IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER? E. M. Brawley, D. D.
A generation has come since the passing away of the period to which the old Negro belonged, and this generation has lived in the period of the new Negro. Is this new Negro an improvement morally on his father? Zealous friends of the race stoutly maintain that he is; while enemies assert that he is not as good. It is the purpose of this article to present some facts which will prove that the young Negro, in spite of his dreadful inheritance, has, by the aid of generous friends and the grace of God, lifted himself to a higher moral plane than that upon which his unfortunate father stood. It is well, however, to note carefully at the very beginning, that we are not dealing with exceptions in this discussion, but with the race as a whole. At a river bank the water sometimes appears to run up stream, while if one will but look in the middle, he will see the river in full force gliding smoothly on to the ocean. So in all matters belonging to the realm of morals we must discard the narrow vision, and, taking the broad view of the Christian philosopher, sweep the entire horizon. Let us first, as an antecedent matter, consider some reasons why the young Negro should be expected to be better than his father. 1. His father had no moral training. His very person was the victim of a prodigious theft, and his labor was daily stolen. Could such a man be effectively taught honesty? To have taught the slave the elements of morals meant the quickening not only of his moral, but also of his intellectual nature; and such a thing would ultimately have developed resistance on the part of the slave. No true instruction in morals was possible in a condition of slavery. Look over the entire moral code as set forth in the Ten Commandments, and the impossibility of teaching effectively those great truths to slaves—American slaves—becomes apparent. The old enslaved Negro was destitute of true moral training; and very much of what was offered to him as such was nothing more than "sounding brass," and he knew it and could not profit by it. 2. And while the old Negro did not have true moral training, he But, now, what are the positive arguments to prove that the young Negro is an improvement morally on his father? 1. Slavery has been abolished, and the young Negro has not felt it. He has, therefore, missed its direct evil training. It is not denied that he is damaged because he was trained by a father who was brought up in slavery; but it is claimed that he has not received from his father, and cannot receive, as much injury as his father received from the system of slavery. 2. The young Negro now has the gospel. The many thousands who came to Christ in the days of slavery, and are now at rest from their earthly toils and sufferings, are not forgotten. That they were saved is due to the fact that, owing to God's infinite goodness and mercy, a little knowledge and a little faith can save a sinner; and God pitied our fathers. But the young Negro now has the gospel in its fullness. He gets it from the pulpit, from the Sunday-school, and daily in scores of our highest literary institutions. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and our youth, constantly learning it, have in large numbers been made to feel its power. Their lives having thus been purified and ennobled, beautiful and strong Christian characters have resulted. 3. Many young Negroes have been thoroughly trained for the ministry, who have led strictly upright lives and have taught others to do 4. The young Negro is living in an age of higher morals and necessarily partakes of its superior advantages. The age of brute force is fast passing away. When after our great civil war the adjustment of our troubles with England was arranged by arbitration rather than settled by war, an immense stride in civilization, men say, was made. Very true, but why not say that the men in control of the two great nations involved were moved to act as they did because of their strong ethical principles? And from that time until now the moral advance of the world has been rapid and steady. The new Negro is living in this higher and better age, and his moral constitution has been built up and made strong because of it. The principles of international comity are fast spreading among the nations. And just as the economic principles of the trust are being applied to religious organizations, even so the stronger ethical principles that are moving the nations are inducing Christian white men to come nearer to their brethren in black, and to treat them more as men, brethren, than has ever been done before. And thus both external and internal forces have combined to make the young Negro morally better than his father. 5. And, last of all, the young Negro is turning his social and political disadvantages to his best interest by relying calmly upon the justice and wisdom of God's moral government. Life is, indeed, but a conflict of forces, but the intelligent young Christian Negro knows that the universe does not operate by chance. He feels the full force of what Charles Sumner said in his eulogy on Abraham Lincoln: "In the providence SECOND PAPER. IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER? J. Simeon Flipper, D. D.
