The Crisis 1927-01: Vol 33 Iss 3
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SOUTHERN AID SOCIETY OF VA., Inc. best typifies the ability of the American Negro to stick successfully to his last. For 34 vears it has cultivated intensive- ly its home territory—State of Virginia and istrict of Columbia—and _pro- Home Office duced the following surprising results 525-7-9 N. 2nd St., the Richmond, Va. for such a limited insurance field. Over $4,000,000.00 Paid in Claims to Policyholders Over $1,000,000.00 Gross Income during 1925 Over $500,000.00 Invested in Real Estate Mortgages and Bonds. Over $250,000.00 On deposit in Banks and Trust Companies $275,000.00 Policy Reserve it has developed a Superior Three-in-One Insurance Policy, providing for One Small Premium, protection against Sickness, Accident and Death. Testimonial from a well-known Physician and Surgeon 900 Sth Street, Lynchburg, Va. To whom these greetings may come: This is to state that I have had the pleasure of filling blanks for the Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc., for sixteen years, and have found them unfailingly straightforward and honest in their dealings with the people. I therefore take this opportunity to extend to them my every good wish for continued success in the well merited favor they have thus far received. Very respectfully, (Signed) R. W. Lomax, M.D. Southern Aid Society of Va., Inc. Home Office: 525-27-29 N. Second St., Richmond, Va. Insures against Sickness, Accident and Death | | | | | ‘
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Che Crisis cA Record of the Darker ‘Races ((oNnTENTS FOR January, 1927 COVER r A North African Head. OPINION Page “The Black Man’s Balance, 1926’, ““Krigwa, 1927", “Pickens”, ‘‘Inter- Marriage”, “Hayes”, “Elections”, “Our Methods’, “The League of Nations”, “Unions”, ““Who’s Who”, “Lynching” 127 NEGRO SUFFRAGE. Senator William E. Borah..................... 132 AN INCIDENT IN EDUCATION. David H. Pierce.................... 133 THE DEATH GAME. A Prize Story. Edwin Drummond Sheen........ 134 THAT HILL. A Prize Poem. Blanche Taylor Dickinson.............. 140 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED Vol. 33, No. 3 Whole No. 195 JANUARY, 1927 Tae Crists Macazine: Published monthly and copyrighted by the National Association for the Advancement of Col- ored People at 69 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Conducted by W. E. Burg- hardt Du Bois; Jessie Redmon Fauset, Contributing Editor; Augustus Granville Dill, Business Manager. 15 cents a copy, $1.50 a year. Foreign subscriptions $1.75. The date of expiration of each subscrip- tion is printed on the wrapper. When the subscription is due a blue renewal blank is enclosed. The address of a sub- scriber may be changed as often as de- sired, but both the old and new address must be given and two weeks’ notice is necessary. Manuscripts and drawings re- lating to colored people are desired. They must be accompanied by return postage and while Tue Crisis uses every care it assumes no responsibility for their safety in transit. Entered as second class m*- ter November 2, 1910, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. The February CRISIS will contain another of H. H. Pace’s articles on Negro business, this time “Negro banks”; something more about Rus- sia; but above all things, look for our MARCH number!
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124 THE CRISIS ADVERTISER The North Carolina College for Negroes FORMERLY The Durham State Norma! School Will open its fall session September 14, 1926 THE FOLLOWING COURSES WILL BE OFFERED: 1. THE LIBERAL ARTS COURSE Leading to the A. B. Degree and offering sufficient work in Secondary Educa- tion to enable students to secure High School Teachers’ Certificates, Class A, and High School Principals’ Certificates at the cempletion of the course. 2. THE COURSE Leading to the B. S. Degree. 3. THE PRE-MEDICAL COURSE A two-year pre-medical course preparing students for entrance into medical colleges will be given. 4. SPECIAL COURSES IN COMMERCE AND MUSIC The faculty will consist of men and women from the best colleges and uni- versities in the country and will meet the requirements of the Nerth Carolina College Conference. For Catalog and further information address: THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLEGE FOR NEGROES James E. Shepard, President Durham, N. C. Virginia Union University RICHMOND, VIRGINIA Rated as a class A college by the State Boards of Edueation in Virginia and North Carolina. In addition to the general college curriculum, work is offered in the following departments: THEOLOGICAL. TEACHERS COLLEGE, PRE-MEDICAL, LAW, COMMERCIAL. For additional information address THE PRESIDENT Lincoln University Pioneer in Collegiate and Theological Education Accredited by the Association of Colleges of the Middle States and Maryland. Lincoln Graduates are Leaders in the various professions and in al] parts of the country. Address: The Dean of the University LINCOLN UNIVERSITY CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA School of High Standards and a Rigorous Pace WILEY COLLEGE Marshall, Texas Recognized as « College by Standardizing hundred and ffty enrolled in college department $85,000 invested in ecientific laboratory and library research equipment. Due prominenee given te music and te wholesome athletics. M. W. DOGAN, President each ers (A State Normal School) Cheyney, Pa. A Pennsylvania State Normal School offering, in addition to the regular Normal Academic Course of two years, professional three year courses in Home Economics and Shop “Work. A diploma from any of these courses makes a graduate eligible to teach in the public schools of Pennsylvania. Registration Day, Tnesdav, September 14, 1926. First semester will begin Wednesday, September 15, 1926. For further information and catalog, write LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL, Principal Cheyney, Pa. Mention Tue Crisis || | | | | | | | ae year since June, 1921 Graduation in June and August. Entrance any quarter. Leading colleges and universities represented on its faculty. More than twe :
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THE CRISIS Vol. 33, No. 3 JANUARY, 1927 Whole No. 195 of W. E. B. DU BOIS OPINION THE BLACK MAN’S BALANCE, 1926 ASSETS Sweet Trials Defense Fund Pullman Porters Howard University Harmon Prizes Negro Songs and Singers Judge Cobb Hampton-Tuskegee Endowment Birmingham Boycott 8600 Collegians 1300 College Degrees 24 M.A.’s and 4 Ph.D.’s Meharry’s Jubilee 3433 “Rosenwald Schools Three Negro Plays on Broadway 4 Little Negro Theatres Woodson, 12th Spingarn Medalist The “New Negro”, and 4 Other Books Rhinelander Decision Florence Mills and Rose McClendon Pan-Asia LIABILITIES 31 Lynchings Six dead: Lee, Terrell, Debs, Scarborough, Sinclair, Jenkins “Anglo-Saxon” Virginia Lincoln University Florida Aiken Vann If by unhappy chance you do not recognize any of the entries above, we would be glad to explain at limited length, provided your signature is decipherable and a stamp is enclosed. THE WAR AMENDMENTS ‘ON ANOTHER PAGE will be found an article by Senator William E. Borah on Negro Suffrage. Mr. 127 ay Borah assumes that in the days of Reconstruction the United States had a chance to choose between full Negro suffrage and the conferring of the right of suffrage upon selected Negroes: those who had served in the war, who were able to read and write or who owned a certain amount of property. The United States at the time had no such alternative. If it had had, there is no question in anyone’s mind but that the latter alternative would have been by far the better. But the United States could not chose between these two things because suffrage was primar- ily in the power of the States and the Southern States would not con- sider Negro suffrage in any form. No one at first dreamed of giving the freedmen the full right of suffrage. The best minds of the land proposed a great government bureau to train the freedmen and protect them and with this the admission of the intel- ligent and thrifty into the body politic. But the South would not allow this. At the first sign of re- stored political power they practical- ly legislated the Negro back into slavery. They granted a few paper rights but in not a single case did they make a gesture toward giving the most intelligent and deserving of the freedmen any voice in his own government. On the other hand they demanded the restoration of their right of local self-government. Un- der such circumstances the United States had the choice between two 4 — = |
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128 alternatives: to surrender the Ne- gro into the full power of his former masters without any guarantee or to reorganize the states by Negro votes and limit the subsequent right of dis- franchisement by a constitutional amendment. The latter was without doubt a desperate remedy but it was the only remedy that could have been applied under the circumstances. After a war of four years, which contrary to the intent of the nation resolved itself into a war of freeing the slaves, this country had the aw- ful prospect of seeing slavery re- stored under another name. Negro suffrage was better than slavery and despite of all the twaddle of bar- barism and ignorance, the fact re- mains that it was the black voter that gave the South the public school, democratic government and the be- ginnings of modern legislation for so- cial uplift. The whole attitude of the South toward Negro suffrage deserves the condemnation of all right-thinking men. The Southern white people are no more “proud” than any other set of folk who have been spoiled by be- ing allowed to set their feet in the faces of their fellow man and legal compulsion to lift their feet is no in- sult to this pride, it is sheer de- cency. KRIGWA, 1927 A NUMBER OF PRIZES in Negro Literature and Art will be distributed in 1927 through THE CRISIS Maga- zine. Prizes will be offered for 1. Plays 2. Short Stories 3. Poetry 4. Essays 5. Covers for THE CRISIS 6. Songs All manuscripts and illustrations must be in our hands by May 1, 1927. Awards will be announced October 24. 1927. We find it necessary this year to lay down more stringent rules as to THE CRISIS entrants than we have heretofore. All persons wishing to enter the contest must fill out an entry blank. This blank and the rules of the con- test will be ready for mailing Janu- ary 15, 1927. A stamped self-ad- dressed envelope mailed to THE CRISIS will bring a copy by return mail after that date. To date over $1000 has been pledged for these prizes. PICKENS WILLIAM PICKENS SAILED November 24 for Europe. He goes first to England where he will de- liver 23 lectures in the chief centers under the management of the Friends Council for Service and will thus put before liberal England the case of the American Negro from the N. A. A. C. P. point of view. After that Mr. Pickens will go to Belgium and will attend the International Congress of the Oppressed Nations held under the auspices of the Inter- national League against Oppression in the Colonies, which will meet in January. It is fortunate for the N. A. A. C. P. and for the colored people of the United States that they are repre- sented at this time by so vigorous a personality and so forceful a speaker and so honest a soul as William Pick- ens. INTERMARRIAGE A MAN NAMED LAWTON writ- ing in the Independent says that the N. A. A. C. P. “expressly advocates intermarriage” of whites and blacks. It does nothing of the sort. It sim- ply declares that if white folk will have sexual commerce with blacks, this must take place under legal re- strictions; that prohibition of such legal marriage is a direct bid for bastards and prostitutes and removes all civilized protection from colored girls and women; and finally that if two grown, sane, healthy persons wish to marry that that is their busi- ness and neither Mr. Lawton’s nor —
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ours. This is a long way from ad- vocating such marriage. Despite everything we still maintain that English dukes should have the right to marry Americans. But we do not “advocate” it. We have too much respect for Americans. HAYES HOW MANY OF US realize the tremendous propaganda of Roland Hayes? He was at Carnegie Hall last week. He sang with a firmness, con- trol and sweetness that entranced thousands of the most sophisticated music-lovers of America. Black and ‘vhite sat together in the orchestra. Applauding devotees lingered until the lights went out. He sang old eighteenth century songs; he sang Negro melodies; he sang the dream from Manon “as no living singer sings”. Think what it means to ev- ery black child in the world to have this black man singing. Let us crowd to hear his every performance. ELECTIONS THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS for congressmen and state officers throughout the United States did nothing but make clearer the increas- ing failure of the Democratic Gov- ernment in the United States. Toa larger and larger extent elections are -bought and sold by rich men. We do not like to have this said. We are used to saying with one side of our mouths that personal bribery is ab- sent from American politics and with the other side that a man can pay a million dollars for a United States senatorship. It is becoming a mat- ter of common knowledge that the rulership of wealth in the United States is more and more open and direct. This startling and fatal sit- uation is made easier by the rotten borough system: by rotten borough system of the country dis- tricts in New York, Illinois and else- where whose power disfranchises thousands of voters in cities; and, of JANUARY, 1927 129 course, and above all by the rotten borcugh system of the whole South which makes the buying and selling of elections in one third of the terri- tory of the United States an easy and every day matter. Moreover let no man think that Vare and Smith can be kept out of the Senate. Will the South, the new and_ progressive South, brook interference with pri- maries? Not if Blease, Caraway, Harrison and fifteen other blossoms of the illegal white primary system are able to filibuster and yell. OUR METHODS SOME ASSIDUOUS FRIENDS have recalled the remark of a white secretary when he left the N. A. A. C. P. voicing serious doubts as to our methods. There has long been and long will be controversy over the stand which the N. A. A. C. P. has taken. There are those who still be- lieve that our rights as American cit- izens can be won by cajoling and kow-towing and by the various meth- ods of the so called “white-folks nig- ger’’. It is not, on the other hand, to be supposed that the N. A. A. C. P. is doing aimless and _ ill-considered fighting. First of all, it is untrue that our officers reside in a “safetv zone” and “dictate” to the black South. Walter White did not dictate to Aiken from New York. He went to Aiken and risked life and limb in so doing. During the present year our officers have visited and spoken in Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Arizona, Tennessee, West Virginia and Missouri. During the last five years there is not a single Southern state that our Sec- retaries have not visited and most of them repeatedly. Not only that, but the N. A. A. C. P. took its whole para- phernalia and went down to Geor- gia in 1920 and held its annual con- ference. And it said in Atlanta ex- a 4 " —
