YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE NEGRO IN
LITERATURE AND ART

s6t

PHILLIS WHEATLEY

The Negro
in Literature and Art
in the United States
BY >
BENJAMIN BRAWLEY
Author of "A S. art History of the American Negro," "History of
Moreh. mse College" and "Richard Le OaUienne:
A Study of His Poetry "

NEW YORK
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
Dufmeld A Co.

TO MY FATHER
EDWARD MacKNIGHT BRAWLEY
WITH THANKS FOE SEVEEE TEACHING
AND STIMULATING CBITICISM

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
Preface .  xi
I. The Negro Genius  3
II. Phillis Wheatley  10
III. Paul Laurence Dunbar  33
IV. Charles W. Chesnutt  45
V. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois  50
VI. William Stanley Braithwaite  56
VII. Other Writers  65
VIII. Orators. — Douglass and Washington ... 83
IX. The Stage  97
X. Painters. — Henry O. Tanner  103
XI. Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller . . . 112
XII. Music  125
Appendix:
1. The Neqso in American Fiction  145
2. Study os Biblioqbaphy  160

ILLUSTRATIONS

Phillis Wheatley  Frontispiece
Paul Laurence Dunbar  Facing p. 34

Charles W. Chesnutt . . .
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois . .
William Stanley Braithwaite
Henry O. Tanner 
Meta Warrick Fuller . . .
Harry T. Burleigh . . . ~*~.

46
5056
104112
130

PREFACE
The present volume undertakes to treat
somewhat more thoroughly than has ever be
fore been attempted the achievement of the
Negro in the United States along literary and
artistic lines, judging this by ab^lute_rather
than by Bart^.1 or hmited standards.. The work
is the result of studies in which I first became
interested nearly ten years ago. In 1910 a
booklet, "The Negro in Literature and Art,"
appeared in Atlanta, privately printed. The
little work contained only sixty pages. The
reception accorded it, however, was even more
cordial than I had hoped it might be, and the
limited edition was soon exhausted. Its sub
stance, in condensed form, was used in 1913
as the last chapter of "A Short History of the
American Negro," brought out by the Mac-
millan Co. In the mean time, however, new
books and magazine articles were constantly
appearing, and my own judgment on more than

Preface
one point had changed; so that the time has
seemed ripe for a more intensive review of the
whole field. To teachers who may be using
the history as a text I hardly need to say
that I should be pleased to have the present
work supersede anything said in the last chap
ter of that volume.
The first chapter, and those on Mr. Braith
waite and Mrs. Fuller, originally appeared in
the Southern Workman. That on the Stage
was a contribution to the Springfield Repub
lican; and the supplementary chapter is from
the Dial. All are here reprinted with the kind
consent of the owners of those periodicals.
Much of the quoted matter is covered by copy
right. Thanks are especially due to Mr. Braith
waite and Mr. J. W. Johnson for permission
to use some of their poems, and to Dodd,
Mead & Co., the publishers of the works of
Dunbar. The bibliography is quite new. It
is hoped that it may prove of service.
Benjamin Brawley.
North Cambridge, August, 1917.

THE NEGRO IN
LITERATURE AND ART

THE NEGRO IN
LITERATURE AND ART

THE NEGRO GENIUS
IN his lecture on "The Poetic Principle," in
leading down to his definition of poetry,
Edgar Allan Poe has called attention to the
three faculties, intellect, feeling, and will, and
shown that poetry, that the whole realm of
aesthetics in fact, is concerned primarily and
solely with the second of these. Does it satisfy
a sense of beauty? This is his sole test of a
poem or of any work of art, the aim being
neither to appeal to the intellect by satisfying
the reason or inculcating truth, nor to appeal
to the will by satisfying the moral sense or
inculcating duty.
The standard has often been criticised as
3

4 The Negro in Literature and Art
narrow; yet it embodies a large and funda
mental element of truth. If in connection with
it we study the Negro we shall find that two
things are observable. One is that any dis
tinction so far won by a member of the race in
America has been almost always in some one
of the arts; and the other is that any influence
so far exerted by the Negro on American civ
ilization has been primarily in the field of
aesthetics. To prove the point we may refer
to a long line of beautiful singers, to the fervid
oratory of Douglass, to the sensuous poetry of
Dunbar, to the picturesque style of DuBois,
to the mysticism of the paintings of Tanner,
and to the elemental sculpture of Meta War
rick Fuller. Even Booker Washington, most
practical of Americans, proves the point, the
distinguishing qualities of his speeches being
anecdote and brilliant concrete illustration.
Everyone must have observed a striking
characteristic of the homes of Negroes of the
peasant class in the South. The instinct for
beauty insists upon an outlet, and if one can
find no better picture he will paste a circus
poster or a flaring advertisement on the walls.
Very few homes have not at least a geranium

The Negro Genius 5
on the windowsill or a rosebush in the garden.
If also we look at the matter conversely we
shall find that those things which are most
picturesque make to the Negro the readiest
appeal. Red is his favorite color simply be
cause it is the most pronounced of all colors.
Goethe's "Faust" can hardly be said to be a
play primarily designed for the galleries. One
never sees it fail, however, that in any Southern
city this play will fill the gallery with the so-
called lower class of Negro people, who would
never think of going to another play of its
class, but different; and the applause never
leaves one in doubt as to the reasons for
Goethe's popularity. It is the suggestiveness
of the love scenes, the red costume of Mephis-
topheles, the electrical effects, and the rain of
fire that give the thrill desired — all pure melo
drama of course. "Faust" is a good show as
well as a good play.
In some of our communities Negroes are
frequently known to "get happy" in church.
Now a sermon on the rule of faith or the plan
of salvation is never known to awaken such
ecstasy. This rather accompanies a vivid por
trayal of the beauties of heaven, with the

6 The Negro in Literature and Art
walls of jasper, the angels with palms in their
hands, and (summum bonum!) the feast of milk
and honey. And just here is the dilemma so
often faced by the occupants of pulpits in
Negro churches. Do the people want scholarly
training? Very often the cultured preacher
will be inclined to answer in the negative. Do
they want rant and shouting? Such a standard
fails at once to satisfy the ever-increasing in
telligence of the audience itself. The trouble
is that the educated minister too often leaves
out of account the basic psychology of his
audience. That preacher who will ultimately
be the most successful with a Negro congre
gation will be the one who to scholarship
and culture can best join brilliant imagination
and fervid rhetorical expression. When all of
these qualities are brought together in their
finest proportion the effect is irresistible.
Gathering up the threads of our discussion
so far, we find that there is constant striving
on the part of the Negro for beautiful or strik
ing effect, that those things which are most
picturesque make the readiest appeal to his
nature, and that in the sphere of religion he
receives with most appreciation those dis-

The Negro Genius 7
courses which are most imaginative in quality.
In short, so far as the last point is concerned,
it is not too much to assert that the Negro
is thrilled not so much by the moral as by the
artistic and pictorial elements in religion.
But there is something deeper than the sen-
suousness of beauty that makes for the possi
bilities of the Negro in the realm of the arts,
and that is the soul of the race. The wail of
the old melodies and the plaintive quality that
is ever present in the Negro voice are but the
reflection of a background of tragedy. No
race can rise to the greatest heights of art
until it has yearned and suffered. The Rus
sians are a case in point. Such has been their
background in oppression and striving that
their literature and art are to-day marked by
an unmistakable note of power. The same
future beckons to the American Negro. There
is something very elemental about the heart
of the race, something that finds its origin in
the African forest, in the sighing of the night-
wind, and in the falling of the stars. There is
something grim and stern about it all, too,
something that speaks of the lash, of the child
torn from its mother's bosom, of the dead body

8 The Negro in Literature and Art
riddled with bullets and swinging all night
from a limb by the roadside.
So far we have elaborated a theory. Let
us not be misunderstood. We do not mean to
say that the Negro can not rise to great dis
tinction in any sphere other than the arts.
He has already made a noteworthy beginning
in pure scholarship and invention; especially
have some of the younger men done brilliant
work in science. We do mean to say, however,
that every race has its peculiar genius, and that,
so far as we can at present judge, the Negro, with
all his manual labor, is destined to reach his
greatest heights in the field of the artistic.
But the impulse needs to be watched. Roman
ticism very soon becomes unhealthy. The
Negro has great gifts of voice and ear and
soul; but so far much of his talent has not
soared above the stage of vaudeville. This is
due most largely of course to economic in
stability. It is the call of patriotism, how
ever, that America should realize that the
Negro has peculiar gifts which need all possible
cultivation and which will some day add to
the glory of the country. Already his music
is recognized as the most distinctive that the

The Negro Genius 9
United States has yet produced. The possi
bilities of the race in literature and oratory, in
sculpture and painting, are illimitable.
Along some such lines as those just indi
cated it will be the aim of the following pages
to study the achievement of the Negro in the
United States of America. First we shall
consider in order five representative writers
who have been most constantly guided by
standards of literary excellence. We shall then
pass on to others whose literary work has been
noteworthy, and to those who have risen above
the crowd in oratory, painting, sculpture, or
music. We shall constantly have to remember
that those here remarked are only a few of
the many who have longed and striven for
artistic excellence. Some have pressed on to
the goal of their ambition; but no one can give
the number of those who, under hard conditions,
have yearned and died iu silence.

II
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
ON one of the slave ships that came to
the harbor of Boston in the year 1761
was a little Negro girl of very delicate figure.
The vessel on which she arrived came from
Senegal. With her dirty face and unkempt
hair she must indeed have been a pitiable
object in the eyes of would-be purchasers.
The hardships of the voyage, however, had
given an unusual brightness to the eye of the
child, and at least one woman had discernment
enough to appreciate her real worth. Mrs.
Susannah Wheatley, wife of John Wheatley,
a tailor, desired to possess a girl whom she
might train to be a special servant for her de
clining years, as the slaves already in her
home were advanced in age and growing feeble.
Attracted by the gentle demeanor of the child
in question, she bought her, took her home,
and gave her the name of Phillis. When the
10

Phillis Wheatley 11
young slave became known to the world it
was customary for her to use also the name
of the family to which she belonged. She
always spelled her Christian name P-h-i-1-l-i-s.
Phillis Wheatley was born very probably in
1753. The poem on Whitefield published in
1770 said on the title-page that she was seven
teen years old. When she came to Boston she
was shedding her front teeth. Her memory of
her childhood in Africa was always vague.
She knew only that her mother poured out
water before the rising sun. This was probably
a rite of heathen worship.
Mrs. Wheatley walTa woman of unusual re
finement. Her home was well known to the
people of fashion and culture in Boston, and
King Street in which she lived was then as
noted for its residences as it is now, under the
name of State Street, famous for its commercial
arid banking houses. When Phillis entered
the Wheatley home the family consisted of
four persons, Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley, then-
son Nathaniel, and their daughter Mary.
Nathaniel and Mary were twins, born May 4,
1743. Mrs. Wheatley was also the mother of
three other children, Sarah, John, and Susan-

12 The Negro in Literature and Art
nah; but all of these died in early youth.
Mary Wheatley, accordingly, was the only
daughter of the family that Phillis knew to
any extent, and she was eighteen years old
when her mother brought the child to the house,
that is, just a little more than ten years older
than Phillis.
In her new home the girl showed signs of
remarkable talent. Her childish desire for
expression found an outlet in the figures which
she drew with charcoal or chalk on the walls
of the house. Mrs. Wheatley and her daughter
became so interested in the ease with which
she assimilated knowledge that they began to
teach her. ** Within sixteen months from the"!
time of her arrival in Boston Phillis was able
to read fluently the most difficult parts of the
Bible. From the first her mistress strove to ,
cultivate in every possible way her naturally
pious disposition, and diligently gave her in
struction in the Scriptures and in morals.
In course of time, thanks especially to the
teaching of Mary Wheatley, the learning of
the young student came to consist of a little
astronomy, some ancient and modern geog
raphy, a little ancient history, a fair knowledge

Phillis Wheatley 18
of the Bible, and a thoroughly appreciative
acquaintance with the most important Latin
classics, especially the works of Virgil and
Ovid. She was proud of the fact that Terence
was at least of African birth. She became pro
ficient in grammar, developing a conception of
style from practice rather than from theory.
Pope's translation of Homer was her favorite
English classic. If in the light of twentieth
century opportunity and methods these at
tainments seem in no wise remarkable, one
must remember the disadvantages under which
not only Phillis Wheatley, but all the women
of her time, labored; and recall that in any
case her attainments would have marked her
as one of the most highly educated young
women in Boston.
While Phillis was trying to make the most
of her time with her studies, she was also seek
ing to develop herself in other ways. She
had not been studying long before she began
to feel that she too would like to make verses.
Alexander Pope was still an important force
in English literature, and the young student
became his ready pupil. She was about four
teen years old when she seriously began to

14 The Negro in Literature and Art
cultivate her poetic talent; and one of the
very earliest, and from every standpoint one
of the most interesting of her efforts is the
pathetic little juvenile poem, "On Being
Brought from Africa to America:"
'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God — that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye —
"Their colour is a diabolic dye."
Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Gain
May be refined, and join th' angelic train.
Meanwhile, the life of Phillis was altogether
different from that of the other slaves of the
household. No hard labor was required of
her, though she did the lighter work, such as
dusting a room or polishing a table. Gradually
she came to be regarded as a daughter and
companion rather than as a slave. As she
wrote poetry, more and more she proved to
have a talent for writing occasional verse.
Whenever any unusual event, such as a death,
occurred in any family of the circle of Mrs.
Wheatley's acquaintance, she would write
lines on the same. She thus came to be re-

