The Crisis 1923-12: Vol 27 Iss 2
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SOUTHERN AID SOCIETY’S 30 YEARS OF INSURANCE LEADERSHIP IS ATTRACTING THE ATTENTION OF THE PUBLIC Extract from news article in Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), issue of September 22, 1923. The management of the Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc., in having paid promptly day after day through 30 years—every just claim for benefits—has demonstrated insurance ability of the highest standard; and such a record merits our full confidence and patronage. But in accumulating over $600,000.00 in assets; and in re-insuring, solely to safeguard the protection of thousands of our people, about ten other companies—among them one con- ducted by white people—although such action entailed very heavy financial burdens upon the organization; and having stuck to the original plan to conduct an insurance business providing benefits for sickness, accidents and death all in one policy—although other companies turned from such business because it could not be con- ducted successfully—the management of this company has demon- strated, without a shadow of doubt, that Negroes can do Big Things honorably, successfully and continuously—and even in the face of the greatest discouragement and fiercest competition. Results of 30 years of continuous and successful service to the race: Over $3,000,000.00 paid to Policyholders. Over $600,000.00 in Assets. Employment to 500 young women and men. A Superior 3-in-1 Insurance Contract. An experienced management and field force. SOUTHERN AID SOCIETY OF VIRGINIA, Inc. Home Office: 527 N. Second Street, Richmond, Va. Operating in State of Virginia and Dist. of Columbia
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THE CRISIS A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES PUBLISHED MONTHLY AND COPYRIGHTED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE AT 69 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, N. Y., CONDUCTED BY W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS; JESSIE REDMON FAUSET, LITERARY EDITOR; AUGUSTUS GRANVILLE DILL, BUSINESS MANAGER. Vol. 27 No. 2 DECEMBER, 1923 Whole No. 158 COVER Page “Christmas Carols."” Drawn by Gwendolyn B. Bennett. The Gospel According to St. John, Chapter 12; Mrs. Talbert; Pan- Africa; A Call for Business Methods; ‘Sick and in Prison’; Good News §§5 A CHRISTMAS HAPPENING. A Story. Mary White Ovington......... 60 SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE NEGRO. lIilustrated. Claude McKay.. QUATRAIN. A Poem. Gwendolyn B. Bennett........................ 65 JAPANESE HOKKUS. Lewis G. Alexander... .. 67 “NIGGERS.” A Story. (Concluded.) Julian Elihu Bagley............ 68 SHIPS, SEA AND AFRICA. Illustrated. Langston Hughes............ 69 THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COL- SWEETHEARTS. A Poem. Countee P. Cullen...................... 80 THE JANUARY CRISIS The January CRISIS will usher in the New Year with a chapt ft Du B {f Negro Troops in the World War—‘“The Black Ma n the Wounded W \ there wil be accounts of the Third Pan-Atrican ( gress The February CRISIS | $s al rticle | Raymond O'Neill on the possibilities of the Ne FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY; ONE DOLLAR AND A HALF A YEAR FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTION TWENTY-FIVE CENTS EXTRA RENEWALS: The date of expiration of each subscription is printed on the wrapper. When the subscription is due, a blue renewal blank is enclosed. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: The address of a subscriber can be changed as often as desired. In ordering a change of address, both the old and the new address must be given. Two weeks’ notice is required. MANUSCRIPTS and drawings relating to colored people are desired. They must be accom- panied by return postage. If found unavailable they will be returned. Entered as second class matter November 2, 1910, at the post office at New York, New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
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52 THE CRISIS ADVERTISER PAINE COLLEGE AUGUSTA, GA. STANDARD COLLEGE COURSES Approved Two-Year Normal Accredited Senior High School Up-to-Date Junior High School “To develop leaders you must have the best possible equipment for literary training and that is what we are striving for at Paine College’, said one of the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This Church contributes largely to the support of Paine College. A Good School at Reasonable Rates For further information, address RAY S. TOMLIN, President, PAINE COLLEGE. VIRGINIA UNION ~ ' Theological Education is offering young men an excellent op- portunity to secure a liberal education Accredited by the Association of Colleges of along a variety of lines. Every effort is the Middle States and Maryland. made to stimulate a full, well-rounded Lincoln Graduates are Leaders in the various development. High school, college and professions and in all parts of the country. professional courses are offered. The Address: faculty is strong, the rates are reasonable. For further information address ea D. D., The Presid ITY » ent CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA WILEY UNIVERSITY | | 1b¢ Cheyney Training School for Teachers MARSHALL, TEXAS Cheyney, Pa. Recognized as a college of the first class by a Pennsylvania State Normal School effering, in addition Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and ( :lahoma to the regular Normal Course ef two —— professional Boards of Education. Leading Colleges and -y 7 in Econemics Werk. A Universities represented on its faculty. More eligible te teach im the public schoels of Pennsylvania. than two hundred enrolled in Colleg: ~epart- Course is offered te all whe ment this year. Library and laboratories Strengthened. High standard of scholarship Next term Begins September {7, 1923 Fer further partioulars and catalog, write | maintained. Due prominence given athietes. M. W. DOGAN, President Leslie Pinckney Hill, Principal Cheyney, Pa. Mention Tue Crrsts. | | | | |
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THE CRISIS Vol. 27. No. 2 DECEMBER, 1923 Whole No. 158 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN, CHAPTER 12 ND Martha served.” The President of the State Federation of Col- ored Women’s Clubs was in town. She had spoken Christmas afternoon for the local club in the First Baptist Church; and she had spoken sharply and dispassionately. The State Juvenile House of Deten- tion for Colored Girls and Boys was not receiving proper support from the women. Of course the State ought to support it wholly; but the point was the State did not; and the wo- men had promised. They had not kept their promise. Monies had been wasted and frittered away; proper reports had not been made. She ap- pealed to these women in the name of motherhood and in the name of the Christ Child—help! Help till it hurt! She stood there quivering with the fervency of her appeal. And Mary sat at her feet, rapt, transfigured, quivering in response. She saw a woman, tall, fat and brown, heavy- faced with thin, grey hair, with tired lines beneath her eyes, with a coun- tenance that flamed and glowed in her enthusiasm and then settled back into drab disillusion and disappoint- ment. Especially Mary looked at her hands, the hard, sinewy hands of a working woman—one encased in silk, the other, working and gripping with its plain gold ring. “And Martha served.” She had fried chicken beautifully browned, mashed potatoes and hot 55 WEB Du Bois biscuit, light and flaky ; and sweet po- tatoes, corn pudding, Smithfield ham and a great, fat juicy mince pie, siz- ziing; and coffee and cider; and one of the new fruit salads which she had read about in the Delineator. The kitchen blazed and the sweat streamed from her little, thin, sharp face as she rushed here and there, for already the guests were gathering. And where was Mary? Mary who should help; Mary the scatter-brained, who was always late; Mary the lovable, thriftless dreamer. Martha hurried in, damp and breathless, to greet Madam President when she arrived, and the Baptist and Methodist min- isters, Madam Secretary, Madam Treasurer and a half dozen others— and then hurried back to the kitchen. Where could Mary be? “And Martha served.” She piled the great golden dish of chicken before Madam President and the Smithfield ham before the Baptist minister and lined the vegetables in brave array between. Where could Mary be? She ought to be helping this minute with the serving of the dinner. “Now come on out,” said Martha. “And all be seated and help your- selves.” The grace was scarcely said when Mary came. “And Martha served.” She brought in the little dishes, the gravy, the butter, the sauce for the salad. Mary rushed in impetuously and stood a moment, starry-eyed, framed in the double doorway be-
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56 THE CRISIS for three hundred tween the parlor | and the dining room, with a bun- dle in her arms. Then, with laugh- ter that was al- most hysterical, she ran and kneeled at the feet of Madam President. “You were won- derful, wonder- ful!” she said as she held her bun- dle up and thrust it forward. The enveloping papers fell, waving away like stiff, thin clouds before the sun, and up rose the flowers. It Was a mass of flowers such as kings look upon and smile—a greatglorious burst of color and odor. Crea m- swept roses were there in bud and blossom; great crimson poinset- tias, pale purple pence and given to the poor?” Madam Treas- urer stared at him. “Three hun- dred cents? Non- sense,” she hissed. “It cost twenty- five dollars, if it cost a cent.” But Madam President had pushed her food aside and placed the flowers in a pitcher before her and her face was transfigured. “T always loved flowers,” she stammered. “I love them so.” “And Martha served.” “And where on earth have you been, Mary?” she rasped. But Ma- dam President said: “Let her alone. Against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor orchids, fine white lilies in bells, and all about the green and threads of fern. “And the house was filled with the odor.” The guests stared. Madam Secre- tary choked with indignation; Madam Treasurer laid her biscuit carefully back on her plate. “It’s a shame,” she whispered to the Baptist minister, “to waste money like that.” The minister smiled and answered : “Why was not this ointment sold MARY BURNETT TALBERT always ye have with you but me, ye have not always.” And two great tears swelled in her eyes. MRS. TALBERT BURNETT TAL- BERT is dead. Over-work, the unstinted giving of herself to the Negro cause led to her death in her prime. Her last and greatest piece of work was to unite the colored American women to stop lynching. She and the wo- NS | a ~ 3 7 WW vit | | | | | | i \ | ry
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OPINION 57 men who worked with her raised from the mites contributed by col- ored folk throughout the land the largest sum that this country has ever attempted to spend to stop our greatest national disgrace. The Anti-Lynching Crusaders, the great advertisement known as ““The Shame of America’, and the Anti-Lynch- ing Fund of the National Associa- tion for the Advancement of Col- ored People are monuments to this hard-working woman, more en- during than bronze. She had her ene- mies, as every honest, determined, forward-pushing human being must have in this evil world. But she triumphed over them; she triumphed in the saving of the Frederick Doug- lass Home; in the building up of the National Association of Colored Wo- men; in political activity in Buffalo and elsewhere and in the Anti-Lynch- ing Crusade. Hers was a triumphant life and for such a friend and leader the Negro race has no cause to mourn but rather eternally to rejoice. PAN-AFRICA 5'T last it may be told. How far can a local and personal prob- lem be settled without refer- bles! ence to other folk and the rest of the world? Practically all of us are convinced that personal problems are never wholly personal. Few of us, however, have gone be- yond that and come to the place where we remember that the social problem of a group, be it a country village or a race of twelve millions, ‘is not a closed, definite, self-containing thing. That the problems, for instance, of the American Negro must be thought of and settled only with continual reference to the problems of the West Indian Negroes, the problems of the French Negroes and the English Ne- groes and above all the problems of the African Negroes. This is the thought back of the Pan-African movement in all of its various mani- festations. The N. A. A. C. P. with real fore- sight and much self-sacrifice financed two Pan-African Congresses and then withdrew. We tried to place the re- sponsibility of the future of the move- ment upon the various groups, center- ing them in an office with a Secretary in Paris. Mr. DuBois has been in con- tinual correspondence with the Secre- tary M. Béton during the last two years seeking to give him as much as he could of his experience and ad- vice. When late in 1922 M. Béton announced that the Pan-African Con- gress was to take place in Lisbon, Mr. Du Bois suggested that the West Indies would be a better place unless that matter was already finally set- tled. M. Béton said it was settled. When unexpectedly Mr. Du Bois was enabled to be a delegate to the con- ference, he telegraphed the Secretary as to details of time and place. After some delay he was informed that the Congress was indefinitely postponed. He was filled with consternation. Six years’ tentative work to establish some common meeting ground and unity of thought among the Negro people was about to be lost! Fifty dollars was spent in cable- grams and much time in correspond- ence to urge the holding of the Con- gress but the Secretary was adamant. “It was too late,” he answered. He had not received “proper support either from his French colleagues or from Mr. Du Bois or from other Americans”. He had spent “15,000 francs and received only 1000 francs in memberships’. It was in vain that we pointed out that movements like this go slowly; that America was not yet interested but that she could be interested if we worked long and pa- tiently. Then having pleaded and urged, it seemed time to act. The con- sent of the majority of the Executive Committee was obtained and the third Pan-African Congress was again called to meet at a later date in London and Lisbon.
