
BY EDWARD MACKNIGHT BRAWLEY, A. M., D. D.
[Illustration: E. M. Brawley, D. D.]
REV. EDWARD MacKNIGHT BRAWLEY, A. M., D. D.
Edward MacKnight Brawley was born at Charleston, S. C.,
March 18, 1851. His parents, James M. and Ann L. Brawley,
were both free. Before the Civil War, in order that he might
secure good educational advantages, he was sent to
Philadelphia, Pa., where he passed through the grammar
school; then he entered the Colored High School, of which
Prof. E. D. Bassett was principal, and there prepared for
college. In the fall of 1871 he entered Bucknell University,
where he was graduated Bachelor of Arts in the class of
1875. During his college course he also pursued theological
studies and was ordained for the ministry on the day after
his graduation, by a council composed largely of professors
of the university. He was the first colored student to
attend Bucknell, and in 1878 he secured from his college the
degree of Master of Arts. In 1885 the State University of
Louisville, Ky., conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of
Divinity, and Rev. E. M. Brawley has this distinction, that
he has held this degree for a longer time than any other
living colored Baptist minister. For eight years he was
State Missionary in South Carolina for the American Baptist
Publication Society.
In 1883 he was called to the presidency of Selma University,
Selma, Ala., and devoted several years to educational work.
He then became District Secretary for the South for the
American Baptist Publication Society, which work he resigned
in 1890 to accept the call to the pastorate of the First
Baptist Church of Petersburg, Va., the oldest colored
Baptist Church in the country, which he subsequently left to
go back to the work of the Society, at its earnest
solicitation. He has also served in the pastorate at
Greenville, S. C., Darien, Ga., and Palatka, Fla. He has
done considerable newspaper work, and has devoted much time
to religious writing, many pamphlets and books along race
and denominational lines having been written by him. He is
now Editorial Secretary of the National Baptist Publishing
Board, of Nashville, Tenn., under the auspices of the
National Baptist Convention. Dr. Brawley's qualifications
and experience well fit him for his present position, for he
has made a specialty of Sunday-school and denominational
literature.
A generation has come since the passing away of the period to which
the old Negro belonged, and this generation has lived in the period of
the new Negro. Is this new Negro an improvement morally on his father?
Zealous friends of the race stoutly maintain that he is; while enemies
assert that he is not as good. It is the purpose of this article to
present some facts which will prove that the young Negro, in spite of
his dreadful inheritance, has, by the aid of generous friends and the
grace of God, lifted himself to a higher moral plane than that upon
which his unfortunate father stood.
It is well, however, to note carefully at the very beginning, that we
are not dealing with exceptions in this discussion, but with the race
as a whole. At a river bank the water sometimes appears to run up
stream, while if one will but look in the middle, he will see the
river in full force gliding smoothly on to the ocean. So in all
matters belonging to the realm of morals we must discard the narrow
vision, and, taking the broad view of the Christian philosopher, sweep
the entire horizon.
Let us first, as an antecedent matter, consider some reasons why the
young Negro should be expected to be better than his father.
1. His father had no moral training. His very person was the victim of
a prodigious theft, and his labor was daily stolen. Could such a man
be effectively taught honesty? To have taught the slave the elements
of morals meant the quickening not only of his moral, but also of his
intellectual nature; and such a thing would ultimately have developed
resistance on the part of the slave. No true instruction in morals was
possible in a condition of slavery. Look over the entire moral code as
set forth in the Ten Commandments, and the impossibility of teaching
effectively those great truths to slaves--American slaves--becomes
apparent. The old enslaved Negro was destitute of true moral training;
and very much of what was offered to him as such was nothing more than
"sounding brass," and he knew it and could not profit by it.
2. And while the old Negro did not have true moral training, he did
have positive training in the opposite direction. For the very system
under which he lived was a training in evil. His ancestors had been
stolen; he himself was stolen; his civil liberty was stolen. Could he
form any adequate conception of property rights? And is it now a
matter of surprise to us that the old man sometimes did a little
stealing himself in order to relieve a hungry stomach? He was not
taught the sacredness of the married life. Indeed, he was not taught
to marry at all. He was, as a rule, simply told to live with a woman
whom he might _call_ his wife, and when the good pleasure or the
necessities of his master demanded that she should be sold away, to
take another woman and live with her and call her wife, also. He was
not allowed to develop the idea of fatherhood toward his children, for
they were not his, but rather mere chattel, to be sold at the pleasure
of his master. The two great vices charged against the Negro race are
theft and adultery. Whatever truth there is in this charge is due to
the long training slavery gave. Indeed, slavery was largely a training
in moral evil. Antecedently, therefore, we expect the old Negro to be
worse than his son.
