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diff --git a/31322-h/31322-h.htm b/31322-h/31322-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2f9672 --- /dev/null +++ b/31322-h/31322-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,995 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Alexander Crummell An Apostle of Negro Culture, by William H. Ferris. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro +Culture, by William H. Ferris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture + The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 + +Author: William H. Ferris + +Release Date: February 18, 2010 [EBook #31322] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEXANDER CRUMMELL *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h3>OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 20.</h3> +<h3>American Negro Academy</h3> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<h1>Alexander Crummell</h1> +<h2>An Apostle of Negro Culture</h2> +<p> </p> +<h4>BY</h4> +<h3>WILLIAM H. FERRIS</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/lamp.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p> +<h4>WASHINGTON, D. C.:<br />PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY<br />1920</h4> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>ALEXANDER CRUMMELL<br />AN APOSTLE OF NEGRO CULTURE.</h1> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2>ALEXANDER CRUMMELL<br />AN APOSTLE OF NEGRO CULTURE.</h2> + +<p>A noted English lawyer-author has declared that the twelfth chapter of +Ecclesiastes is the final word of the world’s philosophy; that no ancient +or modern thinker has uttered a profounder word. And in the seventh verse +of that chapter it reads, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it +was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”</p> + +<p>Metaphysicians tell us that through his five senses, man is in touch with +and in relation to his physical environment and a physical world, and that +through his reason, imagination, conscience, aesthetic and religious +intuitions, man is in touch with and in relation to his spiritual +environment and a spiritual world. They also tell us that at death, the +soul and body merely part company and go their respective ways. The +oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and other chemical elements in the body mingle +with the material elements from which they came. And the soul of man, the +ego, the center of self-consciousness, recognitive memory and reflective +thought, which has maintained its identity amid the changes of the +physical organism, will survive the destruction of that organism and live +on and on in the spirit world, embodied in whatever form and clothed with +whatever garments its Maker so decreed.</p> + +<p>Scientists tell us that when you throw a pebble in a stream, it sets up a +series of ever-widening circles until it reaches the shore. They tell us +that when you utter an audible sound, you start in motion sound waves +which travel on for miles and miles. So it is with the influence of a +human personality. It does not end at the grave. It lives in the lives +that have been inspired, in the example set and the thoughts thrown out.</p> + +<p>Twenty years and three months have elapsed since the soul of Alexander +Crummell bid its bodily partner farewell and took its flight to its +spiritual home. But Alexander Crummell’s terrestial influence did not end +thus. It still goes on and will go on for centuries. We will briefly +review his life and career and then estimate the weight, worth and +significance of the ideas which he advocated, for which he lived and which +were incarnated in his personality.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Dr. Alexander Crummell, the Negro apostle of culture, was a born +autocrat, a man born to command. And men instinctively bowed before him. +Some even trembled before his wrath.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>Crummell was born in New York in 1819, nearly a century ago. He was the +son of Boston Crummell, a prince of the warlike Temene tribe, who was +stolen while a boy playing on the sands of the seashore. At first, +Crummell, with George T. Downing attended a school in New York taught by +the Reverend Peter Williams, then went to the school in Canaan, New +Hampshire, which was hauled into the pond by those who were angry because +the Negro was taught to read. Crummell with others took refuge in a barn. +They were fired upon; but Henry Highland Garnet fired a return shot, at +which they were allowed to depart in peace. Then Crummell attended the +Oneida Institute, of which Beriah Green was the President. He became a +priest in the Episcopal Church, was for twenty years a missionary on the +west coast of Africa, during which period he visited seventy tribes. He +returned to this country in the late sixties or the early seventies, was +for a year or two rector of St. Philip’s Church, New York, and for +twenty-three years rector of the St. Luke’s Church in Washington, D. C. +The last years of his life were spent in issuing his race tracts and +founding the American Negro Academy, the first body to bring Negro +scholars from all over the world together. He died at Point Pleasant, +N. J., in Dr. Matthew Anderson’s summer home in September, 1898, in his +eightieth year.