CHAPTER VIII
WHAT OF THE FUTURE?
A young professor, after reading portions of the manuscript here printed, asked, “Where is this leading to? Suppose the Negro is evangelized and educated as thoroughly as your ideal for him seems to desire. What will happen, and what is to be his relation to the white people in this country?” That has been the white man’s question ever since the possible consequences of his bringing the Negroes to the new land were brought home to him. The question was faced with impelling emphasis as the Fathers of the Republic contemplated the purposes and ideals of the new form of government which they established. From this government they expected to realize an equality of opportunity for all men such as no other had ever dreamed of as an ideal to be desired. The Declaration of Independence inevitably brought the white man’s question to the fore as he faced the red man, owner by right of occupation, and the black man, now become American by right of birth. Just as inevitably, with the first freedman, arose the negro’s question, “What is my status in American life?” The clamor for a true, unclouded answer to both questions increased with the increasing numbers of the freedmen.
Even during the slave era, with the growth in numbers and in race consciousness on the part of the intelligent, educated few, the question of the status of the Negro in American life inevitably arose. Among those who were first to awake to the inevitable was the Rev. James W. C. Pennington, D.D., of New York, foremost among the negro scholars and leaders of the last century.
Lecturing in England and Scotland about 1840, Dr. Pennington said, “The colored population of the United States have no destiny separate from that of the nation in which they are an integral part. Our destiny is bound up with that of America. Her ship is ours; her pilot is ours; her storms are ours; her calms are ours. If she breaks upon any rock, we break with her. If we, born in America, cannot live upon the same soil on terms of equality with the descendants of Scotchmen, Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Hungarians, Greeks, and Poles, then the fundamental theory of America fails and falls to the ground.”
The same question is involved today in any discussion of the status of the Negro. The Negro cannot answer it alone, the white race must enter with him into these too often forbidden portals, and help him unlock the door of mystery.
What, then, is the Negro’s status in American political life? It is that which our national Constitution gives him, with lawful qualifications made by several States. No sincere Christian can stand for the breaking or the ignoring of law. If laws are bad, change them; but safety, justice, and decency demand that they be obeyed—else, anarchy. The national Constitution declares the ideal. The qualifications of the States are based upon the same just principle “that the best qualified should rule;” the practice of the politicians is quite another thing. The wise know that the resort to illegality to gain ends is as the pit to destroy others.
During the slave era, the negro leaders of the freedmen set themselves to the task of establishing their citizenship; so that this question was a live issue even before the Civil War. Out of it, grew two distinct theories of relationship of the Negro to American life. Richard Allen was the leader of one school of thought. He and his confrères had been treated with scant courtesy in the white Methodist Church of Philadelphia; he therefore withdrew, and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His contention was that the Negro should have his own Church, his own leaders, and should build his own enterprises in every line of endeavor.
The leader of the opposite school was Frederick Douglass, who thus declared the principle upon which his following proceeded: “I am well aware of the anti-Christian prejudices which have excluded many colored persons from white churches, and the consequent necessity of erecting their own places of worship. This evil I would charge upon its originators, and not the colored people. But such a necessity does not now exist to the extent of former years. There are societies where color is not regarded as a test of membership, and such places I deem more appropriate for colored persons than exclusive or isolated organizations.”
While, in detail, these two theories may vary in their developing expression, the principles upon which they were founded remain, and powerfully affect the Negroes’ attitude towards all the departments of our complex life. The question was both natural and inevitable, and became an increasingly live issue with the growing free population, as they looked forward hopefully, in 1850, to the day of universal freedom. It was a question which could not be answered by themselves alone. The disfranchisement of the Negro before the Civil War, was so nearly universal, that the answer to his question of relation to the political life of America was clearly a negative one. But there was a growing sentiment in the Northern States, coincident with the rise of the Abolition party, toward negro suffrage on a restricted basis.
It is probable that President Lincoln’s very conservative view of the matter would have expressed the view of the growing minority of whites before the war; and, had he lived after it, it is equally likely that it would have prevailed over all the reunited Union, as it does, with qualifications, in many States at the present time. I quote his letter, written in 1864, to the Governor of Louisiana, and printed in the _Negro Year Book_ of 1919. “Now you are about to have a Convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest, for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.” Again in his last public speech, April 11, 1865, in speaking of the new Louisiana Government, he said: “It is also unsatisfactory to some, that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.”
It is true that a State like Mississippi would be in an intolerable condition if unqualified suffrage were in practice, because the majority of the Negroes and some of the Whites are either illiterate, or too nearly so, to be intelligent voters. It is safe to say that no intelligent man, black or white, in the State, would vote for unrestricted franchise with its certain consequence of domination by the mass of the unfit.
In no sense does this age face the problems of the old reconstruction of 1865 to 1880. But the tragedies of that old time were not primarily of the Negro’s making. The thoughtful, older men, who are familiar with the age, and analyze the motives of conduct, know that Negroes, whose loyalty to their old masters has never faltered, transferred that loyalty to their liberators in utmost good faith and profound gratitude. We know that the Negro bowed before the “Yankee” with the same motive of grateful reverence that the American bows to the statues of Washington and Lafayette. The wise, thoughtful Negro of today looks back upon that wild era, and sees the mistakes and the loss to his race; while he lets others do the talking. Its lessons are not lost to him, difficult as it is for many people in the South to believe it. No one can read between the lines of the lectures of their great leaders without knowing how keen their insight is. An illuminating example is Dr. Isaiah Montgomery’s debate in the Mississippi Constitutional Convention in favor of the present suffrage law of the State.
There is but one demand—that laws be honestly administered. But this would involve office-holding! Well, why not if it contribute to mutual interest? Is it true democracy that would leave half of a population (as in some communities) unrepresented, all the way from State Legislature to policemen of a negro ward in town? Can that be Christian justice, whose approval we ask of our Lord, but which deprives a people of the right to guard the most sacred trust which God imposes—the homes in which they live? There are just as many classes among the Negroes as among the Whites. They are all forced into solidarity for like reasons that make the solid South. Neither is healthy. Both are based on unreasonable prejudice. The solid Negro believes he faces a solid white wall. The solid South believes it faces two solids, North and Negro. In neither case is it true. Just let somebody begin to do justly, trust the other fellow, and trust, above all, God’s power to inject a sense of justice and fair play even where human shortsightedness cannot see, and most of our troubles in this line would evaporate. The problem of trust is at once a community problem and a world problem which only the determined faith which removes mountains can solve.
Every one of our States has some wise, patriotic negro leaders who are earnestly studying the problems of race and of State, and who are profoundly anxious that race-integrity be maintained and race-relations be cordial and mutually helpful. They, and they alone, know the trials and burdens, the achievements and ambitions of their race so perfectly as to witness with authority. Over our entire nation, it is by the white race that the laws are made and executed, that social needs are ministered to, that prisons are administered, and that education is provided, and health and sanitation supervised. There is not a State in which the regulation of civic life would, or could, be turned over to the Negroes. This lays upon the Whites the chivalric obligation of studying, the more conscientiously and carefully, the needs and interests of their negro fellow-citizens. This cannot be done apart from the highly intelligent Negroes. In our State governments we should have negro representatives of their race to confer with law-makers as advisers. An hour’s conference with two or three of their leaders, chosen for the purpose by their own people, informed and freely representing their interests, would clear the atmosphere of racial misunderstanding, as no debate of a white legislature could do in a whole session.
