Chapter II: Part 2

If those Colored men had wanted to copy the spiteful, revengeful and immoral actions of most of their white owners, they could easily have mistreated or destroyed all of those helpless white women and children in revenge for the two hundred and forty-four years of unspeakable crimes committed against their Colored womanhood by the Southern white slave owners and overseers. Or the slaves could have run away, joined the Union Army in a mass and left alone those destitute white women and children to starve on the untilled plantations. But those men of the Negro race, not then three hundred years from the underbrush of Africa, had under their dark skins too much inborn manhood and brotherhood qualities to stoop down to such beastily acts. They naturally grasped that grand and big opportunity to show to the Southern white people and the rest of the watchful world (that helplessly looked on in silence but with pitiful and admiring glances) that they had in their characters and dispositions and knew when and how to use them, the sterling principles of open-fairness, loyal friendliness, tender feelings, human considerations, moral self-control and Christlike mercy.

It is undeniably true that as early as 1860 there were in the United States over five hundred eighty-eight thousand Mulattoes. (Ref. Work’s Negro Year Book, page 432, 1918-1919 edition). Among that large number many thousands were beautiful and innocent girls who were either retained as their white owners’ immoral mistresses on Southern plantations or sold hither and thither from the Potomac River to the Gulf of Mexico to be forced into shameful and degraded lives a thousand-fold more friendless, unhappy and unprotected than Longfellow’s wandering Evangeline.

As the Civil War did not begin until 1861, it is readily seen that those one half million and more Mulattoes were not the results of slave men forcing immoral attentions upon the white women and girls left under their personal cares during the four years of the Civil War. But those half-Colored, half white people were the undeniable results of the brutal rapings of white plantation owners and overseers upon their helpless and unprotected black slave women for over two hundred years. So is it strange that fair and pure minded white people throughout the world, knowing and seeing all around them today the increased results of those first beastily actions by immoral members of their own race, listen without interest but with shame and impatience whenever, through sheer politeness, they are compelled to remain as audiences before certain classes of Southern men who for centuries (including today) have been talking through mouth and press about keeping their Southern white blood untainted and unstained? Colored boys and girls, therefore, should not become down-hearted and discouraged when they read in newspapers or hear from platforms such Southern white men writing or making such “Jekel-Hyde” talks; because close-observing, sound-reasoning and fair-judging white people in the South, in the North and throughout the world fully understand the whole situation and do not in the least take such Southern false utterances seriously. In fact they usually cannot keep from laughing at the funny side of the whole thing and say among themselves, “How absurd.”

No one but God knows the number of deceived Southern white married women who during slavery days secretly worried themselves sick, slowly pined away and silently died of broken hearts in their richly furnished colonial mansions, because of the ever haunting, taunting and stinging knowledge that their unfaithful, disloyal and immoral husbands as well as being the fathers of their white wives’ children were also the fathers of their slave mistresses’ Mulatto offsprings. So is it surprising that clean-living, clean-thinking and justice-loving white people always exchange knowing winks with their friends and hurriedly put handkerchiefs up to their mouths in order to hide disgusted features and weary yawns whenever they find themselves in places where they have to listen to certain classes of Southern white men who for centuries (including today) have been boasting from platform and press about their unsurpassed and unexcelled fidelity and chivalry to their Southern white womanhood? Instead of losing their ambitions and hopes when hearing and reading such blaspheming words against their race and progress, Colored boys and girls should take on new hope and redouble their efforts in striving to become even more devout Christians, higher learned students, better skilled industrial workers and fuller law-abiding citizens. In reference to the inferiority of their colors, Colored youths should remember that the prettiest thing in the world (the rainbow) is Colored, and yet, no one is able to resist the fascinations of its archful beauty or forget the consolations of its floodless promise, just because Nature with splashing rain drops and flashing sun rays oft ribbons the sky with rainbow hues.

No one but God knows the number of black slave women who moaned their heart strings loose and died of broken spirits either in their one-roomed log cabins or out in fence-cornered fields, because of the ever torturing knowledge that the virtues and womanhoods of themselves and the chaste maidenhoods of their immatured and innocent daughters had been repeatedly and forcibly taken or sold by their white owners and overseers. Yet, not one of those white rapists was lynched, tortured and burned at the stake by Negroes, not even at the close of the Civil War when there were thousands of ex-slave holders living in some Southern districts where the Colored people outnumbered the white people five to one. And surely, after gallantly fighting through the thickest and hottest battles of the war, it was not fear nor cowardice that held those Colored men from avenging the unprintable immoral wrongs forcibly done for over two hundred years to their unprotected and helpless Colored women. But, it was the living up to and the carrying out of a certain high civic principle of their African tribal laws that they had inherited and which prevented the ex-slaves from striking such a revengeful blow upon the Southern whites. For among savage tribes in Africa the universal punishment for raping was certain death; different tribes having different methods of dealing out that penalty. But that punishment was never dealt out by a mob. Those tribes so respected and obeyed the laws under which they lived and were governed that as savage as they appeared to be, they always had enough self-control over their tempers and passions to leave the captures, trials, convictions and executions of such offenders to be carried out by their chiefs and their assistants who had been put in their offices for such purposes. And since America had made laws and appointed officers who should have caught, tried, convicted and punished those Southern white men who raped enough black women to cause the birth of over a half million Mulattoes, the ex-slave men felt that even if those laws had not been enforced by people who had been selected to do so, it was not their rights to take the laws into their own hands by forming themselves into lynching mobs. They felt that just as raping of either black or white women is a most damnable crime; so is lynching either by black or white mobs a most hellish sin. In making comparisons between the ancient laws of Nippur and the modern laws of the United States, relative to slaves, the world-famed journalist, Arthur Brisbane, in the June 22, 1920 issue of the New York American, under the title, “Today”, wrote in part as follows:

“Five thousand years ago some laws were better than those of our day.