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130 THE actly the same sort of thing which it said last year in Chicago. The edi- tor of THE CRISIS in the last ten years has lectured in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Ok- lahoma. The N. A. A. C. P. has always co- operated with other agencies, be they radical or conservative, white or black, Northern or Southern. It has, for instance, repeatedly cooperated with Monroe Trotter and the Equal Rights League, financially and other- wise. The N. A. A. C. P. has attacked the white people of the South and as long as they are responsible for lynching and disfranchisement and Jim Crowism, it is going to continue to attack them. But far from the fact that its outspoken methods have made the relations between the races worse in the South, there is testi- mony from the South itself that race relations have been steadily improv- ing since 1910 when we began our work; and we maintain that they have been improving because the Negroes have been increasing and re- iterating their demands for treat- ment as men. Again we have been accused of se- lecting “notorious” cases for defense. This is putting the cart before the horse. Cases become notorious be- . cause we select them. Aiken got on the front pages of the newspapers because we put it there. The Sweet case never would have been heard of by most of the country if we had not hired Clarence Darrow and flooded the land with propaganda. The East St. Louis riots would have been hushed up if America had been able to hush up the N. A. A. C. P. The great majority of the persons we have defended have been ordi- nary working people like the twelve peons in Arkansas; but we have never refused help just because the victim was educated, decent and practicing CRISIS a profession. It has been charged that the man- agement of the N. A. A. C. P. is un- democratic. If by this is meant that it is impossible for any temporary mob to turn our work up-side-down in fifteen minutes of yelling, this is perfectly true. On the other hand, each member of this organization has a full and effective voice in the con- duct of the organization. The mem- bers of the Board of Directors are elected at an annual meeting at which every member has a right to vote. Nominations to the Board can be made by anybody who wishes. The Board of Directors thus elected appoints the Executive Officers. This is the method pursued by practically every organization which is perma- nently effective. Finally some people who find pleas- ure and profit in opposing the officers of the N. A. A. C. P. get very much up-set if these same officers answer attacks in words just as sharp as those of the attacking parties; but surely all this is a matter of taste. If a man calls me a thief there are various kinds of answers recommended by human experience. But certainly pained surprise is the last attitude for the accuser to take if I reply that the gentleman looks to me distinctly like a liar. The facts of the case however are what the public is really interested in and these facts are clear. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS THREE EFFORTS UNDER the League of Nations are of interest to colored folk. First, the system of mandates by which fifteen millions of people occupying an area as large as Europe have been placed under the rule of certain European nations. The Mandates Commission, however, has been repeatedly denied permis- sion to find out at first hand just what the mandatory powers are do- ing in these territories. This is un- fortunate and sometime such power
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JANUARY, must be granted. Secondly, a new Anti-Slavery treaty has been signed by twenty-three nations. The only suspicious thing about this is that apparently it has been aimed at the household service of Abyssinia in- stead of considering the shameless exploitation of labor in English, French and Belgian Africa. The third step is that of the International Labor Organization which proposes for the next two or three years to frame with the help of experts an international treaty covering condi- tions for the future employment of colored laborers. Here again the misfortune is that apparently few representatives of the colored labor- ers have been called in council while white capital is there in force. Some time the Negro people of the Ameri- cas will realize that they ought to have permanent representation at Geneva. UNIONS THE UNIONIZING OF BLACK LABOR is slowly progressing. We learn from reliable sources that of the 10,000 Pullman porters in the United States over 5,000 are in the new Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Some 500 of the best citizens of New York have recently sponsored a dinner for this union “as the key group of Negro labor and as the first group to form a successful labor union for itself”. Particularly is this organization important be- cause of the severe fight which it is having against the company union formed by the Pullman Company. High-handed but impotent methods have been used to force them into this puppet union. The strike of the Paper Box Union in New York has revealed the fact that many Negroes are in the Union and a special appeal has been sent out saying: “Our colored members who are on strike at the present time are just as vigilant as the rest of the workers in the strike. They have maintained their jobs and conditions in the past because they have found the 1927 131 Paper Box Makers’ Union an upright and fearless body that will protect the rights of workers irrespective of color or creed.” In Chicago, colored women work- ers have been on a strike and have been helped by their white fellows. On the other hand, the old F. of L. spirit is hard to kill and white union musicians in various parts of the country have been striking against colored union musicians belonging to the same union and holding union cards! WHO’S WHO WE ARE RECEIVING numbers of letters asking about the publica- tion entitled “‘Who’s Who in Colored America”. To all these we are reply- ing as follows: When the publication ““Who’s Who in Colored America” was first pro- jected it was in the hands of an able editorial staff and of honest business men. Because primarily of the dif- ficulty in raising sufficient funds to finance so ambitious an undertaking, the project has changed hands sev- eral times. THE CRISIS is not ac- quainted with the present editors or publishers and is consequently un- able to recommend the enterprise or to make any intelligent commentary upon it. LYNCHING THE CURVE OF LYNCHING has gone up again. The figures are: 83 0.0» 0.0.0 an 64 In the years 1900-1919 the lowest number lynched in any one year was forty-eight and the highest one hun- dred and eight. The crusade of the N. A. A. C. P. started the awakening of the white South and brought the figures sharply down. In _ 1926 thirty-one have already been lynched as we go to press. | —
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Negro Suffrage SENATOR WILLIAM E. BORAH Written especially for Tur Crisis. See editorial on “The War Amendments’. URING the discussion of the woman suffrage Amendment in 1914, I had this to say: “I am one of those who has never hesitated to say that the writing into the Constitution of the United States of the fifteenth amendment at the time it was written there was a mistake. It came be- fore the hot passions of the Civil War had cooled and judgment had time to resume its sway, while the engendered feelings which had been accumulating through years of strife and conflict still prevailed. It came in a large measure as a sort of re- taliation and revenge. The idea of taking a people and lifting them out of a thou- sand years of savagery and barbarism, of three hundred years of slavery and placing them in a position where they were required to perform all the duties and obligations of citizenship of a highly civilized Republic! No race in the history of the world has ever been equal to such a thing and no race in the history of the world could do such a thing. And then, when they did not measure up to the task we either turned upon them or left them to their political fate. Men rise to the duties and responsi- bilities of citizenship in a great republic under years of stress and strain and under years of tutelage and education. I have never changed my view as then expressed. By this I do not mean to say the Negro should not have been enfran- chised at all or that he should not have been given definite assurance that, upon measuring up to certain conditions, he would be enfranchised. The true policy was the policy pointed out by Mr. Lincoln when he declared in his last public utter- ance that the right to vote should be “con- ferred upon the very intelligent and those who served our cause as soldiers”. His policy was that of educating and prepar- ing the Negro for his new duties and re- sponsibilities in citizenship. Beginning with those who were more thoroughly equipped, the right of franchise standards earned it. If the North had devoted its efforts to bettering the conditions of the Negro, to educating him instead of con- fining its action to politics, it would have been better for all concerned, for the white and the black and for the whole country. The Negro in my judgment would be in- finitely better off today had such a rule been adopted. But all this is a discussion of history. My views at the time first expressed were called out by reason of the pending Suf- frage Amendment to the Constitution. The fact is, however, that the Fifteenth Amend- ment became and is a part of the Consti- tution and every effort in good faith should be made to live up to it. The Negro has made great progress, all things considered, during the last fifty years. He is particu- larly entitled to credit for, amid all his ad- verse circumstances, he has shown little, or no inclination to join with those politi- cal sects which rail at constitutional gov- ernment. It is under these circumstances that we must deal with the Fifteenth Amendment at the present time. I know of course you will not agree with me for I have read much after your views, but in my opinion the South is in good faith seeking to work out this problem under and in accordance with the Consti- tution. I do not find any spirit of nulli- fication. It was an almost insuperable task imposed upon the South but, considering all things, I believe the South has acted quite as well with the Negro as the North. We have been just as intolerant when oc- casion seemed to call for intolerance as the South. We have employed the mob also. We have played politics with the Negro from the time that Charles Sumner de- clared that to enfranchise this uneducated mass was foreign to his convictions and to his whole habit of thought but that pol- ities required it. We should seek to secure right and justice to the Negro. But I would do so in recognition of the real facts rather than upon the basis of political ex- pediency and at the expense of the physical and moral advancement of the Negro. I would do so by cooperating with the South and not in distrust of the South. This is a problem of great national interest and can only be satisfactorily solved by complete cooperation between the North and the South. Such bills as the force bill and the 132
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Dyer Anti-lynching bill were and are founded upon a wholly false theory. I do not claim, of course, that the South has fully and completely solved the problem nor established equity between the two races. But I do unhesitatingly claim that, taking into consideration race and condi- tions and also the manner in which this JANUARY, 1927 133 problem was thrust upon a proud and brave people, the South is entitled to the highest credit and also entitled to the confidence and cooperation of the North. I think that during the last ten years especially, there has been the most gratifying evidence of effort to work out this problem in harmony with the Constitution.” An Incident in Education DAVID H. PIERCE HE Negro is inclined to glorify—some- times—the educational opportunities which the North affords his race. How far are they permitted him because he is too few to constitute a “problem”? It is my conviction that mere social contact among races is not sufficient to develop under- standing unless such contact is combined with positive, aggressive education for un- derstanding. Protagonists of radical labor organizations are advocating the necessity for inter-racial unity as a primary re- quisite for mass progress. Social contact is not sufficient, they argue, to insure perma- nent friendship. The following incident would justify their contention. Kent, Ohio, boasts a modern state normal college. Negro girls have invariably been included among the student-body. Dis- crimination has never been reported from the institution until—well, until a new ma- tron arrived upon the scene. Despite the school’s record of liberality, hitherto un- broken, a solitary state employe could ini- tiate and obtain support for a reactionary policy. Last autumn, at an informal dance, the matron refused to permit a Negro girl to dance with her colored escort at a college function. Without a solitary protest from white classmates, the matron felt called upon to oust the Negroes. When inquiry was made by the writer to learn the reason for the matron’s conduct in ordering the Negro couple from the floor, Mr. John E. McGilvrey, President of the Normal Col- lege replied: “Colored students here have all the edu- cational advantages of the white students, including the very unusual opportunity of practice teaching in the training school with white pupils, notwithstanding the fact that we have met considerable opposition to this from the parents of these children. Such arrangement is very unusual and not found elsewhere to my knowledge. “Colored students have been admitted to the dormitories the same as white students, a privilege not enjoyed at other state in- stitutions and they are welcomed to all official social functions of the college, such as the President’s reception, the faculty re- ceptions to the students and the college re- ceptions at the close of the year. “Beyond this the college would not wish or undertake to dictate to either white or colored students in student social activities. We would not wish to assign white and col- ored students to the same room in the dor- mitories; we would not like to require either group to admit the other to their respective social functions, dances, etc., for no benefit would likely result.” The foregoing masterpiece of incon- sistency needs no refutation, merely expo- sure. Readers should bear in mind that Kent rests in the Klan belt. Not*far from this city a Jewess was dismissed as a teach- er because her religion was discovered. She had pretended to Episcopalianism, but when the truth was accidentally discovered she was ousted as incompetent. This in the village of North Bloomfield, Ohio. In an- other village of the Buckeye state a young Catholic was prevented from serving when he had been elected principal. But, as we essayed at the beginning, this is merely the record of an incident. Edu- cational problems merely interest those few peculiar gentry who are unable to get rich in selling bonds, soap or real estate. The teacher or student of education interested in social progress in public education can merely cry aloud, assured that no response will be forthcoming. Nobody cares enough to act. Education of youth is so prosaic and dividends cannot be clipped semi- annually on the investment.