Phillis Wheatley 15
garded as "a kind of poet-laureate in the
domestic circles of Boston." She was frequently
invited to the homes of people to whom Mrs.
Wheatley had introduced her, and was re
garded with peculiar interest and esteem, on
account both of her singular position and her
lovable nature. In her own room at home
Phillis was specially permitted to have heat
and a light, because her constitution was deli
cate, and in order that she might write down
her thoughts as they came to her, rather than
trust them to her fickle memory.
Such for some years was the course of the
fife of Phillis Wheatley. The year 1770 saw
the earliest publication of one of her poems.
On the first printed page of this edition one
might read the following announcement: "A
Poem, By Phillis, a Negro Girl, in Boston, On
the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield."
In the middle of the page is a quaint represen
tation of the dead man in his coffin, on the
top of which one might with difficulty decipher,
"G. W. Ob. 30 Sept. 1770, Aet. 56." The
poem is addressed to the Countess of Hunt
ingdon, whom Whitefield had served as chap
lain, and to the orphan children of Georgia

16 The Negro in Literature and Art
whom he had befriended. It takes up in the
original less than four pages of large print. It
was revised for the 1773 edition of the poems.
In 1771 the first real sorrow of Phillis Wheat-
ley came to her. On January 31st Mary
Wheatley left the old home to become the wife
of Rev. John Lathrop, pastor of the Second
Church in Boston. This year is important for
another event. On August 18th "Phillis, the
u servant of Mr. Wheatley," became a communi
cant of the Old South Meeting House in Boston.
We are informed that "her membership in
Old South was an exception to the rule that
slaves were not baptized into the church." At
that time the church was without a regular
minister, though it had lately received the ex
cellent teaching of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Sewell.
This was a troublous time in the history of
Boston. Already the storm of the Revolution
was gathering. The period was one of vexa
tion on the part of the slaves and their masters
as well as on that of the colonies and England.
The argument on the side of the slaves was
that, as the colonies were still English terri
tory, they were technically free, Lord Mans
field having handed down the decision in 1772

PhiUis Wheatley 17
that as soon as a slave touched the soil of
England he became free. Certainly PhiUis
must have been a girl of unusual tact to be
able under such conditions to hold so securely
the esteem and affection of her many friends.
About this time, as we learn from her cor
respondence, her health began to fail. Almost
all of her letters that are preserved were writ
ten to Obour Tanner, a friend living in New
port, R. I. Just when the two young women
became acquainted is not known. Obour
Tanner survived until the fourth decade of
the next century. It was to her, then, still a
young woman, that on July 19, 1772, Phillis
wrote from Boston as follows:
My Dear Feiend, — I received your kind epistle a few
days ago; much disappointed to hear that you had not
received my answer to your first letter. I have been in
a very poor state of health all the past winter and spring,
and now reside in the country for the benefit of its more
wholesome air. I came to town this morning to spend the
Sabbath with my master and mistress. Let me be inter
ested in your prayers that God will bless to me the means
used for my recovery, if agreeable to his holy will.
By the spring of 1773 the condition of the
health of Phillis was such as to give her friends

18 The Negro in Literature and Art
much concern. The family physician advised
that she try the air of the sea. As Nathaniel
Wheatley was just then going to England, it
was decided that she should accompany him.
The two sailed in May. The poem, "A Fare
well to America," is dated May 7, 1773. It
was addressed to "S. W.," that is, Mrs. Wheat-
ley, f Before she left America, Phillis was
formally manumitted. ^
The poem on Whitefield served well as an
introduction to the Countess of Huntingdon.
Through the influence of this noblewoman
Phillis met other ladies, and for the summer the
child of the wilderness was the pet of the
society people of England. Now it was that
a peculiar gift of Phillis Wheatley shone to
advantage. To the recommendations of a
strange history, ability to write verses, and
the influence of kind friends, she added the
accomplishment of brilliant conversation.
Presents were showered upon her. One that
has been preserved is a copy of the magnificent
1770 Glasgow folio edition of "Paradise Lost,"
given to her by Brook Watson, Lord Mayor
of London. This book is now in the library
of Harvard University. At the top of one of

Phillis Wheatley 19
the first pages, in the handwriting of Phillis
Wheatley, are these words: "Mr. Brook Wat
son to Phillis Wheatley, London, July, 1773."
At the bottom of the same page, in the hand
writing of another, are these words: "This
book was given by Brook Watson formerly
Lord Mayor of London to Phillis Wheatley
& after her death was sold in payment of her
husband's debts. It is now presented to the
Library of Harvard University at Cambridge,
by Dudley L. Pickman of Salem. March,
1824." Phillis had not arrived in England at the
most fashionable season, however. The ladies
of the circle of the Countess of Huntingdon
desired that she remain long enough to be
presented at the court of George III. An acci
dent — the illness of Mrs. Wheatley — prevented
the introduction. This lady longed for the
presence of her old companion, and Phillis
could not be persuaded to delay her return.
Before she went back to Boston, however, ar
rangements were made for the publication of
her volume, " Poems jm Various Subjects, Rj>
ligious and Moral," of which more must be
said. While the book does not of course con-

20 The Negro in Literature and Art
tain the later scattered poems, it is the only
collection ever brought together by Phillis
Wheatley, and the book by which she is known.
The visit to England marked the highest
point in the career of the young author. Her
piety and faith were now to be put to their
severest test, and her noble bearing under
hardship and disaster must forever speak to
her credit. In much of the sorrow that came
to her she was not alone, for the period of the
Revolution was one of general distress.
Phillis remained in England barely four
months. In October she was back in Boston.
That she was little improved may be seen
from the letter to Obour Tanner, bearing date
the 30th of this month:
I hear of your welfare with pleasure; but this acquaints
you that I am at present indisposed by a cold, and since
my arrival have been visited by the asthma.
A postscript to this letter reads:
The young man by whom this is handed to you seems
to be a very clever man, knows you very' well, and is
very complaisant and agreeable.
/ The "young man" was John Peters, after-
\wards to be her husband.

Phillis Wheatley 21
A great sorrow came to Phillis in the death
on March 3, 1774, of her best friend, Mrs.
Wheatley, then in her sixty-fifth year. How
she felt about this event is best set forth in
her own words in a letter addressed to Obour
Tanner at Newport under date March 21,
1774: Deab Obour, — I received your obliging letter en
closed in your Reverend Pastor's and handed me by his
son. I have lately met with a great trial in the death of
my mistress; let us imagine the loss of a parent, sister
or brother, the tenderness of all were united in her. I was
a poor little outcast and a stranger when she took me in;
not only into her house, but I presently became a sharer
in her most tender affections. I was treated by her more
like her child than her servant; no opportunity was left
unimproved of giving me the best of advice; but in terms
how tender! how engaging! This I hope ever to keep in
remembrance. Her exemplary life was a greater monitor
than all her precepts and instructions; thus we may ob
serve of how much greater force example is than instruc
tion. To alleviate our sorrows we had the satisfaction
to see her depart in inexpressible raptures, earnest long
ings, and impatient thirstings for the upper courts of the
Lord. Do, my dear friend, remember me and this family
in your closet, that this afflicting dispensation may be
sanctified to us. I am very sorry to hear that you are
indisposed, but hope this will find you in better health.
I have been unwell the greater part of the winter, but am
much better as the spring approaches. Pray excuse my

22 The Negro in Literature and Art
not writing you so long before, for I have been so busy
lately that I could not find leisure. I shall send the 5
books you wrote for, the first convenient opportunity;
if you want more they shall be ready for you. I am very
affectionately your friend, Phillis Wheatley.
After the death of Mrs. Wheatley Phillis
seems not to have lived regularly at the old
home; at least one of her letters written in 1775
was sent from Providence. For Mr. Wheatley
the house must have been a sad one; his daugh
ter was married and living in her own home, his
son was living abroad, and his wife was dead.
It was in this darkening period of her life,
however, that a very pleasant experience came
to Phillis Wheatley. This was her reception
at the hands of George/Washington."~JjOI75j
while the siege of Boston was in progress, she
wrote a letter to the distinguished soldier, en
closing a complimentary poem. Washington
later replied as follows: Cambbidge, Feb. 2, 1776.
Miss Phillis, — Your favor of the 26th of October did
not reach my hand till the middle of December. Time
enough, you say, to have given an answer ere this.
Granted. But a variety of important occurrences con
tinually interposing to distract the mind and to withdraw

Phillis Wheatley 23
the attention, I hope, will apologize for the delay and
plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect.
I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me,
in the elegant lines you enclosed, and however undeserving
I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and
manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents,
in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I
would have published the poem, had I not been apprehen
sive that while I only meant to give the world this new
instance of your genius, I might have incurred the im
putation of vanity. This and nothing else determined
me not to give it place in the public prints. If you should
ever come to Cambridge or near headquarters, I shall be
happy to see a person so favored by the muses, and to
whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her
dispensations. I am, with great respect,
Your obedient humble servant,
Geoege Washington.
Not long afterwards PhiUis accepted the
invitation of the General and was received in i
Cambridge with marked courtesy by Wash
ington and his officers.
The Wheatley home was finally broken up
by the death of Mr. John Wheatley, March
12, 1778, at the age of seventy-two. After
this event Phillis lived for a short time with
a friend of Mrs. Wheatley, and then took an
apartment and lived by herself. By April she

24 The Negro in Literature and Art
had yielded to the blandishments of John
Peters sufficiently to be persuaded to become
his wife. [This man is variously reported to
have been a baker, a barber, a grocer, a doctor,
and a lawyer;. J With all of these professions
and occupations, however, he seems not to
have possessed the ability to make a living.
He wore a wig, sported a cane, and generally
felt himself superior to labor. Bereft of old
friends as she was, however, sick and lonely,
it is not surprising that when love and care
seemed thus to present themselves the heart
of the woman yielded. It was not long before
she realized that she was married to a ne'er-
do-well at a time when even an industrious
man found it hard to make a living. The
course of the Revolutionary War made it
more and more difficult for people to secure
the bare necessaries of life, and the horrors
of Valley Forge were but an aggravation of
the general distress. ^The year was further
made memorable by the death of Mary Wheat-
ley, Mrs. Lathrop, on the 24th of September^
When Boston fell into the hands of the
British, the inhabitants fled in all directions.
Mrs. Peters accompanied her husband to Wil-

Phillis Wheatley 25
mington, Delaware, where she suffered much
from poverty. After the evacuation of Boston by
the British troops, she returned thither. A
niece of Mrs. Wheatley, whose son had been
slain in battle, received her under her own
roof. This woman was a widow, was not
wealthy, and kept a little school in order to
support herself. Mrs. Peters and the two
children whose mother she had become re
mained with her for six weeks. Then Peters
came for his wife, having provided an apart
ment for her. Just before her departure for
Wilmington, Mrs. Peters entrusted her papers
to a daughter of the lady who received her on
her return from that place. After her death
these were demanded by Peters as the property
of his wife. They were of course promptly
given to him. Some years afterwards he re
turned to the South, and nothing is known of
what became of the manuscripts.
The conduct of her husband estranged Mrs.
Peters from her old acquaintances, and her
pride kept her from informing them of her
distress. After the war, however, one of Mrs.
Wheatley's relatives hunted her out and found
that her two children were dead, and that a

26 The Negro in Literature and Art
third that had been born was sick. This
seems to have been in the winter of 1783-84.
Nathaniel Wheatley, who had been living in
London, died in the summer of 1783. In 1784
John Peters suffered imprisonment in jail.
After his liberation he worked as a journeyman
baker, later attempted to practice law, and
finally pretended to be a physician. His wife/**"-
meanwhile, earned her board by drudgery in >
a cheap lodging-house on the west side of the \
town. Her disease made rapid progressAj*uid
.she died December 5, 1784. Her last baby
died and was buried with her. No one of her
old acquaintances seems to have known of her
death. On the Thursday after this event,
however, the following notice appeared in the
Independent Chronicle:
Last Lord's Day, died Mrs. Phillis Peters (formerly
Phillis Wheatley), aged thirty-one, known to the world
by her celebrated miscellaneous poems. Her funeral is
to be this afternoon, at four o'clock, from the house lately
improved by Mr. Todd, nearly opposite Dr. Bulfinch's at
West Boston, where her friends and acquaintances are
desired to attend.
The house referred to was situated on or
near the present site of the Revere House in

Phillis Wheatley 27
Bowdoin Square. The exact site of the grave
of Phillis Wheatley is not known.
At the time when she was most talked about,
Phillis Wheatley was regarded as a prodigy,
appearing as she did at a time when the achieve- '
ment of the Negro in literature and art was
still negligible. Her vogue, however, was more
than temporary, and the 1793, 1802, and 1816
editions of her poems found ready sale. In
the early years of the last century her verses
were frequently to be found in school readers.
From the first, however, there were those who
discounted her poetry., Thomas Jefferson, for
instance, said that it was beneath the dignity
of criticism. If after 1816 interest in her work
declined, , it was greatly revived at the. time of
the^ anti-slavery agj±ation, when anything in
dicating unusual capacity on the part of the
Negro was received with eagerness. When
Margaretta Matilda Odell of Jamaica Plain, a
descendant of the Wheatley family, republished
the poenis with a memoir in 1834, there was
such a demand for the book that jtwo more
editions were called for within the next three
years. For a variety of reasons, especially an
increasing race-consciousness on the part of

