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Needs of the Colored Women and Girls
I have been asked to speak
to you on the needs of four millions of
women and girls. The time allotted for this
paper is far too limited for me to give more
than a glimpse of their real condition.
In considering the needs of the colored
women and girls of the South, you must bear
in mind their past condition, present status
and future prospects, together with the
forces that have contributed to each, before
you can know and feel the heart yearnings
and struggles of my sisters.
No human lips can tell the story of that
dark night that has left its impress upon
the habits, customs and life of a whole race
of people. The crudest results of that
iniquitous system fell heaviest upon the
colored woman. From childhood, no matter how
favorably situated, she was liable to become
the doomed victim of the grossest outrages.
There was no assurance that she would not be
a constant associate in the field with the
coarsest and most ignorant men of both
races, or at any moment, at the caprice of
the master, be sold. Swayed, body, mind and
spirit, by a master class who found it
necessary to close every avenue of
intelligence in order to accomplish his
fiendish purposes, this creature, made in
the image of God, was often taught that
there was no God of justice for her. Her
body, instead of being a fit temple for the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, was subject
to the foulest demands of sensuality. No
wonder they sang,
"Nobody knows the trouble I see, Lord,
Nobody knows but Jesus."
These slave songs, born of agony, might well
be called "The Passion Flowers" of the slave
cabin. Thank God that all of my sisters were
not thus brutalized, and even to those who
were, God was merciful. Deep down underneath
the lacerated and bruised heart, rested the
"Shekinah of the Lord," preventing the
wholesale transmission of vice. Two hundred
and fifty years of such tuition gave her but
little chance to develop her womanhood.
Intuitively she knew that there was a living
God, and she sought Him in visions, and
listened for His voice, and looked forward
and persevered for that home not made with
hands, and from her heart were wrung these
words:
"O Lord, O my Lord, O my good Lord,
Keep me from sinking down."
And then comforted, she cried out
triumphantly—
"Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?"
Many have told me their struggles, and I
know of others who even suffered death
rather than submit to the outrage of
chastity. One poor mother with three
beautiful baby girls, driven to despair by
realizing their probable doom if allowed to
live, sent them back to the God who gave
them and then took her own life.
Thus the colored women and girls lived
before the war.
How have they fared since Freedom?
Have they had a fair chance in the race of
life? No. They have met caste-prejudice, the
ghost of slavery, at every step of their
journey during these years of freedom. They
have been made to feel that they are a
separate species of the human family. The
phrases "Your people" and "Your place," do
not so much designate their race identity,
as the fixed status in the sisterhood of
races. This idea, as harmless as it may
appear, or as much as it is used, with
varied phrases of meaning, according to the
attitude of the speaker, has been one of the
greatest barriers to the progress of the
Negro, especially of the women and girls. It
has colored everything they have to do.
Their place, like the ebony of their skin,
is a dark place. In the home, and in social
life, "their place" is confined to colored
society, colored schools and colored
churches. Be it understood, I am not
reflecting upon colored society, but am
pointing out the limitations that no other
race in this country has to contend with, in
its efforts to rise.
The higher the plane of culture the colored
women and girls reach, the more sensitive
they become, and the more keenly the effects
of ostracism are felt. In wages it does not
matter how capable she may be, she must not
aspire. I have asked several persons, "What
is the greatest need of the colored woman
and girl?" and many have replied, "To be
good servants." Assuming that this is her
highest need, can good servants be had
without good wages?
In education, her place is the colored
school, if there is one far or near, and if
there is no school for colored youth, (as is
sometimes the case) the no-school is her
place. In religious life, her place is the
colored church. No matter how her soul may
long for a more intelligent Gospel than
perchance surrounds her, she must find it
there.
Her place in the work of reform, if she has
fallen or desires to reform, is the public
street. I could relate many incidents which
have come under my personal observation in
Washington, (and Washington is far ahead of
many places in the South) to illustrate how
our fallen sisters have suffered worse than
death, because doors have been shut against
them. Several cases have been brought to me
this year, one since writing this paper, but
my sisters, the sad fact is like the advent
of our blessed Lord, there is no room in the
inn for her.