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The Death Game A Story EDWIN DRUMMOND SHEEN This story received the second prize of $50 in THE CRISIS contest of 1926. Edwin Drummond Sheen was born in De- catur, Illinois, in 1901 and was graduated from James Milliken University m 1925 with high honors. He has done newspaper work in Chicago and is now a graduate stu- dent in English in the University of IIli- nois. OUTH DEARBORN STREET is not especially appealing to the esthetic eye. In the “Loop”, of course, it boasts of thriv- ing businesses and towering buildings, but below the railroad yards that lie behind the old Polk Street Station, it stretches un- tidily southward for miles and miles, an almost unrelieved expanse of cracked and dirty sidewalks, or none at all; badly paved streets, filled with gritty dust in dry weath- er and oozy slime in wet and sad looking old frame houses, their blackened boards unpainted for ages seemingly, their cracked windows stuffed with rags and paper and hung with dirty green blinds, sieve-like of appearance when the lamp light shines through at night, their doors wide open in warm weather, revealing a generous portion of cheerless interior, with bare, frequently crumbling walls, broken and home-made furniture, ragged carpets, general disorder and hopeless resignation. In the long sum- mer evenings, after supper (for seven o’clock comes early in Chicago with its day- light saving time), there are little girls with their short hair in many dusty braids and little boys with hardly any hair at all; and there are loud-mouthed men who sit on the steps and pick guitars and dance and sing the blues; and there are bold wo- men in loose-fitting, low-necked, sleeveless gingham house dresses, who chew tobacco and swear and allow the loud-mouthed men to handle them with shameless familiarity. I NELL BOWEN Nell Bowen wasn’t the girl she used to be. She admitted as much to herself al- most every time she saw her likeness in EDWIN D. SHEEN the peeling mirror above her dresser, her hair thin and streaked with gray at twenty- eight, her eyes dull and sunken, with dark blue lids, bordered with ghastly pinkish half moons; her lips pale and twitching and her skin harsh and dry and covered with fine white hairs ... In the bright lights of Wilson Avenue and the Uptown district, where she once had known questionable notoriety as “Homebreaking Nell”, high powered motor ears still purred with secretive mystery and slim white arms still twined about fat red necks and expensive furs and jew- elry were still charged confidentially to prominent names and wives still sat alone at night; but Nell Bowen was buried— buried in the dirt and squalor of Dear- born Street, stripped of her glory, shorn of her power, forgotten by the world that once groveled at her feet. It was only twelve years ago that she had run away from her quiet home ir 134 x
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JANUARY, Indiana and come to the big city in quest of a thrill. She got it—in a cheap cab- aret, where the admission was only a dime and the men came collarless and wore square toed shoes. She couldn’t sing at al! and her dancing was poor; but she wasn’t afraid to undress and they told her she had personality; so her rise to fame was rapid. In less than two years she was entertaining at the rendezvous of the elite, where gunmen rubbed elbows with bank- ers’ sons and saloon keepers hob-nobbed with the socially prominent. She learned to be a “good pal”. There were ‘long rides in the country, piles of pretty clothes, numerous “little parties”, now and then an “affair”, ending in the divorce court, with her picture on the front pages of newspapers as co-respondent. She became the world’s sweetheart. Lifelong friends fell out about her; wives sought their mothers; husbands hardened their hearts and looked out the window; one man hanged himself; another went off and lost himself in the world that did not know. And “Homebreaking Nell” laughed through it all and thought it would last forever. Then, one night, she slew Ed Hines, her third husband. The jury acquitted her, of course, after a second trial, but the prosecutor had prosecuted hard and the six months in jail before the final disposi- tion of her case brought out the hard, ugly seams in her face which before had been so light and had crept in so grad- ually that they were not noticed by her admirers. When she went back to her old job, the manager lodked her over critically and shook his head. She had to go to a smaller cabaret and after a time to a still smaller one. Then, the patrons tired of her there and she had to descend an- other rung and so on continuously until she landed in a “joint” worse, if possible, than the one in which she had started. It was here that Joe Nixon had found her. She wasn’t much to love then. Heavy drinking and drugs, which she had resorted to to quiet her nerves after the ordeal of her two trials, had wrecked her quite thor- oughly. But Joe seemed to think that she was still human and had a soul in her and she liked the gentle way in which he spoke to her and the tender look that was no- ticeable on his rough countenance when he gave her gifts. Nell had had five white husbands in her brief life (for two others 1927 135 had succeeded the ill-fated Ed Hines), but none of them had ever appeared so sincere and true blue as the Negro, Joe Nixon. After a time, Nell began to feel that she liked Joe. And so it came about that Nell Bowen took up her residence on Dearborn street among the people of Joe Nixon. She found them at the worst not unsociable, nor worse than those of the same class in her own race. There was a time when she didn’t care much for Negroes—considered them rather uncouth animals. But now, she longed for companionship and the popular- ity that she used to enjoy in years past; and she dreamed of a return to power among black folk, when the name of “Home- breaking Nell” would once more make wo- men sigh and men forget their vows. And Joe Nixon, Negro though he was, was a man. Although he was of peaceful temperament, he had a compelling sort of personality that made him feared, respected and admired by his associates. At the in- stitution of “Fast Black”, on State Street, where he frequently went in search of amusement, he was known as the nerviest gambler that ever riffled a deck of cards. No matter how high the stakes, or how dis- couraging his run of luck, Joe Nixon never lost either his head or his nerve. Winning or losing, he was always the same Joe, making no boasts, asking no sympathy, dis- playing no emotion. They called him Iron Joe, for he had a soul of steel. He was born to rule. Perhaps if he had had a little education and social position, he would have long ago been in the Illinois Legis- lature. II SHUG LEWIS It was something after: three o’clock on Sunday morning when a creaking taxicab turned into Dearborn street from Thirty- third and stopped with characteristic ab- ruptness in the middle of the block before a wooden frame building, which from the outside appeared to consist of two flats and a basement. The two upper flats were without blinds and their broken windows were unpatched, indicating that they were vacant; but a dim light in the front of the basement hinted that somebody lived there. The colored driver of the cab opened the door and examined the meter as a short, narrow-eyed, bullet-headed Negro hopped to the curb and reached into his pocket for =
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136 the fare without making the slightest pre- tense at assisting the dilapidated, old-young white woman who stepped out after him. After paying the driver, however, he put his arm around her affectionately enough and as they walked slowly toward the rusty door of the basement flat, he talked softly to her. There was a pause while the wo- man turned a key in the lock and pushed the door open; then the two entered the flat, the man going in first. A moment later, the oil lamp on the table was turned up and filled the room with a sad yellow light. There was pathetic disorder. A _ table in the center with a ragged cover; a bed in the corner with a ragged spread. The lace curtains were ancient, soiled and care- lessly hung. The floor was covered with bits of old carpet, frayed at the edges and worn in the middie. The wall paper was stained and faded, where it was not en- tirely torn off. The atmosphere was damp and musty This was the home of Nell Bowen. Her guest on this early morning occa- sion, however, was not Joe Nixon—that was certain. Joe was tall, broad-should- ered, square-jawed and light-brownskinned of complexion; not short and dark and bul- let headed like this visitor. The years of reverse and decline, in fact, that had worked so much havoc with Nell’s body, had not entirely crushed out her adven- turous spirit. Joe Nixon, of course, was all that she could desire for a companion, but Nell Bowen had always considered a single lover woefully inadequate for her- self. She liked to have men do battle over her. It gave her a strange sense of mas- tery to see two men become beasts be- cause she had smiled at both. Ever since her coming to Dearborn street, however, she had been known as Joe Nixon’s girl and other men, knowing her to be such, hesitat- ed to respond to her sly flirtations, whether they were interested in them or not. For Joe had the reputation of a man who played all games on the square—life, love, cards— and though he was peaceable enough most of the time, it was known that he stood for no “fooling” and had the wherewithal to make himself unpleasant in case any misguided person should succeed in ruffling his even temper. Before long, therefore, Nell Bowen found that by virtue of the fact that she was THE CRISIS Joe Nixon’s girl, she would probably be left severely alone. The lack of competition for her hand irked her and consequently, when Shug Lewis, in utter defiance of the certain wrath of the mighty Joe, began to shower her with attentions, she welcomed him with both figurative and literal open arms. Unlike Joe, Shug Lewis did not work. However, by writing “policy” and playing whatever confidence games he could find victims for, with a little trick gam- bling on the side, he was able to realize an income sufficiently respectable to con- vince Nell that his friendship was worth cultivating. Nell knew that he was con- sidered a low mean creature and that no- body really liked him, but he was a valuable source of income and she could easily over- look his little faults. Shug dropped down beside Nell on the leaking red plush settee and yawned. “Yes,” he said with helpless resignation, “I might knowed we would be raided to- night. I thought something was going to happen no sooner’n I saw that jack of spades on the sidewalk when we was going out.” Nell looked slightly annoyed. “You still worrying about that jack of spades?” she said in her dry husky voice. “Seems to me like a man of your age could get over all that superstition.” “Ain’t no superstition,” insisted Shug stubbornly as he mechanically put his arm about her and drew her closer to him. “That’s just the truth. There’s a conjure on that jack of spades for all my folks. I was playing whist this’afternoon at Fast Black’s, for two dollars a game and they turned up that jack of spades for trumps three times and damned if I had more than one little trump airy a one of the times they turned it. Commenced to play black- jack and it got after me again. Busted me out from twelve twice and every time I got a deal, some guy’d catch an ace with it and make blackjack on me. It don’t mean me no good, I tell you.” Nell patted him tenderly on the cheek and kissed him. “Maybe that’ll take the Joner off you,” she said teasingly. Shug did not look reassured. “At that,” Nell went on soothingly, “you were luckier than the rest of the bunch. They couldn’t make no bail and they’ve got to stay in jail till Monday.”
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JANUARY, “I know, but I’ll have to see that judge down on Forty-eighth street Monday morn- ing right along with them,” Shug retorted gloomily. “He’ll just about give me about sixty days too, ’cause he ain’t got no time for me.” Nell giggled. “Tell him it’s all the jack of spades’ fault and maybe he’ll let you go.” The seriousness of Shug’s expression was pathetic. “That ain’t nothing to joke about, Nell. I tell you, that jack of spades don’t mean me no good no time. Do you know what the jack of spades is?” Nell didn’t. She didn’t appear to be much interested, but Shug went on to ex- plain. “It’s a nigger that used to be in Missis- sippi about thirty years ago when I wasn’t nothing but a kid. His name was Jack Spayd and folks all said he was a con- jure man. My paw told the white folks something he did once and they got after him and lynched him for it and the last thing he did was to cuss paw out just when they was kicking the barrel out from under him.” Nell moved rather impatiently and sighed, but Shug continued persistently. “Paw goes home right away and there is the jack of spades on the front step, with salt sprinkled over it and a knife stuck through it; and two weeks later, paw was dead with the appendicitis and while he was sick, he was always saying that he felt like a knife as sticking in his side.” “Do tell,” observed Nell dryly; but Shug refused to take the hint. “Every since then, don’t none of my folks see a jack of spades without we know there’s some trouble on the way. There was my brother’s kid. Got to eating a card and choked to death and what do you think the card was?” Nell hazarded the queen of diamonds and laid her faded head on his shoulder. Shug was unmoved by her affection. “It was that same Jack of spades. And then, I was coming from Fast Black’s two years ago and a card blew down from somewhere and landed face up right in front of me and it was the jack of spades and when I got home there was a special delivery there that ma was dead. And then I know one time when—” “Aw, be still, Shug.” 1927 137 Nell had reached the limit of her en- durance. It was little short of remarkable what a bore the sight of a jack of spades could make Shug Lewis. She essayed to touch his pride. “Who ever heard of a big man being afraid of a little jack of spades,” she chided. “The jack of spades ain’t nothing but a card. You'd better be afraid of something that can do you some harm. I heard that Joe Nixon was looking for you to lay his hand against your head for run- ning around here so much. You know Joe’s a bad fellow when he gets mad.” This bit of strategy to divert Shug’s mind from. his sordid family history was successful. He gave a contemptuous grunt. “What I want to be afraid of Joe Nixon for?” he retorted. “He’s a meat man, ain’t he? If he’s concrete and eats nails, he can bluff me, but if he’s made out of meat, I’ll cut him down to my size.” Nell was pleased at this reaction. led him on. “Joe’s a sweet papa,” she observed slyly. “Don’t you talk about hurting him. He’s my man.” “Hell,” commented Shug sullenly. “I'll bet he don’t bring in these bucks like I do.” Nell stroked Shug’s stiff, knotty hair lov- ingly. “The only trouble with Joe,” she said rather pensively, “is that he’s always talk- ing about holding myself up and making something out of me and a lot of damned movie stuff like that. I ain’t never going to be anybody but Nell Bowen anyway. I can’t get on to his line.” ! a Shug took her and placed her on his lap. She twined her wrinkled arms about his neck as she had once, in her fresher days, twined them about the necks of million- aires. “As long as you’re Nell Bowen, you’re bound to be all right with Shug Lewis,” that gentleman declared. “If Joe Nixon wants a Grand Boulevard girl, let him go over on Grand Boulevard and get one. I come to Dearborn Street after mine.” “Tell mamma the truth, boy, tell mamma the truth,” rejoined Nell. Came a knocking at the door as of a powerful fist. The story of the “Death Game” will be concluded in the February number of THE Crisis which will be ready January 15. She
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College LOREN R. MILLER This essay received the first prize of $75 in THE Crisis contest of 1926. T last you have come to college. You are going to be a lawyer. You tell that so proudly now. You are bewildered by what you have found at college. Some- how you feel a vague disappointment. You can’t tell just where your disappoint- ment lies, yet you feel it. Perhaps you expected too much. You thought that col- lege would be different. You have not found it so. You had always thought that college was a place where they had Ideals. Of course you never had any clear per- ception of what Ideals were. You just sup- posed that Ideals made college different. You decide that if you understood col- lege, you might find those things which you expected. You hasten to adapt yourself. You join the proper things; the college Y. M. C. A., Forums, Groups, the most pros- perous church, colored of course. Perhaps you pledge to a frat, (colored, too), go through Hell week and gain a coveted pin, which you prize so highly at first and later on bestow on any coed who strikes your fancy. You feel a little sense of importance. You are becoming part of your school. You are caught in the whirl. You shout at pep meetings. You attend convocation. You hear Great Educators glibly talk Democracy; Noted Divines urge Find God; Successful Business Men Shout Success. You can’t quite understand all this gibber- ish, but these men must know whereof they speak. They were all once poor undergrads like you; now they are worshipped. You swallow the whole sickening mess. These things, you say, must be the Ideals which I sought at college. You are swept along with the crowd. You fear to stop and reason. You feel more and more uncomfortable. “Here,” you say, “are the same prejudices that I have always met.” That bothers you. You didn’t expect prejudice and Ideals to dwell side by side. You appeal to the older students. They answer evasively. They say, “Well, we can’t expect too much.” You have met the inferiority complex that permeates your race-thinking; you don't know it, but you have. You reason that if you become like the other students they will have to accept you. You affect cigarettes, liquor, wild parties, all collegiate things. You catch the school spirit. You root wildly for the team. You boast of your school prowess. Of course you can never hope to play on the team. You cannot belong to literary societies or pep organizations or any other extra cur- ricula activities. You accept such discrim- inations as your place. Inferiority is fast becoming a part of your thinking process. A year or two passes thus. You have become a leader in your various activities. You have not found what you sought at college despite your mad efforts. That vague something which you called Ideals still eludes you. You try to lose yourself and your uneasiness in your activities. You are not very successful in that. A dozen little discriminations annoy you, discriminations that you have known all your life, it is true, but you hoped to escape them at college. You are urged to support the school and always denied any part in it. You become discontented. You still hear learned discourses on Democracy. You begin to suspect the speakers of a little hypocrisy. You think that the Noted Divines are perhaps not as much engaged in God’s work as they would pretend. You become a little critical of the activi- ties. Nothing ever comes of them. You sense that they, too, are hollow gestures. They are but playthings from which ambi- tious students gain honor. The students as a whole are disappoint- ing. They shun you except when they want something. That hurts; after you have made such an effort to be like them, then you can’t be accepted. They can never refer to you in the singular. You are al- ways addressed as one of “you fellows”. You can’t understand why you can never be an individual. Your own groups are far from satisfac- tory. For the most part they are engaged in a mad effort to conform, to be collegiate. Underneath this outward show you find them cynical enough. They give public lip service to success and Democracy, but they 138
