 Topic 20 Third Paper of 20th Century Negro Literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. Topic 20 Third Paper by Reverend Walter H. Brooks. Reverend Walter H. Brooks, DD, has a very unusual and interesting history. He was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia, August 30th, 1851. His parents belonging to different masters. In 1859, his mother's master died, and arrangements were made to sell her and her six children. She being allowed to select a purchaser if she could find one. Through a white friend, his father bought Dr. Brooks' mother, together with two of the youngest children. Walter H. Brooks and an elder brother were bought by a large tobacco manufacturing firm in Richmond. In 1861, the breaking out of the war affected the tobacco trade, and many of the tobacconists were obliged to sell or hire out their slaves. Walter and his brother David were hired by their mother, who each quarter of the year managed to pay the amount agreed upon. For the next three years, both of the boys worked, thereby aiding their mother in paying their hire. After the war, Walter H. Brooks for a short time attended a primary school in Richmond, taught by a young lady from the north. In October 1866, he had received one year's instruction when he went to Lincoln University, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He remained there seven years, graduating in 1872, and then entered a theological class for one year. During the second year of his seminary life, he was converted and became an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He expected to become a Presbyterian preacher, but in 1873, his ideas having made him a subject of baptism, he joined the first African Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia. For a short time, he was a clerk in the post office at Richmond, Virginia, but in 1874, having resigned his position, he entered the service of the American Baptist Publication Society in the state of Virginia. Having been ordained in December 1876, in April 1877, he accepted the pastorship of the Second Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, where he succeeded in paying off the entire debt of the church. In June 1880, he was sent as a delegate for the Virginia Baptist State Convention to the Baptist General Association in Session at Petersburg, and he was the first colored delegate received by that body. In September 1880, he resigned the charge of the church and went to New Orleans, Louisiana, to commence work in the American Baptist Publication Society's employee, but his wife's failing health caused him to return to Virginia in 1882. In November 1882, he was called to the pastorship of the 19th Street Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., where he has been ever since. Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tennessee, and State University, Louisville, Kentucky, both honored him with the title of Doctor of Divinity, while his alma mater in June 1883 conferred upon him the degree of MA. Recently, he was elected a trustee of the United Society of Christian Endeavor to represent the colored Baptists of the World. Dr. Brooks has distinguished himself as a temperance advocate, and for a number of years has been the chaplain of the Anti-Saloon League of the District of Columbia. This article printed some years since in the National Baptist of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on George Leo, the Black Apostle, and his more recent paper on the beginnings of Negro churches in America have won for him many praises. For 28 years, Dr. Brooks has been in public life, and his power as a speaker still gives him a commanding influence in the pulpit and on the platform. Dr. Brooks married Ms. Eva Holmes of the family of Reverend James H. Holmes of Richmond, Virginia, and this union resulted in the birth of ten children, eight of whom are living, four boys and four girls, the oldest born being 27 years of age, the youngest four years. The Christian religion is imminently adapted to the wants of humanity. It has always had a charm for lowly and oppressed peoples. It was therefore the one thing above all others which gave comfort and hope to the American Negro during the night of his long bondage. The story of the enslavement and marvelous deliverance of God's ancient people, of Daniel the prophet and the Hebrew youths whom God protected and honored in the house of their bondage, the Psalms of David, the sweet singer of Israel, the inspired narratives of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, the biblical account of the faith, sufferings and triumphs of the apostles, and the manifold promises of God made to all who served him in truth and patiently wait for their fulfillment could not fail and influence the conduct and life of American Negro slaves. It was in circumstances like these the Christian Negro many years ago sang out his hopes, his sorrows, and his soul yearnings in melodies peculiarly his own whose plaintive strains have been echoing around the globe for a generation and more. The balm of Gilead was never so soothing to the wounds of an Israelite as the gospel of Jesus Christ was in the dark days of slavery to the oppressed and soaring soul of the unfortunate Negro. It is not surprising therefore that at least one fourth of the entire Negro population of the country was devout Christians 40 years ago. While the entire Negro population was nominally believers in the living and true God and in Jesus Christ the savior of the world, whether the Negro Christian has lost some of his old time love for Christ and his zeal for the sanctuary is in the minds of some an open question. We, however, believe that the savior and the sanctuary are dearer to the Negro than ever. Indeed, so far as the census, which was taken by the United States in 1890, proves anything as to the matter of religion, the Negro is the most religious citizen of the country. Here is an extract from that report. The Negro population of the country, exclusive of Indian territory and Alaska, according to the census of 1890 is 7,470,040. As the churches report 2,673,197 Negro communicants, exclusive of the Indian territory and Alaska, it follows that one person in every 2079 of the Negro population is a communicant. Excluding Indian territory and Alaska, the total population is 62,622,250, and the total of the communicants 20,568,679. The proportion here is one communicant to every 3.04 of the population. In other words, while all denominations have 328.46 communicants in every 1,000 of the total population, the colored organizations reported have 357.86 communicants in every 1,000 of the Negro population. According to this showing, more than a third of the entire Negro population of the country was enrolled as active members of the churches 10 years ago. At the same time, less than a third of the white population was connected with the churches of the land. It remains to be seen whether the census of the United States, which is now in process of completion, will show any change in the relative strength of the Negro and white churches of the country. It is certain that the Negro Christian is displaying commendable zeal in erecting spacious houses of worship, in acquiring school property, in giving the gospel to the heathen in Africa and in other parts of the world, in raising funds for the cause of education, and in providing himself with the religious literature of his own making. In the quality of his religion, we dare say, there is room for improvement. But the changes mostly need for his highest good are intellectual, material, social, commercial, and political in nature, rather than religious. The Negro Christian is, as a rule, as good as he knows how to be. He often urrs, not knowing the scriptures, but sometimes plunges headlong into the ditch of shame because his spiritual advisor and instructor is a blind leader of the blind. Christian schools, however, are giving us better leaders every year, and the time is hastening when the Negro Christian of America shall be respected in love because of his intelligence, his Christian piety, his zeal for God's cause, his manly bearing, his general worth as a moral and material contributor to the well-being both of the state and of the country, which claim him as a citizen, and because of his excellent spirit and gentlemanly deportment. End of topic 20, third paper. Topic 20, fourth paper of 20th Century Negro Literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. 