African American Writers
The Forethought I. Of Our Spiritual Strivings II. Of the Dawn of Freedom III. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others IV. Of the Meaning of Progress V. Of the Wings of Atalanta VI. Of the Training of Black Men VII. Of the Black Belt VIII. Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece IX. O...
There came a day when all the teachers left the Institute and began the hunt for schools. I learn from hearsay (for my mother was mortally afraid of firearms) that the hunting o...
15. Chapter 15A perfect life was his, all joy and love, with tears to make it brighter,—sweet as a summer’s day beside the Housatonic. The world loved him; the women kissed his curls, the men...
17. Chapter 17The Judge sat in the dining-room amid his morning’s mail, and he did not ask John to sit down. He plunged squarely into the business. “You’ve come for the school, I suppose. Wel...
9. Chapter 9How curious a land is this,—how full of untold story, of tragedy and laughter, and the rich legacy of human life; shadowed with a tragic past, and big with future promise! This...
10. Chapter 10Here in 1890 lived ten thousand Negroes and two thousand whites. The country is rich, yet the people are poor. The keynote of the Black Belt is debt; not commercial credit, but...
16. Chapter 16Carlisle Street runs westward from the centre of Johnstown, across a great black bridge, down a hill and up again, by little shops and meat-markets, past single-storied homes, u...
12. Chapter 12Coming now to the economic relations of the races, we are on ground made familiar by study, much discussion, and no little philanthropic effort. And yet with all this there are...
11. Chapter 11Even in the better-ordered country districts of the South the free movement of agricultural laborers is hindered by the migration-agent laws. The “Associated Press” recently inf...
3. Chapter 3Thus it is doubly difficult to write of this period calmly, so intense was the feeling, so mighty the human passions that swayed and blinded men. Amid it all, two figures ever s...
14. Chapter 14Two characteristic things must be noticed in regard to the church. First, it became almost entirely Baptist and Methodist in faith; secondly, as a social institution it antedate...
4. Chapter 4Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to bitterness, and even today continuing strong and i...
1. Chapter 1The Forethought I. Of Our Spiritual Strivings II. Of the Dawn of Freedom III. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others IV. Of the Meaning of Progress V. Of the Wings of Atalanta V...
8. Chapter 8I will not say such arguments are wholly justified,—I will not insist that there is no other side to the shield; but I do say that of the nine millions of Negroes in this nation...
2. Chapter 2The war has naught to do with slaves, cried Congress, the President, and the Nation; and yet no sooner had the armies, East and West, penetrated Virginia and Tennessee than fugi...
6. Chapter 6Atalanta is not the first or the last maiden whom greed of gold has led to defile the temple of Love; and not maids alone, but men in the race of life, sink from the high and ge...
7. Chapter 7In rough approximation we may point out four varying decades of work in Southern education since the Civil War. From the close of the war until 1876, was the period of uncertain...
13. Chapter 13The centre of this spiritual turmoil has ever been the millions of black freedmen and their sons, whose destiny is so fatefully bound up with that of the nation. And yet the cas...
18. Chapter 18As in olden time, the words of these hymns were improvised by some leading minstrel of the religious band. The circumstances of the gathering, however, the rhythm of the songs,...