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sneer at it privately. However they are in the grip of a terrible inferiority complex and hope for a chance to be allowed to achieve a small success. That’s all they ask. You begin to look more critically at the social order. You soon determine that al! is not as well with the scheme of things as you have been told. In fact you think it is not well at all. You have been misled. You turn your attention to your own leaders. On close inspection you find them leading a double existence much the same as you lead in college. They must shout platitudes of Democracy with leaders of the other race, but must never hope for too much for themselves. They cringe and cower before the others. They fear to strike out boldly lest they lose the miserable status assigned to them. You shudder to think that this must be your lot. You see now that it is part of your inheritance along with a dark skin. The whole thing palls on you. Activities, groups, parties, being collegiate all fail you. You try to escape. You withdraw within yourself. You turn to literature. You discover Poetry, Philosophy; you - knew hazily that such things existed but you never had time to enjoy them. A new world opens to you, a magnificent world of the arts, Poetry, Painting, Music, Sculp- ture. You are captivated. You push further. You find you must rid yourself of old pre- judices and values to enjoy this strange new world. You do so gladly. Even your old God must go. You regret that about God. He was such a convenient old chap on which to blame everything, but he musi go. You go further. You have discovered Life! Life, there it is, Life! This is what you sought when you came to College. This is the Ideal of which you dreamed. You dream anew, wonderful rose-hued dreams; dreams of Oxford, of Paris, of Rome, of Life. Dreams which you sense intuitively will never come true. That is why they are so dear to you. You decide secretly, almost shame- facedly that you will not be a lawyer. You have found yourself. You have found how to live. money or for success. at any cost. You will not be forced to live a terrible, You will not barter living for You will cling to it JANUARY, 1927 139 double existence cringing before the crowd. Leaders, you think, are like the college cheer-leader shouting with the masses. He who yells the college yell louder than any- one else becomes the yell leader. In life he who shouts Democracy louder than the other is made a Senator. You don’t want that. You want the right to think, to live your own way. You dream like that for awhile, then you become uneasy again. You know you can’t be in college forever. You are faced with the necessity of making a living. What career will you choose? You examine your- self. You may write a little; short sketchy things, or half baked verse. You know that you need time and training to develop in that respect. There are many things from which your color will forever bar you. Oh, if you were a genius you might break down those bar- riers, but you aren’t. You wonder, you think of men of your race who have suc- ceeded: Dunbar, Tanner, Hayes, Cullen, Hughes, you realize that they are what the world terms genius. You are not. What will you do? How will you find time and opportunity to develop yourself? You become panicky, frightened. It is as though you wandered in a dark house, alone and afraid and could see the bright light outside. Then suddenly you found the door locked and barred and couldn’t get out. The race above, refusing you; your own race below unable to help you and you, caught between them. The one thrusting you down, the other helpless to shove you up. You are helpless. You become frantic. Then you are caught as in a terfible storm. A storm that grips you, tears at you, beats you down and casts you aside beaten. The storm clears; no it doesn’t clear. It settles! That’s it; it settles into a heavy fog! A terrible blighting fog to blind you, always. You must go on with that fog forever in your face. On and on fighting a battle that is forever lost. No battle is so bitter as the one you must fight knowing that defeat awaits inevitably at the end. And defeat exists only in the mind! Now if your in- feriority complex would let you go, you might rise, but it won’t; it grips you more tightly. i ‘
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140 You know that you will be crushed and crammed into a preconceived mold, your place, then sneered at and hated because you are there. That is reality. You must be a sacrifice to superior White Gods; to inferior Black Gods. You are hopeless, dejected. You cast about for some thing on which to cling. Not God, you have lost him, bartered him for reality, then lost them both. You will never find him again. You will pretend to, but you won't. Not the Church; you know it is hollow, empty. Not your old values; you know now that they were but illusions. Not your own race to any great extent; it too is hopeless and helpless. Then, because it is the path of least re- sistance, you hate and curse. You curse yourself, your race, all races, the Gods, a!! things. You hate blindly and with a holy hatred; it is holy like the hatred of the Crusaders for Moslems; holy like the hatred of Amer- ica for her enemies when she went forth to make a world safe for Democracy; holy like the hatred of missionaries for heathen Gods as they go to plant the Cross of Jesus Christ. You lose sight of everything but hating for a while. Your career. Oh yes, your career; you must have a career. You were right in the first place. You will be a lawyer after all; a lawyer to confound these fools with their own laws giving life, liberty and the pur- suit of happiness. Ha, that will be sweet, to see them choke on their own mouthings! You will show them just how far you will rise in spite of them. You will be ruthless and make them give you a place. You plunge into law. You secretly loathe THE CRISIS it. You still find yourself writing bitter little sketches, tragic bits of verse but you repress them; then you find your superla- tive emotions slowly receding. They were too high to sustain themselves. You aren’t so bitter now, neither do you dream any- more. You return to commonplace things and become passively interested in them. You become more tolerant of your fellow students’ attitude. You understand now why they accepted their place so readily. They had gone through the struggle before you. You see your leaders in a new light. You understand the terrible burden that they must carry. They must live a double life; their only escape is in their hypo- critical attitude of acceptance of things they know are false. You realize fully now what you will be in the end. You must be but little more than a shyster lawyer. You will be pushed down to preying on police court characters, loose women and gamblers, with perhaps a small share of legitimate business. You will have to become a pillar of the church, a respectable, God-fearing citizen. You will, in time, even prate of honesty and success as those before you ‘have done. You may even inspire some one to follow your example. Secretly you hope that you will be able to keep a part of you sacred to your dreams. It will be a small part, you know. You are beaten now and thankful with Swinburne “That even the weariest river, Winds some where safe to sea.” You hope, against hope, that the winding will not be too long. That Hill BLANCHE TAYLOR DICKINSON This poem won honorable mention in THE CRISIS contest of 1926. T crawled away from ‘neath my feet, And left me standing there; A little at a time, went up An atmospheric stair. I couldn’t go for watching it, To see where it would stop; A tree sprang out and waved to me When it had reached the top. The tree kept nodding friendly like, Beckoning me to follow; And I went crawling up and up, Like it did from the hollow. Then I saw why the thing would go A-soaring from the dell— T'was nearing Heaven every bound, And fleeing fast from Hell!
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National Association for the Advance-2@ ment of Colored People ANNUAL MEETING HE N. A. A. C. P. will hold its annual meeting in New York on Sunday, Jan- uary 2, 1927, and Monday, January 3rd. The first of these will be a mass meeting in the beautiful new St. Mark’s M. E. Church at St. Nicholas Avenue and 138th Street. The speakers at this meeting will be Léuis Marshall, member of the National Board of Directors of the N. A. A. C. P. and distinguished authority on constitu- tional law and Walter White, Assistant Secretary of the N. A. A. C. P. Mr. White will tell of his remarkable experience in investigating the triple lynching recently in Aiken, S. C., which is probably the most effective job of its kind which has ever been done. He will reveal at that time certain facts which he secured but which as yet have not been made public in order that the lynchers may not have been warned in ad- vance. A very large attendance is expected at this meeting and those who plan to at- tend are urged to reach the church early in order to be assured of admittance. The meeting will begin promptly at _ three o’clock. James Weldon Johnson will pre- side. On Monday afternoon, January 3rd, at two o'clock the annual business meeting will be held at the national office, 69 Fifth Avenue. At this time the annual reports of the secretary, treasurer and other offi- cers will be read; certain members of the Board of Directors and the Executive Offi- cers will be elected and plans for the work in 1927 will be submitted. A cordial invitation is extended to mem- bers and friends of the Association to at- tend both of these very important meet- ings. AIKEN P to the time of the N. A. A. C. P. investigation by Walter White and the subsequent front page stories from the New York World’s correspondent, there had been a general silence on the part of newspapers and public men in South Caro- lina. It was generally conceded that al- though the lynchers were known and al- though it would be easy to establish their identity in court, yet there was not the slightest prospect that any of the mob mur- derers would be prosecuted, much less pun- ished. But when the New York World, day after day, on its front page published the dis- graceful story of South Carolina’s mob out- rage, backing up its news reports with scathing editorial comment and cartoons, South Carolina editors gained courage and a general demand for action began to be voiced; with the consequence that Governor McLeod sent his detective, W. W. Rogers, to the scene and, late in November, the Governor announced not only that six pris- oners in the Aiken jail at the time had made affidavits identifying some of the lynchers, but that he had obtained evidence from other sources. And the Governor promised early action. Up to November 30, however, although Governor McLeod had _ repeatedly an- announced that he was gathering evidence and that he intended to act, he had not removed Sheriff Nollie Robinson against whom charges had been made of delivering the prisoners to the mob, nor the jailer and other peace officers mentioned in con- nection with the mob murder. The N. A. A. C. P. regards this lynch- ing and the publicity it has received as one of the most important blows struck in the fifteen-year fight against this evil. There could be no mention of “the usual crime” in extenuation of this outrage, a colored wo- man having been one of the victims and another of the victims having been ordered acquitted by the presiding judge, with every prospect that the two other defendants would also have been acquitted if the trial had been allowed to go on. The entire case constitutes one of the blackest stains upon the repute of. the white South that has ever been brought to light; upon Senator Cole Blease who offered publicly to defend the lynchers free 141
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THE 142 of charge; upon the public men and news- papers who, with few exceptions at first remained silent or condoned the crime and upon the public opinion of a nation which continues to tolerate almost without pro- test, wanton, brutal murder, in contempt and defiance of its courts and legal processes. Though the lynching, according to the World, has not been condemned by a single white minister of the gospel from his pulpit in the whole State of South Carolina, there have been three daily papers which have condemned the lynching and demanded the punishment of the lynchers in uncom- promising terms. The most outspoken has been The Columbia Record of which R. Charlton Wright is editor and the other two are The Columbia State and The Charleston News and Courier. VICTORY IN INDIAN. APOLIS HE unceasing efforts of the N. A. A. C. P. to defeat attempts to limit resi- dential areas for colored home buyers re- sulted in another significant victory in No- vember. Early in 1926, the City Council of Indianapolis as the result of pressure of the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Negro bodies and in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States had declared segregation ordinances unconsti- tutional, passed such a law. This ordinance made it unlawful for any white person to establish a home-residence in a Negro com- munity or a Negro in a white community “except on the written consent of a ma- jority of the persons of the opposite race inhabiting such community or portion of the city to be affected”. When the N. A. A. C. P. carried the case of Buchanan vs. Warley from Louisville in 1917 to the United States Supreme Court and there secured a decision which declared such ordinances unconstitutional, the prin- ciple was established which led to this most recent victory in Indiana. When there was talk in Indianapolis of passing such an ordinance, the Indianapolis Branch of the N. A. A. C. P. and the National Office fol- lowed the situation very closely. Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, however, the ordinance was forced under pressure through the Indianapolis City Council and signed by the Mayor. Colored citizens of Indianapolis and fair SEGREGATION ‘these words: CRISIS minded white ones immediately contributed to the Indianapolis Branch some five thou- sand dollars to finance a test case. A col- ored man, Edward S. Gaillard, owning a piece of property in a block occupied largely by white people sold it to another colored man, Guy L. Grant, who later refused to go through with his agreement to purchase on the ground that the ordinance prohibited his using it as a home-residence. The at- torneys in the case retained by the N. A. A. C. P. were Messrs. Miller, Thompson and Daly, recognized as one of the most prominent white ‘aw firms of Indiana and two prominent colored attorneys, Messrs. Robert L. Brokenburr and W. S. Henry. The case resulted in a decision handed down by the Circuit Court on November 23rd, 1926, in which the Supreme Court decision in Buchanan vs. Warley was quoted to the effect that “property is more than the mere thing which a person owns. It is elementary that it includes the right to acquire, use and dispose of it. The Con- stitution protects these essential attributes of property. Halden vs. Hardy 169 U. S. 366,31. Property consists of the free use, enjoyment and disposal of a person’s ac- quisitions without control or diminution save by the law of the land.” The Indiana Court further remarked on the Supreme Court’s quotation of the case of Carey vs. Atlanta 143 Ga. 192, another case involv- ing a segregation ordinance, which said, “The effect of the ordinance under consid- eration was not merely to regulate a busi- ness or the like, but to use to destroy the right. of the individual to acquire, enjoy and dispose of his property. Being of this character, it was void as being opposed to the due process clause of the Constitution.” The Indiana Court decision ended with “T am of the opinion, there- fore, that General Ordinance 15, 1926, of the City of Indianapolis is constitutionally invalid as violating the Fourteenth Amend- ment to the Constitution of the United States and that there is no legal impedi- ment against defendant performing his part of the contract in question.” The decision in Indianapolis, while es- tablishing no new principle, is a further step towards the ending of efforts to herd Negro citizens into ghettos. The citizens of Indianapolis who made this victory pos- sible through contributions of money, time and legal efforts are to be congratulated.
