A Plea for Our Work as Colored Baptists, Apart from the Whites.

That the time has fully come when we as Colored Baptists should establish and maintain our own denominational institutions, as Colored Baptists, is the true, deep and solemn conviction of many of the brethren, and I am of the same conviction. The following are a few of the reasons:

1st. Because we are, organically, a distinct, separate denomination. We are the "Colored Baptist" denomination.

2d. Because we, being a separate organization, have all the functions, duties, responsibilities and obligations attaching to the fulfill.

3d. Because it is a physical and moral impossibility for us, as a denomination, to fulfill with honor and credit to ourselves the obligations devolved upon us so long as we serve simply as the means to an end for the white man's greater and stronger organizations.

4th. Because the white man's race pride and race prejudice so entirely and completely unfits him to accord to us in his organizations those offices and positions that are so necessary to our development into the best leadership, and because the facts prove that we can get such opportunities nowhere else but in an organization of our own.

5th. Because so long as we retain any organic relationship with the white man, in a co-operative sense, he is sure to take the honor to himself for whatever we do and are.

6th. That if we are ever to do and be anything to ourselves and among ourselves the logic of the facts teaches that we must do it ourselves.

7th. We owe a proper race and denominational legacy to the generations that are to follow.

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And now, because of the reasons just stated, I hold that continued co-operation with our white brethren in our denominational work simply means that we, as a race and denomination, are to continue to be hampered and fettered in the fullest development of our own individual capacities as leaders and directors of the denomination and its interests. This has been fully proven by a more or less close practice of co-operation for thirty-four years, and the facts prove that we are still on trial as to our ability to dare and do. And we are still in a state of tutelage, just as if we were still children and beginners in the work of building up a denomination, whereas we are no longer children and beginners, but are fully thirty-four years old, which is fourteen years over the legal age of manhood, and yet the white man is dealing with us as if we were "babes and sucklings," and we are cringingly and cowardly submitting to it; but, thank God! not as a whole, for some have been and are still making a bold, persistent protest, while others are fawning, bowing, scraping and begging at the white man's feet for a few crumbs from his table. But while this is being done by some, to the everlasting disgrace of our great Baptist cause and name, there are others who are up and doing and trying to make the most of the means that are within their reach. And my plea is that we continue to protest against being made 'babes and suckling" when we should be men and acting the part thereof.

But let me call your attention to certain things said by Dr. T. J. Morgan, in answer to my proposition to have a separate work of our own.

Dr. Morgan, in his answer to my "Open Letters to the Baptists of this Country," says if my proposition be accepted and acted upon by the Colored Baptists it will close up all the schools of the Home Mission Society and turn the hundreds of students out and to call the teachers employed there home.

Now, let us quote Dr. Morgan's words: "Dr. Johnson, in his 'Open Letters to the Baptists of this Country,' says, 'I believe that the time has fully come when we as Colored Baptists should open our eyes as to the 00045necessity of establishing and maintaining our own institutions.' Dr. Johnson assumes that the 'Christian Banner' voices his feelings and sentiments, and I understand Dr. Phillips to refer to this general proposition when he says, 'Dr. Johnson is right in theory.' As this is a matter of the very gravest possible importance, let me ask a brief space in your valuable columns for discussing it. For the Christian education of the million and one-half of Colored Baptists there are two distinct classes of schools, fifteen controlled by the colored people, which are, therefore, their own institutions, and thirteen controlled by their American Baptist Home Mission Society. This latter class includes Richmond Theological Seminary, Shaw University, Benedict College, Spelman Seminary, Atlanta Seminary, Roger Williams University, Bishop College and others, the largest, best-equipped, most efficient schools of their kind. Dr. Johnson's proposition is that the colored people shall establish and maintain their own institutions. If I understand the significance of this proposition it means that the colored people shall cease to patronize the schools maintained by the Home Mission Society, because if they are to maintain their own institutions of learning they would certainly have no use for 'ours.' This doctrine, as I understand it, necessitates not a friendly rivalry between the two classes of schools, but practically a war of extermination, since all that is needed to destroy the schools maintained by the Home Mission Society is for the colored people to refuse to patronize them and give their sympathy, their interest, their prayers and their money; that the Home Mission Society is to cease its yearly contribution of $150,000 toward negro education, and that it is to withdraw from the South Presidents Corey, Meserve, Wolverton, King, Sale, Giles and their associates; that it is to make no further appeals to the Baptist brotherhood of the North in behalf of negro education; that it is to cease to invite the co-operation of the Southern white people in this great enterprise; that it is to close the doors of all these great institutions of learning, which have accomplished so much for the negroes; 00056that it is to sell, or give away, or abandon the school property into which it has put a million dollars; that the endowments which it has been slowly building up for thirty years are to be turned aside from the great work of negro education, and that the large sums of money now in wills designated for its educational work among the negroes shall be used for other purposes. Does Dr. Johnson really mean to advocate so sweeping a revolution as this? He seems to, for I can give no other logical interpretation to his words. It seems to me that all of the above is involved in his proposition.

