and moves him to action. The result of his peculiarly partial contact
with Christianity in America is but an earnest of what his full
contribution may be confidently expected to be. The African's mission
in the past has been that of service. "Servant of all" is his title.
He has hewn the wood and drawn the water of others with a fidelity
that is wonderful and a patience that is marvelous. As an example of
patient fidelity to humble duty he stands without a peer.
His conduct in the late war, which resulted in his freedom, was as
rare a bit of magnanimity as the world ever saw. The helpless ones of
his oppressor in his power, he nobly stayed his hand from vengeance.
And at last, when he held up his hands that his bonds might be
removed, his emancipator found them scarred with toil unrequited, but
free from the blood of man save that shed in open, honorable battle.
His religious songs are indicative of his real character. These songs
embodied and expressed the only public utterance of a people who had
suffered two and a half centuries of unatoned insult, yet in them all
there has not been found a trace of ill will. History presents no
parallel to this. David, oppressed by his foes, called down fire,
smoke and burning wind to consume his enemies from the face of the
earth. But no such malediction as that ever fell from the lips of the
typical American slave; oppressed, like the Man of Sorrows, he opened
not his mouth.
Truth is stranger than fiction. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom"
was more than a character of fiction. He was a real representative of
the Christian slave. Recall that scene between Cassy and Uncle Tom.
Unsuccessful in her attempts to urge him to kill their inhuman master,
Cassy determines to do it herself. With flashing eyes, her blood
boiling with indignation long suppressed, the much-abused Creole woman
exclaims: "His time's come. I'll have his heart's blood!" "No, no,
no," says Uncle Tom; "No, ye poor lost soul, that ye must not do! Our
Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he poured out for us
when we was his enemies. The good Lord help us to follow his steps and
love our enemies." Uncle Tom's words are not unworthy of immortality.
"Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood."
Humility, fidelity, patience, large-heartedness, love--this is
Africa's contribution to Christianity. If the contribution of the
Saxon is Pauline, that of the African is Johanine. Paul, with his
consuming energy, carrying the Gospel to the uttermost parts, stands
for the white man; John, the man of love, leaning on his Master's
bosom, is typical of the black. The white man and the black are
contrasts, not contraries; complementary opposites, not irreconcilable
opponents.
The Jew has given us ethics; the Greek, philosophy; the Roman, law;
the Teuton, liberty. These the Saxon combines. But the
African--"latest called of nations, called to the crown of thorns, the
scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony"--the African, I say,
has the deep, gushing wealth of love which is yet to move the great
heart of humanity.
FIFTH PAPER.
THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.
BY REV. S. KERR.
[Illustration: Rev. S. Kerr]
REV. S. KERR.
To give anything like a true sketch of Mr. Kerr's life and
labors both in and out of the ministry would fill a
good-sized volume rather than a page of this book, as his
life has been replete with thrilling, romantic incidents.
The Rev. Mr. Kerr graduated with honors, having received the
degree of A. B. from Rawden College, Leeds, England. He
returned at once to the West Indies, where he labored three
years.
In 1859 he did extensive missionary work in the Turks and
Caicos Islands, where, in 1860, he accepted the appointment
of Registrar of Births and Deaths. In 1863 he accepted the
appointment of Assistant Master of the Government Schools at
Grand Turk, and was afterwards appointed Head Master. In
1864 he filled the dual role of Inspector of Schools and
missionary, and he passed unscathed through the great
hurricane of 1866 which devastated the whole colony,
destroyed all the schools and public buildings, as well as
2,500 dwelling houses, including Mr. Kerr's personal
property. In 1867 he was sent as missionary to Hayti, where,
as everywhere, he did good work. In 1873 he was appointed
professor in the National Lyceum College for boys and young
ladies, where he did effective and extensive missionary work
in Cape Hatien, Grande Riviere and Dondon, and maintained
considerable influence with the Haytien officials and
authorities.
In 1880 he was advanced to the Priesthood of the Episcopal
Church of America, by the Rt. Rev. J. Th. Holly, D. D., LL.