28 The Negro in Literature and Art
the Negro, interest in her work has greatly
increased within the last decade, and as copies
of early editions had within recent years be
come so rare as to be practically inaccessible,
'the reprint in_1909 of the volume of 1773 by
the A. MTE. Book Concern in Philadelphia
was especially welcome.
Only two poems written by Phillis Wheatley
after her marriage are in existence. These are
"Liberty and Peace," and "An Elegy Sacred
to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper." Both
were published in 1784. Of "Poems on Various
Subjects," the following advertisement appeared
in the Boston Gazette for January 24, 1774:
This Day Published
Adorn'd with an Elegant Engraving of the Author,
(Price 3s. 4d. L. M. Bound,)
POEMS
on various subjects, — Religious and Moral,
By Phillis Wheatley, a Negro Girl.
Sold by Mess's Cox & Berry,
at their Store, in King-Street, Boston.
N. B. — The subscribers are requested to apply for their
copies.
. ^ The little octavo volume of 124 pages con
tains j9_poems. One of these, however, must

Phillis Wheatley 29
be excluded from the enumeration, as it is
simply "A Rebus by I. B.," which serves as
the occasion of Phillis Wheatley's poem, the
answer to it. Fourteen of the poems are
elegiac, and at least six others are occasional.
Two are paraphrases from the Bible. We are
thus left with sixteen poems to represent the
best that Phillis Wheatley had produced by
the time she was twenty years old. One of
the longest of these is "Niobe in Distress for
Her Children Slain by Apollo, from Ovid's
Metamorphoses, Book VI, and from a View
of the Painting of Mr. Richard Wilson."
This poem contains two interesting examples
of personification (neither of which seems to
be drawn from Ovid), "fate portentous whis
tling in the air," and "the feather'd vengeance
quiv'ring in his hands," though the point
might easily be made that these are Uttle more
than a part of the pseudo-classic tradition.
The poem, "To S. M., a Young African Painter,
on seeing his works," was addressed to Scipio
Moorhead, a young man who exhibited some
talent for drawing and who was a servant of
the Rev. John Moorhead of Boston. From
the poem we should infer that one of his sub-

SO The Negro in Literature and Art
jects was the story of Damon and Pythias.
Of prime importance are the two or three
poems of autobiographical interest. We have
already remarked "On Being Brought from
Africa to America." In the lines addressed to
William, Earl of Dartmouth, the young woman
spoke again from her personal experience. Im
portant also in this connection is the poem
"On Virtue," with its plea:
Attend me, Virtue, thro' my youthful years!
O leave me not to the false joys of time!
But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.
One would suppose that Phillis Wheatley would
make of "An Hymn to Humanity" a fairly
strong piece of work. It is typical of the re
straint under which she labored that this is
one of the most conventional things in the
volume. AU critics agree, however, that the
strongest lines in the book are those entitled
"On Imagination." This effort is more sus-
taineiaThan"l!Ee~others, and it is the leading
poem that Edmund Clarence Stedman chose
to represent Phillis Wheatley in his "Library
of American Literature." The foUowing lines
are representative of its quality:

Phillis Wheatley 31
Imagination! Who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th' empyreal palace of the thundering God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above;
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.
Hardly beyond this is "Liberty and Peace,"
the best example of the later verse. The poem
is too long for inclusion here, but may be
found in Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American
Literature," and Heartman and Schomburg's
collected edition of the Poems and Letters.
It is unfortunate that, imitating Pope,
PhiUis Wheatley more than once fell into his
pitfalls. Her diction — "fleecy care," "vital
breath," "feather'd race" — is distinctly pseudo-
classic. The construction is not always clear;
for instance, in the poem, "To Maecenas,"
there are three distinct references to Virgil,
when grammatically the poetess seems to be
speaking of three different men. Then, of
course, any young writer working under the
influence of Pope and his school would feel a

82 The Negro in Literature and Art
sense of repression. If Phillis Wheatley had
come on the scene forty years later, when the
romantic writers had given a new tone to
English poetry, she would undoubtedly have
been much greater. Even as it was, however,
she made her mark, and her place in the history
of American literature, though not a large one,
is secure.
Hers was a great soul. Her ambition knew
no bounds, her thirst for knowledge was in
satiable, and she triumphed over the most ad
verse circumstances. A child of the wilderness
and a slave,' by her grace and culture she satis
fied the conventionalities of Boston and of
England. Her brilliant conversation was
equaled only by her modest demeanor. Every
thing about her was refined. More and more
as one studies her Ufe^he becomes aware of her
sterling Christian character. In a dark day
she caught a glimpse of the eternal Ught, and
it was meet that the first Negro woman in
American literature should be one of unerring
piety and the highest of literary ideals.

Ill
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
INCOMPARABLY the foremost exponent in
verse of the Ufe and character of the Negro
people has been Paul Laurence Dunbar. This
gifted young poet represented perfectly the
lyric and romantic quaUty of the race, with
its moodiness, its abandon, its love of song,
and its pathetic irony, and his career has been
the inspiration of thousands of the young men
and women whose problems he had to face,
and whose aspirations he did so much to
reaUze. Dunbar was born in T>a^tqn^ Ohio, June
27, 1872.. His parents were uneducated but
earnest hard-working people, and throughout
his life the love of the poet for his mother was
ever a dominating factor. From very early
years Dunbar made little attempts at rhyming;
but what he afterwards called his first poetical
33

34 The Negro in Literature and Art
achievement was his recitation of some original
verses at a Suriday School Easter celebration
when he was thirteen years old. He attended
the Steele High School in Dayton, where he
was the only Negro student in his class; and
by reason of his modest and yet magnetic
personality, he became very popular with his
schoolmates. In his second year he became a
member of the literary society of the school,
afterwards became president of the same, as
well as editor of The High School Times, a
monthly student publication, and on his com
pletion of the course in 1891 he composed the
song for his class. Somewhat irregularly for
the next two or three years Dunbar continued
his studies, but he never had the advantage
of a regular college education. On leaving the
high school, after vainly seeking for something
better, he accepted a position as elevator boy,
working for four dollars a week. In 1893, at the"
World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he!
was given a position by Frederick Douglass,'
who was in charge of the exhibit from Hayti.
"Oak and Ivy" appeared in 1893, and "Ma
jors and Minors" in 1895. These little books
were privately printed; ^Dunb^had to assume

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAB

Paul Laurence Dunbar 35
full responsibility, for selUng them, and jnot
unnaturally he had many bitter hours of dis
couragement. Asking people to buy his verses
grated on his sensitive nature, and he once
declared to a friend that he would never sell
another book. Sometimes, however, he suc
ceeded beyond his highest hopes, and gradu
ally, with the assistance of friends, chief among
whom was Dr. H. A. Tobey, of Toledo, the
young poet came into notice as a reader of his
verses. William Dean Howells wrote a full-
page review of his poems in the issue of Harp
er's Weekly that contained an account of Will
iam McKinley's first nomination for the presi
dency. Dunbar was now fairly launched upon
his larger fame, and "Lyrics of Lowly Life,"
pubUshed by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1896, in
troduced bi-m to the wider reading public.
This book is deservedly the poet's best known.
It contained the richest work of his youth
and was really never surpassed. In 1897 Dun
bar enhanced his reputation as a reader of
his own poems by ajd^itjo^ngland. About
this time he was very busy, writing numerous
poems and magazine articles, and meeting
with a success that was so much greater than

36 The Negro in Literature and Art
that of most of the poets of the day that it
became a vogue. In October, 1897, through
the influence of Robert G. Ingersoll, he secured
employment as an assistant in the reading
room of the Library of Congress, Washington;
but he gave up this position after a year, for
the confinement and his late work at night on
his own account were making rapid inroads
upon his health. On March 6, 1898, Dunbar]
was married to Alice Ruth Moore, of New]
Orleans, who also had become prominent as
a writer. Early in 1899 he went South, visit- J
ing Tuskegee and other schools, and giving
many readings. Later in the same year he
went to Colorado in a vain search for health.
Books were now appearing in rapid succession,
short story collections and novels as well as
poems. "The Uncalled," written in London,
reflected the poet's thought of entering the
ministry. It was foUowed by "The Love of
Landry," a Colorado story; "The Fanatics,"
and "The Sport of the Gods." Collections of
short stories were, "Folks from Dixie," "The
Strength of Gideon," "In Old Plantation Days,"
and "The Heart of Happy Hollow." Volumes
of verse were "Lyrics of the Hearthside,"

Paul Laurence Dunbar 87
"Lyrics of Love and Laughter," "Lyrics of
Sunshine and Shadow," as well as several
specially Ulustrated volumes. Dunbar bought
a home in Dayton, where he lived with his
mother. His last years were a record of sin
cere friendships and a losing fight against
disease. He died February 9, 1906. He was
only thirty-three, but he "had existed nullions
of years."
Unless his novels are considered as forming
a distinct class, Dunbar's work falls naturally
into three divisions: the poems in classic
English, those in dialect, and the stories in
prose. Jt was his work in. the_.Negro dialect
that was .Ms. distinct .eon^bution to American
literature. That this was not his desire may
be seen from the eight lines entitled, "The
Poet," in which he longed for success in the
singing of his "deeper notes" and spoke of his
dialect as "a jingle in a broken tongue." Any
criticism of Dunbar's classic English verse will
have to reckon with the foUowing poems:
"Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary
Eyes," "The Poet and His Song," "Life,"
"Promise and Fulfillment," "Ships That Pass
in the Night," and "October." In the pure

38 The Negro in Literature and Art
flow of lyrical verse the poet rarely surpassed
his early lines:*
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
How questioneth the soul that other soul —
The inner sense which neither cheats nor lies,
But self exposes unto self, a scroll
Full writ with all life's acts unwise or wise,
In characters indelible and known;
So, trembling with the shock of sad surprise,
The soul doth view its awful self alone,
Ere sleeps comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
"The Poet and his Song" is also distinguished
for its simplicity and its lyric quaUty:
A song is but a Uttle thing,
And yet what joy it is to sing!
In hours of toil it gives me zest,
And when at eve I long for rest;
When cows come home along the bars,
And in the fold I hear the bell,
As night, the Shepherd, herds his stars,
I sing my song, and all is well.

Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot,
My garden makes a desert spot;
* As stated in the Preface, we are under obligations to
Dodd, Mead & Co. for permission to use the quotations from
Dunbar. These are covered by copyright by this firm, as
follows: "Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes,"
"The Poet and his Song," and "Life," 1896; Lullaby," 1899;
and "Compensation," 1905.

Paul Laurence Dunbar 39
Sometimes a blight upon the tree
Takes all the fruit away from me;
And then with throes of bitter pain
Rebellious passions rise and swell;
But life is more than fruit or grain,
And so I sing, and all is well.
The two stanzas entitled "Life" have probably
been quoted more than any other lines written
by the poet:
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life.
i
A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life.
'¦Promise and Fulfillment" was especially ad
mired by Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, who
frequently recited it with never-fafling ap
plause. Of the poet's own reading of "Ships
that Pass in the Night" on one occasion,
Brand Whitlock wrote: "That last evening
he recited — oh! what a voice he had — his
'Ships that Pass in the Night.' I can hear

40 The Negro in Literature and Art
him now and see the expression on his fine
face as he said, 'Passing! Passing!' It was
prophetic." Other pieces, no more distinguished in
poetic quaUty, are of special biographical in
terest. "Robert Gould Shaw" was the ex
pression of pessimism as to the Negro's future
in America. "To Louise" was addressed to
the young daughter of Dr. Tobey, who, on
one occasion, when the poet was greatly de
pressed, in the simple way of a child cheered
him by her gift of a rose. "The Monk's Walk"
reflects the poet's thought of being a preacher.
Finally, there is the swan song, "Compensa
tion," contributed to Ldppincott's, eight ex
quisite lines:
Because I had loved so deeply,
Because I had loved so long,
God in his great compassion
Gave me the gift of song.
Because I have loved so vainly,
And sung with such faltering breath,
The Master in infinite mercy
Offers the boon of Death.
,*•" The dialect poems suffer by quotation, being
\ artistic primarily as wholes. Of these, by com-

Paul Laurence Dunbar 41
mon consent, the masterpiece is^.-JWlieiLMar.
lindy Singjj" a j^ejiLinspired. by the -singing
ofthe poet's jmothej. Other pieces in dialect
that have proved unusually successful, espe
cially as readings, are "The Rivals," "A Co
quette Conquered," "The 01' Tunes," "A
Corn-Song," "When de Co'n Pone's Hot,"
"How Lucy Backslid," "The Party," "At
Candle-Lightin' Time," "Angelina," "Whis
tling Sam," "Two Little Boots," and "The
Old Front Gate." Almost all of these poems^
represent the true humorist's blending ofjm-/
mor and pathos, and aU of them exemplify
the delicate and sympathetic irony of which
Dunbar was such a master. As representative
of the dialect verse at its best, attention might
be caUed to a Uttle poem that was included
in the Ulustrated volume, "Candle-Lightin'
Time," but that, strangely enough, was omitted
from both of the larger editions of the poems,
very probably because the title, "Lullaby,"
was used more than once by the poet:
Kiver up yo' haid, my little lady,
Hyeah de win' a-blowin' out o' do's,
Don' you kick, ner projick wid de comfo't,
Less'n fros '11 bite yo' little toes.