"Now, what would result from this? Obviously, one of two things. Either the educational work now being done through the agency of the Home Mission Society among the colored people would entirely cease, and the thousands of students now enjoying their advantages would be deprived of educational privileges, or else the work now done by these schools would have to be assumed and carried on by the schools which Dr. Johnson insists should be established and maintained by the colored people themselves. I can hardly believe that any honest colored man, friendly to the educational and religious development of his race, would seriously recommend the closing up of these great schools and the discontinuance of their work unless there were others prepared to take their places. We are shut up, therefore, to the conclusion that Dr. Johnson thinks that the colored people of this country are able and willing to assume the entire burden of their educational work, that they are prepared to invest a million dollars in school plants and assume an increased annual expense for their maintenance of $150,000. Are they prepared to do this? Can they do it? Will they do it? Would it be wise for them to do it, if able and willing? For one, I do not believe that the colored people are able to do this."

Now, let us see if there is no other than the destructive interpretation to be put upon my proposition than the one Dr. Morgan makes. The simple proposition is "that the time has fully come when the Colored Baptists 00067should establish and maintain their own institutions." Now, there are only three things contained in the proposition. The first is "establishment;" the second, "ownership;" the third, "maintenance." Can anyone honestly object to such a proposition who has our best interests at heart?

Dr. Morgan comes to the conclusion that there is no other logical construction to be reached than the dangerous one which he seems to see. But I look at it quite differently. Dr. Morgan says there are fifteen schools owned and under the management of Colored Baptists and thirteen under the white. Now, all I have said and all I mean is that the whites get out of our way and let us, as a race and denomination, struggle with and care for the fifteen, and let the whites continue to take care of the thirteen that are under them. Is there anything disastrously dangerous in that to the schools under white control? If so, then, there is one of two facts that must exist, and that is, either the Home Mission Society has in all these years, and has at the present time, no other means of support than the contributions of the Colored Baptists, or Dr. Morgan's conclusions are false. I repeat that one of these two must exist. Now, which one is Dr. Morgan and the Home Mission Society willing to stand by? If they accept the first, then we shall have proven our ability to take care of our own, which Dr. Morgan denies; and if he accepts the latter, then Dr. Morgan owes me a good, round apology for so grossly misrepresenting my simple, plain and practical proposition. Not only so, but let anyone read his construction, and it will be seen that my proposition has been ruthlessly distorted. But I go further, and say that as a denomination we have come much nearer to the entire maintenance of the Home Mission Society's schools in the last thirty years than we have been given credit for, because, according to Dr. Morgan's own statement, there have been spent by the Society for colored education $3,000,000--one million for grounds and buildings and two millions for support, etc. It has been about thirty-four years since the Society began work among us, but we 00078will drop out four years, in which I will allow that we did but little or nothing, and then we will have been making returns to the Society for thirty years. The figures of the first educational report of the Society says we gave, in different ways, for the school-year 1894-95 the sum of $98,105.70." Crediting ourselves with that amount for thirty years, and we have $2,943,171, or nearly three millions. As Colored Baptists, take $98,105 and apply it to the support of the fifteen schools controlled by us, and it will amount to more than they now annually receive for current expenses and general work, for they would get $6540.80 a year each.

