Chapter XXXIII. The New Negro and the New America. The Old Order
Changeth, yielding place to new. Through the Arbitrament of war, behold a new and better America! a new and girded negro! "The Watches of the night have PASSED!" "The Watches Of the day BEGIN!"
FOREWORD
He was a red headed messenger boy and he handed me a letter in a NILE GREEN ENVELOPE, and this is what I read:
Dear Mr. Sweeney:
When on the 25th of March the last instalment of the MSS of the "History of the American Negro in the Great World War" was returned to us from your hands, bearing the stamp of your approval as to its historic accuracy; the wisdom and fairness of the reflections and recommendations of the corps of compilers placed at your service, giving you full authority to review the result of their labors, your obligation to the publishers ceased.
The transaction between us, a purely business one, had in every particular upon your part been complied with. From thenceforward, as far as you were obligated to the publishers, this History; what it is; what it stands for; how it will be rated by the reading masses--should be, and concretely, by your own people you so worthily represent and are today their most fearless and eloquent champion, is, as far as any obligation you may have been under to us, not required of you to say.
Nevertheless, regardless of past business relations now at an end, have you not an opinion directly of the finished work? A word to say; the growth of which you have marked from its first instalment to its last?
-The Publishers-
* * * * *
HAVE I--
A word to say? And of this fine book?
THE BEST HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO IN THE GREAT WORLD WAR, THAT AS YET HAS BEEN WRITTEN OR WILL BE FOR YEARS TO COME?
* * * * *
DOES--
The rose in bud respond to the wooing breath of the mornings of June?
IS--
The whistle of robin red breast clearer and more exultant, as its watchful gaze, bearing in its inscrutable depths the mystery of all the centuries; the Omniscience of DIVINITY, discovers a cherry tree bending to--
"The green grass"
from the weight of its blood red fruit?
* * * * *
DOES--
The nightingale respond to its mate; caroling its amatory challenge from afar; across brake and dale and glen; beyond a
"Dim old forest" the earth bathed in the silver light of the harvest moon!
* * * * *
EVEN SO--
And for the same reason which the wisest of us cannot explain, that the rose, the robin and nightingale respond to the lure that invites, the zephyrs that caress, I find myself moved to say not only a word--a few, but many, of praise and commendation of this book; the finished work, so graciously and so quickly submitted for my inspection by the publishers.
THERE ARE--
Books and books; histories and histories, treatise after treatise; covering every realm of speculative investigation; every field of fact and fancy; of inspiration and deed, past and present, that in this 20th century of haste and bustle, of miraculous mechanical equipment, are born daily and die as quickly. But there are also books, that like some men marked before their birth for a place amongst the "Seats of the MIGHTY"; an association with the IMMORTALS, that
"Were not born to die."
This book seems of that glorious company.
* * * * *
IN THE--
Spiritualized humanity that broadened the vision and inspired the pens of the devoted corps of writers, responding to my suggestions and oversight in its preparation; the getting together of data and facts, is reflected the incoming of a NEW AND BROADER CHARITY--a stranger in our midst--of glimpse and measurement of the Negro. Beyond the written word of the text, the reader is gripped with a certain FELT but unprinted power of suggestion, a sense of the nation's crime against him; the Negro, stretching back through the centuries; the shame and humiliation that is at last overtaking it, that has not been born of the "Print Shops" since the sainted LINCOLN went his way, leaving behind him a trail of glory, shining like the sun; in the path of which, freed through the mandate of his great soul, MARCHED FOUR MILLION NEGROES, now swollen to twelve, their story, the saddest epic of the ages, of whom and in behalf of whom their children; the generation now and those to come, this History was collated and arranged. It is an EVANGEL proclaiming to the world, their unsullied patriotism; their rapid fire loyalty, that through all the years of the nation's life, has never flickered--
"Has burned and burned Forever the same",
from Lexington to the cactus groves of Mexico; in the slaughter hells of Europe; over fields and upon spots where, in the centuries gone, the legions of Caesar, of Hannibal and Attila, of Charlemagne and Napoleon had fought and bled, and perished! Striding "Breast forward" beneath the Stars and Stripes as this History crowds them on your gaze, through the dust of empires and kingdoms that; before the CHRIST walked the earth; before Christianity had its birth, wielded the sceptres of power when civilization was young, but which are now but vanishing traditions.
You are thrilled! History nor story affords no picture more inspiring.
MAKING DUE ALLOWANCE--
For its nearness to the living and dead, whose heroic and transcendant achievements on the battle spots of the great war secured for them a distinction and fame that will endure until--
"The records of valor decay",
it is a most notable publication, quite worthy to be draped in the robes that distinguishes History from narrative; from "a tale that is told"; a story for the entertainment of the moment.
AS INTERPOLATED--
By the writers of its text; read between the lines of their written words; it is a History; not alone of the American Negro on the "tented field"; the bloody trenches of France and Belgium, it is also a History and an arraignment, a warning and a prophecy, looking backwards and forward, the Negro being the objective focus, of many things.