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58 THE In this way the third Pan-African Congress came into being and the work of six long years was saved. What has been accomplished? This: we have kept an idea alive; we have held to a great ideal, we have established a continuity, and some day when unity and co-operation come, the importance of these early steps will be recognized. A CALL FOR BUSINESS METHODS HE Secretary of the N. A. A. C. P. has just sent out to the branches a letter which he . calls “A Business Talk with the Branch”’: “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a great social movement requiring cour- age, determination, enthusiasm and faith, but it must also be run on a business basis if it is to be permanent and effective. No organization can continue to exist and function unless it is able to meet its financial obliga- tions and financial obligations can be met with only one thing—MONEY. “The Budget Committee, consisting of the following members of the Board of Directers—Bishop John Hurst, Dr. Hutchens C. Bishop and Mr. Arthur B. Spingarn—drafted a budget for the Association for the year 1923 which contemplated the expenditure of $56,100 for fixed charges and overhead expenses of the National Office. This budget included esti- mates for the maintenance of Head- quarters, for printing, traveling ex- penses, advertising, mass meetings, telegrams, postage, salaries and other fixed charges, but did not include amounts to be raised and expended for special purposes such as the Ar- kansas Cases and the Anti-Lynching Campaign. “The above amount for the annual budget of a national organization such as the N. A. A. C. P. is by all means quite modest. For example: The necessary work of the National CRISIS Office has in a single year compelled for postage alone the expenditure of $4,115.80. “The National Office pro rated the amount of this budget among the branches after taking into considera- tion the population of the city in which each branch was located, the strength and activity of the branch and the probable amount of contribu- tions that would be made directly to the National Office. “The branch need not be told that the efficiency of the National Office working with this budget as a basis depended absolutely upon the branch- es contributing to the National work their pro rata share of the total amount of the budget. It can easily be seen that if any considerable num- ber of the branches failed to do their share, the work of the National Office would not only be crippled but the National Body would be placed in a position of financial embarrassment, or even worse.” It seems almost unnecessary for us to say that the thing that differenti- ates the N. A. A. C. P. from similar organizations is its permanent office and its paid staff on duty 365 days in ayear. Many organizations, past and present, have had a program as good and perhaps in some respects better than that of our Association. Any dozen thoughtful, experienced per- sons could sit down and in a few hours write on paper a program for Negro emancipation equally as good as ours; but a program, no matter how good, does not carry itself out. Capa- ble persons must be secured to do the work. So when thoughtless people criticise the spending of money for a competent staff they are criticising the only means by which a program may be realized. But to build a per- manent organization, to get hold of the right sort of men, to establish and maintain an office, to publish and distribute a national organ, this means work and infinite pains; today
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OPINION 59 for the first time in the 300 years that have passed since the Negro landed in America we have one or- ganization and only one organization that is doing this sort of thing. Two thirds of the money which supports this organization comes from its branches. If the branches and the members do not recognize their obli- gations and live up to them, the or- ganization cannot survive. There can be only one problem which would make the membership hesitate at providing adequate sup- port and that is, is the money prop- erly spent. We might attempt to do our work in a cheap attic on a back street. We might attempt to do it with one executive and one clerk in- stead of hiring and paying nine exec-_ utives and sixteen clerks. But it goes without saying the work would not and could not be effectively done. With our budget we might pay small- er salaries, but our administrative salaries are only two-thirds as large as the administrative salaries of the National Child Labor Commission and are smaller than those paid by any white national organization doing the sort of work that we are doing, and by comparison smaller than those paid by many colored organiza- tions. Our rent is high. It has to be high if we are going to maintain headquarters that will command the necessary attention and give us the necessary prestige in New York, the real capital of the nation. If, therefore, the work of this or- ganization is to be carried on as it has been carried on and increased as it should increase, it must have a regu- lar and dependable flow of funds from its membership and branches. “SICK AND IN PRISON” i.X years ago December 11, at 7:17 in the morning, thirteen American Negro soldiers were murdered on the scaffold by the American government to satisfy the bloodlust of Texas on account of the Houston riot. This was bad enough; but in addition to this there are today languishing in the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., 54 colored men sentenced to life im- prisonment for 15 years, all for the same alleged offence. This shameful! injustice is a trumpet call to every American Negro and we should never rest until these men are pardoned and freed. “Lord, these are Thine who pay the price For what a freeman’s soul is worth, — Whose madness is their sacrifice That what they love may live on earth! Lord these are Thine!” This appeal is, except for the first word, reprinted identically from THE Crisis of December, 1920. The shame and the pity that conditions exist which make its repetition possible! How can we enter upon the round of our Christmas joys and activities while those dark faces strain wist- fully toward barred prison doors waiting for the freedom which does not come? Read pages 72 and 73 and do not rest, do not sleep until you have added yours and nineteen other signatures to the petition. Another Christmas must not come and find the lot of these men still unchanged. If we do not feel the chain When it works another’s pain, Are we not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed! GOOD NEWS S we go to press this cable comes from London about the Pan-African movement: “Successful congress. Sir Sydney Olivier, Harold Laski, H. G. Wells, Ida Gibbs Hunt, Kamba Si- mango, Bishop Vernon, African chief present. Thirteen countries, six American states, represented. DuBols.”
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A CHRISTMAS HAPPENING MaArY WHITE OVINGTON mi OW this is the story, just as it was told me nine years ago. Moira O’Donaghue looked very shabby as she stood in her three-room flat Christmas eve. Her hat was a faded black and out of shape, her old cloth coat was ravelled at the edge and obviously too thin for December weather, one shoe was broken. Worst of all her shabby purse contained only seventy-five cents—three quarters—with which to cele- brate Christmas. It was a shame to have the holiday come on a Saturday. Only eight dollars were left in her husband’s pockets out of his last Saturday’s wage when he stumbled into his home early Sun- day morning. Eight dollars and he making six dollars a day! She had searched his pockets as he slept his sodden drunkard’s sleep. And now on Friday she was left with less than a dollar with which to cele- brate Christmas. The children had already hung up their stockings—Jimmy, three, babbling gaily of Santa Klaus; Annie, eight, doubting, yet nursing a trembling hope. Moira O’Dona- ghue’s throat filled as she looked at her lit- tle daughter’s thin, wistful face; but when she shut the door she only called to her sharply to look after her brother and see that he did no mischief. The air was chill, damp with unfallen snow. As she walked down the street she ached with the cold. The Five and Ten Cent Store first drew her to it. Something for the children’s stockings, not to cost more than five cents, only something! But ten cents slipped at once from her purse for the gay drum that was what she knew Jimmy would adore. It had such bright paint and pert sticks. The boy would be happy over the noise all day and so would she. She loved a drum. Five cents worth of candy for Annie and then to the market with only sixty cents for a din- ner, and the butcher and grocer eating the life out of you. But as she turned and walked reluctantly toward the door, an ex- clamation of pleasure came to her lips. There, on the counter, was an adorable work basket. It was lined with blue and had a place for a thimble and scissors and a little needlebook. It was exactly the thing to de- light Annie’s heart. She took the basket lovingly into her hands, asked the price, which was quite un- necessary, confided to the clerk that her daughter was the best sewer at the Sisters’ school, and then set the basket down again. They must have a dinner. Annie, like her- self, would have to learn to do without. But as she finally put back the longed-for purchase tears were on her cheeks. Angry and sick at heart she saw a well- dressed man at her side take the relin- quished basket, give a dime to the sales- woman, and receive the parcel in his hand. As she moved away he touched her shabby coat. “Won’t you accept this for the little girl,” he said, “with a Merry Christmas?” She gave a cry of pleasure and then, looking into his face, saw that he was colored. Now Moira O’Donaghue, like so many Americans, had been brought up to hate and fear the Negro. She recoiled. How should she accept this gift! And then, quite sud- denly, like a miracle, she forgot the man’s color altogether and only heard his kindly voice, like a strain of music at Mass, and saw his pleasant smile, as pressing the work basket upon her, he said: “For the little daughter who sews so well,” and was gone. “May the saints bless him,” she prayed, as she bought a hunk of beef. “May the saints in heaven and the Holy Virgin bless him and forgive me for thinking ill of a human being because of his complexion. I'll pray for him tonight. Annie shall say a prayer for him. Glory to God, and now I’ll get some apples for a bit’ of pudding and the children’ll raise the roof with the drum and the dinner and Annie’s present.” And with a new thought stirring in her heart, touched by the Christmas love that only knows the things of the spirit, Moira O’Donaghue, hugging her parcels tight, hur- ried home through the busy street. 60
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SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE NEGRO CLAUDE McKay HE label of propaganda will be affixed to what I say here. I shall not mind; propaganda has now come into its respect- able rights and I am proud of being a propagandist. The difference between propaganda and art was impressed on my boyhood mind by a literary mentor, Milton’s poetry and his political prose set side by side as the supreme examples. So too, my teacher,—splendid and broadminded though he was, yet unconsciously biased against what he felt was propaganda—thought that that gilt-washed artificiality, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, would outlive “Arms and the Man” and “John Bull’s Other Island”. But inevitably as I grew older I had per- force to revise and change my mind about propaganda. I lighted on one of Milton’s greatest sonnets that was pure propaganda and a widening horizon revealed that some of the finest spirits of modern literature— Voltaire, Hugo, Heine, Swift, Shelly, Byron, Tolstoy, Ibsen—had carried the taint of propaganda. The broader view did not merely include propaganda literature in my literary outlook; it also swung me away 61 MR. McKAY SPEAKING IN THE THRONE ROOM OF THE KREMLIN from the childish age of the enjoyment of creative work for pleasurable curiosity to another extreme where I have always sought for the motivating force or propa- ganda intent that underlies all literature of interest. My birthright, and the historical background of the race that gave it to me, made me very respectful and receptive of propaganda and world events since the year 1914 have proved that it is no mean science of convincing information. American Negroes are not as yet deeply permeated with the mass movement spirit and so fail to realize the importance of or- ganized propaganda. It was Marcus Gar- vey’s greatest contribution to the Negro movement; his pioneer work in that field is a feat that the men of broader under- standing and sounder ideas who will follow him must continue. It was not until I first came to Europe in 1919 that I came to a full realization and understanding of the effectiveness of the insidious propaganda in general that is maintained against the Negro race. And it was not by the occa- sional affront of the minority of civilized j | |
