IN THE WORLD WAR
(1914-1918)
James Reese Europe
That took such cheer to “No Man’s Land”
His were the tunes that led in line
The Colored bands of famed jazz time.
And thots of home made hearts so sad,
Clownish slurs on “Jim’s” freak slides (trombones)
Made big loud smiles in camps abide.
He always played his jazziest air;
And generals often sent for him
To come and please their music whim.
Then sudden death shut out of view
That Negro Sousa’s hidden chords
A world has lost from Bandrom boards.
—Harrison.
REGARDLESS of their two hundred and ninety-eight years of unstained and unquestioned loyalty and patriotism in America, Colored people at the time the United States was about to enter the World War, were made to feel that they were not needed nor wanted in the conflict. And on many occasions they were even told that the World War was not their affair but was a “white man’s war.” Here is again shown where an inherited African instinct—that of usually being able to sense some big future happening—enabled the American Colored people to see far enough into the distance to fully realize that white people who made such remarks were sadly mistaken. Colored people then knew as all other people later found out that they were as much concerned and needed in that world conflict as any and all other races of people who took part in it.
But not until America was fearfully startled and sensibly awakened by the rapid and persistent progress of the Germans into France did this country reluctantly consent to give the Colored soldiers a half-fair chance and part in the war. And even then their acceptances had more the resemblances of the probationary trials of total strangers rather than the glad welcomings of life-long and never-failing friends. In other words, figuratively speaking, it was in the highly tempered crucibles of the World War’s whitehot furnaces of universal conflict that Negro Americanism was put through a retesting process, in order to determine the actual purity of its material and abstract composition. As to the outcome of that unnecessary and unjust retesting process, let the reader (like a minutely trained chemist) sum up in accurate notations the final results, but only after carefully weighing and reweighing the following analysis in the ever-balanced scales of impartiality.
Henry Johnson, Albany, N. Y. and Needham Roberts, of Trenton, N. J. were the first two Americans soldiers, Colored or white, who were honored by the French Government with the much coveted Croix de Guerre. These men were privates in the 369th Infantry, formerly the distinguished Fifteenth New York National Guard Regiment, that had been brigaded with French troops. It was during the loneliest and latest hours of a night in May, 1918 while Johnson and Roberts were on guard duty at an outpost on the Front near the German lines that they were suddenly surrounded and attacked by a raiding party of a score of German soldiers. Although the two colored boys used their firearms with quickness and deadly aim to keep the enemy off, the superior number of Germans, wounding Johnson three times and Roberts twice, closed in on them in a hand-to-hand death struggle. They soon had Roberts on the ground helpless, one German at his head and another at his feet. Johnson noticing the sad plight of his loyal friend, leaped forward like a wild cat at bay and with one mighty downward blow of his bolo knife split wide open the head of the enemy who was strangling Roberts. Then with a crouching pantherlike spring Johnson made a terrific sweep with his trusty knife that completely opened the stomach of the German at Roberts’ feet. Although on the ground covered with blood and gore, Roberts upon thus being released immediately began to hurl hand grenades among the enemy with telling effect. As the foe, with whose stomach Johnson’s bolo knife had made such a deep and lasting acquaintance, was the leader of the raiding party, the then thoroughly frightened Germans suddenly lost their nerve, dropped their weapons, picked up their helpless ones and made a hasty retreat. Some of the Germans had been killed and many of the party received such wounds and indelible marks that throughout their future lives they will always be reminded that American Colored is a guaranteed fast dye (slow die) that does not run.
Among the three hundred thousand and more Colored soldiers who served in the United States Army during the World War, twenty thousand were already prepared and in fighting trim when America declared war against Germany. Those twenty thousand men were divided into the First Separate Battalion of the District of Columbia; Company G, Tennessee National Guards; First Separate Companies of Maryland and Connecticut; Company L, National Guards of Massachusetts; Ninth Battalion of Ohio; 15th New York National Guard; Eighth Illinois Regiment; 9th and 10th Cavalries; 24th and 25th Infantries. After spending the necessary time in undergoing the proper government training, 639 Colored men took and satisfactorily passed the required military examination, and on October 15, 1917 were commissioned at Fort Dodge as officers in the United States Army. They were divided into 106 Captains, 329 First Lieutenants and 204 Second Lieutenants.
During and at the close of the great war, leading white newspapers vied with each other in filling their columns about the unsurpassed bravery and patriotism of Colonel “Bill” Hayward, the clear-headed and nervy white commander and his seasoned Colored 15th Regiment of New York. It was the first Colored combat regiment to go overseas and was brigaded with the French fighting forces as the 369th Regiment. To his admiring Colored soldiers, “Fighting Bill” Hayward was known as “The Hell Man” and to the surprised Germans the Colored fighters of the old 15th Regiment were frightfully known as the “Bloodthirsty Black Tigers.”
