THE NEEDS OF THE COLORED RACE.
By J. O. Corliss
EVERY kindred, as well as every tongue and nation, needs the elevating influence of the Gospel. What this influence is capable of doing for humanity may be seen in the wondrous change wrought in the appearance of those among the heathen who receive Christ. Before receiving Him, they were naked and filthy, but afterward, they are clothed and decent. True, the negro of the American Southland has never been so low in the scale of being as his brother of the South Seas, or of Central Africa. But since their emancipation, the colored people have not received from their white associates the educational advantages that their case demanded. On this point the Rev. C. B. Wilmer, of Atlanta, Ga., in a paper on "The Race Problem of the South," read in 1902 before the first annual session of the Georgia State Sociological Society, says: "It is very much to be regretted that to-day white men so seldom teach negroes or preach to them. Wherever you find a negro exceptional in character, you will find almost without exception that he has been made what he is by the influence of some white man or white woman. The Southern white people have turned over the work of teaching the negroes almost exclusively to the Northern whites and to the negroes themselves, and then have complained of the results. This is not consistent." Again, Mr. William Baxter Poe, a Southern farmer, in an article entitled, "Negro Life in Two Generations," printed in the Outlook of Oct. 31, 1903, says of their manner of life: "Eighty per cent. of the negroes I know—typical Southern farm negroes—live in one-room or two-room houses; have little furniture, and that little of the rudest kind; wear ragged clothes on working days and cheap finery on Sundays; eat poor food, and require few of the comforts and conveniences of twentieth-century civilization. As for literature and art, not one family in ten takes a paper, and not one in a thousand ever bought a picture. And this condition, I insist, is due, not to low earning capacity alone, but also to low ideals of living. Many of the negroes have a margin of income beyond what is necessary to maintain them in the manner just set forth, and in probably the majority of cases the surplus is spent, not for substantial comforts, not to remedy the deficiencies just suggested, but for showy finery, for fantastic bric-a-brac, for secret societies, for curious inventions that appeal to a childish, toy-loving spirit—and too often for intoxicating liquors." Speaking of the condition of negro women in rural districts, especially mothers, Mrs. Booker T. Washington says this, in "Proceedings of Hampton Negro Conference," page 74: "The women are all field hands, and still leave home very early for the day's work. At noon each day the wife carries home on her back the wood to cook the dinner, the husband hurries to get under a shady tree, to sleep until dinner is ready; then eats, and afterward has a smoke. The wife must be ready to go back to the field with him when the noon hour is out. The house was left out of order in the morning, the cooking things scattered about the hearth just as they were used, and the few dishes on the old table are unwashed, too. Where the mother takes all the children to the field, the house is locked up and the one window barred; but, thanks to the builder, the cracks are still there, and the air will play through all the day.
At dinner no time yet is given to washing dishes or making beds, and so after sunset the wife brings wood to cook supper and a light-wood knot to give light. No lamps or oil are used unless some one is sick. Next the woman drags up the cow and milks, brings water for the night, and then begins the supper. Perhaps the dishes will get washed for supper. After this, nature overcomes the strongest, and sleep is sought by all the family, in those same unmade beds or pallets." The Hon. Hoke Smith, altho seeing this decided lack in agricultural districts, thinks it may be overcome in some measure through education. His confidence in this result is thus expressed, "What blessings can be carried to these people of the rural sections when first-class schools are furnished to all of them." From these extracts we easily gather that men are agreed as to what is necessary to the uplifting of the negro race, namely, education. But possibly not all are agreed as to the nature of the education which will prove most helpful to that people. The Rev. Mr. Wilmer, before quoted, seems to have pronounced views upon this point. Thus he says: "As to the education of the negro, by all means let it be the right kind. . . . The purpose in educating a negro, or any one else, is to make him a more useful member of society." That is to the point. Education of the right sort will be that which makes one more useful in society than he could be without it. But no educational uplifting can effect this result so well as moral training—a Gospel education; for that, fully carried out, is the highest kind of education. This is what has been neglected in the training of many of the negroes. In view of this, Mr. Wilmer says: "A heavy responsibility rests upon the white race to bend a portion of its energies to the moral uplifting of this [the negro] race. This people lies, like Lazarus, full of sores at the gate of Dives, and wo to Dives if he heed not! The world's acknowledged greatest Teacher laid down a principle applicable not only to individual, but to sociological, development when He said, "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it." If the white race seek supremacy as an end in itself, and override justice in so doing, it will lose what it seeks. . . . We must be honest; we must be just; we must try to uplift this people, and one reward will be that we will be uplifted ourselves." To which every soul desirous of seeing the colored race uplifted will heartily respond in one prolonged, "Amen!"