Part 31

Our presence here has made this day possible. There would have been no Decoration Day had the American kidnappers left us in Africa--our fatherland. The world must, therefore, hear from us upon these special occasions. So, like other elements of the population, we come to-day to make our annual report. We come, in company with the others, to review the past, to study the present, and, if possible, to forecast the future. In measuring the progress of any successful commercial enterprise, the mode of procedure is to compare beginnings with balance-sheets. Commercially speaking, it is to take an inventory. What, therefore, is true of any commercial enterprise is equally true of races and individuals. The _modus operandi_ is the same. In fact, we proceed by comparing beginnings with beginnings; environments with environments, and the advantages and disadvantages of the past and present. This is the mode by which the progress of a race or the attainments of an individual must be measured, and the Negro race offers no exception to this rule.

It was Wendell Phillips, one of America's greatest statesmen, jurists, and orators, who said in that marvellous lecture on Toussaint L'Ouverture--beyond doubt the greatest military genius of the nineteenth century--that there are two ways by which Anglo-Saxon civilization measures races. First, by the great men produced by that race; secondly, by the average merit of the mass of that race. In support of the first he bravely summoned to his presence, from the regions of the dead, the immortal Bacon, Shakespeare, Hampden, Hancock, Washington, and Franklin, offering them as stars, who, in their day, had lent lustre in the galaxy of history. And with equal pride he gloried in the average merit of Anglo-Saxon blood, since it first streamed from its German home, in support of the contention of the second way.

As a race, we shall offer no objection to this principle of judgment. In fact, we cannot even if we so desired. We shall, therefore, accept it without any reluctance. We think it is a good principle upon which to base a judgment. The only consideration we demand, in connection with it, is that the white American, in his judgment of the Afro-American, shall strictly observe the rule which the race he represents has set for itself; that is to say, let him measure our race by the great and useful men it has produced, since the immortal Abraham Lincoln issued that Proclamation, whose fiftieth anniversary we celebrate to-day, giving freedom to four and one-half millions of human beings. Let him measure us by the average merit of Afro-American blood, since it first streamed from the land of the Pharaohs, whose wills were inscribed in hieroglyphics--long before Ph[oe]nicia invented the alphabet; long before the conquest of Alexander the Great had enabled Eratosthenes and Appollodorus to construct their synchrony of Egyptian antiquity; long before the construction of the Pyramids (those silent but eloquent tributes to the grandeur and majesty of the African intellect) had proclaimed the immortality of the soul.

Our record in this country, Mr. Chairman, must begin with the Emancipation period. The Emancipation is our birthday. Mankind, therefore, in measuring our progress, must, in order to be just, make Emancipation its starting point. Previous to that period we were like the earth in its primeval condition, as described by Moses, the great Lawgiver, in the Book of the Generations; namely, that the "Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." So, too, were we before the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation; we were without national form; void of civic rights; and moral and intellectual darkness covered the minds and souls and spirits of the race.

What was the condition of the race when the Emancipation Proclamation was first issued, a half century ago? Commercially speaking, what were the assets of this race? Had it anything to its credit in the balance-sheets of human progress, save the evils accruing from a long period of bondage? The facts will prove that it had nothing to its credit but the virtues of patience and endurance, under trials and afflictions, the horrors of which will form one of the darkest chapters in the history of this country.

The twenty Africans, brought by the slave-traders to Jamestown, in 1620, representing the introduction of African slavery into the United States, in two hundred and forty-three years had increased to four and one-half millions of human souls; and it is fair to presume that an equal, if not a greater number than this, had perished on account of the rigors of transmission in crossing the Atlantic Ocean and the indescribable cruelties of the slave system at home.

The Proclamation of Emancipation found these four and one-half millions of human beings practically homeless, penniless, and friendless, and absolutely dependent upon the very same people to whom they were in bondage for two hundred and forty years, and against whom they had taken up arms in a civil war. The forty acres of land and two mules, which were promised by the Federal Government, never materialized. That promise was like the proverbial pie-crust, made to be broken; and the descendants of these four and a half millions are to-day entitled, by every humane consideration, to all the benefits and the equities in the case. The Federal Government at Washington can only purge itself of this breach of promise by paying the bill, with legal interest; if not, according to the legal terms of the agreement (forty acres and two mules), then in its just equivalents, either by pensioning the survivors of the slave system--many who are to-day in abject squalor and want--or by a liberal grant of money to the schools of the land charged with the educational development of their much proscribed posterity.

