WHY ASK FOR A BISHOP OF AFRICAN DESCENT?
Do not the attitude sustained by the colored man to the Church, from his
admission into the John Street Church in New York, and the actions taken
by the Church relating to his interests, based as they have been upon
the integrity and fidelity of the race, up to the granting of separate
Conferences, warrant it? If not, why were not our German brethren
satisfied until they were represented nationally or linguistically
therein? The Church has hitherto carried out the most natural, as well
as rational order of succession in this matter, that, if it leads
anywhere, leads up, _necessarily_ leads up, to _this point_. The colored
ministers were recognized, licensed, given appointments, quarterly
conferences, district and annual conferences, the presiding eldership,
admitted as delegates to the General Conferences, elected to General
Conference offices, and the Church declared that “race, color, or
previous condition” was “no bar to election to the episcopacy in our
Church.” If we are required and expected to go on to perfection, will
any one deny that election to the episcopacy will push the whole race a
step higher in the Divine life? Not simply because of this alone, but
because the colored man, like white men, believes the bishopric a step
higher, in office at least, than the eldership in our Church. He
believes, like other men, that progression is the watchword of the hour.
Who does not now know that a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church is
considered the most influential minister in the State, county, city,
village, and in the general Church? No other office is paramount. The
fact that there is to be allowed _no_ discrimination on account of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude within the Church, it is
claimed, guarantees to them not only the right to ask, but to _expect_
help in securing the same, since it will never be possible for it to be
done by the race alone within the Church.
[Illustration:
REV. A. E. P. ALBERT, D.D.,
EDITOR OF SOUTHWESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE,
NEW ORLEANS, LA.
]
It is therefore declared by many of both races within the Church, that
_justice to the race demands it as it could not for any other class of
members within the Church_. Nothing less than injustice can withhold
that which is justly due. Now the colored members, whose influence has
brought them forth into prominence in the Church, have never asked the
General Conference to elect a bishop of African descent because our
bishops have been one thing to white members and another to colored
members, nor because our bishops, when coming among the colored members,
have been “overseers” instead of superintendents, nor because they are
not acceptable to the colored membership. Far from it. Our bishops
to-day hold a place in the hearts of the colored membership of the
Church that any man of African descent, elected to the episcopacy in our
Church, could only desire, since he could not dislodge his white
colleague. But it is asked for the same reason the Church gave years ago
for the proper recognition of colored ministers when it said, it is “a
principle patent to Christian enterprise that the missionary field
itself must produce the most efficient missionaries.” Is not this an
argument at once logically true in the case of a bishop of African
descent? The reasons given by representatives from the South when asking
for a separate conference were: (1) “It will secure greater efficiency
in the prosecution of the work, since many things of great interest to
an annual conference and to the Church never get farther than the
humblest hearthstone.” (2) “It will relieve us from the taunts and
sneers of designing men,” and secure the communion and friendship of
many who would not otherwise unite with us. (3) “It will relieve the
Church of even a suspicion of a spirit of caste, and make us feel as
men, and the peers of our white brethren. (4) It will be no innovation
upon any principle of Christianity or of our beloved Church,” but will
mightily help in “rending the veil” and breaking down the middle wall of
partition Satan has built between brethren out of the remains of slavery
that existed in this country. Another reason is offered on the score of
the numerical standing of the colored membership.
According to the statistics of 1884, there are now not far from
1,800,000 members within the Church. Of this number, there are about
300,000 colored members. “The constitutional rights of the colored
members” being recognized, indeed all their rights and privileges, it
would follow that, on general principles, one member in the Church has
as many and varied rights as another. The colored members in the Church
make up one-sixth of its membership. They would on this scale,
therefore, be entitled to one representative on our bench of bishops for
every six, and so on.
