Twentieth Century Negro Literature Part 35

In 1884 he met the Georgia Conference at Valdosta, Ga., and was ordained an Elder by Bishop W. F. d.i.c.kerson, and was stationed at Quitman, Ga., remaining there two years. In January, 1886, he was transferred by Bishop James A. Shorter to the North Georgia Conference and stationed at Big Bethel A. M. E. Church, Atlanta, Ga., the city in which he was born. His mother had been a member of this church and its old members knew him when a boy. There he remained four years with great success, raising the largest amount of dollar money that had up to that time been raised in the State: by this he became one of the dollar money kings of the connection for 1886 and was awarded a gold badge by the Financial Department of the A. M. E. Church. Thus, in six years after entering the ministry, he became pastor of the largest church in the State at the age of twenty-seven years. In 1889 he was a.s.signed to Pierce's Chapel, Athens, Ga., and served it three years. In 1892 he was made Presiding Elder of the Athens District, which place he filled for three years. In 1893 he preached the annual sermon to the students of Allen University, Columbia, S. C., when the faculty and Trustee Board conferred on him the t.i.tle of Doctor of Divinity. In 1892 he was a delegate to the General Conference of the A. M. E. Church, which met in Philadelphia, and served as a member on the committee on statistics.

In 1895 he was stationed a second time in Atlanta, at Allen Temple, A. M. E. Church, remaining here four years with great success and entertaining the session of the North Georgia Conference in his last year. He was elected again to the General Conference, which met at Wilmington, N. C., in May, 1896, and served on the committee on revision of discipline.

In 1899 he was elected not only a delegate but the leader of his delegation to the General Conference, which met at Columbus, Ohio, in May, 1900. Here he was elected without opposition chairman of the Episcopal Committee, the most important committee of the church; it is composed of all the leaders of the delegations from all parts of the church, and before this committee the Bishops appear for an examination in their moral, religious and official character; it fixes the boundaries of the districts and a.s.signs the Bishops to their fields of labor.

He is now a trustee of Morris Brown College, Secretary of the Trustee and Executive Boards, Treasurer of the Theological Fund, Chairman and treasurer of the dollar money committee of the Atlanta, Ga., Conference, Book Steward, Chairman of Committee on Fourth Year's Studies. He is a prominent craftsman and for one year was Deputy Grand Master of the Most Worshipful Union Grand Lodge, A. F. and A. M. of Georgia, Grand Representative of the Stringer Grand Lodge of Mississippi to the Grand East of Georgia, with the rank of Grand Senior Warden. He is now a Trustee of the W. E. Terry Masonic Orphan and Widows' Home and Industrial School, located at Americus, Ga., a.s.sociate Editor of the "Voice of Missions," the missionary organ of the A. M. E. Church, published in New York.

One of the greatest events of his life was the receiving of Rev. Jas. M. D'wane of the Ethiopian Church from Pretoria, Transvaal Republic, South Africa, into the A. M. E. Church, and through him eighty preachers and two thousand eight hundred members.

The difficulty of considering this question deepens as we consider the young Negro from every phase of life. Universally it cannot be answered in the affirmative, for the Negro is divided into cla.s.ses as well as are other races, and as no people are universally, morally good, so such cannot be expected of the Negro.

The Negro possesses an upper cla.s.s, a middle cla.s.s, and a lower cla.s.s, and in a consideration of these cla.s.ses we shall look for an answer to the question. The upper cla.s.s consists of those who have made extraordinary progress, morally, religiously, mentally and materially; who have outstripped their fellows in the race of life and attained a standard of civilization commensurate with their opportunities and proved to the civilized world that under favorable circ.u.mstances the Negro is as capable of a high development in civilization as any other race. This cla.s.s is an improvement, morally, upon their fathers. For their opportunities have been such as to render them more capable of a higher conception of morality and of their duties to their fellowmen, and in proportion as a man is enlightened on morality does he improve in morality, other things being equal, and reaches a higher type of manhood. Morality is always affected by one's religious views. The moral binds us to our fellowmen, and the religious to our G.o.d; and a man may in many respects be better than his fellowman but he can never be better than his G.o.d. If a man has low and meagre ideas of G.o.d his ideas of man will be low and meagre whatever may be his conceptions of the law, government, and the character of his Creator will be his ideas of duty to wife, children, neighbors and country.