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62 THE fiends—mainly those Europeans who had been abroad, engaged in the business of rob- bing colored peoples in their native land— that I gained my knowledge, but rather through the questions about the Negro that were put to me by genuinely sympathetic and cultured persons. | The average Europeans who read the newspapers, the popular books and jour. nals, and go to see the average play and a Mary Pickford movie, are very dense about the problem of the Negro; and they are the most important section of the gen- eral public that the Negro propagandists would reach. For them the tragedy of the American Negro ended with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Emancipation. And since then they have been aware only of the comedy —the Negro minstrel and vaudevillian, the boxer, the black mammy and butler of the cinematograph, the caricatures of the ro- mances and the lynched savage who has violated a beautiful white girl. A very few ask if Booker T. Washington is doing well or if the “Black Star Line” is running; perhaps some one less discreet than sagacious will wonder how colored men can hanker so much after white women in face of the lynching penalty. Misinforma- AN iNTERNATIONAL GROUP INCLUDING A CHINESE, RUSSIAN CRISIS tion, indifference and levity sum up the atti- tude of western Europe towards the Negro There is the superior but very fractional intellectual minority that knows better, but whose influence on public opinion is infin- itesimal, and so it may be comparatively easy for white American propagandists— whose interests behoove them to misrepre- sent the Negro—to turn the general indif- ference into hostile antagonism if American Negroes who have the intellectual guardian- ship of racial interests do not organize ef- fectively, and on a world scale, to combat their white exploiters and traducers. The world war has fundamentally altered the status of Negroes in Europe. It brought thousands of them from America and the British and French colonies to participate in the struggle against the Central Powers. Since then serious clashes have come about in England between the blacks that later settled down in the seaport towns and the natives. France has brought in her black troops to do police duty in the occupied dis- tricts in Germany. The color of these troops, and their customs too, are different and strange and the nature of their work would naturally make their presence irri- tating and unbearable to the inhabitants JEW, NEGRO, RUSSIAN GENTILE, BULGARIAN, HINDU, AMERICAN MULATTO, AIGERIAN, JAPANESE, ARMENIAN, KOREAN, AND WHITE AMERICAN 8 \ 6 + “ ‘ “ a =
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SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE NEGRO HOLITSCHER, THE GERMAN NOVELIST; CLARA KETKIN, VETERAN GERMAN COMMUNIST; CLAUDE McKAY, POET. whose previous knowledge of Negroes has been based, perhaps, on their prowess as cannibals. And besides, the presence of these troops provides rare food for the chauvinists of a once proud and overbearing race, now beaten down and drinking the dirtiest dregs of humiliation under the bayonets of the victor. However splendid the gesture of Repub- lican France towards colored people, her use of black troops in Germany to further her imperial purpose should meet with noth- ing less than condemnation from the ad- vanced section of Negroes. The propaganda that Negroes need to put over in Germany is not black troops with bayonets in that unhappy country. As conscript-slave sol- diers of Imperial France they can in no wise help the movement of Negroes nor gain the sympathy of the broad-visioned interna- tional white groups whose international opponents are also the intransigent enemies of Negro progress. In considering the situation of the black troops in Germany, intelligent Negroes should compare it with that of the white troops in India, San Do- mingo and Haiti. What might not the Haitian propagandists have done with the marines if they had been black instead of white Americans! The world upheaval hav- ing brought the three greatest European na- tions—England, France and Germany—into closer relationship with Negroes, colored Americans should seize the opportunity to promote finer inter-racial understanding. As white Americans in Europe are taking advantage of the situation to intensify their propaganda against the blacks, so must Ne- groes meet that with a strong counter- movement. Negroes should realize that the supremacy of American capital today pro- portionately increases American influence in the politics and social life of the worid. Every American official abroad, every smug tourist, is a protagonist of dollar culture and a propagandist against the Negro. Be- sides brandishing the Rooseveltian stick in the face of the lesser new world natives, America holds an economic club over the heads of all the great European nations, ex- cepting Russia, and so those bold individuals in Western Europe who formerly sneered at dollar culture may yet find it necessary and ‘worth while to be discreetly silent. As American influence increases in the world, and especially in Europe, through the exten- sion of American capital, the more neces- sary it becomes for all struggling minorities of the United States to organize extensively for the world wide propagation of their grievances. Such propaganda efforts, be- sides strengthening the cause at home, will certainly enlist the sympathy and help of those foreign groups that are carrying on a life and death struggle to escape the octuple arms of American business interests. 63 | | $ A | | | | | . > * | « 1
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64 THE And the Negro, as the most suppressed and persecuted minority, should use this period of ferment in international affairs to lift his cause out of his national obscurity and force it forward as a prime international issue. Though Western Europe can be reported as being quite ignorant and apathetic of the Negro in world affairs, there is one great nation with an arm in Europe that is think- ing intelligently on the Negro as it does about all international problems. When the Russian workers overturned their infamous government in 1917, one of the first acts of the new Premier, Lenin, was a proclama- tion greeting all the oppressed peoples throughout the world, exhorting them to or- ganize and unite against the common inter- national oppressor — Private Capitalism. Later on in Moscow, Lenin himself grappled with the question of the American Negroes and spoke on the subject before the Second Congress of the Third International. He consulted with John Reed, the American journalist, and dwelt on the urgent necessity of propaganda and organizational work among the Negroes of the South. The sub- ject was not allowed to drop. When Sen Katayama of Japan, the veteran revolu- tionist, went from the United States to Russia in 1921 he placed the American Ne- gro problem first upon his full agenda. And ever since he has been working unceasingly and unselfishly to promote the cause of the exploited American Negro among the Soviet councils of Russia. With the mammoth country securely under their control, and despite the great energy and thought that are being poured into the revival of the national industry, the vanguard of the Russian workers and the national minorities, now set free from imperial oppression, are thinking seriously about the fate of the oppressed classes, the suppressed national and racial minorities in the rest of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. They feel themselves kin in spirit to these people. They want to help make them free. And not the least of the oppressed that fill the thoughts of the new Russia are the Negroes of America and Africa. If we look back two decades to recall how the Czarist persecution of the Russian Jews agitated Democratic Amer- ica, we will get some idea of the mind of Liberated Russia towards the Negroes of America. The Russian people are reading the terrible history of their own recent past in the tragic position of the American Ne- gro to-day. Indeed, the Southern States can well serve the purpose of showing what has happened in Russia. For if the ex- ploited poor whites of the South could ever transform themselves into making common cause with the persecuted and plundered Negroes, overcome the oppressive oligarchy —the political crackers and robber land- lords—and deprive it of all political privi- leges, the situation would be very similar to that of Soviet Russia to-day. In Moscow I met an old Jewish revolu- tionist who had done time in Siberia, now young again and filled with the spirit of the triumphant Revolution. We talked about American affairs and touched naturally on the subject of the Negro. I told him of the difficulties of the problem, that the best of the liberal white elements were also work- ing for a better status for the Negro, and he remarked: “When the democratic bour- geoisie of the United States were execrating Czardom for the Jewish pogroms they were meting out to your people a treatment more savage and barbarous than the Jews ever experienced in the old Russia. America”, he said religiously, “had to make some sort of expiatory gesture for her sins. There is no surfeited bourgeoisie here in Russia to make a hobby of ugly social problems, but the Russian workers, who have won through the ordeal of persecution and revo- lution, extend the hand of international brotherhood to all the suppressed Negro millions of America”’. I met with this spirit of sympathetic ap- preciation and response prevailing in all circles in Moscow and Petrograd. I never guessed what was awaiting me in Russia. I had left America in September of 1922 determined to get there, to see into the new revolutionary life of the people and report on it. I was not a little dismayed when, congenitally averse to notoriety as I am, I found that on stepping upon Russian soil I forthwith became a notorious character. And strangely enough there was nothing unpleasant about my being swept into the surge of revolutionary Russia. For better or for worse every person in Russia is vital- ly affected by the revolution. No one but a soulless body can live there without being stirred to the depths by it. I reached Russia in November—the month
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QUATRAIN THE PETROGRAD HOME FOR CHILDREN RENDERED DESTITUTE BY THE FAMINE of the Fourth Congress of the Communist Internation# and the Fifth Anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The whole revolu- tionary nation was mobilized to honor the occasion, Petrograd was magnificent in red flags and streamers. Red flags fluttered against the snow from all the great granite buildings. Railroad trains, street cars, fac- tories, stores, hotels, schools—all wore deco- rations. It was a festive month of celebra- tion in which I, as a member of the Negro race, was a very active participant. I was received as though the people had been ap- prised of, and were prepared for, my com- ing. When Max Eastman and I tried to bore our way through the dense crowds, that jammed the Tverskaya Street in Mos- cow on the 7th of November, I was caught, tossed up into the air, and passed along by dozens of stalwart youths. “How warmly excited they get over a strange face!” said Eastman. A young Russian Communist remarked: “But where is the difference? Some of the Indians are as dark as you.” To which another re- piled: “The lines of the face are different, the Indians have been with us long. The people instinctively see the difference.” And so always the conversation revolved around me until my face flamed. The Moscow press printed long articles about the Ne- groes in America, a poet was inspired to rhyme about the Africans looking to Soviet Russia and soon I was in demand every- where—at the lectures of poets and journal- ists, the meetings of soldiers and factory workers. Slowly I began losing self-con- sciousness with the realization that I was welcomed thus as a symbol, as a member of the great American Negro group—kin to the unhappy black slaves of European Im- perialism in Africa—that the workers of Soviet Russia, rejoicing in their freedom, were greeting through me. (Concluded in the January CRISIS) QUATRAIN GWENDOLYN B. BENNETT | How strange that grass should sing— Grass is so still a thing. .. . And strange the swift surprise of snow,— So soft it falls and slow. | - | | LE SA FR
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Khartoum, Sudan. epee letter concerning the third Pan- African Congress has arrived safely. As you battle nobly for our deliverance, we pray God bless your efforts. As you en- deavor to disentangle the knotted chains of centuries from the feet of poor down- trodden AFRICA, we earnestly pray that the God who loves humanity would bestow upon you the needed Grace, Patience and Wisdom for such a great task. P. A. HAMILTON. Gloucester House. Sierra Leone, West Africa. f think it is splendid of you not to allow the Pan-African Congress movement to drop. The Solicitor General of the Gold Coast, and one of our best men, will soon be taking a holiday to Portugal I under- stand, and I shall tell him all about the movement; he will be a splendid repre- sentative for West Africa. ADELAIDE CASELEY HAYFORD. , Mississippi. Most Esteemed Sir: I have been a reader of THe Crisis for quite a while and would not be without it for Five Dollars a year. The “Opinion” Department is worth more than the price of the entire paper. I came by accident into possession of a copy of THE Crisis, August, 1919, when only 17 years of age. My par- ents were poor country people; my father having died when I was a small boy, left mother and us in very poor circumstances. But she borrowed money and gave us chil- dren the best she could of a common school education. At the age of 14, I was obliged to quit school to help support myself and semi-invalid mother (the older children having married and gone into homes of their own). Thenceforth, sickness, deaths, crop failures and misfortunes after misfortunes were the lot of the family. So it can be readily understood that when I came in pos- session of the copy of THE Crisis it was impossible for me to afford the price of a Outer Pocket year’s subscription (then $1 per year). In the meantime, I felt that I could not really be without it. I sent ten cents for the September issue. Owing to the fact that all available earnings in October went for food, clothes, medicine and indebtedness, I found it impossible to secure the October, 1919 issue of THE CRIsIs. Finally, toward the last of November, my brother (see enclosed photo) by chance found 25 cents and immediately sent twenty cents of same for October and November issues of THE Crisis. So, from then on I would mail the price of a copy of THE Crisis to publisher each month excepting months I could not get the money handy. Under such circumstances, the next month I would mail the price of two issues of THE CRISIS, consequently, I have missed only one issue (June, 1920) of THe CRISIS since August, 1919. I am now a proud member of the N. A. A. C. P., together with my wife and our little daughter, you should see her, thus making our family 100 per cent mem- bers. Little “Droo-see” believes herself to be the youngest member of the N. A. C. C. P., having become a member May 22, 1922, when six months of age. My brother and I both penniless at the time, borrowed money, mortgaged crops, etc., and became 100 per cent members to assist in the pass- age of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. The following Fall, after a settlement of all indebtedness and qualifying to teach in the public schools of this county, I had a balance of Five Dollars, which I promptly sent to the Treasurer of the N. A. A. C. P. and became a certificate member, November, 1922, which automatically discontinued the necessity for me subscribing for THE CRISsIs. The other literature from the National Office I gave away among friends and secured three members of the N. A. A. C, P. beside the five herein mentioned. I will en- deavor to secure others at every opportunity. The N. A. A. C. P. has proven its fighting qualities. It is fighting for the rights of colored people with the courage of the im- mortal “600”. I wish it every success. |