In our city administration, the white and colored population are, by mutual choice, not by law, segregated; yet, through employment in daily contact, if one member suffer, all members suffer with it—but the Negro, most. In many cities, never a peace-officer is seen, save _after_ crime has been committed. How much better that his ward of the city be guarded and cared for _before_, so that the order and decency which ordinarily prevails, in spite of neglect, may be guarded and maintained! The Negroes should have their own peace officers; and their right to protect their own homes should be kept utterly inviolate. Citizenship is a sacred trust, and the care of citizens and the harmony of life demand that the most wholesome conditions of life be made for all alike.
We, of the Episcopal Church, have tested this out through many years. We have sat in councils, in conferences, on committees and boards with Negroes. With scarcely an exception, we have found them as courteous as ourselves. In counsel, some are wise and valued advisers; some are less so; none are useless. Their addresses sound much like ours; upon matters of their own race, far more illuminating than ours, as a rule. We mutually fulfil the covenant which Dr. Washington’s Atlanta speech proposed, and which our whole people accepted in 1884. The substance of that proposal was that “in our outward, common life, in all that goes to make a harmonious relation and a prosperous people, we are a unit like a man’s hand; in our inner social life, in all that contributes to racial integrity and the separate trusts that God imposes, we are separate as the fingers of that hand; but hand and fingers unite in striving to perfect the human family, to strengthen and build up, to guard and to purify, the great living Temple of God.” Can the Church be God’s Church, and stand for less?
The educated, intelligent Negroes of today, who read and think, are as anxious to contribute to the best interests of their communities, their States, and our common Nation, as are the Whites. This has been tested in community “clean-up campaigns,” in anti-tuberculosis movements, in liberty loan drives, in volunteers for war, in active service in army and navy—in every movement in which they have been assigned a share. They have never asked exemption from any duty. If service be a badge of honor, the Negro has won it. If the laborer is worthy of his hire, then the Negro has earned the fruit of his service as a citizen. If there are difficulties to be encountered in the bestowal of his earnings, they should be met squarely. Conference on any vital subject whatever, is always courteous and cordial when the Negro is accorded the place that God gave him in creating him a man. That, too, is not conjecture, but long-proved fact. When men have learned that the house of State is as much God’s house as that of Church, we shall learn how to hold brotherly conference with black or red or yellow or brown, and differences and misunderstandings and green-eyed hatred will be banished.
Utopia, one says! Possibly; but if there were no Utopia to strive for, we would cease the striving, and be content to live in any jungle that gave us birthplace.
The philosophy of life changes as present ideals are reached, and as loftier ones replace them in the half-conscious process of spiritual growth. A retrospect of child-growth, with its heightening ambitions urged upward by progressive ideals and mental and spiritual growth, illustrates this changing philosophy. It ought also to illustrate the folly of a rigid fixedness in life’s relationships such as leaves no room for that expansion which enlightenment brings both to ourselves and to others. Thoughtful people cannot suppose that our ideas about race-relations will always remain just as they are. They have changed greatly in the past, and we do not know just how God is going to lead us through the maze of the future. There is but one sure rule—to do justly, and to know that righteous obedience to God’s law of justice, and conformity to God’s law of love, constitute the wisdom which will be justified of its children in never-ending generations. There ought also to be a human reliance that can be depended upon. In every age, it has been the unusual stability of character based upon profound religious conviction on the part of the few, that has saved the many.
We have traced, in brief, the lives of some of those outstanding negro characters of deep conviction, who have been the ensigns of their people. It was upon these men of Church and School, with their co-workers like Booker Washington and others, that the duty of leadership has fallen in these years, beginning in the ’80s, and continuing until now, when new relations between the races have been in the making. At the beginning of this period the old régime had not yet been forgotten; the bad start of reconstruction had muddied the waters, and no one could see the bottom; the new freed race had still to try its wings; the old survivors of both races—now few, indeed—who had made the old relations, were then the many in middle life clinging to the past; the old “Uncles” and the old “Mammies” were still too many, and the endearment of the old ties was still too strong to give immediate place to a new relation between free Whites and black Freedmen or their free-born sons.
The North did not know just where to place the members of a race in its existing level of development; and the South was unwilling to have them where reconstruction had placed them. In consequence that happened, which has always happened in the history of the race when others had the power; the Negroes were largely unconsidered or ill-considered, and their real interest and their best good were alike submerged, while North and South spent weary years in controversies in which each side was sure of its own rectitude and distrustful of the other’s. No better condition for missing the conservative right can be found than that which extremist advocates necessarily make in imputing error to others because of the conviction that those others must think wrong. Through such a maze, the younger leaders were raised up to guide their people, and to demonstrate to the older, more advanced, white race, the real worth of the backward black.
It is difficult to see how anybody can trace the life and work of the comparatively small band of negro leaders, during these forty years past, without a profound feeling of admiration for their Christian character, their patience, their wisdom, and their fine sense of Christian delicacy, exhibited under trying conditions. Think of the men upon whom God has placed this most difficult and delicate task of laying the foundation for a totally new relation toward a more numerous and powerful race, and then try to remember how very few have seriously blundered! Think of their task of remaking their relations with a people who were recently their masters! Think of their task of teaching themselves (and in such true way that the members of the other race will also accept the lesson) to live as free black men with white men, on the same soil, and amid the same surroundings, as of yore! Then say whether you can withhold your chivalrous sympathy, or your resolve to help on the learning of the lesson so utterly essential to the peace of both races.
The Negro has had, and still has, this tremendous task laid upon him of making the place which is his in life; and of taking it, not because he demands it, but because he has successfully made that place. In general, he who has to _demand_ his place, has never _earned_ it. In general, too, he who has _made_ a place has deserved it, and, in the long run, it will be accorded him. The Negroes of education, of refinement, of gifts and of culture, are, too generally, held back from the place they have made. This is partly because of ignorance on the part of white people that such Negroes exist, while the only ones they know are the great majority of ignorant farm hands; partly because of the strange anachronism, “social equality,” which cuts straight across race integrity, and nowhere exists even within the single bounds of any race.
The negro people are not standing for social equality among themselves, even though some of their extremists, along with the Japanese, are muddying the stream of concord with a cry of “equality of races.” No one can doubt but that sane people of every race will continue to stand for that which God made them—white, yellow, brown, red and black—and will try to keep themselves so. In the long run, all will learn to value most the respect that righteous living and service to mankind merit, and to contend least for that which has not been earned. Whatever the future may bring, whether return to Africa in large numbers, or migration to Haiti as some of their leaders contend, or permanence in America, the duty of each day is to help the Negro to help himself in attaining the fullest preparation for the destiny which God’s providence has surely in store for him.
