Chapter 4

A lady visitor, who is 81 years old and has 31 grandchildren, and who made clothes for the soldiers of both the Mexican War and the Civil War, told us how happy she was to be at Knox Institute that day. Among other things, she said, "I seen so much cruelty and meanness on these grounds (meaning the grounds on which the Knox Institute stands) in dark slavery days, I's come now to see the great good you are doing here for our children. It fills me with joy to see these young people risin'." She assured us that she felt "more like shouting than speaking."

Wednesday night, at the County Court House, our musical and literary entertainment was held. The high appreciation of Knox Institute was shown by the fact that we were greeted by an audience of not less than 900 people, from Athens and the surrounding country. People came from towns 50 or 60 miles away from Athens to witness our exercises. It was estimated that not less than 600 people had gathered about the doors before they were opened.

Thursday night, at the County Court House, were our graduating exercises. Again this spacious house was taxed to its utmost to hold the crowd that had gathered to witness these exercises. Four bright students--three young women and one young man--using as their motto, "Not for self, but for others," were graduated from our College Preparatory Course. The annual address was delivered by Rev. W. D. Johnson, D.D., formerly Secretary of the Educational Work of the A. M. E. Church. Dr. Johnson's address was logical, and full of wholesome advice to those whose courses were just completed. Thus ended another school year.

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LE MOYNE INSTITUTE, MEMPHIS, TENN.

BY PROF. A. J. STEELE, A.M., PRINCIPAL.

A graduating class of thirteen, averaging over twenty years of age, recording an average attendance at Le Moyne Institute of six and a half years per member, before an audience of three thousand people on the evening of June 2d, attested the interest felt in the school and the work it has done in West Tennessee.

A varied program of essays, orations, recitations and personations, with musical selections of choruses from composers of high rank, all occupying fully two and a half solid hours--these made the crowning event of the twenty-seven years' work of Le Moyne Normal Institute.

The proud and eager interest of the masses of the colored people in those of their young men and women who persevere in the face of great difficulties and many discouragements to complete a course of study, presents a very attractive and hopeful indication to a student of the rising race.

One who has carefully and for years noted the position and influence of these graduates among their own people, the stand they generally take for order and system, and the force and intelligence they naturally bring to bear on the many questions of social and moral well-being constantly arising to be dealt with by the masses of their people--one who has noted the complex working of the moral and intellectual forces largely represented by the graduates of such schools, will not wonder at the interest manifested by all classes in the conferring even of a Normal School Diploma.

The year's work has been one of exceptional earnestness and value. A total enrollment of 750 in all grades, places the attendance for the year at the extreme high-water mark, and the extensive use students are coming more and more to make of the valuable library and other auxiliary appliances and helps of the school, attests a growth in breadth of view and of scholarship which is very hopeful and encouraging.

The religious work and tone of the school have, as always, been among the prominent and foremost forces, dominating and directing every other thought and resulting in a steady growth of character among the pupils of all grades and in the conscious and open choice of a goodly number of pupils of the life of faith; among others this choice was made, late in the term by a student of the senior class, the last one not a professing Christian.

Nearly every young man in the school and many of the young women are working their way through the course by serving, usually in white families, mornings and evenings, and so, while sustaining themselves in school, incidentally giving a very effective object lesson to many who have professed great doubt as to the value of education for the colored people.

Few things have done more in Memphis than this sort of association to convince those who would not listen to any other sort of argument, that the "old time negro servant" is not so altogether lovely and desirable under the new conditions, even as a servant, as he is often rated by those who think regretfully of the ministrations of slave labor under the old conditions.

In a survey of the whole field of labor among the colored people, while there are very many disheartening conditions and situations, especially to one who is looking for the worst, yet a fair application of the rule of science known as the survival of the fittest, must inevitably and surely work out the conclusion that these efforts of school and of church for the upbuilding and evolution of a race are to have their final reward in the accomplishment of the great work, whereunto in the manifest providence of God they have been called.

By this unwavering confidence has the American Missionary Association, with its teachers and missionaries, been sustained through all these years of perplexing and difficult labors. In this faith thousands of young colored men and women have stepped into the front line of the advance movement of a race, and by this hope all that is promising in the race looks out and forward to the rising dawn of equal opportunity which American fairness, not to say civilization and Christianity, is certain finally to concede.

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LINCOLN SCHOOL, MERIDIAN, MISS.

BY MRS. H. I. MILLER, PRINCIPAL.