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JAPANESE HOKKUS LEwIs G. ALEXANDER CCORDING to John Gould Fletcher, one of the foremost modern students of Japanese Literature, really authentic in- formation on Japanese poetry does not date further back than the sixth century, A.D. But at this point the germ of its later de- velopment can easily be perceived. The poems of this early date were composed of a first line of five syllables, a second of seven, and a third of five, and so on always wading with a line of seven syllables fol- .vwed by one of equal number. Thus the entire poem of whatever length (a poem of as many as forty lines was scarce, even at that day), always was composed of an odd number of lines, alternating in length of syllables from 5-7 until the close, which was an extra seven syllable line. There were no other rules. Rhyme, accent, quantity, stress, were disregarded. Later this crystallized into what is called a Tanka or short ode. This was five lines in length constructed syllabically 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, or thirty-one syl- lables in all. Innumerable of these Tanka were written. Gradually during the Feudal period, improvising verse became a pastime in court circles. Some one would utter the first three lines of a Tanka and some one else would cap the composition by adding the last two. This division persisted. The first hemistich which was composed of seven- teen syllables grew to be called the Hokku. The second or finishing hemistich of fourteen syllables was called the Ageku. Thus was born the form which is more peculiarly Japanese than any other. Composirg Hokku might however have re- mained a mere game of elaborate literary conceits and double meanings, but for the genius of one man. This was the great Basho (1644-1694) who may be called the greatest epigrammatist of any time. During a life of extreme and voluntary self-denial and wondering, Basho contrived to obtain over a thousand disciples and to found a school of Hokku writing which has per- sisted down to the present day. He re- formed the Hokku by introducing into 67 everything he wrote a deep spiritual sig- nificance underlying the words. He even went so far as to disregard upon occasions the syllabic rule and to add extraneous syl- lables, if thereby he might perfect his state- ment. The most famous Hokku that Basho wrote might be iiterally translated thus: “An old pond And the sound of a frog leaping Into the water.” This means nothing to the western mind. But to the Japanese it means all the beauty of such a life of retirement and contempla- tion as Basho practised. If we permit our minds to supply the detail which Basho de- liberately omitted, we see the mouldering temple enclosure, the sage himself in medi- tation, the ancient bit of water, and the sound of the frog’s leap—passing vanity— slipping into the silence of eternity. The poem has three meanings. First it is a state- ment of fact. Second it is an emotion de- duced from that. Third it is a sort of spir- itual allegory. All this Basho has given us in his seventeen syllables. To say that a Hokku is a seventeen syl- lable poem with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five in the last is not enough. There is more, naturally, than its mere form. Its real value is not in its physical directness but in its psycho- logical indirectness. To use a simile it is like a rain drop with the sun shining on it as it falls; although it is just a bit of water it shines, glitters, and sparkles now red, then purple, turquoise-blue, opalescent, and pearl- white. The real value of the Hokku is not in what is said but what is suggested. The object of the Hokku poet is to impress the reader with the high atmosphere in which he is living. The emotions he expresses are too subtle for words and can only be written in the spaces between the lines as in con- versations there are thoughts which the con- versants can never convey as they cannot be clothed in speech, being too subtle for words. Here out of the love which I have for these delicate little petals that carry a rose in their fragrance, I beg to offer some of my
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68 THE CRISIS Hokku poems: When the last leaf falls Summer will be thought of more, Winter having come. Night shadows woo me: I cling to the crescent moon Like the evening star. My soul like a tree Sways above dry-leaf Autumn: Be kind, oh wind-god. * Like cherry blossoms Dancing with the passing wind— My shattered hopes. + Last night I saw you A dream rose, and I your stem Showing you the sun. You walk before me, I will follow where you go; Though I be weary. White dogwood blossoms Cling to the curving branches Like I cling to you. No words speak louder Than the tragic look of eyes; Close yours out of love! They tear at my heart— The days that knew no desire— For they were wasted. A wood violet Alone in the spacious hut Worshipping the sun. The drooping willows Have the charm of waterfalls Above the river. The bird is alone Like a dot on a blue page: Do not set red sun. * O apple blossoms Give me your words of silence! Yes, your charming speech. * Life is history Turn not away from the book: Write on every page! ! NIGGERS” A Story — (Concluded) JULIAN ELIHU BAGLEY (Little Cless Jerihdo, grandson of “Granny” Jerihdo has been called “nigger” by Mrs. Crawford, mother of his small white play-mate, Timmon Crawford. Surprised and hurt Cless seeks his grandmother who defines the term “niggers” as “low-down, mean, good-for- nothing folks; and their faces can be as white as snow”. The Crawfords go in their car to Opeleka to the carnival, but Cless trudges there on foot. While there he and Timmon arrange for Cless to ride home hidden in the car with his dog Blinco and the Teddy-bear which he has won in a lottery. At first the return journey goes well, but suddenly the car turns over and pins its occupants beneath it—all but Cless. The little boy runs for help, but people refuse him because he and presumably the victims of the accident are “niggers’’. Finally he meets a farmer who asks him the usual question. Cless mindful of his grand- mother’s definition falters: “Of course they're niggers—but ain’t niggers ever worth sav- ing?” The farmer urged on by his wife but grumbling reluctantly starts toward the wrecked car.) | Penagerver! he pried the car up and over. And then the truth, the awful truth—pale folks—white folks—dead. “By God!—they’re white folks. You damn little black liar, I’ve a good mind to— what to hell you tell me they was niggers for?” “Oh I thought they were niggers,” stam- mered Cless. “Granny Jerihdo said nig- gers were——” “Hush up!” demanded the farmer. But Cless went on: “Oh, mister—please, mister, please tell me what niggers are. Ain’t niggers never worth saving?” | | * |
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Again from the farmer: “Hush up I told you; hush up you damn little black devil. You know what niggers are. You— you’re—you. .. !” Then he stammered and faltered and faltered and stammered into eloquent silence. For the life of him he could not go on. Now Cless spoke out and announced his intention of carrying the news to Granny Jerihdo. He disappeared in the darkness and ran most of the five miles to his cabin. Between gasps he told Granny Jerihdo of the tragic accident. “My God, honey,” the old woman shouted in a frenzy of excitement, “was you ridin’ in that car, and how come it to kill the Crawfords? That was jus’ a little saplin’ of a log that I rolled cross the road, and I thought it would jus’ shake ’em up good. God knows I didn’t mean to kill ’em.” Then Granny Jerihdo began to wail desperately. Cless did not cry, but he kept mumbling over and over to himself—‘“God, you ain’t just. You ain’t just, God; you’ve made Granny Jerihdo a nigger. You’ve made Granny Jerihdo a nigger.” From that night on Granny Jerihdo lived a life of abject torture. White neighbors who once held her in high esteem now evaded her path as much as one would evade the path of a leper. And black neighbors whose respect she once demanded and got because of her close alliance with the whites now openly labeled her as a low down “white folks’ nigger”. Persistent rumors from the Crawfords’ relatives that they were plan- ning to get even with the old woman in spite of the fact that they disbelieved her SHIPS, SEA AND AFRICA story of wrecking the automobile, kept her in a frenzy of excitement. But Granny Jerihdo was a brave little creature and when she girded herself for war she seldom took off her armor until the fray was over. Nevertheless in this case she fought against her own principle. For had she not de- clared niggers to be low-down good-for- nothing folks, proved it on the Crawfords, and then turned the trick on herself? And had she not heard her little grandson Cless pray every night to “change Granny Jerihdo from the mean, low-down somebody that she is”? But Granny Jerihdo made no change until that night when the white-robed gang stalked into her yard, surrounded her cabin and set it afire. Even then she remained calm. She threw a blanket around Cless and shoved him out the door and shouted triumphantly: “Go your way, honey. And don’t you never let nobody drag you down so low as to make a nigger out of you, ‘cause niggers ain’t never worth saving. That’s why I killed them Crawfords. And that’s why I chooses to die myself.” It took the hungry flames only a few mo- ments to reduce Granny Jerihdo’s cabin to a heap of smoldering ashes. The white- robed gang disappeared in the darkness, and in their place came a crowd of be- wildered blacks. Off in one corner of the yard a little brown boy lay on a blanket hugging a dog and a teddy bear and sobbing bitterly ‘God, you ain’t just—you ain’t just, God. You let Granny Jerihdo die a nigger You let Granny Jerihdo die a nig- ger!” SHIPS, SEA AND AFRICA Random Impressions of a Sailor on His First Trip Down the West Coast of the Motherland LANGSTON HUGHES SENEGAL TO THE CONGO HE East River. .. The Battery half v- iled in fog. . . The Statue of Lib- erty dim to starboard as our ship glides past headed for the open sea. .. Sandy Hook. . . Grey green water. . . Darkness. .. In the lighted fo’c’sle sailors unpack 69 } y |
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70 THE Lisk-Carew Bros. PICKING PALM KERNELS IN SIERRA LEONE sea-bags. . . We are off for five months to Africa. Long days of sea and sun. .. The last of June the mountains of the Azores float on the sky-line. .. High volcanic islands rise sharply from the water. . . We anchor in the harbor of Horta, a picture-book town. . . Houses painted like toy Noah’s arks, palm trees, nuns in flaring bonnets, oxen pulling wooden-wheeled carts, scores of brown-white children begging for cigarettes and pennies. We unload all night. . . The winches rat- tle, bags of wheat rise in the air, swing over and out, drop down into the harbor boats ... At dawn we sail. The Canary Islands. . . Teneriffe. . . Las Palmas, a breath of Spain in a city of palms. Tomorrow,—Dakar. . . The Motherland. Dawn. . . The coast of Africa, long, low, CRISIS bare and rocky, backed by a curtain of light and then a red sun that rises like a ball of fire. The port of Dakar, Senegal. . . The wharf crowded with black Muhammedans in bil- lowing robes. . . The strange costumes seen. .. The thermometer at ninety... Women in seant clothes . . . Little naked children. . . The fierce sun. Portuguese Bissao, lost in a maze of islands. . . The old Negro pilot who guides our ship. . . The wild, fierce boatmen who take the mail-bag. . Groves aflame . White houses Conakry from the sea. . with vermilion flowers. hidden in trees and foliage. Freetown. . . The hills of Sierra Leone. . . The fine young Negro policemen and harbor officials. . . Rain, all day rain. The Ivory Coast. . . The Gold Coast. . . Towns with strange names,—Grand Bas- sam, Assinie, Accra, Lome, Cotonou. . . No harbors, the ship anchors in the sea... A sand-white, perfectly straight coast-line. . . Towns hidden in deep cocoanut groves. . The soft boom of the surf on the beach. The lagoon behind Grand Bassam... Streets shaded with palm and almond trees. .. French cafés. .. Clean, delightful na- tives. Secondee. . .The market flashing with colors, the piles of fruit, the dark girls in bright bandannas, gay strips of cloth twined about their bodies. .. The African prin- cesses with gold coins in their hair. The roar of the surf at Assinie. . . Al- ways the surf. . . The surf boats with their crew of eight black naked paddlers, their superbly muscled bodies, damp with sea- spray, glistening in the sunshine. Lagos, a fascinating, half-oriental town. . . Indian bazaars. . . Muhammedan trad- ers. . . Goats, dogs, pigs in the streets. . . Life, movement, crowds, dashing horses, rich Negroes driving expensive cars, a har- bor full of ships. . . Seven days in port. . . Shore leave and money for the crew whose A. | ahi | , | aN | | - Se,"