I have turned to the report, and under the heading "Secondary Schools" I find fifteen named, and the highest amount any single school of the fifteen received from all sources was $3606. So, according to the report, we gave sufficient to have allowed each of these schools the average sum of $6540, or, in other words, it would be enough to allow each for the year's running expenses the sum of $3606, and that would support each school for the year and then leave the snug sum each of $2938 to go toward the purchase of grounds, buildings, etc. These figures tell a wonderful story. What has Dr. Morgan and the Home Mission Society to answer to them? for they speak for themselves and that, too, loudly.

But there is still another important point to which I call your most serious attention in connection with this "co-operative" idea, and that is, why is it that our white brethren are so eager to co-operate with us in educational and religious work, but all the time leave out of the agreement all other moral and humane issues? I mean, why have they been so careful to hold an educational and religious conference in our interest at Fortress Monroe, with representatives of the Southern Baptists, but have never thought of the necessity of co-operating with the South to abate that cruel and barbarous system of lynch-law? Why is it that we are continually urged to co-operate in the work of education, but never in the abolition of that system which is 00089daily threatening to destroy both the schoolhouse, its teachers and students? And, indeed, at times it so rages that it looks as though there would be left not one of us alive to be educated, and yet there is no mention made to us of co-operation to put down the mob system, nor is there any action taken to make provision for those who have been made widows and orphans by these mobs. Which is the nearer approach to "pure and undefiled religion," a co-operation that looks to the saving of the lives of men, women and children, and caring for those who have been made widows and orphans by lynchers, or that which looks only to education?

And, again, why is the proposition never made to us of the necessity of co-operating in the work of abating the many forms of legal and socially oppressive laws and customs now in vogue all over the country, both North and South?

But let us come back to the original proposition, "that the time has fully come when we should establish and maintain our own institutions of all kinds." We now have our own homes and families, churches and Sunday-schools, benevolent and secret societies, all of which are manned and managed by ourselves, and we are not considered as antagonizing the whites by so doing. So let us do, also, with the schools which we have established, and let the whites take care of those which they have established for us. This will be no hardship to the white Baptists, for it they are anxious to do benevolent and charitable work among the colored people here is an opportunity for a purely unselfish work, for the students that are now in the Home Mission Schools can stay there, and others who wish to avail themselves of an education through those schools can also attend them. Then the proper step is for the white Baptists everywhere in this country--the Home Mission Society and all the rest--not to take any further contributions, thus leaving the entire field to us. Yes, that will settle this greatly perplexed question.

But there is another thing to which I would call your special attention, which is the very "root" idea 000910of this whole co-operation matter, and that is that the white man has the vain and mistaken conceit that his race was made for a race of leaders pre-eminently, and that we are his special subject and followers. So we are called a "wonderfully docile people." Now, I ask in all seriousness, with what show of propriety can the white man in general, and the white Baptists in particular, make such a claim and harbor such ideas--that is, when he and we stand face to face with the record both have made? The white man, and also the white Baptists, have been at full liberty to make the most of themselves in this country for over four hundred years. We have had only thirty-four, and yet it is a fact that we have outgrown them denominationally thirteen to three, for we are one-half of the whole Baptist denomination in this country.

There are 70,000,000 population, taking both colored and white. The colored are 10,000,000. That would leave 60,000,000 whites, and the white Baptists are the same in number as the colored, that is, 1,600,000, 3 per cent., while it stands to 10,000,000--which is the colored population--16 per cent. Take 3 per cent. from 16 per cent., and you have 13 per cent, which is our gain over the whites; therefore, our gain is thirteen to their three, or, in other words, while the white Baptists were converting three of their race from the error of their ways, we have convinced thirteen of ours. Now, in view of these facts, who are the leaders?