“For instance, in those ancient laws, if a slave woman had a child, the father being her owner, the mother and the child were set free. In magnificent America, in Lincoln’s day, thousands of slave children, with slave owners for fathers, were sold in the public markets.”

Now, not for one moment do intelligent and law-abiding Colored citizens uphold or make excuses for the brutish crimes committed by the degenerate members (and there are many) of their own race. For they fully realize that it means a faster and higher progress of all their people to have Colored criminals punished to the fullest extent of the law, after they have been given the same fair trials, convictions and sentences that are handed out to the thousands of white criminals who commit the same kind of crimes. And just as Colored degenerates are disgusting and shameful to up-right living white people, so are white degenerates disgusting and shameful to up-right living Colored people. Thus the broad-minded and law-abiding Colored and white citizens now mutually know that it is for the greater advancement of both races and a closer brotherhood combining of all Americans for them to see to it, as far as possible, that all criminals be rightly protected when arrested, given fair trials, safely guarded after sentenced and fully punished in a confinement where they cannot further morally lower themselves nor longer dilute the purity of human society.

And in thus far carrying out their Christian duties for the elevation of humanity, good Colored and white people are contented in knowing that for those criminals of both races who are shrewd enough to escape the detection and punishment of earthly laws, there is a Heavenly law that never fails to punish them at the proper time. And even while on their death beds those evil doers are twisting and turning in mental and bodily sufferings, they will not on account of their torturing pains be able to truthfully and peacefully chant such consoling lines that are found in Tennyson’s poem “Crossing The Bar”, nor will their names be written in that “Book of Gold” where it is said Abou Ben Adhem had his name inscribed above all of those who loved the Lord, because he (Abou Ben Adhem) loved all his fellowmen.

FOLK-LORE SONGS OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO

DIFFERENT EMOTIONS

Prayer

From lips of slaves with age bent low,
Wet prayers burst forth in deepest flow
To God above that some new light
Would slaves unborn save from such plight.

Work

Down they went the great long rows
Swinging scythes and chopping hoes
In time with cheerful labor songs
To ease the work and sting of thongs.

Song

“Camp Meetin” times were when their songs
Rang loose full pathos of slave wrongs,
And pent-up hearts with anguish fills
Were drained as springs on sloping hills.

Play

When work was done and nights were theirs,
They oft did have most jolly fairs
Quilting rags or shucking corn
With laughter, dance and fiddles worn.
--_Harrison._

“The only American music”. This is the terse, sincere and high comment made quite a number of years ago by Edward Everett Hale, author of “A Man Without a Country”, in relation to the rightful recognition and value of the American Negro melodies sung on the Southern plantations during slavery. Since then, well-read, well-bred and music loving people of both races have come to fully recognize, acknowledge and appreciate the truthfulness of the above compliment.

For many years after their freedom great number of ex-slaves harbored bitter dislikes toward these songs because they so clearly and painfully reminded them of their past ill-treatment and sufferings during slave days. Most of their children caught this feeling direct from their parents or indirectly through their own vivid imaginations formed from what they had heard about slavery. But quick and deep understanding people of both races soon found in these crude tuneful words something far more interesting and touching than mere memories of slavery sins and sufferings--they saw and felt in such weird and original chants the most beautiful and truest life pictures of the true soul that it is possible for human being to paint with colorful and verbal expressions of tear moistened sorrows and smile dried joys. Thus music lovers and masters began at once to value this music as among the most precious finds to be added to their treasuries of folk-lore songs.

World recognized Negro music transposers and composers are today taking these rough, crude and half-savage chants and, without destroying their originalities of construction or pureness of quality, lifting them from the lowest depths of ignorant fun-making burlesquers to the highest level of intelligent and serious-minded music admirers. And throughout the musical world today celebrated chorus leaders, conductors, etc., of both races in giving even operatic recitals indicate by their programs rendered that they consider no first-class recital complete unless one or more of its numbers are expressions of Negro folk-lore music as Burleigh, Dett, Diton, Work and others have so classically elevated them. These broad-minded and just manifestations are gradually causing the general public to become more interested in, give more serious thought to, and show more appreciation of the true dignity and value of these melodies. They are also rapidly educating the American Colored people as a mass not to hate and cast aside but to love and preserve this music as a race pride heritage so costly purchased and handed down by their fore-parents and as one of the most valuable and rare features of American history.

Among the foremost composers, singers and lecturers in the Negro race who are giving tremendous aid and are largely responsible for the development of the above favorable sentiments are Cleveland G. Allen, New York, N. Y., Harry Burleigh, New York, N. Y., R. Nathaniel Dett, Hampton, Va., Carl Ditson, Phila., Pa., E. Azalia Hackley, Detroit, Mich., Kathleen P. Howard, Birmingham, Ala., J. Wesley Jones, Chicago, Ill., Jennie C. Lee, Tuskegee, Ala., Nellie M. Mundy, New York, N. Y., Jas. A. Mundy, Chicago, Ill., F. J. and J. W. Work.

THROUGH RECONSTRUCTION DAYS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Oft in the past has his life been told,
And others again should it oft unfold
To learn of the greatness he did reap,
As orator, editor, statesman deep.

The following lines of marginal flight
Show a Negro’s rise from depth to height:
Fred Douglas unknown in slavery shame
Elevated his name to the Hall of Fame.
--_Harrison._

In taking a swift but careful glance back to that historical and red-letter year of 1863, it will be noted that there was born at that time into these United States a form of whole liberty that had been fathered and nourished by the world-beloved Abraham Lincoln. Before the above date this country had existed under only a one-sided liberty that had been won from the English for the white Americans by the illustrious George Washington. But it was left for Abraham Lincoln to win for the United States a two-sided liberty by cutting the chains of slavery from the wrists and ankles of the black Americans and also refreeing the white Americans by unchaining from their souls the slave-holding temptations they had become too weak-minded to resist and too selfish to give up of their own accord.