20th Century Negro Literature. Topic 20, fourth paper by Reverend H. H. Proctor. Henry H. Proctor was born near Fayetteville, Tennessee, December 8, 1868. After completing the public school course of his native town, he studied in Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, from which school he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, June 1891. That fall he entered the Divinity School of Vielle University, graduating three years later. He was assigned by the faculty to the post of honor among the chosen orators of the class. He had once entered upon the pastored of the first congregational church of Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Proctor has lectured extensively in many parts of the country, his best known lecture being The Black Man's Burden. He has been active in preventing legislation in Georgia adverse to the colored race, especially majors designed to restrict the franchise and cut down public school facilities of the Negro. He is correspondent for a number of northern periodicals and extracts from his sermons are published weekly in the Atlanta Constitution, the leading daily of the South. At his recent seventh anniversary as pastor, many letters of congratulation came from all parts of the country, one being from principal Booker T. Washington, whose esteem and friendship he enjoys. In the historic development of Christianity, race and religion have a reciprocal relation. Conversion has involved a mutual conquest. The religion has modified the race and the race has modified the religion. Every race that his embraced Christianity has by developing that element of truth for which it has affinity, brought to the system its own peculiar contribution. In the Semitic race, the high priest of humanity, Christianity was born. Salvation is of the Jews. Israel's code of ethics was the highest known to antiquity. It was but natural that the Hebrew should leave upon the newborn system the impress of his genius for ethics. Hellenism may be regarded as the complement and contrast of Hebraism. Hebraism revealed the transcendent of Jehovah. Hellenism declared the divinity of man. The Greek preeminent in philosophy as a pagan became as a Christian preeminent in theology. He blended the complemental conceptions of divinity and humanity. If the contributions of the Hebrew was ethical, that of the Greek was theological. The Latin mind, practical rather than speculative, political rather than theological, established the civitus day where once stood the civitus Roma. This ecclesiastical masterpiece of human wisdom may still exist in undiminished vigorous as Macaulay, where some traveler from New Zealand shall in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. Truly the Church of Rome has left upon Christianity an ineffacable political impress. The Teutonic mind, fresh vigorous, even childlike in its simplicity and love of reality, accustomed to enjoy the freedom peculiar to lands where the national will is the highest law, would not brook the inflexible dogmatism of the Greek nor the iron ecclesiasticism of the Roman. The Teuton loved liberty in religion as well as in other things. He asserted his right to stand before his God for himself. The free spirit revealed in Christianity through Luther can never die. Christianity as an authoritative letter is Roman. As a free spirit it is Teutonic. The Saxon preeminent incapacity for developing ideas has so assimilated Christianity as to become its noblest representative. Enterprise in energy, vigor and thrift, striking characteristics of this great race, are becoming part and parcel of our Christianity. This is the missionary age and it is the enterprise in Saxon unchecked and undaunted by sword, flame or flood that is enriching the globe with a girdle of divine light. And yet our Christianity is not complete. Notwithstanding its moral stamina, its philosophic basis and its organic solidarity, its free spirit and its robust energy, do we not feel there is something lacking still, does not our Christianity lack in its gentler virtues? To what nation shall we look for the desert derotomy? Shall it not be to the vast unknown continent if the Jew has modified our religion by his ethics? The Greek by his philosophy, the Roman by his polity, the Teuton by his love of liberty, and the Saxon by his enterprise, shall not the African by his characteristic qualities of heart bring a new and peculiar contribution to Christianity? The Negro is nothing if not religious. His religion touches his heart 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 Africa'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 and 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 saved 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 the people who had suffered two and a half centuries of unattoned 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 Cassie and Uncle Tom. Unsuccessful in her attempts to urge him to kill their inhuman master, Cassie determines to do it herself. With flashing eyes her blood boiling with indignation long suppressed, the much abuse Creole woman exclaims, His times come, I'll have his heart's blood. No, no, says Uncle Tom. No, you poor lost soul, that you 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. How ere it be it seems to me, it is only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith the 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 Johannine. Paul, with his consuming energy, carrying the gospel to the uttermost parts, stands for the fight 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. Complimentary opposites, not irreconcilable opponents. The Jew has given us ethics, the Greek philosophy, the Roman law, the Tuten 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. End of topic 24th paper by Reverend H. H. Proctor. Topic 25th paper of 20th century Negro literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. 20th century Negro literature. Topic 25th paper by Reverend 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 size volume rather than a page of this book, as his life has been replete with thrilling romantic incidents. The Reverend Mr. Kerr graduated with honors, having received the degree of AB from Rodin College, Leeds, England. He returned it once to the West Enties, 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 headmaster. 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 Haiti, whereas everywhere he did good work. In 1873, he was appointed professor at the National Lyceum College for Boys and Young Ladies, where he did effective and extensive missionary work in Cape Haitian, Grand Riviera, and Dondon, and maintained considerable influence with the Haitian officials and authorities. In 1880, he was advanced to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church of America by the right Reverend J. T. H. Holly, D. D. L. L. D., Bishop of Haiti. 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 Haiti. On landing in New York, his reception by Bishop Horatio Potter was cordial in the extreme. The same by Bishop's Little John of Long Island, T. A. Starkey of Northern New Jersey, T. M. Clark of Warwick, Rhode Island, M. A. DeWolf Howell, Central Pennsylvania, William C. Done, Albany, Alfred Lee, Primate, Delaware, W. B. Stevens, Pennsylvania, H. A. Neely of Maine, A. C. Cox, Western New York. He occupied the pulpits of the leading Episcopal churches in New York, Old Trinity, Grace Church, St. Chrysostoms, St. Paul's, St. Phillips and others. The leading churches in Brooklyn, Youngers, Newport, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Orange, New Jersey, Syracuse, Saratoga Springs, Utica, Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Sing-Sing, Berrytown, Territown, Philadelphia, Germantown, Ashbourne, Redding and Cheltenham and many others. In 1883 he was sent to Jamaica West Indies and the following year he was appointed by the Provincial Synod under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, London, England, Rector of the Panama Railroad Church and Archdeacon 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 the 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 and 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 imminent Englishman of the present day. Cultivated, graceful, refined, Christianized. When we remember that his distant ancestors were wild and bloody savages, that it took centuries to change his forefathers from rudeness and brutality into enlightened, civilized Christians, there's 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 to 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 500 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, nevertheless 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 conquest 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 molded 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 today 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 evancipation 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. Kinmot 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 with all. Adamson, the traveler who visited Senegal in 1754, said, The Negroes are sociable, humane, obliging, unhospitable, and they have generally preserved an estimable simplicity of domestic matters. 