Then take the nearly $300,000,000 upon which we now pay taxes, besides our personal property, and then consider the fact that we were turned off, as a race, without a dollar. Then take the billions of dollars the whites had when we started, and who has made the best financial showing, especially considering all the obstacles which we have to contend with from start to finish? Take our church property and the churches we have organized and built up, starting as we did in barns and stables and cowsheds, and we now own church houses and grounds that are worth $100,000. Have the whites shown an equal progress in this same time and with the same amount of means 001011and under equally as difficult circumstances? And if not, what grounds have they for claiming the right of leadership for us any longer? Has the white man reached the acme of knowledge and sagacity? If so, when? Or is he the very quintessence of profundity and wisdom? If he is, in what does he show it? But before you answer "yes" to these questions I want you to look thoughtfully at the awful state of affairs under the white man's management. Everywhere and in everything of a public character they are almost at a perfect standstill. The wheels of progress seem to be locked everywhere. And why? Simply because of the white man's unfitness and inability to govern and manage the affairs of the people which they have entrusted to him. Yes, he has a trust, and a great one, but he has shown himself wholly unequal to the task of properly administering it, for a crisis confronts the white man everywhere, both in Church and State.

A few weeks ago in the "Christian Banner" I saw this significant heading, "The Home Mission Society Confronted with a Great Crisis." Now, what is a "crisis?" It is a critical, pivotal point reached in the management of a concern, that it can progress no further without an alteration in its management, and that alteration will determine whether it is to go up or down. But let us notice more closely that term "a crisis." The root from which it is derived is the Greek word "crino," and this is the same word from which comes the word "crime." Now, I wish to say that with every crisis there is a great crime connected. It may be a reckless expenditure of the interests confided, or a neglect to husband and manage properly the means dealt with, or it may be a perversion and unfaithful use of the same, any one of which is a grave crime and for which the responsible parties ought to be held to strict account. Yes, the white man is in a crisis and a panic in nearly every management confided to him, and still he is considered by us, and he considers himself, a manager and leader most sagacious, and yet so reckless, so unfaithful and unsuccessful has been his leadership in every capacity that confidence is destroyed 001112everywhere. Take, for example, the financial system of the country, which is so unsound and unsafe that if one of the Wall street kings should happen to fail or die, both of which he is liable to do at any time, the whole country is instantly thrown into a great financial fever from centre to centre, and the vibrations instantly catch on and are wafted to the other shore, and the panic is then not only national, but becomes international, for the Old World also feels the shock, and then crash! crash! goes one bank after another, and then other houses and investments go down crash! crash! Do you not still and at this very moment hear the echo coming back as they tumble and fall, and many of them to rise no more? And do you not hear the sighs and moans of those who have been made widows and orphans thereby? And all of this is the result of the white man's so-called splendid and superior leadership!

Now, I ask in all seriousness, what is to be the result of our continuing to follow in his wake but the same kind of wreckage and ruin? I ask again, is the white man a competent and fit leader for us? And if so, in what has he shown it? We have leaders of our own, and the sooner we lay out plans and learn to follow them the better it will be for the Colored Baptist denomination.

I wish now to make the following recommendations:

That if co-operation is to continue it shall embrace every other moral and civil issue that concerns our best progress and welfare, as well as religious and educational.

First. That we co-operate in bringing to trial the many lynching mobs that are now going unwhipped of justice in the different parts of the country especially in the South.

Secondly. That we co-operate in having the tavern and innkeepers admit our ministers and delegates to the same accommodation that is accorded to the white representatives of the Home Mission and other societies where we meet annually.

Thirdly. That we be accorded first-class accommodations 001213on all public conveyances, and that the "JimCrow" car system be broken up.

Fourthly. That we co-operate in teaching the white man the duty of cultivating civil manners toward his colored neighbor, and which is the same as "social equality," which the Home Mission Society, through Dr. T.J. Morgan, denied that such was taught in the schools of the Society, or words to that effect, in that he demanded of Rev. Dr. Brown, of the Southern Baptist Convention, that he name which of the schools taught it, for Dr. Brown had made the charge.