But, now, what are the positive arguments to prove that the young
Negro is an improvement morally on his father?
1. Slavery has been abolished, and the young Negro has not felt it. He
has, therefore, missed its direct evil training. It is not denied that
he is damaged because he was trained by a father who was brought up in
slavery; but it is claimed that he has not received from his father,
and cannot receive, as much injury as his father received from the
system of slavery.
2. The young Negro now has the gospel. The many thousands who came to
Christ in the days of slavery, and are now at rest from their earthly
toils and sufferings, are not forgotten. That they were saved is due
to the fact that, owing to God's infinite goodness and mercy, a little
knowledge and a little faith can save a sinner; and God pitied our
fathers. But the young Negro now has the gospel in its fullness. He
gets it from the pulpit, from the Sunday-school, and daily in scores
of our highest literary institutions. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation, and our youth, constantly learning it, have in large
numbers been made to feel its power. Their lives having thus been
purified and ennobled, beautiful and strong Christian characters have
resulted.
3. Many young Negroes have been thoroughly trained for the ministry,
who have led strictly upright lives and have taught others to do the
same; and many others, not ministers, have enjoyed systematic training
in ethics. Is it conceivable that the combined work of this class of
our young people has accomplished nothing in the moral uplifting of
the race? Such work must and does count powerfully on the right side,
or else the gospel is a failure. Just as heathen nations have been
redeemed and regenerated, having put away their savage life and
accepted civilization and Christ because the gospel was preached to
them, even so has our race been saved; and just as no other people
ever received the gospel without being immeasurably blessed and lifted
up, so also is that true of the Negro. And it is further true of all
men that the more gospel privileges they enjoy, the better will be
their condition. For the kingdom of evil is sure to be overthrown, and
the kingdom of Christ established on the earth. And thus the young
Negro cannot help being a better man morally than his father.
4. The young Negro is living in an age of higher morals and
necessarily partakes of its superior advantages. The age of brute
force is fast passing away. When after our great civil war the
adjustment of our troubles with England was arranged by arbitration
rather than settled by war, an immense stride in civilization, men
say, was made. Very true, but why not say that the men in control of
the two great nations involved were moved to act as they did because
of their strong ethical principles? And from that time until now the
moral advance of the world has been rapid and steady. The new Negro is
living in this higher and better age, and his moral constitution has
been built up and made strong because of it. The principles of
international comity are fast spreading among the nations. And just as
the economic principles of the trust are being applied to religious
organizations, even so the stronger ethical principles that are moving
the nations are inducing Christian white men to come nearer to their
brethren in black, and to treat them more as _men_, _brethren_, than
has ever been done before. And thus both external and internal forces
have combined to make the young Negro morally better than his father.
5. And, last of all, the young Negro is turning his social and
political disadvantages to his best interest by relying calmly upon
the justice and wisdom of God's moral government. Life is, indeed, but
a conflict of forces, but the intelligent young Christian Negro knows
that the universe does not operate by chance. He feels the full force
of what Charles Sumner said in his eulogy on Abraham Lincoln: "In the
providence of God there is no accident--from the fall of a sparrow,
to the fall of an empire or the sweep of a planet, all is controlled
by divine law." And thus he lives undisturbed by the wrathful elements
that are at play around him. His full confidence in God at this trying
hour, and his firm belief that the wrath of man will yet be turned to
his advantage, are but the evidence that he trusts intelligently; and
the fact that he does so, and does not become an anarchist, is the
proof of his higher moral life. If it be said that his father did not
become an anarchist, the answer may be that slavery had dispirited
him. But the young Negro is not dispirited. He knows enough and has
spirit enough to make this country tremble; but whatever knowledge and
spirit he has which could be used for evil, he has restrained and will
yet further restrain, because he has abiding confidence in God, and
knows that "giant right is more than might;" and this confidence has
aided in making him a better man than his father.
SECOND PAPER.
IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER?
BY REV. J. S. FLIPPER.
[Illustration: J. Simeon Flipper, D. D.]
REV. J. SIMEON FLIPPER, D. D.
The subject of this sketch was among the first to enter
Atlanta University the first day it opened, 1869, and there
remained until 1876. He taught school in Georgia for several
years. He was converted in 1877 and joined the A. M. E.
Church at Thomasville, Ga. He was licensed both to exhort
and to preach. In January, 1880, he joined the Georgia
Annual Conference. In 1882 was elected secretary of the
Georgia Conference, which position he held for five
consecutive years. In this same year he was ordained a
Deacon by Bishop W. F. Dickerson and sent to Darien, Ga.,
where he prepared for and took care of the session of the
Georgia Conference.