What is the true place of our women and
girls? It is that place which is not
circumscribed by the mere accident of birth
and race, where she can rise just as high as
she has the ability to reach and sustain. My
five years' experience in Europe as a
Jubilee Singer gave me a taste of the sweets
of true womanhood, unfettered by
caste-prejudice and by a low estimate of my
position. There my complexion was not a
target for insult and ostracism. Our needs
are not only those common to other races,
but are in a vast measure greater, because
of the past and present difficulties. The
masses furnish the most difficult problem to
solve. How can we rescue them from poverty
and illiteracy, and not pauperize them? How
can we prevent crime, check immorality and
decrease mortality? The answer lies in
giving to them better home life, more
elevating social surroundings, better
educational advantages in school and
industries, and a higher type of Christian
life and worship.
My first introduction into an intelligent
idea of practical Christianity was at Fisk
University. There, and at many similar
institutions under the A.M.A., may be found
the epitome of a Christian home. Such
schools furnish potent object lessons; such
are the factors of the problem in answer to
the question of how to meet the needs of the
colored women and girls, who are to preside
over the homes of eight millions of people,
who had no home twenty-three years ago.
Washington, alone, has a population of
eighty thousand colored people, and more
than forty thousand of these are women and
girls.
It is said that the "hand that rocks the
cradle, rules the world." It matters not
whether that hand be black or white, but it
does matter whether that hand be intelligent
or ignorant. They not only need the
education of the schools to develop their
minds, and industrial training to prepare
their hands for the practical duties of
life, but Christian education, such as is
given in the schools of the Association.
More than three thousand women and thousands
of men have gone out under the A.M.A., in
school, home and church, for the uplifting,
Christianizing and elevating of our people.
Eternity alone will reveal the work that
these Christian heroines and heroes have
done in the Master's name. The eleventh
chapter of Hebrews would need be extended to
give to them their rightful place in the
role of achievements of faith. We need not
wait for eternity, we now see some of the
grand results; their memory is already
engraved upon the hearts, and their spirit
infused into the life of thousands of
educated colored young men and women, who
have gone out among their people, carrying
educated minds, trained hands and warm
hearts, as an outgrowth of that labor which
has not been in vain. This magnificent
record of Christian endeavor and conquest
has largely been made possible by the
foresight, energy and fidelity of the many
who have been and are at the head of the
different departments of the A.M.A.
How can the Association more fully meet
these needs? By continuing woman's work for
woman, through their Woman's Bureau. Through
this agency, ladies of the churches can
furnish volunteers for the work and the base
of supply. While we at the front are in the
heat of the battle, you at home, through
your missionary societies, young people's
meetings, and Sunday-schools, can aid us
with your prayers, your sympathy, your gifts
and service. Those in the larger churches
can sustain a missionary in the field, and
may it be said of all, both large and small,
"They have done what they could." Then we
can sing,
"March on, and you shall gain the victory,
March on, and you shall gain the day."
My sisters, we must first be touched by the
Spirit of the Master, and through him touch
them. This work cannot be done perfunctorily
or professionally.
And now in conclusion allow me to thank you
in behalf of the millions whom I represent,
for the faithful work and practical sympathy
already given, and appeal to you in his
name, and through you to the thousands whom
you represent, for a continuation of your
Christian efforts and support, also for
greater supplies and larger gifts to the
treasury of the A.M.A., that it may be able
to furnish the laborers according to the
demands of the growing needs of more than
four millions of colored women and girls,
who are trying to help themselves. Our
lamented President Garfield said to the
Jubilee Singers during their visit to
Mentor: "Ethiopia is not only stretching out
her hand unto God, but God is stretching out
his hand unto Ethiopia." We believe this,
and that the time is coming when all races
shall sing:
"O, brethren, rise and shine and give God
the glory,
For the year of Jubilee."
The Southern
Situation
The position of the South is becoming once
more clearly defined. Before the war, it was
fully formulated thus: The Negroes are an
inferior race, and slavery is their divinely
ordained condition. To this was added: The
Negro question is purely local, and with it
no one outside of the South has any right to
interfere. To these axioms agreed the press,
the pulpit and the politician. But the war
came as an earthquake, with the utter
upheaval of these firm foundations.
During the years of reconstruction and
political agitation, uncertainty prevailed,
but now again the Southern position is
becoming settled. It is the old position
with a variation. It runs: The Negroes are
an inferior race, and must be held as a
peasant class in subjection to the superior
white race. To this the warning is again
added: This is purely a domestic affair, and
all outsiders must keep tongues and hands
off. This revised version of the old theory
is proclaimed by Senator Eustis in his now
somewhat famous article in the Forum. More
recently it has been re-affirmed in the
fervid eloquence of Mr. Grady, of Atlanta,
in his address at Dallas, Texas.