So much for political and social relationships, as between the two races. The Negroes have asked the momentous question, “What is our status?”
So too, in matters concerning the Church, they are asking the same question; not, indeed, as involving membership, but as regards organization. The proposal, made in 1874, to create separate Missionary Jurisdictions, resulted in separate Convocations, in a few Dioceses, some fourteen years later. Its renewal, in 1904, in the form of a Memorial, nearly unanimous, from the colored clergy, resulted, in 1918, in the application of the Canon on the Suffragan Episcopate to those Dioceses which should desire to adopt its provisions. The two Bishops elected by Arkansas and North Carolina have been given all the authority and personal initiative possible under the Canon. That it did not, and does not now, satisfy the full desire of the Memorialists is well known. That the conditions obtaining in the South and not now felt to be needful in the North, constitute ground for local adaptation of the Historic Episcopate, is the judgment of the Memorialists.
* * * * *
The reasons for the petition as “the result of many years of patient observation, study and prayer,” are clearly set forth, and may be found in the successive Journals of General Convention from 1904 to 1918. Meanwhile, there are no negro delegates in the House of Deputies, save one from Liberia and no direct voice, from the more than thirty thousand lay members, to represent their interests in the national body. This does not mean that the race is nowhere heard, or its interest never sought. But it does mean that, in national Conferences and Boards, to which the Negro has sought entrance, the Church is still slow to grant his request.
The picture is not wholly dark. What are the results which, in the midst of confusion and difficulties, the Negro has been able to achieve?
The statistics for the whole race, here given, are taken from the _Negro Year Book_ of 1919. In 1866, the Negroes owned 12,000 homes; in 1919, 600,000. Farms owned in 1866, 20,000; in 1919, 50,000. The wealth, for the two contrasted years, is represented as $20,000,000 and $1,110,000,000.
These figures are very eloquent in their announcement. They do not, and cannot, even begin to tell the story of the supreme devotion, the untiring labor, the self-abasement, the sacrifice, the consummate wisdom, of most of that small company of real negro leaders, who, from the ’80s down to now, have accepted the responsibility, and performed the tremendous task, of retrieving the losses of reconstruction and inspiring the race with an indomitable will to move forward. For this company of leaders was from among the 3.6% of those in professional service, as teachers, doctors, lawyers and the like. Upon them fell the sacred task of guiding the remaining 96.4%, less than 10% of whom were literate. There is no more interesting reading than that which the story of these leaders presents; and that of the trade-schools, farmers’ conferences, educational rallies, and religious institutes.
And how was the progress accomplished? It began with the veritable crusade of constructive service preached by the leaders.
“If educated men and women of the race will see and acknowledge the necessity of practical industrial training, and go to work with a zeal and determination, their example will be followed by others who are now without ambition of any kind. The race cannot hope to come into its own until the young colored men and women make up their minds to assist in the general development along these lines. The elder men and women trained in the hard school of slavery, and who so long possessed all the labor—skilled and unskilled—of the South, are dying out; their places must be filled by their children, or we shall lose our hold upon these occupations. Again, Phillips Brooks gave expression to the sentiment: ‘One generation gathers the material, and the next builds the palaces.’ As I understand it, he wished to inculcate the idea that one generation lays the foundation for succeeding generations.”
This is a sample of the messages of these crusaders, borne in varying cadences throughout the race. The appeal was to the cultured, by precept and even more by example, to stimulate the ambition of the whole race; to realize that foundation-building is the task of each generation, and that the neglect of one generation means loss to itself and the next.
But they were not preaching only. They did what they exhorted others to do. With the help of white friends, they began to build schools, and to teach those who could teach others the value of industry and thrift, and the blessings of the self-respect that is unafraid to face life and contribute to its needs. And thus the army of teachers began to go forth. Most of them were not well prepared, and are not at this day, for the calls have been so hurried that the preparation has been equally so.
Today there are 38,000 teachers, against the 600 in 1866; most of them in the little country schools; many under most difficult conditions and impossible surroundings, both of which are rapidly improving under the kindly interest of the dominant whites. And, too, there are many thousands, trained to a degree in the various trades, and taking their places in the industrial life of their homes. The fact that, in 1866, 95% were illiterate, and now only 20%, stands as a living monument to the devoted leaders of these forty years past.
What then is the status of the Negro in American life? Our forefathers fought for liberty to bestow it on all when the time came that the humblest members were prepared to assume its responsibilities. A later generation fought for Democracy—that crowning and pervading principle of liberty. Our great leaders have been as wise, as clear, as simple in the interpretation of democracy as their forefathers were in that of liberty. Shall the Church of God be wise enough, and devoted enough, and fearless enough, to lead the people of God to realize what has been purchased with blood and consecrated by sacrifice?
Now, as then, self-interest engenders prejudice; prejudice of class towards other classes, of crafts towards other crafts, of race towards other races. All the prejudice is not on one side; but no white man, with an eye to justice, can fail to admit the Negro has far the greater cause for his prejudice.
The very existence of different crafts and classes, and still more of different races occupying the same national home, makes problems. The only solution that really solves is Justice, with its accompanying weight in the balance—Mercy. Without the exercise of these, no class or race could hope for continuous life or persistent growth. Where truth and justice meet together, righteousness and peace will kiss each other in a brotherly, harmonious relation, that only the devil’s lies and cruel injustice ever mar and distort.
The Negro has been free for sixty years and more. Building upon the wonderfully fine foundation of the past (in spite of manifold and manifest flaws in its making), he has reared racial structures of social, commercial, industrial and religious life, that command respect and admiration. The credit belongs to both races—to the Negro himself, but no less to the race which was once his owner, and whose hand is clearly seen in the building.
The Negro knows even better than his white critics how faulty a living building is in which the majority of the living stones are still rough, unpolished, unsquared. He asks, and he has the right which God gives to His people to ask, that, as a free man, he be treated as a man; that, as justice is the right of life, he be accorded it; that, as a citizen, he be granted the rights of citizenship—the equal right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that laws governing citizenship be applied with equal justice to Negroes and to Whites.
If the Church of God (that is, her members) can bring herself to stand for less than that, it is difficult to find ground for forgiveness at the hands of the Son of Man who died upon the Cross for the salvation of all.
Of course there is a problem; but the real problem is not how to escape doing justice, but how to be just without destroying racial integrity. Race and family are of God’s institution, God’s alone, and their respective relations are of His making. Both are written in God’s handwriting, in flesh and blood; not in man’s, on scraps of paper. But this phase of the subject is exceedingly large. The apology for its introduction here, is to be found in the emphasis which it seeks to lay upon the ultimate purpose of education and training.
When one considers the few years from Emancipation, the reflection must come that long, long steps forward have been taken; and who can doubt that where unalloyed interest in the progress of the black members reigns in the hearts of the white, the guidance of the loving Father has stayed our impatience? Who can doubt that, in His guiding providence, He will deal with us according to His lovingkindness?