42 The Negro in Literature and Art
Shut yo' eyes, an' snuggle up to mammy;
Gi' me bofe yo' han's, I hoi' 'em tight;
Don' you be afeard, an' 'mence to trimble
Des ez soon ez I blows out de light.
Angels is a-mindin' you, my baby,
Keepin' off de Bad Man in de night.
Whut de use o' bein' skeered o' nuffin'?
You don' fink de da'kness gwine to bite?
Whut de crackin' soun' you hyeah erroun' you? —
Lawsy, chile, you tickles me to def! —
Dat's de man what brings de fros', a-paintin'
Pieters on de winder wid his bref.
Mammy ain' afeard, you hyeah huh laughin'?
Go 'way, Mistah Fros', you can't come in;
Baby ain' erceivin' folks dis evenin',
Reckon dat you '11 have to call ag'in.
Curl yo' little toes up so, my 'possum —
Umph, but you's a cunnin' one fu' true! —
Go to sleep, de angels is a-watchin',
An' yo' mammy's mindin' of you, too.
The short stories of Dunbar would have
been sufficient to make his reputation, even
if he had not written his poems. One of the
best technically is "Jimsella," from the "Folks
from Dixie" volume. [This story exhibits the
pathos of the life of unskUled Negroes in the
North, and the leading of a little chUdJ In
the sureness with which it moves to its con-

Paul Laurence Dunbar Ifi
elusion it is a beautiful work of art. "A Family
Feud" shows the influence of an old servant
in a wealthy Kentucky fanrily. In similar
vein is "Aunt Tempe's Triumph." "The
Walls of Jericho" is an exposure of the methods
of a sensational preacher. GeneraUy these
stories attempt no keen satire, but only a
faithful portrayal of conditions as they are,
or, in most cases, as they were in ante-bellum
days. Dunbar's novels are generaUy weaker
than his short stories, though "The Sport of
the Gods," because of its study of a definite
phase of life, rises above the others. Nor are v
his occasional articles especiaUy strong. He
was eminently a lyric poet. By his graceful
and beautiful verse it is. that he has won a
distinct place in the history of American Uter-
ature. By his genius Paul Laurence Dunbar at
tracted the attention of the great, the wise,
and the good. His bookcase contained many
autograph copies of the works of distinguished
contemporaries. (The similarity of his position
in American literature to that of Burns in
English has frequently been pointed out. \ In
our own time he most readUy invites comparison

44 The Negro in Literature and Art
with J^mes_ Whitcomb, Riley. The writings
of both men are distinguished by infinite tender
ness and pathos. But above aU worldly fame,
above even the expression of a struggling
people's heart, was the poet's own striving for
the unattainable. There was something heroic
about him withal, something that Unks him
with Keats, or, in this latter day, with Rupert
Brooke and Alan Seeger. He yearned for love,
and the world rushed on; then he smiled at
death and was universally loved.

IV
CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
CHARLES WADDELL CHESNUTT, the
best known noveUst and short story
writer of the race, was born in Cleveland, Ohio,
June 20, 1858. At the age of sixteen he began
to teach in the pubUc schools of North Caro
lina, from which state his parents had gone to
Cleveland; and at the age of twenty-three he
became principal of the State Normal School
at FayetteviUe. In 1883 he left the South,
engaging for a short while in newspaper work
in New York City, but going soon to Cleve
land, where he worked as a stenographer.
He was admitted to the bar in 1887.
WhUe in North Carolina Mr. Chesnutt
studied to good purpose the dialect, manners,
and superstitions of the Negro people of the
state. In 1887 he began in the Atlantic Monthly
the series of stories which was afterwards
brought together in the volume entitled, "The
45

46 The Negro in Literature and Art
Conjure Woman." This book was published
by the Houghton Mifflin Co., the firm which
published also Mr. Chesnutt's other collection
of stories and the first two of his three novels.
"The Wife of his Youth, and Other Stories
of the Color-Line" appeared in 1899. In the
same year appeared a compact biography of
Frederick Douglass, a contribution to the
Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans.
Three novels have since appeared, as follows:
"The House Behind the Cedars" (1900);
"The Marrow of Tradition" (1901); and "The
Colonel's Dream"(1905).
Mr. Chesnutt's short stories are not all of
the same degree of excellence, but the best
ones show that he is fuUy master of the short
story as a literary form. One of the best tech
nically is "The Bouquet." This is a story of
the devotion of a little Negro girl to her white
teacher, and shows clearly how the force of
Southern prejudice might forbid the expression
of simple love not only in a representative
home, but even when the object of the devo
tion is borne to the cemetery. "The Sheriff's
Children" is a tragic tale of the relations of a
white father with his illegitimate colored son.

CHARLES W. CHESNUTT

Charles W. Chesnutt 47
Most famous of all these stories, however, is
"The Wife of his Youth," a simple work of
art of great intensity. It is a tale of a very
fair colored man who, just before the CivU
War, by the aid of his Negro wife, makes his
way from slavery in Missouri to freedom in a
Northern city, Groveland [Cleveland?]. After
the years have brought to him business suc
cess and culture, and he has become the
acknowledged leader of his social circle and the
prospective husband of a very attractive young
widow, his wife suddenly appears on the scene.
The story ends with Mr. Ryder's^acknowl-
edging before a company of guests the wife of
his youth. Such stories as these, each setting
forth a certain problem and working it out to
its logical conclusion, reflect great credit upon
the Uterary skill of the writer.
Of the novels, "The House Behind the
Cedars" is commonly given first place. In
the story of the heroine, Rena Walden, are
treated some of the most subtle and search
ing questions raised by the color-line. Rena
is sought in love by three men, George Tryon,
a white man, whose love faUs when put to
the test; Jeff Wain, a coarse and brutal mu-

48 The Negro in Literature and Art
latto, and Frank Fowler, a devoted young
Negro, who makes every sacrifice demanded
by love. The novel, especially in its last
pages, moves with an intensity that is an un
mistakable sign of power. It is Mr. Ches
nutt's most sustained treatment of the subject
for which he has become best known, that is,
the delicate and tragic situation of those who
live on the border-line of the races; j^jitjs
the best work offiction yet written by ajqaem-
ber ; of the. .race in .America. In "The Marrow
of Tradition" the main theme is the relations
of two women, one white and one colored,
whose father, the same white man, had in
time been married to the mother of each.
The novel touches upon almost every phase
of the Negro Problem. It is a powerful plea,
but perhaps too much a novel of purpose to
satisfy the highest standards of art. The
Wellington of the story is very evidently WU-
mington, N. C, and the book was written
immediately after the race troubles in that city
in 1898. "The Colonel's Dream" is a sad
story of the failure of high ideals. Colonel
Henry French is a man who, born in the South,
achieves success in New York and returns to

Charles W. Chesnutt 49
his old home for a little vacation, only to find
himself face to face with all the problems that
one meets in a backward Southern town. "He
dreamed of a regenerated South, fiUed with
thriving industries, and thronged with a pros
perous and happy people, where every man,
having enough for his needs, was willing that
every other man should have the same; where
law and order should prevail unquestioned, and
where every man could enter, through the
golden door of hope, the field of opportunity,
where lay the prizes of life, which all might
have an equal chance to win or lose." Becom
ing interested in the injustice visited upon the
Negroes in the courts, and in the employment
of white children in the cotton-mills, Colonel
French encounters opposition to his benevo
lent plans, opposition which finally sends him
back to New York defeated. Mr. Chesnutt
writes in simple, clear English, and his methods
might well be studied by younger writers who
desire to treat, in the guise of fiction, the many
searching questions that one meets to-day in
the life of the South.

W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS
WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT
DUBOIS was born February 23, 1868,
at Great Barrington, Mass. He received the
degree of Bachelor of Arts at Fisk University
in 1888, the same degree at Harvard in 1890,
that of Master of Arts at Harvard in 1891,
and, after a season of study at the University
of Berlin, received also the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy at Harvard in 1895, his thesis
being his exhaustive study, "Suppression of
the Slave-Trade." Dr. DuBois taught for a
brief period at Wilberforce University, and was
also for a time an assistant and fellow in Soci
ology at the University of Pennsylvania, pro
ducing in 1899 his study, "The PhUadelphia
Negro." In 1896 he accepted the professor
ship of History and Economics at Atlanta
University, the position which he left in 1910
to become Director of PubUcity and Research
for the National Association for the Advance-
50

W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS

W. E. Burghardt DuBois 51
ment of Colored People. In connection with
this work he has edited the Crisis since the
beginning of that publication. He has made
various investigations, frequently for the na
tional government, and has contributed many
sociological studies to leading magazines. He
has been the moving spirit of the Atlanta
Conference, and by the Studies of Negro
Problems, which he has edited at Atlanta Uni
versity, he has become recognized as one of
the great sociologists of the day, and as the
man who more than anyone else has given
scientific accuracy to studies relating to the
Negro. Aside from his more technical studies (these
including the masterly Uttle book, "The Ne
gro," in Holt's Home University Library
Series), Dr. DuBois has written three books
which call for consideration in a review of
Negro Uterature. Of these one is a biography,
one a novel, and the other a collection of essays.
In 1909 was pubUshed "John Brown," a con
tribution to the series of American Crisis
Biographies. The subject was one well adapted
to treatment at the hands of Dr. DuBois, and
in the last chapter, "The Legacy of John

52 The Negro in Literature and Art
Brown," he has shown that his hero has a
message for twentieth century America, this:
"The cost of liberty is less than the price of
repression." "The Quest of the SUver Fleece,"
the novel, appeared in 1911. This story has
three main themes: the economic position
of the Negro agricultural laborer, the subsi
dizing of a certain kind of Negro schools, and
Negro life and society in the city of Washing
ton. The book employs a big theme in its
portrayal of the power of King Cotton in
both high and lowly life in the Southland;
but its tone is frequently one of satire, and on
the whole the work will not add much to the
already established reputation of the author.
The third book reaUy appeared before either
of the two works just mentioned, and embodies
the best workof the author in his most highly
jjiejdjstic period. In 1903 fourteen essays,
most of whicfiHhad already appeared in such
magazines as the Atlantic and the World's
Work, were brought together in a volume en
titled, "The Souls of Black Folk." JThe re
markable style of this book has made it the
most important work in classic EngUsh yet
written by a Negro.j It is marked by all the

W. E. Burghardt DuBois 53
arts of rhetoric, especially by liquid and al-
Uterative effects, strong antithesis, frequent
allusion, and poetic suggestiveness. Thejsolor-
line is "The Vtil^jhe s^ familiar _naelodies, the-^
"Sorrow Songs." The qualities that have just
been remarked will be observed in the following
paragraphs: I have seen a land right merry with the sun, where
children sing, and rolling hills lie like passioned women
wanton with harvest. And there in the Bang's Highway
sat and sits a figure veiled and bowed, by which the travel
er's footsteps hasten as they go. On the tainted air
broods fear. Three centuries' thought has been the raising
and unveiling of that bowed human heart, and now behold
a century new for the duty and the deed. The problem
of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

My journey was done, and behind me lay hill and dale,
and Life and Death. How shall man measure Progress
there where the dark-faced Josie hes? How many heart-
fuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How
hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and
real! And all this life and love and strife and failure —
is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-
dawning day?
Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow
car.

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the
color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas,

54 The Negro in Literature and Art
where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded
halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between
the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I
summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will,
and they all come graciously with no scorn nor conde
scension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil.
Is this the fife you grudge us, 0 knightly America? Is
this the life you long to change into the dull red hideous-
ness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this
high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight
the Promised Land?
Where merit is so even and the standard
of performance so high, one hesitates to choose
that which is best. "The Dawn of Freedom"
is a study of the Freedmen's Bureau; "Mr.
Booker T. Washington and Others" is a frank
criticism of the late orator and leader; "The
Meaning of Progress" is a story of life in
Tennessee, told with infinite pathos by one
who has been the country schoolmaster; "The
Training of Black Men" is a plea for Uber-
ally educated leadership; while "The Quest
of the Golden Fleece," Uke one or two related
essays, is aiaithful portrayal of life in the
black belt. IXhe book, as a whole, is a powerful
plea for justice and the liberty of citizenship^]
W. E. Burghardt DuBois is the best example
that has so far appeared of the combination

W. E. Burghardt DuBois 65
of high scholarship and the peculiarly romantic
temperament of the Negro race. Beneath all
the play of logic and statistic beats the passion
of a mighty human heart. For a long time
he^was^ci^'iSwed^'as^aToof, reserved, unsym
pathetic; but more and more, as the years
have passed, has his mission become clearer,
his love for his people stronger. Forced by
the pressure of circumstance, graduaUy has he
been led from the congenial retreat of the
scholar into the arena of social struggle; but
for two decades he has remained an out
standing interpreter of the spiritual Ufe of
his people. He is to-day the foremost leader
of the race in America.

VI
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
THE foremost of the poets of the race at
present is William Stanley Braithwaite,
of BostoriTlMr. Braithwaite is not only the
possessor oi unusual talent, but for years he
has worked most conscientiously at his art
and taken the time and the pains to master
the fundamentals that others all too often deem
unimportant. In 1904 he published a small
book of poems entitled "Lyrics of Life and
Love." This was followed four years later
by "The House of Falling Leaves." Within
recent years he has given less aud less time
to his own verse, becoming more and- more
distinguished as. a critic in the special field _c-f
American poetry. For several years he has
been a regular and valued contributor of liter
ary criticism to the Boston Evening Transcript;
he has had verse or critical essays in the
Forum, the Century, Scribner's, the Atlantic,
56

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

William Stanley Braithwaite 57
etc.; and in 1916 became editor of the new
Poetry Review of Cambridge. He has collected
and edited (publishing chiefly through Bren-
tano's) "The Book of Elizabethan Verse,"
"The Book of Georgian Verse," and "The Book
of Restoration Verse"; and Jie, has also. pub
lished the '^Anthology of Magazine Verse"
for each year since _1913j He is the general
editor of "The Contemporary American Poets
Series," which is projected by the Poetry Re
view Company, and which will be issued in
twelve Uttle books, each giving a sympathetic
study of a poet of the day; he himself is
writing the volume on Edwin Arlington Robin
son; and before long it is expected that a novel
will appear from his pen. Very recently (1917)
Mr. Braithwaite has brought together in a
volume, "The Poetic Year," the series of
articles which he contributed to the Transcript
in 1916-17. The aim was in the form of con
versations between a smaU group of friends to
discuss the poetry of 1916. Says he: "There
were four of us in the little group, and our
common love for the art of poetry suggested
a weekly meeting in the grove to discuss the
books we had aU agreed upon reading. . . .