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pounds, like Villon’s francs, go “tous aux tavernes et aux filles”’. Il THE DELTA OF THE NIGER. | HARCOURT up a jungle-walled river. . . Ostriches walking in the streets. .. The small, stark naked cane- bearer following his master. . . The date- palms. .. The boy with the bananas... The little black girls with henna-dyed nails and bare feet. .. The one with the Peruvian gold which she displays so proud- ly and guards so jealously. .. The mon- keys. . . The young boy from the customs, brown with dreams in his eyes. . . “Amer- ica, is it a wonderful place?” ... The po- liceman whose salary is four pounds a month. . . Rain, swift, cool rain. Calabar among the hills. . . The descent of the Bonny River in the late afternoon, the steamer keeping near to the left bank. Impassable forests on either side. Swampland of snakes and monkeys. . . Yel- low leaves like hidden stars. . . Smoldering crimson blossoms. . . The slender canoes of the wood-cutters. . . The palm-like bushes. . » Sunset. . . The river, broken by islands, dividing into vast alleyways of water... The little boats lost in twilight—a twilight of violet merging to purple dusk. . . The islands hidden in darkness. . . The impossi- bility of reaching the open sea. . . We drop anchor for the night. With pious homage to Father Neptune, we cross the Equator, the young sailors, according to ancient custom, being properly doused and shaved... At night we run through a sea aglow with phosphorescent fire. . . A million fallen stars foam in the wake of the ship and streaks of light move where fish swim near the surface. Banana, the point of land that stretches into the sea at the mouth of the Congo. . . Sailors’ chanteys on deck— SHIPS, SEA AND AFRICA A NATIVE OF ANGOLA (Portuguese Colony) “They sailed us down the Congo River, Blow, boy, boys! Blow!” The ninety mile ascent to Boma and Matadi. . . Forests, but not so thick or tropical as those of the Niger. . . Then wide, arid plains, parched palms, dry yellow grass... Boma... The friver narrows, runs swiftly between high hills, fantastic, bare. .. A strong and dangerous current. . A sudden, broad, cafion-like curve and the white houses of Matadi rise before us .. A town of hills. . . A busy wharf piled with drums of palm oil. . . Native villages scattered about, each on its own highland. . . Streets bordered by mango trees. . . The dirtiest, saddest lot of Negro workers seen in Africa. . . Black soldiers with bayoneted guns pacing the docks. .. Evening .. The copper-gold of the Congo sunset. . . Blue- green twilight. .. The hot, heavy African night studded with stars. cham « > r 1 J
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Advancement. THE HOUSTON MARTYRS HERE has seldom been any cause in which the colored people of America have entered with such heart and unanim- ity as the campaign to free the fifty-four ex-members of the Twenty-fourth Infantry who are confined in Leavenworth Prison for alleged participation in the Houston, Texas, riots of August, 1917. Churches, news- papers, fraternal organizations, women’s clubs, posts of the American Legion and of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, branches of the N. A. A. C. P. and other organiza- tions have enthusiastically worked to cir- culate as widely as possible the petitions asking for pardon for these men who for six years have suffered for their resentment against the prejudice which was heaped upon them by whites of Texas. The facts can be stated simply. The 24th, after having rendered commendable service on the Mexican border, was sent to Houston early in 1917 to train for service in France. As a concession to Southern race prejudice all arms were taken from the soldiers—perhaps the first instance of its kind where soldiers of the United States Army were disarmed in time of war and placed at the mercy of a prejudiced local National - Association -for- the --- ‘Colored-People. police and a hostile public sentiment. Even the guards while on duty were given five rounds of ammunition and given the orders: “Don’t load your piece while on post night or day but, if some one approaches your post, challenge three times. If he doesn’t stop, load your gun and fire.” The soldiers were further cautioned re- peatedly to refrain from taking offense at any insult or act of violence which the white civilians might place upon them. Sol- diers of the United States, clad in uniform, with an honorable record for distinguished service extending over many years, or- dered to submit without protest to any contemptuous insult which an envenomed race prejudice might devise! Inevitable friction arose. Soldiers that they were, the men of the 24th stood in- sults, threats, acts of violence, everything. A crisis came as might well have been ex- pected. Corporal Baltimore, beloved of his mates, one afternoon came upon two Hous- ton police officers brutally beating a col- ored woman. He asked the officers why they should thus maltreat a woman who was not resisting them. One of the officers with an oath declared he did not have to report or explain his action to a “nigger soldier”. DELEGATES TO THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE N. 4A. C Cy | | 72
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N. A. A. C. P. 73 Baltimore was set upon and beaten severe- ly. Soon after a report reached the camp that Baltimore had been killed. According to testimony brought out at the court-mar- tial a further report came to the camp that a mob of whites was headed to the camp to kill the unarmed soldiers. There was in- tense excitement quelled only by the more level-headed of the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned. According to the same testimony soon after quiet had been restored a mob was reported almost within the camp. Being in Texas and knowing what might be expected from a mob, the men of the 24th did an entirely natural thing—they broke into the arsenal and se- cured guns and ammunition with which to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The rest of the story is too well known to need repetition. While the resentment against these men was yet at fever heat, the court-martial of numbers of them was held. Nineteen men were sentenced to death and later executed—thirteen of them with- out right of appeal to the Secretary of War or to the President of the United States, their Commander-in-Chief. Sixty-seven others were sentenced to long prison terms, the large majority of them to life imprisonment. In 1921 the N. A. A. C. P. gathered and presented to the late President Harding a petition signed by 50,- 000 citizens. As a result there was given to a few of the men a reduction in sentence which resulted in their release. On Sep- tember 1, 1923, when the now famous pil- grimage to Leavenworth Prison was made by 558 delegates and members of the N. A. A. C. P. who were attending the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Association at Kansas City, there remained in prison 38 men sentenced to life imprisonment, 15 sen- tenced to terms of 20 years, and one serv- ing an eighteen-year sentence—a total of fifty-four. Clean-cut specimens of manhood, their heads unbowed by the six years of impris- onment, the men created a profound im- pression upon the delegates of the N. A. A. C. P. The latter left the prison with a determination to renew and carry to a successful conclusion the fight to free these men. It was decided that the movement should not be made exclusively an N. A. A. C. P. one.. The Association was entirely willing to bear the brunt of the work and expense as far as it was able but it felt that in so righteous a cause every organiza- tion and individual, colored or white, re- ligious or secular, would be glad to join. Accordingly the work was started. Letters were sent to each colored newspaper and many of the white throughout the country setting forth the facts and asking its co- operation. The response was immediate. Without hesitation or qualification complete coéperation was offered by nearly all the papers. The same response was received from the various churches, lodges and frat- ernal organizations, civic bodies and clubs, branches of the N. A. A. C. P. and other a A. A.C. P HELD AT KANSAS CITY, KANS., SEPTEMBER, 1923
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74 THE movements. Almost unanimously was the suggestion of the N. A. A. C. P. adopted that Sunday, November 11th, be set aside as Houston Martyrs’ Day, with special ser- mons and prayers in the churches and pub- lic mass meetings in the afternoon or eve- ning. A model petition was drafted which read: To the President of the United States: We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, do respectfully petition that by ex- ercise of the power of Executive Clemency you pardon and restore to citizenship the members of the 24th U. S. Infantry now serving life and long-term sentences in the Federal Prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, convicted in connection with the riots at Houston, Texas, in August, 1917. We so petition because of 1. The excellent previous record for discipline, service and soldierly conduct of the 24th Infantry. The provocation of local animosity against these men because of their race and color which was man: fested in insults, threats and acts of violence against these colored soldiers wearing the uniform of the United States Army and waiting to be sent to France to fight. 3. The heavy punishment meted out to members of the 24th Infantry, of whom nineteen were hanged, thirteen of them summarily and without right of appeal to the Secretary of War or to the President, their Commander-in-Chief. Fifty-four of them remain in prison, having already served nearly six years. ~ 4. The examplary conduct of the men as prisoners. Papier maché mats were made of the above petition with the following instruc- tions: Any church, lodge or other fraternal organization, woman’s club, civic or other club which wishes to aid in gathering signatures to the petition has full. per- mission to print copies of* the form here given and have them signed by their members at all peti- tions may be uniform we urge you take this form to your printer as a model and have them printed on sheets 8% by 14 inches, in size, leaving out, of course, these mstructions. When filled by bona fide signatures mail petitions to the N. A. A. C. P., 69 Fifth Avenue, New York City, where they will be arranged by states and in uniform lots, and all other necessary clerical work done that the pleas for pardon may make the most impressive showing when presented to President —oolidec. This should be done promptiy. Remember, every signature will be one more aid towards freeing these men who for six years have been unjustly imprisoned. Do your part towards restoring them to their loved ones and to freedom. Individuals may help by clipping the above form, signing it with nineteen others bed mailing it to the & & Be Newspapers in all parts of the country used these mats week after week, backing them up with extraordinarily well written editorials. Large numbers of individuals have clipped these, secured nineteen other signatures and mailed them to the National CRISIS Office. At the time that this account is being written, November 1, signed petitions printed according to the form above are pouring into the office from all parts of America. It is expected that many more than the 100,000 signatures asked for will be secured, thus rolling up evidence of an overwhelming sentiment which should re- sult in the exercise of executive clemency by President Coolidge. An indication of the interest in and sympathy for the col- ored people of America on the part of the present administration will be seen in the reception which is accorded this plea for the righting of an injustice of six years standing. Warden Biddle of the Leaven- worth Prison has publicly declared that “these men are neither criminals nor mur- derers. I know them”; and further that “they are deserving of every effort that may be put forth to effect their release”. It is hoped that the unanimous sentiment of white and colored alike for the freeing of the fifty-four will result in their early release. BRANCH FINANCES HE National Office wishes to call par- ticular attention to the editorial in this issue of THE CRISIS in which there is dis- cussed the necessity of more exact business relations between the branches and the Na- tional Office. The statements made apply with equal force and truth to the member- ship at large and to all who are interested in the work which the Association is trying to do and in the principles for which it stands. It has not occurred probably to most of the members of the Association that, con- sidering the concrete achievements of the N. A. A. C. P. especially during the last five years, it is little short of marvelous that these results have been obtained on so smal! a budget. There is one fact which is seldom con- sidered. The funds of the N. A. A. C. P. are to a large extent limited in exact proportion to the steadfastness with which it maintains its ideals. It is so simple and manifest a truth it hardly needs placing in words. The N. A. A. C. P., however, with its influence and reputation, could with com- parative ease secure large sums for its work if it were willing to compromise or limit its program to one which asks and works