A few years before that time William Hayward had been elected the youngest judge in Nebraska and was known in that state as her “Handsomest Man”. But with all of that previous civic and social honor and fame, “Fighting Bill” never forgot to be a real “white man” and gentleman as well as a strict and just commander at all times to his Colored troops. When resting in camp he regarded and treated them as human beings and full American citizens, and when in the thickest of battles he did not ask them to go where he dared not to venture, (if there ever was such a place). In battlefield action he always led his men—he never followed them. This explains why he and his “Black Tigers” won undying fame and glory by holding a certain sector of trenches at Bois d’Hause Champagne for ninety-one days and then charging in great victory over the top of Belleau Woods and the bodies of falling Germans. It was during a very dangerous charge that a French commander seeing Hayward and his Colored men about to plunge into what seemed to be a sure death trap, ordered the American fighters back. Big Bill Hayward was already in motion and shouted over his shoulder, “My men don’t come back! They will go through hell, but they won’t come back.” And with that parting farewell, the “Hell Man” and his impatiently waiting “Black Tigers” plunged forward and were soon busy serving to the open-mouthed enemy such a smoking hot dish of scrambled shots, shells, and bayonets that in swallowing them down those war-hungry Germans at once and for all times became completely filled and lost their appetites for everything. On their return after so quickly and efficiently serving such a well prepared menu, Hayward and his fighters were decorated with the Croix de Guerre.
At Metz, Argonne Forest and St. Dis in the Sectors of Marbacne, Meuse and Vosges, the newly trained 92nd Colored Division, mostly manned by Colored officers, went into the thickest of the battles with such telling effects that fourteen officers and forty-three non-officers were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. When those battles were over and the survivors learned that they had lost from among their chums 209 killed in action, 32 dead from wounds, 589 slightly or severely wounded, 700 overcome by the German’s scientific gases and 18 unaccounted for, the 92nd Division became even more convinced that it had well earned the many honors and distinctions accorded to it.
Those regiments that were brigaded with the French Army were; the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd Infantries. In the engagements of Marson-en-Champagne, Minancourt and Bois d’Hause Champagne, the 369th Infantry (N. Y. 15th) took an active part and it was at Marson-en-champagne that the whole regiment was cited for deeds of valor and awarded the Croix de Guerre. It was at Soissons Front that the most formidable oppositions were successfully faced by the 370th Infantry (Illinois 8th) that was commanded by Negro officers from Lieut. Col. O. B. Duncan, down. The final capture of Hill 304 after a severe encounter by that regiment proved to the Germans that those Colored lads had not paddled across the “Big Pond” to learn the “Goose Step.” The loss of 1,065 out of 2,384 men signifies the serious activities of the 371st Infantry in the Champagne Sector between September 18th and October 6th, 1918. Besides the entire regiment receiving citation for extreme bravery, its regimental colors were decorated. It was this regiment that broke a standing record at that time by shooting down three German airplanes on the wing. The 372 Infantry took part in the fighting around Vacquois Sector and Argonne West, places not very far from the celebrated Verdun. For distinguished service all along the fighting lines the whole regiment was decorated with the Croix de Guerre.
While the 369th (New York 15th) enjoyed the distinctions of being the first Colored fighting organization to go overseas into action and the first Allied division (Colored or white) to reach the banks of the Rhine; it was the 370th (8th Illinois) Infantry that won the glory of probably fighting the last engagement of the World War. It appears that on the morning of November 11, 1918 the French commander sent word to the officer in charge of the 370th Regiment to cease firing at 11 a.m. as the Armistice would be signed at that hour. But the Colored troops were pressing forward so rapidly after the enemy that it was long past 11 a.m. before the messenger could overtake them. When he did finally ride up to the regiment, it was just putting on the finishing “frills and frazzles” in capturing a German army train and its crews of fifty supply wagons.
Through the untiring efforts of Dr. Joel E. Spingarn, one of the truest and most loyal friends the American Colored people have today, Dr. W. E. B. Dubois, Editor of the Crisis, Col. Charles Young, U. S. Army and many other prominent Colored leaders and friends of the race, the Secretary of War authorized on May 19, 1917 the establishment of an Officers’ Reserve Training Camp for Colored soldiers at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. This is the place where the 639 Colored men mentioned elsewhere in this article were trained before being commissioned into the United States Army. After being divided into as equal groups as possible these officers were ordered to report on November 1, 1917 for regular duty in the following named camps: Camp Dix, New Jersey; Camp Dodge, Iowa; Camp Funston, Kansas; Camp Grant, Illinois; Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Sherman, Ohio; and Camp Upton, New York.
