are the newspapers, magazines, literary journals and books of fiction.
The newspapers have the most immediate and controlling influence over
the action of men in the business and political world. To undertake to
estimate with anything like exactness the part the Negro has in
molding sentiment through the press and giving the consequent
direction to the action of men would be a task impossible in the very
nature of the case.
It shall be, then, the purpose of this article to discuss in a general
way the Negro as a writer in all lines in which he has essayed to
express thought. It would be easy to dispose of the question in two
ways. One would be to separate all that he has done as far as that
would be possible, and put it over against the production of the white
race and thus so minimize it by comparison that its power would likely
to be _underrated_. Another way would be to magnify all that has been
done as especially praiseworthy, because the production comes from the
Negro, thus overrating its significance, forgetting that whatever
power any writing can have can only be in proportion to its real merit
in the thought-world, regardless of all source from which it came.
Overrating the Negro as a writer is more likely to be done in passing
on his attempts in _literary_ art than in any other field. But in
literary lines the number who can command attention and be worthy of
notice is very small. One does not have to go far to see that the most
effective work, so far as creating sentiment is concerned, and thereby
_wielding_ power in the great moving forces of this age, the Negro as
a writer is best evinced by the Negro press. We have many newspapers,
and after thirty years we have not been able to produce one single
great newspaper, nor for many good reasons one single great editor who
is a power in the land. Indeed, the most of the many papers of ours
that come from the press have but little in them that can attract the
intelligent minds of the race. There is, however, among us too great a
tendency to ridicule the Negro press unreservedly, and though much of
the ridicule may be deserved it remains true that the accumulative
power of the Negro press is hardly appreciated as it deserves to be.
They who write for us and fight our battles are essentially our only
spokesmen, and as ignored as our articles and editorials would seem to
be by the white press, it is true nevertheless that the white
newspapers take close notice of what the Negro writers have to say.
They may not ordinarily deign to appear to take notice, but let any
publication be made in our most humble sheets that seems to them to be
dangerous or too presumptuous to let pass, and it will be seen then
that the white press takes notice and the power of the colored press
will become apparent. I have said that we have not yet produced one
single great paper, nor one great editor, as white papers and editors
are great, and to this I think there can be justly no exceptions
taken, for we are lacking in nearly all the accessories to make such
greatness possible, but we do have a few papers and editors of marked
power. The two most exceptional papers of power that have come under
my notice are the New York Age, edited by Mr. T. Thomas Fortune, and
the Richmond Planet, edited by Mr. Mitchell. These two papers and
their editors have been, and are yet, valiant warriors for the race
and of incalculable benefit to the race. As a terse, caustic and
biting editorial writer Mr. Fortune is hardly surpassed by any one,
and his paper for years has been uncompromising in fighting all
adverse issues in the race question. Almost the same thing can be said
of the Richmond Planet, and more than any other, perhaps, has this
paper been valiant in waging war against lynching. These two papers,
together with a host of others, have set forth the power of the pen
and have accomplished far more to offset the adverse sentiment created
by the white press than can ever be fully determined. There is another
class of Negro writers than those I have mentioned that gets an
occasional hearing in the white papers of the South and is of great
value to the race. Any one familiar with the strictures of the South,
knows that the Negroes themselves have essentially no chance to
discuss through the white newspapers the great questions which are
ever to the front concerning them, and their position in the South,
and also but very little more in the newspapers of the North, unless
in the South the Negroes write some articles to say amen, and highly
sanction the white man's dictums and positions on the Negro questions
that happen to be up. But there are a few who are able to write on
some questions in our defense without compromise, and yet so
skillfully as not to offend. In speaking of the attitude of the white
press, and its representations, it is not assumed that there is no
disposition of fairness on the part of the writers of the white press.
Many of the great editors mean to be fair from their standpoint. The
Southern white people are prejudiced and supersensitive on some points
beyond all reason, and in all questions between the Negro and the
white man, as man to man, the assumptions, without an exception, are
arrogant beyond all naming, so that it comes about at any point of
issue, where men differing, usually would permit the opponent his
views as fitting from his side of the question, what the Negro has to
say, if he is emphatic and decided, is called impudence. The writer
must be skillful, then, to write uncompromisingly and yet not be of
the "impudent." There are a few men among us who are able to write for
the Southern white papers with reserve, yet without compromise,
greatly to our advantage. Among those few, prominent are Prof. G. W.