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N. A. A. C. P. 75 for less than full manhood and citizenship rights for the Negro. We have some white friends who do wholeheartedly support the full program for which we stand. These are invaluable and must be retained but the fact must be faced that a very consid- erable percentage of white Americans are unwilling to concede even in theory that the Negro is a full-fledged American citizen and should be given all the rights of citi- zenship. Let us reproduce parts of a letter which came to the National Office on the day this is being written. It comes from a former white member, a prominent citi- zen of a large city in the middle west who last year gave $5.00. He says: “T am in receipt of your appeal marked urgent, calling my attention to the fact that last year I subscribed to your program; that I had failed to renew the subscription this year. “It is my feeling that the future of the Colored People depends upon his develop- ment by means of better education, and that his true advancement will come only through coédperation with all these factors. That race feeling is to be discouraged rather than encouraged. The tone of the articles in your magazine THE CRISIS tends to in- crease race hatred and leads to misunder- standings between the races rather than to understanding. “I cannot encourage any program that leads to the encouragement of race anti- pathies; and, therefore, I am not renewing my subscription.” We have no quarrel with the writer of this letter. He feels that the facts regard- ing the race problem should be concealed and glossed over. We, on the contrary, do not believe that the application of vaseline will cure a cancer. We believe that only by facing the facts without fear or equivocation can an adequate and lasting solution of the race problem be reached. Our situation is critical. The responsi- bility for the continuance of the effective work of the Association rests squarely upon those who believe in the principles for which it stands. Unless we gain a large number of members who are willing to pay $5, $10, $25, $50, $100 or $1,000 a year we are going to be forced to curtail our activities and thus lessen the effectiveness of what is the greatest fighting organization that the Ne- gro has ever had. Some individuals may wonder how they can render service. We want to quote parts of a letter from a young school teacher in Princeton, N. J., who on October 27 wrote the National Office: “Enclosed find a check for $23.20 for which please send six copies of THE CRISIS to each of the following names. . . . I would like to have six paid-up membership fees of $1 each for two years for each of the above persons. . .. The balance of $2.20 please add to the Anti-Lynching Fund. “Last summer after reading of the quick response of the Association to the Johns- town affair and the Mexican Government’s action for its citizens, the lesson was driven home as never before that I am not doing as much as I should for this wonderful or- ganization. I put my plans before my teachers in our small town. We called a Round Table at the Witherspoon School and cleared $23.20, as per check. I had hoped to raise $50. “With my prayers for greater response from every Negro, I am Yours respectfully, (Miss) Esther M. Cousins.” What this young woman has done others also can do. How can one better celebrate the approaching Christmas than by giving of his means towards this cause? ANNUAL MEETING = Nominating Committee for mem- bers of the Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reports the following nominees for terms expiring December 31, 1926: Mrs. Lillian A. Alexander, New York. Prof. George William Cook, Washington, D. C. Mr. Harry E. Davis, Cleveland, O. Rev. John Haynes Holmes N,ew York. Hon. Ira W. Jayne, Detroit, Mich. Mr. Isador Martin, Philadelphia, Pa. Mr. J. E. Spingarn, New York City. Mr. Moorfield Story, Boston, Mass. Mr. William English Walling, New York. THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE, Bishop John Hurst, Chairman, Charles H. Studin, W. E. B. DuBois. The Annual Meeting of the National As- sociation for the Advancement of Colored People will be held in the offices of the As- sociation, 69 Fifth Avenue, New York City, on the afternoon of Monday, January 7, 1924, at two o’clock. There will be reports from officers and branches, and the nomi- nations for directors will be voted upon. Announcements regarding the evening mass meeting will be made in the January Crisis and through the press.
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Zhe Looking Glass LITERATURE 4 > rutted roads are all like iron; skies Are keen and brilliant; only the oak- leaves cling In the bare woods, or hardy bitter-sweet; Drivers have put their sheepskin jackets on; And all the ponds are sealed with sheeted ice That rings with stroke of skate and hockey- stick, Or in the twilight cracks with running whoop. Bring in the logs of oak and hickory, And make an ample blaze on the wide hearth. Now is the time, with winter o’er the world, For books and friends and yellow candle light, And timeless lingering by the settling fire, While all the shuddering stars are keen and cold. —Bliss Carman. * * Charles H. Williams writes in his “Side- lights on Negro Soldiers” (B. J. Brimmer Co., Boston) : In many ways the war meant the awak- ening of new impulses. As one traveled through the South, again and again he no- ticed a service flag at the window, some- times in a cabin forlorn and dilapidated, sometimes in one neat and in a cluster of trees or surrounded by cotton. Sometimes there was only one star, but often there were two; and whenever those stars ap- peared they meant that the deeper springs of life were being stirred, and that a peo- ple whose horizon had been limited was be- ginning to think in terms of the world. If such was the influence at home, even stronger was that with the men who went to France. They were thrilled with a new hope. One and all they were willing to give their very lives if things might be better for those in the little home in South Carolina or Georgia. They had seen their glorious Stars and Stripes and they knew that they had not fully realized its benefits; but now as never before that banner unfurled meant democracy, and as a beacon light it pointed the way for all lovers of liberty. Negro men went to war believing that a new day was dawning for them, and that loyalty to their country’s cause in her hour of need would be the means of their enjoying in fuller measure the blessings for which the were fighting. In that faith they were will- ing to face shells and gas at Verdun, in Champagne, and in the Argonne, or wher- ever duty might lead them. 76 SOUTHERN CIVILIZATION W* quote verbatim from the New Or- leans Item: James F. Browne, a colored teacher of McDonogh, No. 8 school, was discharged by the unanimous vote of the Orleans Parish Board Thursday evening. The _ specific charge against Browne was that he had ex- pressed himself to members of the school board and the superintendents as believing in social equality between the white and colored races. Browne is the editor of the New Orleans Bulletin, a colored newspaper, and had orig- inally been summoned before the board for writing a letter to Assistant Superintendent Amos C. Harris, who supervises the colored schools. The investigation grew out of the publication by Browne of a clipping from the Pacific News Bureau under the following heading: “Bill Eliminating Race Distinction Introduced in Kansas Legislature. Proposed Bill Would Eliminate Theatre and Hotel Discrimination.” * * * * * Browne was handed the following letter: “You are hereby charged with being unworthy of holding a position as teach- er in the public schools of New Orleans because of the views which you have expressed tonight before the member- ship of the board and the superin- tendents with regard to social equality between the white and black races. “You are summoned to appear be- fore the board at once.” The board then discharged Browne, President Fortier announcing later that the action of the board was unanimous. After Browne was dismissed President Fortier made the following statement: “Browne had been summoned under the rules of the board to appear before it to explain certain statements he had made in a communication to the assistant superin- tendent of Negro schools with reference to social equality between white and colored races. “While he disclaimed any intention to be insolent, the very clear statement was made by him that while he had not taught the principles of social equality in his school room or advocated it in the Negro news- onges which he edits, nevertheless, it was is personal belief that social equality is ‘free-born’ and he recognizes no artificial distinctions, such as the difference in the color of the races. “Of course, the members of the board, the elected representatives of our Southern civilization, did not hesitate an instant, upon hearing such a statement, to summar- ily dismiss a school teacher presenting such views.”
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LOOKING GLASS 77 A GREAT WOMAN HE career of Mrs. Mary Burnett Tal- bert, which death has so abruptly closed, won the respectful and admiring comment of many of the papers published in Buffalo, N. Y., where this great woman lived, worked and died. We are glad to repro- duce in these columns some of the eulogies which she so richly deserved. The Buffalo Express tells of her life: Mary Burnett Talbert was born in Ober- lin, O.,.on September 18th, 1866. She was the daughter of Cornelius J. and Caroline Burnett. She was graduated from Oberlin College at the age of nineteen. She then took the post of assistant princi- pal of Little Rock High School, a_ posi- tion she held for several years. On September 8th, 1891, she married William H. Talbert of Buffalo. Contin- uing her studies, she received the degree of B.A. from Oberlin College in 1894 and a few years later received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo. Mrs. Talbert was chosen President of the National Association of Colored Wo- men’s Clubs from 1916 to 1920. In Sep- tember, 1920, she was a dele- gate to the In- ternational Council of Women, held in Chris- tiania, Norway. From Norway she made a trip of Europe. Her fame as a work- er in the political and cultural fields was spreading and she was invited to speak at gatherings that included the best minds of the world. At Haddon Hall, England, Mrs. Talbert was the guest of Lord and Lady Aberdeen who remained in touch with her up to her death. Queen Wilhelmina honored her by inviting her to stay at the royal palace while in Holland. During the various war drives, Mrs. Tal- bert was most active in helping to raise funds, and in all five loan drives she per- sonally solicited thousands of dollars worth of Liberty Bonds. Upon the entrance of SCENE AT THE FUNERAL OF MRS. TALBERT listed as a Red Cross nurse and saw active service in France. The most notable of her many activities was the restoration of the Frederick Douglass Home at Anacostia, D. C., in 1922, after vain attempts had been made by Booker T. Washington and other prominent men of her race. Mrs. Talbert was the only woman to receive the Spingarn medal. Her last great effort was the launching of the anti-lynching crusade to aid in the passage of the Dyer anti-lynch- ing measure. * * * The Buffalo Commercial comments: Mrs. Talbert was a keen student of the Bible and an authority on the scriptures. The uplift of the colored race was her life ambition. S he was a vice-presi- dent of the Na- tional Associa- tion for the Ad- vancement of Colored People at the time of her death. * * * An. editoria! in the Buffalo Enquirer draws a fine inference: Who would deny to the col- ored race the ability to rise to any height of refinement at- tained by any other race must stand confound. ed by this ex- ample. Mrs. Talbert was an played qualities of leadership and capacities for high service which would have made any woman of the white race honored. Mrs. Talbert’s life and labors refute any theory of natural inferiority of the race to which she belonged. THE GREAT MIGRATION Nation comments: Sherman’s march to the sea cost Georgia no more than the loss she is suffering from the migration of her Negro population, ac- cording to the Georgia Bankers’ Associa- tion, which is worried over a threatened reduction of State wealth by $27,000,000 this year, with 46,674 farmhouses left va- cant, 55,524 idle plows, and a labor gshort- this country into the World War, she en- age already of 70,843 persons. If the pres- 4 . es able, noble wo-