The educational qualifications on moral and religious lines must furnish some of the rules by which the standard can be gauged for the man who has by liberal and extensive educational facilities gotten the capacity to know his G.o.d and His moral government over His creatures must rise in moral improvement and stand out as the towering mountain above the plain that surrounds it. And on this line the upper cla.s.s of Negroes, by reason of religious and educational advantages, are an improvement morally on their fathers, whose opportunities for moral improvement were very meagre, indeed.

The middle cla.s.s of Negroes are not equal to the upper cla.s.s in attainments. Their educational advantages have not been so great as those of the upper cla.s.s, and yet their moral development has been correspondingly as great. The moral law of G.o.d has been heard as distinctly by them as by the upper, but they have not that discriminating judgment that enables them in every instance to distinguish between the morally wrong and the morally right, and yet there has been awakened in them a consciousness of certain things due to their fellowman and to their G.o.d that has kept them in a way that they could not be charged with wilful moral wrong, and their conservatism has placed them in a manner nearer to the morally right than to the morally wrong. And the young Negroes of this cla.s.s are an improvement morally on their fathers. Solomon hath said, "As a man thinketh, so is he." Good character cannot arise out of low thoughts, but it must emanate from pure, n.o.ble, G.o.d-fearing and elevating thoughts and ideas. Correct ideas of life practically embodied in conduct can lift man above the low, sensual, evil walks of life. Now that there are many young Negroes with correct ideas of life cannot be denied. Now the lower cla.s.s of Negroes are those whose ideas are distorted; who are conscience-seared, and who have no regard for G.o.d nor man; and as the upper and middle cla.s.ses have ascended in the scale of moral civilization, so the bad cla.s.s of Negroes have descended in the scale, their finer sensibilities having become blunted by vice and crime, so that education on moral and religious lines has no charms for them. Sinai's majestic summit and moral law are as chaff to them, and as freedom has given a greater and better opportunity for the morally good to improve and rise, so it has given the same for this cla.s.s to descend and become more and more corrupt.

Indeed, they have gone lower than their fathers on this line. But the character of a race is not to be judged by its degraded element, but by the upper and middle cla.s.ses, which form the major portion of any race and give it a standing along the line of moral and religious civilization. We conclude by saying that the young Negro is an improvement morally upon his father.

First, because freedom has given to the young Negro aspirations for a purer life, which his father did not have.

Second. The moral atmosphere of the young Negro's home life is better than that of the old Negro.

Third. The young Negro's educational advantages give him higher conceptions of life and duty than those had by his father.

Fourth. The young Negro has a more enlightened pulpit than his father had to preach a broader and more comprehensive gospel to him, and to thus give him more correct ideas of life.

Now these superior advantages, which the young Negro has, make it possible for him to outstrip his father in moral accomplishments, and the arguments of his enemies to the contrary notwithstanding, the educated young Negro presents a striking contrast in point of morality to the old Negro.

THIRD PAPER.

IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER?

BY REV. E. C. MORRIS, D. D.

[Ill.u.s.tration: E. C. Morris, D. D.]

REV. E. C. MORRIS, D. D.