D., Bishop of Hayti. In 1882 he was delegated to represent
the Episcopal Church in the United States, and to collect
funds for the building of the same in Hayti. On landing in
New York, his reception by Bishop Horatio Potter was cordial
in the extreme--the same by Bishops Littlejohn, of Long
Island; T. A. Starkey, of Northern New Jersey; T. M. Clark,
of Warwick, R. I.; M. A. De Wolf Howe, Central Pennsylvania;
William C. Doane, Albany; Alfred Lee, Primate, Delaware; W.
B. Stevens, Pennsylvania; H. A. Neely, of Maine; A. C. Coxe,
Western New York. He occupied the pulpits of the leading
Episcopal Churches in New York--Old Trinity, Grace Church,
St. Chrysostom's, St. Paul's, St. Philip's and others. The
leading churches in Brooklyn, Yonkers, Newport, R. I.,
Newark, N. J., Orange, N. J., Syracuse, Saratoga Springs,
Utica, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Newburg, Poughkeepsie,
Sing Sing, Barrytown, Tarrytown, Philadelphia, Germantown,
Ashebourne, Reading, Cheltenham and many others.
In 1883 be was sent to Jamaica, W. I., and the following
year he was appointed by the Provincial Synod (under the
auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel--London. Eng.) Rector of the Panama Railroad Church
and Arch-deacon of the Church of England Mission, and
Chaplain to the Panama Canal Company. In 1889 he made an
extensive missionary tour through Central America, where he
performed religious services at the opening of the Nicaragua
Canal, coming in touch with several Indian tribes, and
gaining considerable knowledge of their manners and customs
in their crude condition.
In 1890 he returned to the West Indies and was transferred
to the Diocese of Florida and made Rector of St. Peter's
Episcopal Church in Key West, where he has a large parish
and congregation and where he is highly esteemed by all
classes, white and colored.
My purpose in writing upon this subject is to investigate God's
disciplinary and retributive economy in races and nations, with a hope
of arriving at some clear conclusion concerning the Negro as a
Christian.
First, it may be just and proper to view the races of mankind in
respect to growth and mastery. The principles of growth and mastery in
a race, a nation, or a people, are the same all over the globe. The
same great agencies needed for one quarter of the globe, and in one
period of time, are needed for all quarters of the globe, for all
people and for all time, and consequently needed for this American
nation.
The children of Africa in America are in no way different from any
other people in respect to Christianity. Many of the differences of
races are accidental and oftentimes become obliterated by
circumstances, position and religion.
Go back to a period in the history of England, when its rude
inhabitants lived in caves and huts, when they fed on bark and roots,
when their dress was the skins of animals. Then look at the eminent
Englishman of the present day--cultivated, graceful, refined,
Christianized. When we remember that his distant ancestors were wild
and bloody savages, and that it took centuries to change his
forefathers from rudeness and brutality into enlightened, civilized
Christians, there is no room to doubt the susceptibility of the Negro
to Christianity.
The same great general laws of growth continue unchangeable. The
Almighty neither alters nor diminishes these laws for the convenience
of a people, of whatever race they may be. The Negro race is equally
susceptible of growth in Christianity as in civilization.
At once the question arises--Is the Negro race doomed to destruction?
Or, does it possess those qualities which will enable it to reach a
high degree of moral and Christian civilization? To the first of these
questions I reply that the Negro race is by no means doomed to
destruction. It is now over five hundred years since the breath of the
civilized world touched powerfully, for the first time, the mighty
masses of the pagan world in America, in Africa and the isles of the
sea, and we see everywhere that the weak heathen tribes of the earth
have gone down before the civilized world; tribe and nation have
dispersed before its presence. The Iroquois, the Pequods, the brave
Mohawks, the once refined Aztecs and others have gone, nevermore to be
ranked among the tribes of men. In the scattered islands of the
Pacific seas, like the stars of the heavens, the sad fact remains that
from many of them their populations have departed like the morning
cloud. They did not retain God in their knowledge. Just the reverse
with the Negro. Destructive elements, wave after wave, have swept over
his head, yet he has stood unimpaired.