Special National Guards
It was just at that most critical time during the first months of this same year, (1917) before the United States declared war against Germany, and when no white man in America positively knew nor absolutely trusted any other white man as to his real one hundred percent Americanism, that the Administration called out the first Separate Colored Battalion of the District of Columbia. This group of well trained and true loyal American soldiers was made a Special National Guard to defend, from the enemies of the Government, the Capitol, White House and other important Federal buildings located in Washington, D.C. the Capital of the United States of America. The mere fact that the Administration did not select a white group of soldiers for such a purpose at such a critical time when spies of the enemy were everywhere in every form proves without a doubt that the American white people not only had to admit among themselves but were forced to acknowledge to the whole world that this was one time in the history of the country when they had not confidence enough in members of their own race to intrust to them the Nation’s most valuable and delicate assets and responsibilities, namely; its filed-away official records, its treasuries of monies, its cherished honors and its liberty-loving Government. And the necessary intrusting of such national assets and responsibilities to the care of Colored soldiers reminded the outside world (what American white people should never forget) that the Colored people in the United States form the backbone of the American nation; especially when the Nation is required to use that backbone in overthrowing such white traitors of this country as the despised Benedict Arnold and such white murderers of Presidents as the scorned J. W. Booth.
That Special Colored Guard of Honor was under a Colored commander, Major James E. Walker, who at all times intelligently and fearlessly directed and guided his men in so successfully carrying out that responsible and trustworthy task. And it was on account of his constant exposure to all kinds of early spring weather (They started guard duty March 25, 1917.) while daily and nightly directing and watching the movements of his men, that Major Walker contracted the incurable cold which resulted in his fatal illness and untimely death just in the flower of his youth and in the performance of one of the most confidential and mental-straining duties the Nation could impose upon a citizen; guarding the history, good name, wealth and liberty of one hundred ten million people.
ON THE SEA
“Of The People, By The People, For The People.”
More than to cook or meals to serve;
And some are worthy of better fates
Than be only stewards and gunners’ mates.
In regard to the Colored men who took part in Naval strifes on the high seas, it has been estimated that at least ten thousand of them served in the Navy during the World War. While they were not allowed to advance in the Navy in proportion to their advancement in the Army, nevertheless, Colored college graduates and students, fully knowing such facts, put aside for the time being their educational ambitions and careers, entered the Navy and patriotically as well as unselfishly served in the menial positions of stewards, cooks and mess boys. And judging from the sleek full cheeks and plump round bodies of the officers and sailors aboard the vessels, those Colored boys, who were broad-minded and big-hearted enough to put down college pride and take up in its place national patriotism, went into galley and mess rooms and used the same kind of brain power in wrestling with pots and pans, foods and dishes as they had so brilliantly used in tussling with slippery mathematical, historical and linguistic problems when in their college class-rooms.
And who but God has an accurate record of the noble deeds humbly performed by many of those entrapped and unrescued Colored firemen and stokers who to the very last possible moment kept up the motor powers of their vessels in trying to outspeed and outdodge the death dealing submarine torpedoes? Those swift snakelike missives were always aimed and usually struck at either the life-giving lungs (fire rooms) or the pulsating hearts (engine rooms) of their objects. And it was in those vital organs of several great sea-ploughing vessels where many feverishly working, loyally dying and unsung Colored heroes went down to forever sleep in the dark deep chambers of “Father Neptune.”
THE STEVEDORES
While their duties, not being on the battle fields nor firing lines, called forth no spectacular incidents, citations for bravery or award of medals, nevertheless, the work of the stevedores was as important and valuable as the efforts of any other division in the World War. And their giant strengths and swiftness of movements in loading and unloading supply transports on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean played a very very clever part in helping the world to finally get a Zbyszko “toe-hold” a Stecher “scissors-hold” and a Lewis “strangle-hold” upon Germany and gradually forcing her shoulders backward and flat upon the universal mat of democracy.
(For some of the facts and figures used in writing-up the actual military and naval actions of the different wars that have been recorded on the foregoing pages, the writer is reverently grateful to his deceased Father, who as a runaway slave served through the Civil War, and other veterans of the Civil, Spanish-American and World Wars. But for the remainder and majority of such war data herein used, the author is fully indebted to The National Benefit Life Insurance Company, through the generous courtesies of its President, Mr. R. H. Rutherford, Washington, D.C., whose personal permission the writer secured to use such data in this book.)
HIGHEST COLORED OFFICERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY
A Brunette General
A million Colored their parts have borne,
But never a General has one been made:
Yet, Lafayette’s France have them so paid,
For character there out-points darkest shade.
To help in the drilling of West Point’s tread:
On kinder treatments Negroes should have dined,
Who rarely got there and mostly resigned.
And physical fitness without a blur
Mark Colored soldiers for station anew,
“Uncle Sam,” they would fill them both brave and true;
These nephews who never have treasoned you.
—Harrison.
Those who have been appointed the highest Colored officers in the United States Regular Army are as follows:
Colonel Charles Young (retired) Tenth Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth (retired) deceased, Chaplain, Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Lieutentant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Ninth Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel John E. Green, Militia Attache, Monrovia, Liberia.
Major William T. Anderson (retired) Chaplain, Tenth Cavalry.
Major John R. Lynch (retired) Paymaster.
Major Richard R. Wright, Paymaster, 1898, Spanish-American War.
Major George W. Prioleau, Chaplain, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
Captain W. E. Gladden, Chaplain, (retired) Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Captain T. G. Steward, Chaplain retired, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
Captain Oscar J. W. Scott, Chaplain, Tenth Cavalry.