Will the time ever come when a colored bishop will be elected by the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church? This the future
will tell. However ignorant we may now be as to whether it will ever be
done or not, we can easily imagine the result of such an election. It
would no doubt be as the bursting forth of some pent-up fountain which
sends forth streams in opposite directions. Doubtless if there remain
any within the Church who fear man more than God, they would likely flow
outward toward more congenial climes, where the nursing of wrath brings
imaginary peace. It is impossible to turn a mighty stream all at once
out of its channel without some commotion. But then the onsweeping tide
would soon wear another channel, and no more would be seen of the
commotion than anon a ripple in the mighty stream. The other stream,
flowing in the opposite direction, would be, to the Christian men and
women of this land, “a stream that makes glad the city of God.” It would
send a thrill of renewed vigor and confidence in God and Methodism all
over this world. Every community where infidelity, skepticism, or
Romanism now predominates would be hopelessly stunned, while a
gainsaying world would not only stand aghast, but fall back before the
enthusiastic shout of seven million hitherto rejected and ostracized
images of God cut in ebony. It would be an incentive to Christians
everywhere in general, and the three hundred thousand colored members,
old and young, within the Church in particular, to live better lives and
do better work. The older men who now hold positions of prominence in
the Church would have more time in which to do their work, and would
probably do it better, at any rate more hopefully. Instead of having to
fight caste prejudice, and repel the insults heaped upon them hitherto
by that hateful spirit, they would quietly prosecute their work. The
younger men, who are already within the colored conferences would feel a
desire, even if they were unable to make amends for lost time, better to
prepare themselves for future usefulness. The colored annual conferences
would at once begin to fasten the breaches in their fences, through
which candidates for clerical orders have been creeping at times. The
young men who would come flocking to the doors of the conferences for
admission would find written over the archway, “No _young_ man admitted
to this conference until he shall be found possessed with the necessary
qualifications,—‘gifts, grace, and usefulness.’”
Our college alumni, who have gone elsewhere seeking employment, would
return. How much more proficient does that man try to be who knows there
is a future before him, than the one who suspects there is none!
Thousands of our talented young people have left us because they said
they saw but little hope in the future for the colored ministry in our
Church. Indeed, there was a time in the history of our colored work when
the professional man, the mechanic, and the man of means among us, were
all about to leave us in some localities, because it had been told them
that within the Church we were but “hewers of wood and drawers of
water.”
There was also a time when graduates of our institutions, in many
instances, were given work by other denominations because we had none
for them before they took their diploma from the campus of their _alma
mater_. Why, it is impossible properly to educate a man, and then keep
him from thinking, looking, and speaking for himself. It is only
recently that the younger people of the race have become interested in
our work. This is directly attributable to our separate conferences;
while many who left us for “sufficient reasons” would return, and we
could more securely hold those we now have.
THE SEGREGATION OF THE RACE INTO COLORED ORGANIZATIONS.
It is impossible to build up a first-class membership out of
second-class material. This has been one of our weak points. Such
efforts as “Tanner’s Apology” were aimed along this line. Now, why is it
that in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and, for that matter,
everywhere in this country except in the Southern States, the colored
man has sought a colored organization? Why the segregation of the race
in the North, where slavery never came? Dr. A. G. Haygood believes, with
many others, that race instinct segregates them. He says: “Instinct
never yet surrendered to arguments; it is their race instinct, deep and
strong and inexpugnable,” as Carlyle would say. Who that heard their
impassioned speeches at Cincinnati, in May, 1880, could not see that
their appeal came, not from the cold conclusions of the reason, but
red-hot out of their hearts, from the irresistible promptings of
instinct? Listening to their speeches, I felt strongly the mighty
under-current that their words but feebly revealed, and I felt—“They are
right; they do well to ask this conference for a bishop of their own
race.” Listening to the words of the white leaders of the conference,
and looking at the subject in the light of cold judgment, I said to
myself: “This conference is also right to decline the request.” This
instinctive disposition to form Church affiliations on the color basis
may be wise or unwise. But it is in them—deep in them. The tendency is
strengthening all the time. This instinct will never rest satisfied till
it realizes itself in complete separations. The movements that grow out
of race instincts do not wait upon the conclusions of philosophy; nor do
they, for a long time, take counsel of policy. We may, all of us, as
well adjust our plans to the determined and inevitable movements of this
instinct, that does not reason, but that moves steadily and resistlessly
to accomplish its ends. It is a very grave question to be considered by
all who have responsibility in the matter, whether over-repression of
race instincts may not mar their normal evolution; may not introduce
elements unfriendly to healthful growth; may not result in explosions. I
have seen a heavy stone wall overturned by a root that was once a tiny
white fiber. Instinct is like the life-force that expresses itself in
life or death.