</p> + +<p>He was not as famous a man as Douglass, because in the most eventful years +of the Negro race’s history from 1850 to 1870 he was in Africa. When he +died, men like Phillips Brooks and Dr. Fuller, of Rochester, who were old +friends of his and who knew him intimately, the man and his work, had +already crossed the mystic stream of death and passed over to the other +shore. But he was a power in his own race to the last. Still in the late +forties, he delivered three addresses that attracted considerable +attention. In 1847 he addressed a colored convention at Troy, N. Y. And in +1848 he visited London and spoke at the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery +Society, with such fire, force, finish and polish that he made many +friends, both for himself and his race.</p> + +<p>He visited Liverpool. He so impressed the Bishop of the diocese, that he +was invited to officiate as minister in the St. George’s Church at +Everton, of which the Reverend Mr. Eubanks was rector. The audience had +never heard a colored man preach before. And Crummell’s dignity and +bearing in the pulpit, his polish and refinement, his lucid exposition of +the text, his sublimity of thought, beauty of diction, and fire and force +of utterance for nearly an hour held that cultured audience spellbound. +Crummell made history for the race on that Sunday morning in 1848. And I +suppose that Crummell’s eulogy on Clarkson, delivered in New York City in +1846, in its grandeur of thought, sublimity of sentiment and splendor of +style, surpasses any oratorical effort of any colored man in the +antebellum days. From<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> that time until his death in 1898, Crummell swayed +both colored and white audiences.</p> + +<p>I remember in the fall of 1896, a Baptist preacher lectured in Newport, +R. I. At the close of the lecture, a tall, slender, venerable looking man, +with an aristocratic air, arose and stirred the audience with his heroic +words. The Baptist preacher was so touched that he sought Crummell out. +And then an influence entered his life that made him a new man, a stronger +moral force in the Baptist denomination. I remember, too, when McKinley +was inaugurated in 1897. Men and women, old and young, from all sections +of the country, of varying degrees of culture, of divers religious creeds, +came to Crummell’s house as a mecca. Some had been thrilled by his sermons +and commencement addresses; others caught the inspiration of their lives +from his works, “Africa and America,” “The Future of Africa,” and “The +Greatness of Christ, and Other Sermons.” Today his memory is treasured in +Washington, in cities of the north and south, and along the west coast of +Africa. Such was the influence the imperial Crummell wielded.</p> + +<p>There you have the historic Alexander Crummell, the finished scholar, the +magnetic preacher, the brave, uncompromising idealist, who was dreaded by +imposters and fakirs and time-servers and flunkies. He was one of those +rugged, adamantine spirits, who could stand against the world for a +principle, but he was gracious, courteous, tender and sympathetic withal. +Tall, slender, symmetrical, erect in bearing, with a graceful and elastic +walk, with a refined and aristocratic face that was lighted up by keen +penetrating but kindly eyes, and surrounded by the gray hair and beard +which gave him a venerable appearance, with a rich, ringing, resonant +baritone voice, which had not lost its power even in old age, with an air +of unmistakable good breeding and a conversation that flavored of books +and literature and art, Dr. Crummell was a man that you could never +forget, once you met him or heard him preach. He frequently said that what +the race needed was an educated gentry, and he was himself one of the +finest specimens of that rugged strength, tempered with Christian culture +and a refined benevolence, which was his ideal, that the race has yet +produced. Sprung from the fierce Timene Tribes, who on the west coast of +Africa cut to pieces a British regiment near Sierre Leone several years +ago, he possessed the tireless energy, the untamed spirit and the fearless +daring that made his warrior ancestors dreaded. But like the apostle Paul, +his native strength was mellowed by the Christian religion.</p> + +<p>There was an ineffable charm in his conversation. He was a delightful +companion, ever ready in wit and repartee, versatile and resourceful in +debate, with the wide knowledge that is gained by travel and garnered from +many fields of study. He reminded me of Wendell Phillips as an orator, +with the impression of having an immense reserve power behind him; he +could fill a large hall by speaking in his natural conversational voice. +He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> possessed the same keen Damascus blade of sarcasm when aroused. +Undoubtedly he was the Sir Philip Sidney of the Negro race.