What of the race's mental condition at the time of its civic birth? There were scarcely any at that time who could either read or write with any degree of proficiency. Not because they were incapable of learning; not because of any mental inferiority; but because of the cruel and unjust law prohibiting their education and making it a criminal offense, not only for the Negro himself, but for any white man who should undertake to instruct him. Punishment was so severe along this line that the very sight of a book awed him into fear and fright. The very existence of such a law was, indeed, an admission of the educational possibilities of the race. In the year 1863 there were about twenty members of the race who had received collegiate training. Mathematically speaking, it took three hundred years to pull twenty Negroes through the colleges of the land, so great was the combination against our mental development.

What was our status in the business pursuits and gainful occupations at that time? The year 1863 is as far back as we desire to go for this enquiry, when the entire race, with but a few exceptions, were servants, restricted to menial employment and plantation occupations.

What was the moral status of the race at that period? Here there are two sides involved in any answer which might be given to this question. The evidences of unlawful miscegenation present themselves to every traveler throughout this country, and is in itself a pertinent answer to this query. Our women have had to fight against indescribable odds in order to preserve their womanhood from the attacks of moral lepers, who, very often, were their masters and overseers. Yet, in spite of these well-known facts, we have produced women among us of pure and good morals, with unimpeachable reputation for virtue and purity. Sometimes it is a little amusing to hear the white American expatiate on the immorality of Negro women. They certainly cannot forget their own record in their dealings with the helpless Negro women of this country. But here, we will let the curtain of secrecy fall upon such a scene, while we shall advance to a higher and nobler plane upon this day when nothing but good feeling must be allowed a place on the programme.

"Watchman, what of the night?" What tidings does the morning bring, if any? Has the future nothing in store for America's greatest factors in her industrial and commercial development?

Let us turn from the past; what of the present? In spite of the dehumanizing and other efforts to destroy the fecundity of the race, the twenty Africans of 1620, by the close of the Revolution, had increased to 650,000, and these 650,000, at the close of the Civil War, had reached the alarming number of four and one-half millions; and these four and a half millions, had, according to the last Federal Census, reached the astonishing number of ten millions or more of native-born citizens--entitled, though sometimes denied, to every right and privilege granted by the Constitution of the United States and by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments thereof; the making and sustaining of which our fathers contributed much of their blood and sacrifice, in peace, as well as in war.

For we have been present, not only as spectators, but as active

## participants in every trying crisis in the history of this nation. In

the beginning of the seventeenth century, when labor troubles threatened the very life of the infant colony and continuing to the founding of the Republic--when white men were held in peonage or actual bondage for the uncanceled financial obligations due to the nobility of Great Britain--who furnished the labor which solved the vexed problem? Who furnished the brawn and muscle which cleared the forests, leveled the hills, tunneled the mountains, bridged the rivers, laid the tracks and cultivated the fields, until this broad land had become as beautiful as the lily of the valley and as fragrant as the rose of Sharon?

In 1776, when despotism was enthroned and liberty languished in the streets of Boston, was it not the blood of a Negro--Crispus Attucks--which animated the sinking spirit of the Goddess, who was almost ready to die under the oppression of King George and the despotism of Cornwallis?

In the Sixties--when Lincoln, despairing of the outcome of the Civil War, on account of the treachery in his own ranks and repeated reverses on the battle-field, called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the Rebellion in the South--who came to the rescue of the Union? In spite of the effort of McClellan and his company of 50,000 soldiers, who went to Richmond to prevent "niggers," as they were called, from enlisting, who came to the rescue of the Union? Whose blood helped to render the testament of liberty valid? Ask Port Hudson and Milligan's Bend, and Fort Wagner, and Fort Pillow, and Pittsburg Landing, how the nearly 200,000 Negro soldiers behaved themselves under the fire of the enemy on these memorable battlefields--rendered sacred by their patriotic blood.

Who saved the Rough Riders and Colonel Roosevelt in the late Spanish-American War, when San Juan was illuminated with the fire of Spanish cannonading? Hark! Methinks I hear the tramp of the black boys of the 24th and the 25th Cavalry, chanting to the strains of martial music,--"Glory Hallelujah, we are going to have a hot time in the old town to-night," as they dashed up the dangerous parapet to defend the honor of their country, and to keep "Old Glory" from trailing in the dust.