The difficulty of considering this question deepens as we consider the young Negro from every phase of life. Universally it cannot be answered in the affirmative, for the Negro is divided into classes as well as are other races, and as no people are universally, morally good, so such cannot be expected of the Negro. The Negro possesses an upper class, a middle class, and a lower class, and in a consideration of these classes we shall look for an answer to the question. The upper class consists of those who have made extraordinary progress, morally, religiously, mentally and materially; who have outstripped their fellows in the race of life and attained a standard of civilization commensurate with their opportunities and proved to the civilized world that under favorable circumstances the Negro is as capable of a high development in civilization as any other race. This class is an improvement, morally, upon their fathers. For their opportunities have been such as to render them more capable of a higher conception of morality and of their duties to their fellowmen, and in proportion as a The educational qualifications on moral and religious lines must furnish some of the rules by which the standard can be gauged for the man who has by liberal and extensive educational facilities gotten the capacity to know his God and His moral government over His creatures must rise in moral improvement and stand out as the towering mountain above the plain that surrounds it. And on this line the upper class of Negroes, by reason of religious and educational advantages, are an improvement morally on their fathers, whose opportunities for moral improvement were very meagre, indeed. The middle class of Negroes are not equal to the upper class in attainments. Their educational advantages have not been so great as those of the upper class, and yet their moral development has been correspondingly as great. The moral law of God has been heard as distinctly by them as by the upper, but they have not that discriminating judgment that enables them in every instance to distinguish between the morally wrong and the morally right, and yet there has been awakened in them a consciousness of certain things due to their fellowman and to their God that has kept them in a way that they could not be charged with wilful moral wrong, and their conservatism has placed them in a manner nearer to the morally right than to the morally wrong. And the young Negroes of this class are an improvement morally on their fathers. Solomon hath said, "As a man thinketh, so is he." Good character cannot arise out of low thoughts, but it must emanate from pure, noble, God-fearing and elevating thoughts and ideas. Correct ideas of life practically embodied in conduct can lift man above the low, sensual, evil walks of life. Now that there are many young Negroes with correct ideas of life cannot be denied. Now the lower class of Negroes are those whose ideas are distorted; who are conscience-seared, and who have no regard for God nor man; and as the upper and middle classes have ascended First, because freedom has given to the young Negro aspirations for a purer life, which his father did not have. Second. The moral atmosphere of the young Negro's home life is better than that of the old Negro. Third. The young Negro's educational advantages give him higher conceptions of life and duty than those had by his father. Fourth. The young Negro has a more enlightened pulpit than his father had to preach a broader and more comprehensive gospel to him, and to thus give him more correct ideas of life. Now these superior advantages, which the young Negro has, make it possible for him to outstrip his father in moral accomplishments, and the arguments of his enemies to the contrary notwithstanding, the educated young Negro presents a striking contrast in point of morality to the old Negro. THIRD PAPER. IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER? E. C. Morris, D. D.
The subject of this article is a very important and delicate one; important because it forms the base from which all the advancement made by the race for the last past thirty-six years must be measured, and delicate because it makes comparison between father and son. If there has been no improvement in the race, morally, since its emancipation from slavery, then no real advancement has been made; and to say that It must be admitted in the beginning that to do full justice to the subject, much study and space is required. In the absence of comprehensive statistics on the subject and the time in which to compile the same, several standpoints of reasoning must be assumed, and these will be taken up in no regular order, one being important as the others. I do not attempt to go upon or set up a system of scientific theories either, but simply to state and connect obvious facts. The past and present moral status of the race is involved, but I shall not go beyond that period in which the race was emancipated, and will include, as the fathers, such as were the heads of families at that time and those who were born about that time, constituting largely the heads of families now, as the respective parties to the comparison. What is here said in comparison of father and son is not intended as unfavorable criticism even where the language may appear uncomplimentary, but rather to make a truthful statement of the virtues found in both. I wish also to be understood as placing myself with those who have faith in the race, to the extent that I believe a large majority of the freedmen and their descendants are moral, and should be counted with the good and upright in heart. Such a decision cannot be reached, however, from a surface examination or outward appearances. For it is a notorious fact that in all the years of the Negro's life in this country, he has been subjected to the most menial occupations such as would, in a large measure, prejudice the disinterested observer against any high opinion of his morals. The subject is by no means a new one, but has been investigated and discussed for a long time by great writers and thinkers. Opinions have been expressed which are by no means favorable to the race—by no means favorable because of the ignorance of the party expressing the opinion. Many of these opinions have been formed and influenced by what is seen of the Negro in the crowded streets of great cities, at railroad depots, or at steamboat landings; or upon the great cotton, rice and sugar plantations, where thousands of Negroes who are employed only as day laborers, meet. But these do not represent the majority of the Negroes. Nor should opinions be formed, of the moral status of this people, out of what may be seen of them at such places as above referred to, any more