Major Louis A. Carter, Chaplain, Ninth Cavalry.
First Lieutenant A. W. Thomas, Chaplain Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Those who held the highest Colored commissions above captains in the United States Army during the World War are as follows:
“Colonels:
Franklin A. Denison, 370th Infantry; Charles Young retired.
Lieutenant Colonels:
Ollie B. Davis, 9th Cavalry; Otis B. Duncan, 370th Infantry; John E. Green, Military Attache, Monrovia, Liberia.
Majors:
“Thomas B. Campbell; Milton T. Dean, 317th Ammunition Train; John C. Fulton, 372nd Infantry; William B. Gould, Jr., National Guard; Charles L. Hunt, 370th Infantry; William H. Jackson, 369th Infantry; Thomas H. Moffatt, 371st Infantry; Adam E. Patterson, Judge Advocate, 92nd Division; Rufus M. Stokes, 370th Infantry; James E. Walker, 372nd Infantry; Arthur Williams, 370th Infantry.”
(The above list of officers’ names are quoted from Work’s Negro Year Book, edition 1918-1919, pages 223-228.)
IN THE WORLD WAR
At Home
Relative to the willing sacrifices, unfaltering patriotism and loyalty of the millions of Colored people who remained at home in the United States during the World War, several books could be written but limited space herein will not permit but a few paragraphs covering their many activities.
After the white American men had enlisted or were drafted into the Army and Navy, there were left vacant thousands and thousands of responsible positions. The European foreigners who had previously immigrated here and were immediately given (even before they could understand the laws of the land or speak its language) full American opportunities and privileges, except the ballot, were now found unreliable. Great hordes of them showed their gratefulness to America for earlier throwing wide open her doors to them by refusing to come up to her test of one hundred percent Americanism. Even after all of the available mothers, wives, daughters and sisters of the departed white American soldiers were used in such places, there still remained many thousands of positions unfilled. All that time millions of Colored men and women who were loyally and willingly asking and waiting to fill such places were at first purposely ignored. Because of the lack of sufficient man power, the cog-wheels of industry all over the country began to stop. It seemed as though the American white sentiment of prejudiced feeling against the Colored people had become so bitter that the country was willing to commit industrial suicide while stopping to wallow in its mires of racial hatred.
But a certain good white sentiment (that usually turns up sooner or later, and in some cases more later (than sooner) after great sufferings have been caused) gently but firmly reminded America that there were millions of Colored people who were able and willing to fill those places. They were the people who had made and spent their money here to enrich and build up America as well as at all times and under all conditions had proved themselves most loyal and trustworthy citizens. That reminder although known to be wholly true was still laughed and sneered at by many until they were suddenly and painfully brought to realize that they must either employ Colored people in those positions or let the country go in starvation and ruin for want of sufficient and proper productions. Colored men and women were then at first reluctantly given employment in all parts of the country in almost all kinds of work. Thus for the first time since their forefathers and mothers had arrived in America nearly three hundred years before, Colored people were nationally allowed to use and enjoy many of the opportunities and privileges that had been stingingly withheld from them merely because they were Negroes and freely given to (many times forced upon) alien enemies just because they were Caucasians.
Leaving home in the morning long before dawn and returning late after twilight, Colored men faithfully dug coal in the mines of Alabama, Iowa, West Virginia and elsewhere in order that various kinds of industrial plants might continue to run in full blast and that transportation carriers might quicken their speeds to stations and sea ports. “A. J. Webster, a coal miner of Buxton, Iowa, is reported to have broken the record by earning $214.06 in 14 working days, during the last half of July, 1918. The wage was based on the amount of coal mined.”
In the shipyards along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, where the long swift-keeled ocean grey hounds and the heavy big-bodied sea-pacing mastiffs were rapidly born into life, thousands of Colored men were busily helping to assemble the durable steel ribs into place and rivet the armorplate hides of those ferocious watch dogs that prowled back and forth sleeplessly guarding the front doors of their master and mistress—“Uncle Samuel” and “Aunt Liberty”. And among those Colored ship builders, it was Charles Knight and his crew of seven men, who on July 16, 1918, at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Sparrow Point, Md., plant, drove 4,875 rivets in a 9 hour day. The highest previous record of 4,442 rivets for the same time had been made in Scotland. Knight and his men, therefore, were the first Americans (Colored or white) to break and bring that record to the United States. His regular services for the day earned him $102; he received a bonus of $50.00 for bringing the record to America, and twenty-five pounds sterling ($125.00) offered through the London Daily Mail by Mr. McLeod, the head of a London Shipbuilding Company, to the one who broke the record. Thus Knight received for his one day’s labor $277.00, besides having the honor of being the first American to break the European riveting record.
Many people have heard the time-worn expression “make bricks fly”, but it has been left for Alonzo Harshaw, a Colored artisan, to break a record by making bricks fly in laying them at the rate of sixty thousand paving bricks per day. It is said that Harshaw, who works for the Southern Paving & Con. Co., lays bricks with such rapidity and exactness that he has been photographed while at work by several moving picture firms.