</p> + +<p>In my chapter upon “The American Negro’s Contribution to literature,” I +tell how beautifully DuBois in his “Souls of Black Folk” has drawn the +figure of a man, whom I regard in some respects the grandest character of +the Negro race. Read the chapter and read Crummell’s book upon “Africa and +America,” and then you will recognize the greatness of Crummell. Some +people say that great Negroes are jealous of each other. But read +Crummell’s chapter upon Henry Highland Garnet and DuBois’s chapter upon +Crummell, and you will see how kindred spirits appreciate each other’s +worth and value.</p> + +<p>Those who are interested in Tuskegee Institute will remember that in +February, 1899, a memorable meeting was held in the Hollis Theatre in +behalf of that celebrated school. The Hampton and Tuskegee Quartettes +sang. Dunbar recited his dialect poems; Dr. Washington, as usual, spoke in +an impressive and eloquent manner. But the event that interested many +thoughtful minds was the paper of Dr. Wm. E. Burghardt DuBois upon the +“Strivings of a Negro for the Higher Life.”</p> + +<p> </p> +<h3>I. “The Negro Apostle of Culture.”</h3> + +<p>It was for such a delicately drawn portrait, such a halo surrounded it, +that Prof. William James and other Bostonians doubted that it was the +likeness of a real man and believed that it was the picture of an ideal, +an imaginary Negro. But Crummell was not a dream creation. He was a being +who had actually been clothed in flesh and blood, who had actually trod on +these terrestrial shores and walked on this earth.</p> + +<p>He was indeed the Newman of the Negro pulpit. If any one desires to read +the romance of his life, of his struggles to get an education, of his +despair in encountering the hostility of the Anglo-Saxon and the +ingratitude and lack of appreciation of his own race, and of his bravely +surmounting his difficulties, I refer him to DuBois’ “Souls of Black +Folk.”</p> + +<p>After Alexander Crummell, the first Negro apostle of culture, had spent a +few years as a student in Cambridge University, England, nearly a quarter +of a century as a missionary upon the west coast of Africa, he returned +about the year 1870 to the United States, the land of his birth, and for +twenty-three years served as rector of the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of +Washington, D. C. Then he retired from the ministry.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h3>II. History of the American Negro Academy.</h3> + +<p>He had passed the three score and ten mark. Never strong or robust +physically, he had lived a very active life. It seemed as if his days of +usefulness were over. But, no, this grand old man of the Negro race, +nearly eighty years of age, endeavored to realize a dream that he had +conceived when a student in Cambridge University, England. He proposed to +found and establish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> the American Negro Academy, an organization composed +of Negro scholars, whose membership should be limited to forty and whose +purpose should be to foster scholarship and culture in the Negro race and +encourage budding Negro genius. He communicated with colored scholars in +America, England, Hayti and Africa. The result was that in March, 1897, +when McKinley was inaugurated, the most celebrated scholars and writers in +the Negro race for the first time assembled together in the Lincoln +Memorial Church and formally organized into a brotherhood of scholars. +Dunbar, the poet; DuBois, the sociologist; Scarborough, the Greek scholar; +Kelly Miller, the mathematician; Dr. Frank J. Grimke, the theologian; +Prof. John W. Cromwell, the historian; President R. R. Wright, Principal +Grisham, Prof. Love and Prof. Walter B. Hayson, noted educators; Prof. C. +C. Cook, the student of English literature, and Bishop J. Albert Johnson, +the brilliant preacher, were among those present. Bishop Tanner, of the A. +M. E. Church, and two or three other bishops were enrolled as members, and +such distinguished foreign Negroes as Prof. Harper were added as members. +The Academy seemed destined to do for the Negro race what the French +Academy did for France.</p> + +<p>But Crummell soon died; DuBois was elected president. The industrial fad +swept over the country and men soon forgot the Academy. But Prof. John +Wesley Cromwell, the secretary, Dr. Francis J. Grimke, the treasurer, +Prof. Kelly Miller, Prof. C. C. Cook and Prof. John L. Love, of +Washington, D. C., did not despair. In December, 1902, the Academy +startled the country by a two days’ session in which a series of papers +were read upon “The Religion of the Negro.” The papers of Prof. Harper, +the Rev. Orishatukeh Faduma and Dr. Matthew Anderson attracted +considerable attention at the time. Later the “Literary Digest” noticed my +paper upon “A Historical and Psychological Account of the Genius and +Development of the Negro’s Religion.” In December, 1903, Archibald H. +Grimke was elected as President. The Academy took a new lease of life and +in March, 1905, a brilliant series of papers were read upon “The Negro and +the Elective Franchise.” They were afterwards published in an eighty-five +page pamphlet and they remain today the best discussion upon Negro +Suffrage and Southern Disfranchisement.