As soon as the Colored people had passed out from the sufferings of slavery, they were at once compelled as free, but ignorant, homeless and penniless, people to begin their upward struggles and progress through a reign of terror. This reign of terror was caused by the brutal treatment and murdering of thousands of innocent Colored people and the destruction of their properties by an uneducated, uncivilized and unchristianized element of Southern white people who were known as “Night Riders”, “Ku Klux Klan”, etc., of whom the best minded white people even in the South were ashamed.

But the sturdy and hopeful Colored people came through that awful ordeal as they had come through slavery, with increasing determination and greater efforts to push forward and upward to the best and highest things in life. However, it was only their unfaltering trust in God that gave them enough hopeful vision in the future; it was only their gratitude to and appreciation of their Northern and Southern white aiding friends that retained them enough patience and faith in mankind; it was only their keenness to see the funny side of life’s happenings that enabled them to laugh and keep cheerful; it was only their ability and willingness to do any and all kinds of hard work that enabled them to sleep through the whole nights with peaceful minds; and it was only their great big healthy (everlasting-non-fasting) appetites that gave them enough vitality, stamina, physical strength and energy-plus to pass through those years of body sufferings and spirit crushings and safely reach their present stages of upward progress and onward success.

Thus the Negro race has proven that just as a red-blooded, self-confident, self-reliant and resourceful individual cannot rest with a peaceful and happy mind as long as staying in the easygoing, smoothly-worn and narrow “rut” of a least-resistance, non-progressive position, but fearlessly steps out with a determined mind, hopeful heart and unbounded enthusiasm to face and overcome the ups-and-down of this rough-and-ready world that finally yields up to that individual his or her well-earned and genuine success; so will a race of people of similar qualities and aspirations be restless until it wades and crawls out of a miry and stagnant pool of ignorance and poverty and enters a channel of freshly flowing active thoughts where it can freely swim abreast in fair competition with other races in order to reach those distant ports of Christian service, citizenship usefulness, financial independence, self culture and human helpfulness.

While the Negro race in the United States succeeded in swimming into that channel in 1861, it has never been allowed, like other races therein, to use either a rapid-lunging and noisy over-head double-arm stroke or a swift-gliding and noiseless under-water crawl-stroke; but, has been compelled to paddle along using a one-arm bull-frog stroke, having one leg and arm tied together with strings of race discriminations, the entire racing course clogged with floating debris of public decayed sentiments and a plaited cord of race jealousy-envy-spite tied to the big toe of the free leg that has been roughly and constantly yanked back throughout the swim. With all that prejudiced and unsportsmanlike handicap, the American Colored people have increased their ownership of homes from twelve thousand in 1866 to six hundred thousand in 1919; they owned in 1910 over two hundred thousand farms that with other real estate holdings comprised twenty-one million acres of land; in 1866 they ran a little over two thousand business enterprises and in 1919 they had increased that number to fifty thousand business concerns doing a volume of business amounting to about one billion two hundred million dollars; in 1919 there were annually being spent for their education fifteen million dollars; starting out in 1866 with seven hundred churches they kept on building and buying Houses of God until in 1919 they owned forty-three thousand such buildings valued at more than eighty-four million dollars; and while the American Colored people in 1866 were worth twenty million dollars, they continued to earn and save money until in 1919 they had accumulated a wealth of one billion one hundred million dollars. (above figures extracted from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 1-2-345.)

There are located in over 25 States throughout the Union nearly a hundred towns and villages that are inhabited and governed wholly by Colored people. The largest of these settlements is described below.

BOLEY, OKLAHOMA

Boley, Oklahoma, was founded on September 22, 1904 by two Colored men, T. M. Haynes and James Barnett, and since then has enjoyed the greatest growth of any exclusive Negro community in the United States. There is a population of 2,500 in the city and 1,200 in the adjoining district. There are no white people living in the city and all of the farms within a distance of 8 to 10 miles are owned, with but few exceptions, by Colored farmers who possess as much as 900 acres individually. Farming is the chief industry of the community and about 90 per cent of the population own modern homes, many of them costing $5,000 and more.

All of the city offices, telephone exchange, telegraph office, depot agency, Post Office (only Third Class one in the world totally run by Negroes) are conducted by Colored people. All the business establishments and industries, that are of nearly every kind including several cotton gins are owned and carried on by Negro business men and women, one merchant being worth $100,000.00. The city has its own paved streets, electric light plant, ice plant, water system, and modern city High School costing $20,000, two private newspapers and a private Bank.

Some of the important buildings and institutions in the city are the State School of the C. M. E. Church that has a modern three-story $20,000 building; the Masonic three-story Temple; The Widow and Orphan Home of the U. B. F. Grand Lodge; the $150,000 State Tubercular Sanitarium for Negroes; and seven churches with creditable buildings. Prospects are so promising that the community is expecting to have oil wells within the next two or three years.

This is not a bad record for such a handicapped life swimmer as the Negro Race is compelled to be in the United States and certainly proves that, when it comes to keeping a lead-weighted body above the water surface and at the same time make progress up a rough stream against a strong down-flowing prejudiced current, the Negro, if he really is a fifth cousin to the foolish, noisy, frolicsome and “Call Of The Wild” goose family, he is also a first cousin to the sensible, industrious, frugal, quiet, dignified and home-loving swan family.