APPENDIX
NOTE 1
(_Chapter VI, page 159_)
The Hospital was the result of the devoted work of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Hunter, the latter making this her special charge, raising most of the funds, and keeping them separate from those of the School.
The earlier Principals of the School itself each performed distinctive services which won the affection and gratitude of the Church in North Carolina. The Rev. Dr. J. Brinton Smith founded the school in his five years of service from 1867 to 1872. The Rev. Dr. John E. C. Smede nourished it through the most difficult reconstruction period, 1872 to 1884, when tension was high, and when sympathy between North and South and White and Black was at its lowest ebb. The Rev. Dr. Robert B. Sutton, 1884-1891, succeeded to an atmosphere of relaxed weariness following the long drawn-out controversies over the “race question,” when support was most difficult, the more so because the Church had no settled policy of school work for the Negroes. Each had a task requiring all his fine ability.
It is no reflection on others (for comparison is impossible where the times and tasks were so distinct) to say that the Rev. Dr. Hunter’s great contribution was the complete reorganization of the educational ideal of St. Augustine’s, and its refounding on the devoted and heroic labors of his predecessors. Dr. Hunter’s 25 years of service contributed most powerfully to the movement which made the Church Institute possible, as well as to the present strong growth toward a solid foundation for the Christian education of the Negroes. He became Dr. Sutton’s assistant, when the “modern period” began. Old things were passing away, and the new had yet to be fashioned. The modern educational system was just beginning to be realized in the South. Dr. Hunter brought youth, vigor and ability to the task not only of justifying the wisdom of the fathers but of fulfilling the office of the wise steward in bringing forth old and new treasures to enrich the present and the future. He was ably seconded by Mrs. Hunter, and by his assistant who is now Bishop Delany.
The Rev. Edgar H. Goold, for four years Dr. Hunter’s assistant, is now the Principal. He is a graduate of Amherst College and of the General Theological Seminary.
NOTE 2
(_Chapter VI, page 159_)
James Solomon Russell was born of slave parents in Mecklenburg, Va., Dec. 20th, 1827. The name Solomon was bestowed by his mother with the prayer that the little one would inherit the wisdom of his namesake; and the prayer has been answered, for this boy has ripened into one of the wisest of his people. A war-boy, his early years were subjected to the privations of the general poverty of the times. At twelve years his schooling began, the boy paying his way partly by selling butter and eggs, and, for the balance, his labor. Hampton was the earthly goal of the young colored youths of that time, and Russell attained it. From Hampton he entered Major Cooke’s School in Petersburg, and graduated from the theological department, in 1882. Upon being ordered a deacon, he was at once appointed missionary to Brunswick and Mecklenburg counties, with residence at Lawrenceville. Within eight months he brought his wife, Miss Virginia M. Morgan, to make the happy home which has been the haven of the busiest man of his race in the world, with the exception of Dr. Washington. Mrs. Russell, until her death two years ago, was as vital to the life of the School as was her husband. In 1917, the Virginia Seminary conferred the Degree of Doctor of Divinity on Mr. Russell, the first person of color to receive this honor so rarely bestowed upon anyone by that venerable Seminary. Once has Dr. Russell declined election to the Episcopate, and once again to have his name presented. He felt the urge of duty too strongly at Lawrenceville to allow himself to be diverted. For many years he has been Archdeacon of Southern Virginia, and the most conspicuously wise leader among the 400,000 Negroes of the Diocese.
As a deacon, he opened a school in the vestry-room of the little church built by his own efforts. Mrs. Russell and himself were the teachers. The population was 88 per cent illiterate, and correspondingly prejudiced and superstitious. The story of the transformation is a romance of absorbing interest. The teacher was a travelling missionary, without other means than nature had provided for transporting himself over great distances. He pleaded for a horse before the Diocesan Convention. “Let’s give Brother Russell a horse,” was the response, and “Ida” became as well known as Russell himself over two large “black-belt” counties. So Russell and Ida became the missionary team, each producing fruit after its kind. The Archdeacon’s pupils became scouts and recruits in the forward army against sin and ignorance; Ida’s colts increased the transportation facilities of workers.
In the midst of besetting difficulties, the young priest found a steady sympathetic helper in Mrs. Buford whose daughter became the wife of the late Bishop of East Carolina. She had started a hospital for infirm colored people, and now extended her interest to the school.
NOTE 4
(_Chapter VII, page 180_)
The Methodist Bishop, William Capers, father of the late Bishop of South Carolina and grandfather of the Bishop of West Texas, gave much of his life to the Negro. No better witness can be found of the power of Jesus Christ over the life of those Negroes whom He specially called. These samples from Bishop Capers’ Autobiography are selected, his description regretfully abridged:
“The most remarkable man in Fayetteville (N. C.) when I went there, and who died during my stay, was a Negro by the name of Henry Evans. I say the most remarkable in view of his class; and I call him Negro with unfeigned respect. The name simply designates the race, and it is vulgar to regard it with opprobrium. I have known and loved and honored not a few Negroes in my lifetime, who were probably as pure of heart as Evans, or anybody else. Such were my old friends, Castile Selby and John Boquet, of Charleston; Will Campbell and Harry Myrick, of Wilmington; York Cohen, of Savannah; and others I might name. These I might call remarkable for their goodness. But I use the word in a broader sense for Henry Evans, who was confessedly the father of the Methodist Church, black and white, in Fayetteville, and the best preacher of his time in that quarter; and who was so remarkable, as to have become the greatest curiosity of the town; insomuch that distinguished visitors hardly felt that they might pass a Sunday in Fayetteville without hearing him preach.”
Henry Evans was a shoemaker in Virginia, licensed to preach by the Methodists. Being free, he decided to move to Charleston. On the way, Fayetteville detained him. His spirit was stirred at perceiving the ungodliness of his people. There was no religion of any denomination, so Evans began preaching to his people. The Town Council objected, and he withdrew to the sandhills nearby. The results upon the changing lives were notable. Evans explained his motives to the authorities; and this, with the fruits of his work, won the day; he was allowed the liberty of the town. Mistresses and masters, powerfully influenced by the great improvement in their servants, began to attend the Services. They built a frame structure for the preaching, with seats for the Whites and a projection for Evans’ home. It became too small and was enlarged, for the Whites now occupied all of the original building, the Negroes the addition. “That,” continues Bishop Capers, “was the identical state of the case when I was pastor. Often was I in that shed, and much to my edification. I have known not many preachers who appeared more conversant with Scripture than Evans, and whose conversation was more instructive as to the things of God. He seemed always deeply impressed with the responsibility of his position; and not even our old friend Castile was more remarkable for his humble and deferential deportment towards the Whites than Evans was. Nor would he allow any partiality of his friends to induce him to vary, in the least degree, the line of conduct or the bearing which he had prescribed for himself in this respect; never speaking to a white man but with his hat under his arm, never allowing himself to be seated in their houses; and even confining himself to the kind and manner of dress proper for Negroes in general, except his plain black coat for the pulpit. ‘The Whites are kind to me, and come to hear me preach; but I belong to my own sort, and must not spoil them.’ And yet, Henry Evans was a Boanerges; and, in his duty, feared not the face of man.”