In the rolling mills, steel and iron foundries, Colored men were there in thousands sweating away their strength and burning up their vitality before blistering metals in order that the best possible steel and iron might be made strong and durable enough to withstand the bursting shells and the snake gliding torpedoes from the submarines of the scientific Germans.
Pushing pens and pencils on top of desks, tapping keys of clicking typewriters, bending over buzzing sewing machines, plying needles over tailors’ benches, before the humming looms, by the dangerous railroad crossings, in the car-filled train yards, between the handles of loaded wheelbarrows, through the crops of farmerette fields, among the death-dealing explosives in munition and arsenal plants and in many other places, thousands of brave and willing Colored women were to be found either in yeowomen’s suits or overalls and blouses steadfastly working with cheery dispositions and hopeful smiles.
In December, 1918, two distinguished Colored Americans were sent to Europe on special missions as follows; Dr. Robert R. Moton, who was sent by the President of the United States and the Secretary of War to investigate the conditions of and talk to the Colored soldiers, and Dr. W. E. B. DuBois who went to Europe as the representative of the N. A. A. C. P. and The Crisis to collect historical data pertaining to the American Colored fighters in the World War and to call and form a Pan-African Congress.
At Home Buying Liberty Bonds
“The Biennial meeting of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs was held in Denver, Colorado in July, 1918. Among the important subjects considered at this meeting were: Temperance, Suffrage, Lynchings, Religious Work, Negro Women’s Problems, Food Conservation and what the Negro Women Were Contributing to War Work Service. It was pointed out that the Association had representation on the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense, that in the Third Liberty Loan, 7,000 Negro Women were at work and raised $5,000,000. It was also stated that, judging from the number of buttons sold through the colored women’s clubs, that about $300,000 had been contributed in Red Cross Drives.”
“David H. Rains, a wealthy Negro farmer, living near Shreveport, Louisiana, walked into the Liberty Loan Headquarters in that city and purchased $100,000 worth of the Fourth Liberty Loan Bonds and said that: ‘If they fell short of the quota he would make up the deficiency.’ (Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pages 48-49). According to an article on page 273 in the April 1921 issue of The Crisis, ‘Mr. Rains, who is reputed to be worth $1,500,000, owns 2,000 acres of land on which there are 40 producing oil wells; he pays a clerk $100 a day to check up his royalties.’”
“A report from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was that the Negro school children subscribed for $27,000 worth of Third Liberty Loan Bonds. Through a Negro bank in that city, over $400,000 worth of Bonds were bought, and it was stated that the total amount of Third Liberty Loan Bonds purchased by the Negroes of Philadelphia was more than $1,000,000.”
“At the close of the Third Liberty Loan Drive, the United States Treasury Department awarded first place among all the banks of the country to a Negro bank, the Mutual Savings, Portsmouth, Virginia. This bank was given a quota of $5,700 to raise. A total of over $100,000, almost twenty times the stipulated quota was raised. This bank was assigned $12,500 as its quota of the Fourth Liberty Loan. Its total subscription for this loan was reported to have been $115,000.”
“The Negroes of Jacksonville, Florida, were awarded the first honor flag given to Negroes for exceeding their quota in the Third Liberty Loan Drive. They were asked to raise $50,000; they raised $250,000. In the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive, they were assigned a quota of $500,000 and raised over $100,000 more than this amount. The following are additional examples of subscriptions of Negroes to the Fourth Liberty Loan: Mobile, Alabama, $250,000; Norfolk, Virginia, $250,000; Kansas City, Missouri, $500,000; Savannah, Georgia, $500,000; Memphis, Tennessee, $700,000; Chicago, Illinois, $1,000,000; Birmingham, Alabama, $1,155,000; Maryland, $2,000,000.”
“When Secretary McAdoo visited Little Rock, Arkansas, in the interest of the First Liberty Loan, he was presented with a certified check for $60,000 as the Mosaic Templars’ bit toward financing the war. This society’s subscriptions were added to for subsequent loans until a total of $135,000 was invested in Liberty Bonds.”
Not only rich Colored people gave freely of their wealth, but poor Colored people sacrificed to extents that are not imaginable in giving their last few dollars to help end that world strife, as soon as possible.
“Mary Smith, a colored cook in Memphis, Tennessee, was asked by her mistress if she would not undertake to buy a $100 Bond. Mary said: “No. I don’t want no little $100 Bond. I want a $1000 and I am going to pay cash for it.” She gave her lifetime’s savings to help the United States carry on the war.”
“The Chicago Illinois Post, in an editorial headed: “The Widow’s Mite,” among other things said: “We should like to tell the story of an old Negro woman, who, with seamed face and knotted hands, lives on the South Side and works for $7 a week. ‘Out of these meager wages,’ says the Favorite Magazine, ‘this daughter of a race that has traveled the road of trials and tribulations, has purchased three Liberty Bonds and $25 worth of War Savings Stamps. She contributes $5 a month to her church—before the war it was $10—belongs to the N. A. A. C. P. and a Court of Calanthe, subscribed to three Negro periodicals and contributes a dollar a month to the Home for the Aged. She does not knit, but she sits sometimes in the sunset, dreaming of the two stalwart sons that she has given the nation to fight its battles across the sea’.””