Let us see. “Is it race instinct” that tends to segregate the colored
man? We answer, No. His desire to segregate is only a self-defensive
measure. The colored man in this country is _desperately_ in earnest in
his effort to remove every vestige of the prejudice against him arising
from his previous condition of servitude. In the North he found that the
white people knew him only as a slave or a freedman. If the former, then
he was considered a mendicant—ignorant, superstitious, and immoral, as a
natural result of slavery. They could not think of taking him into their
homes—cultured, refined, and religious homes—to be at once associated
with the members of their families. As to their Churches, he was wholly
unfitted for their mode of worship; for to him it appeared foolishness,
fashion, and fastidiousness, void of “the true, heart-felt religion” of
the plantation where “his sons and his daughters prophesied, his old men
dreamed dreams, and his young men saw visions.” As a result, he pretty
soon began to feel uneasy, and sighed for “the seasons of the past.” The
white man of the North _could not possibly meet the social or religious
demands of the slave_. If he put him in the parlor or school-room with
white children, or in the congregation of the Lord—though given a front
seat, and in every conceivable way made welcome—he was uneasy. Rev.
Richard Allen says that it “was quite a task for me to preach the gospel
in St. George’s Church, in Philadelphia.” The white man of the North
could not make the colored man from the South feel at home. If he had
had a separate building in which to allow him and his family to live, it
would have appeared more like home to him. I do not here speak of the
many noble exceptions, for we all know “what’s bred in the bone is not
easily eradicated from the flesh.” It is a hard matter, indeed, in after
years to change all at once the habits of men’s past lives, whether they
be religious, moral, or temporal. Again, the white man of the North had
no work the colored man of the South was adapted to do. The house-work
usually was done either by “the hale housewife with busy care,” or by a
foreign domestic. The same was true of the out-door work. All this in
the South the colored man enjoyed without a rival. The whole affair was
in an abnormal condition with the colored man from the South. Those who
doubt these statements have but to note the line of demarkation that is
not even yet effaced between the “free colored man of the North” and the
former slave colored man of the South, to-day, everywhere. Their mode of
Church polity, songs, prayers, sermons, dress, deportment, and all, are
different. This to-day makes—for awhile at least—the colored man of the
South in the North shy, not to say uncomfortable. What relation could be
farther from the wishes of the poor, ignorant, and superstitious colored
man of those days than the social equality granted him? What could make
him wish more to be carried “back to his old Kentucky home?”
Every effort or advance made by the white man toward the colored man
found his superstition of white men repulsive. First, the thought would
come to him, “I should suspect some danger nigh, where I possess
delight.” Again, the colored man of the South knew nothing of business
principles in general, and of the _Yankee_ idea of business principles
in particular. When the rigid rules of active business life were exacted
of him by his white Northern neighbor or employer, it was but a sad
contrast to the loose and illegitimate business principles he had been
under in the South, and it was but a short time until he naturally began
to suspect that the Northern white man thought he was a thief. Again,
after the war the better class of colored men—such as the land-owner,
the stock-raiser, the mechanic, and the farmer, and those who had some
learning—did not go North. In 1870 there were residing in sixteen
Southern States, beginning with Missouri, west with Texas, and east with
the Carolinas, 4,609,541, being 15.8% of the whole population; leaving
but 726,521 colored people elsewhere in these United States. As late as
1880 there were 6,200,646 colored people in the United States, while
there were but 180,393 residing in Northern States. It took but very
little inducement to make the colored man believe, therefore, that while
the white man of the North had helped to free him, he now cared but
little for him. It is true that “birds of a feather do flock together,”
especially young birds; at any rate, throughout the animal, vegetable,
and mineral kingdoms the example is given by nature to man, in that all
these only flourish _in congenial climates and soil_, while for all his
life the colored man had been taught to suspect the Yankee as only
loving him for what he could get out of him. Again, in the South the
colored man had seen and become conversant with the irresponsible,
careless plantation life, and with the prodigality of his master, who
thought nothing of tossing him a quarter now and then. Up North the last
farthing was exacted from him; he was expected to pay his house-rent,
grocery bill, keep clean, and make but little noise around his home, at
Church, and on the public thoroughfares. This to him—recently
liberated—was all new and strange. If he became disorderly, the white
man of the North, instead of laughing at him, and passing on the other
side, would at once have him arrested; if dishonest, punished. He had
been used to “better things,” as he thought; and hence it took but
little persuasion for him to believe the white man of the North not as
friendly as the Southern white man.
