Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading Part 5

HAVE COURAGE.

If any race of people on this earth need to have courage, it is the Negro.

Have the courage to say "No" when you are tempted to drink.

Have the courage to wear the old suit of clothes, rather than go in debt for a new suit.

Have the courage to acknowledge your ignorance when asked about something of which you do not know.

Have the courage to pay a debt when you need the money for something else.

Have the courage to be polite, though your character may be a.s.sailed.

Have the courage to speak the truth, remembering the command: "Thou shalt not lie."

Have the courage to own that you are poor, and thus disarm poverty of its sharpest sting.

Have the courage to own that you are wrong, when convinced that such is the case.

Have the courage to be good and true, and you will always find work to do.

Have the courage to say your prayers, though you may be ridiculed by man.

Have the courage to tell a man why you will not lend him money instead of whipping the devil around the stump by telling him that you haven't a cent "in the world," calling one of your pockets "the world."

Have the courage of your convictions. "According to a man's faith, so be it unto him." This is true on every plane of life, from the lowest to the highest. A man's power in everything is measured by his convictions. The statesman who has the profoundest convictions is surest of bringing others to see as he sees on any question which he discusses before the public. The minister who can most completely identify himself with his people, if he has the courage of his convictions, is the one who is most likely to be successful.

(Afro-American Encyclopedia.)

THE SOUTH GIVEN THE PREFERENCE

"It is a poor charity that closes its doors to honest labor on the one hand and opens its almshouses on the other." Such is the comment of a writer who recently compared the relations in the North and South, as regards their efforts to care for the poor, and especially the distresses of the needy among the colored people. While the North has an apparent balance in her favor in the matter of formal expenditures for charity among the colored people, yet the South has the advantage in true charity. It gives the helpless an opportunity to help themselves. Charity is wisest in her ministrations when the object of her beneficence is not deprived of the means of self-support and independence. In the North nearly all departments of labor are governed by trades unions, and the unfortunate Negroes, proscribed as they nearly always are, are forced to become paupers. The South does not bend the manacles of pauperism on his wrists, but instead opens to him many lines of industrial activity, such as other sections of our country do not afford. (American Baptist, Louisville, Ky.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. GEORGIA GORDON TAYLOR.

Nashville, Tenn.]

For seven successive years of almost continuous labor she was the leader of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers, of Nashville, Tenn., who traveled extensively, both in America and Europe, giving popular entertainment of a species of singing which originated among the slaves of the South. She possesses a soprano voice of rare quality that is always pleasing and in demand.

THREE GREAT NEGROES.

BY JOHN E. BRUCE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

The three greatest Negroes that the race has produced are dead. No three living Negroes fill so much s.p.a.ce in books or in men's thoughts as Toussaint L'Overture, Richard Allen, and Frederick Dougla.s.s, and it will be a long while before three Negroes of equal intelligence and ability for leadership and organization will be able to take their places. There are others, but these represent the real greatness of the Negro on two continents, and each man's work stands out conspicuously for itself. Hayti, the great African Methodist Church, and Negro citizenship in the United States are the magnificent results in part or in whole of the agitations begun by each of these men in his appointed time. The monument to L'Overture's greatness, generalship, courage, and organizing ability is the black republic which he founded and consecrated with his blood.

Richard Allen's monument is the great African Methodist Church, with its hundreds of thousands of worshipers, its schools of learning, and its progressive and educated ministers, some of whom can hold a good deal more book learning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LATE HON. FREDERICK DOUGLa.s.s.]

The monument to Frederick Dougla.s.s is the new citizen--the Negro citizen, if you please--whose cause he eloquently pleaded in the presence of the great and the powerful, in whose interests he made thousands of sympathetic friends because the Almighty had given him an eloquent tongue and a powerful voice. There are others, but these three stand at the head of the list, and are better known to the world at large than any other three Negroes on earth. What a triumvirate!

L'Overture, Allen, and Dougla.s.s--what a mighty combination! Courage, piety, and eloquence. A bronze medallion with the heads of these great Negroes worn near the heart of the young Negroes of this generation might tend to fill their souls with loftier and n.o.bler thoughts and drive them nearer to the race which these men dignified. The immortality of infamy is ours if we fail to produce a Negro in the next generation who will not at least measure up to the standard to which any one of these three immortals not only attained, but kept unsullied and unspotted until the angel of death gathered them unto their fathers, that they might sleep the sleep of the just.

POINTED PARAGRAPHS FROM RACE NEWSPAPERS.

Many of our young people might profit immensely by the careful and proper employment of their time in the reading and consulting of good books. (Woman's Messenger, Memphis, Tenn.)

Our girls and women can always render a great service to the race by their ladylike deportment upon the public highways. (The Light, Vicksburg, Miss.)

No race can rise above the morals of its women, and for that reason the women of our race should be careful, and strive to do nothing that will r.e.t.a.r.d our progress. (The Informer, Louisville, Ky.)

We should endeavor to multiply the number of our white friends, in the South especially, because it is to them and to ourselves that we must look for our material advantage and practical welfare. (The Planet, Richmond, Va.)

Our children should know the history of the race. It will instill a spirit of race pride. They should know that the foundations of this republic were made secure by the blood of our fathers as well as that of the Anglo-Saxon race. (Clipper, Athens, Ga.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: CaeSAR A. A. TAYLOR, OCALA, FLA.

Editor _Forum._]

The Negro is sadly in need of money. There can be no subst.i.tute for it. When a Negro man spends money and becomes important from a commercial point of view, the color of his skin and the fiber of his hair are all lost in the mad rush of the Caucasian to his pocket and its contents. (Texas Baptist Star.)

While man can boast of great physical strength, skill, and bulldog courage, woman carries in her weak frame a moral courage very seldom found among men. If our race is to be a great race in this great nation of races, our women must be largely instrumental in making it so. (American Baptist.)

There is a mistaken idea that "culture" means to paint a little, sing a little, dance a little, put on haughty airs, and to quote pa.s.sages from popular books. It means nothing of the kind. Culture means politeness, charity, fairness, good temper, and good conduct. Culture is not a thing to make a display of; it is something to use so moderately that people do not discover all at once that you have it.

(Colored American, Washington, D. C.)