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78 THE ent rate of exodus keeps up, the number of persons lost this year will equal the population of ten average mid-Georgia coun- ties. Land that brought from $40 to $75 an acre in 1919 now meets no demand at all and weeds are the only crop. President William A. Winburn, of the Central of Georgia Railway, wants more cheap labor from Europe and is bombarding members of Congress to let down the bars to immi- gration. While the Georgia Legislature dallies with a proposal to make it “a felony for any person or concern to solicit labor in Georgia for other States” and amends the general tax so that each labor agent in the State must, in addition to paying a $1,000 tax, give a bond to protect creditors of each person sent out of the State, the Ne- groes have held a State-wide conference. These Negroes, who represent 45 per cent of Georgia’s population, point to discrimi- nation in the distribution of agricultural re- lief, to the crowded tenements and farm shanties, to the unspeakable Jim-Crow cars, to the absentee landlord system with its indecent overseers, and to the $15,000 spent on Negro schools while $735,000 goes to white schools. And, they add, the Negro’s life is too cheap; in the midst of mob vio- lence no colored person, however honest, in- dustrious, humble, and law-abiding, can possibly feel himself safe overnight. Too often he is made to feel that the law was designed solely for his punishment, but not for his protection. * + * The reasons for the migration are deep- seated and potent. The Nation continues: The fundamental error has been, the Ne- groes say, in attempting to run a democ- racy without all the people: “The whole truth is, and you ought to know it, that a very large percentage of us have lost faith in either your willingness now or your intention ever to treat the colored people justly and to allow them to become a basic part of our civilization. This faith re- stored by unmistakable evidences to the con- trary would infinitely improve the unsettled conditions among us. . . We lay the blame for this most unfortunate condition at the door of the cheap political dema- gogue, who, to satisfy a purely selfish am- bition, and for personal motives, from plat- form and through an unfair press, has maligned us, misrepresented us, and preju- diced many good white people against us who otherwise would today be our substan- tial friends, by their self-made scarecrow of ‘social equality’ and ‘Negro domina- tion’. . . . We confess that we covet that life which bread alone cannot give... . We challenge you to join us as Christian people in the task of working out a pro- gram of justice, equity and Christian broth- erhood, which shall include both groups, each separate in his sphere, that shall guar- antee to both the fullest opportunity... . so absolutely essential to a well-rounded hu- manity.” CRISIS On August 17 a mob battered down the doors of the jail of Cochran, Georgia, seized Aaron Harris, colored, hanged him on a tree where others have been lynched, and riddled his body with bullets. The same day offi- cers taking Lee Green, colored, to the jail at Perry, Georgia, were forcibly stopped, and Green, a rope tied around his neck, was forced to climb a tree and then told to Jump. When he refused 300 shots were fired into his body and he fell lifeless from the limb. Is this to be Georgia’s only reply to the Negroes? The St. Louis, Mo., Globe-Democrat intro- duces a new aspect: The various reasons assigned for the mi- gration of Negroes by the hundreds of thou- sands from the South to the North are plausible enough and have an undoubted basis in fact, but those reasons are of long continuance. Now we are told what the im- pelling force is in the movement, the in- fluence that turns the migrants from fact to action, the cause that makes reasons operative just now which have long been inoperative. It is the Negro woman. She wants a better chance for her girl than she had, a better chance for her boy than his father had. She lives a life of constant suspense lest her husband or her grown-up son will not return to her at night or will return only a maimed, lifeless thing. Femi- nine psychology among the colored race is very interesting, as described by Rev. Dr. W. A. C. Hughes, who in denominational work has made an exhaustive survey of Negro conditions in the South. Woman’s clear-eyed view of possibilities of betterment was responsible for so much in the migration which “The Covered Wag- on” typifies that we might have been pre- pared for the disclosure of the real secret of the colored movement. The lawless bar- barities inflicted on the race have effects on the families of victims that are too often lost sigh of. That in inducing imaginary terrors in the families of others, those ef- fects may extend to great numbers and wear threadbare the nerves of the women, as Dr. Hughes says, is quite plausible. Until official figures on the extent of the mi- gration are forthcoming, new estimates formed during individual research will have value. Dr. Hughes says that more than 100,000 Negroes have lately left certain dis- tricts of Georgia alone, and unchecked the movement continues proportionately large from other Southern districts. FRANCE AND THE COLOR LINE W®* learn from a correspondent in the Madras (India) Swarajya: The color question does not exist in France. A hundred years ago our fore- fathers were a little particular about the color question, but now the French regard the mental culture of the individual as the only test of equality. The following inci- ‘ | |
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LOOKING GLASS 79 dent may perhaps illustrate better how the French detest the color question when it is raised by an American or an English vis- itor: A few weeks ago I resided in a well- known hotel on the Avenue de |’Opéra in Paris. The patronne is a highly educated French lady who speaks English fluently. In the hotel I saw a Parsee and his wife, an elegant well-bred little woman. I asked the patronne if they were from Bombay and she replied affirmatively. She then asked me if such people from India were generally despised by the English in India. I replied that by some snobs they sometimes were, but not generally. “Well,” she re- plied, “a few days ago an English mission- ary and his wife were here and the wife objected to sit with the Parsee lady at ‘the table d’héte’. She complained to me about it saying that no English visitors will pat- ronize the hotel if I continue to receive such colored people in the hotel. I replied to her that my hotel was not a political institu- tion and moreover, we in France do not understand the difference you establish be- tween yourselves and your Indian subjects. The Parsee lady was very nice and I should be sorry to lose her for your sake; you may please yourself.” The French lady was quite amazed that an ordinary English wo- man, the wife of an ordinary missionary, could give herself so much airs. But she rightly detected her mental defects, for she remarked to me: “Elle avait lair d’étre une sotte et une ignorante” (she gave the effect of being a fool and an ignoramus) as probably she was and as most of her people are when they put on such ridiculous airs. IN THE BEGINNING ERE Adam and Eve black? The New York Times tells an interesting story: Visitors to the University of Pennsyl- vania Museum are now privileged to see the tablet 4,400 years old, from which Pro- fessor Stephen H. Langdon some years ago deciphered the Sumerian story of the crea- tion of mankind by a goddess, This story of the beginning of the world, which dates back even before the time the Biblical narrative was written, is contained in a broken tablet seven inches square, part of a collection unearthed by the university expedition at Nippur a few years ago. Since that time Assyriologists and schol- ars at the university have been busy de- ciphering the tablet. According to this story, which was written centuries before the Christian era, the world was created by a black-haired goddess, who had a special aversion to blonds. Hence when she went about the task of creating men, the tablet says, she made her creatures dark-skinned. The broken tablet, which is credited to the Sumerians who lived neighbors to the Baby- lonians, back in 2,500 B. C., gives details of the creation, tells the story of the Del- uge and shows a remarkable likeness to the stories in Genesis. When the world became so wicked it had to be destroyed, the gods became angry at the goddess and put an end to eve ing with a flood. The only beings saved were a man and his family, with the animals which he put in an ark. The task of deciphering the ideographic signs was very difficult because of the fact that several fragments of the tablet were missing. Search for the fragments is being made among other tablets in the collection at the University Museum and in the muse- um at Constantinople, where many relics of the Nippur excavation are stored. * + * In spite of the condition of the tablet it is still possible to gather from it parts of the story of the creation. In the Sumerian account, it seems that the goddess Nintu was an important mem- ber of the heavenly household, ranking with seven other gods who existed before man. When the other gods gave Nintu the task of creating men she made it her duty to pro- tect her creatures. Not only did she endow them with life, but she gave them spiritual aspirations, or an inclination to commune with the gods. She gave them temples, where they might learn “the sublime com- mandments and precepts made perfect therein,” the ancient tablet says. But Nintu was in a minority so far as her desire to protect her creatures was con- cerned. Other gods of the group did not take kindly to her black-haired Adam and Eve and their offspring. Accordingly, at an important conference of the seven gods, it was voted to exterminate Nintu’s creatures. * * * Here follows the story of the flood: There lived in the land a creature named Ziugidda, who is the Sumerian Noah. One day Ziugidda was walking by the wall which shut the Gods off from mankind, and he heard voices. Ziugidda stopped to listen. Back of the wall Nintu and two other gods were discussing the coming destruction of man. Ziugidda heard one of the Gods say: “By our command a rainstorm will be sent to destroy the seed of man. This is the decision of the Assembly of the Gods.” Ziugidda took the hint and departed. He gathered his sons and daughters together and set them at work building a big boat. When the craft was finished, he stocked it with animals. When the flood came, according to the tablet, there were terrific cyclones, and the rain poured incessantly for seven days. The biblical account makes this period forty days, but the seven days as in the Sumerian account was sufficient to float Ziugidda’s boat and carry him, his family and his live- stock over the tops of hills and above the flood that destroyed his fellow-beings. Finally, the narrative continues, the Sun God aoeeare “shedding light over heaven and earth”. Ziugidda opened a trapdoor in |
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80 THE the roof of the boat and looked out. When he found a dry spot he “prayed to the Gods of Heaven with a loud voice”. He made sacrifices of an ox, a sheep and something with “a great horn,” which the tablet translation does not identify very exactly. In the meantime, Nintu, working among the other Gods, had won Enki, one of the Gods of Power, to her side. Together they persuaded the Gods not to continue their — and to let Ziugidda and his family ive. After that the Gods went to the other extreme and Ziugidda was made a hero. He was taken with his family to an island in the Persian Gulf and the island was fitted up as a sort of paradise for his own usc. Moreover, the Gods gave Ziugidda and the whole human race the gift of immortality. WANTED: A SENSE OF HUMOR E quote two editorials from the same column of the same page in the New- port News, Va., Daily Press: Is This the Land of Liberty? Wednesday after- Driving Negroes A press dispatch noon a number of from Pittsburgh colored laborers says that a large were riding peace- number of Negroes, ably through the known as “newcom- streets of Norfolk returning their homes from _ the ers” in the Stowe Township section, left last Wednesday wharves where they had been engaged in honest employment, when they were after they had been ordered to get out by a “vigilance com- mittee”. Most of CRISIS fired u by a num- ber Three were wounded and one of _ their number received wounds from which he died. What was the of- fense of these men? That they had taken jobs which the strik- ers had refused. In the estimation of the strikers they were “strike-break- ers” and “scabs,” and, therefore, unfit to live. There is no room in free America for that sort of tyranny. All men who love liberty and fair play must set their faces against it, and the law must apprehend and convict, and punish to the limit, any person who com- mits an assault upon another person, be- cause that exercises his given right to work. It is as tyrannical to deprive a man of his right to work as it is to force him to work against his own will. these Negroes were employed in_ steel plants. The town- ship police visited a hollow near the West Park district to investigate’ re- ports that cabins oc- cupied by Negroes had stoned. They found the win- dows in the cabins shattered, but the cabins were uninhab- ited. colored occupants had packed their effects and hurried away. The Negro is not wanted in the North, except by sofhe con- cerns that have run short of “common labor’”’. And the white laborers re- sent the Negro as an interloper. The Ne- gro who leaves his hap home in the South to take pot luck in the North is not long in discover- ing that he made a mistake. SWEETHEARTS COUNTEE P. CULLEN LE) HEY talk the silent night away, But speak no word by day; One is a cedar trim and tall, His love a willow small. The one stands proud with head held high, The other, coyly shy; The cedar’s limbs are hard and strong; The willow’s voice is song. And then the willow turns away, Aud sulks throughout the day; Sometimes she gives a little sigh, And once I saw her cry. At night when our harsh words are said, And I am in my bed, I hear in sweetest harmonies The language of those trees. I find the ivied balcony, Where through the gloom I see Two sweethearts in the yard below, Whose speech all lovers know. By day when she would love to talk Across the garden walk, The cedar’s rude as rude can be, Pretending not to see; | SA