In 1884 he met the Georgia Conference at Valdosta, Ga., and
was ordained an Elder by Bishop W. F. Dickerson, and was
stationed at Quitman, Ga., remaining there two years. In
January, 1886, he was transferred by Bishop James A. Shorter
to the North Georgia Conference and stationed at Big Bethel
A. M. E. Church, Atlanta, Ga., the city in which he was
born. His mother had been a member of this church and its
old members knew him when a boy. There he remained four
years with great success, raising the largest amount of
dollar money that had up to that time been raised in the
State: by this he became one of the dollar money kings of
the connection for 1886 and was awarded a gold badge by the
Financial Department of the A. M. E. Church. Thus, in six
years after entering the ministry, he became pastor of the
largest church in the State at the age of twenty-seven
years. In 1889 he was assigned to Pierce's Chapel, Athens,
Ga., and served it three years. In 1892 he was made
Presiding Elder of the Athens District, which place he
filled for three years. In 1893 he preached the annual
sermon to the students of Allen University, Columbia, S. C.,
when the faculty and Trustee Board conferred on him the
title of Doctor of Divinity. In 1892 he was a delegate to
the General Conference of the A. M. E. Church, which met in
Philadelphia, and served as a member on the committee on
statistics.
In 1895 he was stationed a second time in Atlanta, at Allen
Temple, A. M. E. Church, remaining here four years with
great success and entertaining the session of the North
Georgia Conference in his last year. He was elected again to
the General Conference, which met at Wilmington, N. C., in
May, 1896, and served on the committee on revision of
discipline.
In 1899 he was elected not only a delegate but the leader of
his delegation to the General Conference, which met at
Columbus, Ohio, in May, 1900. Here he was elected without
opposition chairman of the Episcopal Committee, the most
important committee of the church; it is composed of all the
leaders of the delegations from all parts of the church, and
before this committee the Bishops appear for an examination
in their moral, religious and official character; it fixes
the boundaries of the districts and assigns the Bishops to
their fields of labor.
He is now a trustee of Morris Brown College, Secretary of
the Trustee and Executive Boards, Treasurer of the
Theological Fund, Chairman and treasurer of the dollar money
committee of the Atlanta, Ga., Conference, Book Steward,
Chairman of Committee on Fourth Year's Studies. He is a
prominent craftsman and for one year was Deputy Grand Master
of the Most Worshipful Union Grand Lodge, A. F. and A. M. of
Georgia, Grand Representative of the Stringer Grand Lodge of
Mississippi to the Grand East of Georgia, with the rank of
Grand Senior Warden. He is now a Trustee of the W. E. Terry
Masonic Orphan and Widows' Home and Industrial School,
located at Americus, Ga., Associate Editor of the "Voice of
Missions," the missionary organ of the A. M. E. Church,
published in New York.
One of the greatest events of his life was the receiving of
Rev. Jas. M. D'wane of the Ethiopian Church from Pretoria,
Transvaal Republic, South Africa, into the A. M. E. Church,
and through him eighty preachers and two thousand eight
hundred members.
The difficulty of considering this question deepens as we consider the
young Negro from every phase of life. Universally it cannot be
answered in the affirmative, for the Negro is divided into classes as
well as are other races, and as no people are universally, morally
good, so such cannot be expected of the Negro.
The Negro possesses an upper class, a middle class, and a lower class,
and in a consideration of these classes we shall look for an answer to
the question. The upper class consists of those who have made
extraordinary progress, morally, religiously, mentally and materially;
who have outstripped their fellows in the race of life and attained a
standard of civilization commensurate with their opportunities and
proved to the civilized world that under favorable circumstances the
Negro is as capable of a high development in civilization as any other
race. This class is an improvement, morally, upon their fathers. For
their opportunities have been such as to render them more capable of a
higher conception of morality and of their duties to their fellowmen,
and in proportion as a man is enlightened on morality does he improve
in morality, other things being equal, and reaches a higher type of
manhood. Morality is always affected by one's religious views. The
moral binds us to our fellowmen, and the religious to our God; and a
man may in many respects be better than his fellowman but he can never
be better than his God. If a man has low and meagre ideas of God his
ideas of man will be low and meagre whatever may be his conceptions of
the law, government, and the character of his Creator will be his
ideas of duty to wife, children, neighbors and country.
The educational qualifications on moral and religious lines must
furnish some of the rules by which the standard can be gauged for the
man who has by liberal and extensive educational facilities gotten the
capacity to know his God and His moral government over His creatures
must rise in moral improvement and stand out as the towering mountain
above the plain that surrounds it. And on this line the upper class of
Negroes, by reason of religious and educational advantages, are an
improvement morally on their fathers, whose opportunities for moral
improvement were very meagre, indeed.