</p> + +<p>The session of the Academy in December, 1906, was held in Howard +University, and at that session the audience that assembled in the small +chapel of Howard University listened to an illuminating discussion upon +the “Economic Condition of the Negro.” Kelly Miller’s paper upon “Labor +Conditions in the North” attracted some attention in the “Washington +Post.” I do hope the scholars of the race will perpetuate the +organization, which was the dream of Crummell’s life. I well remember the +Saturday in September, 1898, when I received a card from Walter B. Hayson, +Crummell’s protege, announcing that Crummell was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> dying. I hurried to +Point Pleasant, N. J., but Crummell had breathed his last and his body was +carried to New York City. For two hours on Monday night I walked up and +down the beach at Asbury Park. I looked up at the stars shining so +silently in the immensity of space and heard the distant murmur of the +ocean as it rolled and broke upon the shore. In the silent midnight hour, +Nature’s calmness and repose seemed to touch my soul and then from the +depth of my being came the cry, “Crummell is not dead, but he liveth; he +is now with his God and Maker.”</p> + +<p>No man is bigger than the idea that dominates him, and that he embodies in +his life. If his personality is grand and sublime, he will live on in the +moral world. But if his ideas are not progressive, he will not live long +in the thought world. Dr. Alexander Crummell believed that the Negro +belonged to the genus vir as well as to the genus homo, that he could be +included in the class aner as well as anthropos, that he had a soul to be +trained as well as a body to be clothed, sheltered and fed. In a word, he +believed that the Negro was made out of the same clay as the rest of +mankind, that he was worthy of the same education and training, and was +entitled to the same treatment, consideration, rights and privileges as +other men.</p> + +<p>The question is, were the soaring ideals that inspired Dr. Crummell’s +effort dreams of the imagination, or were they grounded in reality? Did +his perspective belong to the class of mirages in the desert, or did his +Weltauschanung belong to that class of visions, of which it was said in +Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish?”</p> + +<p>We can only answer those questions by studying the state of the American +mind when the Academy was formed. In 1776, the high sounding and world +resounding Declaration of Independence was signed, which said that all men +were created free and equal and had an inalienable right to life, liberty +and the pursuit of happiness. And yet some of the signers of that +Declaration held slaves. Why was it? The late Prof. William Graham Summer +of Yale said that it was because they did not regard the Negro as a man.</p> + +<p>And the whole slavery debate hinged on the question of the humanity of the +Negro, hinged upon the question as to whether he possessed the +intellectual, ethical, aesthetical and religious potentialities and +possibilities which white men possessed, hinged upon the question as to +whether the Negro did or did not possess a soul. The South said that the +Negro was a beast and not a man, and was not capable of intellectual or +moral improvement. In Georgia and other states, they took particular pains +to see that the Negro had no chance or opportunity for mental improvement. +In Georgia they would fine and imprison a white man and whip and imprison +a colored man who was caught teaching a slave to read and write.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>The great Calhoun said that “The Negro race was so inferior that it had +never produced a single individual who could conjugate a Greek verb.” Dr. +Crummell in his paper before the American Negro Academy upon “The Attitude +of the American Mind Towards the Negro Intellect,” wittily said that +Calhoun must have expected Greek verbs to grow in Negro brains by some +process of spontaneous generation, as he never had tried the experiment of +putting a Greek grammar in the hands of a Negro student.