than the morals of a great city like New York or Chicago should be judged by what is seen of the motley The desire to educate and accumulate for the good of the children became the restraining point in the lives of the fathers, and a very appreciable change for better morals was noticeable in the latter sixties and early seventies. Immediately following the close of the war, a great many missionary agencies set to work among the Negroes for the purpose of improving them morally and intellectually. These agencies operated among the old and young alike, but not with the same results; for it soon became known that very little change could be wrought among the aged ones whose superstitious notions of religious worship and peculiar ideas about "white folks' religion" made it a difficult task to teach them. Notwithstanding their superstition, the aged Negroes were singularly kind and respectful to their white neighbors and permitted the white teachers—for nearly all teachers were white at that time—to have absolute control of their children both as to home and school life. One of the attributes of morality is a happy conscience, or happiness, for there can be no true happiness where there is no morality. Hence, there existed an appreciable element of morality among the fathers, for, The home is the foundation place of all that is good and grand in a race or nation. Wisdom and virtue are inseparable from a good home. Hence, to make the comparison which my subject calls for, we must inquire into the home and religious life of the present generation. The young men from eighteen to twenty-one years of age who are, so to speak, in embryo with respect to questions affecting the progress of the race, are not included in the summary we make and should not be considered directly, in measuring the moral status of the race. As to the homes of the fathers forty years ago, very little can be said. But late statistics show that there are over three hundred thousand homes and farms owned by the Negroes in the United States, which indicates that nearly two millions of the nine million of our people live in their own homes. The figures are very significant when it is remembered that the race started forty years ago, four million and a half in number of individuals, with practically no homes. The property value of the homes now owned is conservatively put at one billion dollars—not a bad showing for a people who commenced forty years ago at zero in wealth. But the accumulation of wealth does not always mean that the owner is moral, yet the accumulation and maintenance of good homes present a better argument in favor of the good moral inclination of the people accumulating and maintaining these homes than can be produced in words. These mean more than the mere ownership of a house and lot, or a sixty acre farm; a respect for the first institution set up by the Creator is thereby shown and that in that institution (the family) is one to love and honor; and that there an altar is to be erected around which all are to kneel and worship God; they mean that morality, the foundation of all true greatness, is to be enthroned there. The establishment and maintenance of so many Christian homes among our people has brought forward a demand which is a barometer of the moral changes, and shows conclusively that the race is improving morally. This demand is for the right kind of men as preachers and teachers. The time was when a man who could read and write, no matter what his character, could find a place to preach In passing judgment upon the moral status of the young Negro, or in comparing this status with that of the father who has gone from the stage, we will necessarily have to apply the multiplication process, for it will require a life fully lived in all its details to constitute the sum total of a well built character. Therefore, the whole truth about the morals of the present generation will be known only to the next. The processes used in the moral development of the race have been gradual and almost imperceptible in progress, but they have been in progress, nevertheless, and promise great results. The man who sowed his seeds yesterday does not expect to reap a harvest to-morrow. Cultivation is to follow planting. The warm spring rains, the hot rays of a summer sun are to come and moisten and warm the soil around the roots, cause the blade to shoot forth and then harden the stalk and the grain. These are to be followed by the cool winds and frosts of autumn before harvest comes. The planting of moral principles in the present generation of Negroes has been done; the cultivating process is now going on by means of the buying of homes, entering into business and agricultural pursuits, building churches and schools and in educating the youth. These facts point to the moral trend of the mind of the present generation, but perhaps none of them in the same degree as the religious desire of the colored man. A larger per cent of the Negroes in this country are members of the Christian churches than of any other race of people. Notwithstanding the criticism to the contrary, they are as practical in their Christianity as any set of people. The matter of divorce has been a great problem to many of the most thoughtful men of the race, and the frequent resort to the courts to obtain divorces has been used as an argument against the growth of the moral sentiment in the race. But the very fact that such meets with opposition and is disapproved by the good people is evidence Another virtue in the Negro's character which comes only from a moral sentiment is gratitude. He loves his benefactors and would gladly repay them for all they have done for him, if he were able to do so. If the mind was filled with sensuality, deception, hatred and like vices, there would be no room for that noble characteristic, gratitude, which is so prominent in the present generation. His gratitude extends beyond the individual benefactor to the flag of his country; overlooking present conditions and