The Colored Girl Beautiful

The colored mother beautiful is the health officer of the race as well as her own posterity. It is her duty to see to it that her children have clean bodies inside and outside. She will see to it that in her neighborhood there will be more regard for health, drainage, and other sanitary conditions. She will pursue the deadly fly and cause this pest and all vermin to be eradicated.

She will study up on the kinds and amounts of food to give children that they may not be fed the coarse, greasy food which coarsens the instinct, or may make them gluttonous, which will abuse the stomach and cause unnatural heat that may wreck them morally. Instead, she advocates the light brain forming food to lift them above the dominant animal tendencies.

She controls the child's play which is so necessary to health and which at the present day aims for educational results.

A colored girl's estimate and idea of colored womanhood comes from her mother.

The colored mother beautiful will not give the best to strangers in preference to home folks, nor will she expect her daughter to receive politeness from other boys and men when her brothers and men in the house keep their hats on, smoke and talk in loud disrespectful tones before her.

A colored mother will teach her daughter to command respect from all boys and men and not to capitulate in any way. To do this she will teach her daughter that she must conquer or control her lower nature and not permit privileges with her body or her given name. Her conduct at home and on the street must also command this. Her daughter will no more use the Lord's name in exclamation than any other profanity. She must be taught not to hang out or talk outside of the windows.

She must be taught that she is never to stand and talk to men on the street, also that she must not continue a conversation with a man or boy who shows he has no respect for her. She will demand a respectful attitude if she is a good girl or else she should excuse herself from further conversation and association.

The daughter of the colored woman beautiful will be taught to expect boys and men to tip their hats in meeting and parting, and she will not encourage them to sit in her presence if she stands unless they are her elders, superiors, or invalids. If necessary she will exaggerate the importance of these seemingly small courtesies to impress them upon other younger and less thoughtful girls.

Such a daughter will be taught to count for something besides clothes and looks. She will pass an intemperate or immoral man as she would something polluted, for both are irresponsible and she may suffer from even a moment's contact.

This daughter must be taught not to marry for support or for money. That is selfish and cowardly. Love should be the basis of marriage because after the honeymoon is past there are responsibilities, troubles, sorrows and self-sacrifice which need the stimulation of the "Love light."

The daughter of the colored woman beautiful will aim to marry a man mentally and physically fit to be the father of her children. An immoral, vile-tongued, untruthful or diseased father is a curse to his race. It is her duty and aim to improve racial stock.

This daughter will study the ethics of the period of engagement and will not abuse or destroy the mysterious charm which belongs alone to the early period of wife-hood.

A girl should be taught the duties of married life; to fulfil the beautiful aim of motherhood should be her ambition and her daily prayer.

Boys, also, get their estimate of colored womanhood from their mothers.

A whipping, striking, scolding, threatening, "shut-up" mother presents him a wrong view point of real motherhood.

The colored mother beautiful will teach her son to respect colored womanhood and to show this respect in every word and action. He is not supposed to know the "wheat from the tare." To any woman in all the small courtesies of life he will reflect his mother's home training. He will be taught to look up to, and to show special respect and reverence for the great women and men of the race.

Even in the way he puts on or takes off his hat he reflects his mother.

If a colored boy is expected to tip his hat to any woman, he should tip it to the women of his mother's race.

If it is expected that he should stand erect before any woman, he should before the women of his mother's race. Off will go his hat, if even asked a question. His voice, his eyes, his backbone, his heels, all reflect his mother and her training. In spite of protest he will never sit if a woman is standing unless he is ill or a cripple. Especially does he exhibit the mother training he has received from his manner in his actions to colored women.

If he is expected to speak respectfully to any woman he should to the women of his mother's race.

If he works faithfully for any woman who employs him he should work faithfully for a woman of his mother's race.

When he marries he should select a woman of his mother's race—a Colored Woman. His mother will teach him that a good wife is about the best thing in the world.

He will be taught to support and trust his wife as he did his mother and never doubt her until he has positive proof that she is unworthy. He will never publicly put another woman before his wife if he lives with her. As long as a wife bears his name and stays under his roof she is entitled to the respect that her title is supposed to carry. He would never go about complaining of his wife for that is small and cowardly. He will tip his hat as gallantly to his wife as to another woman and kiss her with uncovered head to show his respect to the woman he has chosen to bear his name.