Even this falls short of the full reality of the Negro as a Christian,
for civilization at numerous places has displaced ancestral
heathenism, and the standard of the cross, uplifted on the banks of
its great river, showing that the heralds of the cross have begun the
glorious conquests of their glorious King. Vital Christian power has
become the property of the Negro. Does God despise the weak? No, the
Providence of God intervenes for the training and preservation of such
people.
But has the Negro race any of those qualities which emanate from
Christianity? Let us see. The flexibility of the Negro character is
universally admitted. The race is possessed of a nature more easily
moulded than that of any other class of men. Unlike the Indian, the
Negro yields to circumstances and flows with the current of events,
hence afflictions, however terrible, have failed to crush him; his
facile nature wards them off, or else through the inspiration of hope
their influence is neutralized. These peculiarities of the Negro
character render him susceptible to imitation. Burke tells us that
"imitation is the second passion belonging to society, and this
passion arises from much the same cause as sympathy." This is one of
the strongest links of society. It forms our manners, our opinions,
our lives. Indeed, civilization is carried down from generation to
generation, or handed over from a superior to an inferior, by means of
imitation. A people devoid of imitation is incapable of progress or
advancement, and must retrograde. If it remains stagnant, it must of
necessity bring its own decay. The quality of imitation has been the
grand preservative of the Negro in all lands. Indeed, the Negro is a
superior man to-day to what he was three centuries ago.
I feel fortified in the principles I have advanced by the opinions of
great, scrutinizing thinkers. In his treatise on Emancipation, written
in 1880, Dr. Channing says: "The Negro is one of the best races of the
human family; he is among the mildest and gentlest of men; he is
singularly susceptible to improvement." Kinmont declares in his
"Lecture on Man" that "The sweet graces of the Christian religion
appears almost too tropical and tender plants to grow in the soil of
the Caucasian mind; they require a character of the human nature of
which you can see the rude lineaments in the Ethiopian, to be
implanted in and grow naturally and beautifully withal." Adamson, the
traveler who visited Senegal in 1754, said: "The Negroes are sociable,
humane, obliging and hospitable, and they have generally preserved an
estimable simplicity of domestic manners. They are distinguished by
their tenderness for their parents, and great respect for the aged--a
patriarchal virtue which, in our day, is too little known." Dr.
Raleigh, also, at a great meeting in London, said: "There is in these
people a hitherto undiscovered mine of love, the development of which
will be for the amazing welfare of the world. * * * Greece gave us
beauty; Rome gave us power; the Anglo-Saxon unites and mingles these,
but in the African people there is the great gushing wealth of love,
which will develop wonders for the world."
I feel that the Almighty, who is interested in all the great problems
of civilization, is interested in the Negro problem. He has carried
the Negro through the wilderness of disasters, and at last put him in
a large open place of liberty. There is not the shadow of a doubt that
this work which God has begun, and is carrying on, is for the mental
and spiritual elevation of the Negro.
TOPIC XXI.
DOES THE NORTH AFFORD TO THE NEGRO BETTER OPPORTUNITIES OF MAKING A
LIVING THAN THE SOUTH?
BY REV. J. H. ANDERSON.
[Illustration: Rev. J. H. Anderson.]
REV. J. H. ANDERSON, D. D.
Rev. J. H. Anderson was born June 30, 1848, in Frederick,
Md. Dr. Anderson is what is called a self-made man, he
having attended school only six months in his life and
studied a short time under a private tutor. By hard,
persistent efforts and close application to books, Dr.
Anderson has risen to a point in scholarship and prominence
that only a few college Negroes have reached. He is noted as
a pulpit orator and platform speaker. He has attained to
some prominence as a writer and takes front rank as a
preacher in his denomination. For his scholarly attainments
and usefulness as a minister of the gospel, Livingstone
College conferred upon him, in 1896, the degree of doctor of
divinity. Dr. Anderson was one of those heroic
liberty-loving souls who went to the battlefield in the
Civil War to fight for their and their race's freedom.
Colonization is a condition of cosmopolitan society as it is of races.