He died, Mr. Capers ministering to him, in 1810, his last breath drawn in the act of pronouncing, “Thanks be to God Which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Bishop Capers continues: “On the Sunday before Evans’ death, during this meeting, the little door between his humble shed and the chancel where I stood, was open; and the dying man entered for a last farewell to his people. He was almost too feeble to stand at all, but supporting himself by the railing of the chancel he said, ‘I have come to say my last word to you. It is this: None but Christ. Three times I have had my life in jeopardy for preaching the Gospel to you. Three times I have broken the ice on the edge of the water and swum across the Cape Fear to preach the Gospel to you. And now, if in my last hour, I could trust to that, or to anything else but to Christ crucified for my salvation, all would be lost, and my soul perish forever.’ A noble testimony, worthy, not of Evans only, but of Saint Paul! His funeral at the church was attended by a greater concourse of persons than had been seen on any funeral occasion before. The whole community appeared to mourn his death, and the universal feeling seemed to be that, in honoring the memory of Henry Evans, we were paying a tribute to virtue and religion. He was buried under the chancel of the church of which he had been in so remarkable a manner the founder.”
Henry Evans was of the literate class; not educated in the sense of this day, but of his day, when the Bible was far more the book of Christian people than it is now; and Henry Evans, was “wiser than his teachers.”
NOTE 5
(_Chapter VII, page 185_)
Attention may be called to two notable negro leaders of the early Nineteenth Century.
The Rev. William Douglass, the son of a blacksmith, born in Baltimore in 1805, made his way into the Methodist ministry. While at work on the Eastern Shore, he sought episcopal orders, and was ordained by Bishop Stone in St. Stephen’s, Cecil County. “In the evening,” wrote the Bishop, “the church was given up to the Colored People, and the Rev. Mr. Douglass preached to them an interesting sermon.” This was on June 22, 1834. The same year he was called to St. Thomas’ African Church, Philadelphia, which, since the death, in 1818, of its founder, the Rev. Absalom Jones, had been served by one and another of the white rectors of the city. On February 14, 1836, Mr. Douglass was advanced to the priesthood. Bishop Onderdonk who officiated, wrote, “Mr. Douglass is a man of color. I take the opportunity of recording my very high estimate of his highly respectable intellect and most amiable qualities which entirely relieved my mind, in his case, from the anxieties that I had long felt in regard to this department of episcopal duty. He ministers to a congregation entirely at unity in itself, much attached to him, and improving under his pastoral care in principles and duties of our common Christianity.”
Mr. Douglass became a leader of power among his race. Bishop Alonzo Potter, in announcing his death to the Convention of 1862, said, “It hath pleased the Lord to call away from the Church Militant the Rev. William Douglass, rector of St. Thomas’ African Church, in this city, where he has ministered for the last twenty-seven years—a man of great modesty, of ripe scholarship, and of much more than ordinary talents and prudence. He is, as far as I am informed, the only clergyman of unmixed African descent, who, in this country, has published work of considerable magnitude. In two volumes, one of sermons and one a history of St. Thomas’ Church, he has vindicated his right to appear among our respected divines. As a reader of the Liturgy he was unsurpassed.”
The Rev. Alexander Crummell, D.D., was born in New York in 1819. He was early baptized by the Rev. Peter Williams of St. Philip’s Church, under whom he was trained in the Church’s ways. In early manhood he applied for Orders. The General Theological Seminary declined to admit Negroes as students at that time, and Crummell was prepared for ordination in Boston. In 1842, he was ordained by Bishop Griswold. Dr. Clark, later Bishop of Rhode Island, was one of the examiners, and years afterwards the impression then strongly made was thus recorded: “I was appointed, with the late Rev. Dr. William Croswell, to examine young Crummell when he applied for deacon’s orders in the Diocese of Massachusetts; and I remember that Dr. Croswell afterwards remarked to me that no candidate for the ministry had ever passed through his hands who had given him more entire satisfaction.” After a brief year in Providence, R. I., Mr. Crummell answered the earnest call then coming from Liberia, and threw in his life with his colored brethren there. He was at once missionary, teacher, and the trainer of the theological students. Once he left Liberia for a stay in England, and returned with a Cambridge degree. After the Civil War, he returned to America, and, in Washington, founded St. Luke’s Church, whose corner-stone Bishop Pinckney laid in 1876. For more than twenty years he was its rector.
No man of the race in his day was more worthily esteemed, or more worthy of it, than Alexander Crummell, and none more truly an apostle of his Lord.
NOTE 6
(_Chapter VII, page 185_)
The Colony of Georgia affords another interesting illustration. It was the result of James Oglethorpe’s venture in colonizing debtor-prisoners and other unfortunates, a movement characterized as “the beginning of modern philanthropy,” and giving an opportunity to those noted missionaries of the Church of England, John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield. Slavery was to be forbidden in the colony; but circumstances proved too strong. Rice was the staple crop, the waters formed its congenial home, and the Negroes—who else could so well subdue the swamps and make them productive? The result was inevitable. Georgia conformed to the general policy of her sister colonies.
As philanthropy was the motive, so religion was the animating spirit, of the new colony. Accordingly John and Charles Wesley were among the first colonists. The former established Christ Church Parish, Savannah, which was later divided, allowing the formation of Christ Church Parish, Frederica, named for the Savannah mother-church, Charles Wesley being its first rector, in 1736. These were deadly pioneer days, and rectors came thick and fast as predecessors were driven out, sometimes by political influence, most often by climatic.
Charles Wesley remained a year, and then John, his brother, assumed the charge of both parishes, making his way to Frederica on foot, trusting, for the crossing of the large rivers, to the passing canoes of the friendly Indians. “The fact of these visits to Frederica has been questioned,” writes the Rev. D. W. Winn, the present rector, “but the writer has seen Wesley’s own diary in which he tells how he fell into the water from a small boat while embarking from Frederica, and the leaves of the diary showed the marks of the water.” Mr. Winn, the descendant of the sister of those first missionaries, Charles and John Wesley, and fourteenth rector in succession from them, has had more than ordinary interest in the labors of his predecessors and in the knowledge of them. George Whitfield succeeded the Wesleys in 1737 or ’38; and, after them, three other missionaries of the period of establishment. The last, the Rev. Bartholomew Zorabuhler, was also the first of the line of permanent workers, serving from 1746 to 1766. Frederica, the chief centre of negro missions, furnishes our sample for the study of this early work in Georgia. The English Church Commissary, succeeding Commissary Bray for a part of the period, was the Rev. J. Ottolonghe, who made his headquarters in Savannah, and directed the Church’s enterprises in the colony.