“Warner Brown, of Brenham, Texas, an ex-slave, seventy-five years old, had accumulated $50 by chopping wood and doing other jobs. He invested this in a Liberty Bond.” “Gilbert Denman, an eighty-seven year old Negro of Greenville, Alabama after listening to an appeal of speakers from a war relic train, tendered his entire worldly wealth, fifteen cents, to the cause of the United States Government.”
Since a large percentage of the loyalty and patriotism of American citizens was weighed on the Roosevelt standard testing machine of 100 per cent Americanism with weights of paper, silver and gold money; then surely the two hundred twenty-five million dollars and more in cash that was dumped into the American scales of Liberty Loan Campaigns, Thrift Stamps, Red Cross Drives and other War Work activities, by the Colored people in the United States, pushed high above the level the opposite scales that contained Negro one hundred per cent Americanism.
Thus did the Colored people at home give their over-flowing measure and extra weight of money toward the putting down of a threatened world autocracy and the establishment of a hopeful universal democracy. And justly may those Colored people, who stayed at home in America during the World War and so unselfishly gave of their strength and money, truthfully and consolingly repeat that beautiful, fifty-fifty and “square deal” law of King David’s found in First Samuel, thirtieth chapter, twenty-fourth verse: “But as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff; they shall part alike.”
(All quotations, facts and figures contained in this chapter titled “In The World War At Home”, unless otherwise stated herein, are extracts taken from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pages 14-45-46-47-48-49-50.)
IN THE CHURCHES
Fresh Air Religion
Fresh air within God’s House to keep;
And not hot rooms with germ-filled airs
In sermons and their church affairs.
—Harrison.
EVEN during the Revolutionary War, George Leile, a Baptist slave who had been freed by his owner, preached to slaves in Savannah, Ga. From that time on up the Negro pulpit has been wielding among the masses of Colored people in America an influence for good that is the first of all influences that has the greatest hold upon the Race.
Some of the other early preachers who helped to lay the rock foundation of this ruling influence were Lemuel Haynes of Connecticut, a wonderful orator and honored veteran of the Revolutionary War; Richard Allen and Absolem Jones of Pennsylvania, Allen having founded the famous old Bethel Church in Philadelphia and was ordained in 1816 the first bishop of the A. M. E. Church; Amanda Smith of Maryland, who won thousands of Colored and white converts over to God as a result of her powerful sermons and temperance lectures in England, Scotland, Africa and India as well as in America; John Chavis of North Carolina, who on account of his superior education won fame and recognition as a school teacher of rich white Southern boys and girls and also as a powerful pulpit preacher to enslaved men and women of his own race; and John Gloucester of Tennessee and Pennsylvania, who was the first Colored minister of a Presbyterian church in the United States. Thus were the ways those early God-Fearing men and women of days before and right after the Civil War blazed the plain guiding marks in the forests of ministry, in order that the clear-sighted and sure-footed gospel leaders who have since followed them might have no trouble in choosing the right paths through which to lead their trusting and loyal congregations.
The following is an article quoted from the August 6, 1921, issue of the Chicago Defender:
“C. T. Walker, Noted Pastor, Dies in South.”—“Augusta, Ga., Aug. 5—The Rev. Charles T. Walker, often referred to as the greatest preacher of his time, died Friday July 29, at his home here.
“Dr. Walker was vice-president of the National Baptist convention of the United States and pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist church here for the past forty years, excepting five years when he was pastor of the Mount Olivet Baptist church, New York City.
“He founded the Y.M.C.A. in New York City for our people, traveled extensively in Europe and the Holy Land, and was the author of a number of books of travel as well as sermons.
“As an evangelist, he was widely known, and no other minister ever drew larger crowds when he spoke. His church in this city was often visited by Northern winter tourists, among them former President Taft and John D. Rockefeller. It was the latter who paid an artist to paint pictures of the Christ Child on the walls of Rev. Walker’s church.”
“To Pastor A Large White Church”
“Toronto, Can.—To fill the pulpit of one of the largest Presbyterian churches (white) in Toronto for five weeks with one of our ministers is the interesting departure from the general rule of supply for the summer months that Knox church is making this year. For last week and all of August, Rev. Joseph J. Hill of Roawohe Baptist Church, Hot Springs, Ark., will occupy Knox church pulpit. Dr. Hill has been a professor of science in a southern university, and is a graduate of the Academy of Music. He is a quiet, appealing and persuasive preacher with a message all his own, which he delivers with great eloquence. During the summer holidays, last year, he preached in the Moose Jaw Methodist church, with a seating capacity of 1,000 which was crowded at all services.”
The above is extracted from the Cleveland Gazette issued August 6, 1921.