On May 7, 1855, near Springplace on the Connesauga, in the chestnut hills of North Georgia, of slave parentage, was born E. C. Morris, now the President of the National Baptist Convention, which is the largest deliberative body of Negroes in the world, the editor-in-chief of the Sunday School series issued by the National Baptist Publishing Board, the President of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, and pastor of the Centennial Baptist Church of Helena, Arkansas. His early education was through the common school, but practically from nature and necessity. From earliest childhood he was peculiarly interested in men and things; hence, now possesses a large stock of knowledge concerning human nature, is an advocate of prudence, conservatism and manliness in all affairs bearing upon the relation of the races in this country. He stands for self-help and racial integrity and believes that when man has acknowledged his inability and failure to ameliorate the ill conditions in this country, G.o.d will settle the same and cause the deserved recognition of all men, black and white.

He saw with his father the first train that pa.s.sed through North Georgia, though the spectacle was quite an amusing draft on his youthful nerve, for, says he, "Had I been older than five years, it is questionable that my father, by whose hand I was led, could have detained me from the urgent business I felt I had back home when that mysteriously terrible locomotive came rushing down the track seemingly intent upon spending its fury upon no one else but me."

When Elias was ten years old, his parents, James and Cora Morris, moved into Alabama, settling at the little town of Stevenson. But Elias had a short while before begun living with the late Rev. Robert Caver, his brother-in-law, at Stevenson, and so lived until he arrived at the age of twenty-one. Mr. Caver taught the young man the shoemaker's trade and the latter earned his bread upon the shoemaker's bench until thirty and three years old. He felt a call to the gospel ministry immediately upon his conversion at the age of nineteen, which took place just at the time when he had grown so inimical and impatient toward a revival that had been going on for several days in the church at Stevenson that he had plotted mischievous disturbance of the meeting.

He grew in grace and general ability, and in 1879 accepted a call to the pastorate of the Centennial Baptist Church of Helena, Arkansas, which position he has held continuously to the present time. His ability as an organizer is fully recognized among his people. He established and for the first two years edited the first religious paper published by the Negroes in the State of Arkansas. In 1884, he organized the Arkansas Baptist College and for sixteen years has been Chairman of its Board of Trustees. For nineteen consecutive years he has been annually elected President of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. In 1894 he was elected President of the National Baptist Convention, whose const.i.tuency numbers about a million and a half, and has been elected every year since to the same position. Under his leadership, this society has been firmly unified and has enjoyed the greatest prosperity in its history. It was his address before this Convention at Washington, in 1893, that inspired an indomitable and uncompromising determination in the minds of the colored Baptists to begin publishing interests of their own. It was his active brain that conceived the idea of the National Baptist Young People's Union Board, which Board is located at Nashville. And so his progressive acts have multiplied as he has advanced in age and responsibility. Dr. Morris is an acknowledged adviser of the colored people of his community, in all matters relating to their general uplift. He is a friend to humanity and a lover of his race. He is a possessor and advocate of wholeheartedness and sincerity, being charitable to a difference or a fault. His influence begins at home and spreads abroad, and all distinctions that he bears are borne with gentlemanly modesty, believing leadership to him a duty rather than an honor.

The subject of this article is a very important and delicate one; important because it forms the base from which all the advancement made by the race for the last past thirty-six years must be measured, and delicate because it makes comparison between father and son. If there has been no improvement in the race, morally, since its emanc.i.p.ation from slavery, then no real advancement has been made; and to say that the Negro has made no advancement would be sufficient to call forth universal derision.

It must be admitted in the beginning that to do full justice to the subject, much study and s.p.a.ce is required. In the absence of comprehensive statistics on the subject and the time in which to compile the same, several standpoints of reasoning must be a.s.sumed, and these will be taken up in no regular order, one being important as the others. I do not attempt to go upon or set up a system of scientific theories either, but simply to state and connect obvious facts. The past and present moral status of the race is involved, but I shall not go beyond that period in which the race was emanc.i.p.ated, and will include, as the fathers, such as were the heads of families at that time and those who were born about that time, const.i.tuting largely the heads of families now, as the respective parties to the comparison.