68 The Negro in Literature and Art
I made up my mind to record these discussions,
and the setting as weU, with all those other
touches of human character and mood which
never faU to enliven and give color to the
serious business of . art and life. ... I gave
fanciful names to my companions, Greek names
which I am persuaded symbolized the spirit
of each. There was nothing Psyche touched
but made its soul apparent. Her wood-lore
was beautiful and thorough; the very spirit
of flowers, birds and trees was evoked when
she went among them. Our other companion
of her sex was Cassandra, and we gave her this
name not because her forebodings were gloomy,
but merely for her prophesying disposition,
which was always building air-castles. The
other member besides myself of our little group
was Jason, of the heroic dreams and adventure
some spirit. He was restless in the bonds of
a tranquillity that chafed the hidden spirit of
his being." From the introduction we get
something of the critic's own aims and ideals:
"The conversational scheme of the book may,
or may not, interest some readers. Poetry is
a human thing, and it is time for the world —
and especially our part of the world — to re-

William Stanley Braithwaite 59
gard it as belonging to the people. It sprang
from the folk, and passed, when culture began
to flourish, into the possession of a class. Now
culture is passing from a class to the folk,
and with it poetry is returning to its original
possessors. It is in the spirit of these words
that we discuss the poetry of the year." Em
phasis is here given to this work because it
is the sturdiest achievement of Mr. Braith
waite in the field in which he has recently
become most distinguished, and even the brief
quotations cited are sufficient to give some idea
of his graceful, suggestive prose.
In a review of this writer's poetry we have
to consider especially the two collections,
"Lyrics of Life and Love," and "The House of
Falling Leaves," and the poems that have more
recently appeared in the Atlantic, Scribner's,
and other magazines. It is to be hoped that
before very long he will publish a new edition
of his poems. The earlier volumes are out of
print, and a new book could contain the best
of them, as weU as what has appeared more
recently. "Lyrics of Life and Love" embodied
the best of the poet's early work. The little
book contains eighty pages, and no one of the

60 The Negro in Literature and Art
lyrics takes up more than two pages, twenty
in fact being exactly eight lines in length.
This appearance of fragiUty, however, is a
Uttle deceptive. While Keats and SheUey are
constantly evident as the models in technique,
the yearning of more than one lyric reflects
the deeper romantic temper. The bravado
and the tenderness of the old poets are evident
again in the two Christmas pieces, "HoUy
Berry and Mistletoe," and "Yule-Song: A
Memory":
The trees are bare, wild flies the snow,
Hearths are glowing, nearts are merry —
High in the air is the Mistletoe,
Over the door is the Holly Berry.
Never have care how the winds may blow,
Never confess the revel grows weary —
Yule is the time of the Mistletoe,
Yule is the time of the Holly Berry.

December comes, snows come,
Comes the wintry weather;
Faces from away come —
Hearts must be together.
Down the stair-steps of the hours
Yule leaps the hills and towers —
Fill the bowl and hang the holly,
Let the times be jolly.

((

William Stanley Braithwaite 61
The Watchers" is in the spirit of Kingsley's
The Three Fishers":
Two women on the lone wet strand —
(The wind's out with a will to roam)
The waves wage war on rocks and sand,
(And a ship is long due home.)
The sea sprays in the women's eyes —
(Hearts can writhe like the sea's wild foam)
Lower descend the tempestuous skies,
(For the wind's out with a will to roam.)
"O daughter, thine eyes be better than mine,"
(The waves ascend high on yonder dome)
"North or South is there never a sign?"
(And a ship is long due home.)
They watched there all the long night through —
(The wind's out with a will to roam)
Wind and rain and sorrow for two —
(And heaven on the long reach home.)
The second volume marked a decided ad
vance in technique. I When we remember also
the Pre-Raphaelite spirit, with its love of
rhythm and imagery, we are not surprised to
find her&^an appreciation "To Dante Gabriel
Rossetti."] Especially has the poet made prog
ress in the handling of the sonnet, as may
be seen in the following:

62 The Negro in Literature and Art
My thoughts go marching like an armed host
Out of the city of silence, guns and cars;
Troop after troop across my dreams they post
To the invasion of the wind and stars.
O brave array of youth's untamed desire!
With thy bold, dauntless captain Hope to lead
His raw recruits to Fate's opposing fire,
And up the walls of Circumstance to bleed.
How fares the expedition in the end?
When this my heart shall have old age for king
And to the wars no further troop can send,
What final message will the arm'stice bring?
The host gone forth in youth the world to meet,
In age returns — in victory or defeat?
Then there is the epilogue with its heart-cry:
Lord of the mystic star-blown gleams
Whose sweet compassion lifts my dreams;
Lord of life in the lips of the rose
That kiss desire; whence Beauty grows;
Lord of the power inviolate
That keeps immune thy seas from fate,

Lord, Very God of these works of thine,
Hear me, I beseech thee, most divine!
/ Within very recent years Mr. Braithwaite
| has attracted unusual attention among the
/ discerning by a new note of mysticism that
^ has crept into his verse. This was first ob-

William Stanley Braithwaite 63
served in "Sandy Star," that appeared in the
Atlantic (July, 1909):
No more from out the sunset,
No more across the foam,
No more across the windy hills
Will Sandy Star come home.
He went away to search it,
With a curse upon his tongue,
And in his hands the staff of life
Made music as it swung.
I wonder if he found it,
And knows the mystery now:
Our Sandy Star who went away
With the secret on his brow.
The same note is in "The Mystery" (or "The
Way," as the poet prefers to call it) that ap
peared in Scribner's (October, 1915) :
He could not tell the way he came
Because his chart was lost:
Yet all his way was paved with flame
From the bourne he crossed.
He did not know the way to go,
Because he had no map:
He followed where the winds blow, —
And the April sap.

64 The Negro in Literature and Art
He never knew upon his brow
The secret that he bore —
And laughs away the mystery now
The dark's at his door.
Mr. Braithwaite has done weU. He is to-day
the foremost man of the race i"t/ pure-literature.
But above any partial or Umited considera
tion, after years of hard work he now has
recognition not only as a poet of standing,
but as the chief sponsor for current American
poetry. No comment on his work could be
better than that of the Transcript, November
30, 1915: "He has helped poetry to readers
as well as to poets. One is guilty of no ex
travagance in saying that the poets we have
— and they may take their place with their
peers in any country — and the gathering defer
ence we pay them, are created largely out of
the stubborn, self-effacing enthusiasm of this
one man. In a sense their distinction is his
own. In a sense he has himself written their
poetry. Very much by his toU they may write
and be read. Not one of them wUl ever write
a finer poem than Braithwaite himseff has
lived already."

VII
OTHER WRITERS
IN addition to those who have been men
tioned, there have been scores of writers
who would have to be considered if wr were
dealing with the Uterature of the Negro in
the widest sense of the term. Not too clearly,
however, can the limitations of our subject
be insisted upon. We are here concerned
with distinctly Uterary or artistic achievement,
and not with work that belongs in the realm
of reUgion, sociology, or poUtics. Only briefer
mention accordingly can be given to these
latter fields.
NaturaUy, from the first there have been
works dealing with the place of the Negro in
American life. Outstanding after the numerous
sociological studies and other contributions to
periodical literature of Dr. DuBois are_the
books of the late Booker T. Washington.
Representative of these are "The Future^ .of,,
— -•"**"• 65

66 The Negro in Literature and Art
the American Negro," "My Larger Education,"
and "The Man Farthest Down." As early as
1829, however, David Walker, of Boston, pub
lished his passionate "Appeal," a protest
against slavery that awakened Southern legis
latures to action; and in the years just before
the Civil War, Hemy HighlancKGarnev wrote
sermons and addresses on the status of the race
in America, while WiUiam Wells Brown wrpte
"Three Years in Europe," and various other
works, some of which wiU receive later mention.
After the war, Alexander Crummell became an
outstanding figure by reason of bis sermons
and addresses, many of which were preserved.
He was followed by an interesting group of
scholarly men, represented especially by WiU
iam S. Scarborough, KeUy MiUer, and Archi
bald H. Grimke. Mr. Scarborough is now
president of WUberforce University. He has
contributed numerous articles to representa
tive magazines. His work in more technical
fields is represented by his "First Lessons
in Greek," a treatise on the "Birds" of Aris
tophanes, and his paper in the Arena (January,
1897) on "Negro Folk-Lore and Dialect."
Mr. MUler is Dean of the College of Arts and

Other Writers 67
Sciences at Howard University. He has col
lected his numerous and cogent papers in two""
volumes, "Race Adjustment," and "Out of
the House of Bondage." The first is the more
varied and interesting of the two books, but
the latter contains the poetic rhapsody, "I
See and Am Satisfied," first published in the
Independent (August 7, 1913). Mr. A. H.
Grimke, as well as Mr. MUler, has contributed
to the Atlantic; and he has written the lives
of Garrison and Sumner in the American Re
formers Series. "Negro Culture in West
Africa," by George W. EUis, is original and
scholarly; "The Aftermath of Slavery," by
WUliam A. Sinclair, is a volume of more
than ordinary interest; and "The African
Abroad," by William H. Ferris, while con
fused in construction and form, contains much
thoughtful material. Within recent years there
have been published a great many works,
frequently illustrated, on the progress and
achievements of the race. Very few of these
books are scholarly. Three collaborations, how
ever, are of decided value. One is a Uttle
volume entitled, ."The Negro Problem," con
sisting of seven papers by representative

68 The Negro in Literature and Art
Negroes, and published in 1903 by James
Pott & Co., of New York. Another is "From
Servitude to Service," published in 1905 by
the American Unitarian Association of Boston,
and made up of the Old South Lectures on
the history and work of Southern institutions
for the education of the Negro; whUe the
third collaboration is, "The Negro in the
South," published in 1907 by George W.
Jacobs & Co., of Philadelphia, and made up of
four papers, two by Dr. Washington, and two
by Dr. DuBois, which were the WiUiam Levi
Bull Lectures in the Philadelphia Divinity
School for the year 1907.
Halfway between works on the Negro
Problem and those in history, ar£jJb,o_se. jnJJie
field, of biography and autobiography. For
decades before the CivU War the experiences
of fugitive slaves were used as a part of the
anti-slavery argument. In 1845 appeared the
''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,"
vthis being greatly enlarged jmd. extended in
1881 as "The Life and Times of Frederick
Douglass." In similar vein was the "Auto
biography of a Fugitive Negro," by Samuel
Ringgold Ward. Then Josiah Henson (the

Other Writers 69
original of Uncle Tom) and Sojourner Truth
issued their narratives. Collectioris of more
than ordinary interest were William Wells
Brown's "The Black Man" (1863), James M.
Trotter's "Music and Some Highly Musical
People" (1878), and WUliam J. Simmons's
"Men of Mark" (1887). John Mercer Lang-
ston's "From the Virginia Plantation to the
National Capitol" is interesting and service
able; special interest attaches to Matthew
Henson's "A Negro Explorer at the North
Pole"; while Maud Cuney Hare's "Norris
Wright Cuney" was a distinct contribution to
the history of Southern politics. The most
widely known work in this field, however, is
"Up'From Slavery," by Booker T. Wash
ington. The unaffected and simple style of
this book has made it a model of personal
writing, and it is by reason of merit that the
work has gained unusual currency.
The study, of course, becomes more special
in the field of history. Interest from the
first was shown in church history. This was
represented immediately after the war by
Bishop Daniel A. Payne's studies in the his
tory of the A. M. E. Church, and twenty-five

70 The Negro in Literature and Art
years later, for the Baptist denomination, by
E. M. Brawley's "The Negro Baptist Pulpit."
One of the earliest writers of merit was William ,.
. *
C. Nell, who, in 1851^ published his pamphlet,
"Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of
1776 and 1812." "The Rising Son," by William
Wells Brown, was an account of "the ante
cedents and advancement of the colored race";
the work gave considerable attention to Africa,
Hayti, and the colonies, and was quite scholarly
in method. Then, in 1872, full. oXpersanaLex;
perience, appeared William Still's "The Under
ground Railroad." The epoch-making work in
history, however, was the two-volume "His
tory of the Negro Race in America," by George
W. Williams, which was issued in 1883. This
work was the exploration of a new field and the
result of seven years of study. The historian
more than once wrote subjectively, but his
work was, on the whole, written with un
usually good taste. After thirty years some
of his pages have, of course, been superseded;
but his work is even yet the great storehouse
for students of Negro history. Technical study
within recent years is best represented by the
Harvard doctorate theses of Dr. DuBois and

Other Writers 71
Dr. Carter G. Woodson. That of Dr. DuBois
has already been mentioned. That of Dr.
Woodson was entitled "The Disruption of
Virginia." Dr. Woodson is the editor of the
Journal of Negro History, a quarterly'magazine
that began to appear in 1916, and that has
already published several articles of the first
order of merit. J He has also written "The
Education of the Negro Prior to 1861," a work
in the most scientific spirit of modern historical
study, to which a companion volume for the
later period is expected. Largely original also
in the nature of their contribution have been
"The Haitian Revolution," by T. G. Steward,
and "The Facts of Reconstruction," by John
R. Lynch; and, whUe less intensive, interest
ing throughout is J. W. Cromwell's "The
Negro in American History."
Many of the younger writers are cultivating
the short story. Especially have two or three,
as yet unknown to the wider public, done
excellent work in connection with syndicates
of great newspapers. "The Goodness of St.
Rocque, and Other Stories," by Alice Moore
Dunbar (now Mrs. Nelson), is representative
of the stronger work in this field. Numerous

72 The Negro in Literature and Art
attempts at the composition of novels have
also been made. Even before the Civil War
was over appeared William Wells Brown's
"Clotille: A Tale of the Southern States."]
Jtjs in. this- special department,..howe"Ker,.ihat
a sense of literary form has frequently been
most lacking. The distinctively Uterary essay
has not unnaturally suffered from the general
pressure of the Problem. A paper in the
Atlantic Monthly (February, 1906), however,
"The Joys of Being a Negro," by Edward E.
Wilson, a Chicago lawyer, was of outstanding
brilliancy. A. 0. Stafford, of Washington, is
a special student of the folklore of Africa.
He has contributed several scholarly papers to
the Journal of Negro History, and he has also
published through the American Book Com
pany an interesting supplementary reader,
"Animal Fables From the Dark Continent."
Alain Locke is interested in both philosophical
and literary studies, represented by "The
American Temperament," a paper contributed
to the North American Review (August, 1911),
and a paper on Emile Verhseren in the Poetry
Review (January, 1917).
Little has been accompUshed in sustained

Other Writers 73
poetic flight. Of shorter lyric verse, however,
many booklets have appeared. As this is the
field that offers peculiar opportunity for sub
jective expression, more has been attempted
in it than in any other department of artistic
endeavor. It demands, therefore, special at
tention, and the study wiU take us back before
the CivU War.
The first person to attract much attention
after PhUUs Wheatley was George Moses Hor
ton, of North Carolina, who was born in 1797
and died about 1880 (or 1883). He was am
bitious to learn, was the possessor of unusual
Uterary talent, and in one way or another re
ceived instruction from various persons. He
very soon began to write verse, aU of which
was infused with his desire for freedom, and
much of which was suggested by the common
evangelical hymns, as were the foUowing fines:
Alas! and am I born for this,
• To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil, and pain?
How long have I in bondage lain,
And languished to be free!