remembering past favors, he is always ready to dare and die for his country's honor. We conclude by saying that the fathers who came up out of slavery, unlettered and untrained, did well. The present generation of fathers, or heads of families, by reason of superior advantages, are doing far better. The race as a whole for the last past thirty-six years has made a history for itself which will form the apex of its glory when it has passed through a century of training under its changed condition from slavery to freedom. FOURTH PAPER. IS THE YOUNG NEGRO AN IMPROVEMENT, MORALLY, ON HIS FATHER? MRS. ARIEL SERENA HEDGES BOWEN. Mrs. Ariel Serena Hedges Bowen, wife of Dr. J. W. E. Bowen of Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., was born in Newark, N. J. Her father was a Presbyterian clergyman in that city. He had graduated from Lincoln University, Pa., and had organized churches in New York State. Her mother represents one of the oldest Presbyterian families of that State. Her grandfather was a bugler in the Mexican war, and was a Guard of Honor when Lafayette revisited the United States. Her parents removed early to Pittsburg, Pa., where she attended the Avery Institute. She completed the Academic course of this school. Her parents then moved to Baltimore, Md., where her father became pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, and finally of Grace Presbyterian Church. She was sent to the High School of Springfield, Mass., where she remained and graduated with honor in a large class in 1885. She also took the Teachers' Course and Examination and passed a creditable examination and was favorably considered as teacher for one of the schools of that city. She was then called to teach History and English Language in the Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala., under Prof. B. T. Washington. In the year 1886 she was married to Dr. J. W. E. Bowen. She became a Life Member of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She removed to Atlanta with her husband in 1893. She became Professor of Music in Clark University in 1895. She is the State President of the Georgia W. C. T. U., No. 2. She has written very largely, among which may be mentioned, "Music in the Home," "The Ethics of Reform," etc. She is an accomplished vocalist and musician with the piano and pipe organ. She is busily engaged in temperance and reform work, together with training and fitting her family of one boy and three girls for life. She is regarded as one of the foremost and best cultured women of her race. She reads Greek, Latin and German with facility, and is a superb housekeeper. The most important and vital factors in the development of a race are physical strength, intelligence and morality, these three, but the greatest of these is morality. The individual or the race possessed of either or both of the first two, and that utterly ignores the third, can never attain to the full status of man, nor reach the zenith of full racial development or the pinnacle of civilization. To-day we hear much about the survival of the fittest and the "superior race and the inferior races." The earnest, thoughtful student of life and its affairs immediately raises the question, To whom do such titles "fittest," "superior" and "inferior" refer, and why? The history of a people shows the advance and growth of that people. Their development can be traced from the crude barbarous or semi-barbarous The writer takes it that the young "Negro" and his father are to represent only the ante-bellum and the post-bellum Negro. To go beyond that, to take him in his earlier state in the native wilds of his fatherland, before the Anglo-Saxon missionary reached him and gave to the world a true picture of his morality, would be to present to the world some startling facts that would not only put to shame the "young Negro," but also the hosts of men of all nations who glory in the progress they have made in morals. It can be proven by the best authorities that many of the heathen Africans, though crude in ethics, were pure morally. But the discussion resolves itself into two very important questions. What was the moral condition of the Negro before the war, and what is his moral condition to-day? Before the war, what a picture comes before us at these words, what a panorama of deeds passes before our mind's eye. Years of gross darkness, darkness that deepens into the blackness of the pit, those days that seem like a hideous nightmare to the hoary headed, and the story of which sounds to the youth like a heart-rending and nauseating recital. Yet, it was not all dark, some would say; perhaps not, but the bright spots only tended to intensify the darkness. What morals were chattels expected to have, and who gave to these chattels their moral code? It was certainly not of their own making. What could be the moral condition of a race to whom family rights were forbidden and whose business, next to labor, was to propagate solely for the master's gain? The words mother, father, were used only in the language of the "big house." Womanhood, the foundation stone of moral eminence, passed through a crucial ordeal, and it is to be greatly wondered at that the Negro woman emerged with even the crudest type of moral capacity. Every line on every page of the history of those dark days teem and The moral status of the Negro is to-day an all-absorbing theme, and is discussed pro and con by friend and enemy in other races, and by the optimist and pessimist of his own. Comparisons concerning his morals and moral growth are made as all other comparisons are made concerning him, not between his present and former condition, nor between his condition and that of any other people at the same stage of development, under the same conditions and environments. On the contrary, inconsistency is ever present in the attempts to show the world existing facts. Whenever an attack was made upon the system of slavery, the defenders of the system immediately pointed to the poor slaveholder and the dearth