The son of the colored mother beautiful will not smoke in the presence of his wife or friends unless he is sure it is unobjectionable and he should regard this as a privilege rather than a masculine right. He will be taught to wear his coat at table and regard it also as a privilege if he appears otherwise. He will be taught that it is unmanly to tattle and gossip.

He will be taught that it is vulgar and low to quarrel especially in the home. No man will strike a woman no matter what the provocation might be any more than it would have been right for his father to strike his mother. A man who is unable to control himself in anger is a weak man and is hardly fit to be a husband, much less father. Belonging to a race full of impulse and emotion he must be taught to control his emotions as he would his appetite. Culture and manliness are really restraint.

He will be taught to remember the vital sex difference in strength and physique and will not permit a woman to lift or reach unnecessarily—not even to help with his coat. He will not preach a double standard of morality for the men and women unless he practices what he preaches and has always been pure.

Early in the boy's life the colored mother beautiful will teach him to keep as pure in thought and deed as girls are expected to be. He will be given a right idea of the sacred sex organs and will be taught their health—value and the price of their abuse. Self mastery will be the watchword in thought, even in sleep and recreation.

The colored mother beautiful will teach her son not to lie and steal or to use intoxicants and profane language. She will teach him to keep both his inward and outward body clean. She shall insist that he keep his lips "in" while his chest will be out. The son will be taught the value of a good name and that fondness for work is one of the best recommendations in the world. He will be taught not to scorn or neglect his chores and to help his mother in the housework, not only because it is his duty but because it will prepare him for the duties of married life when he may be able to help his wife or instruct her if it should be necessary.

The colored mother beautiful will teach her son to be a little man and not to receive "penny tips" like a beggar. He should be taught to do neighborly favors without pay, after first asking his mother for permission. If he must have money let him work for wages that he may be his own business boss. He should never be permitted to ask any one but his parents for pennies and he should be encouraged not to expect or accept them.

A boy should be expected to walk with a graceful carriage and present an attractive personal appearance in the way of clothes, teeth, hair and nails as well as a girl.

Early in life he should be taught to invest in a savings bank, to get the saving habit.

The habit of reading good books should be made a part of his daily work as a preparation for the idle hour when he would otherwise seek excitement and harmful association.

A boy should be taught the duties of married life and what to expect from a good wife.

He should be warned of pitfalls and how vicious girls and women play upon men's physical weaknesses for selfish purposes. Any abuse or excess may ruin his health and happiness.

He should be taught to appreciate the qualities in a girl which will make congeniality during the long married life which has trials of which courtship never dreams.

He should be taught to seek and appreciate good, respectable girls and to associate with the best people.

If the day should come to the colored Mother Beautiful when after years of patient sacrifice and toil, all her hopes and dreams are cruelly dashed to earth and the child so carefully nurtured refuses to do her duty to parent and race and will not help to make the race and world better by having lived in it, or, when perhaps, the child is a disgrace to her parents and the race, the mother must conceal her agony and grief and still keep a serene countenance.

In silent meditation she looks back over all the years in which she has tried to rear a creditable member of the race and society. If, after honest review, down in her heart she can truthfully say, "I have raised my child to the best of my knowledge," then she may leave the rest in the hands of the "Creator." Perhaps he will reward her efforts, in a future generation, while she is yet on earth.

A disappointed colored Mother Beautiful does not envy other Mothers nor does she criticise their daughters.

Suffering opens the door to a wider vision in life and if she looks around she will find forgetfulness in helping others. It is never too late to begin.

Perhaps the Colored Mother Beautiful will be spared to see the day when her children leave the home honorably. Although it almost breaks her heart because she is no more to be the guiding light and comforter, she yields the sceptre of authority gracefully and willingly and steps into the background. She may see a rough voyage ahead for the young life travelers, but she may not interfere nor advise these loved ones unless asked. Even then she remembers that experience is the greatest teacher and strengthener and that it is best for them to walk life's journey alone.

The peace and contentment that comes from having done her whole duty gives her a spiritual beauty of countenance that comes from the other world; the habit of right living through right thought, reflects in her face and gives her a physical beauty that comes in no other way.

At the last, the Still Small Voice Whispers, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant of a persecuted race. You have done what you could. No one can do more. Receive your eternal reward," and the face is illumined with the beauty that shall endure forever.