Henderson, of Straight University, New Orleans, and President W. H.
Councill, of the College, Normal and Industrial School at Normal,
Alabama. Prof. Henderson is a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont,
and Yale Theological Seminary, having taken the fellowship from that
institution and studied in Germany two years. His writings show his
scholarship and refinement. He has been persistent and valiant in all
race matters, especially in educational lines in Louisiana, and his
articles, though uncompromising, have from time to time found a
hearing and forced respect from the great dailies of New Orleans.
President Councill is the most widely accepted in the Southern white
press of all Negroes. On some points of disagreement between the
Negroes and the white people he concedes more to some of the white
man's claims than any other Negro who writes. Secondly, he is truly a
great man, and has gained his right to a hearing in intelligent
sources. As a writer, pure and simple, he is forcible; and while the
whole of his attitude may not be accepted generally by his own race,
there is no doubt about his uncompromising attitude and loyalty to his
own race first and last, and any one who has followed his articles in
newspapers and leading magazines have surely seen that the apparently
sometimes too generous bouquet throwing to the white brother is fully
offset by the terrible blows given that same white brother for his
sins against the Negro race. This is especially seen in his symposium
article in the April number of the Arena, 1899. It would be impossible
in the limitation of this article to mention the many Negro writers
who are acceptable in leading magazines, and to a greater extent in
the great weekly journals of this country. Only one or two can be
mentioned: Rev. H. H. Proctor, pastor of the First Congregational
Church at Atlanta, Ga., is a graduate of Fisk University and Yale
Theological Seminary, and he is a young man of exceptional ability as
a writer on timely questions, but as an article writer is often seen
in the Outlook, the New York Independent, and such papers. Above them
all is Bishop Tanner, of Philadelphia. For diction, fine style,
conciseness and logical conclusions, one must go far to find his
superior. In the way of history, text books on various subjects, and
scientific presentation, not much has yet been done among us. Mr. Geo.
W. Williams, the Negro historian, has done more in that field than any
other. Dr. D. W. Culp has written a treatise on consumption and other
medical subjects that have attracted attention and favorable
criticism.
It now remains to speak of the writers in literary art. In this field
there are many who have certainly made praiseworthy attempts, and of
the ladies who cannot be classed with those who have truly made a
place among successful literary artists, but whose writing has
attracted attention and in character is literary, most complimentary
things can be said of Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper, of Philadelphia; of
Mrs. Fanny Barrier Williams, of Chicago; of Miss Edna Matthews, of New
York, and of Mrs. Cooper, Washington, D. C. Mrs. Cooper's book, "A
Voice from the South," is a work in purpose and execution of decided
merit. In real literary art, perhaps there are only two in the whole
race who have reached a place of genuine high rank among the critics,
namely, Dunbar and Chestnut. There are four poets, however, who have
attracted much attention and favorable criticism, and of these I will
speak in turn. It is in order to speak of Mr. A. A. Whitman first,
because he appeared first of all and in one particular of excellency
he is first of all four. His "Rape of Florida" is truly poetry and as
a _sustained effort_, as an attempt _in great lines_, it surpasses in
true merit anything yet done by a Negro, and this assertion without
one qualifying word. He failed as a poet? Certainly. Mr. Whitman made
attempts in lines in which Shelley, Keats and Spenser triumphed, and
with such mediocrity only possible to him in such a highway, what else
could follow beyond a passing notice, though his "Rape of Florida" is
a production of much more than passing merit. Aside from the
mediocrity of the work attempted in Spenserian lines the man himself
in his lack of learning, in his expressible egotism, was derogatory
to his ultimate success, and his styling himself as the William Cullen
Bryant of the Negro race was sickening in the extreme. Mr. Whitman
died recently, but not before he had done all in literary excellence
that could be hoped from him. It remains true, however, that he was
worthy of a much better place than is accorded him as a Negro poet,
and it is to be regretted that his work is so little known among us.