74 The Negro in Literature and Art
Alas! and must I still complain,
Deprived of liberty?

Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound,
Roll through my ravished ears;
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
And drive away my fears.
Some of Horton's friends became mterested
in him and desired to help him publish a volume
of his poems, so that from the sale of these he
might purchase his freedom and go to the
new colony of Liberia. The young man be
came fired with ambition and inspiration.
Thrilled by the new hope, he wrote:
'Twas like the salutation of the dove,
Borne on the zephyr through some lonesome grove,
When spring returns, and winter's chill is past,
And vegetation smiles above the blast.
Horton's master, however, demanded for him
an exorbitant price, and when "The Hope of
Liberty" appeared in 1829 it had nothing of
the sale that was hoped for. Disappointed in
his great desire, the poet seems to have lost-
ambition. He became a janitor around the
state university at Chapel HiU, executed smaU
commissions for verse from the students, who

Other Writers 75
treated him kindly, and in later years went
to PhUadelphia; but his old dreams had
faded. Several reprintings of his poems were
made, however, and one of these was bound
with the 1838 edition of PhiUis Wheatley's
poems. In 1854 appeared the first edition of "Poems
on MisceUaneous Subjects," by Frances EUen
Watkins, connnonlxJknowjL jas-Mrs— Erances
E^W- Harper. Mrs. Harper was a woman of
exceptionaUy strong personality and could read
her poems to advantage. Her verse was very
popular, not less than ten thousand copies of
her booklets being sold. It was decidedly
lacking in technique, however, and much
in the style of Mrs. Hemans. Mrs. Harper
was best when most simple, as when in writing
of chUdren she said:
I almost think the angels
Who tend life's garden fair,
Drop down the sweet white blossoms
That bloom around us here.
The secret of her popularity was to be seen in
such lines as the following from "Bury Me
in a Free Land":

76 The Negro in Literature and Art
Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.
Of the Emancipation Proclamation she wrote:
It shall flash through coming ages,
It shall light the distant years;
And eyes now dim with sorrow
Shall be brighter through their tears.
While Mrs. Harper was still prominently
before the pubUc appeared Albery A. Whitman,
a Methodist minister, whose "Not a Man and
Yet a Man" appeared in 1877. The work of
this writer is the most baffling with which this
book has to deal. It is diffuse, exhibits many
lapses in taste, is uneven metrically, as if
done in haste, and shows imitation on every
hand. It imitates Whittier, LongfeUow, Tenny
son, Scott, Byron and Moore. "The Old
Sac VUlage" and "Nanawawa's Suitors" are
very evidently "Hiawatha" over again; and
"Custer's Last Ride" is simply another ver
sion of "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
"The Rape of Florida" exhibits the same
general characteristics as the earlier poems.

Other Writers 77
And yet, whenever one has about decided that
Whitman is not worthy of consideration, he
insists on a revision of judgment. The fact
is that he shows a decided faculty for brisk
narration. This may be seen in "The House
of the Aylors." He has, moreover, a romantic
lavishness of description that, in spite of all
technical faults, stiU has some degree of merit.
The following quotations, taken respectively
from "The Mowers" and "The Flight of
Leeona," wUl exemplify both his extravagance
and his possibilities in description:
The tall forests swim in a crimson sea,
Out of whose bright depths rising silently,
Great golden spires shoot into the skies,
Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise,
Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade,
Deep in the twilight, shade succeeding shade.

And now she turns upon a mossy seat,
Where sings a fern-bound stream beneath her feet,
And breathes the orange in the swooning air;
Where in her queenly pride the rose blooms fair,
And sweet geranium waves her scented hair;
There, gazing in the bright face of the stream,
Her thoughts swim onward in a gentle dream.
In "A Dream of Glory" occur the fines:

78 The Negro in Literature and Art
The fairest blooms are born of humble weeds,
That faint and perish in the pathless wood;
And out of bitter life grow noble deeds
To pass unnoticed in the multitude.
/ Whitman's shortcomings become readily ap
parent when he attempts sustained work. "The
Rap^.olJlprhia,"Jgjthew longest poem yet writ
ten by a Negro in America, and also, the only
attempt by a member of the race to. use !Vtiie
elaborate Spenserian stanza throughout a long
piece of work. The story is concerned with
the capture of the Seminoles in Florida through
perfidy and the taking of them away to their
new home in the West. It centers around
three characters, Palmecho, an old chief, Ewald,
his daughter, and Atlassa, a young Seminole
who is Ewald's lover. The poem is decidedly
diffuse; there is too much subjective descrip
tion, too Uttle strong characterization. Pal
mecho, instead of being a stout warrior, is a
"chief of peace and kindly deeds." Stanzas of
merit, however, occasionally strike the eye. The
boat-song forces recognition as genuine poetry:
"Come now, my love, the moon is on the lake;
Upon the waters is my light canoe;
Come with me, love, and gladsome oars shall make
A music on the parting wave for you, —

Other Writers 79
Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue;
Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung,
Come with me, love, for Oh, my love is true!"
This is the song that on the lake was sung,
The boatman sang it over when his heart was young.
In 1890 Whitman brought out an edition of
"Not a Man and Yet a Man" and "The
Rape of Florida," adding to these a collection
of misceUaneous poems, "Drifted Leaves," and
in 1901 he pubUshed "An Idyl of the South,"
an epic poem in two parts. It is to be regretted
that he did not have the training that comes
from the best university education. He had
the taste and the talent to benefit from such
culture in the greatest degree.
AU who went before him were, of course,
superseded in 1896 by Paul Laurence Dunbar;
and^ Dunbar started, a tradition. Throughout
the country there sprang up imitators, and
some of the imitations were more than fair.
AU of this, however, was a passing'phenomenon. _.
Those who are writing at the present day almost
invariably eschew dialect and insist upon classics
forms and measures. Prominent among these
is James Weldon Johnson. Mr. Johnson has'
seen a varied career as teacher, writer, consul
for the United States in foreign countries,

80 The Negro in Literature and Art
especially Nicaragua, and national organizer
for the National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People. He has written
numerous songs, which have been set to music
by his brother, Rosamond Johnson, or Harry
T. Burleigh; he^made for the MetropoUtan
Opera the English translation of the Spanish
opera, "Goyescas," by Granados and Periquet;
and in 1916, while associated with the Age, of
New York, in a contest opened by the Public
Ledger, of Philadelphia, to editorial writers all
over the country, he won a third prize of two
hundred dollars for a campaign editorial. The
remarkable book, "Autobiography of an Ex-
Colored Man," half fact, half fiction, was pub- >
Ushed anonymously, but is generally credited
to Mr. Johnson. Very recently (December,
1917) has appeared this . writer's . collection,
"Fifty Years and Other Poems." In pure lyric
flow he is best represented by two poems in
the Century. One was a sonnet entitled,
"Mother Night" (February, 1910):
Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A brooding mother over chaos lay.

Other Writers 81
And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay,
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim
The haven of the darkness whence they came;
Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
And sounded is the hour for my long sleep,
I shall, full weary of the feverish light,
Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt,
And, heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep
Into the quiet bosom of the Night.
When we think of the large number of those
who have longed for success in artistic ex
pression, and especially of the first singers of
the old melodies, we could close this review
with nothing better than Mr. Johnson's tribute,
"O Black and Unknown JBardg" (jCentury,
November, 1908) :
0 black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?
Who first from 'midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?
There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,
That from degraded rest and servile toil,
The fiery spirit of the seer should call
These simple children of the sun and soil.

82 The Negro in Literature and Art
0 black singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,
You — you alone, of all the long, long Une
Of those who've sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,
Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.
You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings:
No chant of bloody war, nor exulting pa?an
Of arms- won triumphs; but your humble strings
You touched in chords with music empyrean.
You sang far better than you knew, the songs
That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed
Still live — but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.

VIII
ORATORS. — DOUGLASS AND WASHINGTON
THE Negro is peculiarly gifted as an orator.
To magnificent^ gif t§_o£. voice he adds a
fervor of sentiment and an^ppxeciation- of jthe
possibifities of a great occasion that are in
dispensable in the work of one who 'excels in
this field. Greater than any of these things,
however, is the romantic quafity that finds an
outlet in vast reaches of imagery and a sin
gularly figurative power of expression. Only
this innate gift of rhetorical expression has
accounted for the tremendous effects sometimes
reaUzed even by untutored members of the
race. Its possibUities under the influences of
culture and education are Ulimitable.
On one occasion Harriet Tubman, famous
for her work in the Underground Railroad,
was addressing an audience and describing a
great battle in the Civil War. "And then,"
said she, "we saw the lightning, and that
83

84 The Negro in Literature and Art
was the guns; and then we heard the thunder,
and that was the big guns; and then we heard
the rain falling, and that was drops of blood
falling; and when we came to git in the craps,
it was dead men that we reaped." * AU through
the fanriliar melodies one finds the pathos and
the poetry of this imagery. Two unusual ia.-",
dividuals, untutored but highly gifted in their/
own spheres, in the course of the last century
proved eminently successful by joining this
rhetorical faculty to their native earnestness.
One of these was the anti-slavery speaker,
Sojourner Truth. TaU, majestic, and yet quite
uneducated, this interesting woman sometimes
dazzled her audiences by her sudden turns of
expression. Anecdotes of her quick and start
ling replies are numberless. .The other char
acter was John Jasper, of Richmond, Va.,
famous three decades ago for his "Sun do
move" sermon. Jasper preached not only on
this theme, but also on "Dry bones in the
valley," the glories of the New Jerusalem, and
many similar subjects that have been used by
other preachers, sometimes with hardly less
effect, throughout the South. When one made
?Reported by A.B. Hart/.in "Slavery and Abolition," 209.

Orators. — Douglass and Washington 85
all discount for the tinsel and the dialect, he
still would have found in the work of John
Jasper much of the power of the true orator.
Other men have joined to this love for
figurative expression the advantages of cul
ture; and a common characteristic, thoroughly
typical of the romantic quality constantly
present, is a fondness for biblical phrase. As
representative might be remarked Robert B.
Elliott, famous for his speech in Congress on
the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill;
John Mercer Langston, also distinguished for
many poUtical addresses; M. C. B. Mason, for
years a prominent representative of the Metho
dist Episcopal Church; and Charles T. Walker,
stUl the most popular preacher of the Negro
Baptists. A new and telling form of public
speaking, destined to have more and more im
portance, is that just now best cultivated by
Dr. DuBois, who, with little play of voice or
gesture, but with the earnestness of conviction,
drives home his message with instant effect.
In any consideration of oratory one must
constantly bear in mind, of course, the im
portance of the spoken word and the personal
equation. At the same time it must be re-

86 The Negro in Literature and Art
membered that many of the most worthy ad-
cfresses made by Negroes have not been pre
served in accessible form. _) Again and again,
in some remote community, with true elo
quence has an untutored preacher brought
comfort and inspiration to a struggling people.
J. C. Price, for years president of Livingstone
College in North Carolina, was one of the
truest orators the Negro race ever had, and
many who heard him wfll insist that he was
foremost. His name has become in some
quarters a synonym for eloquence, and he
certainly appeared on many noteworthy occa
sions with marked effect. His reputation wiU
finally suffer, however, for the reason given,
that his speeches are not now generally acces
sible. NjQlqne is in Mrs. pu-t^arIs.i'-MasteJi:
jneces jjf. Negro Eloquence."
One of the most effective occasional speakers
within recent years has been Reverdv C. Ran-
.som^of the A. M. E. Church. In his great
moments Mr. Ransom has given the impression
of the true orator. He has little humor, is
stately and dignified, but bitter in satire and
invective. There is, in fact, much in his speak
ing to remind one of Frederick Douglass. One

Orators. — Douglass and Washington 87
of his greatest efforts was that on the occasion
of the celebration of the one hundredth anni
versary of the birth of Garrison, in Faneuil
HaU, Boston, December 11, 1905. Said he, in
part: What kind of Negroes do the American people want?
That they must have the Negro in some relation is no
longer a question of serious debate. What kind of Negroes
do the American people want? Do they want a voteless
Negro in a republic founded upon universal suffrage?
Do they want a Negro who shall not be permitted to
participate in the government which he must support
with his treasure and defend with his blood? Do they
want a Negro who shall consent to be set aside as forming
a distinct industrial class, permitted to rise no higher
than the level of serfs or peasants? Do they want a
Negro who shall accept an inferior social position, not
as a degradation, but as the just operation of the laws of
caste based on color? Do they want a Negro who will
avoid friction between the races by consenting to occupy
the place to which white men may choose to assign him?
What kind of a Negro do the American people want?
. . . Taught by the Declaration of Independence, sustained
by the Constitution of the United States, enlightened
by the education of our schools, this nation can no more
resist the advancing tread of the hosts of the oncoming
blacks than it can bind the stars or halt the resistless
motion of the tide.*
*Quoted from "Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence," 314-5.