IN CONGRESS

It is a most remarkable fact that only seven years after the emancipation of his race, Hiram R. Revels, a Colored man, entered the United States Congress as a senator from Mississippi. But it becomes a two-fold remarkable and interesting fact when one learns that the Congressional seat taken by Revels was the chair made vacant by Jefferson Davis who left Congress and the Union side to join the Confederacy where he later became its president and leader to keep Negroes in slavery. That explains the question so many people have asked why Revels only served one year (1870-1871) in the Senate. He was elected to serve the last year that Jeff Davis had left unfinished in his term when he went over to the Rebel forces. B. K. Bruce, also from Mississippi, served a full term of six years in the Senate. So far those two have been the only Colored men to be seated and serve in the U. S. Senate. In 1872, P. B. S. Pinchback, a Colored man, was elected to the U. S. Senate, but the right of the Legislature to legally elect a senator was challenged. The contention was urged that the Legislature itself was not legally elected. The contest lasted four years and ended with seven Republican Senators voting with the Democrats to deny him the seat. He was later given four years salary as a senator. During the period of Reconstruction right after the Civil War this same Colored man was elected and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana and once while the Governor, W. P. Kellogg was absent from the State for a brief period, Lt. Gov. P. B. S. Pinchback acted as Governor of Louisiana.

J. R. Lynch was elected from Mississippi to the U. S. House of Representatives. Other Colored men who have been members in the House were as follows: Louisiana sent J. H. Menard and C. E. Nash; Georgia sent J. T. Long; Alabama sent B. S. Turner, J. T. Rapier, and J. Harlson; Virginia sent J. M. Langston; Florida sent J. T. Walls; South Carolina took the lead in numbers by sending R. B. Elliott, R. C. DeLarge, R. H. Cain, A. J. Ransier, Robert Small, T. E. Miller, G. W. Murray, and J. H. Rainey who by being elected five times exceeded any other Negro in length of service (ten years) in the House. But it was left for North Carolina to “Tar Heel” in the rear of that Congressional noble march by sending the latest Colored member to Congress in the person of the late George H. White, who as a Representative had been proceeded from that same state in the same branch of the U. S. Legislature by J. Hyman, J. E. O’Harra and H. P. Cheatham. (extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pg. 207.)

In The U. S. Diplomatic Service

While a U. S. Senator or Representative acts in the Legislature at Washington, D.C. as spokesman for a few thousand people living in a certain section of the state that elects him; a Minister or Consul to foreign countries acts as a spokesman for all the millions of American citizens living in all the United States of America. Thus, while the Colored Congressman held a very honorable and influential federal position; the Colored man who had served either as a minister or consul to foreign lands was the one who really shouldered the highest and most responsible Government position ever accorded to an American Colored person.

Some of those of the Race who have served in this last named branch of the Government are: A. H. Grimke, Minister to San Domingo, E. D. Bassett, Frederick Douglas, J. S. Durham, S. A. Furness, and L. W. Livingston, Ministers and Consuls to Haiti; T. M. Chester, Dr. J. R. Grossland, J. L. Johnson and E. W. Lyons, Consul and Ministers to Liberia; Jas. Weldon Johnson, Consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, to Corinto, Nicaragua and to the Azores; J. C. Carter, and M. Wistar Gibbs, Consuls to Madagascar; Wm. H. Hunt and W. A. Jackson, Consuls to France; R. T. Greener, Consul to Vladivostok; W. J. Yerb, Consul to Dakar, West Africa. (some of above extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pg. 208).

Others of the Race who have in the past or are at present holding important Federal positions are Chas. W. Anderson, Collector of Internal Revenue, New York City; E. T. Attwell, Director of Negro Industries during the World War; Dr. Bozerman, Postmaster of Charleston, S. C.; R. W. Bundy, Secretary to Legation in Liberia; Phil H. Brown, Commissioner of Conciliation in the U. S. Labor Dept.; J. E. Bush, Receiver of Public Money, Kansas; B. K. Bruce, Register of Treasury, Washington, D.C.; J. A. Cobb, Ass’t U. S. District Attorney, Washington, D.C.; C. S. Cottrell, Collector of Internal Revenue, Honolulu; W. S. Cohen, Land Office Commissioner, La.; Wm. Crum, Collector of Customs, Charleston, S. C.; J. C. Dancy, Recorder of Deeds, Washington, D.C.; J. H. Deveaux, Collector of Customs, Savannah, Ga.; Frederick Douglas, Recorder of Deeds and U. S. Marshall of the District of Columbia; Miss Helen Erwin, Director of Colored Industrial Housing, during World War; H. O. Flipper, Special Ass’t to the Alaska R. R. Commissioner; Geo. E. Haynes, U. S. Director of Negro Economies, during the World War; Perry W. Howard, Special Ass’t U. S. Attorney General; E. H. Hewlett, Judge, Municipal Court, Washington, D.C.; Henry Lincoln Johnson, Recorder of Deeds and Republican National Committeeman, Washington, D.C.; J. E. Lee, Collector Internal Revenue, Florida; Wm. H. Lewis, Ass’t U. S. Attorney General, Boston, Mass.; Jas Lewis, Collector of Port, La.; Judson W. Lyons, Register of U. S. Treasury, Washington, D.C.; Wm. Matthews, Ass’t U. S. District Attorney, Boston, Mass.; Whitfield McKinley, Collector of Port, Georgetown, D.C.; J. C. Napier, Register of U. S. Treasury, Washington, D.C.; J. B. Peterson, Chief Deputy Collector, Internal Revenue, Porto Rico; ex-Lieut. Gov. P. B. S. Pinchback, Special Agent Internal Revenue, New York; Dr. C. V. Roman, Field Secretary in Venereal Medical Division of U. S. Army, during World War; H. E. Rucker, Collector Internal Revenue, Ga.; Emmett J. Scott, Special Commissioner to Liberia, and Special Ass’t Secretary to Secretary of War, during World War; Robert Small, Collector of Port, Beaufort, S. C.; R. L. Smith, Deputy U.S. Marshall, Texas; Robert H. Terrell, Judge, Municipal Court, Washington, D.C.; Ralph W. Tyler, Auditor of Navy, and Foreign War Correspondent, during World War; W. T. Vernon, Register of U. S. Treasury, Washington, D.C.; and S. Laing Williams, Ass’t U. S. District Attorney, Chicago, Ill.