of Negro criminals as points in favor of a time when the Negro enjoyed the blessings of a "mild and humane system." When the progress of the black race in America is placed in the balance, the lowest and most degraded and careless of the masses who have not come out of a state of inertia are brought into comparison with the noblest types that have ascended the scale of life. What wonder then that there is so much adverse criticism; what is needed is a search for facts and an unprejudiced putting of all that appertains to the Negro, and a just acknowledgment of the results attained. That the American Negro has made an advance along all lines that make for the higher development of a people cannot be denied. He has improved morally in a corresponding way. The limit of this paper will not permit a statistical comparison, but a few points may be noticed in passing. His moral instinct is quickened and his moral nature asserts itself in higher forms of life under the new conditions. He has started at the fountainhead and the purity of his home and hearthstone is a magnificent memorial to the purity of the black woman. Were it possible to give in numbers the correct estimate of these beautiful homes and their characters, even the most bitter of his enemies and the pessimists of his own race would look with doubt upon the pernicious libels disseminated in the periodical literature of the day. The Negro ministry has made rapid and marked progress in moral achievements for itself and also for the race in their wide influence upon the same. There is a constant and ever-increasing demand coming from the people for a higher and nobler service in the pulpit, and the demand is being met in a comparative measure. Moreover there are professional men whose lives prove the possessors' estimate of virtue and are being spent in bringing others up to these lofty ideals. The noble army of teachers, most of whom are women, are not to be overlooked or underestimated. Next to the faithful mother, these noble women have lived and worked for the race. They have proved themselves ever against untoward conditions. Their work and worth should not be reflected against because of the few whose lives are not up to the standards of true womanhood. It is undeniably true that the virtues of Solomon's virtuous women may be duplicated in multitudes of our women teachers. A word concerning the criminal record of the Negro might be worth considering. It is here that the moral weakness of the race is said to be most manifest. We are told that figures do not lie, and an appeal from the records is not to be considered for a moment. Yet, he who wants facts and is in search of the truth must appeal and must make personal investigation. As yet statistics, the press and history, have not given a truthful, unbiased record of the Negro of to-day as he really is. One side has been faithfully followed, and elaborately and painfully portrayed, but of the other side only here and there an item, a reference and a charitable surmise rewards the seeker after knowledge. A careful study of the environments of the so-called criminal class, also the courts of justice before which the criminals are arraigned, would develop some interesting, not to say startling, facts; for example, "it has been shown by Prof. Branson, of the Georgia State Normal School, that while the illiterate Negro population of the state furnish three convicts per thousand, the Negroes who have profited by the public schools furnish only one convict per thousand." Such untoward conditions serve rather to stamp out every vestige of nobility rather than inspire to a reaching out after higher ideals. The young or post-bellum Negro is steadily improving morally. In the face of strong opposition, in his moral development, just as he does in mental, financial and civil growth, against all the opposing forces that would hinder his growth and relegate him to the lowest stratum of mankind, he is forcing his way up the stream. His spiritual and moral nature is beating under the animal nature which for so long a time held him as a slave. He now does right for right's sake, and loves the pure and good. He honors the women of his race and is raising her to nobler plains in his thoughts and life. The Negro woman is asserting herself also and is building for herself a character that rests upon a foundation of personal purity. This she is doing not only for herself, but for others. The building up of pure homes is her chief concern and in them she reigns with womanly queenliness. Social reform receives her attention, and in these walks she may be found teaching the young the single standard of purity for both sexes. Her way is the roughest, her path most closely beset with snares, but her works show for themselves. If there had been no advancement along moral lines, the Negro's material and intellectual attainments would count for very little in the world of affairs, for he would degenerate to a mere mechanical factor in human society and become a tool in every case in the hands of a stronger race. But he has added to his material and intellectual strength a greater and higher force, viz., that of moral worth, which at once raises him to higher planes in the social and civil world, and brings him into contact with his enemies and oppressors. The Negro has met and overcome the great barriers to his progress one by one. Despite the snares that are all about his path, and their hidden evils that seek to hold him in thralldom, yet he bursts his chains and marches forward with renewed purpose and greater zeal. Yes, the young Negro is embodying nobler ideas in his nature and reaching forward after higher ideals because of his superior advantages. He is to face a future pregnant with struggles of a higher order and of a more diverse character, than the struggles of an earlier day. He enters He who doubts not the Negro's growth and development along intellectual and financial lines cannot gainsay his steady and sturdy growth in moral and social power. |