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. Riley also at a great meeting in London said, There isn't these people a hitherto undiscovered mind 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 meagles 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 the doubt that this work which God has begun and is carrying on is for the mental and spiritual elevation of the Negro. End of Topic 20, Fifth Paper. Topic 21, First Paper of 20th Century Negro Literature This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Patterson. 20th Century Negro Literature. Topic 21, First Paper. Does the North afford to the Negro better opportunities of making a living than the South? By Reverend J. H. Anderson, Doctor of Divinity. Reverend J. H. Anderson was born June 30th, 1848 in Frederick, Maryland. 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 racist 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. The race affinities produce natural and social relations promotive of their varied interests. The Negroes' 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, hairdresser, 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 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 free-holding and tax-paying Negroes in the north are from the south and southern Negro labor is preferred in the north as it is 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 taxpayers 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 not withstanding 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. But here as a heathen, the Negro soon exchanged feticism 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 36 years a progress in the acquisition of wealth that is without parallel in history. The prejudices of the whites against the Negro have rather helped him and 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. End of Topic 21 First Paper Topic 21, Second Paper of 20th Century Negro Literature This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Patterson, 20th Century Negro Literature Topic 21, Second Paper Does the North afford to the Negro better opportunities of making a living than the South? By Professor W. H. Council, Ph.D. W. H. Council was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina 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 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, Alabama 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 to 1874. He was appointed by President Grant Receiver of the Land Office of 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 means standing as a public speaker. Professor Council has traveled quite extensively in Europe and was warmly received and entertained by the honorable W.E. Gladstone and His Majesty King Leopold of Belgium. And thus by Ernest Toyle, 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. Professor Council is proud to be known as a friend to Africa. He is cooperating with Bishop Turner in the redemption and civilization of that continent. Normal under Professor Council is educating Native Africans for this purpose. He has received the degree of PhD from Morris Brown College. Professor Council 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 a 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 25 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 the Southern Negroes, who are more self-assertive and persistent in their makeup, 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. In a country where competition is sharp, as in this country, and where any kind of excitement is resorted to in order to give advantage to its competitors, the minority race, especially in inferior circumstances, must suffer along lines of battle for bread in which the masses engage. Thus it is, while the Northern Negro enjoys high privileges of an intellectual character among the classes, he is bumped, shunned, and pushed to the rear among the quarreling, scrambling masses. There are scattered far and wide a few Negroes in the North who are doing well in business. They get the patronage of their white neighbors. There are few communities in the North where the Negro population is strong enough to support a Negro in business if the race lines were drawn in business. I think the voluntary collections of like tribes and races of men, as Italians, Jews, Chinese, Poles, Norwegians, Swedes, and the like, and settlements in our large cities and some country districts, show clearly the gregarious disposition of like peoples, and from time out of mind each tribe, clan, or race, has depended upon itself for patronage and support. In order for the Negro to succeed in any considerable degree in business in the North, it would be necessary to increase the Negro population in that section. As I have intimated above, there are few fields for operation in the North for Negroes, regardless of their ability to succeed, for there are few cases where Negro patronage is not limited to the Negro population. While occasionally a few Negroes may get patronage from the other clans and tribes, it is nevertheless true that as a general rule, the aim is to keep the trade in the family, as it were. Every whip of tribal differentiation and prejudice is applied to enforce a rigid observance of this general rule. I think that we may logically conclude that the opportunity for that training and education, which could make the Northern Negro immediately useful to the mass of the race, and the opportunity to gather material wealth, are not ideal in the North. 92% of the Negro population reside in the South, where slavery left them. Under normal conditions there should be 92% of Negro wealth, thrift, and energy in the South. The opportunity to accumulate wealth and the accumulation are different. The Southern Negro is a wealth producer. He does four-fifths of the agricultural labor of the South, and thereby adds four-fifths to the wealth of the South derived from agriculture, the leading Southern industry. If the whole of the billion dollars to the credit of the Negro race were placed to the credit of the Southern Negro alone, it would be less than half of what he should have saved since the war. The Negroes of the South handled more money than New England did 100 years ago, and yet New England would be glad to place her barrels of gold and silver at nominal interest, so rich has she grown, although in the chilly winds of the Northeast. The opportunities for the Southern Negro are as good for material gain as are enjoyed by any other people in this country. The census of 1890 shows 224 occupations, followed by the wage earners of the United States. The Negroes are represented in every one of these occupations, grouped under five heads, professional, agriculture, trade and transportation, manufacturers and personal service. The Southern Negro, while not in all of them, occupies in the South the vantage ground and those that bring the most independence in living. We must not forget that agriculture is what we might call the staple industry of the South. I am indebted to Honorable Judson W. Lyons, Register of the United States Treasury, for the following statistics showing the wonderful influence of Negro labor in the commercial industries of the world. More cotton is exported from the United States than any other article. In the last 10 years, 30 billion pounds of cotton, valued at $225 million, have been exported. The United States produces more cotton than all the balance of the world. The cotton manufacturers of Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy depend upon our cotton exports. 