</p> + +<p>But ere long arose Dr. Blyden, the linguist and Arabic scholar; Prof. +Scarborough, who wrote a Greek text book and “The Bird of Aristophanes” +and the “Thematic Vowel in the Greek Verb;” Dr. Grimke, the theologian; +Prof. Kelly Miller, the mathematician, arose. Colored students of Harvard +like Greener, Grimke, DuBois, Trotter, Stewart, Bruce, Hill and Locke, and +Bouchet, McGuinn, Faduma, Baker, Crawford and Pickens of Yale arose, who +demonstrated every kind of intellectual capacity. Then Trumbull of Brown, +Forbes and Lewis of Amherst, Wright of the University of Pennsylvania, and +Hoffman and Wilkinson of Ann Arbor University, also won honors. Dr. Daniel +Williams distinguished himself as a surgeon, Dunbar as a poet, Chestnut as +a novelist, Tanner as an artist, and Coleridge Taylor as a musician.</p> + +<p>So in the days when the American Negro Academy came into existence, the +Bourbons of the south and their northern sympathizers realized that the +Negro had achieved distinction in intellectual fields, where they said he +would be like fish out of water.</p> + +<p>So then they changed their tack. They then said that the Negro could be +educated, but education made him “a builder of air castles,” in the words +of their colored spokesman, and made him useless to his own people. They +barred the educated Negro from employment in keeping with his natural +tastes and aptitudes and previous training and inclination, and then said +that he couldn’t make a living. They said the Negro was mentally inferior +to the Anglo-Saxons and then reduced the curriculum in the state colleges +and high schools to keep him mentally inferior.</p> + +<p>At the same time, they encouraged the Negro churches and looked with favor +upon laboring men and washerwomen using their hard earned savings to erect +costly churches. Why did they look cross-eyed at and frown at the higher +education of the Negro, which they said made him impractical, while they +smiled and looked with satisfaction at his religion, which they didn’t +take seriously, but regarded as a dope? Why did they emphasize education +and minimize religion for white men, and on the other hand minimize +education and emphasize religion for black men? Why did they set up Yale +and Harvard Universities as the white’s ideal of education and Hampton and +Tuskegee as the colored man’s ideal?</p> + +<p>These Bourbons of the south and their northern sympathizers had a definite +propaganda and programme regarding the Negro. Their plan was to reduce the +colored race to a race of hewers of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> wood and drawers of water, to +disfranchise the Negro, run him out of Congress and lucrative political +jobs in the south, to jim-crow him and segregate him. They knew that +religion would act as a narcotic and opiate and that it would keep his +eyes and mind centered upon the golden streets, jeweled pavements, +sapphire walls and white-robed angels of the New Jerusalem, while they +were robbing him of the civil and political rights which were won on the +battlefields of the Civil War and guaranteed by the Constitution of the +United States.</p> + +<p>They knew that to educate him would be to open his eyes, to cause him to +think and to prevent his being camouflaged. They knew that to educate him +would be to make him dissatisfied with his lot at the bottom of the +ladder. They knew that to educate him would introduce the leaven of divine +discontent into his being. They knew that to educate him would cause him +to aspire to something higher than hard labor or menial service. They knew +that to educate him would cause him to know that robbing him of the ballot +was reducing him to a pariah in American life and society and making him a +political outcast. They knew that to educate the Negro would cause him to +know that when he was being jim-crowed and segregated, a caste system +based on the color of the skin was being established in America. In a +word, those Americans who desired to rob the Negro of the fruits of the +Civil War and to reduce him as far as possible to his previous status as a +slave, knew that to educate the Negro was to open his eyes to the fact +that the restrictions which they were trying to impose upon him were +giving him a social, civil, political and economic status which was lower +than that of the illiterate emigrant from Europe, lower than that of the +Japanese, Chinese, Hindoo, Indian and Filipino. In a word, they knew that +to educate the Negro would open his eyes to the fact that the color of his +skin was a mark of shame and a badge of dishonor and that a caste +prejudice based upon color, was contrary to the spirit of Christianity and +to the democratic principles underlying this government. In a word, they +knew that it would be more difficult for them to carry out their programme +with the Negro educated. And these are the reasons why twenty years ago, +it was regarded as unwise and dangerous to give the Negro any higher +education above the three R’s and a training in the trades. And most of +the leaders of the Negro race were asleep at the switch twenty years ago. +They eagerly swallowed the sugar-coated and chocolate-coated pills. They +took the medicine which their Anglo-Saxon friends offered because it was +honeyed and sugared with a few fat jobs and contributions to churches and +schools. And while they slept, as Samson slept on the lap of Delilah, they +were shorn of their political and civil locks, and awoke one bright +morning to find that their strength was gone.