As soon as Sunday School children of the Race have grown old and large enough to understand and bear more weighty religious burdens, they are at once invited to join the present four million Colored church members, who are only too anxious to take in new members under the Divine leadership and protection of the fourty-three thousand churches owned by people of the Race in the United States. When it is proved by facts and figures that about one-third of the Colored people in this country are members in churches and that they have put over eighty-five million dollars of their hard earned money into these present church properties they own; it is plainly seen that people of the Negro race still have perfect faith and trust in and are continuing to work for and with the God, Who inspired the immortal Abraham Lincoln to free their slave working and hopeful praying foreparents.
(Ref.: Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 1-234-5-6-7).
Colored ministers of today, on account of their all-around advancements have been able to bring about a better understanding and knowledge of the true teachings of the Bible. For instance, they are teaching their congregations that the timely, proper and equal uses of emotional and practical religion are necessary. Thus the masses of people attending Colored churches are fast learning from their pulpits that there is just as much needs for Christianity in practical business and social dealings with each other on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, as there is for Christianity in their church emotional ceremonies conducted among themselves before the altars on Sunday. Also ministers of today have long since come to differ from most of those “old school” ministers (God blessed them for doing the best they knew how) who taught their people to live, think and say, to other races, “Give us Jesus and you can take the dollar.” So the “new school” and more businesslike ministers of these times are patiently teaching, fast convincing and gradually converting their congregations in the belief and truth that it is just as much Christianity in the honest earning, the frugal saving, the fair investment, the wise spending and the merciful sharing of a dollar with the poor and needy, as there is need for Christianity in the saving of their souls and the spreading of the gospel.
Along other practical lines these gospel leaders are having remarkable success, especially in large cities where many Colored people live. It is wonderful to see how these practical ministers have taught their congregations that they are showing as much reverence to God when they pass out of their churches after services and go quietly and orderly to their homes (instead of great numbers of them stopping right in front of their church doors with loud talk and laughter and blocking the whole pavement, against people who wish to go by, for fifteen and twenty minutes) as they do when sitting quietly and dignified in their church pews listening to the sermons. Such gospel leaders in every instance finally win their members over to their sides in such matters by pleasantly and plainly pointing out that people of other races seldom attend Colored churches of today and see the polished and refined ways people of the Race deport themselves. But if just two or three dozen members of a church come out after services and thoughtlessly block the side walks, go along the streets or ride in the trolley cars roughly laughing and loudly talking their church and private affairs to each other from one end of the car to the other; they are seen and heard by other races who class not only the church but the whole Negro race with those few loud-mouthed, absent-minded and sometimes vain Colored people who often use such shameful public manners to attract attention to themselves and their clothes; just like the same class of uncouth white people do.
Of course, when white men and women appear in public places acting and talking in noisy, unrefined and vulgar ways, the Colored man or woman (no matter how little learning he or she may have) who sees and hears such actions, never judges and stamps the intelligent, refined and well-behaved portion of the Caucasian race as a whole group of people also to be ignored and discriminated against. But when a person of color sees and hears such vulgar actions on the part of a white person, that Colored person merely comments to himself; “There is a human being who is a sample of the worse element among the white people and is far from being a fair and pure sample of the best people in the white race.” Then that broad-minded Colored person will at once throw the incident off his mind. He will then turn his back on the uncouth white person with disgust and in facing about will the very next moment give the fullest consideration, the most humane treatment, the most polite manners and the deepest respect to the white lady or gentleman whose Christian speech and civilized actions warrant and deserve such courtesies. And this is only one of the countless (big) little instances in which the American Colored people are daily showing their practical use of the Golden Rule; (cornerstone in the foundation and keystone in the archway of the white man’s Christianity).
Thus the brotherhood actions and manners of the masses of Negroes, (from the hod-carrier to the president of a university and from the scrub woman to the president of a national organization) in being broad-minded and big-hearted enough to fair-mindedly apply the Golden Rule to the Caucasian race, so as to mentally separate and treat accordingly the good white people from the bad, are certainly proving that the Colored people as a whole are daily putting into practical usages the Lord’s Golden Rule in much more Christlike ways than the white race is itself. Of course, there are exceptions in both races, but considering both from the standpoint of masses the above assertion cannot be truthfully denied.
A present day exception on the white side may be cited as follows:—During the summer of 1920 when Southern white savages turned Paris, Texas into a human slaughter house by lynching, torturing and burning alive of human beings, Rev. R. P. Shuler, (white) a prominent Methodist minister living in that community fearlessly denounced the mob at the time of its heathenish actions and at the risk of his own life. Later, when speaking of a former statement he had made regarding the lynching, according to an article in the July 24, 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender, he said:
“The above statement, I make in the face of the advice that has come to me from many friends that such a policy is and will be at present unsafe for me. I am informed that my life has been numerously threatened if I make such a statement. I am told that the mob used my name repeatedly in such a manner as to very much concern my friends. I can truthfully say that the attitude of this mob toward me does not in the least concern me. Better men than myself have died when far less was at stake. I am only concerned in doing my God-appointed duty in this situation. Therefore, without apology or plea for quarter, I unhesitatingly condemn the burning of these men in our city as an act of lawlessness, which if carried to its legitimate ends, would destroy our government and damn our civilization. And in making this statement I ask for neither the protection of my friends nor the mercy of my enemies.”