10 years ago, $354 million were invested in cotton manufacturers, employing 221,585 operatives who received for wages $67,489,000 per annum. The South produced from 1880 to 1890, 620 million bushels of corn, 78 million bushels of wheat, and 97 million bushels of oats. The Negro performed four-fifths of the labor of the South, as we have seen. Therefore, his share in the average annual production in the last 10 years would be 6,988,000 bales of cotton, valued at $209,640,000. In the last 10 years, the Negro's part of the production of corn, wheat, oats and cotton was 431,320,000 per annum. The entire cotton acreage of the South would form an area of 40,000 square miles. Negro labor cultivates 32,000 square miles of this space. 57% of the Negro race are engaged in agricultural pursuits and 31% are engaged in personal service. Therefore, 88% of the wage earners of the race in the South are engaged in these two pursuits, or in other words, 88% of the wage earners of the race have opportunity for profitable employment. Where the masses of the Negroes are found and can get paying work, as they can in the South, there we must expect the greatest prosperity among Negroes. Our expectation is highly gratified in this case in the South. No doubt if the 92% Negro population were to exchange places with the 8%, the opportunities now held out in the South would be transferred to the North. Our opportunities over those enjoyed by our Northern brethren are the creatures of accidents rather than of our meritorious invention. The opportunities to win character and wealth afforded the Negroes of the South by agriculture and domestic service are probably better than are enjoyed by any other class of people in the world. The field is broad and ripe and the Negro must now see and seize these opportunities or they will pass from the race forever. No peasant population ever had more favorable environments. The Negro does not only do four-fifths of the agricultural labor of the South, but he has the opportunity to own four-fifths of the land he cultivates. This opportunity is not enjoyed by any other peasant class in the world. As I see it, the greatest success for the Negro race in America lies in the farm. There he meets the least resistance and obtains the greatest sustenance. Their color prejudice is almost unknown. While everywhere in the mechanic arts prejudice is bitter, competition is sharp, and the chances for success are small. This is a matter which the Negro must seriously consider now or weep over his procrastination. The drift to the cities to exchange the free, honest, healthful, plenious conditions of farm life for the miserable slums, sin and squalor of city life must be checked. Our boys and girls must be educated for the farm. It would be hard to find a people better suited for domestic and personal service than the Negro, and all the elements which are necessary for personal and domestic service, the Negro cannot be excelled. He is not treacherous. He forms no plots and schemes to entrap his master. He resorts to no violent incendiary measures of avenging himself against his master, but he humbly and tamely submits to the conditions, ever looking for betterment through superhuman agencies. If the South would only look this matter squarely in the face, it would admit that it has the best service on earth, and would vote liberal appropriations for the development of Negro education of every character. It may seem to persons not informed incredible, but it is no less a fact that where racial prejudice runs highest in the South and the demarcation between the races is most distinct along social lines. There the Negro is most prosperous and, strange to say, advances most rapidly in material wealth. Self-help, self-dependence, faith in self seem to spur to success as nothing else does. The drug store is the creature of Anglo-Saxon prejudice and denying Negro's accommodations at the Soda Water Fountains run by white men. In a score of channels, the Negro is pushed on to success by Anglo-Saxon discrimination. What seems a curse is in reality a blessing to the race. Anglo-Saxon prejudice forces the Negro to take advantage of his great opportunity to get rich. End of Topic 21, Second Paper Topic 22, First Paper of 20th Century Negro Literature. This is a LibruVox recording. All LibruVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibruVox.org. Recording by Shasta, Oakland, California. 20th Century Negro Literature. Topic 22, First Paper by Professor Arthur St. George Richardson. What is the Negro teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race? Far out in mid-Atlantic Ocean, about 700 miles east of New York lies the group of sunny aisles known as the Bermudus. On one of these beautiful coral formations, called St. George's, was born July 5, 1863, the subject of this writing. Arthur was sent to Canada in 1878 to attend the public schools of St. John's, New Brunswick. Being an apt pupil, he soon finished the curriculum of studies of the grammar schools, and in 1880 entered the high school, from which in three years time he was graduated. Not considering his education complete at this point, Arthur matriculated at the University of New Brunswick at Frederickton in the fall of the same year. Being the first and only colored man to enter this institution of higher learning. As in the high school, so now in college, young Arthur distinguished himself among his classmates by winning a scholarship and at times leading his class in Greek. He was graduated from the University with honors in Classics, June 1886. He was then elected principal of the Wilberforce Collegiate Institute at Chatham, Ontario, where he served one year, increasing the attendance and greatly improving the work of the school. The following year, 1887, he returned to his native home and visited his parents from home. He had been separated nine years. The next year, after his return to Canada, he was invited by Bishop W. J. Gaines to come to Georgia and assume the Principalship of Morris Brown College in Atlanta. After much hesitancy, Mr. Richardson accepted the invitation and took charge of Morris Brown College when it was a school of small proportions and modest pretensions. Here, Professor Richardson served ten successive years, each year adding something to the fame and increasing popularity of the school. In 1898, he was offered the presidency of Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida by Bishop W. J. Gaines, who felt that the educational work in Florida then needed just such a person as Professor Richardson had proven himself to be in Georgia. Resigning his position in Atlanta, he came to Florida and at once set to work to restore Edward Waters College to the confidence of the people. In a year's time, the school was again assuming the flourishing condition that at once had. The great fire of Jacksonville, May 3, 1901, caused him to lose all his possessions in the destruction of the college buildings. Nevertheless, he had held on unblinchingly to the work and at great sacrifice and loss has kept the school together and is now serving his fourth year at the head of this institution. An examination into the earliest records of history will reveal a fact that is not observant to the casual reader, that man, as an individual, has ever been groping in darkness, seeking hither and thither to find a ray of light that would safely guide him and lead him through the mystic veil of doubt and uncertainty. Be a light to his pathway, a lantern to his feet. To this end, he has lent all of his energies and directed all of his forces. Long and tedious have been the ways and the journeys, yet on and upward he has continued to travel through storm and tempest, amid trials and vexations, until finally, after many centuries of progressive endeavor and honorable achievements, he has reached the