</p> + +<p>It was a rude awakening that they experienced in the summer of 1917, when +the edict went forth that all American citizens,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> black as well as white +men, were subject to the selective draft. It was a rude awakening that +they experienced, when they discovered that their sons must cross the +ocean and give their lives to bring a freedom to war-ridden Europe, which +was denied their race in this country. It was a rude awakening that they +experienced when they realized that they who only experienced partial +citizenship in this country were called upon to make the same sacrifice in +blood and treasure as their fairer-skinned brothers, who had experienced +the full blessings of citizenship.</p> + +<p>A Baptist preacher whom I met in St. Louis a year ago voiced the thought +of the entire colored race when he said, “Ferris, what a mighty big price +we have to pay for a little freedom.”</p> + +<p>It was a rude awakening, when Hog Island was calling for riveters and the +Remington Company at Eddystone for machinists, and yet would turn down +colored men who were capable. It was a rude awakening, when colored men +and women who passed the Civil Service in Washington, D. C., during war +times and were certified, were turned down because of their color. It was +a rude awakening, when colored soldiers could fight and die side by side +with white soldiers in France, and yet couldn’t visit the same service +camps in America. And it was a still ruder awakening, when the Y. M. C. A. +carried color prejudice to France where it had never existed before and +attempted to jim-crow and segregate the very colored soldiers who were +fighting to save France and to make the world safe for democracy.</p> + +<p>Such was the state of the American mind twenty-two years, when Dr. +Alexander Crummell gathered his colored friends around him and formed the +Academy. The same reason that led the American mind to discountenance the +Negro’s higher aspirations and strivings and longings caused Dr. Crummell +to encourage them. He realized that living in the same country with the +American white man, facing the same problems and conditions, the Negro +needed the same kind of education and training that the white man needed, +or he would lag hopelessly behind in the race of life. General Armstrong +once triumphantly told a class of colored students at Hampton, “Hampton +will give you enough education to cope with any colored men you may meet.” +But Dr. Alexander Crummell saw deeper. He saw that the Negro needed also +an education that would enable him to cope on equal intellectual terms +with any white men that he might meet. For that reason the Negro needed to +dip into literature, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, sciences, +anthropology and ethnology; needed in a word to be kept in touch with the +trend of modern science and the tendencies of modern thought.</p> + +<p>Dr. Crummell was right. If there ever was a time in the Negro’s history +when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership, it is now, when the +recent world war has brought about a new earth, when new problems +affecting Europe, America and Africa are pressing for solution, and when a +readjustment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> social, political and industrial conditions will be made, +not only in Europe and Africa but in America. If there was ever a time in +the Negro’s history when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership, +it is now when tens of thousands of black Africans and black Americans +have demonstrated on scores of bloodstained battlefields in France that +heroism can wear a sable hue and be clothed in ebony; when the American +Negro proved his patriotism and loyalty by subscribing to the Liberty +Loan, the War Chest, War Savings Stamps and by Red Cross service, and when +by reason of his helping to lay low the Prussian menace to civilization, +he has established his title clear to recognition and respectful +consideration.</p> + +<p>At a time, when the humanitarian plums will be handed out at the Peace +Table at Versailles, at a time when the small and weak nations of Europe +will have their day in court, at a time when the oppressed and suppressed +peoples of Europe, Palestine and Armenia will have their innings, now is +the time for the Negro to make his appeal, present his plea and submit his +case.</p> + +<p>Twenty years ago we did not fully realize that the treatment and +consideration that an individual, a race or a nation received, is +determined by the estimate in which the world holds the individual or +race, and that this estimate is largely determined by the estimate in +which the individual or race holds itself. And at this golden moment and +rare opportunity, we need far-sighted pilots, wise guides, who can seize +and utilize the civic, political, economic and industrial opportunities, +which may present themselves.