Ten years after Mr. Whitman, Paul Dunbar came forth as a new singer,
and got the first real recognition as a poet. As a poet, pure and
simple, as a refined verse maker in all directions, Mr. Dunbar
surpasses Mr. Whitman by far in the truest significance in the term
poet, and he is justly assigned the first place among Negro poets. For
many reasons Mr. Dunbar is famous, and to enter into any extended
discussion of his work in this connection is needless. Mr. Dunbar is
the first Negro to attempt poetic art in Negro dialect. To speak the
truth, however, it must be said that there is no such thing as a Negro
dialect, but in the bad English called Negro dialect Mr. Dunbar has in
verse chosen to interpret the Negro in his general character, in his
philosophy of life, in his rich humor and good nature, and the world
knows how well he has succeeded. Robert Burns has shown how the
immortal life of all beautiful things can be handed down for all time
in dialect, but it can scarcely be believed by any one that great
poetry can ever be clothed in the garb known as Negro dialect. But for
some pathos and to put the Negro forward at his best in his humorous
and good natured characteristics the so-called dialect is the best
vehicle, and in these lines, and these lines only, is Mr. Dunbar by
far greater than all others. Out of those lines he is still the first
poet, Whitman not excepted, but he is first with nothing like the
difference in real merit and the fame he has above all others. But in
passing from him, here is Dunbar at his best, dialectic and otherwise:
"When de co'n pone's hot--
Dey is a time in life when nature
Seems to slip a cog an' go,
Jes' a-rattling down creation,
Lak an ocean's overflow;
When de worl' jes' stahts a-spinnin'
Lak a pickaninny's top,
An' you feel jes' lak a racah,
Dat is trainin' fu' to trot--
When yo' mammy says de blessin'
An' de co'n pone's hot.
"When you set down at de table,
Kin' o' weary lak an' sad,
An' you's jes' a little tiwhed
An' purhaps a little mad;
How yo' gloom tu'ns into gladness,
How yo' joy drives out de doubt,
When de oven do' is opened,
An' de smell comes po'in out;
Why, de 'lectric light o' Heaven
Seems to settle on de spot,
When yo' mammy says de blessin'
An' de co'n pone's hot.
"When de cabbage pot is steamin'
An' de bacon good an' fat,
When de chittlins is a-spuller'n'
So's to show you whah dey's at;
Tek away yo' sody biscut,
Tek away yo' cake an' pie,
Fu' de glory time is comin',
An' it's 'proachin' mighty nigh,
An' yo' want to jump an' hollah,
Dough you know you'd bettah not
When yo' mammy says de blessin',
An' de co'n pone's hot.
"I have hyeahd o' lots o' sermons,
An' I've hyeahd o' lots o' prayers,
An' I've listened to some singin'
Dat has tuck me up de stairs
Of de Glory-lan' an' set me
Jes' below de mahstah's th'one,
An' lef' my hea't a-singin'
In a happy aftah tone;
But dem wu'ds so sweetly murmured
Seemed to tech de softes' spot,
When my mammy says de blessin',
An' de co'n pone's hot."
This is not so great a poem as the "Cotter's Saturday Night" by Burns,
because the spiritual element and the whole scope of the tenderest
concerns of the family and of life in that poem are left out of this.
But in Dunbar's poem, where only the festival is pictured, the scene
is so intensified that one feels the warmth and sees the glow of the
evening fire and inhales the appetizing odors of the coming homely
cheer, and can see back of these the tender care and ineffable love of
the "Mammy," who puts the crowning touch upon her love with the
blessing. As far as it goes, "When the co'n pone's hot" is great
precisely in the same lines that the "Cotter's Saturday Night" is
great.
Mr. Dunbar has also written a number of novels and short stories. It
has not been my good fortune to see "The Stories from Dixie;" but the
novels I have bought and read. If there were no Charles Chestnut, Mr.
Dunbar's novels would have to be discussed in this connection, and he
would have to be put down as the very first Negro novel writer,
mainly, however, because there would be no other; but with Mr.