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JANUARY, 1927 143 LOS ANGELES N.A.A.C.P. PRIZE BABIES AND BABIES WHO BROUGHT IN $100 OR MORE, 1925-26 Top Row:—Marion Edward Kauffman, Ruth Ivalene Fowler, C. Lewis, Charles D. Jr. Second Row:—Gloria Pearl Roberts, (1926), Barryer S. Hudson, (1925), Ursula lizabe Third Row:—Winifred Smith, Jennard Worshem Pearl (1925). Bottom Row:— Barryer S. Hudson, (1926), Lois Emma Amelia Prioleau, "Elbert Mae Liddell, Elmer ales Roberts. ¥ ' x = Be & £4 ‘ ry 4 ‘ts > é ; { 4 % Ry :
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The Little Page Christmas and New Year Greeting for Crisis Children EFFIE LEE NEWSOME CHRISTMAS CALENDAR CHAT “The fire with well-dried logs supplied, Went roaring up the chimney wide.” From “Christmas of the Olden Time” —Walter Scott. I SHALL never forget the Christmas day ‘that my sister and I spent in Galveston years ago. There were so many surprises connected with this occasion. In the first place, the weather would have been accept- able for June in Ohio. And then there was a greater surprise. Growing near the amber waters of the bay were some fluffy looking cedar trees that we saw in our first ride. We were certain that these were very pleasant however to nibble. So we had to content ourselves with tasting the salty sprays of Galveston cedar. And then the other surprise was the fir- ing of crackers and Roman candles and torpedoes—all that we used at home for the Fourth of July. During the entire holiday season the snap of fireworks could be heard and flashes of fire-made light were to be seen at dark. Northern Europe in ancient days had a custom of introducing in connection with yuletide celebrations a fire wheel, a relic of old sun worship- ping days, when the sun was called the “shining wheel”. We learn that the peo- ple of Konz on the Mozelle had a cus- ton on St. John’s would make wonder- ful Christmas trees and urged the grown folks to stop and get some of the trees to take home. But we were laughed at. “Those won't make Christmas trees,” some one told us. “They’re nothing in the world but salt cedars.” We did not know what salt cedars were and fairly longed for a chance to examine the graceful trees. That very afternoon we found with joy that the lady whose yard touched ours had one of these cedars growing near her dull green magnolia and spreading China berry clumps. How delightful to be at last within touching distance of one of those Christmas trees! But imagine our disappointment when we touched the spicy plumes only to have them crumble to pieces in our hands. A little Galveston girl told us that they Eve of covering an immense wheel with straw and after set- ting it afire sending it rolling down a steep hill while hun- dreds looked on. The very burning of the yule log, it has been said, ori- ginated with the sun worshippers wh o used fire as the sun's symbol. In feudal times one of the most joyous fea- tures of the Christ- mas Eve celebration was the hauling in of a huge yule log to some fireplace in a great baronial hall while all sang such songs as this that dates from the time of Henry VI: “Welcome be ye that are here, Welcome all and make good cheer, Welcome all another year, Welcome, yule!” Strange that some features of the heathen winter festivals should long ago 144 \
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JANUARY, have found the way into our observances of the Christian holiday. Sir Walter Scott said of Christmas of his age, “Still linger in our northern clime Some remnants of the old good time.” I wonder if the children who have their firework displays at Christmas are not un- consciously keeping up the tradition of the bonfire, the torch, the yule log and the wheel of flame that rolled on down the hill in those old-fashioned Christmases of long long ago. CAROL FOR CHRISTMAS Let Christmas light glow in fireside and hall. Let Christmas horns blow and Christmas bells call. Oh, pleasant, pleasant be the day That marks our LorD’s nativity! QUOITS N wintertime I have such fun When I play quoits with father. I beat him almost every game. He never seems to bother. He looks at mother and just smiles. All this seems strange to me, For when he plays with grown-up folks, He beats them easily. LAST YEAR’S DOLL last year’s doll— That’s really all— Nobody cares for me. Another face swings from the place I once had on a tree. The new doll’s dress Is rose and lace, My own was made of blue That once was clean with such a sheen As only silver knew. Now I’m all gray, Shoes thrown away, Nobody cares for me! The brand-new doll is really all That any one can see. But just next year She'll lie down here, Where I lie by the tree, Her rose-pink frock enough to shock Even the outcast ME! 14L 1927 AND NEW YEAR’S DAY N THE WOODS is likely to spend Christmas and New Year’s Day out- of-doors searching for something to eat because he never fills his pantry as do the other squirrels when nuts are plentiful ev- erywhere. Even Little Bell the cricket that seems often to be jingling a small sleigh bell prepares a winter store house of some sort—although he puts nothing in it but himself!—among the hearth bricks or in a plaster nick behind the kitchen stove. But Gray Squirrel, as we have said, i at large to range woods and orchard and barn yard. He must always be seeing something remarkable in his rounds—quail gathered in family circles out in the woods, rabbits dodging about the hedges, chicka- dees like fat leaves on the fruit trees and crows searching for grains of corn or in some cheery barn yard with little red hens and dominicks. In the woods he finds the brooks very quiet either shining with ice or white- covered and felty with snow. Under brown leaves he sees tiny tufts of green just as he finds fine-leaved bits of spearmint edg- ing the roadsides. On Christmas or New Year’s Day, Gray Squirrel in his food hunt- ing will travel among beech trees that are beautiful in their display of smooth mole- gray bark with here and there a dry bunch of sorrel colored leaves still clinging; sprawling water willows so homely in their black bareness, sycamores like white skele- tons and’ pines the cones of which give Gray Squirrel such pleasure. He is always happy to discover these buried under snow and leaves. He eats the seeds of the cones all winter long. They are his Christmas feast, his New Year’s dinner. You may feel rather sorry for this squirrel who does not get ready for winter, but of all the brisk-moving bright-eyed litt'’e creatures that skip about in the winter time none seem happier than Gray Squirrel. THE WISHING BOATS Over bright seas they glide and glide, The Wishing Boats, with sails spread wide, To brine in erates marked “FULFILLED HERE”, Those wishes you sent out last year. ||
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UF The Horizon ay ( Dr. Robert R. Moton, President of Tus- kegee Institute, who has been in poor health for some time, is taking a tour around the world for rest and recreation. With him are his wife, his daughter, Miss Katherine Moton and his physician, Dr. E. H. Dibble and Mrs. Dibble. They sailed from San Francisco November 26 and will visit Hawaii, Japan, China, India, Egypt, | the Mediterranean countries, France and England. ( Dr. F. A. McKenzie, former President of Fisk University, is now Professor of Sociology at Juniata College, Pennsylvania. ( “The Creation”, a Negro folk poem written by James Weldon Johnson, has been set to music by Louis Gruenberg, a leading modern composer. It was produced in Vienna last year and has just been given in New York at a Chamber Concert in Town Hall with Serge Koussevitzky, leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as con- ductor. The production was given under the auspices of the League of Composers; Julius Bledsoe was the soloist. The rendi- tion was a striking success. C Bennett College, Greensboro, North Car- olina, has been made a grade A college for colored women under the M. E. church. New buildings and equipment will be pro- vided and probably a new name. @ The new $200,000 branch of the col- ored Y. M. C. A. has been dedicated at Los Angeles, California. ( Madam Adelaide M. Herriot, coloratura soprano, is studying voice-culture in France She is well known in St. Louis. € Morris Brown University is seeking to raise $1,000,000 and already has $100,000 subscribed by the colored churches and the public of Atlanta, Georgia. @ Dr. James L. Martin of Philadelphia, has been clinical assistant in radiology in the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine since 1922. ‘ DR. ROBERT R. MOTON AND HIS PARTY 146. > . in 47
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1927 JANUARY, on F. Bate, Gerher Hardaway. Center: F. L. Barnett. Bottom Row:— rederick, George N. White, W. Rutherford Banks. Top Row:—John H. ‘ 14% ail 2 . é | | | " - | | | ae ae 4 = 3 _
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THE CRISIS ( In the Italian Army during the Great War there were no colored units at the front in Italy. Many of them, however, fought in Tripolitania against the Turks. A number of colored officers who had been educated at the schools in Adua fought with the white Italians after passing regular examinations. They were fine men, well educated and well liked by the soldiers. One officer was the son of an Italian gen- eral, Captain Mulazzani. He had an ex- cellent record. There are five or six col- ored officers now in the Italian Army. ¢ A committee composed of five white citizens and five Negroes of Ashville, N. C., have completed plans for the establishment of a library for Negroes. The library, situated in a room of the Y. M. C. A., has been completely remodeled to suit the re- quirements. C A Negro Y. M. C. A. costing $25,000 as the first unit of a proposed $175,000 struc- ture is to be constructed in Little Rock, Ark., immediately. The Negroes of Little Rock are entirely responsible for the build- ing of this first unit. € The State Federation of Colored Wo- men’s Clubs of Washington, interested in helping boys and girls who are struggling for an education, have compiled a cook- book of their favorite recipes, which they sell for the benefit of their scholarship fund. Money from this source has been lent to a young woman who is a sophomore in the College of Puget Sound. ITALIAN COLORED SOLDIERS, NORTH AFRICA (@ The American Missionary Association for the first time has appointed a colored man as an Associate Secretary with head- quarters in Chicago. George N. White was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a brother of Walter White, Assistant Secre- tary of the N. A. A. C. P. George White has been in the service of the A. M. A. for twenty-two years. For a long time he OTHERS BESIDE THE PRESIDENT HAVE THEIR HOBBIES! 148 w . é » ~ » — q ‘ | |
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JANUARY, was principal of the Burrell Norma! School at Florence, Alabama. Mr. White will especially have charge of the work of interesting graduates of A. M. A. institu- tions in developing the work of the asso- ciation. ( For a long time it was extremely diffi- cult for colored lawyers to receive recog- nition in the South and those who did get established had to be very discreet and careful. It is unusual to find a colored lawyer with the aggressiveness of N. J. Frederick of South Carolina. He is a graduate of Claflin and the University of Wisconsin. He was for sixteen years head of the colored schools of Columbia and has been practicing law for thirteen years and also editing a weekly paper. It was attor- ney Frederick together with a white col- league who brought the case of the Law- mans into court and had their sentences reversed. This reversal led to the lynch- ing of three of the Lowman family. ( Gerher Hardaway was born in Clark County, Mississipi, forty-six years ago. For seven years he has conducted a successful wholesale and retail grocery business at Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He is active in religious and fraternal organi- zations. ( W. Rutherford Banks was born at Hart- well, Georgia, in 1881. He was educated at Atlanta University and then taught in Georgia and Alabama. From 1915 to 1926 he was President of Texas College at Tyler, Texas, and in June, 1926, he was elected Principal of Prairie View State College, Prairie View, Texas. This is the largest colored Land-Grant college in the country. It has an enrollment of over 2500 students and owns 1400 acres of land with sixty- five buildings valued at $1,500,000. C John H. Harris of Norfolk, Virginia, en- tered the service of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in 1887 as steward. He completed this month thirty years of con- tinuous service. He has traveled nearly 900,000 miles on their boats. ( Ferdinand L. Barnett was born in Ala- bama in 1864. He was educated at Fisk University and went to Omaha in 1887. He has been in the newspaper business and has served as Deputy Clerk of the County Court, sidewalk inspector and street fore- man. For the last six years he has been - head janitor at one of the city jails. Mr. Barnett is active in church work and fra- 1927 l4y ternities and this year was elected to the Legislature of Nebraska. This is the second time that a Negro has been elected to the Nebraska Legislature, the first one being Dr. M. O. Ricketts in 1895. ( Langston F. Bate received the degree of Ph. D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago last September. Dr. Bate has studied at the University of Chicago for three years, has been elected to the Amer- ican Chemical Society and last year was assistant in the Department of Chemistry. He is now the head of the Department of Chemistry at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri. He is a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and is only twenty-five years of age. ( The campaign committee of the New Orleans Negro Hospital announces that ap- proximately $60,000 has been subscribed to the fund by white citizens and Negro fra- ternal organizations. (| Last summer a delegation of eight American students, of which two were Ne- groes, visited Soviet Russia for the purpose of inquiring into the Soviet educational system and other phases of life in the U. S. S. R. They visited the principal cities in European Russia, travelling from Moscow to Tiflis, across the Black Sea to the Crimea, into the Ukraine and later to Leningrad. Some lived among peasants, in student dormitories and mingled with work- ers in the factories. They were away from America for more than three months, eight weeks of which were spent in Soviet Rus- sia, the remaining time being spent in transit through England, France, Belgium, Germany and Latvia. The cost of the trip was about $500. A similar delegation is being organized for the summer of 1927, which will be larger and more representa- tive. A national committee, with head- quarters in New York, is being formed and it is hoped that there will be some Negro students in the delegation. Those who are interested should write for information to C. Glenn Carrington, Box 207, 500 River- side Drive, New York City. ( The children of white soldiers and Phil- ippino women are being cared for by the American Guardian Association but the children of colored soldiers are usually not so supported. Many of the men of the 9th Cavalry married Philippino women and when they left the Philippines in 1922, they took with them ninety-six women and chil-
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150 THE BROWN MESTIZOS Daughters of Colored Soldiers dren. There are thousands of these chil- dren now in the Philippines needing aid and education. (€ The map of the Rosenwald Schools pub- lished in the December number of THE CRISIS was not large enough to reveal some of the interesting figures. It is especially notable that of the 3,463 buildings which had been constructed up to October 1, 1926, the total cost was $14,970,171. This cost was divided as follows: Public Funds ......... $ 8,482,653 (56%) Rosenwald Fund ..... 2,647,714 (18%) 699,682 (05%) $14,970,171 (100%) The buildings have been placed in the following states: North Carolina 582 Arkansas 205 Mississippi 427 Georgia 141 Alabama 335 Oklahoma 107 South Carolina 329 Kentucky 106 Louisiana 298 Maryland 87 Virginia 274 Florida 30 Texas 273 —- Tennessee 269 Total 3463 (@ An American flag, presented by the wo- men’s unit of the Ku Klux Klan, was re- turned to that order by the West Asbury Park Welfare Association, a Negro or- ganization of Asbury Park, New Jersey. @ The Federation of Boys’ Clubs, with headquarters in New York, has been in existence for twenty-three years but has just this year begun actively to organize colored boys. Three leaders of boys’ clubs have received scholarships for six weeks’ CRISIS study at Columbia. They are Ferdinand Newton of Atlantic City, Miss Cochran of Charleston, South Carolina, and Frank Callen of Savannah, Georgia. ( Dr. Henry O. Harding, a graduate of Flower Hospital Medical College, is chair- man of the Harlem committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association. The association has an extensive program of health education and service in Harlem. Its work is supported in part by the sale of Christmas seals by the National Tuber- culosis Association. € Harriet B. S. Wright, teller in the Citi- zens and Southern Bank and Trust Com- pany, Philadelphia, is the first colored mem- ber of the American Institute of Banking. She is the daughter of Major R. R. Wright and was married this month to Mr. Thomas A. Lemon of Newark, New Jersey. ( Little Theatre movements among colored youth are being conducted by young col- ored players of Cleveland, O., New Haven, Conn., Washington, D. C., Yonkers, Corona and New York, N. Y. BROWN MESTIZOS Sons of Colored Soldiers > wy = - é ®