Another mile stone in the path of Lincoln School, and one more very pleasant Commencement period. On May 22d our annual sermon was preached to the students. A large and appreciative audience listened to an excellent discourse by the pastor. May 23d found us busy with our examinations. Good, faithful work was done "to find out what we don't know," as one young man said; but the results proved that those examined knew many things.

Wednesday attested the interest of the Alumni by the letters from absent ones, and the presence of thirty of the old graduates, some from every class since 1890, which was the first class. Five former graduates, now teachers in the public school of the city, gave us pleasant words of hope and faith, and others from distant places told of work for the Master, and efforts at uplifting the whole race.

Friday evening witnessed the graduation of sixteen young people; eight from the Latin and eight from the English course. The essay, orations and recitals were pronounced good by those not immediately concerned. The house was crowded, scores were obliged to stand during the entire period, yet there was the utmost attention and perfect quiet. This is what most impresses the workers who have longest been here, the increased good conduct and attention of the audience. Ten years ago an attempt at a night entertainment was almost perilous, because of the tumult and disorder of the audience, but now no more decorous listeners could be asked for anywhere.

There was sadness also with the joy on this, our last night, for it marked the close of the work of our loved and efficient colleague, Miss Sarah Stimpson, who leaves America for Central Africa, to work far in the interior in a new field, under the American Board. She has given many beautiful lessons to her young pupils. May God ever keep her instructions green and fresh in their minds and hearts!

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THE NEGRO'S PLACE IN AMERICAN LIFE.

BY M. H. NEAL (STUDENT.)

The Students of Fisk University arranged a meeting for last Emancipation day in which they should discuss among themselves their condition and their hopes. Among the speeches was an address, some parts of which are given below. The Secretary of the Association, who happened to be present, was greatly interested both in the sentiments and in the way in which they were put, and he thinks our readers will be likewise interested.

We have assembled to-day to commemorate that event in American history which brought freedom to the slave; to celebrate a day upon which the negro was lifted from the darkest depths of human servitude to a sphere of liberty and life. How dark must have been the times when no Bibles were read around our family fireside, when few words comforted the sick and no befitting funeral services were observed for the dead. We cannot look to the heights which we as a race represent nor can we rightly consider our place in American life and thought without reflecting upon the depths from which we have come and upon those who assisted in making possible for us such large opportunities. We gladly bow in homage to those noble hearted men and women who sympathized with us and so lavishly poured out their earnings and sacrificed their lives for the dawn of a day whose sun will never set. Blessed be the memory of those who persevered amid prejudice in presenting testimony against prevailing wrongs and in giving us of their deepest convictions....

Paramount to all questions extending almost throughout our extensive domain, is the so-called "negro question." This question has been much discussed and poorly settled. Because in a few years the negro as a whole has not become learned, does not possess streets of magnificent and commodious buildings, has not presidents of railroad corporations and banking interests, because he has not worked his way to the highest office in the gift of his people, it is often said that he cannot embrace American civilization and is entitled to no share in his country's greatness and protection. Some of our own people have been made to believe such contention and have begun to consider our cause a hopeless one.

We know that the place demanded is the place to be earned only by diligent application and persistent effort.

That we have been true to our country and loyal to its interests is indisputable. We may point with pride to Attucks, a full blooded negro, who stepped upon Boston Common and became one of the first martyrs to die to maintain against British tyranny the patriotic attitude of the American colonies. In the second war with Great Britain the colored people were no less loyal; we figured conspicuously in the bloody struggles of New Orleans. When the majority of the American people denounced slavery as petty and tyrannical, when through secession the Confederacy of the Southern States was formed, when the South took up arms to overthrow the Union, the Negro was again ready to answer his country's call. He was present with Sherman when he made his famous march "from Atlanta to the Sea." And even these fields which overlook our lovely city upon which he dropped his sweat, were sprinkled with his blood when the time was ripe for military action. He fought well at Gettysburg. Out of old Nashville, too, with her slave system has come new Nashville with her splendid schools. Thus in every contest of our country for existence and independence, none have labored more incessantly and given their lives more freely for the maintenance and perpetuity of our institutions.

Moreover, in our record never have we joined with other classes, who, with a rebellious spirit have excited civic revolt and disturbed public peace. While it is true that many of the base and corrupt walk the streets in idleness, the better element at the humble trades and more exalted professions have set out to live by the sweat of their own brow and with their powers to work out their own destiny.