As "birds of a feather flock together," so the different races in the
American civilization form settlements or colonies, as far as
possible. The truthfulness of this statement is seen in the
thickly-settled German, Irish, Jewish and Italian communities in the
North. Their race affinities produce natural and social relations
promotive of their varied interests. The Negro's civil and social
privileges are more restricted in the South than in the North, owing
to which fact the Negroes of the South are more united than the
Negroes of the North. In the North a few individuals may rise to
intellectual, professional, business and mechanical distinctions, but
from general employment in the skilled industries, business
enterprises and political preferment he is debarred, and, being
cheaply and conveniently accommodated in almost every respect by the
whites, he is not under the same necessity as the Southern Negro to
establish and operate business enterprises. It is rather inconvenient
to establish and maintain Negro business enterprises and schools in
the North, for the reason that there are no thickly settled
communities. A Negro lawyer, doctor, dressmaker, music teacher, hair
dresser and mechanic do well in some instances, because they receive
patronage from the whites. It is not so much the prejudice of the
whites nor the indifference of the Negro as it is the peculiar
conditions of the North that prevent the Negro from enjoying the
business enterprises and founding race institutions. The few new
institutions and even churches in the North are largely sustained by
donations from the whites. Renting houses and purchasing property and
living in the North are commensurate with the large scale and
competition along all lines of industry, and social life is so active
that the most rigid economy and business tact are essential to success
in any kind of business in the North.
The Negro who embarks in business in the North has not only to compete
with his own people, but with the shrewd Yankee, who seeks to
monopolize all interests that have money in them. The Negro of the
North for the most part appears to be content with his superior civil
and social privileges. He breathes the air with more perfect liberty,
enjoys life free from violence, is vindicated and redressed at law and
recognized in his citizen rights, and, like the Pharisee, thanks God
that he is not like the ex-slave of the South, and this is the height
of his ambition. Three-fourths of the freeholding and tax-paying
Negroes in the North are from the South, and Southern Negro labor is
preferred in the North as in the South. Waiters, domestic servants,
janitors, teamsters, laundry men and coachmen from the South can find
employment in the North. Any industrious Southern Negro can find
common labor to do in the North.
Before the formation of labor unions and federations in the North, the
Negro skilled laborer found employment, but after deciding to exclude
the Negro from membership these unions became an effective dictating
power to employ when Negroes applied to them for work.
The tax-payers in many Northern sections favor mixed schools because
it is less expensive to have them. They would not be justified in
maintaining separate schools for the few Negro pupils. Of course, race
favoritism, competition and prejudice, combine to exclude Negro
teachers, and yet a few Negro teachers are employed to teach in the
mixed schools. That Negro children, procuring their education by Negro
teachers in the Negro schools, can better appreciate race efficiency
and dignity there can be no question. The Northern Negro is ill fitted
for living in the South, it being difficult for him to adapt himself
to the conditions of the South, yet it is quite easy for the Southern
Negro to adapt himself to the North where full and free expression is
equally accorded to all, and where no legal discriminations are made
and where the social question is left for adjustment by the parties
nearest concerned. In the North the Negro has the opportunity of
advocating the interests of his Southern brother in a way that would
not be tolerated in the South, and thus the Northern Negro can assist
in the formation of a proper sentiment in his favor. The Northern
Negro is, therefore, a necessity to the Southern Negroes, and vice
versa. The Negro's destiny is to be worked out in the South because he
has greater numerical strength and superior advantages in the South,
notwithstanding the civil, social and legal restrictions upon him. The
lesson of self-dependence and self-effort is forced upon the Southern
Negro as not upon the Northern Negro.
When the Southern Negro was emancipated, his first thought was
education, and, adhering steadfastly to this idea, he has made a
progressive education since his emancipation that has astounded the
civilized world. No school-loving race can be kept down or back.
Brought here a heathen, the Negro soon exchanged fetichism for
Christianity, and, having been trained in the school of servile labor
for centuries, he learned how to labor so that when his emancipation
came he was prepared to strike out on lines of self development, and
he has made in thirty-six years a progress in the acquisition of
wealth that is without a parallel in history.