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JANUARY, 1927 15) A BUILDING AT PRAIRIE VIEW STATE COLLEGE, PRAIRIE VIEW, TEXAS @ Morgan College of Baltimore, Maryland, is sixty years old and seeks an endowment of $500,000. It is a grade A college under the M. E. church and has a conditional of- fer of $50,000 from the General Education Board. Among its distinguished graduates are Bishop Clair and Bishop Brooks. The President is John O. Spencer. ( The State Home for the aged and in- firm members of the Order of Knights of Pythias and Court of Calanthe of the State of Ohio is situated about one-half mile out- side of the city limits of Xenia, Ohio. The property, consisting of a sixty-three acre tract of land, on which is built a twenty- five room structure, was dedicated in July, 1926. ( Miss Margeurite C. Pennybacker, form- erly connected with the Houston colored branch of the Y. M. C. A. and a native of Fort Worth, Texas, has been awarded a fellowship in Columbia University leading to a master of arts degree. She began her work in September. ( Mary Ellis Jones, 68, who taught in the public schools of New Orleans, Louisiana, for the last 50 years, is dead. She was noted for her activities in securing better conditions for her race. @ Lenis Blanche, 50 years of age and a native of the island of Guadeloupe, has re- cently been admitted to the Higher Normal School at Paris, France. « G. W. Greer of Timpson, Texas, who was one of the outstanding figures in business, recently died at Houston, ¢ At Columbus, Ohio, the Order of the Knights of Pythias have just erected a tem- ple, paying for it out of their reserve funds. It is located on Mt. Vernon Avenue and is four stories high with basement. It is fire- proof and contains a moving picture thea- ter which will seat six hundred persons, a large assembly hall with a seating capacity for eight hundred, eleven offices and three lodge rooms. It cost $225,000. Robert B. Barcus, Grand Chancellor, directed and supervised the construction of the building. Mr. Barcus is a graduate of Howard Uni- versity and is a practicing attorney in Co- lumbus. Under his leadership the Pythians of Ohio have made notable advance. PYTHIAN TEMPLE, COLUMBUS, OHIO | ae { A |
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Five Books RIC WALROND’S “Tropic Death”, (Boni and Liveright) is a distinct con- tribution to Negro American literature in a field curiously new. Our knowledge of the West Indies has usually come from the words of English rulers and tourists and the chance observations of white Ameri- cans. Here is a book of ten stories of death which, with impressionistic pen and little plot, show forth with singular vividness the life of black la- borers of the West Indies. There is superstition, unusual dialect, singular economic glimpses; but above all, there is truth and human sympathy. One has but to compare Fir- banks with Walrond to see this. Firbanks was true and genial but he was no Negro and Negro life to him was, on the whole, overwhelmingly funny. To Walrond it is trag- edy, lighted with certain imp- ish flames of humor, but som- bre, fatal. The book’s impres- sionism, together with its dialect, make it often hard reading and difficult to under- stand in parts; but on the whole, it is a human document of deep significance and great promise. It is the fashion of many scientists to discount the thesis of Leo Weiner and his insistence of the connection of Africans with American In- dians and early American life. True it is that like Max Muel- ler, Weiner is leaning heavily on the staff of language; nev- ertheless his conclusions seem logical and they are certainly built on a tremendous amount of research. In his last book, “Mayan and Mexican Origins”, (pri- vately printed), a great volume of 203 pages of which only 300 copies have been issued. Mr. Weiner says in his fore- word, “Having reveatedly pointed out the Mandingo origin of the American civiliza- tions, the author naturally transferred the linguistic study of origins to Africa as well.” He maintains that American civili- zations were derived from Africa after the nirth century. In the many illustrations of Mayan pictures, black men are often reproduced. Rossa B. Cooley, who has long been prin- cipal of the colored school at St. Helena, S. ©., on the sea islands, has written the story of her work in “Homes of the Freed”, FROM COOLEY’S “HOMES OF THE FREED” published by the New Republic. It is a study of three generations of Negro women interestingly told. ‘James Weldon Johnson has edited and J. Rosamond Johnson arranged a “Second Book of Negro Spirituals” dedicated to two pioneers in that field, both dead, John W. Work and Natalie Curtin Burlin, “lovers of 152 -- SS 7 .* === | - =='|= OP — i= = j |
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JANUARY, the Spirituals and toilers: for their preser- vation”. One of the most beautiful ar- rangements is that of the majestic march, “Walk Together Children’, done by J. Rosamond Johnson for the pagent, “The Star of Ethiopia”, when it was given in Washington. This is only one of a multi- tude of the curiously striking versions of these songs. Mr. Johnson has written an- other interesting preface in which he stu- dies many aspects of the songs but none more interesting than this: “What is the secret of the wide variety and perennially fresh appeal of the Spirituals? How is it that an audience can listen to them for two hours without interlude and without boredom or satiety? In many of the Spirituals the Negro gave wide play to his imagination; in them he told his stories and drew his morals therefrom; he dreamed his dreams and declared his visions; he uttered his despair and prophe- sied his victories; he also spoke the group wisdom and expressed the group philosophy of life: Indeed, the Spirituals taken as a whole contain a record and a revelation of the deeper thoughts and experiences of the Negro in this country for a period begin- ning three hundred years ago and covering two and a half centuries.” William Stanley Braithwaite has issued the fourteenth annual volume of his in- valuable “Anthology of Magazine Verse”. As usual he has noticed our own writers like Cullen, Hughes, McKay, Effie Lee New- some, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Frank - Horne, Gwendolyn Bennett and others. W. E. B. D. Most travel books merely extend the boundaries of information. Occasionally we have one that pushes back our mental horizons and gives us a fresh point of view of humanity. Such a book is John W. Vandercook’s “Tom-Tom”, (Harpers). With almost a Marco Polo reach and audac- ity, it gives us along with a vivid picture of a particular people, a highly original and challenging appraisal of primitive tropical life. The theme of the narrative, the Bush Negroes of the Surinam jungles whom the author visited in the company of his artist wife, is more or less incidental; the pic- ture drawn and the interpretation given holds for primitive life wherever it is found. The book presents and quite brilliantly vin- dicates the novel thesis that jungle - life and jungle-ways are not degenerate or de- 1927 - 153 generating and that, if civilization is adap- tation to environment, then by this prag- matic test, the jungle civilization is a sig- nificant human achievement in the face of the greatest odds and natural obstacles. Certainly this is a good antidote for the strong virus of Caucasian vaingloriousness and also, as the author takes good pains to say bluntly in his preface, for that con- scious absorption of Nordicism and sub- conscious concession to it by those descend- ants of jungle peoples who despise and are ashamed of their cultural ancestry. Let us quote: “There are upward of twelve million Negroes in America. All are free, so far as their bodies are con- cerned. All are equal sharers in the great jest of democratic equality. Yet, with so few exceptions that the rule is merely strengthened, these Negroes have tacitly adopted and, déep in themselves, actually believe that they are somehow lower in the scale of things than those of us who glory in white complexion. The civil- ized Negro must lose his contempt for his ‘heathen’ brethren in Africa and in the jungles of Melanesia and Surinam. He must learn that the fathers of the race had and still possess blessed secrets, wonderful lores and great philosophies, that rank the jungle Negro’s civilization as the equal and in many respects the superior of any way of life that is to be found anywhere in the world. This book is a description of that civilization, an attempt to show some part of its curious loveliness and wise serenity.” Of course, like all books written to prove a thesis, Tom-Tom offers tempting induce- ments to rush headlong into logical ab- surdities. Mr. Vandercook is so anxious to prove African civilization right and valid for its own locale and setting, that he fails to apply his own basic criterion consistently to the case of the American Negro. For his basic contention is that environment, not heredity, makes civilization. His sur- prise and horror that the Negro who has assimilated European manners and West- ern ways should be culturally European, even to his sharing of the false conven- tional estimates of the civilization of his ancestors must either be inconsistent or, as we prefer to think, rhetorical. There is no special cogency, then, in Mr. Vander- cook’s censure of the Negro for his dis- esteem of a type of civilization alien to his present folk-ways, but there is instead a
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154 THE general and very necessary appeal to all of us to enlarge our view and take our standards of civilization relatively. For in spite of his illogical corollaries, Mr. Van- dercook is right in insisting upon the de- scription and evaluation of tropic cultures, as indeed the rating of all cultures, in terms of their own intrinsic values. He points out that the tropic environ- ment exacts and requires values and vir- tues almost diametrically opposite to our own, simplicity instead of complexity, the subordination rather than the ascendancy of the individual, group collectivism in- stead of individualistic competition, anim- ism and a sense of kinship with nature rather than a philosophy of materialism and anti-naturalism. He lauds the African fatalism as a spiritual victory in an en- vironment that would and does defeat Euro- pean self-confidence and self-assertion. This is important, because there is a direct con- nection between the ruthless exploitation CRISIS of tropical peoples and the disdain and de- preciation of their institutions and culture that is so prevalent. Enlightening and original as some of his interpretations are, Mr. Vandercook cannot have caught accurately all of his startling conclusions. But we must have bold hy- potheses and exploratory intuitions before we can commence refining and shaping our distinctions. Generalizations like this: that the Caucasian races are “optico-intel- lectual” while the Negro races are “auricu- lar-emotional” would be absurd if not taken as merely suggestive. Certainly Mr. Van- dercook’s book ought to furnish a provoca- tive and stimulating influence in the un- biased study of Negro folk-ways. We shall never reach mutual understanding and a reciprocity of cultures until by some new process of insight we attain the still rare vision of a relativity of human cultures. ALAIN LOCKE. The Outer Pocket = may be interested in hearing about a long talk which I had two years ago with the Rev. Philip Melancthon Watters who is being buried today in New York. For some years he was the head of the Gammon M. E. Theological Seminary for colored students at Atlanta, Ga. His was a sensitive spirit—his was one of the most Christlike faces I ever encountered—and he suffered greatly under the cruel and nar- row social boycott which the white citizens of Atlanta visit upon those who teach the colored people, unless they do this in a spirit of racial condescension. Any white teacher who treats his or her colored pupils as self-respecting men and women, is taboo among the white people. Mr. Watters related to me two illuminat- ing experiences. When the white Bishop of the local M. E. church consecrated the new building at Gammon he said, “Of course you will not eat with the colored members of your Faculty. You will have no social relations with them whatever.” Mr. Watters hesitated. He told me he was so taken aback that at first he did not know what to say. Then he asked, “You want me to call my teachers ‘brethren’ don’t you?” “Oh yes”, replied the good Bishop unctuously. “Surely. They are all your Brothers in Christ.” “Then,” said Mr. Wat- ters, “I am afraid I could not succeed in thinking of them as my brothers were I to refuse to sit at the same table with them.” The Bishop warned him that he was mak- ing a mistake. And it was one, if he cared — for social position for himself and family rather than sincerity and Christianity. Some years later, not “on” to the situa- tion, a former classmate from the Theologi- cal Seminary in New York turned up at Atlanta as head of Emory College—the Theological Seminary for white men. The newcomer was delighted to find his old chum so near him and told him he must lecture at least once a week to the Emory students. They parted full of plans for the reunion of the two families. No invitation to lecture at Emory ever came to Watters. No member of the family of Emory’s Head ever called upon Mrs. Watters or her lovely son and daughter. The family of the Rev. Philip Melancthon Watters was ostracized from Atlanta society. The Rev. Philip never saw his former chum again. He was “put wise”. And
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JANUARY, 1927 155 that is the state of “Christian” neutrality in the highly cultured “Christian” metropo- lis of the South. The Rev. Philip has entered the gates where the littleness of racial pretence will be revealed. Now he will surely not be per- secuted for trying to make good Christians of several thousand colored citizens. ANNIE NATHAN MEYER. Your proposal in the September edition of THE Crisis that the colored churches should support at least one Negro student is indeed timely. I have often wondered why some of our leaders haven’t suggested that idea before. The churches are sup- posed to be strict followers of the doctrine of Christ, why not practice the one he sug- gested,—tthat is, “Let the dead bury the dead and take ye heed to the living?” Not that I deride nor belittle the work of the churches, for they have carried on and are still carrying on a gigantic task, but there is still room for additional ones. As the church at this time is the best medium for reaching the colored masses it is proper that our ministers should begin and sup- port this movement. Can one imagine the benefits and advantages that the race would derive from such a move? WILLIAM WRIGHT, New York. Dear deus ex machina:— Yes I have found my little girl; and as blessings (as well as other things) often come twofold, I have two of them,—-sisters, two and a half and six. The notice in THE Crisis was like a peb- ble thrown into a pool, grew in widening circles that touched the farthest shores, almost. An acquaintance who knew of my quest, saw the notice in THE Crisis, identi- fied it at once with me and wrote directly to me telling me of these children; but be- fore I could get hold of them they had landed in an orphan home, so a great deal of red tape had to be unwound before I could get them. I have had them now two months, nearly a busy and happy time for all concerned. They are bright, lovable, at- tractive-looking children, just what I was looking for. Now I want to thank you for your part in this fulfillment of my heart’s desire. And I want to pay for the space you gave in your magazine. So will you please tell me what I owe you, [nothing but the word of thanks—The Editor.] And this is not all. I have always been a booster for THE CRISIS since I first knew it and if there is anything I can do for you personally at any time or place won’t you please tell me? And you shall have the picture just as soon as the little shorn heads have grown covering enough to make them fairly presentable. Yours gratefully and sincerely, Washington, D. C. Editor of THE CRIsIs: In your August number you fall into a slight error with reference to American Negroes on the bench in South Carolina. At any rate it seems to my recollection to be an error and I venture a correction. In the winter of 1870-71 I went to South Carolina and remained there until the Spring of 1872. Upon reaching Columbia I found three judges upon the Supreme Court bench of the State. Two were white and one was black, as you say. There was no mistaking the latter’s color. He was a Negro of the darkest hue. He was also a man of education, obtained in Philadelphia; a lawyer of fair ability, unless his reputa- tion belied him; and a judge of good repute for judicial qualities. Withal he was a gentleman. His name was Wright—J. J. Wright, as I remember his initials and as you give them. My correction relates to the date of his accession to the Supreme Court bench of South Carolina. You give it as 1873. It must have been earlier than 1871, for he was on the bench at the time of my arrival in South Carolina in the winter of 1870-71 and throughout the whole period of my stay. Let me add that Judge Wright’s col- leagues on the Supreme Court bench were two white men. One was Judge Moses, an old-time South Carolina aristocrat, who was the Chief Justice. One of the Associate Justices was a former Tammany politician of New York City whose name now escapes me. In that State and in those days, the former was a “scallawag”’, the latter a “carpetbagger”, and their Negro associate a “nigger”. (Signed) Louis F. Post.