Chestnut in the field, no true admirer of Mr. Dunbar will ever discuss
the prolific diffusions of his, bearing the name novels, in any
connection with Dunbar, the poet. There is only enough space left in
this article for the poets, to barely mention the names of Mr. Daniel
Webster Davis, of Manchester, Virginia, and Mr. James D. Corrothers of
Red Bank, New Jersey, and to give a selection from each and let their
poems speak for them as writers. Both of them have received notice in
the best magazines and favorable criticism elsewhere. Both owe their
distinction mainly to their work in dialectic verse which, I fear, is
too much like the "ragtime" music, considered quite the proper
dressing for Negro distinction in the poetic art.
Here is to "De Biggis' Piece ub Pie," by Mr. Davis:
"When I was a little boy
I set me down to cry,
Bekase my little brudder
Had de biggis' piece ub pie.
But when I had become a man
I made my min' to try
An' hustle roun' to git myself
De biggis' piece ub pie.
"An' like in bygone chil'ish days,
De worl' is hustlin' roun'
To git darselbes de biggis' slice
Ub honor an' renown;
An' ef I fails to do my bes',
But stan' aroun' an' cry,
Dis ol' worl' will git away
Wid bof de plate an' pie.
"An' eben should I git a slice
I mus' not cease to try,
But keep a-movin' fas' es life
To hol' my piece ub pie.
Dis ruff ol' worl' has little use
Fur dem dat chance to fall,
An' while youze gittin' up ag'in
'Twill take de plate an' all."
The one more selection from Mr. Davis will show him as a poet outside
of dialect:
A ROSE.
"The rose of the garden is given to me,
And, to double its value, 'twas given by thee;
Its lovely bright tints to my eyesight is borne,
Like the kiss of a fairy or blush of morn.
"Too soon must this scent-laden flower decay,
Its bright leaves will wither, its bloom die away;
But in memory 'twill linger; the joy that it bore
Will live with me still, tho' the flower's no more."
Mr. James D. Corrothers writes:
"A THANKSGIVIN' TURKEY.
"Cindy, reach dah 'hine yo' back.
'N han' me dat ah Almanac;
W'y, land! t'morrer's Thanksgivin'!
Got to git out an' make hay--
Don't keer whut de preachah say--
We mus' eat Thanksgivin' day,
Uz sho' uz you's a-libbin.
"You know whah Mahs Hudson libs?
Dey's a turkey dah dat gibs
Me a heap o' trouble.
Some day Hudson g'ine to miss
Dat owdashus fowl o' his;
I's g'ine ober dah an' twis'
'At gobbler's nake plumb double.
"Goin' pas' dah t' othah day,
Turkey strutted up an' say,
'A-gobble, gobble, gobble,'
Much uz ef he mout remahk,
'Don' you wish 'at it wuz dahk?
Ain't I temptin'?' S' I, 'you hah'k,
Er else dey'll be a squabble.
"'Take an' wring yo' nake righ' quick,
Light on yo' lak a thousan' brick,
'N you won't know whut befell you.'
'N I went on. Yet evah day
When I goes by that a-way,
'At fowl has too much to say;
'N I'm tiahd uv it, I tell you.
"G'ine to go dis bressed night
An' put out dat turkey's light,
'N I'll nail him lak a cobblah.
Take keer, 'Cindy, lemme pass,
Ain't a-g'ine to take no sass
Off no man's turkey gobblah."
And now for the last and the greatest Roman of them all in literary
art--Mr. Charles W. Chestnut, of Cleveland, Ohio. I have never seen
him, and at present the only personal acquaintance I have with him, is
a brief letter of a dozen or more lines; but Mr. Chestnut, revealed by
his novels, I know well. The chief distinction one finds in reading
Mr. Chestnut from all other Negro story-writers, so far as there are
such, is that he is truly an artist and that his art is fine art.
Secondly, and this is of the greatest concern to Negroes in any
thought of the Negro as a writer, he is the best delineator of Negro
life and character, thought and feeling, of any who has attracted
notice by writing. It is not possible to give in this connection any
quotations from Mr. Chestnut's work that may speak for him, but it is
fitting in this article to speak of the character of some of Mr.