The middle class of Negroes are not equal to the upper class in
attainments. Their educational advantages have not been so great as
those of the upper class, and yet their moral development has been
correspondingly as great. The moral law of God has been heard as
distinctly by them as by the upper, but they have not that
discriminating judgment that enables them in every instance to
distinguish between the morally wrong and the morally right, and yet
there has been awakened in them a consciousness of certain things due
to their fellowman and to their God that has kept them in a way that
they could not be charged with wilful moral wrong, and their
conservatism has placed them in a manner nearer to the morally right
than to the morally wrong. And the young Negroes of this class are an
improvement morally on their fathers. Solomon hath said, "As a man
thinketh, so is he." Good character cannot arise out of low thoughts,
but it must emanate from pure, noble, God-fearing and elevating
thoughts and ideas. Correct ideas of life practically embodied in
conduct can lift man above the low, sensual, evil walks of life. Now
that there are many young Negroes with correct ideas of life cannot be
denied. Now the lower class of Negroes are those whose ideas are
distorted; who are conscience-seared, and who have no regard for God
nor man; and as the upper and middle classes have ascended in the
scale of moral civilization, so the bad class of Negroes have
descended in the scale, their finer sensibilities having become
blunted by vice and crime, so that education on moral and religious
lines has no charms for them. Sinai's majestic summit and moral law
are as chaff to them, and as freedom has given a greater and better
opportunity for the morally good to improve and rise, so it has given
the same for this class to descend and become more and more corrupt.
Indeed, they have gone lower than their fathers on this line. But the
character of a race is not to be judged by its degraded element, but
by the upper and middle classes, which form the major portion of any
race and give it a standing along the line of moral and religious
civilization. We conclude by saying that the young Negro is an
improvement morally upon his father.
First, because freedom has given to the young Negro aspirations for a
purer life, which his father did not have.
Second. The moral atmosphere of the young Negro's home life is better
than that of the old Negro.
Third. The young Negro's educational advantages give him higher
conceptions of life and duty than those had by his father.
Fourth. The young Negro has a more enlightened pulpit than his father
had to preach a broader and more comprehensive gospel to him, and to
thus give him more correct ideas of life.
Now these superior advantages, which the young Negro has, make it
possible for him to outstrip his father in moral accomplishments, and
the arguments of his enemies to the contrary notwithstanding, the
educated young Negro presents a striking contrast in point of morality
to the old Negro.
THIRD PAPER.
IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER?
BY REV. E. C. MORRIS, D. D.
[Illustration: E. C. Morris, D. D.]
REV. E. C. MORRIS, D. D.
On May 7, 1855, near Springplace on the Connesauga, in the
chestnut hills of North Georgia, of slave parentage, was
born E. C. Morris, now the President of the National Baptist
Convention, which is the largest deliberative body of
Negroes in the world, the editor-in-chief of the Sunday
School series issued by the National Baptist Publishing
Board, the President of the Arkansas Baptist State
Convention, and pastor of the Centennial Baptist Church of
Helena, Arkansas. His early education was through the common
school, but practically from nature and necessity. From
earliest childhood he was peculiarly interested in men and
things; hence, now possesses a large stock of knowledge
concerning human nature, is an advocate of prudence,
conservatism and manliness in all affairs bearing upon the
relation of the races in this country. He stands for
self-help and racial integrity and believes that when man
has acknowledged his inability and failure to ameliorate the
ill conditions in this country, God will settle the same and
cause the deserved recognition of all men, black and white.
He saw with his father the first train that passed through
North Georgia, though the spectacle was quite an amusing
draft on his youthful nerve, for, says he, "Had I been older
than five years, it is questionable that my father, by whose
hand I was led, could have detained me from the urgent
business I felt I had back home when that mysteriously
terrible locomotive came rushing down the track seemingly
intent upon spending its fury upon no one else but me."
When Elias was ten years old, his parents, James and Cora
Morris, moved into Alabama, settling at the little town of
Stevenson. But Elias had a short while before begun living
with the late Rev. Robert Caver, his brother-in-law, at
Stevenson, and so lived until he arrived at the age of
twenty-one. Mr. Caver taught the young man the shoemaker's
trade and the latter earned his bread upon the shoemaker's
bench until thirty and three years old. He felt a call to
the gospel ministry immediately upon his conversion at the
age of nineteen, which took place just at the time when he
had grown so inimical and impatient toward a revival that
had been going on for several days in the church at
Stevenson that he had plotted mischievous disturbance of the
meeting.