Part 4

From lips of slaves with age bent low, Wet prayers burst forth in deepest flow To God above that some new light Would slaves unborn save from such plight.

Work

Down they went the great long rows Swinging scythes and chopping hoes In time with cheerful labor songs To ease the work and sting of thongs.

Song

“Camp Meetin” times were when their songs Rang loose full pathos of slave wrongs, And pent-up hearts with anguish fills Were drained as springs on sloping hills.

Play

When work was done and nights were theirs, They oft did have most jolly fairs Quilting rags or shucking corn With laughter, dance and fiddles worn. --_Harrison._

“The only American music”. This is the terse, sincere and high comment made quite a number of years ago by Edward Everett Hale, author of “A Man Without a Country”, in relation to the rightful recognition and value of the American Negro melodies sung on the Southern plantations during slavery. Since then, well-read, well-bred and music loving people of both races have come to fully recognize, acknowledge and appreciate the truthfulness of the above compliment.

For many years after their freedom great number of ex-slaves harbored bitter dislikes toward these songs because they so clearly and painfully reminded them of their past ill-treatment and sufferings during slave days. Most of their children caught this feeling direct from their parents or indirectly through their own vivid imaginations formed from what they had heard about slavery. But quick and deep understanding people of both races soon found in these crude tuneful words something far more interesting and touching than mere memories of slavery sins and sufferings--they saw and felt in such weird and original chants the most beautiful and truest life pictures of the true soul that it is possible for human being to paint with colorful and verbal expressions of tear moistened sorrows and smile dried joys. Thus music lovers and masters began at once to value this music as among the most precious finds to be added to their treasuries of folk-lore songs.

World recognized Negro music transposers and composers are today taking these rough, crude and half-savage chants and, without destroying their originalities of construction or pureness of quality, lifting them from the lowest depths of ignorant fun-making burlesquers to the highest level of intelligent and serious-minded music admirers. And throughout the musical world today celebrated chorus leaders, conductors, etc., of both races in giving even operatic recitals indicate by their programs rendered that they consider no first-class recital complete unless one or more of its numbers are expressions of Negro folk-lore music as Burleigh, Dett, Diton, Work and others have so classically elevated them. These broad-minded and just manifestations are gradually causing the general public to become more interested in, give more serious thought to, and show more appreciation of the true dignity and value of these melodies. They are also rapidly educating the American Colored people as a mass not to hate and cast aside but to love and preserve this music as a race pride heritage so costly purchased and handed down by their fore-parents and as one of the most valuable and rare features of American history.

Among the foremost composers, singers and lecturers in the Negro race who are giving tremendous aid and are largely responsible for the development of the above favorable sentiments are Cleveland G. Allen, New York, N. Y., Harry Burleigh, New York, N. Y., R. Nathaniel Dett, Hampton, Va., Carl Ditson, Phila., Pa., E. Azalia Hackley, Detroit, Mich., Kathleen P. Howard, Birmingham, Ala., J. Wesley Jones, Chicago, Ill., Jennie C. Lee, Tuskegee, Ala., Nellie M. Mundy, New York, N. Y., Jas. A. Mundy, Chicago, Ill., F. J. and J. W. Work.

THROUGH RECONSTRUCTION DAYS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Oft in the past has his life been told, And others again should it oft unfold To learn of the greatness he did reap, As orator, editor, statesman deep.

The following lines of marginal flight Show a Negro’s rise from depth to height: Fred Douglas unknown in slavery shame Elevated his name to the Hall of Fame. --_Harrison._

In taking a swift but careful glance back to that historical and red-letter year of 1863, it will be noted that there was born at that time into these United States a form of whole liberty that had been fathered and nourished by the world-beloved Abraham Lincoln. Before the above date this country had existed under only a one-sided liberty that had been won from the English for the white Americans by the illustrious George Washington. But it was left for Abraham Lincoln to win for the United States a two-sided liberty by cutting the chains of slavery from the wrists and ankles of the black Americans and also refreeing the white Americans by unchaining from their souls the slave-holding temptations they had become too weak-minded to resist and too selfish to give up of their own accord.