We may not, indeed, boast of achievements which other races have accomplished in hundreds of years. Nay, we confess that ignorance and immorality and vice of every description exist among us. To eradicate totally the curse of slavery in thirty years would be miraculous indeed. There are among us some who steal, but not all of us are rogues by any means. When a decision of our accomplishments is given, some judge us by the number of prisoners among us. But there are among us many good men and women, who uphold the right, who in competition with other men and women have held their places with credit.

A comparison of the negro of to-day with the negro of thirty years ago shows a contrast. A new negro has sprung upon the stage of action, one who has had the advantages derived from the seminaries, colleges and universities founded and fostered by philanthropic people. The incredulous have been made to confess that we are susceptible of higher education and refinement. Through books we have realized intellectual growth. The wisdom of the past has enriched our souls, kindled our imagination, and deepened our thoughts. We have begun to look upon the world with new eyes. Our minds have been turned upon ourselves. We compare ourselves with other races, not as _black_ men, but as men, and we thirst for knowledge and for individual perfection. We have learned to reflect and to form conception of right and to determine our vocation in life. We have learned not to depend entirely upon public opinion, but also to help make it. We have learned that self must be overcome. We are studying self and we know by evolution great improvements have been made mentally, morally and materially. We believe that man fashioned in God's image and endowed with mental faculties which are capable of development was not sent into the world to serve, in order that other men may revel in luxuries and wasteful living.

History teaches that every victorious race has had its struggles, and certainly we are no exception. There are great hindrances in our pathway and unjust prejudice against us. But prejudice is not as great as it has been, and in the face of opposition we know there is a place for us. We would dethrone Judge Lynch who stains the ermine of the bench and invades the halls of justice, but after all, his slaughters pale into insignificance when compared with those committed by ignorance and intemperance. Industry and frugality and self-control have been partly diffused among us, and these irresistible forces will revolutionize the wrong, destroy the evils and bring the consummation of our hopes for which we seriously plead. We are learning to think and by the power of thought we are to take the place in American life vouchsafed to every American citizen without regard to "race, color or previous condition of servitude."

Our development has been and must be gradual in order to be permanent. There has been no spasmodic growth in the oak of the forest. A few years ago it was only a tiny twig, but silently, imperceptibly, and daily, it has increased in strength and greatness, until now it stands forth the giant of the forest with its large and manifold parts extending far and wide, sheltering the cattle of the hills and the fowl of the air. We do not demand the commanding position which the Anglo Saxon occupies by reason of centuries of struggle, but as humble citizens bringing to the government, which we love and honor, our tribute we ask that our country may give us the assurance of equal opportunity and protection. When a responsible duty in state is assigned us, we ask the privilege of discharging the same unharmed.

The rail-splitter upon the sparsely settled lands of Kentucky was fired with a purpose and a recognition of his place among men. He toiled on against hindrances and adversities until he had cut his way to the Capitol of the nation and had become the President of the nation and the emancipator of four millions of slaves. The colored lad upon Colonel Lloyd's plantation who heard the barking of the blood hounds and felt the lash of the task master, likewise he realized that such was not his place. He sought his place, and to-day America holds in sacred memory that eloquent and matchless orator Frederick Douglass.

Fellow-students, despair not, there is hope for us. Our pathway has been rough, but our privileges have been likewise great. Our souls have been touched, our thoughts directed and our visions enlarged. We are standing here upon the base swell of the mount of prosperity, viewing its lofty summit which towers above prejudice and contempt into the atmosphere of recognition and respectability. Enemies may assail us on our ascent, but will climb on: men have reached the top and we can reach it. Though our ideal is high, if we have the patience of our fathers and the courage demanded; if with unselfish devotion we act well our part upon the stage of life, everywhere promoting to the best of our ability those virtues indispensable in the welfare of a people, our banner of intellectual and moral power will wave upon the mountain heights, and its glory will bless our homes, our race, and our nation.

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LOUISIANA CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

BY PROF. GEORGE W. HENDERSON, D.D., STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY, NEW ORLEANS.

A new and highly significant chapter has been written during the past year in the history of Louisiana. The state now has a new constitution and the convention, exhausted by the labors of three months, has adjourned. According to the law which called the convention, the result is final, this unusual procedure of denying the people the privilege of voting upon their organic law, being based upon the example of Mississippi.