In State Legislatures

Upon being elected in 1866 to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, C. L. Mitchell and E. G. Walker, became the first Colored men to serve in any state legislature in America. Since that time up to the present day nearly a thousand men of the Race have served as Representatives in different state legislatures. Some of those having been elected within the past few years as members of state congressional bodies are as follows:

W. G. Alexander, New Jersey; J. C. Asbury, H. W. Bass and A. F. Stevens, Pennsylvania; J. A. Brown, H. E. Davis and H. C. Smith, Ohio; J. C. Coleman, H. J. Copehart, J. M. Ellis, E. H. Harper, T. G. Nutter, C. Payne and H. H. Railey, West Virginia; W. R. Douglass, A. H. Roberts and S. B. Turner, and Robt. R. Jackson, Illinois; J. C. Hawkins, New York; E. A. Johnson, N. Y.; W. M. Moore, Missouri; F. M. Roberts, California and J. M. Ryan, District of Columbia.

In City Government

The following names are those of a few of the many Colored politicians scattered throughout the country who are earnestly and intelligently helping their city governments to direct old and make new laws for the welfare of all races in their represented districts:

Councilman J. A. Adams, Annapolis, Md.; Alderman L. B. Anderson, Chicago, Ill.; Councilman J. Brown, Urbana, Ohio; Councilman V. Chambliss, Mounds, Ill.; Councilman R. A. Cooper, Philadelphia; ex-Alderman Oscar De Priest, Chicago, Ill.; Councilmen T. W. Fleming, Cleveland, Ohio, S. A. Furniss, Indianapolis, Ind., W. M. Fitzgerald, Baltimore, Md.; Alderman, G. W. Harris, and Assemblyman J. C. Hawkins, New York City, N. Y.; Alderman J. H. Hopkins, Wilmington, Del.; Alderman H. R. Jackson, Chicago, Ill.; Councilman Robt. R. Jackson, Chicago, Ill.; Assemblyman E. A. Johnson, New York City, N. Y.; Councilman W. T. McQuinn, Baltimore, Md.; C. Scott, Worcester, Mass, and H. St. Clair, Cambridge, Md.; Alderman T. E. Stevens, Cleveland, Tenn.; Councilmen H. Ward, Nicholasville, Ky. and F. F. Wright, Boston, Mass.; Committeeman E. H. Wright, Chicago, Ill. (some of the above names are extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, page 54.) Milton White and Amos Scott are very prominent in Phila., Pa. politics as well as unusually successful businessmen.

IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

Whenever Colored people hear mentioned the Spanish-American War, their first thoughts naturally dig up proud memories of the 9th and 10th Colored Cavalries, the 24th and 25th Colored Regiments, The 8th Illinois, Ohio Battalion and others bravely facing raining shot and shell pouring down from the hill tops of El Caney and San Juan. And ever will it go down in history that they were members of the celebrated 10th Colored Cavalry who while fighting on San Juan Hill sprang to the timely rescue of the late Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and his famous Rough Riders and saved them from certain and horrible deaths at the hands of the merciless Spaniards.

But why here go further into details regarding the conduct of Colored men in that war when the official reports of such capable warriors and experienced military judges as Major-Generals W. R. Shafter, J. F. Kent, H. W. Lawton, Joseph Wheeler, Colonel (now General) Leonard Wood and other high commanding officers give rightful credit and praise to the Colored soldiers who displayed such remarkable patriotism and heroism in that short and fierce “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night” war? (This quotation is the title of a very popular tune sung during this war by the American soldiers and civilians.)

When Hobson made his dare-devil and world-famed sea trip through a gauntlet of Spanish frowning guns, there were more than twenty-five Colored sailors with him who then shared all of his dangers and later a little of his fame. Another most important naval action centered around a Colored sailor, John C. Jordan, Chief Gunner’s Mate, who on May 1, 1898 during the battle of Manilla fired the first shot from the crusier, “Olympia,” flag ship of the late Admiral Dewey. That was the shot that opened the first decisive battle of the Spanish-American War as well as starting the destruction of the modern Spanish Armada. It is surely in place to mention here that Jordan entered the Navy as a third-class apprentice and was honorably retired as a Chief Petty Officer after spending thirty of his best years in the Navy working and waiting for “Uncle Sammy” to give him his just recognition and “Aunt Liberty” to give him a fuller caress of citizenship privileges.

In the Massacre at Carrizal

Another backyard quarrel and fight occured 1916 between the United States and Mexico. The famous 10th Colored Cavalry, 24th and 25th Colored Infantries were sent with Chicago National Guards to help watch the American border. On the morning of June 21, 1916, two divisions of the 10th Cavalry, Companies C and K, wished to pass through Carrizal to reach Villa Alunado. They were invited to come nearer for a friendly parley with the Mexicans. As the American soldiers drew closer to the place many of the Mexicans slyly, slowly and seemingly unconcerned quietly fell back, spread out and in Indian style rapidly formed a circle around the little band of unsuspecting Americans before they had really noticed what had been done. At an unseen given signal the Colored troops were suddenly attacked. They were outnumbered eight to one and in the engagement lost fifteen killed, had nine wounded and twenty-three captured, who received much inhuman treatment from the hands of their captors. Among the many brave acts of heroism during the day’s fighting was the one of Peter Bagstaff, a trooper of the 10th Cavalry, who in the very face of the Mexicans’ hailing shots staid by the side of his mortally wounded Lieut. H. F. Adair, giving that officer physical aid until death ended his sufferings.