Fifthly. That we co-operate freely and heartily in the matter of having proper marriage laws enacted in the Southern States, so that our women will not be forced to live in illicit relationship with white men, as is now the case with hundreds of them. And these women are made to bear the shame of living immoral lives when, at the same time, it is the white man's laws that bar them from lawful marriage, and this also bars them out of the Church of Christ, and yet the white man believes he is morally competent to teach us morality!

But I desire just here to make another quotation from the "Christian Banner" as to the business-like way the Home Mission Society carries on its work. The editorial reads:

"If you take the 'Home Mission Monthly' you can get an intelligent idea of the work of the Society and of its receipts and expenditures."

Now, Editor Taliaferro either knew what he wrote in that editorial to be true or he did not. So, let us quote from the educational report of the Society, made by Dr. McVicar, for the year 1896. Here is what it says:

"The reports from the schools of the Society published in the past in the annual report of the Executive Board have been very incomplete."

Now, how could one get an intelligent idea of the work of the Society from the "Home Mission Monthly," as Editor Taliaferro says you can, when 001314Dr. McVicar says the annual report does not even give is? Is there a discrepancy between the reports which are sent out in the "Monthly" and the annual reports? And if so, in what respect does the greatly superior system of the Society show itself? And, again, if the report is not complete, in what is the extra system seen? But let us note the given cause of the incompleteness, and that is that the school year and the Society's annual meeting do not end in the same month. "But this," says Dr. McVicar, "will hereafter be remedied. " Well, that is right, but it ought never have been let go on for thirty years, for the result is that it is a statistical impossibility ever to find out what the true work of the Home Mission Society has been for the last thirty years. Not only so, but the treasurer shows that the reports from eight of the schools from the year 1894-95 were so incomplete, both as to attendance and finances, that they were rejected entirely. Now, what is a report of the workings of a school system for a year worth with eight of the schools left out? Will Editor Taliaferro rise and explain the enigma for us? If he cannot, will any defender of the Home Mission Society's superior system of government and management do so? And if they do not, I would advise them to forever hereafter hold their peace on this subject.

Now, before I close I want to defend myself from the charge of "ingratitude," for I think of all persons an ingrate is the least to be respected. So I quote from Dr. J.L. Dart's reply to my "Open Letters, No. 3." These are his words:

"And again our brother says the whites, both North And South, have thrown obstacle after obstacle across the way of the Colored Baptist establishing and supporting institutions of our own."

Yes and I repeat it here and now

Then Brother Dart has this to say of such sentiments coming from me:

"Surely this is a startling statement to come from the pen of one owes so much for his education to the benevolence of the white friends of the North."

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I wonder if Brother Dart knew what he was talking about when he penned the above lines?

Now, what is my indebtedness to the "white friends of the North" or South for my education? The Home Mission Society charged $60 a year for my education. Have I paid it? If I have I do not owe them a cent. The first year I entered school I paid the full amount, which was, as I have said, $60. And I paid in money more than one-half each year thereafter, that is. for four years, and the other half in labor, for I had the entire charge of the "Home" every day and night and Sunday included, for all of which I never received a cent. So I count nine months of such service worth at least $30. Therefore, at the rate, I paid my own way while I was there, because time and labor are equivalent to money. But that is not all. Since I left Wayland Seminary in order to show my gratitude even for the privilege of paying my own way through school, I got my church to send an annual contribution to the school of $25 or $30 for more than ten years, which will amount to more than $250. Then I got the church to furnish a room there for another hundred dollars, and another room in the Hartshorn Memorial College, Richmond, Va., and that was another hundred.

Now, add this $200 to the $250 I mentioned before and you have $450 that I have returned to the school since I left. My education for five years, at $60 a year, would be $300. So if I had not paid a cent while I was in school, then I would have returned to the Society $150 more than they charged for my education. But having paid my own way, I have to my credit against the Society $450. Now, where does the ingratitude to the "white friends at the North" for my education come in? Indeed, I consider myself a benefactor of the Society and not a beneficiary, for the $300 I paid while in school and the $450 which I raised in my church for the Society's educational work makes the creditable sum of $700 now standing to my credit in the Society's accounts.