</p> + +<p>We have had too many leaders who have pursued the Fabian policy of +watchful waiting, who have been the creatures of circumstance, who have +been the sport of chance, who have been determined by their environment, +and who have been dependent upon the turn or course that events would +take.</p> + +<p>We need a Scipio Africanus, who saw with an eagle eye that Rome must carry +the war into Africa and forthwith proceeded to take the initiative, made +himself the compeller of circumstances, himself determined the course that +events would take, and made himself the master of Rome’s fate and the +architect of her destiny.</p> + +<p>In the past we have been dependent upon what our Anglo-Saxon friends have +thought of us and have blindly worshipped the hand-picked leaders our +Anglo-Saxon godfathers have set up for us, to bow down to. The time has +now arrived for us to mold the opinion of our Anglo-Saxon friends by what +we think of ourselves, and to select and follow our own leaders. The time +has now arrived for us to take a hand in shaping our destiny.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONCLUSION.</h2> + +<p>But there are other motives for education, besides bread winning and +bettering one’s material condition. I remember at Harvard how Charles +Eliot Norton, Prof. Thayer, the New Testament Greek scholar, and Dean C. +C. Everett, of the Harvard Divinity School, impressed students by the +grandeur and nobility of their character. And one, knowing them +instinctively, felt that they realized our ideal of personality. I can see +again the cultured Norton, whom Ruskin said was the only American he met +who was a gentleman. I can see the tall, handsome, erect Thayer, with +musical voice, gracious manners and buoyant walk, whom the boys called +“the captain.” I can see again Dean Everett, who blended the wisdom of a +Nestor with a transparent simplicity who blended granite strength of +character with a Christ-like tenderness. And I can see again that trio of +famous Harvard professors, James, Royce and Palmer—the first +distinguished by his buoyancy of spirit, the second by his serenity and +the third by his refinement. And then I can see that famous Yale +philosopher, George Trumbull Ladd, a descendant of Elder Brewster and +Governor Bradford, who came over in the Mayflower, and who himself was a +splendid representative of modern puritanism. These and a score of other +professors in my college days were what ex-President Timothy Dwight of +Yale would call men of high character, and they made the students feel +that merely to achieve character was something worth the effort and +striving. And Dr. Alexander Crummell thought so too. One of the blessings +which this terrible war brought to the world was the lesson that there are +other values in life besides the piling up and the hoarding of money.</p> + +<p>I realize that this is a materialistic age. But I am an optimist, not so +much because I believe in the Englishman or the American, as because I +believe in God. I do not believe that the universe is the product of the +blind play of atoms or the chance concourse of electrons. But I believe +that the intricacy of the structure of the atoms, the law and order that +is enthroned in the heavens above from farthest star across the milky way +to farthest star are silent but patent witnesses to the fact that a +Universal Mind is back of and behind and manifests Himself in the +universe. I believe that this Universal Mind works in the hearts and +consciences of men and that He is the ground and source and fount of their +noble impulses and higher aspirations. And I believe that “Eternal Power, +not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,” will continue to stir in the +hearts and minds of men until they see the sin of damning a man because of +the color of his skin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>If we believe in God and believe as Crummell believed that the black man +can scale the heights of human achievement and gain the summit, if we +believe that we do not represent a stage in the evolution from the monkey +to man, but that, in the language of Terence, Rome’s tawny-colored poet, +we are men and that nothing that is common to humanity is foreign to us, a +spirit will be generated in us that no oppression can crush, no obstacles +can daunt and no difficulties can overpower. Quicken in the Negro youth of +the land a belief in the mighty hopes that make us men and we will write +deeds upon the pages of history, as our black brothers wrote theirs in +letters of blood upon the sunlit plains of fair France, that will command +the attention and compel the recognition of a hostile world.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of +Negro Culture, by William H. 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