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The Harmon Awards in 1926 GEORGE EDMUND HAYNES Hayden Randolph HE William E. Harmon Awards for Distinguished Achievement are bring- ing to national recognition types of Ne- groes who are doing creative work but who have not received helpful notice by the American public. The First Awards brought to light a Negro artist, Palmer C. Hayden, who is earning his living at odd jobs of housecleaning; a Negro business man, C. C. Spaulding, whose achievement in developing old line insurance and finan- cial organization has borne the scrutiny of experienced financiers; a young Negro mis- sionary, Max Yergan, who carried the mes- sage of body, mind and spirit.of the Y. M. C. A. brotherhood to the natives of South Africa; a Negro poet, Countee Cullen, just out of college, whose verses convinced a crit- ical publishing house; a brilliant young ex- perimenter in electrical science, James C. Evans, just out of adolescence, who received his Master of Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; a Negro woman, Virginia Estelle Randolph, who initiated the plan of adapting rural school education to the life needs of her people so that it de- veloped into a new procedure in education; and a Southern white man, Will W. Alex- ander, who has become a herald of the new day in better relations between the two races. The Second Awards bring to public at- tention an equally distinguished group of Negro men. A bishop, John Hurst, who has drawn admiration from white and black alike by a remarkable demonstration of ad- ministrative ability of an Episcopal area of the African Methodist Church; James Wel- don Johnson, who has interpreted anew Ne- gro spirituals; an artist of the Middle West, Yergan HARMON PRIZE-WINNERS—1926 Alexander Spaulding Johnson Hale Woodruff; a Negro construction con- tractor, A. A. Alexander, who has many white customers; a Negro doctor of phil- osophy in social science, W. A. Daniel, who has scientifically studied Negro church life; a collector of rare and valuable books on Negro life and history, Arthur A. Schom- burg, complete this record of persons of distinguished achievements of national sig- nificance. A jury of specialists nationally known for their eminence in their respective fields selected these candidates for their outstanding work. The candidates receiving the first award will each be given $400 and a gold medal; those who have been accorded the second will each be given $100 and a bronze medal. There is only one award in race relations of $500 and a gold medal. The Harmon Foundation regards cases like Mr. Hay- den’s, Miss Randolph’s and Mr. Evans’ as illustrative in striking degree of the. pur- pose of Mr. Harmon in offering these awards to stimulate creative achievement. The awards, it is hoped, will mark the second epoch in Negro life since 1865 and will be the beginning of a new emancipa- tion—an emancipation that will free the Negro from external restrictions and in- ternal inhibitions, thus enabling him to real- ize himself in the highest achievement. It will also liberate white people so that they will expect such achievements from the Negro group and readily accord them merit- ed recognition. The judges who considered the candidates in the field of music were mindful that standards of achievement are being set. There were thirty candidates comprising singers, performers and composers—the 156 ||
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JANUARY, latter being one-half of the number who submitted musical score. The judges, how- ever, unanimously agreed that no original creative work has been submitted of such outstanding importance as to merit the William E. Harmon Award for Distin- guished Achievement in music. Under the conditions of the Awards, however, the money for this field will revert to the gen- eral trust fund to be created for the general purpose of these awards and will be used in subsequent years. The following is the roster of the candidates and the judges who selected them: Successful Candidates in William E. Harmon Awards for Distin- guish Achievement and List of Judges in Sev- eral Fields Fine Arts: Firsh Award, Palmer New York, Second Award, Hale Woodruff, Indianapolis, Ind. Judges: William A. Boring, Director of the School of Architecture, Columbia University; Francis C. Jones, Paint- er, Teacher New York Academy of Design; Laura Wheeler. Artist and Teacher, Cheney Training School for Teachers, Cheney, Pa.; Grosvenor Atter- bury, Architect; William E. Harmon, of the Harmon Foundation. Science: First Award, James C. Evans, Miami, a. Second Award, W. A. Daniel, Atlanta, a. Judges: Edwin E. Slosson, chemist and editor of “Science Service”, Washington, D. C.; E. E. Just, Professor of Biology, How- ard University, Washington, D. C.; Jacob H. Hollander, economist, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; John Hays Hammond, scientist and author; Kenneth Duncan, business man. Education: First Award, Virginia Estelle Randolph, Hanover County, Va. Second — Arthur A. Schomburg, New York, N. Judges: Edward T. Devine, Dean of the American University, Washington, D. C.; John Hope, President of Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga.; Paul Monroe, Director of the International Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University; Dr. James H. Dillard, President, Jeanes-Slater Fund, was away in Europe and the Far East since August WILL W. ALEXANDER 1927 157 and did not participate as a judge; Samuel McCune Lindsay, Professor, Social Legis- lation, Columbia University. Literature: PS award, Countée Cullen, New York, ‘Second Award, James Weldon Johnson, New York, Judges: Henry G. Leach, editor of the “Forum”; J. E. Spingarn, author and literary critic; William Stanley Braith- waite, poet and editor; John H. Finley, editor “New York Times”; Mrs. Adele L. Ramsdell, literary critic. Industry and Business: First Award, S. C. Durham, N. ‘Second Award, A. A. Alexander, Des Moines, a. Judges (Business): Sam A. Lewisohn, Fi- nancier; Henry S. Den- nison, president Denni- son Manufacturing Company; Robert R. Moton, President Na- tional Negro Business League and Principal Tuskegee Institute; John R. Hawkins, Banker and Financial Secretary A. E. Church; and William E. Harmon. Religion: First Award, Max Yergan, Raleigh, N. C. Second Award, Bish- op John Hurst, Balti- more, Md. Judges: Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes, Canon, National Cathedral, Washington, D. C.; Professor Luther A. Weigle, Yale School of Religion; the Rev. Peter Ainslie, Baltimore, Md.; Miss Edith M. Burdick, Harmon Foun- dation; Rev. William Lloyd Imes, Pastor, St. James Presbyterian Church, New York. Race Relations: Single Award of $500 to Will W. Alex- ander, Atlanta, Ga. Judges: Bishop R. E. Jones, M. E. Church, New Orleans, La.; Mrs. F. F. Stephens, President Woman’s Missionary Council, M. E. Church South; Dr. Alva W. Taylor. so- cial service secretary, Indianapolis, Ind.; Dean Shailer Mathews, School of Religion, Univ. of Chicago; Prof. Samuel McCune Lindsay, Columbia Univ. Music: “No original creative work submitted to merit award.” Judges: Clarence Dickinson, Professor Union Theological Seminary, Organist Brick Presbyterian Church, New York; Harry T. Burleigh, soloist St. George’s Episcopal Church and Musical Composer; Dr. Preston Ware Orem, composer and msical editor, Philadelphia, Pa.; R. Augustus Lawson, pianist, Hartford, Conn., and Miss Edith Fremdling, Harmon Foundation. - | | |
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The Looking Glass LITERATURE DWARD SILVERA in Fire. There is a coarseness In the songs of black men Coarse as the songs Of the sea. There is a weird strangeness In the songs of black men Which sounds not strange To me. There is beauty In the faces of black women, Jungle beauty And mystery. Dark, hidden beauty In the faces of black women Which only black men See. We acknowledge the receipt of the first number of Fire “devoted to Younger Negro Artists”. It is strikingly illustrated by Aaron Douglas and is a beautiful piece of printing. It is issued quarterly at One Dollar a copy. We bespeak for it wide support. * * * The Encyclopaedia Britannica has not usually regarded the Negro as pre-emi- nently human. The eleventh edition, for instance, repeats the assertion that the closing of the sutures of the Negro’s brain at an early age makes him permanently in- ferior! The thirteenth edition, however, shows signs of awakening and the pros- pectus of literature and drama has this note: In American literature a revolution has taken place during the last two decades. A latitude both of subject and treatment, undreamed of a generation ago, is not only vigorously demanded by writers, but is even sanctioned by common consent. Robert Morse Lovett writes an article on Ameri@an History, Biography, Criticism and Philosophy and Louis Untermeyer con- tributes the article on American poetry. A section of the general article Literature is given over to Negro literature by W. E. B Du Bois, who makes special mention of the Negro’s own researches in regard to his race’s position in American history. * * * Says Kelly Miller in his column: On last Sunday I was addressing the Young Men’s Christian Association on this theme and narrowly escaped a heated con- troversy, when I stated that if Uncle Tom were alive today, he would be a member of the Y. M. C. A.; while Nat Turner, if alive would join the N. A. A. C. P. The following articles in current maga- zines are of interest to Negroes: “Negro View of the Color Problem”. Jes- sie Fauset. Missionary Review, June, 1926. “Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”. Langston Hughes. Nation, June 23, 1926. “Runaway Slaves of Dutch Guiana”. Travel, July, 1926. “Native Problem in South Africa”. W. E. C. Clarke. Edinburgh Review, July, 1926. “Adaptation of Negroes to Northern In- dustrial Conditions”. C. §. Johnson, Monthly Labor Review, July, 1926. “Progress and Problems in South Af- rica”. Missionary Review, August, 1926. “Negro’s Neighbor”. Outlook, August 25, 1926. “The Negro’s Artistic Awakening”. L. Whipple. Survey, August 1, 1926. “Garvey: a Mass Leader”. E. F. Fra- zier. Nation, August 18, 1926. “American Negro Evolving a New Physi- cal Type”. Melville J. Herskovitz. Current History, September, 1926. “Negro Labor’s Quarrel with White Workingmen”. Abram L. Harris. Current History, September, 1926. “From Cotton Cane and Rice Fields”. Eric Walrond. Independent. September 4, 1926. “The Darker Side of New York”, Satur- day Review, October 9, 1926. “High Hats in Liberia”. World’s October 26, 1926. A cheap dollar edition of Norman Leys’ great revelation of oppression in Kenya, East Africa, has been issued. Work, 158
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JANUARY, JIM CROW CARS 6 re southern colored man is beginning to talk out from time to time in no un- certain terms. Here is an editorial from a Negro weekly, The Informer, published in Houston, Texas: When the editor of The Informer, ac- companied by his eldest son, was boarding a train at St. Louis for Houston a few years ago, the youth asked his sire why it was that we could not ride in a Pullman, just like we had done in Missouri, [Illinois and Ohio. It was a stinging and painful interro- gation and we experienced difficulty in giv- ing him an answer that would satisfy him and ‘appease our conscience at the same time. Not a native or product of the North, yet that section is better to and more con- siderate of him and his race than the sec- tion whose soil gave him birth, as well as millions of his race. When one encounters and endures the accommodations and conveniences (we mean the lack of them) for the colored traveling public on the common carriers of the South, except in rare instances on some of these crack intersectional trains, he im- becomes disgusted and exasper- ated with Southern traditions, customs and conditions, especially as they relate to and are practiced upon the colored inhabitants and citizens of this section and clime. The most intelligent, thrifty, wealthy and law-abiding colored men in the South, with his pockets bulging with coin of the realm and highly regarded by both races in his community and section, must ride in the dirty and dingy day coaches of the rail- roads through the South and even if he is ill or some female member of his family is ill, he or she must either ride in the day coach both day and night in “Bam”, or on a cart in a baggage car. In numerous instances both sexes must employ the same toilet and all must cramp up on seats and try as best they can to snatch a few moments of repose; yet these jim-crowed American citizens of color are forced to pay the same railroad fare as those of other races enjoying first-class ac- commodations. Not only are the accommodations on the Southern railroads, in most instances, bad, shocking and well-nigh inhuman, but these colored passengers are forced to ride day and night, often, without a bite to eat, un- less they have prepared a lunch before en- training or purchase some wares from the train vender. We even understand that the practice of colored passengers eating in diners on some of the Southern railroads after all the white passengers have eaten, has been abolished and that these race passengers are not even bee the consideration given cattle on the freight trains of the South. 159 1927 Even cattle on these freight trains must be permitted to leave their cars and relax; must be fed and given water while in tran- sit and they get far more consideration, though they are dumb animals, than do our people—human beings—who pay the same fare as other races. Little wonder, then, is it when our peo- ple show such anxiety to leave the South and migrate to those sections of the coun- try where they can at least be treated as human beings on the railroad trains and enjoy any class of service that money can buy. THE BLACK ARTISTS P. DABNEY writes in his paper, * The Cincinnati Union, details of a reception given in Cincinnati some years ago by the late Jacob Schmidlapp, million- aire, to the Prince and Princess Hohenlohe and Madame Schuman-Heink: At the time I had two string orchestras, one white, the other colored. Mr. Schmid- lapp preferred the colored orchestra since the foreign guests knew little of colored music and less of colored people. Magnifi- cent were the decorations and display. The musicians seated in the large reception room adjacent to the banquet hall, could hear the ripple of laughter, the hum of con- versation. The dinner over, out came the happy diners, Cincinnatians in the lead. Many knew me better than they knew what to do, for their souls were sorely perplexed as to whether or not they should recognize on such a sublime occasion, an acquaintance who was not only a musician, but a Negro! They finally followed he old adage of diplomacy, “When you know not what to nothing.” Decision reached—com- pliance was easy. They glided by, too much engrossed with the floor or ceiling to ob- serve the colored citizen who lead the or- chestra. The Prince and Princess Hohen- lohe came forth. Pausing before us, he gravely saluted and said, “Gentlemen, I thank you for the lovely music.” The Princess bowed, smiled, and said, “It was beautiful.” Up came Madam Schuman- Heink, hand extended, saying, “The music was fine. You don’t know me, but I en- joyed it so much.” Grasping her hand and bowing with the grace that comes from frequent contact with and long observation of the aristocracy, I replied, “Everybody knows Madam Schuman-Heink.” The con- versation that ensued was broken by the coming of a courier who said, “Madam, the Prince waits.” “Let him wait,” was her reply! Then turning to me she proudly remarked, “I want them to know that I regard no one as superior to an artist.” When she aoming the royal party then pee paring to leave, the orchestra began play- ing. “How Can I Leave Thee.” She paused, and her divine voice filled the vast edifice as she sang the beautiful melody. Soon all
