DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE IN THE UNITED STATES
The Result of a Great Civilized Ancestry—Some of our Colored Americans, Their Doings and Their Personality
The Colored Americans, as one of the great divisions of the human family, with as proud an ancestry and as high a civilization as the Jews, and co-eval with them in the point of cultured antiquity, are proving themselves as progressive and, with the additions of modern culture, civilization and progress, are building their race up to a high point of excellence.
They have bridged the ages, so to speak, and are showing themselves penetrated with the spirit of a civilizing evangelization, which began in the Far East, nearly four thousand years ago.
They are carrying down to date, without losing by an intermission, the great aims and purposes of the Ethiopian Candace and Sheba dynasties, under which were introduced the arts and sciences, sculpture and painting into Egypt and Europe, refinement, literature, and wise government.
They are demonstrating every day, that they are moving with the great divisions of the human race, toward that high goal of unity that is the evident purpose of God in creating man.
Under an enlightened political system, the few aggravations in the local laws of which will soon disappear beneath the mighty onward tread of the peoples of the earth, our Colored Americans are beginning to realize their destiny, and are seizing the opportunities that present themselves for their benefit, as for the benefit of a common destiny of all men.
They are beginning to understand, and they are acting upon the understanding that education is the chief factor in the solution and proper attainment of their destiny.
This “education” has always been the essential element in the rise and progress of every nation on the earth, the educated have forced their way upward toward the light, and become factors in the world’s progress toward enlightenment. Those who have ignored education have fallen and lie buried beneath the sands of the deserts of Europe and Asia, without descendants or successors, and known only to the excavator of ruins. Their very races have disappeared without a trace.
THE CASE OF THE JAPANESE
The marvelous rise of the Japanese is due to the seizure of the opportunity of education, and appropriating every detail that goes to make power and physical influence.
Not much more than three generations ago, the Japanese empire was a mere name, an isolated country of semi-barbarians, a mere tribe without power, influence or standing as a national unit. It is now clamoring at the door of every civilized nation for recognition as a world power, and threatens to enforce its demands with an army and navy that is too formidable to be ignored or slighted.
It has reached the acme of the physical and lays claim to that alone as its right to recognition. It has not yet learned that in the great movement of the peoples of the earth toward unification, the physical must go down before the psychological, and therefore, if the Japanese persist in their physical prowess, they will disappear as have other greater nations claiming the same force as the summit of earthly influence. They are mere fragments of a tribe detached from the Turanian division of the human family.
History repeats itself always in the cases of the great divisions of the human family, where some branch attempted to usurp the power, functions and authority of the whole.
The Assyrians, the Persians, the mighty mistress of the world, the Roman Empire, vanished like a breath when they presumed to stand in the way of the designs of the Almighty.
All were pawns upon the chessboard of time, so to speak, the very foundation of which is soul, that attempted to wrest the fiat from its meaning by the adoption of brute or national force.
They served the purpose of carrying man toward a certain goal on the way to his final pinnacle, then claimed the results of the uplift, and went down through vanity and presumption.
Japan with its physical impress persisted in, will go down like the rest. It must go down because it does not represent any factor in the Divine designs. But it is an illustration of what education will accomplish, and its fate will illustrate what human nature, obsessed by its own reliance upon force, will reach in the end.
Our Colored Americans have no such incentive as force or physical designs. The conquerors of the earth were compelled to yield to the educational programme to uplift the soul of man, not his material prospects, except so far as they advanced the psychological, and they may be said to be now in that psychological phase of the movement of the nations of the earth, which leads to the highest point of intensive civilization.
A GREAT DIVISION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY
It should be constantly borne in mind, that the Ethiopians and their descendants, the Colored Americans in the United States, represent a great division of the human family, which, with the others, are alone to be considered in the great design of unification.
The Roman Empire represented no such portion of the human family. Assyria, Persia, Egypt, and the dominating historical peoples were all mixed, and when their uses had culminated, that is, when there was no more use for them, or when they ventured to assume superiority over the rest of the earth, they were submerged.
Of the mighty races that constituted the primitive divisions of man, there are now remaining, with each bearing a sharp line of distinction between them, the Aryan, Semitic, Turanian, and Ethiopian. Into these four divisions all the nations and peoples of the earth may be resolved.
It may be said that the Aryan consists of the white race; the Ethiopian, or Hamitic of the dark race; the Semitic, the Jews, and the Turanian, the yellow race, of which the Japanese are a mere branch of a subdivision.
Each of these great divisions of the human family has its own part to play in the great drama of the world’s progress, and the elimination of brute force or the physical as a negative element in progress, has brought these grand divisions face to face with the problem of psychology, mind or soul. It is immaterial what it is called, it cannot be disregarded.