What is here said in comparison of father and son is not intended as unfavorable criticism even where the language may appear uncomplimentary, but rather to make a truthful statement of the virtues found in both. I wish also to be understood as placing myself with those who have faith in the race, to the extent that I believe a large majority of the freedmen and their descendants are moral, and should be counted with the good and upright in heart. Such a decision cannot be reached, however, from a surface examination or outward appearances. For it is a notorious fact that in all the years of the Negro's life in this country, he has been subjected to the most menial occupations such as would, in a large measure, prejudice the disinterested observer against any high opinion of his morals. The subject is by no means a new one, but has been investigated and discussed for a long time by great writers and thinkers. Opinions have been expressed which are by no means favorable to the race--by no means favorable because of the ignorance of the party expressing the opinion. Many of these opinions have been formed and influenced by what is seen of the Negro in the crowded streets of great cities, at railroad depots, or at steamboat landings; or upon the great cotton, rice and sugar plantations, where thousands of Negroes who are employed only as day laborers, meet. But these do not represent the majority of the Negroes. Nor should opinions be formed, of the moral status of this people, out of what may be seen of them at such places as above referred to, any more than the morals of a great city like New York or Chicago should be judged by what is seen of the motley crowds that gather about the wharfs and in the congested streets and other places where the lowest element of society is to be seen in the majority. The Negro fathers of forty years ago were as good as the circ.u.mstances and conditions of that day required, and many of them showed themselves to be superior to the requirement. It is to be admitted that environment and teaching have much to do with moral development, and that neither of these were, as a rule, favorable to the fathers. The contraband life of the Negroes during the war was perhaps the best that could be provided at that time. But it was far from being conducive to good morals, and was not, in a moral sense, an improvement upon the plantation life prior to the war, when almost all the slaves were huddled by families in one room cabins of what was known as "the quarters." It was fortunate for the race and the fathers that the contraband life was of short duration, and the heads of families among the Negroes, as fast as they could get their loved ones together, began to settle in families all over the Southland. The privilege of being a free man, to come and go at will, had its evil effect upon the fathers for a few years, but they soon became enveloped with the desire that their children become educated and otherwise cultured, as were the children of their white neighbors.

The desire to educate and acc.u.mulate for the good of the children became the restraining point in the lives of the fathers, and a very appreciable change for better morals was noticeable in the latter sixties and early seventies.

Immediately following the close of the war, a great many missionary agencies set to work among the Negroes for the purpose of improving them morally and intellectually. These agencies operated among the old and young alike, but not with the same results; for it soon became known that very little change could be wrought among the aged ones whose superst.i.tious notions of religious worship and peculiar ideas about "white folks' religion" made it a difficult task to teach them.

Notwithstanding their superst.i.tion, the aged Negroes were singularly kind and respectful to their white neighbors and permitted the white teachers--for nearly all teachers were white at that time--to have absolute control of their children both as to home and school life.

One of the attributes of morality is a happy conscience, or happiness, for there can be no true happiness where there is no morality. Hence, there existed an appreciable element of morality among the fathers, for, as a rule, no happier or more contented people could be found anywhere. I speak of the whole race. One may be a good servant, or a good neighbor, and yet not a good man. Opportunities have much to do with developing the attributes of the soul. Many of those n.o.ble qualities which go to make a good man were latent in the fathers, for there had been no opportunity for the development of these qualities.

The home is the foundation place of all that is good and grand in a race or nation. Wisdom and virtue are inseparable from a good home.

Hence, to make the comparison which my subject calls for, we must inquire into the home and religious life of the present generation.

The young men from eighteen to twenty-one years of age who are, so to speak, in embryo with respect to questions affecting the progress of the race, are not included in the summary we make and should not be considered directly, in measuring the moral status of the race. As to the homes of the fathers forty years ago, very little can be said. But late statistics show that there are over three hundred thousand homes and farms owned by the Negroes in the United States, which indicates that nearly two millions of the nine million of our people live in their own homes. The figures are very significant when it is remembered that the race started forty years ago, four million and a half in number of individuals, with practically no homes. The property value of the homes now owned is conservatively put at one billion dollars--not a bad showing for a people who commenced forty years ago at zero in wealth. But the acc.u.mulation of wealth does not always mean that the owner is moral, yet the acc.u.mulation and maintenance of good homes present a better argument in favor of the good moral inclination of the people acc.u.mulating and maintaining these homes than can be produced in words. These mean more than the mere ownership of a house and lot, or a sixty acre farm; a respect for the first inst.i.tution set up by the Creator is thereby shown and that in that inst.i.tution (the family) is one to love and honor; and that there an altar is to be erected around which all are to kneel and worship G.o.d; they mean that morality, the foundation of all true greatness, is to be enthroned there. The establishment and maintenance of so many Christian homes among our people has brought forward a demand which is a barometer of the moral changes, and shows conclusively that the race is improving morally. This demand is for the right kind of men as preachers and teachers. The time was when a man who could read and write, no matter what his character, could find a place to preach and teach among our people. This does not obtain now so much as before, and the people are demanding that their teachers and spiritual advisers be men and women whose lives and characters are living epistles of virtue. If proof of this point were necessary, one would need only to refer to the continued upheavals in various communities, in the schools and churches, where war has been made upon those persons whose lives have been such as to arouse suspicion that they were unworthy the offices held. The fact that these demands are being made for a pure ministry and a competent and worthy corps of teachers is encouraging.

In pa.s.sing judgment upon the moral status of the young Negro, or in comparing this status with that of the father who has gone from the stage, we will necessarily have to apply the multiplication process, for it will require a life fully lived in all its details to const.i.tute the sum total of a well built character. Therefore, the _whole_ truth about the morals of the present generation will be known only to the next. The processes used in the moral development of the race have been gradual and almost imperceptible in progress, but they have been in progress, nevertheless, and promise great results. The man who sowed his seeds yesterday does not expect to reap a harvest to-morrow. Cultivation is to follow planting. The warm spring rains, the hot rays of a summer sun are to come and moisten and warm the soil around the roots, cause the blade to shoot forth and then harden the stalk and the grain. These are to be followed by the cool winds and frosts of autumn before harvest comes. The planting of moral principles in the present generation of Negroes has been done; the cultivating process is now going on by means of the buying of homes, entering into business and agricultural pursuits, building churches and schools and in educating the youth. These facts point to the moral trend of the mind of the present generation, but perhaps none of them in the same degree as the religious desire of the colored man.

A larger per cent of the Negroes in this country are members of the Christian churches than of any other race of people. Notwithstanding the criticism to the contrary, they are as practical in their Christianity as any set of people. The matter of divorce has been a great problem to many of the most thoughtful men of the race, and the frequent resort to the courts to obtain divorces has been used as an argument against the growth of the moral sentiment in the race. But the very fact that such meets with opposition and is disapproved by the good people is evidence in favor of the Negro's morals. Then again, the cla.s.s of Negroes who have but little respect for the marriage vow are, as a rule, those who are indolent, worthless and without a home and making no effort to obtain one. But, happily, this cla.s.s form but a small minority.

Another virtue in the Negro's character which comes only from a moral sentiment is grat.i.tude. He loves his benefactors and would gladly repay them for all they have done for him, if he were able to do so.

If the mind was filled with sensuality, deception, hatred and like vices, there would be no room for that n.o.ble characteristic, grat.i.tude, which is so prominent in the present generation. His grat.i.tude extends beyond the individual benefactor to the flag of his country; overlooking present conditions and remembering past favors, he is always ready to dare and die for his country's honor. We conclude by saying that the fathers who came up out of slavery, unlettered and untrained, did well. The present generation of fathers, or heads of families, by reason of superior advantages, are doing far better. The race as a whole for the last past thirty-six years has made a history for itself which will form the apex of its glory when it has pa.s.sed through a century of training under its changed condition from slavery to freedom.