Chestnut's stories, and, as far as possible, suggest the ground and
purpose of his fiction. Perhaps, to mention the stories, "The Wife of
His Youth," "The Wheel of Progress," and "The House Behind the
Cedars," would serve best for this occasion. There are some situations
of the Negroes too full of ineffable pity for utterance. Who has not
sat at some time in a Negro church and heard read the pitiful inquiry
for a mother, or a child, or a father, husband or wife, all lost in
the sales and separations of slavery times--loved ones as completely
swallowed up in the past (yet in this life they still live) as if the
grave had received them. At such a reading, though it was given with
unconcern, one heard the faithful cry of faithful love coming out of
the dark on its sorrowful mission.
And in this realm Mr. Chestnut tells us of a mulatto boy who marries a
woman of Negro type, and who was old enough for the boy's mother, but
had, at that time, youth enough left to make the disparity of age at
the time of little objection, especially in the times and situation
where there was little objection to marriages of any sort. But the
youth escapes from slavery and in the far North receives education,
development and culture, and in time earns a competence that makes
life desirable and opens up vistas to new happiness, for the old life
is now only a memory of what the new man once was, and the new man is
on the borderland of new love and marriage befitting all his
advancements, while the mulatto slave boy, the slave girl, the black
slave-wife and the slave connections are left forever behind. But in
all these twenty-five years the black slave wife is still living,
still ignorant and yielding all the while to age until she is an old
woman. But there was one thing that did not yield to age and time, and
that was her love for her boy husband, and, what was more, her sublime
and unwavering faith in the constancy of her "Yaller Sam," after whom
she sends inquiry after inquiry, and year after year tramps from place
to place in her search, with faith and love divine ever leading her
on, until one day in a Northern city, to which place she had finally
traced him, she stopped at his very door to humbly inquire of the
strange gentleman she saw for her "Yaller Sam," never dreaming that it
was he to whom she spoke, though he knew her and had to face the
bitter tragedy of it all. But Mr. Chestnut's art enables him to take
care of so sorrowful a case satisfactorily.
"The Wheel of Progress" touches another phase of pathetic situations
arising out of the mixture of people and sentiments in the South. The
story tells of an ostracized Northern white teacher who, from young
womanhood, labors away her life for the Negroes, until her age and
health reach that degree of disadvantage that her position as teacher,
once her medium of charity, becomes her only means for a living. In
the meantime the Negroes whom she and others helped to uplift and
develop, and to whom, because of race distinction, most all avenues
outside of menial labor are closed, except preaching and teaching, had
become her competitors. In the conflict that arose over the
reappointment of the white missionary teacher and a young Negro to the
place the pitiful situation is again taken care of by Mr. Chestnut's
fine art. "The House Behind the Cedars," until his latest, "The Marrow
of Tradition," was his most ambitious attempt. In this book the story
of an Octoroon family is put forth in all the pathos and tragedy that
is the lot of so many Negroes who belong wholly to neither race.
Mr. Chestnut's latest book, "The Marrow of Tradition," is a strong and
vigorous presentation of the colored man's case against the South in
the form of a dramatic novel. This book especially deserves a wide
reading among the Negroes, who have none too many friends to plead
their cause. Mr. Chestnut, as one truly high-rank novelist among us,
ought to have such a hearing among the eight millions that would give
him all the advantages of a successful novelist from a financial
standpoint as a return for his labor, which is by no means for himself
alone.
In closing, it is but fair to say, while the artists of high rank
among us are few in number, in an article discussing the Negro as a
writer, in mentioning names at all, it must necessarily follow that
there are very many names not here mentioned that would deserve to be
if in such an article as this there were any intention or necessity to
mention the whole list of Negro writers who write well and with power
in every department of letters.
TOPIC XVII.
DID THE AMERICAN NEGRO PROVE, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THAT HE IS
INTELLECTUALLY EQUAL TO THE WHITE MAN?
BY M. W. GILBERT, D. D.
[Illustration: M. W. Gilbert, D. D.]
REV. M. W. GILBERT, D. D.