The conditions or environments that have hedged in these great divisions have appeared to be similar in the world’s history. The Jews had their mighty empire. The Aryan developed into enormous power, but broke into fragments. The Ethiopian possessed the initial civilization of the world, and the Turanian, evidenced by the Chinese, have still a high position in the world.
Let us give a few details and then proceed to the progress of our Colored Americans toward the fulfillment of the great design:
The Jews lost their physical empire to become a psychological force. The Aryan became split into numerous branches which are now existing and moving steadily forward toward the psychological. The Turanians that controlled the Orient for ages by their physical prowess, have become a great republic based upon the power of mind. The great Ethiopian empire after leaving its impress upon the civilization of the world, was transformed into the psychological progress of the other members of the human family.
It will be perceived that all of them are drifting toward the same point, and that each of them is employing all the advantages and devices of modern life to continue on the march toward that point, at which all men shall be of one mind, one soul.
OPPORTUNITY AND ADVANTAGES OF COLORED AMERICANS
The Colored Americans in the United States, with their advantages are accepting the inevitable in the form of opportunities presented them, and are as irresistibly impelled toward the ultimate goal of unified mankind as the others.
Let us consider our Colored Americans at close range and see what they are doing in the way of seizing opportunities, and building themselves up to the accepted modern standards.
ECONOMIC PROGRESS
The one essential of modern life which the Colored American has not attained to perfection, is the proposition of economy. Not saving, but business qualifications. But he is an apt pupil and is rapidly acquiring experience.
The reports of 1912 give the value of property owned by the Colored people in the United States as six hundred millions of dollars. And upon this they pay taxes.
A year ago, The National Negro Business League held its eleventh annual session at Little Rock, Arkansas, with every State represented by delegates.
The wide range of Negro business activities discussed at that annual meeting, shows a vast stride toward improved commercial conditions, and an adaptability to the opportunities presented. Some of these activities were: Raising and shipping fruits and poultry; pickles and preserve manufactories; horticulture: grain, hay, and fuel; cotton raising; dealers in fresh and salt fish; farming and stock raising; town building; real estate; railroad building; coal and iron business; general and special merchandising; banking, and a multitude of other businesses. Sixty-two banks are operated by Colored Americans, and there is a National Negro Bankers’ Association, with W. R. Pettiford its President, the latter gentleman being President of the Alabama Penny Savings Bank, the second oldest Negro bank in the country. The Bankers’ Association has in process of formation, a large central Negro bank to act for Negro banks in the same capacity as the great banks of the East act as clearing houses for the other banks of the country.
It transpired in this connection, that the various Negro secret societies had on hand a large amount of money for the purposes of members’ funds and for widows. The Knights of Pythias alone, holding in all, cash and property $1,500,000.
INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS
When it comes to mental success and adaptability, the advance of Colored Americans is phenomenal, and shows as high an order of intelligence as any nationality in the world. Remember they are just regaining a lost heritage of renown.
The schools, colleges and universities number among their brightest and most brilliant pupils numerous Colored American youths, who are an honor to the cause of education and to their race. They have won scholarship prizes at Cornell University, at Amherst College, Simmons College, Columbia University, Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, Howard University, and in numerous public schools prizes have been awarded them against numbers of competitors.
Our Colored Americans are taking hold of the educational problem with a vim and courage, and they are succeeding along every department of study.
As an illustration of the thirst for knowledge, the case of Mrs. Martha Harmon, of New York, will be agreeable: This lady is seventy years of age, and attended night school for four years, taking an elementary course. She never missed an evening and was late only once. The New York Board of Education presented her with two gold medals, one for attendance, and the other for proficiency in her studies.
The intellectual progress of the Colored Americans may be emphasized by reference to that highly modern and civilized agent of education known as “The Press.”
There are now more than one hundred and fifty-three organs of the Colored Americans, edited and managed exclusively by them, and devoted to their interests as well as to the cause of general intelligence, improvement and higher education. These organs of the “Press” are classified into: magazines, 3; daily papers, 3; school papers, 11; weekly papers, 136.
Ten of these newspapers own the buildings they occupy, and fifty-four own their own printing plants.
There is a large field here for exploitation and splendid opportunities for the development of a high order of intellect. Only one of these newspapers was established before the Civil War, the Christian Recorder, of Philadelphia, which began in 1839. All the others were established after the Civil War, one in 1865, the others after 1870—a fact which demonstrates the ability of Colored Americans to advance in intellectual ability when the opportunities are presented for its free exercise.
The sphere of influence of the newspapers can not be disputed, we know how it is regarded and the enormous deference paid to that influence among the White Americans, and the same results must obtain among the Colored Americans.