loftiest pinnacle of fame. And there, on its rugged summit, has inscribed in letters the goal, the result of his many conquests in literature, science, and art, in religion, philosophy, and commerce. We use the generic term man as embracing all the various descendants of the sons of Noah, for each race variety has, in its turn, played its part in producing the high degree of civilization that it is now our heritage and privilege to enjoy. Each has been an important factor in the development of some element that is essentially its own. And thus reviewing the early history of the world, we also find that the peoples who sat in darkness were brought to the light only through the agency of the teachers of the times in which they lived. Who made Egypt renowned? Were they not her great teachers whose pupils came from far and near to learn, as it were, the foundation steps of our great civilization? Who in China is better known to the world than the Greek teacher Confucius? Who gave to Greece her renown for philosophy and art? Was it not Aristotle and Plato? Mention Rome and the names of Antelion and Cicero are recalled to our minds as the foremost educators. The Israelites had their prophets to instruct them until the great teacher came to earth to enlighten all mankind. What was best and noblest in the systems of the famous teachers before the advent of Christ was crystallized into the method adopted by the Son of Man? He came to elevate the whole man who shed light into his whole being, his mind, his body, and his soul. Many and various have been the devices of mortal man to imitate the plan of the master. And yet, after centuries of earnest endeavor, we have recently begun to recognize the fact that complete success in the education of man lies in the secret of training the whole man, mind, body, and soul. Passing over the long period of scholastic apathy in European history, we come to a more recent epoch of intellectual awakening in the founding of great universities and state colleges. These several institutions, heard the instructions given by their most eminent teachers, have of themselves made the respective places of their establishment famous in both atmospheres. Between the periods of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in America, educational interests seem to be centered mainly in the cultivation of the intellect as the only part of man that required special training. The abolition of slavery and the consequent endeavor to enlighten the freed men gave rise to a new phase of educational activity. This new ideal was the training of the body and the soul, along with that of the mind. This system naturally reduced the length of time usually devoted to mind culture in proportion as time was required for the training of the hand and the cultivation of the moral side of man. Foremost among the early teachers to inaugurate this system were, this is Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, this is Sarah J. Early, and Bishop John M. Brown. As a result of their efforts in this direction, we have Wilberforce University, the first school by Negro teachers to follow the plan of the great teacher. Since the establishment of Wilberforce in the North, many similar institutions have been founded in order to give the brother in black an opportunity to show to the world what the Negro teacher is doing and can do toward uplifting his race. It is a difficult matter to estimate the good that a true teacher can do, be he of whatever race variety, but to calculate on the noble work of the majority of the self-sacrificing and virtuous Negro teachers is the task beyond the ability of man. Bishop Daniel A. Payne, the apostle of an educated ministry, is known throughout the country for the noble work he did in teaching the people at large, as well as his immediate pupils, both how to live and how to die. Almost every educated Negro preacher has at some period of his scholastic career served in the capacity of a teacher, and therefore, after his advent through the gospel, ministry has continued to instruct the people under the same principles of teaching. To be a teacher in the strict sense of the word requires the possession of certain qualities of mind and soul, and the power to exercise these qualities in such a manner as to awaken in the mind of another. Thoughts similar to those of the person assuming to teach, and thereby causing the mental activity on the part of the learner to become knowledge and power. We, therefore, hold that the Negro teacher has acted along the method here described, and has thus been the means of enlightening the masses of the colored people that lay claim to any degree of education, whatever. What the Negro teacher has accomplished has been done not from a selfish motive or a mercenary point of view, but primarily because he has endeavored to do his part toward elevating the race with which he is identified. If it is true that the salvation of the Negro lies in his being educated, then to the Negro teacher must be attributed the greater portion of his salvation. Again, the majority of the Negro teachers are Christian men and women of high moral character, and as such are shining lights in the community in which they may be engaged in teaching. The good they thus do is not confined to the school or classroom, but permeates every sphere of society, ennobling and enriching the thoughts and minds of all with whom they may have dealings, both by their chaste conversation and by their upright and godly life. The Negro teacher, therefore, wields an influence for good, not only by precept, but what is considered far better, also by example. Furthermore, the Negro teacher in the day school invariably becomes a teacher in the Sunday school of the town where he happens to be living, and here again he exerts a power for good, confirming and strengthening the teachings of the past week. Aside from his professional duties, the Negro teacher is often called upon to decide on matters of grave importance. In many cases, he is the attorney for individuals who are unable to secure the services of a competent lawyer. In this capacity, he often acts as justice of the peace, as well as a peacemaker, thereby allaying strife and contention. From early morning to late at night, the Negro teacher is besieged by questions of every sort and kind, which he must satisfactorily answer to the benefit of the inquirer, be he farmer or blacksmith, preacher or vagrant. In fact, the Negro teacher in the rural districts answers the purposes of a Bureau of Information. Such is the lot of the average Negro teacher, that there are exceptions need not here be stated. From what he has done on a small scale may be inferred from what is being done on a larger basis of operation by the best and most renowned of the Negro teachers. In nearly every southern state of the Union may be found some one or two famous educators and teachers of Negro descent. Professor John R. Hawkins of North Carolina, Commissioner of Education of the AME Church has established Kittrell College. Professor J. C. Price gave us Livingston College in North Carolina. Professor E. A. Johnson of Virginia has written a worthy history of the Negro race, now in use as a textbook in many public schools. In South Carolina, we find results of the great work in science by Professor J. W. Hoffman. Georgia is proud of Professor R. R. Wright, President of the State Industrial College at Savannah, orator and historian. Also, Professor W. H. Crogman, scholar and author. In Florida, the names of Professor T. D. S. Tucker, Professor T. V. Gibbs and Professor T. W. Talley stand high as eminent scholars and professional teachers. Alabama is rich in having the foremost men of the race as her Greek teachers. Professor B. T. Washington, founder and principal of Tuskegee Institute and Professor W. H. Counsel, President of the State Normal and Industrial College at Normal. And thus, we might mention each state and her eminent Negro teachers, but it is not necessary. The above suffices our purpose. And yet, we would not conclude without referring to the noble work of Professor W. S. Scarborough of Wilberforce, Ohio. He has gone a step beyond the ordinary and given us a Greek textbook that has been adopted in many schools. Moreover, his contributions