If all other white ministers were to take such fearless and open stands against such savage doings, that are heaping as much shame and stain on the United States as such crimes in Europe ever heaped on Turkey, they could in a few years make these United States a truly Christian land. And in taking such stands such ministers (if they showed the same kind of faith in God as Rev. Shuler did who is still living and preaching) they would also be delivered from a threatening mob. But where within the recent past or the present have there stepped out from the white ministry two Rev. Shulers? Among all the nationally famed white evangelists, which one or three of recent times have in preaching in all parts of the United States proved himself a second Henry Ward Beecher, an Elijah P. Lovejoy or a C. T. Torry, who fearlessly and fruitfully preached against all national as well as local sins, crimes and lawlessness that came under their notice?
Among all the white ministers in the United States, only they themselves can tell how many of them peacefully feel within their secret hearts and contentedly feel within their reasoning minds that they are giving full reverences to God, full honor to their calling and full service toward all weak and suffering humanity through their Sunday preachings against all sins and crimes? And among them only they can tell how many of them, through advising words in reasoning talks, are trying each Sunday (if only for five minutes) to blow out and drown the sinful sparks of jealousy, envy, malice and hate that instantly flame up in the breasts of so many of their church members as soon as they see a Colored person, even if that person is well-behaved, well-educated, well-dressed and well-to-do. Such feelings merely on account of color are not natural and God has not meant for such to be; for if He had, He would have made the brown earth white, the green grass white, the blue sky white, the yellow sun white. These are the greatest things in the world and all of them are colored. Even the water, that covers three-fourths of the earth (while it is supposed to be colorless) is more colored than it is white. Those white people who wish that there were no colored on earth should remember that God in His infinite wisdom fully realized in making the universe that if He made all things white the glare would be so great and intense that every seeing thing would be driven totally blind. So God put soft and blending colors on earth in order that humanity might retain its sight to see His works and learn to love them but not to look upon any of His works with scorn and hatefulness.
While intelligent preachers of the Race upon quietly and carefully looking about them see that practically the entire earth is one mass of colors—the majority of internal and external earth elements, the foods, the clothes, inside and outside building materials and furnishings are colored; yet these Negro ministers teach their congregations that the white color God has placed here has as much right on earth as the big majority of colors. And there are such advising and logical talks going on every Sunday from the Colored pulpits in order to keep down race prejudice and friction. And Colored ministers are silently and hopefully praying to God that He will finally soften, melt and move the hearts of the white ministers so that they will at last come forward and do their parts by logic reasonings with their white congregations a few minutes every Sunday regarding the rights of all colors of peoples to live unmolested and progress unhindered here on earth. It has been left for the white press to come forward and take the lead (which it is nobly and increasingly doing) in this movement of reasoning with the masses of white people in America regarding racial discriminations and injustices. But the entire world, including the American white press itself, is looking on in puzzled and wondering silence as it continues to hopefully wait for the American white ministry to dutifully and courageously come forward in a mass and take its rightful lead in this Christian movement to help bring about a closer brotherhood co-operation, a truer Christlike understanding and a smoother racial adjustment between the white and Colored people living in the United States. The influence of the white church is the greatest human power in the world—it unintentionally encourages mobs and rioting in America by continuing to keep silent on the question, but it can intentionally discourage and prevent in a very short time the occurence of a second Arkansas, Atlanta, Chester, Chicago, Duluth, East St. Louis, Houston, Philadelphia, Tulsa, Washington and other race riots, if it will come out as a whole all over the country and speak to its congregations Sunday after Sunday against such barbarism and heathenism being constantly carried on here in the United States.
According to notices that have recently appeared in the white press, The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, spurred on by the barbarisms carried on at the riot of Tulsa, Okla. of a few months ago, has boldly come forward and denounced such sins and crimes. In order to bring about better relations between the two Races and help to prevent such future occurences, this Council has already appointed a Commission that has held a meeting in Washington, D.C. It is planned to hold conferences, composed of white and Colored clergymen, all over the country, and an effort will be made to have the white churches to educate their audiences regarding the sins of race prejudice and the crimes resulting therefrom. So just as God in His own time answered the prayers of American slaves that they and their children would some day become free; He is gradually and surely answering the prayers of persecuted Negroes of today that the white ministry will come forward and take its proper place as a leader in helping to swing into the right channels the public sentiments of white people regarding their Christlike treatments of Colored neighbors. Colored people must continue to work and pray and be hopeful that out of this movement will eventually come a second Henry Ward Beecher of modern times.
On the following pages are named some of the highest men in the Colored ministry, who have been for years using every Christlike means within their powers to help bring about more mutual understandings and feelings between the two races: