Twentieth Century Negro Literature Part 38

An' de co'n pone's hot.

"When you set down at de table, Kin' o' weary lak an' sad, An' you's jes' a little tiwhed An' purhaps a little mad; How yo' gloom tu'ns into gladness, How yo' joy drives out de doubt, When de oven do' is opened, An' de smell comes po'in out; Why, de 'lectric light o' Heaven Seems to settle on de spot, When yo' mammy says de blessin'

An' de co'n pone's hot.

"When de cabbage pot is steamin'

An' de bacon good an' fat, When de chittlins is a-spuller'n'

So's to show you whah dey's at; Tek away yo' sody biscut, Tek away yo' cake an' pie, Fu' de glory time is comin', An' it's 'proachin' mighty nigh, An' yo' want to jump an' hollah, Dough you know you'd bettah not When yo' mammy says de blessin', An' de co'n pone's hot.

"I have hyeahd o' lots o' sermons, An' I've hyeahd o' lots o' prayers, An' I've listened to some singin'

Dat has tuck me up de stairs Of de Glory-lan' an' set me Jes' below de mahstah's th'one, An' lef' my hea't a-singin'

In a happy aftah tone; But dem wu'ds so sweetly murmured Seemed to tech de softes' spot, When my mammy says de blessin', An' de co'n pone's hot."

This is not so great a poem as the "Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night" by Burns, because the spiritual element and the whole scope of the tenderest concerns of the family and of life in that poem are left out of this.

But in Dunbar's poem, where only the festival is pictured, the scene is so intensified that one feels the warmth and sees the glow of the evening fire and inhales the appetizing odors of the coming homely cheer, and can see back of these the tender care and ineffable love of the "Mammy," who puts the crowning touch upon her love with the blessing. As far as it goes, "When the co'n pone's hot" is great precisely in the same lines that the "Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night" is great.

Mr. Dunbar has also written a number of novels and short stories. It has not been my good fortune to see "The Stories from Dixie;" but the novels I have bought and read. If there were no Charles Chestnut, Mr.

Dunbar's novels would have to be discussed in this connection, and he would have to be put down as the very first Negro novel writer, mainly, however, because there would be no other; but with Mr.

Chestnut in the field, no true admirer of Mr. Dunbar will ever discuss the prolific diffusions of his, bearing the name novels, in any connection with Dunbar, the poet. There is only enough s.p.a.ce left in this article for the poets, to barely mention the names of Mr. Daniel Webster Davis, of Manchester, Virginia, and Mr. James D. Corrothers of Red Bank, New Jersey, and to give a selection from each and let their poems speak for them as writers. Both of them have received notice in the best magazines and favorable criticism elsewhere. Both owe their distinction mainly to their work in dialectic verse which, I fear, is too much like the "ragtime" music, considered quite the proper dressing for Negro distinction in the poetic art.

Here is to "De Biggis' Piece ub Pie," by Mr. Davis:

"When I was a little boy I set me down to cry, Bekase my little brudder Had de biggis' piece ub pie.

But when I had become a man I made my min' to try An' hustle roun' to git myself De biggis' piece ub pie.

"An' like in bygone chil'ish days, De worl' is hustlin' roun'

To git da.r.s.elbes de biggis' slice Ub honor an' renown; An' ef I fails to do my bes', But stan' aroun' an' cry, Dis ol' worl' will git away Wid bof de plate an' pie.

"An' eben should I git a slice I mus' not cease to try, But keep a-movin' fas' es life To hol' my piece ub pie.

Dis ruff ol' worl' has little use Fur dem dat chance to fall, An' while youze gittin' up ag'in 'Twill take de plate an' all."

The one more selection from Mr. Davis will show him as a poet outside of dialect:

A ROSE.

"The rose of the garden is given to me, And, to double its value, 'twas given by thee; Its lovely bright tints to my eyesight is borne, Like the kiss of a fairy or blush of morn.

"Too soon must this scent-laden flower decay, Its bright leaves will wither, its bloom die away; But in memory 'twill linger; the joy that it bore Will live with me still, tho' the flower's no more."

Mr. James D. Corrothers writes:

"A THANKSGIVIN' TURKEY.

"Cindy, reach dah 'hine yo' back.

'N han' me dat ah Almanac; W'y, land! t'morrer's Thanksgivin'!

Got to git out an' make hay-- Don't keer whut de preachah say-- We mus' eat Thanksgivin' day, Uz sho' uz you's a-libbin.

"You know whah Mahs Hudson libs?

Dey's a turkey dah dat gibs Me a heap o' trouble.

Some day Hudson g'ine to miss Dat owdashus fowl o' his; I's g'ine ober dah an' twis'

'At gobbler's nake plumb double.

"Goin' pas' dah t' othah day, Turkey strutted up an' say, 'A-gobble, gobble, gobble,'

Much uz ef he mout remahk, 'Don' you wish 'at it wuz dahk?

Ain't I temptin'?' S' I, 'you hah'k, Er else dey'll be a squabble.

"'Take an' wring yo' nake righ' quick, Light on yo' lak a thousan' brick, 'N you won't know whut befell you.'

'N I went on. Yet evah day When I goes by that a-way, 'At fowl has too much to say; 'N I'm tiahd uv it, I tell you.

"G'ine to go dis bressed night An' put out dat turkey's light, 'N I'll nail him lak a cobblah.

Take keer, 'Cindy, lemme pa.s.s, Ain't a-g'ine to take no sa.s.s Off no man's turkey gobblah."

And now for the last and the greatest Roman of them all in literary art--Mr. Charles W. Chestnut, of Cleveland, Ohio. I have never seen him, and at present the only personal acquaintance I have with him, is a brief letter of a dozen or more lines; but Mr. Chestnut, revealed by his novels, I know well. The chief distinction one finds in reading Mr. Chestnut from all other Negro story-writers, so far as there are such, is that he is truly an artist and that his art is fine art.

Secondly, and this is of the greatest concern to Negroes in any thought of the Negro as a writer, he is the best delineator of Negro life and character, thought and feeling, of any who has attracted notice by writing. It is not possible to give in this connection any quotations from Mr. Chestnut's work that may speak for him, but it is fitting in this article to speak of the character of some of Mr.

Chestnut's stories, and, as far as possible, suggest the ground and purpose of his fiction. Perhaps, to mention the stories, "The Wife of His Youth," "The Wheel of Progress," and "The House Behind the Cedars," would serve best for this occasion. There are some situations of the Negroes too full of ineffable pity for utterance. Who has not sat at some time in a Negro church and heard read the pitiful inquiry for a mother, or a child, or a father, husband or wife, all lost in the sales and separations of slavery times--loved ones as completely swallowed up in the past (yet in this life they still live) as if the grave had received them. At such a reading, though it was given with unconcern, one heard the faithful cry of faithful love coming out of the dark on its sorrowful mission.

And in this realm Mr. Chestnut tells us of a mulatto boy who marries a woman of Negro type, and who was old enough for the boy's mother, but had, at that time, youth enough left to make the disparity of age at the time of little objection, especially in the times and situation where there was little objection to marriages of any sort. But the youth escapes from slavery and in the far North receives education, development and culture, and in time earns a competence that makes life desirable and opens up vistas to new happiness, for the old life is now only a memory of what the new man once was, and the new man is on the borderland of new love and marriage befitting all his advancements, while the mulatto slave boy, the slave girl, the black slave-wife and the slave connections are left forever behind. But in all these twenty-five years the black slave wife is still living, still ignorant and yielding all the while to age until she is an old woman. But there was one thing that did not yield to age and time, and that was her love for her boy husband, and, what was more, her sublime and unwavering faith in the constancy of her "Yaller Sam," after whom she sends inquiry after inquiry, and year after year tramps from place to place in her search, with faith and love divine ever leading her on, until one day in a Northern city, to which place she had finally traced him, she stopped at his very door to humbly inquire of the strange gentleman she saw for her "Yaller Sam," never dreaming that it was he to whom she spoke, though he knew her and had to face the bitter tragedy of it all. But Mr. Chestnut's art enables him to take care of so sorrowful a case satisfactorily.

"The Wheel of Progress" touches another phase of pathetic situations arising out of the mixture of people and sentiments in the South. The story tells of an ostracized Northern white teacher who, from young womanhood, labors away her life for the Negroes, until her age and health reach that degree of disadvantage that her position as teacher, once her medium of charity, becomes her only means for a living. In the meantime the Negroes whom she and others helped to uplift and develop, and to whom, because of race distinction, most all avenues outside of menial labor are closed, except preaching and teaching, had become her compet.i.tors. In the conflict that arose over the reappointment of the white missionary teacher and a young Negro to the place the pitiful situation is again taken care of by Mr. Chestnut's fine art. "The House Behind the Cedars," until his latest, "The Marrow of Tradition," was his most ambitious attempt. In this book the story of an Octoroon family is put forth in all the pathos and tragedy that is the lot of so many Negroes who belong wholly to neither race.

Mr. Chestnut's latest book, "The Marrow of Tradition," is a strong and vigorous presentation of the colored man's case against the South in the form of a dramatic novel. This book especially deserves a wide reading among the Negroes, who have none too many friends to plead their cause. Mr. Chestnut, as one truly high-rank novelist among us, ought to have such a hearing among the eight millions that would give him all the advantages of a successful novelist from a financial standpoint as a return for his labor, which is by no means for himself alone.

In closing, it is but fair to say, while the artists of high rank among us are few in number, in an article discussing the Negro as a writer, in mentioning names at all, it must necessarily follow that there are very many names not here mentioned that would deserve to be if in such an article as this there were any intention or necessity to mention the whole list of Negro writers who write well and with power in every department of letters.

TOPIC XVII.

DID THE AMERICAN NEGRO PROVE, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THAT HE IS INTELLECTUALLY EQUAL TO THE WHITE MAN?

BY M. W. GILBERT, D. D.

[Ill.u.s.tration: M. W. Gilbert, D. D.]

REV. M. W. GILBERT, D. D.

The subject of this sketch was born July 25, 1862, at Mechanicsville, Sumter County, South Carolina. His parents were slaves and his father, a Baptist minister, is still alive. Mr. Gilbert began his early school life during the reconstruction period, at Mechanicsville, and continued it at Mannville, in an adjoining township, until 1879, when he entered Benedict College (then Benedict Inst.i.tute) at Columbia, South Carolina. He remained in Benedict till the spring of 1883, when he graduated from a cla.s.sical course specially designed to fit him for a Northern college. In the fall of 1883, after a searching examination, he entered the freshman cla.s.s of Colgate University and remained in that inst.i.tution four years, until his graduation in 1887 with the degree of A. B. During his college course Mr. Gilbert particularly distinguished himself in the languages and oratory. During his soph.o.m.ore year he won in an oratorical contest the First Kingsford Prize. Although the only colored man in his cla.s.s, yet he was so highly esteemed by his cla.s.smates that he enjoyed the unique distinction of being elected every three months for four years as Cla.s.s Secretary and Treasurer. In addition to this he was elected Cla.s.s Historian in his senior year. His alma mater conferred on him the degree of A. M. in 1890. Immediately after his graduation Mr. Gilbert was called to the pastorate of the First Colored Baptist Church at Nashville, Tenn. He remained in this position three years and a half and then he accepted the call of the Bethel Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla.

He was not permitted by his denomination to remain long in this pastorate; for after one year in it, on the nomination of the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York, he was elected to lead in the educational work among the colored Baptists of Florida. He presided one year over the Florida Inst.i.tute at Live Oak, and he led in 1892 in the founding of the Florida Baptist Academy (now college) at Jacksonville, Fla. The cares and anxiety involved in this work threatened his health and in 1894 he resigned this position to accept the pastorate of a young church organization in Savannah, Ga., having in the meantime declined an election to the presidency of State University at Louisville, Ky. In 1894 he was elected Vice-President and Professor of History, Political Science, and Modern Languages, in the Colored State College at Orangeburg, S. C.

He served in this capacity two years and after re-election for a third year he resigned to re-enter upon his life-work in the gospel ministry. He served a few months after this in the office of General Missionary and Corresponding Secretary of the Baptist State Convention of South Carolina, but this work militating against his health he gave up to enter upon the pastorate of the Central Baptist Church at Charleston, S. C., where he now is. Mr. Gilbert received three years ago the degree of D. D. from Guadalupe College of Seguin, Tex.

In 1883 Dr. Gilbert was married in Columbia, S. C., to Miss Agnes Boozer. Seven children have been born to them, five of whom are still living. Dr. Gilbert is much in demand as a public speaker on great occasions and his services are frequently sought by some of the best churches of his denomination.

The necessity for a.s.serting and maintaining the affirmative of the above question is due to the deep-seated prejudice against the Negro, which prejudice is the unfortunate fruit of the Negro's past enslavement. It is not surprising that those who for centuries held the Negro as a chattel should regard him as a being essentially inferior to themselves, and time is required, in the changed condition of affairs, to completely eradicate this idea. Even now, despite the remarkable development of the Negro since his emanc.i.p.ation, occasionally some Rip Van Winkle, awaking from a long sleep, essays to deny the complete humanity of the Negro race. A true believer in the Scriptures must be equally a believer in the fatherhood of G.o.d and the brotherhood of all men. For the divine record declares that G.o.d "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Language, physiology and psychology confirm the truthfulness of Scripture on this issue. The mission of Christianity to preach the gospel over the inhabited world is based upon this great idea. Science and Holy Writ a.s.sert the intellectual equality of all men of whatever race or color, so far as real capacity and possibilities are concerned.

The position and relative importance of a race or nation in the world's history are determined more by its antecedents and environments than by the original endowments of each individual that const.i.tutes it. Two different races, having the same antecedents and subject to the same environments, will produce the same results. In answering the question as to whether the Negro has demonstrated his intellectual equality with the white man during the century just closed, our inquiry must necessarily be confined to the closing third of that century; for prior to the emanc.i.p.ation of the race the colored people were generally in an enslaved condition. Opportunities for education, citizenship, and the development of manhood, were few, and at best could apply to but few of the race. Although our inquiry is limited to only one-third of the century just closed, nevertheless we can safely a.s.sert that in that short period the Negro has demonstrated by actual results his intellectual equality with the white man.

1. The Negro has demonstrated in thirty-five years a capacity for education equal to that of the white man. This remark does not apply alone to his primary education, but also to the highest. He has entered already every intellectual field that is open to him, and he is achieving success in every one that he has entered. Within a third of a century one hundred and fifty-six inst.i.tutions for the higher education of the Negroes have been founded, and from these and Northern colleges there have been more than seventeen thousand graduates. These colleges are located chiefly in the South, and their courses of studies are as high as their neighboring white colleges; in some instances they are higher. Some of these graduates have evinced great ability and brilliancy in mastering the most difficult studies included in the curriculum. The existence of Negro colleges and the successful graduation of Negroes therefrom is a strong argument for his intellectual equality. Nor has the Negro simply demonstrated his ability to master the literary courses of the college, but also his capacity to acquire the knowledge and training to fit him for life in the various professions. Within a third of a century the race has produced thirty thousand teachers, five hundred physicians, two hundred and fifty lawyers, and a large number of others who have entered the ministry, politics, and editorial life. If there is doubt on the demonstration of the Negro's ability to acquire education in his own colleges, we need only to mention the fact that his ambition has led him to some of the leading Northern universities where he studied at the side of white men, and even there he has demonstrated his essential intellectual equality with the white man by winning, in several well-known instances, some of their highest honors for scholarship, proficiency and oratory.

2. The Negro has demonstrated his capacity for imparting an education to others after he has himself received it. He is an essential and established factor in the public school system of the South. It is he that is intrusted with the primary education of his people, and it is due largely to him that his people in thirty-five years have reduced their illiteracy 45 per cent. During those thirty-five years he has become professor of law, medicine, theology, mathematics, the sciences, and languages. In the colleges devoted to the education of the colored men, there are colored professors who have become eminent in their departments and who would fill with credit similar chairs in white inst.i.tutions of learning. All of the colored state colleges of the South are under the management of Negroes as presidents and professors.