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160 THE joined in the singing. The symphony was more than sublime. Prince and Princess saluted us again; Madam Schuman Heink waved an adieu. After that wonderfully dramatic climax of song everybody there knew me and quite a number came over to exchange greetings and extend congratu- lations. The recognition of a Prince of Germany and the Queen of Song had re- moved the American Bar Sinister of color and materially elevated the artistic and social status of EY. AMERICAN GENTLEMEN IN COLLEGE ACK JAMES, a columnist of the Los Angeles Evening Herald, writes: Not much of a story, this, as stories go. Rather trivial, perhaps, when rated with reported efforts of scientists to signal Mars, the latest developments in the McPherson case, the hot-off-the-gridiron dope on Stan- ford and U. S. C. Yet decidedly worth while, withal, de- spite its relative unimportance, for it re- veals the heart of a boy who was big enough to put the greatest good to the greatest number above selfish interests. This is the story as it came to me: A lad named Winston Jones attends Lin- coln high school and plays a great fullback for the school eleven. Those who follow the preps closely de- clare that he is one of the best ball-carriers in the city league—powerful, fearless, ag- gressive, heady. He was elected captain of his team and functioned as such early in the season. And that’s where the trouble started. For Winston Jones, though the best foot- ball player on his school eleven, though a hard-working, unassuming sort of lad who did not let his honorary position go to his head, is colored, and Caucasian members of the team resented his elevation. Five white boys left the squad and Lin- coln high school fared ill in consequence. Whereupon Winston Jones, colored, re- signed his captaincy that the team might not be disrupted by internal dissension. The five white boys came back to the fold, elected one of their number captain of the team and Lincoln high school is now car- rying on once more. Not much of a story, as stories go. Just a little human interest yarn, reveal- ing the golden heart of a boy whose skin is black. A friend adds in a letter to THE Crisis: “I might add that Mr. Jones was being sought even before this incident referred to in the clipping by certain local colleges for enrollment in February when he grad- uates from Lincoln High. He is a very CRISIS popular student well-liked by all of his fellow students.” “THANK YOU, MASSA, THANK YOU!” HE Inter-Racial League of Memphis, Tennessee, has published the corre- spondence between its Chairman and the late editor of The Commercial-Appeal, The Chairman writes to the Editor: The Inter-Racial League is on the job every day doing what it can to remove those things that cause friction and unkind feel- ings between the races. I am writing to ask that you consider the advisability of eliminating the following terms when writ- ing about Negroes: “Darkey, nigger, coon, negress, the black”. My people are urged to eliminate such terms as “‘pecks, red-necks, poor white trash, etc.”. It doesn’t cost much to do this, but it means much, You would hardly think how it hurts parents to hear their children called “pickaninn‘es”’. We wish nothing said about this in public. All we desire is results. This letter is written in the kindest of feeling. The Editor replies: I have your letter of October 31st in re- gard to mental attitude between the two races. You suggest that the following terms be eliminated in referring to Negroes, “darkey, coon, nigger, negress, the black”’. What word will you use instead of negress? I notice that you suggest that your people eliminate such terms as “pecks, red-necks, poor white trash”, etc. I also notice that a Negro woman does not like to hear her children called “pickaninnies”. Now let me make a suggestion. I have heard a great many colored people, in re- ferring to a white man, call him a “white fellow”. I think there is a sub-conscicus or maybe a conscious fling back in the use of this word “fellow”. I have heard some of the best educated of your people use the word “white fellow”. I thought the word “nickaninny” was an invention of the col- ored mothers. I am surprised to know that they object to the word. Think I overheard you refer to a white person as “white fellow”. Whereat the Chairman sends this: You cannot imagine how much your splendid letter, in reply to my letter, was appreciated. It is a very hopeful sign when we can get close enough, in our purposes, for the discussion of some of the vital — affecting the two races in the south, etc. POLITICS HERE are signs of political unrest in the South. We noted the turmoil in Tennessee because black men voted in the Democratic white primary. Now comes the Palm Beach Florida Post: .
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JANUARY, Suppose Palm Beach county becomes a Republican county and Broward and Dade and Martin and St. Lucie and Pineallas and the party reaches a measure of strength where it is made hopeful of controlling the state. It is a supposition that the Repub- licans ask us to contemplate. It is evident that before the state is wrested from the Democrats there will be need of many more Republican votes and that the greatest reservoir of Republican votes is the Negro population of the state. How long could the Republican managers resist the tempta- tion to marshal the Negroes into batallions of voters and march them to the polls along- side of white men and white women? The man who can tolerate that prospect will find, before the end, that he is breed- ing ‘trouble. Peace and tranquility are bet- ter than riot. On the other hand, the Albany-Georgia Herald declares that: There is beginning to be heard in Geor- gia the faint rumbling of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the present primary system. The question is being asked, why do we have nominative primaries that in reality are elections and then follow them with farce elections that bring out but a tiny fraction of the voters? The recent elec- tion was a striking instance of this lack of interest shown by Georgia voters. Will Allen White says in the Emporia, Kansas, Gazette: The American Negro is year by year taking an increasingly active part in poli- tics and this is as it should be. Statistics, prepared by white men and women, by the way, show that the intelligence of the Negro in schools and universities is just as high, considering averages, as intelli- gence of white persons of the same eo. nomic status. And every year the Negroes apply more of this intelligence to the ballot. No longer can a legislator secure the votes of the Negro by promising them little janitor jobs and then turn around and vote for legisla- tion which discriminates against the Negro. The Negro is learning that the rights and the self-respect of his race are more important than these janitor jobs which a few individuals enjoy. The old-fashioned Negro who, down South, was pushed off the sidewalk when the white man passed, and then, if he was “good”, he was given a pan of scraps from the beck door of the white man’s kitchen, or a quarter from the white man’s pocket—this type of Negro is passing. The same old-fashioned Negro in the North, sells his political birthright for a little money on election day and votes for a man who panders to the fenorant part of the white population by supporting Jim Crow laws and separate schools. These Negroes are passing; the new one wants not janitor jobs but self-respect. 1927 16: GRATIS MUSIC ‘T° HERE is nothing in the ‘life of the professional musician so much a menace to his rightful economic improvement as gratis music, music of superior quality per- formed without financial remuneration. There should be no objection to the prac- tice of employing the free services of ama- teur performers, for the musical novice is given public entrée and an opportunity to prove his worth thereby. For years, how- ever, many devotees to the cause of char- ity have not contented themselves with the selection of musical material from talented amateur ranks but incessantly hound pro- fessional musicians, not excluding nation- ally prominent artists whose contributions to society are apparently insufficient if the attitude of these “charity” promoters is obviously interpreted. It is not unreasonable to suggest, there- fore, that a nominal sum for contributing musical talent, if it must be of professional calibre, should be allowed when budgeting public gatherings of any character what- soever, charitable or otherwise, as it is just as much a part of the financial plan as the “donation” of the auditorium for the mere “expense” of opening it or the “ex- pense” of the advertising literature with the “discount” allowed by the printing es- tablishment. There is something appealing to a musi- cian’s sense of humor to have some well- to-do individual alight from a limousine and freely solicit his professional musical] ser- vices without remuneration. Gratis music, then, performed by professional musicians, should everywhere be discouraged and that forthwith. CARL DITON. President National Asso- ciation of Negro Musi- cians, Inc. IS COLLEGE DEMOCRATIC? E clip this from the Washburn Col- } lege Journal published at Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas: I am a Washburn student. As far as I ean tell I am no different in most ways from any other student. I am just average. I wear the same style of clothes with the regulation 18-inch bottom trousers and double-breasted coat from Ray Beers or the Palace and smoke the same brand of cig- arettes as they do. I am not an honor
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162 THE student and probably never will be. On the other hand I never flunk out. I go to classes occasionally without my lessons and cut class as often as it is safe to do so. I go to all football games and yell as enthusiastically for the old school as the other students. I am just as enthused over our victories and just as downcast over our losses as they. I am a law student and as such am fa- miliar with our glorious Constitution and that wonderful Declaration of Independ- ence, both giving any citizen the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- I decided to buy a ticket for Macbeth at the office for I knew that I would never again have the opportunity to see the great Mantell, but was coldly informed that they had no tickets for the gallery. I had not asked for gallery tickets of course. I thought that the Washburn Book Store would sell a ticket to any Washburn stu- dent. But alas! Mr. Greenland informed me that he had no tickets for the balcony. I would gladly have bought a seat on the main floor—well, they had no tickets for the balcony. In short, I was unable to see the great Mantell. I will never see him now since this was his farewell tour. But it is not mine to complain. I am accustomed to scorn, to sneers, to insults and to American hypocrisy which welcomes Washburn students to a theater and then refuses one student a ticket. I will con- tinue to be an average student, yell at the football games, boost Washburn and free Kansas and the great American Democ- racy. I am a colored student. AFRICA AILY black Africa is becoming more articulate. We quote from a Negro paper, the Gold Coast Times, British West Africa: The history of the relations between black and white as regards educational mat- ters in West Africa is like the fable of the hare and the tortoise. At the beginning of the associations of the natives with the British the latter discovered that the cli- mate of West Africa was not such as would permit them to settle in the country and make their homes here; and they thought it necessary to give the natives such smat- tering knowledge as would make them use- ful as clerks, time keepers and overseers and thus be made to relieve white men of CRISIS much hard work in a trying climate. And so they started on this line of education and, like the hare in the fable, went to sleep quite satisfied that the black man, like the tortoise, could never come near, much less overtake, them in the march of intellect. They slept soundly for a good many years and though now and then black men were produced whose mental capacity was far above the average expected of the mass of their people, white men regarded such prod- ucts as prodigies and continued to sleep on and to take their rest. But they awoke from their long sleep some eight years ago, just about the termination of the war, to discover that in spite of his handicaps the black man has made considerable progress and means to maintain the pace. The re- sult of this discovery has caused the white man much mental agitation. On the Gold Coast the mental trepidation of the white man caused by the efforts of the people in the production of a number of Africans with oy mental capacity is phenomenal. Here he is establishing university colieges to provide a foundry for the moulding of the mentality of the natives, with professors coming out in platoons even before they can find their students and a place to teach them, while Ordinances are being rushed through the local Legislature to circum- scribe the intellectual advance of the peo- le. The truth of the whole matter is that nglishmen have found out that if the black man is permitted to travel at his present pace it would not be easy to control and exploit him in administration and in trade and commerce in the future which in their view would be “disaster on a grand scale.” They believe that the black man was created to be the hewer of wood and drawer of water for the white man and they cannot contemplate with equanimity the prospect of the black man growing into full man- hood and becoming the master in his own household. And we can be sure that white men will use all the resources at their com- mand to stay the rising tide of colour and to keep the black man in that subordinate position in which he can be easily exploited. OUR ENEMIES—WHY NOT YOU? HE Ku Klux Klan is always interested in THE Crisis. It misses no issue as the following renewal shows: For RENEWAL of SUBSCRIPTION for one year in advance, | as per date on wrappe z ONE AND A HALF i $)75 STREET AND NUMBER ©. Be G STATE