At the close of the Civil War we were without homes, lands, or money. To-day, according to the last census of the United States, we own 600,000 homes, 20,000,000 acres of farm land, covering an area equal to the political dominions of the kingdoms of Belgium and Holland. We have under cultivation 40,000,000 acres of farm lands, including those farms rented by our people and those owned in fee-simple, and worth $500,000,000. The gross incomes from the farms conducted by Negroes amount to $250,000,000 annually. We own 10,000 business establishments, 300 drug stores, and 57 banks.

At the close of the Civil War we were without schools, without men of letters, without men in the various professions and lucrative avocations of life. To-day, we have 200 universities, colleges, and schools of lower grade supported by the race. We have 3,000,000 Negro children attending these schools and the public schools of the land. We have written 2,000 books. We edit and conduct 200 periodicals and magazines. In forty years we have contributed, as levies for school purposes, $45,000,000. With a membership of 4,000,000 we have 35,000 churches, valued at $56,000,000, and contribute annually $7,500,000 to their support. We contribute annually $6,000,000 to secret and benevolent societies. We have about 40,000 teachers, 1,500 lawyers, 2,500 doctors, 20,000 preachers, and 80,000 business men--Marvellous!--Marvellous!

A race that can produce in fifty years, beginning with nothing, such a report as this, whose minutest detail is supported by official statistics, needs no pity, Mr. Chairman. A race that can produce a Douglass, a Langston, a Hood, a Scott, a Turner, a Harvey Johnson, a Bruce, a Payne, an Arnett, a Revells, a Price, an Elliott, a Montgomery, a Bowen, a Mason, a Dunbar, a Du Bois, and last but not least, a Booker T. Washington--the foremost genius of our vocational and industrial training--asks not for pity. It only asks for an equal opportunity in the race of life; it asks not for special legislation to accommodate any necessity; it simply asks for a just application of existing laws to all citizens alike, without any reference to race or color or previous condition of servitude. The representatives of this race, in this year of Our Lord, 1913, ask the American people to judge them upon the record of their great and useful men and women which the race has produced in less than a half century--and upon the average merit of the mass of the race since the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by the immortal Lincoln.

In concluding this brief summary--for at best it can only be regarded as a brief summary of the doings of the race--and standing on the threshold of a new era in politics, in commerce, in religion and in ethics--a new era in the feeling and temper of the white American towards the Afro-American, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what shall be our conduct in the future? Watchman, what shall be the forecast?

Mr. Chairman, the forecast is bright--brighter than it has ever been in any previous period of the race's history in this nation--and I make this statement in the fullest appreciation of the efforts which are being made all over this land, by adverse legislation, to weed us out of politics and other public preferments; to push us into a corner to ourselves, in both Church and State--a propaganda which has brought gloom to many of our leaders, producing a pessimism inimical to progress.

But why a pessimistic outlook, Mr. Chairman? Is it possible to deprive ten million native-born American citizens from the enjoyment of their rights and privileges, guaranteed alike to all by the Constitution of the United States? I think not. Such a condition, Mr. Chairman, would be like an established government with no diplomatic representative at court. No matter what methods are adopted, some of the representative men of our race, unexpectedly or otherwise, in the final analysis, will slip in; if not in the Congress of the United States, then in the legislatures and in the municipal governments of the State--such, for example, as Lawyer Bass in Philadelphia, Pa.; Councilman Cummings in Baltimore; Smith in the legislature of Ohio; Fitzgerald in New Jersey, and Jackson in Illinois. No arrangement, no matter how planned, can ultimately defeat this logical result which _patience_ alone will produce.

God and Time, ladies and gentlemen, are important factors in the solution of these questions. Fifty years are not sufficient to determine the possibilities of a race. No seer who knew the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons as Cæsar knew them, would have foretold such a future as they now enjoy. This Anglo-Saxon race, whose ancestors worshipped the mistletoe, offered human sacrifices, and drank wine out of human skulls, have now become the conquerors and the dominant race on the earth. Their literature is the cream of the human intellect, and their tongue promises to become the official lingua of the earth. _God and Time_ have wrought these things for them, and what God and Time have wrought for one race, _God and Time_ can accomplish for another race--if that race remain true to itself and to God.