As soon as the Colored people had passed out from the sufferings of slavery, they were at once compelled as free, but ignorant, homeless and penniless, people to begin their upward struggles and progress through a reign of terror. This reign of terror was caused by the brutal treatment and murdering of thousands of innocent Colored people and the destruction of their properties by an uneducated, uncivilized and unchristianized element of Southern white people who were known as “Night Riders”, “Ku Klux Klan”, etc., of whom the best minded white people even in the South were ashamed.

But the sturdy and hopeful Colored people came through that awful ordeal as they had come through slavery, with increasing determination and greater efforts to push forward and upward to the best and highest things in life. However, it was only their unfaltering trust in God that gave them enough hopeful vision in the future; it was only their gratitude to and appreciation of their Northern and Southern white aiding friends that retained them enough patience and faith in mankind; it was only their keenness to see the funny side of life’s happenings that enabled them to laugh and keep cheerful; it was only their ability and willingness to do any and all kinds of hard work that enabled them to sleep through the whole nights with peaceful minds; and it was only their great big healthy (everlasting-non-fasting) appetites that gave them enough vitality, stamina, physical strength and energy-plus to pass through those years of body sufferings and spirit crushings and safely reach their present stages of upward progress and onward success.

Thus the Negro race has proven that just as a red-blooded, self-confident, self-reliant and resourceful individual cannot rest with a peaceful and happy mind as long as staying in the easygoing, smoothly-worn and narrow “rut” of a least-resistance, non-progressive position, but fearlessly steps out with a determined mind, hopeful heart and unbounded enthusiasm to face and overcome the ups-and-down of this rough-and-ready world that finally yields up to that individual his or her well-earned and genuine success; so will a race of people of similar qualities and aspirations be restless until it wades and crawls out of a miry and stagnant pool of ignorance and poverty and enters a channel of freshly flowing active thoughts where it can freely swim abreast in fair competition with other races in order to reach those distant ports of Christian service, citizenship usefulness, financial independence, self culture and human helpfulness.

While the Negro race in the United States succeeded in swimming into that channel in 1861, it has never been allowed, like other races therein, to use either a rapid-lunging and noisy over-head double-arm stroke or a swift-gliding and noiseless under-water crawl-stroke; but, has been compelled to paddle along using a one-arm bull-frog stroke, having one leg and arm tied together with strings of race discriminations, the entire racing course clogged with floating debris of public decayed sentiments and a plaited cord of race jealousy-envy-spite tied to the big toe of the free leg that has been roughly and constantly yanked back throughout the swim. With all that prejudiced and unsportsmanlike handicap, the American Colored people have increased their ownership of homes from twelve thousand in 1866 to six hundred thousand in 1919; they owned in 1910 over two hundred thousand farms that with other real estate holdings comprised twenty-one million acres of land; in 1866 they ran a little over two thousand business enterprises and in 1919 they had increased that number to fifty thousand business concerns doing a volume of business amounting to about one billion two hundred million dollars; in 1919 there were annually being spent for their education fifteen million dollars; starting out in 1866 with seven hundred churches they kept on building and buying Houses of God until in 1919 they owned forty-three thousand such buildings valued at more than eighty-four million dollars; and while the American Colored people in 1866 were worth twenty million dollars, they continued to earn and save money until in 1919 they had accumulated a wealth of one billion one hundred million dollars. (above figures extracted from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 1-2-345.)

There are located in over 25 States throughout the Union nearly a hundred towns and villages that are inhabited and governed wholly by Colored people. The largest of these settlements is described below.

BOLEY, OKLAHOMA

Boley, Oklahoma, was founded on September 22, 1904 by two Colored men, T. M. Haynes and James Barnett, and since then has enjoyed the greatest growth of any exclusive Negro community in the United States. There is a population of 2,500 in the city and 1,200 in the adjoining district. There are no white people living in the city and all of the farms within a distance of 8 to 10 miles are owned, with but few exceptions, by Colored farmers who possess as much as 900 acres individually. Farming is the chief industry of the community and about 90 per cent of the population own modern homes, many of them costing $5,000 and more.