to the leading magazines and periodicals are equally sought and read by the best scholars of the day without reference to race. With this accumulated force of intelligence radiating its numerous beams of light in every section of the land, one need not seek far to find an answer to the query. What is the Negro teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race? As we endeavored to show in the beginning that it was through the instrumentality of their teachers that many countries acquired fame and gave to posterity a name honorable and glorious. So now the Negro teacher in his weak strength is laying the foundation for successive generations to build upon. A foundation more durable than stone or granite, more valuable than rubies or diamonds. The cultivation of the morals, the training of the hand, and the enlightenment of the mind. With an informed mind, a skillful hand, and an upright conduct, there is no reason why the Negro should not take his place upon the stage of action. Play well, his part, in the drama of life and meritoriously receive the plaudits of the gazing nations of the world. End of topic 22, first paper. Topic 22, second paper of 20th century Negro literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, according by Shasta Oakland, California. 20th century Negro literature. Topic 22, second paper by Professor E.L. Blacksheeran. What is the Negro teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race? Professor E.L. Blacksheeran was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1862. He was educated in the Negro public schools of Montgomery. So rapid had been his progress that he graduated from Tabor College at the age of 18. Professor Blacksheer is now principal of Prairie View State Normal School and Industrial College of Texas. The following is the testimony of Professor Blacksheer concerning his grandmother. These words give us a glimpse of the right side of slave life and the ideal mammy of the antebellum southern plantation home. My grandmother was a remarkable woman. She idolized my mother, the only child the slavery had allowed her to keep. When grandma was sold from Georgia to Alabama, the humanity of her Georgia owners caused them to sell mother and child to the same people. My grandmother, although ignorant, had a profound belief in education. But if she knew absolutely nothing of the world of letters, she had something as good, perhaps better, a warm, honest, loving heart, and Christian principles. She had genuine hatred for dirt and disorder, in regard of mounting to a fearful reverence for white people of quality, and a great and ill disguised contempt for common shiflus, darkies, and low-bred whites. She was the best type of the faithful and efficient slave, but was as a cook that grandma reputation was known in two states. To my youthful imagination, she was a magician. Things she cooked for the white folks seemed so good to me. I think now of the batter cakes, the light rolls, the silla baba, the sally lung, the ship ships, and the wafers grandma made. The light bread she made is made no more. It is a lost art, an art that died with grandma. When the Negroes were set free, the first aim of thousands was to learn to read and write. Gray-haired veterans of the plantations sat side-by-side in the day schools, as well as in the night schools, with the smallest picaninis, and all seemed eager to learn the mysterious arts of the schoolroom. The schoolbook, in the eyes of the unlettered slave, was a sort of fetish to which he attributed the power of the white man. The young slave could follow his master to the door of the schoolhouse, but thus far and no farther. The mysterious rites and ceremonies which went on within were forbidden him. Human nature has ever been curious to know that the knowledge of which is prohibited and so the slave had a great curiosity to master the printed page, and do we admit it to the privileges of the schoolroom? It was not surprising that the whole race tried to go to school, and it need not surprise us if, in the enthusiasm for book learning, from which the race had been so strictly debarred, too much stress may have been placed on mere book learning, and too much confidence placed in the formal processes of the schoolroom. But better even this exaggerated enthusiasm than indifference to all education of the schoolroom. The race would soon learn that the blue-backed Webster's speller was not the magic wand that would turn all troubles and difficulties into success and prosperity. But the ability to spell B-A-B-A. K-E-R-K-E-R. Baker would buy no bread of the baker, while the public to read, do we go up by it, was painful, praiseworthy effort, would help the X-Lave, but little as he strove to go up by the dangers ahead of him. But they went to school, all of them at first, or all that could possibly do so, either by day or by night. It is not recorded that the chickens of that time had rest, but it must be that they did, or verily, in the first mad rush of letters. Even chickens must have been forgotten by a race whose predilection for them has furnished the point for many a joke, as well as the occasion for painful, if not indignant, regret on the part of those whose fouls may have been abstracted. And it is a hopeless sign for the future of the Negro that while his first wild enthusiasm for the schoolhouse has been moderated, his real desire for educational improvement continues strong and steady. He will go to school, the public school, when he can, and the higher institutions for his race are all filled to their capacity and are expanding. Will not this first for knowledge on the part of a so lately savage race bear good fruit both for the Negro and for humanity? Will not this first for knowledge on the part of a so lately savage race bear good fruit both for the Negro and for humanity? Will not this first for knowledge on the part of a so lately savage race bear good fruit both for humanity? I have answered by coming in the face of an inevitable social ostracism to light the torch of thought in a region hitherto unblessed by a single ray of education's light. The first Negro schools were taught by these white ladies at Charleston, at Atlanta, at Montgomery, at New Orleans, at Austin, and at the other great centers of the South's Negro population. The success of the first labors of this devoted band led to the foundation of permanent institutions for the elementary and later for the normal and collegiate instruction of the Negro youth. At Nashville, at Atlanta, at Raleigh, at Memphis, and at New Orleans, institutions were founded which have become great schools and have contributed beyond measure to the process of civilizing the Negro as a mass, a process confessedly still far from completion. Complicated and annoying as the race problem assuredly is and will be for years to come at the South, it would be far worse, much farther away from even a hopeful degree of solution, but for the work done by the missionary colleges. The missionary schools of which Fisk, Atlanta, Strait, Roger Williams, and Central Tennessee may be taken as types, furnished the first Negro school teachers, and the Negro owes to these schools founded and maintained in the spirit of the purest Christian philanthropy a debt he can never repay in either kind of equality. The nearest light payment he can make is to imitate the beautiful, pure, devoted lives of the missionary teachers. Too much cannot be said in praise of their labors. Perhaps if only the missionary Christian teachers had come and the political missionaries had remained at home, all might have been better. But the missionary schools could reach but few. How was the great mass of the colored population to be educated? This was the question, and it was a most serious one. But the answer came not from the federal government, as some expected, that source from which so many had looked to get the mythical mule and the legendary 40 acres. It came from the south, from the wasted resources of the former master. History furnishes no precedent as it affords no parallel to the action of the excess slaveholders. A dominant race in entering at once before any opportunity had been afforded for recuperation from the losses of the Civil War on the expensive work of giving a public