IN THE WORLD WAR

(1914-1918)

JAMES REESE EUROPE

All sing the praise of Europe’s Band
That took such cheer to “No Man’s Land”
His were the tunes that led in line
The Colored bands of famed jazz time.

When life got “blue” to soldier lads,
And thots of home made hearts so sad,
Clownish slurs on “Jim’s” freak slides (trombones)
Made big loud smiles in camps abide.

To kings and queens of “Over There”,
He always played his jazziest air;
And generals often sent for him
To come and please their music whim.

From depths to heights he upward grew:
Then sudden death shut out of view
That Negro Sousa’s hidden chords
A world has lost from Bandrom boards.
--Harrison.

Regardless of their two hundred and ninety-eight years of unstained and unquestioned loyalty and patriotism in America, Colored people at the time the United States was about to enter the World War, were made to feel that they were not needed nor wanted in the conflict. And on many occasions they were even told that the World War was not their affair but was a “white man’s war.” Here is again shown where an inherited African instinct--that of usually being able to sense some big future happening--enabled the American Colored people to see far enough into the distance to fully realize that white people who made such remarks were sadly mistaken. Colored people then knew as all other people later found out that they were as much concerned and needed in that world conflict as any and all other races of people who took part in it.

But not until America was fearfully startled and sensibly awakened by the rapid and persistent progress of the Germans into France did this country reluctantly consent to give the Colored soldiers a half-fair chance and part in the war. And even then their acceptances had more the resemblances of the probationary trials of total strangers rather than the glad welcomings of life-long and never-failing friends. In other words, figuratively speaking, it was in the highly tempered crucibles of the World War’s whitehot furnaces of universal conflict that Negro Americanism was put through a retesting process, in order to determine the actual purity of its material and abstract composition. As to the outcome of that unnecessary and unjust retesting process, let the reader (like a minutely trained chemist) sum up in accurate notations the final results, but only after carefully weighing and reweighing the following analysis in the ever-balanced scales of impartiality.

Henry Johnson, Albany, N. Y. and Needham Roberts, of Trenton, N. J. were the first two Americans soldiers, Colored or white, who were honored by the French Government with the much coveted Croix de Guerre. These men were privates in the 369th Infantry, formerly the distinguished Fifteenth New York National Guard Regiment, that had been brigaded with French troops. It was during the loneliest and latest hours of a night in May, 1918 while Johnson and Roberts were on guard duty at an outpost on the Front near the German lines that they were suddenly surrounded and attacked by a raiding party of a score of German soldiers. Although the two colored boys used their firearms with quickness and deadly aim to keep the enemy off, the superior number of Germans, wounding Johnson three times and Roberts twice, closed in on them in a hand-to-hand death struggle. They soon had Roberts on the ground helpless, one German at his head and another at his feet. Johnson noticing the sad plight of his loyal friend, leaped forward like a wild cat at bay and with one mighty downward blow of his bolo knife split wide open the head of the enemy who was strangling Roberts. Then with a crouching pantherlike spring Johnson made a terrific sweep with his trusty knife that completely opened the stomach of the German at Roberts’ feet. Although on the ground covered with blood and gore, Roberts upon thus being released immediately began to hurl hand grenades among the enemy with telling effect. As the foe, with whose stomach Johnson’s bolo knife had made such a deep and lasting acquaintance, was the leader of the raiding party, the then thoroughly frightened Germans suddenly lost their nerve, dropped their weapons, picked up their helpless ones and made a hasty retreat. Some of the Germans had been killed and many of the party received such wounds and indelible marks that throughout their future lives they will always be reminded that American Colored is a guaranteed fast dye (slow die) that does not run.

Among the three hundred thousand and more Colored soldiers who served in the United States Army during the World War, twenty thousand were already prepared and in fighting trim when America declared war against Germany. Those twenty thousand men were divided into the First Separate Battalion of the District of Columbia; Company G, Tennessee National Guards; First Separate Companies of Maryland and Connecticut; Company L, National Guards of Massachusetts; Ninth Battalion of Ohio; 15th New York National Guard; Eighth Illinois Regiment; 9th and 10th Cavalries; 24th and 25th Infantries. After spending the necessary time in undergoing the proper government training, 639 Colored men took and satisfactorily passed the required military examination, and on October 15, 1917 were commissioned at Fort Dodge as officers in the United States Army. They were divided into 106 Captains, 329 First Lieutenants and 204 Second Lieutenants.

During and at the close of the great war, leading white newspapers vied with each other in filling their columns about the unsurpassed bravery and patriotism of Colonel “Bill” Hayward, the clear-headed and nervy white commander and his seasoned Colored 15th Regiment of New York. It was the first Colored combat regiment to go overseas and was brigaded with the French fighting forces as the 369th Regiment. To his admiring Colored soldiers, “Fighting Bill” Hayward was known as “The Hell Man” and to the surprised Germans the Colored fighters of the old 15th Regiment were frightfully known as the “Bloodthirsty Black Tigers.”