FOURTH PAPER.

IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER?

BY MRS. ARIEL S. BOWEN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mrs. Ariel S. H. Bowen]

MRS. ARIEL SERENA HEDGES BOWEN.

Mrs. Ariel Serena Hedges Bowen, wife of Dr. J. W. E. Bowen of Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., was born in Newark, N. J. Her father was a Presbyterian clergyman in that city. He had graduated from Lincoln University, Pa., and had organized churches in New York State. Her mother represents one of the oldest Presbyterian families of that State. Her grandfather was a bugler in the Mexican war, and was a Guard of Honor when Lafayette revisited the United States. Her parents removed early to Pittsburg, Pa., where she attended the Avery Inst.i.tute. She completed the Academic course of this school. Her parents then moved to Baltimore, Md., where her father became pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, and finally of Grace Presbyterian Church. She was sent to the High School of Springfield, Ma.s.s., where she remained and graduated with honor in a large cla.s.s in 1885. She also took the Teachers' Course and Examination and pa.s.sed a creditable examination and was favorably considered as teacher for one of the schools of that city. She was then called to teach History and English Language in the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, Tuskegee, Ala., under Prof. B. T. Washington.

In the year 1886 she was married to Dr. J. W. E. Bowen. She became a Life Member of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She removed to Atlanta with her husband in 1893. She became Professor of Music in Clark University in 1895. She is the State President of the Georgia W. C. T. U., No. 2. She has written very largely, among which may be mentioned, "Music in the Home," "The Ethics of Reform," etc. She is an accomplished vocalist and musician with the piano and pipe organ. She is busily engaged in temperance and reform work, together with training and fitting her family of one boy and three girls for life. She is regarded as one of the foremost and best cultured women of her race. She reads Greek, Latin and German with facility, and is a superb housekeeper.

The most important and vital factors in the development of a race are physical strength, intelligence and morality, these three, but the greatest of these is morality.

The individual or the race possessed of either or both of the first two, and that utterly ignores the third, can never attain to the full status of man, nor reach the zenith of full racial development or the pinnacle of civilization. To-day we hear much about the survival of the fittest and the "superior race and the inferior races." The earnest, thoughtful student of life and its affairs immediately raises the question, To whom do such t.i.tles "fittest," "superior" and "inferior" refer, and why? The history of a people shows the advance and growth of that people. Their development can be traced from the crude barbarous or semi-barbarous state in which physical prowess predominated through the period of intellectual development where the mind begins to grasp new ideas and where new ideals of higher and n.o.bler purposes are sought after. Then came the greater perfection, the n.o.bler aspiration, the purer, higher civilization, growing out of the purer thought and purer life of a purified people. This is true of all races, therefore the Negro race is no exception, and is ent.i.tled to the same justice that is accorded to every race that has had its rise and fall.

The writer takes it that the young "Negro" and his father are to represent only the ante-bellum and the post-bellum Negro. To go beyond that, to take him in his earlier state in the native wilds of his fatherland, before the Anglo-Saxon missionary reached him and gave to the world a true picture of his morality, would be to present to the world some startling facts that would not only put to shame the "young Negro," but also the hosts of men of all nations who glory in the progress they have made in morals.

It can be proven by the best authorities that many of the heathen Africans, though crude in ethics, were pure morally.

But the discussion resolves itself into two very important questions.

What was the moral condition of the Negro before the war, and what is his moral condition to-day? Before the war, what a picture comes before us at these words, what a panorama of deeds pa.s.ses before our mind's eye. Years of gross darkness, darkness that deepens into the blackness of the pit, those days that seem like a hideous nightmare to the h.o.a.ry headed, and the story of which sounds to the youth like a heart-rending and nauseating recital. Yet, it was not all dark, some would say; perhaps not, but the bright spots only tended to intensify the darkness.

What morals were chattels expected to have, and who gave to these chattels their moral code? It was certainly not of their own making.