There is room in this department of intellectual development, for many strong and vigorous writers, who will be able to crystallize the energies of the Colored Americans into a determined effort to maintain their position in the onward movement of the human race toward unification.
AUTHORS, WRITERS, POETS AND THE FINE ARTS
An investment in brains has always been regarded as the most productive in profitable returns. It is becoming the fixed opinion, based upon ages of experience, that the uplift of the world, the advancement of people and their progress can be accomplished by brains only.
War and its desolations, its ravages, rapine, and cruelties, have for a time swayed and dominated various parts of the earth, but, it must be considered that violence is the mere handmaid to an uplift by intellectual effort. War prepares the way for intellect and secures it an opportunity to be made manifest without molestation.
If we refer to the “Catalogue des manuscripts Ethiopiens,” already mentioned, we shall find a most amazing condition of intellectual development among the ancient Ethiopians. It was this intellectual condition that made its impress upon Egypt, and the other nations of Europe and Asia, because the Ethiopians were not a conquering race by force of arms, except so far as it was necessary to protect themselves against attack.
If we turn to their descendants—our Colored Americans—we find the same intellectual efforts resumed and progress going on in a marked degree under favorable circumstances and highly civilized and free conditions and environments. The same talent and genius that sculptured the exquisite Ethiopian bronze statuary recently discovered in The Soudan, carved the beautiful designs on Egyptian monuments, traced the architecture of noble palaces and immortal buildings, still traceable in ruins more than three thousand years old, and other evidences of art, is manifesting itself at the present day among our Colored Americans and other descendants in foreign countries.
Consider Lethierre, once president of the School of Fine Arts at Rome, within our present generation, and view his paintings that now adorn the walls of the Louvre in Paris.
We should not omit Edmonia Lewis, the sculptress, whose admirable works required a residence in Rome, nor Henry Owassa Tanner, the eminent artist, whose gems of art are represented in the fine art museums of the world. There are numerous others but these are given to emphasize the point of present Ethiopian intellectual ability.
Among writers were Alexander Poushkin, the celebrated Russian poet. He was a Negro with curly hair and a black complexion, but a man of extraordinary talent and versatility, in prose fiction, and history as well as poetry.
Jose Maria Heredia, the greatest of Spanish-American poets, was a Colored man, likewise the poet Placidio.
We can not forget Paul de Cassagnac, of France, editor, author and poet, who was also a Colored man.
Dumas, the noted dramatic author and novelist, was a colored man, and a most prolific popular author, poet, dramatist, novelist and essayist. That great production “Camille” is familiar to all theater-goers in the world, and when a man rises and says: “The world is mine,” he uses the language of Dumas’ Monte Christo, a world-wide novel that has been translated in all languages and performed on every stage.
We might go on for pages and refer to the Ethiopian intellect as something almost dominant in the world of letters in foreign countries, but must refer to our own Colored Americans as this work concerns them particularly.
We can claim as our own Williams, the historian, the first Colored American ever elected to the Ohio legislature, and at one time judge advocate of the G. A. R. of Ohio.
Phillis Wheatley, the girl who translated the Latin “Metamorphoses of Ovid” in Boston, which were republished in England as standard. Under the most distressing and adverse circumstances Phillis Wheatley became a scholar and a poetess of distinction and the associate of culture and refinement in Boston.
Paul Laurence Dunbar may be held up to all as an example worth following as a man, a poet, a novelist, and a journalist. At the age of twenty-one years he published his first book, “Oak and Ivy,” and followed it with others that commanded the attention and received the encomiums of the literary world in the United States. His poetry appeals to the heart and the hearth, and the intensity of thought displayed in his numerous writings is relieved by humor and quaint philosophy. Dunbar is a triumphant and unerring demonstration of Ethiopian intellect.
James B. Corrothers, the poet and prose writer, is another illustration of the power of applied intellect. Corrothers will be always known for the high order as well as humor of his writings, in the United States and in England where his “Jim Crow” idea of Negro fun is still supreme. Of his “The Black Cat Club,” a prominent literary and critical magazine, says: “The Black Cat Club should be commemorated by cultivated people of color as a second Emancipation Day.”
Charles W. Chesnutt, lawyer, writer, editor, historian and novelist, easily stands as a standard to be looked up to by the members of his race.
Miss Inez C. Parker, whose flights of fancy evolved from the higher realms of thought, betray the poetic gift of her race to a singular degree of beauty. As a poetess and writer, her destiny in aiding the uplift of humanity and helping it toward the universal goal, is manifest in every outpouring of her genius.
These are only a few of many, the most prominent now before the world. There are many others coming on and they will soon appear to the astonished eyes and ears of the people who have no thought of the great future and destiny of the Colored Americans.