If you ask me for the ground of my optimism, I reply it is based upon two things, namely, the ability of the race itself to overcome difficulties and obstacles, and the over-ruling Providence of God, based upon His justice and His righteousness. It is hardly possible for this Negro race to experience any greater difficulties and obstacles in the future than it has already experienced in the past. It has overcome every obstacle with heroic courage--from slavery to the present period of its marvellous success. Without discounting the human efforts of the race, it has accomplished all of this by an heroic faith in God and in the justice and righteousness of His character as practised by our ancestors in the days of their bitterest afflictions--when weakness characterized the arm of flesh. Personally, I believe in God and in His justice and righteousness, and I have never lost faith in the benevolent brotherhood of mankind. I believe that "Right, like God is eternal and unchangeable; and since Right is Right and God is God, Right must ultimately prevail; though its final triumph may be retarded by the operation of wicked devices--nevertheless--it must prevail."

THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO CHURCH[51]

BY HON. JOHN C. DANCY, LL.D.

_Secretary Church Extension Society, A. M. E. Church_

[Note 51: Delivered at the Celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, Philadelphia, September, 1913.]

There is only one safe way to judge the future of the Negro Church, and that is by its past. And the past of this Church, despite its shortcomings, is safe.

To the curious it would seem strange that the Negro Church as such should exist at all. But in the light of its history, covering almost the entire history of this Government, its existence has been proved a necessity, as its records abundantly testify.

Until we had the Negro Church we had nothing of which the race could boast. We early discovered that it was religious rights which first opened our eyes to all our rights, but until we were secure in the enjoyment of our religious liberty, we were not fully aroused to the importance and value of civil liberty. We had not learned that they were twin blessings often dearly bought, but of inestimable value.

The Negro Church, therefore, became the basis upon which would be reared the superstructure of all our subsequent achievements. The men who laid the foundation for the Negro Church, whether of Methodist, or Baptist, or Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or of Congregational predilection, were wise in their day and generation, and paved the way for the best work of Negro development ever undertaken in this country. Until we had the Negro Church, we had not the Negro school, and the one was the natural forerunner and concomitant of the other, opening up avenues for the preacher, the teacher, the lawyer, the physician, the editor, the orator, and the spokesman of and for the race.

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The Negro Church has passed the experimental stage. It is no longer in a stage of incubation. It is an actuality,--an active, aggressive, and progressive reality. It has thoroughly established its rights to existence and its indispensability as a religious force and influence. Our religious fervor may at times appear to be unduly emotional and lacking in solemnity, but even this is pardonable, and we are reminded that this is an emotional age, and we must not forget that the great Penticostal awakening, in the early days of Christianity, provoked a similar criticism from the unaroused and unaffected unbelievers. The Negro Church of the future may be less emotional, but if the Church is to survive and throw off a cold formality which threatens to sap its very life-blood, it must not get away from its time-honored, deep spirituality, for without the Spirit the seemingly religious body is dead. Our Church of the future as well as our Church of the present will take care that no new dogmas of exotic growth will deprive it of those eternal verities which constitute the fundamentals of our Christian faith. These verities of our religion have their foundation in the teachings of our Great Redeemer himself, who is the very embodiment of all Truth.

The Negro Church of the future will address itself to the correction of present-day evils in both Church and State. It will emphasize the teaching that the highest form of virtue is the purest form of love. It will demand that men and women, and Christian professors especially, exemplify in their own lives and habits the religion they make bold to proclaim. It will insist upon the remedying of great wrongs from which countless numbers suffer,--whether these wrongs be unfair and unjust discriminations in public places, on the common thoroughfares, in the courts and halls of justice, in the Congress, the legislature or the municipal councils,--everywhere the Church will condemn and protest and fulminate against these injustices, until they melt away with the certainty of April snow. The Church of the future will more fully realize that where great principles are involved, concessions are dangerous and compromises disastrous.

The future will disclose a Negro Church with men in all its pulpits equal to the great task which the responsibilities thereof impose. They will be qualified men from every viewpoint--deeply spiritual, well trained, pious, influential, impressive, strong. They will lead their people, and be a part of their life, their indomitable spirit, their ambitions, their achievements. They will be absolutely trusted and trustworthy. They will be an inspiration to our youth, to our manhood and our womanhood. They will speak as one having authority and they will boldly assert their authority to speak. They will take up where the fathers left off, and they in their possession of so great an inheritance of religious fervor and unshrinking faith, will arouse Christianity from its lethargy, and start as a nation of believers, arousing, as it were, from its spell of years. They will be as bold as lions, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. They will win their way because the things for which they stand and the gospel which they preach, will deserve to win. They will not seek so much to impress their own personality, but their cause, and they will lose themselves in the cause by magnifying the cause.

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