A few years before that time William Hayward had been elected the youngest judge in Nebraska and was known in that state as her “Handsomest Man”. But with all of that previous civic and social honor and fame, “Fighting Bill” never forgot to be a real “white man” and gentleman as well as a strict and just commander at all times to his Colored troops. When resting in camp he regarded and treated them as human beings and full American citizens, and when in the thickest of battles he did not ask them to go where he dared not to venture, (if there ever was such a place). In battlefield action he always led his men--he never followed them. This explains why he and his “Black Tigers” won undying fame and glory by holding a certain sector of trenches at Bois d’Hause Champagne for ninety-one days and then charging in great victory over the top of Belleau Woods and the bodies of falling Germans. It was during a very dangerous charge that a French commander seeing Hayward and his Colored men about to plunge into what seemed to be a sure death trap, ordered the American fighters back. Big Bill Hayward was already in motion and shouted over his shoulder, “My men don’t come back! They will go through hell, but they won’t come back.” And with that parting farewell, the “Hell Man” and his impatiently waiting “Black Tigers” plunged forward and were soon busy serving to the open-mouthed enemy such a smoking hot dish of scrambled shots, shells, and bayonets that in swallowing them down those war-hungry Germans at once and for all times became completely filled and lost their appetites for everything. On their return after so quickly and efficiently serving such a well prepared menu, Hayward and his fighters were decorated with the Croix de Guerre.

At Metz, Argonne Forest and St. Dis in the Sectors of Marbacne, Meuse and Vosges, the newly trained 92nd Colored Division, mostly manned by Colored officers, went into the thickest of the battles with such telling effects that fourteen officers and forty-three non-officers were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. When those battles were over and the survivors learned that they had lost from among their chums 209 killed in action, 32 dead from wounds, 589 slightly or severely wounded, 700 overcome by the German’s scientific gases and 18 unaccounted for, the 92nd Division became even more convinced that it had well earned the many honors and distinctions accorded to it.

Those regiments that were brigaded with the French Army were; the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd Infantries. In the engagements of Marson-en-Champagne, Minancourt and Bois d’Hause Champagne, the 369th Infantry (N. Y. 15th) took an active part and it was at Marson-en-champagne that the whole regiment was cited for deeds of valor and awarded the Croix de Guerre. It was at Soissons Front that the most formidable oppositions were successfully faced by the 370th Infantry (Illinois 8th) that was commanded by Negro officers from Lieut. Col. O. B. Duncan, down. The final capture of Hill 304 after a severe encounter by that regiment proved to the Germans that those Colored lads had not paddled across the “Big Pond” to learn the “Goose Step.” The loss of 1,065 out of 2,384 men signifies the serious activities of the 371st Infantry in the Champagne Sector between September 18th and October 6th, 1918. Besides the entire regiment receiving citation for extreme bravery, its regimental colors were decorated. It was this regiment that broke a standing record at that time by shooting down three German airplanes on the wing. The 372 Infantry took part in the fighting around Vacquois Sector and Argonne West, places not very far from the celebrated Verdun. For distinguished service all along the fighting lines the whole regiment was decorated with the Croix de Guerre.

While the 369th (New York 15th) enjoyed the distinctions of being the first Colored fighting organization to go overseas into action and the first Allied division (Colored or white) to reach the banks of the Rhine; it was the 370th (8th Illinois) Infantry that won the glory of probably fighting the last engagement of the World War. It appears that on the morning of November 11, 1918 the French commander sent word to the officer in charge of the 370th Regiment to cease firing at 11 a.m. as the Armistice would be signed at that hour. But the Colored troops were pressing forward so rapidly after the enemy that it was long past 11 a.m. before the messenger could overtake them. When he did finally ride up to the regiment, it was just putting on the finishing “frills and frazzles” in capturing a German army train and its crews of fifty supply wagons.

Through the untiring efforts of Dr. Joel E. Spingarn, one of the truest and most loyal friends the American Colored people have today, Dr. W. E. B. Dubois, Editor of the Crisis, Col. Charles Young, U. S. Army and many other prominent Colored leaders and friends of the race, the Secretary of War authorized on May 19, 1917 the establishment of an Officers’ Reserve Training Camp for Colored soldiers at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. This is the place where the 639 Colored men mentioned elsewhere in this article were trained before being commissioned into the United States Army. After being divided into as equal groups as possible these officers were ordered to report on November 1, 1917 for regular duty in the following named camps: Camp Dix, New Jersey; Camp Dodge, Iowa; Camp Funston, Kansas; Camp Grant, Illinois; Camp Meade, Maryland; Camp Sherman, Ohio; and Camp Upton, New York.

Special National Guards

It was just at that most critical time during the first months of this same year, (1917) before the United States declared war against Germany, and when no white man in America positively knew nor absolutely trusted any other white man as to his real one hundred percent Americanism, that the Administration called out the first Separate Colored Battalion of the District of Columbia. This group of well trained and true loyal American soldiers was made a Special National Guard to defend, from the enemies of the Government, the Capitol, White House and other important Federal buildings located in Washington, D.C. the Capital of the United States of America. The mere fact that the Administration did not select a white group of soldiers for such a purpose at such a critical time when spies of the enemy were everywhere in every form proves without a doubt that the American white people not only had to admit among themselves but were forced to acknowledge to the whole world that this was one time in the history of the country when they had not confidence enough in members of their own race to intrust to them the Nation’s most valuable and delicate assets and responsibilities, namely; its filed-away official records, its treasuries of monies, its cherished honors and its liberty-loving Government. And the necessary intrusting of such national assets and responsibilities to the care of Colored soldiers reminded the outside world (what American white people should never forget) that the Colored people in the United States form the backbone of the American nation; especially when the Nation is required to use that backbone in overthrowing such white traitors of this country as the despised Benedict Arnold and such white murderers of Presidents as the scorned J. W. Booth.