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— Anderson is considered an unusually keen and able official and is said to be one of the most widely informed authorities on the Income Tax Law in the country. As Col- lector of Internal Revenue he handles large sums of money, collecting the levy on cir- cuses, games, theatrical performances and prize-fights. ( Washington, D. C., has recently met with a great loss in the death of Mrs. Violet Baker, wife of Henry Baker, the patent ex- pert. Mrs. Baker who for years had been employed in the Congressional Library pos- sessed with her husband a home which was the center of gracious hospitality and gen- uine friendliness. Many a newcomer to Washington will testify gratefully to this. Mrs. Baker was associated with the late Mrs. B. K. Bruce and many other distin- guished women in various civic and cultural interests, particularly in the Book Lovers. Her place will long be mourned and remem- bered. ( The new colored High School of William- son, West Virginia, has been named the Du Bois High School, in honor of the editor of THe Crisis. The Principal, Mr. Marion Claude Lunderman, writes us: “The school plans to give a Du Bois program and on THE HON. CHARLES W. ANDERSON Charles W. Anderson after holding with THE W iL credit many responsible positions under the Republican Party in New York was ap- pointed by President Roosevelt to the of- fice of Collector of Internal Revenue in the second district. President Wilson failed to reappoint him but he was restored by Presi- : dent Harding to his former position. Mr. THE DU BOIS HIGH SCHOOL 81 | = | | - ’ ¥ | | 4 | > | | 4 | | | i | | 4 Kae i
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82 THE CRISIS The Rev. Young Mr. Matthews this occasion the author’s life and work will be discussed.” ( The mantle of Senior Secretary of the Colored Men’s Department of the Y. M. C. A. has fallen most fittingly on the shoul- ders of the Rev. Channing H. Tobias. Mr. Tobias, who is a native of Augusta, Ga., is well trained for his new position. He is an alumnus of Paine College of Augusta, and also of Drew Theological Seminary, Madi- son, N. J. In addition to this he has done special work at the University of Pennsyl- vania. For six years he taught at Paine College and then served for twelve years as student secretary of the International Com- mittee of Young Men’s Christian Associa- tion. He has had wide experience in many fields and through many associations as may be gathered from the fact of his interest and membership in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the Federal Council of Churches, the World Conference of the Churches on Life and Work, the National Committee of Conference on the Christian Way of Life, the Student Deputation that visited the Eu- ropean relief areas in 1921, and the Pan- African Congress of 1921. The predeces- sors of Mr. Tobias as Senior Secretary were the late well-known and beloved Wm. A. Hunton and Dr. J. E. Moorland, whose re- tirement last July was so signally honored at Harper’s Ferry. Mr. Tobias whose ap- pointment followed by vote of the Interna- tional Committee, September 22, spoke on this occasion of Dr. Moorland’s services, “From the Viewpoint of a Fellow Worker”. ( THe Crisis magazine mourns the loss of a valuable agent through the death of W. The Rev. Tobias Dr. Duke Augustus B. Matthews of Boston. Mr. Mat- thews was a native of Pennsylvania but was educated in Providence, R. I1., and later re- moved to Boston where up until five years ago he was headwaiter at some of the larger hotels, including the Parker House. He was very much interested and successful in his work as magazine agent and handled also two or three other colored papers. We are glad to be able to note that his son, Law- rence F. Matthews, will continue the agency. @ The Honorable and Reverend George L. Young of Browns Hall, Jamaica, has en- joyed a singular, not to say, spectacular, career. He is the son of a peasant planter of the Parish of Manchester and from that estate has risen to the following positions which he now holds: Justice of the Peace, Member of the Legislative Council for Par- ish of St. Catherine, Governor of the Ja- maica Institute, Vice-Chairman, Board of Management Jamaica Agricultural Society. Such a man is an inspiration to the people of any race. @ The death of Dr. Harrison R. Duke has robbed Chicago of a promising young den- tist. Dr. Duke was a native of Arkansas and had received his early training in the public schools of Pine Bluff. After engag- ing for a while in newspaper work and in the insurance business he turned to den- tistry, first attending Meharry Dental School. Later he entered the Academic Department and thereafter the Dental School of the Uni- versity of Illinois whence he was graduated in 1919. He spent four useful, busy years at his chosen calling. He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Mabel Gaines Duke, and a small daughter. a | | | |
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THE HORIZON ‘QTHIALSAM AYLNNOD isau AGVHS 3HL LV IHd Id VWOIS 3H1 20 31NOd GNVHD AHL SNIVLYALNG (WHOA MAN) V.LAZ aHL + | a ca . . 4 5? 83
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84 G. LUTHER SADGWAR « G. Luther Sadgwar, teacher of art in the Shaw Junior High School of Washington, D. C., is dead. He was a product of the Washington public school system and had furthermore extended his training by work at Howard University, the London School of Cartooning and Illustration, instruction from the Columbian Extension Course and from the International Correspondence Course in mechanical drawing. He was also a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Mr. Sadgwar, who is survived by his widow and two children, had attained no little local fame through his cartoons, which he published under the pen-name of Gadfly. ( Charles Fred White, of Philadelphia, Pa., a graduate of the Law School of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, has been appointe | a member of the State Athletic Commission, by Governor Pinchot. The salary is $5,000 a year. ( Miss Josie Miles, of Summerville, S. C., has been signed up by the Starr Piano Com- pany, of Richmond, Ind., as a singer of the “Blues” for the Gennett records. Miss Miles was formerly connected with the “Shuffle Along” company. THE CRISIS @ The United States Civil Service Com- mission announces the following open com- petitive examination for Junior Medical Of- ficer : Receipt of applications will close Decem- ber 18. The examination is to fill vacan- cies in the position of ward surgeon, at U. S. Veterans’ Hospital No. 91, Tuskegee, Ala., at an entrance salary of $2,840 a year, with quarters in the hospital, and vacan- cies in positions requiring similar quali- fications. Applicants must have graduated from a medical school of recognized standing, or be senior students in such an institution and furnish proof of graduation within six months from the date of making oath to the application; and, in addition, they must have had special training in tuberculosis or in neuro-psychiatry for a period of at least three months, either before or after grad- uation from medical college; or service for a period of not less than three months in a hospital devoted to the treatment of tubercu- losis or of mental disease. Competitors will not be required to re- port for examination at any place, but will be rated on their education, training, and experience. Full information and application blanks may be obtained from the United States Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C., or the secretary of the board of U. S. civil service examiners at the post office or customhouse in any city. q Mr. W. S. Glover, of Sa- vannah, Ga., is conducting a series of re- citals under the auspices of the Young People’s Union of the First African Bap- tist Church in that city. At the first recital the renditions were made by four white ar- tists, Madam S. C. McCand- less, Miss M. Walter L. Hutcherson | iJ | | | | ail | |
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THE HORIZON 85 E. E. Watson E. C. Frost Baggs, J. Y. Dyer and Wm. Clower. ( Walter L. Hutcherson, Executive Secre- tary of the Water Street Branch, Y. M. C. A., Wichita, Kansas, has completed the course in Boys’ Work offered by the Estes Park Conference, at Estes Park, Colorado. He is the first Negro to have completed any course of study at this school. He is also the president of the local branch of the N. A. A. C. P. (@ Miss E. E. Watson and Mrs. E. C. Frost are employed as nurses by the Carnegie Steel Company, at the Duquesne Community House, Duquesne, Pa. ( Robert Fitzgerald of Atlantic City is dead. He was 68 years old and was reputed to be the wealthiest colored man in south- ern New Jersey. Although a graduate of the Law School of Howard University Mr. Fitzgerald had never practiced law, but after settling in Atlantic City went into the hotel business. He had been a member of the Board of Freeholders of Atlantic County for twelve years. (@ The Urban League of Canton, Ohio, has opened a twelve-room Community House. This will be a center for recreational and welfare work among colored people and will CANTON COMMUNITY HOUSE izations. The house was furnished by con- tributions from private individuals and from organizations. Among the latter were the Ladies’ Aid Societies, Social Service Club, Masons, Knights of Pythias, Menelik Culture Club, Junior Menelik Culture Club, American Woodmen, Court of Calanthe, Elite Club, Eastern Star and the Auxiliary of the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. The Executive Secretary is A. L. Foster. @ Emily Martina Clary, of Cambridge, Mass., has been filling a unique position for over fifty years. Ever since her gradua- tion from High School she has been em- ployed in the Harvard Chemical Laboratory of Harvard College, as store room clerk. Her duties have consisted of keeping the records of all student supplies and of issu- ing apparatus and chemicals of all sorts. She has dealt out supplies to some of the best known men in the country during their student days, among them Morris Loeb, Au- gust Belmont and W. K. Vanderbilt. Her first employer in this work was Professor J. P. Cooke. Miss Clary is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Clary, and her father before her was employed for many years in the Boylston Chemical Laboratory of Har- vard. | | 4 - Ye } ‘ | | also provide headquarters for social organ- | <| i | | , | a” | |
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86 THE C 20,969 colored children had been enrolled in the public schools of Washington, D. C., up to October 8th. ¢ J. H. Lissimore has appeared in an Organ Recital at the Simpson M. E. Church, Wheeling, West Virginia. His repertory included the works of Burleigh, Gounod, Batiste, Stainer and Guilmant. He was ably assisted by Miss Marian La Cour, pianist. ( It is reported from Johannesburg, South Africa, that the White League has been formed. This is an CRISIS ( Approximately 1,198 Negroes and 61 white workers form the working person- nel of 113 newspapers and 14 magazines owned and directed by Negroes in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The grand total of 1,259, which includes 185 Negro female workers, is made up of: proprietors or managers, 204; editorial and clerical workers, 393; foremen, 69; compositors, 103; linotype operators, 70; machinists, 21; ad men, 32; make-up men, 38; floormen, i6; proofreaders, 47; stereotypers, 2; elee- trotypers, 2; pressmen, 84; bookbinders, 36; mailers, 104; other organization on the lines of the Ku Klux Klan. Mrs. Char- lotte Maxeke, a _ graduate of Wilber- force University, and a member of the Basuto Tribe, de- clares that a Black League will be formed by the Ne- groes. There is, ac- cording to Mrs. Max- eke, much illicit traf- fic between the whites and blacks, due in large measure to the persistent em- ploying of native “boys” in European homes. Rev. J. M. Hog- gard, pastor of St. Mark’s A. M. E. Zion Church, well known in the Zion Methodist Church connection, was re- cently appointed chaplain for the Hudson County prisons. The office carries a good sal- ary. Rev. Hoggard has accomplished much in the ten years which he has spent in Jersey City; he has acquired the large church property now owned by St. Mark’s Church and a fine parsonage on the lot ad- joining the edifice. ( One of the participants in the pre-Olym- pic Games of the Wilco Athletic Associa- tion at the Yankee Stadium, New York, was Harry F. V. Edwards, the English sprint champion. HARRY F. EDWARDS tradesmen, 38. Sixty- three _ publications maintain and oper- ate their own presses and an additional 7 conduct a_ general printing and pub- lishing business. The composing work of 70 publications is done at the plants by skilled Negro compositors. These figures are taken from a summary prepared by Phil. H. Brown of the U. S. Department of La- bor. Lloyd H. Newman, a graduate of the 1920 class in medicine of Howard University, will do research work for the current scholas- tic year at Harvard under the direction of Dr. Otto Folin, professor of biochem- istry. The Nationa! Research Council of Washington, D. C., has appointed Dr. Newman fellow of the division of medicine with a fellowshiy worth $2,300. ( Haitian affairs are in a sad condition. Joseph Mirault, New York correspondent of the Courier Haitien, has telegraphed to President Cvolidge concerning the arrest of Bishop Auguste Alberte of Cape Haitien. The Bishop recently held a meeting in which he deplored existing conditions. For this he was arrested and placed in irons. ‘ ~ ge.