All of the city offices, telephone exchange, telegraph office, depot agency, Post Office (only Third Class one in the world totally run by Negroes) are conducted by Colored people. All the business establishments and industries, that are of nearly every kind including several cotton gins are owned and carried on by Negro business men and women, one merchant being worth $100,000.00. The city has its own paved streets, electric light plant, ice plant, water system, and modern city High School costing $20,000, two private newspapers and a private Bank.

Some of the important buildings and institutions in the city are the State School of the C. M. E. Church that has a modern three-story $20,000 building; the Masonic three-story Temple; The Widow and Orphan Home of the U. B. F. Grand Lodge; the $150,000 State Tubercular Sanitarium for Negroes; and seven churches with creditable buildings. Prospects are so promising that the community is expecting to have oil wells within the next two or three years.

This is not a bad record for such a handicapped life swimmer as the Negro Race is compelled to be in the United States and certainly proves that, when it comes to keeping a lead-weighted body above the water surface and at the same time make progress up a rough stream against a strong down-flowing prejudiced current, the Negro, if he really is a fifth cousin to the foolish, noisy, frolicsome and “Call Of The Wild” goose family, he is also a first cousin to the sensible, industrious, frugal, quiet, dignified and home-loving swan family.

IN CONGRESS

It is a most remarkable fact that only seven years after the emancipation of his race, Hiram R. Revels, a Colored man, entered the United States Congress as a senator from Mississippi. But it becomes a two-fold remarkable and interesting fact when one learns that the Congressional seat taken by Revels was the chair made vacant by Jefferson Davis who left Congress and the Union side to join the Confederacy where he later became its president and leader to keep Negroes in slavery. That explains the question so many people have asked why Revels only served one year (1870-1871) in the Senate. He was elected to serve the last year that Jeff Davis had left unfinished in his term when he went over to the Rebel forces. B. K. Bruce, also from Mississippi, served a full term of six years in the Senate. So far those two have been the only Colored men to be seated and serve in the U. S. Senate. In 1872, P. B. S. Pinchback, a Colored man, was elected to the U. S. Senate, but the right of the Legislature to legally elect a senator was challenged. The contention was urged that the Legislature itself was not legally elected. The contest lasted four years and ended with seven Republican Senators voting with the Democrats to deny him the seat. He was later given four years salary as a senator. During the period of Reconstruction right after the Civil War this same Colored man was elected and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana and once while the Governor, W. P. Kellogg was absent from the State for a brief period, Lt. Gov. P. B. S. Pinchback acted as Governor of Louisiana.

J. R. Lynch was elected from Mississippi to the U. S. House of Representatives. Other Colored men who have been members in the House were as follows: Louisiana sent J. H. Menard and C. E. Nash; Georgia sent J. T. Long; Alabama sent B. S. Turner, J. T. Rapier, and J. Harlson; Virginia sent J. M. Langston; Florida sent J. T. Walls; South Carolina took the lead in numbers by sending R. B. Elliott, R. C. DeLarge, R. H. Cain, A. J. Ransier, Robert Small, T. E. Miller, G. W. Murray, and J. H. Rainey who by being elected five times exceeded any other Negro in length of service (ten years) in the House. But it was left for North Carolina to “Tar Heel” in the rear of that Congressional noble march by sending the latest Colored member to Congress in the person of the late George H. White, who as a Representative had been proceeded from that same state in the same branch of the U. S. Legislature by J. Hyman, J. E. O’Harra and H. P. Cheatham. (extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pg. 207.)

In The U. S. Diplomatic Service

While a U. S. Senator or Representative acts in the Legislature at Washington, D.C. as spokesman for a few thousand people living in a certain section of the state that elects him; a Minister or Consul to foreign countries acts as a spokesman for all the millions of American citizens living in all the United States of America. Thus, while the Colored Congressman held a very honorable and influential federal position; the Colored man who had served either as a minister or consul to foreign lands was the one who really shouldered the highest and most responsible Government position ever accorded to an American Colored person.