To say that the cultivation of such superstition on the part of some of
the so-called leading colored men was an advantage; that such talk from
the “book-learned colored man,” who either _thought_ he spoke the truth
or perjured himself, had the effect of segregating the colored people
into separate Churches, is apparent to all. The statement of the colored
man who is reported to have established a bank for colored folks is, to
my mind, illustrative at this point. When he had accumulated two or
three thousand dollars of the money of his people he tacked a card on
his front door with this inscription: “This bank am busted.” When his
depositors came in great crowds about his door, and loudly called for
him, he came forth and said: “Now, gentlemuns and ladies, we is free. We
must act jus’ like white folks do. White folks put money in der banks
and de banks burst; and when dey see it, den dat’s de end ob de matter.
So it mus’ be wid us.” This is said to have satisfied the creditors.
When some colored men saw the advantage of segregating the colored
people, they found a great amount of _gratuitous help_. Every white man,
woman, and child, who objected to “Negro equality,” at once lent his or
her aid. The white orator and editor and preacher of this class joined
with the so-called leader in segregating the colored people. _This no
sane man will deny._ And now, in these latter days, philosophers arise
and declare it “instinct.” Everything was in favor of the segregation. A
great many white men, as well as a great many good colored men,
deprecated this, and fought desperately against it. In “Chauncey Judd”
we have an illustration of this spirit, even as early as Colonial days.
A Presbyterian minister was invited to marry a free colored couple. The
bargain the groom made with the clergyman was, that if he would marry
him like a white man he would pay him like a white man. The bride was
very pretty, but as large and black as pretty. The guests were of both
races. It was customary at that day for the clergyman to kiss the bride.
This the clergyman forgot to do, for some reason. When about to take
leave of the couple the clergyman incidentally remarked that the
ceremony was incomplete without “the fee.” “Why,” said the groom, “I
sticks to de contrac’.” “Well, that is right,” said the clergyman, “for
you said if I would marry you like a white man you would pay me like a
white man.” “That’s jus’ so,” said the groom, “but you didn’t kiss the
bride.” “O well,” said the clergyman, “that is no matter, any way.” “O
well, it’s no matter ’bout de fee, any way,” said the groom.
Colored men who aspired to leadership among the colored people, and were
willing to stoop so low, when they knew better, saw that the support of
colored men, politically, religiously, or morally, would at once bring
them prestige, influence, and power with white men. To segregate the
colored people would, as Rev. Richard Allen intimated, create “a
necessity” for his services. If they remained associated with white
people, there would soon come a time when it would be impossible for him
to be of service to his people so as to benefit himself pecuniarily. We
do not aim here to charge all leaders of the race, political or
ecclesiastical, with perfidy, but to prove that it is not “instinct”
alone that is responsible for the segregation of the race, or that this
instinct will not allow them to associate on perfect equality with white
people; that it is not ordained of God that colored members must be
under colored pastors in colored Churches, controlled by colored men
_exclusively_. That the disposition of the more intelligent colored man
of the North rather seeks separation or independency, than segregation,
is being ocularly demonstrated annually, and becoming more acceptable as
he becomes more cultured. If this be not so, why is it that the cultured
young colored man, who “tips” his education in some Eastern or Northern
college, comes back South, dissatisfied to remain? Dr. Haygood must find
some better and more philosophical answer.
It is a fact that a great many colored men who aspire to leadership
politically and ecclesiastically, will deny what we have here said.
Indeed, we would have hesitated to speak so plainly were it not that we
wish, as much as possible, to give the bare facts of the case as they
appear to us, aside from any personal consideration. We believe, with
all the earnestness and candor of soul and mind, that this whole
“color-line” question, from beginning to end, lies at the feet of those
aspirants; that most of the opprobrium, ostracism, and caste prejudice
that did and do now exist against the race in this country, can be, and
is, impartially and legitimately traced to that source; and that the
separate African Churches in this country are the parents of not less
than ninety-five per cent of this hue and cry against Negro social
equality. They are easily conceived, therefore, to be the causes of all
other ecclesiastical unrest and “color-line” separations in this
country. This is so evident that he who runs may read it.
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