IT PRESENTS--
For the readers retrospection, as vividly as painted on a canvas, a phantasmagoric procession of past events, and of those to come in the travail of the Negro; commencing with the sailing of the first "Slaver's Ship" for the shores of the "New World", jammed fore and aft, from deck to hold, with its cargo of human beings, to the conclusion of the great war in which, individually and in units he wrote his name in imperishable characters, and high on the scroll on which are inscribed the story of those, who, in their lives wrought for RIGHT and, passing, died for MEN! For a flag; beneath and within its folds his welcome has been measured and parsimonious;--a country; the construing and application of its laws and remedies as applied to him, has inflicted intolerable INJUSTICE: Has persecuted more often than blessed. And so and thus, its perusal finished, its pages closed and laid aside, you are shaken and swayed in your feelings, even as a tree, bent and riven before the march and sweep of a mighty hurricane.
* * * * *
LOOKING BACKWARDS--
The spell of the book strong upon you, you see in your mind's eye, thousands of plantations covering a fourth of a continent of a new and virgin land. The toilers "Black Folk"; men, women and children--SLAVES!
* * * * *
YOU HEAR--
The crack of the "driver's" lash; the sullen bay of pursuing hounds.
* * * * *
JUST OVER YONDER--
Is the "Auction Block". You hear the moans and screams of mothers torn from their offspring. You see them driven away, herded like cattle, chained like convicts, sold to "master's" in the "low lands", to toil--
"Midst the cotton and the cane."
YOU LISTEN--
Sounding far off, faint at first, growing louder each second, you hear the beat of drums; the bugle's blast, sounding to arms; You see great armies, moving hitherward and thitherward. Over one flies the Stars and Stripes, over the other the Stars and Bars; a nation in arms! Brother against brother!
* * * * *
YOU LOOK--
And lo, swinging past are many Black men; garbed in "Blue", keeping step to the music of the Union. You see them fall and die, at Fort Pillow, Fort Wagner, Petersburg, the Wilderness, Honey Hill--SLAUGHTERED! Above the din; the boom of cannon, the rattle of small arms, the groans of the wounded and dying, you hear the shout of one, as shattered and maimed he is being borne from the field; "BOYS, THE OLD FLAG NEVER TOUCHED THE GROUND!"
* * * * *
THE SCENE SHIFTS--
Fifty years have passed. You hear the clamor, the murmur and shouts of gathering mobs. You see Black men and women hanging by their necks to lamp posts, from the limbs of trees; in lonely spots--DEAD! You see smoke curling upwards from BURNING HOMES! There are piles of cinders and--DEAD MENS BONES!
* * * * *
NEARING ITS END--
The procession sweeps on. Staring you in the face; hailing from East, West, North and South are banners; held aloft by unseen hands, bearing on them--the quintessence of AMERICA'S INGRATITUDE,--these devices:
"For American Negroes: JIM CROW steam and trolley cars; JIM CROW resident districts; JIM CROW amen corners; JIM CROW seats in theatres; JIM CROW corners in cemeteries."
YOU MUTTER--
"Are these indignities to CONTINUE? Is God DEAD?"
* * * * *
COMES--
A voice. You listen!
"WHEREFORE hear the word of the lord-- "THE days of thy mourning shall be ended-- "VIOLENCE shall no more be heard in the land-- "NEITHER sorrow nor crying-- "FOR the former things have passed away-- "BEHOLD I make all things new-- "ARISE, shine; for thy light has come.
* * * * *
HEREIN--
Lies the strength and worth of this unusual book, well and deservingly named: A History of the American Negro in the Great World War. Beyond merely recounting that story; than which there has been nothing finer or more inspiring since the long away centuries when the chivalry of the Middle Ages, in nodding plume and lance in rest, battled for the Holy Sepulchre, it brings to the Negro of America a message of cheer and reassurance. A sign, couched in flaming characters for all men to see, appealing to the spiritualized divination of the age, proclaiming that God is NOT DEAD! That a NEW day is dawning; HAS dawned for the Negro in America. A NEW liberty; broader and BETTER. A NEW Justice, unshaded by the spectre of: "Previous condition!" That the unpaid toil of thirty decades of African slavery in America is at last to be liquidated. That the dead of our people, upon behalf of this land that it might have a BIRTH, and having it might not PERISH FROM THE EARTH, did not die in vain. That, in their passage from earth, heroes--MARTYRS--in a superlative sense they were seen and marked of the Father; were accorded a place of record in the pages of the great WHITE BOOK with golden seals, in the up worlds; above the stars and beyond the flaming suns.
IT IS A HISTORY--
That will be read with instruction and benefit by thousands of whites, but, and mark well this suggestion, it is one that should be OWNED AND READ BY EVERY NEGRO IN THE LAND.
* * * * *
TYPOGRAPHICALLY--
Mechanically; that is to say, in those features that reflect the finished artistic achievement of the Print, Picture and Binding art; as seen in the bold clear type of its text, its striking and beautiful illustrations, its illuminating title heads of division and chapter; indicating at a glance the information to follow; the whole appealing to the aesthetic; the sticklers for the rare and beautiful; not overlooking its superb binding, it is most pleasing to the sight, and worthy of the title it bears.
[Illustration: signature]
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO IN THE GREAT WORLD WAR