Happily we have access to some of the early reports of the Commissary describing the negro work, these being kindly furnished by the Rev. James Lawrence, present historiographer of the Diocese. These are written with punctilious regard to the picturesquely bad spelling of the days of “Bloody Mary” and “Good Queen Bess,” one line only, in original, is here inflicted; it is dated Dec. 5, 1751. “In my last sent you by ye _Charming Martha_ I took ye liberty to acquaint you with my safe arrival in Georgia.” The lonely Commissary takes large liberty in thus addressing his home-superiors through the intermediary, not of a charming spinster, but of a boat whose picture would belie the description; and he notes, in appropriate capitals, his arrival, safe from peril, to which a good 20 per cent of the adventurers of the time fell victims.
The letter proceeds: “As soon as the Fatigue of the Voyage permitted it, I desired Reverend Zouberbuyler (Zorabuhler, Mr. Winn says; but what matters such a liberty with names among friends?) that he would be so good as to give the people notice in the Church that I would instruct their Negroes three days in the week, viz.: Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which he accordingly did, and that I might make it easier to the Masters of these unhappy Creatures, I have appointed the Time of their coming to me to be at Night, when their daily Labour is done. When we meet, I make them go to Prayers with me, having composed for the purpose a few Prayers, suitable (I hope) to the Occasion. Having thus recommended Ourselves to the Protection of Heaven, and for his Blessing on our Undertaking; I instruct them to Reade, that they may be able in Time to comfort themselves in reading the Book of God. After this is done, I make them repeat the Lord’s Prayer and the Belief, and a Short Portion of the Catechism, explaining to them in as easie and Familiar a manner as I can the Meaning of what they repeat, and before I part with them, I make a Discourse to them on the Being of God, or the Life and Death of our adorable Redeemer, or upon some of ye Precepts of the Holy Gospel, generally introducing some Event or Story, taken out of the Bible, suitable to the Discourse in Hand; and in order to get their Love, I use them with all the Kindness and endearing Words that I am capable of, which makes them willing to come to me and ready to follow my advice, and as Rewards are Springs that set less selfish minds than these unhappy Creatures possess, on Motion, I have therefore promised to reward the Industrious and Diligent, and Hope through Christ’s Grace, that ’twill have its due Effect. These then, Dear Sir, are the Methods, these the Path, that I have chalked out in order to discharge my Duty. If right and agreeable to your better Judgement, I shall continue in them; if not, I shall be very ready to put in Practice any other Method, which you shall please to prescribe.”
As the efforts expand and the field is enlarged, new difficulties are met. In 1754, the Commissary has pushed out among the new arrivals. A more stable government had encouraged the expansion of planting interests. There were great difficulties to be met in reaching the Negroes of the new expansions. “Our Negroes,” he writes, referring to the new plantations, “are so ignorant of the English language, and none can be found to talk in their own, that it is a great while before you can get them to understand what the meaning of Words is. Again Slavery is certainly a great Depresser of the Mind, which retards their learning a new Religion proposed to them in a new and unknown Language, besides the superstitions of a false religion to be combatted with, and nothing harder to be removed (you know) than Prejudices of Education, riveted by Time and intrenched in deep Ignorance.” So there was anguish of heart all along the line.
In 1858, the Commissary’s letter clearly infers another peril to his efforts growing out of the quarrels of Christian denominations. A Church-Bill was presented to the Assembly seeking to better the conditions of the Slaves in all ways possible. But the Assembly was composed of a large majority of Dissenters, and the bill was presented by Church of England representatives—fair ground apparently for religious disputes which lost sight of bill, of Negroes, of religion and of justice.
It was the age of materialism which, as Professor Brawley says, “defeated the benevolence of Oglethorpe’s scheme for the founding of Georgia,” and against which the Church battled, not only on behalf of the slaves, but for the very life of religion. A difficult battle it was when self-interest was all arrayed on the side of materialism.
In his evident great zeal and anxiety, the Commissary was warmly followed by the Rev. Mr. Zorabuhler of Frederica, under whom that parish was fixed to include the “Town of Frederica, with the islands of Great and Little St. Simon’s, and the adjacent islands,” and the name changed to St. James’.
Throughout the Revolutionary period, the Missions were probably served from Savannah. Recovery from the disasters of war was very slow, and it was not until after the consecration of Bishop Elliott, in 1841, that the Church became organized for work. Only three clergymen were in Georgia to organize the primary Convention of the Diocese, in 1823.
In his first address to this Convention, Bishop Elliott said: “The religious instruction of our domestics, and of the Negroes upon plantations, is a subject that never should be passed over in the address of a Southern Bishop.” Six years later, he enlarged upon what he deemed to be a worthy ministry to them. He spoke from experience.
“During the last week, I visited the mission upon the north side of the Ogeeche River, under the charge of the Rev. William C. Williams. A neat country church has been erected by some of the planters of that side of the river, which was sufficiently completed for service but not for consecration. I officiated in it on Sunday, the 18th of April, when eight candidates were presented for Confirmation, the first fruits of the earnest labor of their missionary. Mr. Williams is pursuing the only plan that will be of any service with this class of our population, identifying himself with their spiritual condition, and going in and out among them as their pastor and guide. It is my earnest hope that our Episcopal planters will take this matter into consideration, and make arrangements for the employment of missionaries of their own Church, so that Masters and Servants may worship together in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace. It would tend very much to strengthen the relation of Masters and Servants, by bringing into action the highest and holiest feelings of our common nature. There should be much less danger of inhumanity on the one side, and of insubordination on the other, between parties who knelt upon the Lord’s day around the same Table and were partakers of the same Communion.”
* * * * *
The Ogeeche Mission has an interesting history of continuous life from 1847 to the present day. It is ten miles from Savannah in the heart of the then great rice fields, where two Churches—St. Mark’s the first, and still used, and St. Barnabas’, now decayed—were built. The Negroes were utterly illiterate, and remained so until about 1890, when Mr. Dodge built a school, and the younger ones were taught. The Services were committed to memory by that very large congregation, and the responses were, and are, “as the sound of many waters”; the singing, like a great organ. No instrument was used. The “clark” for about fifty years was a very big, commanding, black member with magnificent voice, who, at the proper time for chant or hymn, stood before the congregation, sounded the note, raised the tune, and both led and inspired the singers. The habit still continues.
* * * * *
The Rev. Mr. Winn, for a long time their rector, wrote this tribute in November, 1921. “They knew the Service and took part in a way to make one’s heart glow, and which would put any white city congregation to shame. To minister to and among them was an inspiration, even though physical conditions as to locomotion, etc., were trying. I have dealt with Negroes from the time of my ‘black Mammy’ Molinda, who was ‘no common nigger’ but a ‘Molly glossy nigger,’ having come from Madagascar; but while I could understand anything said to me while looking the speaker in the face and paying close attention, yet, when one of them spoke to another, it was mostly an unknown tongue to me.
“Bishop Nelson, late of Georgia, said that a Service among those rice-field Negroes was the most splendid thing he ever experienced. That was my experience also; for, excepting the great procession and Service at the laying of the corner-stone of the Washington Cathedral, some eighteen years ago, there has not been, in my 41 years of ministry, any approach to the joy of a Service among those Negroes. It was not merely enthusiasm—I could arouse that among any congregation of Negroes—it was apprehension, appreciation, and the outpouring of the soul.”