The prejudices of the whites against the Negro have rather helped him,
in that they have stimulated him to make greater efforts to reach the
independence of the white man.
Having lived in both sections of our country, I am prepared to say
that the Negro can do better towards working out his destiny in the
South than in the North.
SECOND PAPER.
DOES THE NORTH AFFORD TO THE NEGRO BETTER OPPORTUNITIES OF MAKING A
LIVING THAN THE SOUTH?
BY PROF. W. H. COUNCILL.
[Illustration: Prof. W. H. Councill]
PROF. W. H. COUNCILL, PH. D.
W. H. Councill was born in Fayetteville, N. C., in 1848, and
was carried to Alabama by the traders in 1857, through the
famous Richmond Slave Pen. In Alabama he worked in the
fields with the other slaves. He is a self-made man, having
had only few school advantages. He attended one of the first
schools opened by kind Northern friends at Stevenson, Ala.,
in 1865. Here he remained about three years, and this is the
basis of his education. He has been a close and earnest
student ever since, often spending much of the night in
study. He has accumulated quite an excellent library, and
the best books of the best masters are his constant
companions, as well as a large supply of the best current
literature. By private instruction and almost incessant
study, he gained a fair knowledge of some of the languages,
higher mathematics, and the sciences. He was Enrolling Clerk
of the Alabama House of Representatives in 1872-4. He was
appointed by President Grant Receiver of the Land Office for
the Northern District of Alabama in 1875. He was founder and
editor of the "Huntsville Herald" from 1877 to 1884. He
founded the great educational institution, Normal, of which
he is president, and has been for a quarter of a century. He
read law and was admitted to the Supreme Court of Alabama in
1883. But he has never left the profession of teaching,
although flattering political positions have been held out
to him. He has occupied high positions in church and other
religious, temperance, and charitable organizations, and has
no mean standing as a public speaker.
Prof. Councill has traveled quite extensively in Europe, and
was warmly received and entertained by the Hon. W. E.
Gladstone and His Majesty, King Leopold, of Belgium.
And thus by earnest toil, self-denial, hard study, he has
made himself, built up one of the largest institutions in
the South, and educated scores of young people _at his own
expense_.
Prof. Councill is proud to be known as a friend to Africa.
He is co-operating with Bishop Turner in the redemption and
civilization of that continent. Normal, under Prof.
Councill, is educating native Africans for this purpose. He
has received the degree of Ph. D. from Morris Brown College.
Prof. Councill is author of "The Lamp of Wisdom." He writes
extensively for the leading magazines and newspapers of the
country.
A comparison of the opportunities which different sections hold out to
any class of our fellow citizens should not be regarded as hostile
criticism. No man, no country suffers by the truth.
We cannot answer this question by yes or no. The North affords the
better opportunities in some things, while in others the South gives
the Negro the better opportunity for making a living. If we are
correct in putting a broad and educated mind as the foundation for
every useful superstructure, we are forced to admit that the
opportunity for laying this foundation is better in the North, where a
century of thought on popular education has developed the finest
public school system in the world. While this brings the Northern
Negro in contact with the great Anglo-Saxon mind, and fits him for
making a living and for business in that atmosphere, he has to undergo
a kind of mental acclimatization before he can effectively and
usefully enter into work in the South, where the atmosphere at every
turn is different from that in the North. For twenty-five years I
have been brought in direct contact with Negroes reared or educated in
the North, and I do not recall one who did not have to un-Northernize
himself in many respects before he could harmonize to usefulness in
the South. It is to the credit of our Northern brethren that they are
thus willing to sacrifice a part of their individualism in order to
serve their race in the South. In my long experience I have not met a
quarter dozen who have not cheerfully put aside their selfishness for
the common good of their associates and their work. Indeed, I have
found my Northern brethren more willing and helpful in this regard,
perhaps, than Southern Negroes, who are more self-assertive and
persistent in their make-up, a spirit imbibed from the general
character of independence and domineering found in the South. But the
Southern Negro, reared in harmony with Southern institutions, having
assimilated prejudices and counter-prejudices, can use to greater
advantage his small amount of education and training.