The convention just adjourned is the third of its kind in the history of the South, or of the world, the first being the Mississippi convention of 1890, the second, the South Carolina convention of 1895. These facts illustrate the tendency of the South, especially the Gulf States, to move in unison in all legislation affecting their colored citizens.

The object of these conventions has been the disfranchisement of the colored people, so far as it could be done consistently with the 15th amendment, and, at the same time preserve the right as far as possible to white men.

In some parts of the country, many intelligent men who have lived only in an atmosphere of liberty and its unbroken traditions, have believed that the suffrage movement in the South was solely in the interest of clean politics and an intelligent electorate, but if the record just made by the Louisiana constitutional architects does not convince them that they have been mistaken, then they would not change their opinion though one should rise from the dead.

There is an important bit of history back of the present result. Two years ago the legislature submitted to the people an amendment limiting the right of the ballot by an educational and property test. That proposition was buried beneath a mountain of votes. This, perhaps, was not a fair test of the public sentiment in the question presented, for the reason that the amendment contained a vicious clause, empowering the forthcoming legislature to alter the law in its discretion, but it is undoubtedly true that no amendment conditioning the suffrage upon education and property could pass the ordeal of a popular vote. The politicians, however, were not to be discouraged by this defeat, and accordingly they passed through the legislature the bill which called the recent convention into being and made its results final without popular ratification.

So far as the enlightened sentiment of the state was concerned, there was undoubtedly, a strong desire for some change in the suffrage laws to prevent the corruption which ignorance made easy, and the fraud and violence which for years had filled law-respecting citizens with shame and humiliation. Vitally connected with the suffrage, was the subject of popular education; there was also the felt need of reforming the judiciary system.

After long weeks of painful travail, the suffrage committee presented an ordinance that filled the state with amazement, and was so palpably unconstitutional and so grotesquely absurd that according to United States Senator McEnery, it was regarded in Washington as a "joke." The committee quailed before the storm of popular indignation, and re-committed the ordinance to the suffrage committee. Yet the law which was finally passed, though lopped of some of its worst excrescences, is the same in principle, and will work out nearly the same results as the first proposition. It requires:--

_1.--That every elector shall be able to read and write, or shall own property at an assessed valuation of not less than $300._

_2.--Lacking these, he shall have been a voter in some state of the Union prior to January 1, 1867, or the son or grandson of such, and not less than twenty-one years old at the adoption of this constitution._

_3.--Every foreigner naturalized prior to January 1, 1898, shall have the right to vote without regard to other qualifications._

The purpose, which was openly and constantly avowed, was to let in every illiterate white man and to shut out every illiterate colored man, and the provision it is thought, is elastic enough for the purpose.

The whole law curiously illustrates the triumph of politicians. A distinguished state senator said to the writer: "The convention is in the hands of politicians; the people are not in it." It adjourned May 12. Two members refused to sign the instrument, and a number of others were conveniently absent. Of the convention itself, one of its own members said: "I have never seen such a graveyard of political reputations." The _Times-Democrat_, probably by far the most influential democratic paper of the state, and which has fought the battle for an honest suffrage law with great ability, in its issue of May 13, makes this editorial comment: "No men ever received a greater trust than the members of the convention; and few have betrayed it worse; ... and no one doubts that the constitution would be overwhelmingly beaten if submitted to the popular vote." It also calls upon the people to overthrow it at the earliest opportunity.

The new constitution has certainly come into life under bad omens. It stands condemned as unconstitutional by the two United States senators, and by the ablest democratic lawyers in Congress. The State press is almost unanimous in its opposition--some on constitutional grounds, others on account of the clause which exempts foreigners from its operation as to the educational and property requirements; and it is evident that what public sentiment demanded was an honest law based upon intelligence and property with a poll tax prerequisite. In this public sentiment there were some gratifying revelations.

1. A strong opposition to the Mississippi and South Carolina laws, and to everything that savored of fraud.

2. A general respect for the 15th amendment, not so much on account of the principle of it as because it is a part of the supreme law of the country, and as such should be observed in good faith.

3. The confession, hitherto held back, that the evils attending our elections were not due solely to ignorant colored men, but quite as much to ignorant and vicious white men, and perhaps still more to the frauds practised by the election officers and unscrupulous politicians.

Vitally connected with the suffrage was the subject of public education. A memorial was framed setting forth the present condition of our public schools and asking for the establishment of a public colored normal school. Permission was given to present it to the committee on education. This memorial was ably sustained by well known educators, but the result did not meet expectations.