There is perhaps no congregation in the South upon which the ravages of war had so little effect. Later changes have greatly reduced their number, but the old habits remain. The offering is still, in part, eggs or other farm produce as reverently offered as the money and coins in the silver alms-basins of the city-church.
The reports of Georgia parishes in 1860, show that practically all were ministering to the Negroes. In addition to the extended work of Frederica Parish and St. Mark’s, Ogeeche, St. Stephen’s Chapel, Savannah, had been established in ’56, especially for the Negroes, and was the base of mission-work on nearby plantations.
NOTE 7
(_Chapter VII, page 185_)
Regarding the instruction in religion given to the Negroes by their white owners, the following may be of interest.
It is only occasionally that one finds a record like this: “In 1712 the Rev. Gilbert Jones was Rector of Christ Church Parish. He felt a great interest in the spiritual welfare of the Negroes, and endeavored to persuade their owners to assist in having them instructed in the Christian faith; but he found this good work lay under difficulties as yet insuperable.”
Generally the testimony is most favorable and encouraging, as, for example, “The Rev. William Taylor wrote to the Society in 1713, stating that Mrs. Haig and Mrs. Edwards, who lately came to the plantations in Carolina, have taken extraordinary pains to instruct a considerable number of Negroes in the principles of the Christian religion, and to reclaim and reform them. The wonderful success they met with in about six months, encouraged me to go and examine the Negroes about their knowledge in Christianity. They declared to me their faith in the chief articles of our religion, which they sufficiently explained. They rehearsed by heart, very distinctly, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. Fourteen of them gave me so great satisfaction, and were so desirous to be baptized, that I thought it my duty to do it on the last Lord’s Day. I doubt not but these gentlewomen will prepare the rest of them for Baptism in a little time, and I hope their good example will provoke some masters and mistresses to take the same care and pains with their poor Negroes.”
NOTE 8
(_Chapter VII, Page 186_)
About 1834, an unknown writer, in South Carolina (a journal published by the State Agricultural Department) makes this significant statement which is strong testimony to the advancement of the race: “Despite the injunction, ‘Judge not,’ it has been asserted that the morality of the Negroes is not in proportion to their religious fervor. A class, marked as distinctly by their inferior social position as they are by race, invites such charges which are far more sweeping than just. If morality be the fruit of religion, it is not surprising (wonderful as the progress of the African in South Carolina has been) that morality has not, in one century and a half, attained the maturity, among the colored race, which has been the result of nearly nineteen centuries of Christian teachings to the European. Nevertheless, it would be a great mistake to suppose that any people exhibit in a higher degree that instinctive faith in the existence of absolute justice, truth, and goodness, which marks the capacity of human nature alike for religion and for morality, than do the colored people of this State.”
NOTE 9
(_Chapter VII, page 186_)
“Resolved, 1, That it is unnecessary at present for this body to take measures for the formation of any fund for supporting Missionaries to the colored people; it being understood that the difficulty is rather to obtain the missionaries, than the means of supporting them.
“... 5. That this Convention have heard, with great satisfaction, of the employment, by proprietors of estates on the Wateree and in Prince Williams Parish, of Missionaries of our Church, for the religious instruction of their colored people.”
And the reason is significantly, though perhaps unconsciously, given in these two extracts from the same issue:
“Wateree Mission—94 colored communicants. A decided religious influence prevails among the Negroes, for many are acting on principles but recently known to them. Sunday services on plantation, 45 times.”
NOTE 10
(_Chapter VII, page 189_)
From the many who wrought devotedly and mightily and lovingly among the plantation Negroes, there stand out a few men whom their contemporaries would have singled out for peculiar honors. And it surely is a peculiar honor to merit note among the able spirits who formed the staff of missionaries; for the Church entrusted the spiritual care of the Negro to her ablest and best. Among them all, the Rev. Alexander Glennie, rector of All Saints, Waccamaw, 1832-1866, must hold a place all his own in the annals of time. For thirty-four years he was the shepherd of the negro folds of the Waccamaw area. During those years the needs of his flock; the wise way to provide them; their capacity, intellectual and spiritual; the food needful for soul sustenance; the social cravings, and how to provide wholesome gratifications—all these, and more, were Mr. Glennie’s life study, and that of his life-long friend and co-worker, Mr. Plowden Weston, of Hagley Plantation, the seat of the largest single mission in the field.
Gaining completely and very early the confidence of planters and servants, Mr. Glennie labored in a vast field, restricted only by his powers of endurance, which were enormous. As plantations, one after another, came under his care, chapels were built and filled with well-instructed members and catechumens. By about 1845, in addition to teachers and catechists in large numbers, an Assistant Minister was employed, and, two years later, two. His sermons to the Negroes, published with an introduction by himself, are marvels of beautiful simplicity, the high art of the perfect teacher. In reading his Good Friday sermon, the wonder is how so great and so marvelous a mystery could be so truly and beautifully unfolded in a wealth of one and two-syllable words. And the blessed story loses absolutely nothing from the simplicity of the telling.
In him were combined the art of the teacher and the tending care of the shepherd. “My habit is,” he writes, “after concluding the Service, to question the people assembled upon the sermon they have just heard, which enables me to dwell more at large upon matters briefly touched upon in the sermon. This practice, and the frequent use of our Church Catechism, is, I need scarcely say, the most important part of the duty of those engaged in the instruction of Negroes.” We might add, in the better instruction of anybody.
NOTE 11
(_Chapter VII, page 191_)
Similar to the work of Mr. Glennie and of Mr. Weston (after whom Weston Chapel was named) was that of Mr. Drayton.
The Rev. J. G. Drayton was both a clergyman and a planter, his plantation being the far-famed “Magnolia” in St. Andrew’s Parish, of which he was rector. Besides Magnolia chapel built by him, he ministered regularly for many years from about 1850, to two other chapels for the Negroes—Barker’s and Magwood’s, in the same parish. From a letter of a descendant of Mr. Drayton’s, these extracts are quoted rather freely:
“In looking back to them, I now realize how out of the ordinary these Services were; how beautiful the feeling existing between the priest and his people; how simple, sweet, and uplifting it all was—even to a little child—to sit there listening to his words, feeling that greater love through his love. The picture of him that I carry in my memory I wish that I might send to you. One cannot put an influence into words. His face during the prayers; the high, weird singing of the Negroes in the familiar hymns; the breath of the fresh spring woods as it brought the Easter message through the wide windows—all blend to make the memory. I remember, too, a ceremony that was always amusing. It was his habit before Service to distribute among the poorest of the congregation a contribution which, later, they placed, with the air of millionaires, in the alms basin. And then, after ‘Marse John’ had exhorted them to his and their satisfaction, there was a great crowding around his small phaeton. The drive home was frequently made lively, and precarious as well, because of the gifts of ‘frizzle fowls’ and ‘yard aigs.’ The roads were often bad and the eggs good, and one had to be careful.”