This is the same orator (he is an orator)
who a few years since electrified the whole
country by his speech at the New England
dinner, on the "New South." But the logic of
Southern events has driven him down again to
the platform of the "Old South." More
recently still, the Governor of South
Carolina, in his message to the Legislature,
has taken the same position.
These three gentlemen, representing the
press and the politician, are sustained by
the pulpit in the South. For example, the
Presbyterian church South repels all
overtures for re-union with the Presbyterian
church North, because such a re-union would
involve a practical recognition of the equal
manhood of the inferior race. The
Presbyterian church South does not stand
alone on this platform. Other denominations
are arrayed side by side with it, and we
fear that even the Congregationalists in the
South, with two Conferences in the same
State, one white and the other black, are in
danger of being numbered with them.
This is the Southern position. It portends
the renewal of the old antagonism. It repels
the North, denying its right to interfere,
and thus draws again the sectional line; and
above all, it sets up sharply the antagonism
of races, consigning the Negro permanently
to an inferior place. This implies, of
course, that if the Negro will not quietly
accept this place, he must be compelled to
do so by force of arms, and in this struggle
the North is notified that it has no right
to interfere. We can only express our
amazement at this theory! With the memory of
the war so fresh, when the North broke over
all warnings against interference, and
stepped in to aid the helpless slave, can
the South now hope to make these warnings
any more efficacious? Can it hope that the
North will acquiesce in a quasi slavery,
that sets aside substantially all that it
gained and established by the long war?
And if the struggle comes again, what hope
of success can the South cherish? If in the
last national struggle, it was overpowered
when the slave, as Mr. Grady acknowledges,
guarded the house while his master fought
for his perpetual enslavement, what can it
do when the Negroes have tasted freedom for
a quarter of a century, and now number
nearly as many as the whites in the South?
It is for the white people of the South to
say whether that struggle shall come. The
North does not desire it, the Negro does not
desire it, and we sincerely believe that a
large share of the people of the South do
not want it. Rev. Dr. Haygood, the efficient
agent of the Slater Fund, in a recent
article in The Independent, in reply to
Senator Eustis, voices, as we hope, the
sentiments of thoughtful and influential
Southerners. But it remains to be seen
whether these wise counselors will be heard.
Such voices were uttered before the war, but
they were drowned in the noise of sectional
hatred and the imperious demands of slavery.
God grant that the sad lesson of the past
may be heeded.
In the meantime, the A.M.A. will continue
its efforts at what it believes to be the
true solution of the Southern problem—the
Christian, educational and industrial
advancement of the colored people. With the
help of the great benefaction of Mr. Hand,
whose money was made in the South, and is
now consecrated to the South, we shall go
forward with greater zeal and encouragement.
We are not partisans; we are not
sectionalists. We are working for the good
of both whites and blacks, and for the peace
and prosperity of our common country.
The election of Benjamin Harrison as
President of the United States, and the
restoration of the Republican party to
power, awakens special attention to the
probable attitude of both towards the great
Southern problem. We have no opinion to
express on the subject, and we have no
interest in it as a mere party question, but
only as it may lead to the sober and earnest
investigation of that transcendently
important problem which requires the
unbiased and honest consideration of the
patriot, the statesman and the Christian.
The Roman Catholics and the
Freedmen
Soon after the war the Roman Catholics
seemed to have made a strong effort to win
the Freedmen to their faith, and many
Protestants felt a good degree of
apprehension that the splendors of the
ceremonial and the absence of race
distinction might captivate the Negro. But
the effort was unsuccessful and appeared for
a time to have been abandoned. It has often
been said, however, that the Church of Rome
never surrenders an undertaking; it may
delay and wait for more auspicious times,
but in the end it perseveres. There are some
indications of the renewal of the zeal of
the Papacy for the Negro. The article in
another part of the magazine, entitled "The
Colored Catholic Congress," is an evidence.
One thing is certain. The Roman Catholic
Church deserves praise for its disregard of
the color-line. The rich and the poor, the
white and the black, bow at the same altar,
and one of the highest dignitaries of the
church is not ashamed to stand side by side
with the black man on a great public
occasion. Protestants at the North and the
South must not allow the Romanists to
surpass them in this Christ-like position.
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American Missionary Association, 1888-1895
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