88 The Negro in Literature and Art
Two men, by reason of great natural endow
ment, a fitting appreciation of great occasions,
and the consistency with which they produced
their effects, have won an undisputed place
in any consideration of American orators.
These men were Frederick Douglass and Booker
T. Washington.
Frederick Douglass was born in 1817 and
lived for ten years as a slave upon a Maryland
plantation. Then he was bought by a Balti
more shipbuUder. He learned to read, and,
being attracted by "The Lady of the Lake,"
when he escaped in 1838 and went disguised
as a sailor to New Bedford, Mass., he adopted
the name Douglas (spelfing it with two s's, how
ever). He lived for several years in New Bed
ford, being assisted by Garrison in his efforts
for an education. ^In JL841, at an anti-slavery
convention in Nantucket, he exhibited such
intelligence, and showed himself the possessor
, of such a remarkable voice, that he was made
the agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society. He now lectured extensively in Eng
land and the United States, and English
friends raised £150 to enable him regularly
to purchase his freedom. Fox some years be-

Orators. — Douglass and Washington 89
fore the Civil War heJived-ifr^eehesteFy-N-^ Y.,
where, he 4)ubUshed a-paper, .JIM^NjuOk. Star,
and where there is now a public monument
to him. Later in life he became Recorder of
Deeds in the District of Columbia, and then
Minister to Hayti. At the time of his death
in 1895 Douglass had won for himself a place
of unique distinction. Large of heart and of
mind, he was interested in every forward move
ment for his people; but his charity embraced
aU men and all races. His reputation was in
ternational, and to-day many of his speeches
are to be found in the standard works on
oratory. Mr. Chesnutt has admirably summed up
the personal characteristics of the oratory of
Douglass. Hejbells u^^at J 'Douglass, pos
sessed, in large measure, the jghyskal equip
ment most impressive in. an. orator. He was
a man of magnificent figure, tall, strong, his
head crowned with a mass of hair which made
a striking element of his appearance. He had
deep-set and flashing eyes, a firm, well-moulded
chin, a countenance somewhat severe in re
pose, but capable* of a wide range of expression.
His voice was rich and melodious, and of

90 The Negro in Literature and Art
carrying power."* Douglass was distinctly
dignified, eloquent, and majestic; he could not
5 fee funny or witty. Sorrow for the slave, and
indignation against the master, gave force to
his words, though, in his later years, his oratory
became less and less heavy and more refined.
He was not always on the popular side, nor
was he always exactly logical; thus he, incurred
much censure for bis_ opposition tojthe .SXQdus
of the . Negro fronx the , South, in 1879. For
half a century, however, he was the outstand
ing figure of the race in the United States.
Perhaps the greatest speech of his life was
that which Douglass made at Rochester on the
5th of July, 1852. His subject was "American
Slavery," and he spoke with his strongest in
vective. The following paragraphs from the
introduction wUl serve to filustrate his fond
ness for interrogation and biblical phrase:
Pardon me, and allow me to ask, Why am I called
upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I
represent, to do with your national independence? Are
the great principles of pohtical freedom and of natural
justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence
extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to
bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to
* "Frederick Douglass," 107-8.

Orators. — Douglass and Washington 91
confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for
the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we
wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps
upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they
that carried us away captive required of us a song; and
they that had wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the
Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusa
lem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth.* The years and emancipation and the progress
of his people in the new day gave a more hope
ful tone to some of the later speeches of the
orator. In an address on the 7th of December,
1890, he said:
I have seen dark hours in my life, and I have seen the
darkness gradually disappearing, and the light gradually
increasing. One by one I have seen obstacles removed,
errors corrected, prejudices softened, proscriptions re
linquished, and my people advancing in all the elements
that make up the sum of general welfare. I remember
that God reigns in eternity, and that, whatever delays,
disappointments, and discouragements may come, truth,
justice, liberty, and humanity will prevail.t
* Quoted from Williams, II, 435-6.
t Quoted from Foreword in "In Memoriam: Frederick
Douglass."

92 The Negro in Literature and Art
Booker T. Washington was born about
1858, in FrankUn County, Virginia. After
the Civil War his mother and stepfather re
moved to Maiden, W. Va., where, when he
became large enough, he worked in the salt
furnaces and the coal mines. He had always
been caUed Booker, but it was not until he
went to a little school at his home and found
that he needed a surname that, on the spur of
the moment, he adopted Washington. In 1872
he worked his way to Hampton Institute,
where he paid his expenses by assisting as a
janitor. Graduating in 1875, he returned to
Maiden and taught school for three years. He
then attended for a year Wayland Seminary
in Washington (now incorporated in Virginia
Union University in Richmond), and in 1879
was appointed an instructor at Hampton. In
1881 there came to General Armstrong, prin
cipal of Hampton Institute, a call from the
little town of Tuskegee, Ala., for someone to
organize and become the principal of a normal
school which the people wanted to start in
that place. He recommended Mr. Washington,
who opened the school on the 4th of July in an
old church and a little shanty, with an attend-

Orators. — Douglass and Washington 93
ance of thirty pupUs. In 1895 Mr. Washing
ton came into national prominence by a re
markable speech at the Cotton States Exposi
tion in Atlanta, and after that he interested
educators and thinking people generally in the
working out of his ideas of practical education.
He was the author of several books along lines '
of industrial education and character-building,
and in his later years only one or two other
men in America could rival his power to at
tract and hold great audiences. Harvard Uni- ,
versity conferred on him the degree of Master
of Arts in 1896, and Dartmouth that of Doctor
of Laws in 1901. He died in 1915.
In the course of his career Mr. Washington
deUvered hundreds of addresses on distinguished
occasions. He was constantly in demand at
colleges and universities, great educational
meetings, and gatherings of a civic or public
character. His Atlanta speech is famous for
the so-called compromise with the white Jjonth:
"In all things that are purely social we can
be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the
hand in aU things essential to mutual progress.''
On receiving his degree at Harvard in 1896, he
made a speech in which he emphasized the fact

94 The Negro in Literature and Art
that the welfare of the richest and most cul
tured person in New England was bound up
with that of the humblest man in Alabama,
and that each man was his brother's keeper.
Along somewhat the same line he spoke the
next year at the unveiling of the Robert Gould
Shaw Monument in Boston. At the Chicago
Peace Jubilee in 1898 he reviewed the conduct
of the Negro in the wars of the United States,
making a powerful plea for justice to a race
that had always chosen the better part in
the wars of the country. Mr. Washington
delivered many addresses, but he never reaUy
surpassed the feeling and point and oratorical
quality of these early speeches. The following
paragraph from the Atlanta speech will illus
trate his power of vivid and apt Ulustration:
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a
friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate^vessel
was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!"
The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back:
"Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time
the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from
the distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down
your bucket where you are." And a third and a fourth
signal for water was answered: "Cast down your bucket
where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel,
at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket,

Orators. — Douglass and Washington 95
and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the
mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who
depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land,
or who underestimate the importance of cultivating
friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is
their next door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your
bucket where you are" — cast it down in making friends
in every manly way of the people of all races by whom
we are surrounded.*
The power to realize with fine feeling the
possibUities of an occasion may be Ulustrated
from the speech at Harvard:
If through me, an humble representative, seven mil
lions of my people in the South might be permitted to
send a message to Harvard — Harvard that offered up
on death's altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell,
and scores of others, that we might have a free and united
country — that message would be, Tell them that the
sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by habits of"!
thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and ?
college, we are coming up. We are crawling up, working;
up, yea, bursting up — often through oppression, unjust
discrimination and prejudice, but through them all we
are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and
property, there is no power on earth that can permanently
stay our progress.f
The eloquence of Douglass differed from that
of Washington a*"LjiaesJihe-paw©r- of a gifted
* Quoted from "Story of My Life and Work," 165-6.
t Quoted from "Story of My Life and Work," 210-11.

96 The Negro in Literature and Art
orator differ from the force of a finished public
speaker. The one was subjective; the other
was objective. Douglass swayed his audience,
and even himself, by the sweep of his passion
and rhetoric; Washington studied every de
tail and weighed every word, always keeping
in mind the final impression to be made.
Douglass was an idealist, impatient for the
day of perfect fruition; Washington was an
opportunist, making the most of each chance
as it came. The one voiced the sorrows of the
Old Testament, and for the moment produced
the more tremendous effect; the other longed
for the blessing of the New Testament and
spoke with lasting result. Both loved their
people and each in his own way worked as he
could best see the light. By his earnestness
each in his day gained a hearing; by their
sincerity both found a place in the oratory
not only of the Negro but of the world.

IX
THE STAGE
IN no other field has the Negro with artistic
aspirations found the road so hard as in
that of the classic drama. In spite of the
far-reaching influence of the Negro on American
fife, it is only within the last two years that
this distinct racial element has begun to re
ceive serious attention. If we pass over Othello
as professedly a Moor rather than a Negro,
we find that the Negro, as he has been pre
sented on the English or American stage, is
best represented by such a character as Mungo
in the comic opera, "The Padlock," on the
boards at Drury Lane in 1768. Mungo is
the slave of a West Indian planter; he be
comes profane in the second act and sings a
burlesque song. Here, as elsewhere, there was
no dramatic or sympathetic study of the race.
Even Uncle Tom was a conventional embodi-
97

98 The Negro in Literature and Art
ment of patience and meekness rather than a
highly individualized character.
/On the legitimate stage the Negro was not
^wanted. That he could succeed, however,
\was -shewn by such a career as that of Ira
Aldridge. This distinguished actor, making
his way from America to the freer life of
Europe, entered upon the period of his greatest
artistic success when, in 1833, at Covent Gar-*^,
den, he played Othello to the Iago of Edmund \
Kean, the foremost actor of the time. He was
universally ranked as a great tragedian. In
the years 1852-5 he played in Germany. In
1857 the King of Sweden invited him to visit
Stockholm. The King of Prussia bestowed
upon him a first-class medal of the arts and
sciences. The Emperor of Austria compli
mented him with an autograph letter; the
Czar of Russia gave him a decoration, and
various other honors were showered upon him.
Such is the noblest tradition of the Negro
on the stage. In course of time, however, be
cause of the new blackface ministrelsy that be
came popular soon after the Civil War, aU
association of the Negro with the classic drama
was effectively erased from the public mind.

The Stage 99
Near the turn of the century some outlet was
found in light, musical comedy. Prominent in
the transition from minstrelsy to the new form
were Bob Cole and Ernest Hogan; and the
representative musical comedy companies have
been those of Cole and Johnson, and WUliams '
and Walked Bert WUliams is to-day generally v
remarked as one of the two or three foremost
comedians on the American stage. Even musi
cal comedy, however, is not so prominent as
it was ten years ago, by reason of the competi-v'
tion of vaudeviUe and moving-pictures; and
any representation of the Negro on the stage
at the present time is Ukely to be either a
burlesque, or, as in such pictures as those of
"The Birth of a Nation," a deliberate and
malicious libel on the race.
In different ones of the Negro colleges, how
ever, and elsewhere, are there those who have
dreamed of a true Negro drama — a drama that
should get away from the minstrelsy and the
burlesque and honestly present Negro char
acters face to face with all the problems that
test the race in the crucible of American civil
ization. The representative institutions give
frequent amateur productions, not only of

100 The Negro in Literature and Art
classical plays, but also of sincere attempts at
the faithful portrayal of Negro character. In
even wider fields, however, is the possibility
of the material for serious dramatic treatment
being tested. In the spring of 1914 "Granny
JMaumee," by Ridgely Torrence, a New York
dramatist, was produced by the Stage Society
of New York. The part of Granny Maumee
was taken by Dorothy Donnelly, one of the
most emotional and sincere of American ac
tresses; two performances were given, and
Carl Van Vechten, writing of the occasion in
the New York Press, said: "It is as important
an event in our theater as the first play by
Synge was to the Irish movement." Another
experiment was "ChUdren," by Guy ^Bolton
and Tom Carlton, presented by the Washing
ton Square^Piayers in March, 1916, a little
play in which a mother shoots her son rather
than give him up to a lynching party. In
April, 1917,' "Granny Maumee," with two
other short plays by Mr. Torrence, "The
Rider of Dreams," and "Simon the Cyrenian,"
was again put on the stage in New York, this
time with a company of colored actors, prom
inent among whom were Opal Cooper and Inez

The Stage 101
Clough. This whole production, advertised as
"the first colored dramatic company to appear
on Broadway," was under the patronage of
Mrs. Norman Hapgood and the direction of
Robert Edmond Jones, and its success was
such as to give hopes of much greater things in
the future.
Three or four other representative efforts
within the race itseff in the great field of the
drama must be remarked. /One of the most
sincere was "The Exile," written by E. C.
Williams, and presented at the Howard The
ater in Washington, May 29, 1915, a play deal- *
ing with an episode in the life of Lorenzo de
Medicii The story used is thoroughly dramatic,
and that part of the composition that is in
blank verse is of a notable degree of smooth
ness. "The Star of Ethiopia," by Dr. DuBois/
was a pageant, elaborately presented. Origi
nally produced in New York in 1913, it also
saw performances in Washington and Phila
delphia. The spring of 1916 witnessed the
beginning of the work of the Edward Sterling
Wright Players, of New York. This company
used the legitimate drama and made a favor
able impression, especially by its production of

102 The Negro in Literature and Art
"Othello." rAt^ present special interest attaches
to the work of the Lafayette Players in New
York, who have already made commendable
progress in the production of popular playsTl
The field is comparatively new. It is, how
ever, one pecufiarly adapted to the abUity of
the Negro race, and at least enough has been
done so far to show that both Negro effort
in the classic drama and the serious portrayal
of Negro life on the stage are worthy of re
spectful consideration.