After the destruction of Sherman’s raid, being left very poor and the phæton destroyed, Mr. Drayton, though an old man, never faltered but used to walk some twelve or sixteen miles each Sunday to hold at least three Services in the houses of the parish. (The chapels were burned in the raid.)
NOTE 12
(_Chapter VII, page 197_)
Notable among the founders of schools and parishes was John W. Perry, who spent his life in Tarboro, N. C., as rector, founder of a parochial school, and missionary over a wide area. From his school went his gifted son, now Principal of St. Athanasius’, Brunswick, Ga. Another is the Rev. James S. Russell, D. D., founder of St. Paul’s School and many missions, and Archdeacon of Southern Virginia. Had it not been for St. Augustine’s, and St. Paul’s, the Church would be barren indeed of workers. Still another is the Rev. Hutchins C. Bishop, whose strong personality has quickened the life of the negro churches of New York, and helped to treble their growth. Others are the Rev. Henry S. McDuffy, long a worker in North Carolina, now a fine spiritual power, with Dr. Henry Phillips, in the life of Philadelphia; the Rev. Primus B. Alston, founder of the parish and school in Charlotte, N. C., the soldier of steadfast faith and loyalty; the Rev. Geo. F. Bragg, a church-builder in his first years in Virginia, and for thirty years rector of old St. James’, Baltimore, whose intense love for the Church has been contagious, and whose loyalty to his race has been an inspiration to them; the Rev. Geo. G. Middleton, who built his church and rectory in Natchez, Miss., for he was a carpenter and followed his Master in trade and calling; the Rev. William V. Tunnell, Warden and Professor in King Hall and rector of St. Phillips, Washington, an inspiring teacher in classroom and parish; the Rt. Rev. Henry B. Delaney, D. D., Dean of St. Augustine’s Raleigh, his Alma Mater, Archdeacon of negro work, and, since 1918, Suffragan Bishop of N. C., and acting in that office for all the Carolinas; the Rev. Dr. W. T. Hermitage who served nearly all his ministry in North Carolina, building churches and giving a son to the ministry.
Education was bringing about new class relationships within the negro race itself as well as between the Negroes and the Whites; and upon these men and their associates devolved the task of adjusting these relationships. Wisely, with Christian patience and grace and faith, have they accepted the call and met the difficult duties. Looking back upon these forty years, it must fill the student of the story with admiration for these sane, steady, Christian leaders. Reflecting upon the great difficulties which beset them, surely only the most profound sympathy must be felt.
NOTE 13
(_Chapter VII, page 200_)
The story of Mr. Dodge is interesting, and his benefaction, in this region certainly, has but one parallel—that of Mr. Clarkson in South Carolina, which failed because of pre-war adverse laws.
Young Dodge came, about 1884, to visit his father, whose large interests were near Brunswick. The beauty of the surroundings, still with the scars of war apparent everywhere, the ruins of the old churches, the unshepherded Negroes wandering astray, the poverty from which recovery was necessarily slow—all these appealed to his fine sensibilities. He determined to apply for Holy Orders and devote himself to the negro people of the islands. The story of Frederica parish had been a romance; its ruin formed an irresistible appeal. On the foundation of the ruins he began to build, and, with the building, his vision enlarged to include the evangelization of some thirty-nine counties. After the earlier structures had been reared, he was ordained, and then proceeded to devote $72,000 to the Missions, of which he became Missionary Trustee with successive rectors of Frederica as Trustees in turn. With the approval of the Bishop, he took over the negro mission work of the Diocese. One by one, mission-chapels (used often as schools during the week) were built, served sometimes by priests, sometimes by teachers who were also lay readers. The Rev Mr. Winn came first, as Assistant and remains in charge to this day.
One of the most noted of Mr. Dodge’s negro teachers was J. B. Gillespie, who went from the Sewanee St. Mark’s Mission, in 1875, as lay reader of St. Perpetua Chapel and School, of which he was the first teacher. Gillespie’s father had been chief of one of the black tribes of Africa. He was captured in battle and sold to one of the last slave-ships smuggling cargoes into America. In America, he came into the hands of Col. Peter Turney (afterwards Governor of Tennessee), a man of remarkable power and humanity. Gillespie was treated by the Colonel with due appreciation of his native standing. So Gillespie, the teacher, was a prince once removed from his native land; and he was one in character and in intellectual reach. Eventually he was ordained, intending to return to Africa as a Christian priest; but a fever epidemic through which he nursed his people, carried him away at its close, and he was buried by his chapel in 1887. The older people still revere his name.
NOTE 14
(_Chapter VII, page 207_)
The story of such establishments is not without its romance. These have been difficult to secure; but there are doubtless many more to parallel this tribute which is taken from _The Church Advocate_, of August, 1921. In the initial work leading to the foundation of Epiphany, Orange, Miss Ruth Mason was the moving spirit. She opened a Sunday School for the Negroes of the old parish, and has been a devoted friend and co-worker ever since. Says _The Advocate_, “In spite of her advanced age, she is worth more to the work in Orange than a curate. If we only had a few more such in every northern community, Church extension among our group in such localities would become vitally real. Miss Mason was also instrumental in getting St. Andrew’s, Patterson, under way.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PROBLEMS OF THE PRESENT SOUTH—E. G. Murphy. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. 1909.
THE UPWARD PATH—M. Helm. Young People’s Missionary Movement, New York. 1909.
THE NEGRO RACES—J. Dowd, 2 vols. Neale Publishing Co., New York. 1914.
THE NEGRO—W. E. B. DuBois, Ph. D. Henry Holt & Co., New York. 1915.
THE BASIS OF ASCENDENCY—E. G. Murphy. 1918.
AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY—U. B. Phillips. Appleton, New York. 1918.
NEGRO LIFE IN THE SOUTH—W. D. Weatherford, Ph. D. Association Press, New York. 1918.
ENEAS AFRICANUS—H. S. Edwards. J. W. Burke Co., Macon, Ga.
THE SOUL OF JOHN BROWN—Stephen Graham. Macmillan Company, New York. 1920.
AFRICA: SLAVE OR FREE?—J. H. Harris. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. 1920.
THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO—B. Brawley. Macmillan Company, New York. 1921.
THE NEGRO YEAR BOOK—M. N. Work. Negro Year Book Publishing Co., Tuskegee, Alabama. 1922.
MANUAL OF AFRO-AMERICAN CHURCH WORK—G. F. Bragg. 1922.
THE TREND OF THE RACES—G. E. Haynes. Missionary Education Movement, New York. 1922.
IN THE VANGUARD OF A RACE—L. H. Hammond, Missionary Education Movement, New York. 1922.
NEGRO HISTORICAL CALENDAR. Roxbury Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 54 Changed: music, athletics, courage, markmanship to: music, athletics, courage, marksmanship
pg 69 Changed: their decendants became French subjects to: their descendants became French subjects
pg 247 Changed: I remember, too, a cermony to: I remember, too, a ceremony