school system to their former slaves. Now, technically, at least, their political equals. And nothing can be gained by the Negro in refusing gratitude to the South for this most magnanimous act in policy. An instance of this unselfish policy of the South in its attitude toward Negro education is seen in the history of Texas, the most liberal as well as the most progressive of the Southern Commonwealth's. The Constitutional Convention of 1876, which of course was democratic, framed the present state constitution of Texas, and in it, absolutely equal provision is made for both the elementary and the higher education of the Negro youth of Texas. And it is to the credit of Texas as an enlightened state as well as fortunate for her Negro population that in the distribution of the Magnificent School Fund of the State, no discrimination is made between the races. The Negro public schools are doing a great work for the elevation of the colored people. In a silent, unobtrusive way, these schools are leavening the thought and life of the race. The status in progress of the Negro are too commonly engaged by the deeds of the loafing and the criminal element. The honest, law-abiding Negro who has a home, is getting a little property, has a small bank account, and is educating his children to useful citizenship attracts little or no attention. But a race that has, in a generation, since chattel slavery gotten property worth by reliable estimate, upward of $400 million, has been doing something. All of such a race are not either lazy, vicious, or immoral. The public school is doing effective work for the Negroes of the South in awakening in them a desire for better ways of living and higher ideals of conduct. Much remains to be done, but that already accomplished is an earnest or better work yet to be done. The Negro public school teacher has been more than a mere schoolkeeper. No class of educators in any race has done more, all things considered. The colored teacher has been a herald of civilization to the youth and his people. His superior culture and character enacted as a powerful stimulus to the easily roused imagination of the colored youth. And the black boy feels in the presence of the black professor to him the embodiment of learning that he too can become something. At first, he does not know what that something is, but he determines to be somebody and to make a place and a standing for himself in the world. In this way, the colored school teacher is leading his race up from slavery, that is, from the slavery of ignorance and superstition of intellectual and moral inertia, of aimlessness and shiftlessness into the freedom of intelligence, of energy, ambition, and industry. Lincoln removed the formal yoke of a legal bondage, but the colored teacher is helping his race to get free a second time from a bondage just as calling the bondage of intellectual and moral blindness and of industrial independence. Walker T. Washington is such a teacher, a teacher indeed, and a leader of a race. And what Mr. Washington himself, a product of the missionary schools, is doing in a large way as the teacher and leader of the entire race in America, hundreds, thousands of colored teachers in city and village, in the malarial river bottoms and among the pine clad hills, are doing in a local but no less effective, no less comprehensive way. These colored men and women, many of whom are people of genuine culture and character, are giving their lives to the upbuilding of a race, and it is for them a labor of love. These teachers teach by example as well as by precept. Their homes are models in neatness and refinement that are readily imitated by the other colored people of the community. It is to the credit of the colored teacher that he is, with rare exceptions, a model in his moral conduct and home life, and sets a high standard for his race, which they invariably, some of them, seek to follow. The colored teacher, too, has always been conservative and has been the wise advisor of his people, himself dependent on the sentiment of the best white people of the community. He has usually won the confidence and respect of the white people, and they in turn have given him their moral support in the work of improving the minds, morals, and habits of the Negro youth of the community. In this way, it is throughout the entire South, the best white people of the community, by maintaining public schools for the Negro youth, and by cooperation with the colored teacher, and often by personal interest in the work of both teacher and pupil, are actually aiding, most effectively, if not really directing, the educational development of the colored race. It is also greatly to the credit of the colored teacher in the South that he has not gotten above his race or tried to leave them, but has remained at his post and in his place doing the duty Providence has assigned and content to leave results to God and the future. End of topic 22, second paper, topic 22, third paper of 20th century Negro literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shasta, Oakland, California. 20th century Negro literature, topic 22, third paper by Professor Thomas Washington Talley. What is the Negro teacher doing in the matter of uplifting his race? Thomas Washington Talley is a native of Bedford County, Tennessee. His boyhood was spent upon his father's farm where he imbibed a love of nature. Some of the experiments made by him as a child with some of the lower animals have proven most valuable aids in answering scientific problems encountered in later years. In 1883 he entered the preparatory department of Fisk University and after three years of study was admitted to college. He began teaching in the public schools of his native state at the age of 12. By teaching during his summer vacations and by obtaining state scholarships through competitive examinations, he secured a larger portion of the means necessary for his support in college. He graduated from the Classical course of Fisk University in 1890, receiving the degree of AB from 1890 to 1891. He was a member of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers who raised funds for the building of the Fisk Theological Seminary. In this company it was his duty, aside from singing, to present the needs of the school. This he did with much eloquence and his appeals were always answered by the liberal contributions. In 1892 he received the degree of AM from his alma mater or a special work done in natural philosophy Latin and German. On October 1, 1896 he matriculated in the graduate department of Central Tennessee College, now Walden University. Having spent the two preceding summers in resident work along the lines indicated by his courses of study in the institution, he selected courses leading to the degree of Doctor of Science. He has been chiefly engaged in educational work and has held the following positions. Instructor in Mathematics and Music, Alcorn A&M College, West Side Mississippi, two years. Professor of Natural Sciences, five years, and Vice President, two years in the State N&I College, Tallahassee, Florida. He at present occupies the chair of Natural Philosophy and General Analytical and Industrial Chemistry in the Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama. He is a member of the American Ornithologists Union, the Michigan Ornithological Club, a Vice President of the Florida Audubon Society, and a fellow of the American Negro Academy. He is considered an authority in biology and chemistry. As soon as the clouds of Civil War had cleared from our country and the Negro had become a free man, the question immediately presented itself as to how we could be made worthy of citizenship and capable of exercising the rights and privileges of free government. Free government exists through intelligence and integrity in citizens. A whole system of slavery at which the Negro had been schooled was such as to leave him without either intelligence or integrity. It rather taught him that deception was a better way to recognition than decency, and that whatever supplied his wants, regardless of its nature, was the means to be used. As the Negro stepped forth from the darkness of bondage into the light of freedom, the eye of his mind, accustomed to the blackest and lowest, was