Some of those of the Race who have served in this last named branch of the Government are: A. H. Grimke, Minister to San Domingo, E. D. Bassett, Frederick Douglas, J. S. Durham, S. A. Furness, and L. W. Livingston, Ministers and Consuls to Haiti; T. M. Chester, Dr. J. R. Grossland, J. L. Johnson and E. W. Lyons, Consul and Ministers to Liberia; Jas. Weldon Johnson, Consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, to Corinto, Nicaragua and to the Azores; J. C. Carter, and M. Wistar Gibbs, Consuls to Madagascar; Wm. H. Hunt and W. A. Jackson, Consuls to France; R. T. Greener, Consul to Vladivostok; W. J. Yerb, Consul to Dakar, West Africa. (some of above extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pg. 208).

Others of the Race who have in the past or are at present holding important Federal positions are Chas. W. Anderson, Collector of Internal Revenue, New York City; E. T. Attwell, Director of Negro Industries during the World War; Dr. Bozerman, Postmaster of Charleston, S. C.; R. W. Bundy, Secretary to Legation in Liberia; Phil H. Brown, Commissioner of Conciliation in the U. S. Labor Dept.; J. E. Bush, Receiver of Public Money, Kansas; B. K. Bruce, Register of Treasury, Washington, D.C.; J. A. Cobb, Ass’t U. S. District Attorney, Washington, D.C.; C. S. Cottrell, Collector of Internal Revenue, Honolulu; W. S. Cohen, Land Office Commissioner, La.; Wm. Crum, Collector of Customs, Charleston, S. C.; J. C. Dancy, Recorder of Deeds, Washington, D.C.; J. H. Deveaux, Collector of Customs, Savannah, Ga.; Frederick Douglas, Recorder of Deeds and U. S. Marshall of the District of Columbia; Miss Helen Erwin, Director of Colored Industrial Housing, during World War; H. O. Flipper, Special Ass’t to the Alaska R. R. Commissioner; Geo. E. Haynes, U. S. Director of Negro Economies, during the World War; Perry W. Howard, Special Ass’t U. S. Attorney General; E. H. Hewlett, Judge, Municipal Court, Washington, D.C.; Henry Lincoln Johnson, Recorder of Deeds and Republican National Committeeman, Washington, D.C.; J. E. Lee, Collector Internal Revenue, Florida; Wm. H. Lewis, Ass’t U. S. Attorney General, Boston, Mass.; Jas Lewis, Collector of Port, La.; Judson W. Lyons, Register of U. S. Treasury, Washington, D.C.; Wm. Matthews, Ass’t U. S. District Attorney, Boston, Mass.; Whitfield McKinley, Collector of Port, Georgetown, D.C.; J. C. Napier, Register of U. S. Treasury, Washington, D.C.; J. B. Peterson, Chief Deputy Collector, Internal Revenue, Porto Rico; ex-Lieut. Gov. P. B. S. Pinchback, Special Agent Internal Revenue, New York; Dr. C. V. Roman, Field Secretary in Venereal Medical Division of U. S. Army, during World War; H. E. Rucker, Collector Internal Revenue, Ga.; Emmett J. Scott, Special Commissioner to Liberia, and Special Ass’t Secretary to Secretary of War, during World War; Robert Small, Collector of Port, Beaufort, S. C.; R. L. Smith, Deputy U.S. Marshall, Texas; Robert H. Terrell, Judge, Municipal Court, Washington, D.C.; Ralph W. Tyler, Auditor of Navy, and Foreign War Correspondent, during World War; W. T. Vernon, Register of U. S. Treasury, Washington, D.C.; and S. Laing Williams, Ass’t U. S. District Attorney, Chicago, Ill.