That Special Colored Guard of Honor was under a Colored commander, Major James E. Walker, who at all times intelligently and fearlessly directed and guided his men in so successfully carrying out that responsible and trustworthy task. And it was on account of his constant exposure to all kinds of early spring weather (They started guard duty March 25, 1917.) while daily and nightly directing and watching the movements of his men, that Major Walker contracted the incurable cold which resulted in his fatal illness and untimely death just in the flower of his youth and in the performance of one of the most confidential and mental-straining duties the Nation could impose upon a citizen; guarding the history, good name, wealth and liberty of one hundred ten million people.

ON THE SEA

_“Of The People, By The People, For The People.”_

On U. S. Ships, Colored men deserve
More than to cook or meals to serve;
And some are worthy of better fates
Than be only stewards and gunners’ mates.

Miss “Annapolis-Stevens” should never forget
Foreign nations are looking in shocking regret
At her vamping white boys, for caresses to get
In this School where one Colored has studied but yet.
--_Harrison._

In regard to the Colored men who took part in Naval strifes on the high seas, it has been estimated that at least ten thousand of them served in the Navy during the World War. While they were not allowed to advance in the Navy in proportion to their advancement in the Army, nevertheless, Colored college graduates and students, fully knowing such facts, put aside for the time being their educational ambitions and careers, entered the Navy and patriotically as well as unselfishly served in the menial positions of stewards, cooks and mess boys. And judging from the sleek full cheeks and plump round bodies of the officers and sailors aboard the vessels, those Colored boys, who were broad-minded and big-hearted enough to put down college pride and take up in its place national patriotism, went into galley and mess rooms and used the same kind of brain power in wrestling with pots and pans, foods and dishes as they had so brilliantly used in tussling with slippery mathematical, historical and linguistic problems when in their college class-rooms.

And who but God has an accurate record of the noble deeds humbly performed by many of those entrapped and unrescued Colored firemen and stokers who to the very last possible moment kept up the motor powers of their vessels in trying to outspeed and outdodge the death dealing submarine torpedoes? Those swift snakelike missives were always aimed and usually struck at either the life-giving lungs (fire rooms) or the pulsating hearts (engine rooms) of their objects. And it was in those vital organs of several great sea-ploughing vessels where many feverishly working, loyally dying and unsung Colored heroes went down to forever sleep in the dark deep chambers of “Father Neptune.”

THE STEVEDORES

While their duties, not being on the battle fields nor firing lines, called forth no spectacular incidents, citations for bravery or award of medals, nevertheless, the work of the stevedores was as important and valuable as the efforts of any other division in the World War. And their giant strengths and swiftness of movements in loading and unloading supply transports on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean played a very very clever part in helping the world to finally get a Zbyszko “toe-hold” a Stecher “scissors-hold” and a Lewis “strangle-hold” upon Germany and gradually forcing her shoulders backward and flat upon the universal mat of democracy.

(For some of the facts and figures used in writing-up the actual
military and naval actions of the different wars that have been
recorded on the foregoing pages, the writer is reverently grateful
to his deceased Father, who as a runaway slave served through the
Civil War, and other veterans of the Civil, Spanish-American and
World Wars. But for the remainder and majority of such war data
herein used, the author is fully indebted to The National Benefit
Life Insurance Company, through the generous courtesies of its
President, Mr. R. H. Rutherford, Washington, D.C., whose personal
permission the writer secured to use such data in this book.)

HIGHEST COLORED OFFICERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY

A BRUNETTE GENERAL

Through all the wars these States have gone,
A million Colored their parts have borne,
But never a General has one been made:
Yet, Lafayette’s France have them so paid,
For character there out-points darkest shade.

Colored taxes are yearly in dollars fed
To help in the drilling of West Point’s tread:
On kinder treatments Negroes should have dined,
Who rarely got there and mostly resigned.

If length of service and training thorough,
And physical fitness without a blur
Mark Colored soldiers for station anew,
“Uncle Sam,” they would fill them both brave and true;
These nephews who never have treasoned you.
--_Harrison._

Those who have been appointed the highest Colored officers in the United States Regular Army are as follows:

Colonel Charles Young (retired) Tenth Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth (retired) deceased,
Chaplain, Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Lieutentant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Ninth Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel John E. Green, Militia Attache, Monrovia, Liberia.
Major William T. Anderson (retired) Chaplain, Tenth Cavalry.
Major John R. Lynch (retired) Paymaster.
Major Richard R. Wright, Paymaster, 1898, Spanish-American War.
Major George W. Prioleau, Chaplain, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
Captain W. E. Gladden, Chaplain, (retired) Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Captain T. G. Steward, Chaplain retired, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
Captain Oscar J. W. Scott, Chaplain, Tenth Cavalry.
Major Louis A. Carter, Chaplain, Ninth Cavalry.
First Lieutenant A. W. Thomas, Chaplain Twenty-fourth Infantry.

Those who held the highest Colored commissions above captains in the United States Army during the World War are as follows:

“Colonels:
Franklin A. Denison, 370th Infantry; Charles Young retired.

Lieutenant Colonels:
Ollie B. Davis, 9th Cavalry; Otis B. Duncan, 370th Infantry; John E.
Green, Military Attache, Monrovia, Liberia.

Majors:
“Thomas B. Campbell; Milton T. Dean, 317th Ammunition Train; John C.
Fulton, 372nd Infantry; William B. Gould, Jr., National Guard; Charles
L. Hunt, 370th Infantry; William H. Jackson, 369th Infantry; Thomas
H. Moffatt, 371st Infantry; Adam E. Patterson, Judge Advocate, 92nd
Division; Rufus M. Stokes, 370th Infantry; James E. Walker, 372nd
Infantry; Arthur Williams, 370th Infantry.”

(The above list of officers’ names are quoted from Work’s Negro Year Book, edition 1918-1919, pages 223-228.)

IN THE WORLD WAR

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