not ready to exercise the function thus suddenly thrust upon it. It was blinded and needed treatment that it might be so reconstructed as to guide and lead a right in this new atmosphere to which it had suddenly gained admission. The Negro came from slavery and want of training, and training is requisite through citizenship. A man to be trained symmetrically must be trained mentally, morally, and physically. Although this symmetrical training is much a result of personal effort, the effort must be directed by an intelligent, interested teaching. It is to such teaching that the Negro school teacher has directed and is directing his efforts. The first schools established distinctively for Negroes in our country were supported and taught by philanthropic white people of the north. At the date of the founding of these schools, there were practically no Negro teachers, and in these institutions fostered by concentrated white men and women. Negro boys and girls began to receive training through which they developed into the first teachers of the race. These schools, begun by philanthropy, although at first they did primary work, have developed into the Negro colleges, normal schools, and industrial schools of the south. These schools of higher learning are still manned largely by white men and women. Thus, the work of the Negro teacher is almost entirely limited to a few state colleges and to the public schools of the southern cities and of the country districts. The special point of excellence which characterizes the work of the Negro teacher is its interestedness, whatever may be the sentiment in other sections. In the south, the real home of the Negro, every Negro standing is gauged by the standing of the whole race, in case of those who are most kindly disposed to him, while those who are illy disposed judge all by the lowest of the race. There is little or no recognition of individual merit except insofar as it meets the approval of his southern white neighbor. Such being the case, the Negro teacher, realizing that their own elevation comes only through and insofar as the whole race is elevated, have a double stimulus for zealously doing their best work. First, their love for the race which naturally springs up between those of the same blood and of the same descent. And second, a selfish reason, their personal elevation which only comes through the elevation of the whole race. Such interested teaching is not without its effect. Illiteracy is disappearing from day to day. A consultation of the latest census reports and a contrasting of them with those previously taken will show that the Negro has wiped out some of his illiteracy and is increasing in wealth, intelligence, and so forth. Yes, in all that which will finally force his recognition as a full-fledged American citizen without any ifs, except that he be as any other man in possessions, in mind, and in character. The Negro teachers are more and more studying the needs of their race and are shaping their work to meet the demands of the times. The Negro race formally sang and still sings with much fervor of spirit. You may have all this world, give me Jesus. In the days of its ignorance, the Negro race observed this beautiful song in letter, but not in spirit. The Negro teachers have caught the spirit and are beginning to spread it among the ignorant masses. These teachers go into the Sunday schools and there teach the race to keep the spirit. You may have all this world, give me Jesus. They teach them that Christ is far above and is to be preferred to the whole world, but they also teach them that which is equally good, and that is, getting a hold on a portion of the goods of this world is a splendid preparation for getting a hold upon the things which lead up to heaven. In other words, the Negro teachers have become the great preachers of wealth-getting, not because they would have the race carnally minded, but because they know that no race of paupers can ever amount to anything or enjoy the full rights of citizens. To the end of replenishing the empty treasury of the race, the Negro teachers are encouraging their fellows to gain a skillful use of the hands. Many of them are enthusiastic to the extent that they would see every Negro school in the land teaching skill in the trades and in the telling of soil. In this movement for the education of the hand, the Negro teacher is meeting with encouragement on all sides. Such an education cannot fail to work great benefit for the race and help to give it standing. Given an intelligent Negro mass, masters of the trades and the science of agriculture, there need be no fear for the Negro's future. The only mistake which it seems that the Negro teachers may possibly make at this time is that having pictured in their minds the benefit of having a mass skill in industry and noting the present popularity of industrial training, they may lose sight of the fact that the skilled hand must be backed by and rest upon the mind trained to logical thinking. Industrial training does much indeed toward mental training, but by no means does it nor can it do all. There is quite a tendency at present aside from industrial training to limit the mental training of the race to the three Rs, namely reading, writing, and arithmetic. The highest industrial attainment is not possible with such a limitation. The making, the repairing, and the manipulation of machinery calls for a knowledge of natural philosophy and higher mathematics. The masterly killing of the soil demands one learned in chemistry and botany. Botany, which we know is not even a stranger to Latin, so we might go through every industry and point out that its perfection is conditioned on the highest mental training. Let the Negro teacher, while loving industrial training for his race, not learn to despise that which appears on the surface to be merely a mental gymnastic, but which, when examined more carefully, proves to be that only which furnaces a condition for the best and the highest, even in that which he may most love. Since social conditions in the soil are such as to necessitate a system of separate schools for whites and Negroes, and since this necessitates the establishment of a large number of extra schools, it inevitably results in the shortening of school terms and the cutting down of the salaries of teachers. I have found some Negro country schools in Alabama paying the teachers from twelve to fifteen dollars a month, and the length of the school term was only four months. In these cases, I did not find the teachers worrying over the small salary, but they were working to have the Negro patrons from their own scanty purses lengthen the school term. In not a few cases, the Negro teachers observed were thus lengthening out the school term from one to two months every year. The Negro teacher is also here and there, founding institutions of higher learning. He is getting a hold on the churches, the state, benevolent societies, and individuals, and is causing them to contribute money and goods to educational centers which are to prove most potent leathers in lifting the race to a higher level. The fact that at present, the large number of the states of the union are basing suffrage upon an educational qualification enhances the value of the literary work to be done by the Negro teacher. In some states in the South, the educational qualification is avowedly adopted by the whites to eliminate the Negro from the body politic. The Negro teachers are not sleeping over the interests of their race in this matter. They are working quietly, but earnestly. Most of them have the resolution which I heard expressed during the past summer by a Negro country school teacher, namely, I intend that all my pupils shall learn to read, write, and have the qualifications for voting if nothing more. This then is what the Negro teacher is doing in the matter of uplifting his race. He is giving to it literary training, teaching it to skillfully use the hand, and encouraging it to accumulate property. He is lengthening school terms and founding institutions of learning. He is entering into the inner life of his people, and is implanting ideas and ideals there which will make them strong and respected by all the races of mankind. End of topic 22, Third Paper