In State Legislatures

Upon being elected in 1866 to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, C. L. Mitchell and E. G. Walker, became the first Colored men to serve in any state legislature in America. Since that time up to the present day nearly a thousand men of the Race have served as Representatives in different state legislatures. Some of those having been elected within the past few years as members of state congressional bodies are as follows:

W. G. Alexander, New Jersey; J. C. Asbury, H. W. Bass and A. F. Stevens, Pennsylvania; J. A. Brown, H. E. Davis and H. C. Smith, Ohio; J. C. Coleman, H. J. Copehart, J. M. Ellis, E. H. Harper, T. G. Nutter, C. Payne and H. H. Railey, West Virginia; W. R. Douglass, A. H. Roberts and S. B. Turner, and Robt. R. Jackson, Illinois; J. C. Hawkins, New York; E. A. Johnson, N. Y.; W. M. Moore, Missouri; F. M. Roberts, California and J. M. Ryan, District of Columbia.

In City Government

The following names are those of a few of the many Colored politicians scattered throughout the country who are earnestly and intelligently helping their city governments to direct old and make new laws for the welfare of all races in their represented districts:

Councilman J. A. Adams, Annapolis, Md.; Alderman L. B. Anderson, Chicago, Ill.; Councilman J. Brown, Urbana, Ohio; Councilman V. Chambliss, Mounds, Ill.; Councilman R. A. Cooper, Philadelphia; ex-Alderman Oscar De Priest, Chicago, Ill.; Councilmen T. W. Fleming, Cleveland, Ohio, S. A. Furniss, Indianapolis, Ind., W. M. Fitzgerald, Baltimore, Md.; Alderman, G. W. Harris, and Assemblyman J. C. Hawkins, New York City, N. Y.; Alderman J. H. Hopkins, Wilmington, Del.; Alderman H. R. Jackson, Chicago, Ill.; Councilman Robt. R. Jackson, Chicago, Ill.; Assemblyman E. A. Johnson, New York City, N. Y.; Councilman W. T. McQuinn, Baltimore, Md.; C. Scott, Worcester, Mass, and H. St. Clair, Cambridge, Md.; Alderman T. E. Stevens, Cleveland, Tenn.; Councilmen H. Ward, Nicholasville, Ky. and F. F. Wright, Boston, Mass.; Committeeman E. H. Wright, Chicago, Ill. (some of the above names are extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, page 54.) Milton White and Amos Scott are very prominent in Phila., Pa. politics as well as unusually successful businessmen.

IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

Whenever Colored people hear mentioned the Spanish-American War, their first thoughts naturally dig up proud memories of the 9th and 10th Colored Cavalries, the 24th and 25th Colored Regiments, The 8th Illinois, Ohio Battalion and others bravely facing raining shot and shell pouring down from the hill tops of El Caney and San Juan. And ever will it go down in history that they were members of the celebrated 10th Colored Cavalry who while fighting on San Juan Hill sprang to the timely rescue of the late Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and his famous Rough Riders and saved them from certain and horrible deaths at the hands of the merciless Spaniards.

But why here go further into details regarding the conduct of Colored men in that war when the official reports of such capable warriors and experienced military judges as Major-Generals W. R. Shafter, J. F. Kent, H. W. Lawton, Joseph Wheeler, Colonel (now General) Leonard Wood and other high commanding officers give rightful credit and praise to the Colored soldiers who displayed such remarkable patriotism and heroism in that short and fierce “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night” war? (This quotation is the title of a very popular tune sung during this war by the American soldiers and civilians.)

When Hobson made his dare-devil and world-famed sea trip through a gauntlet of Spanish frowning guns, there were more than twenty-five Colored sailors with him who then shared all of his dangers and later a little of his fame. Another most important naval action centered around a Colored sailor, John C. Jordan, Chief Gunner’s Mate, who on May 1, 1898 during the battle of Manilla fired the first shot from the crusier, “Olympia,” flag ship of the late Admiral Dewey. That was the shot that opened the first decisive battle of the Spanish-American War as well as starting the destruction of the modern Spanish Armada. It is surely in place to mention here that Jordan entered the Navy as a third-class apprentice and was honorably retired as a Chief Petty Officer after spending thirty of his best years in the Navy working and waiting for “Uncle Sammy” to give him his just recognition and “Aunt Liberty” to give him a fuller caress of citizenship privileges.

In the Massacre at Carrizal