X
PAINTERS. — HENRY O. TANNER
PAINTING has long been a medium through
which the artistic spirit of the race yearned
to find expression. As far back as in the
work of Phillis Wheatley there is a poem
addressed to "S. M." (Scipio Moorhead), "a
young African painter," one of whose subjects
was the story of Damon and Pythias. It was
a hundred years more, however, before there
was really artistic production. E. M. Ban
nister, whose home was at Providence, though
Uttle known to the younger generation, was
very prominent forty years ago. He gathered
about himself a coterie of artists and rich men
that formed the nucleus of the Rhode Island
Art Club, and one of his pictures took a medal
at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. WUliam
A. Harper, who died in 1910, was a product
of the Chicago Art Institute, at whose exhibi
tions his pictures received much favorable com-
103

104 The Negro in Literature and Art
ment about 1908 and 1910. On his return from
his first period of study in Paris his "Avenue of
Poplars" took a prize of one hundred dollars
at the Institute. Other typical subjects were
"The Last Gleam," "The HUlside," and "The
Gray Dawn." Great hopes were awakened a
few years ago by the landscapes of Richard
L. Brown; and the portrait work of Edwin A.
Harleston is destined to become better and
better known. William E. Scott, of Indian
apolis, is becoming more and more distinguished
in mural work, landscape, and portraiture, and
among all the painters of the race now working
in this country is outstanding. He has spent
several years in Paris. "La Pauvre Voisine,"
accepted by the Salon in 1912, was afterwards
bought by the Argentine government. A sec
ond picture exhibited in the Salon in 1913, "La
Misere," was reproduced in the French cata
logue and took first prize at the Indiana State
Fair the next year. "La Connoisseure" was
exhibited in the Royal Academy in London in
1913. Mr. Scott has done the mural work in
ten public schools in Chicago, four in Indian-
apofis, and especially was he commissioned by
the city of Indianapolis to decorate two units

HENRY O. TANNER

Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 105
in the city hospital, this task embracing three
hundred life-size figures. Some of his effects
in coloring are very striking, and in several of
his recent pictures he has emphasized racial
subjects. The painter of assured fame and command
ing position is Henry Ossawa Tanner.
The early years of this artist were a record
of singular struggle and sacrifice. Born in
Pittsburgh in 1859, the son of a minister of
very limited means, he received his early edu
cation in Philadelphia. For years he had to
battle against uncertain health. In his thir
teenth year, seeing an artist at work, he decided
that he too would become a painter, and he
afterwards became a student at the Pennsyl
vania Academy of Fine Arts. While still a
very young man, he attempted drawings of
aU sorts and sent these to various New York
publishers, only to see them promptly returned.
A check, however, for forty dollars for one that
did not return encouraged him, and a picture,
"A Lion at Home," from the exhibition of the
Academy of Design, brought eighty dollars.
He now became a photographer in Atlanta,
Ga., but met with no real success; and for

106 The Negro in Literature and Art
two years he taught drawing at Clark Univer
sity in Atlanta. In this period came a summer
of struggle in the mountains of North Caro-
Una, and the knowledge that a picture that
had originally sold for fifteen dollars had
brought two hundred and fifty dollars at an
auction in Philadelphia. Desiring now to go
to Europe, and being encouraged by Bishop
and Mrs. HartzeU, the young painter gave in
Cincinnati an exhibition of his work. The ex
hibition failed; not a picture was regularly
sold. Bishop and Mrs. Hartzell, however,
gave the artist a sum for the entire collection,
and thus equipped he set sail for Rome, January
4, 1891, going by way of Liverpool and Paris.
In the story of his career that he contributed
to the World's Work some years ago, Mr.
Tanner gave an interesting account of his
early days in Paris. Acquaintance with the
great French capital induced him to abandon
thoughts of going to Rome; but there followed
five years of pitiless economy, broken only
by a visit to Philadelphia, where he sold some
pictures. He was encouraged, however, by
Benjamin Constant and studied in the Julien
Academy. In his early years he had given

Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 107
attention to animals and landscape, but more
and more he was drawn towards religious sub
jects. "Daniel in the Lions' Den" in the Salon
in 1896 brought "honorable mention," the
artist's first official recognition. He was in
spired, and very soon afterwards he made his
first visit to Palestine, the land that was after
wards to mean so much to him in his work.
"The Resurrection of Lazarus," in 1897, was
bought by the French government, and now
hangs in the Luxembourg. The enthusiasm
awakened by this picture was so great that a
friend wrote to the painter at Venice: "Come
home, Tanner, to see the crowds behold your
picture." After twenty years of heart-breaking
effort Henry Tanner had become a recognized
artist. His later career is a part of the history
of the world's art. He won a third-class medal at N
the Salon in 1897, a second-class medal in
1907, second-class medals at the Paris Exposi
tion in 1900, at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901,
and at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, a
gold medal at San Francisco in 1915, the
Walter Lippincott Prize in Philadelphia in
1900, and the Harris Prize of five hundred
dollars, in 1906, for the best picture in the

108 The Negro in Literature and Art
annual exhibition of American paintings at the
Chicago Art Institute.
Mr. Tanner's later life has been spent in
Paris, with trips to the Far East, to Palestine,
to Egypt, to Algiers, and Morocco. Some
years ago he joined the colony of artists at
Trepied, where he has built a commodious
home and studio. |_Miss MacChesney has de
scribed this for us: "His studio is an ideal
workroom, being high-ceUinged, spacious, and
having the least possible furniture, utterly free
from masses of useless studio stuff and para
phernalia. The walls are of a Ught gray, and
at one end hangs a fine tapestry. Oriental
carved wooden screens are at the doors and
windows. Leading out of it is a smaU room
having a domed ceiling and picturesque high
windows. In this simply furnished room he
often poses his models, painting himself in the
large studio, the sliding door between being a
small one. He can often make use of lamp
light effects, the daylight in the larger room
not interfering." Within recent years the
artist has kept pace with some of the newer
schools by brUUant experimentation in color
and composition. Moonlight scenes appeal

Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 109
to him most. He seldom paints other than
biblical subjects, except perhaps a portrait
such as that of the Khedive or Rabbi Wise.
A landscape may attract him, but it is sure
to be idealized. He is thoroughly romantic
in tone, and in spirit, if not in technique,^
there is inuch to connect him with Holman
Hunt, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. In fact he
long had in mind, even if he has not actually
worked out, a picture entitled, "The Scape
goat." "The Annunciation," as well as "The Res
urrection of Lazarus," was bought by the French
government; and "The Two Disciples at the
Tomb" was bought by the Chicago Art In
stitute. "The Bagpipe Lesson" and "The
Banjo Lesson" are in the Ubrary at Hampton
Institute. Other prominent titles are: "Christ
and Nicodemus," "Jews Waiting at the Wall
of Solomon," "Stephen Before the Council,"
"Moses and the Burning Bush," "The Mothers
of the Bible" (a series of five paintings of
Mary, Hagar, Sarah, Rachel, and the mother
of Moses, that marked the commencement of
paintings containing all or nearly all female
figures), "Christ at the Home of Mary and

110 The Negro in Literature and Art
Martha," "The Return of the Holy Women,"
and "The Five Virgins." Of "Christ and His
Disciples on the Road to Bethany," one of
the most remarkable of aU the pictures for
subdued coloring, the painter says, "I have
taken the tradition that Christ never spent
a day in Jerusalem, but at the close of day
went to Bethany, returning to the city of
strife in the morning." Of "A Flight into
Egypt" he says: "Never shall I forget the
magnificence of two Persian Jews that I once
saw at Rachel's Tomb; what a magnificent
'Abraham' either one of them would have
made! Nor do I forget a ride one stormy
Christmas night to Bethlehem. Dark clouds
swept the moonlit skies and it took Uttle im
agination to close one's eyes to the flight of
time and see in those hurrying travelers the
crowds that hurried Bethlehemward on that
memorable night of the Nativity, or to trans
pose the scene and see in each hurrying group
'A Flight into Egypt.'" As to which one of
all these pictures excels the others critics are
not in perfect agreement. "The Resurrection
of Lazurus" is in subdued coloring, while
"The Annunciation" is noted for its effects of

Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 111
light and shade. This latter picture must in
any case rank very high in any consideration
of the painter's work. It is a powerful por
trayal of the Virgin at the moment when she
learns of<her great mission.
Mr. Tanner has the very highest ideals for
his art. These could hardly be better stated
than in his own words: "It has very often
seemed to me that many painters of reUgious
subjects (in our time) seem to forget that
their pictures should be as much works of art
(regardless of the subject) as are other paint
ings with less holy subjects. To suppose that
the fact of the religious painter having a more
elevated subject than his brother artist makes
it unnecessary for him to consider his picture
as an artistic production, or that he can be
less thoughtful about a color harmony, for in
stance, than he who selects any other subject,
simply proves that he is less of an artist than
he who gives the subject his best attention."
Certainly, no one could ever accuse Henry
Tanner of insincere workmanship. His whole
career is an inspiration and a challenge to
aspiring painters, and his work is a monument
of sturdy endeavor and exalted achievement.

XI
SCULPTORS. — META WARRICK FULLER
IN sculpture, as weU as in painting, there
has been a beginning of highly artistic
achievement. The first person to come into
prominence was Edmonia Lewis, born in New
York in 1845. A sight of the statue of Franklin,
in Boston, inspired within this young woman
the desire also to "make a stone man." Gar
rison introduced her to a sculptor who encour
aged her and gave her a few suggestions, but
altogether she received Uttle instruction in her
art. In 1865 she attracted considerable at
tention by a bust of Robert Gould Shaw,
exhibited in Boston. In this same year she
went to Rome to continue her studies, and two
years later took up her permanent residence
there. Among her works are: "The Freed-
woman," "The Death of Cleopatra" (exhibited
at the exposition in PhUadelphia in 1876),
"Asleep," "The Marriage of Hiawatha," and
112

META WARRICK FULLER

Sculptors. — Meta, Warrick Fuller 113
"Madonna with the Infant Christ." Among
her busts in terra cotta are those of John
Brown, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, and Long
fellow. Most of the work of Edmonia Lewis
is in Europe. More recently the work of Mrs.
May Howard Jackson, of Washington, has
attracted the attention of the discerning. This
sculptor has made several busts, among her
subjects being Rev. F. J. Grimke and Dr.
DuBois, and "Mother and Child" is one of
her best studies. Bertina Lee, of Trenton,
N. J., is one of the promising young sculptors.
She is from the Trenton Art School and has
already won several valuable prizes.
The sculptor at the present time of assured
position is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller.
Meta Vaux Warrick was born in Philadelphia,
June 9, 1877. She first compelled serious
recognition of her talent by her work in the
Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, for
which she had won a scholarship, and which
she attended for four years. Here one of her
first original pieces in clay was a head of
Medusa, which, with its hanging jaw, beads of
gore, and eyes starting from their sockets,
marked her as a sculptor of the horrible. In

114 The Negro in Literature and Art
her graduating year, 1898, she won a prize
for metal work by a crucifix upon which hung
the figure of Christ torn by anguish, also honor
able mention for her work in modefing. In
her post-graduate year she won the George K.
Crozier first prize for the best general work in
modeling for the year, her particular piece
being the "Procession of Arts and Crafts."
In 1899 the young student went to Paris, where
she worked and studied for three years, chiefly
at Colarossi's Academy. Her work brought
her in contact with St. Gaudens and other
artists; and finally there came a day when
the great Rodin himself, thrilled by the figure
in "Secret Sorrow," a man represented as eat
ing his heart out, in the attitude of a father
beamed upon the young woman and said,
"Mademoiselle, you are a sculptor; you have
the sense of form." "The Wretched," one of
the artist's masterpieces, was exhibited in the
Salon in 1903, and along with it went "The
Impenitent Thief"; and at one of Byng's ex
hibitions in L'Art Nouveau galleries it was re
marked of her that "under her strong and
supple hands the clay has leaped into form:
a whole turbulent world seems to have forced

Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 115
itself into the cold and dead material." On
her return to America the artist resumed her
studies at the School of Industrial Art, winning,
in 1904, the Battles first prize for pottery. In
1907 she was called on for a series of tableaux
representing the advance of the Negro, for the
Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, and later
(1913) for a group for the New York State
Emancipation Proclamation Commission. In
1909 Meta Vaux Warrick became the wife of
Dr. Solomon C. Fuller, of Framingham, Mass.
A disastrous fire in 1910 destroyed some of
her most valuable pieces whUe they were in
storage in Philadelphia. Only a few examples
of her early work, that for one reason or an
other happened to be elsewhere, were saved.
In May, 1914, however, she had sufficiently
recovered from this blow to be able to hold
a public exhibition of her work. Mrs. FuUer
resides in Framingham, has a happy family
of three boys, and in the midst of a busy life
stiU finds some time for the practice of her art.
The fire of 1910 destroyed the , following
productions: Secret Sorrow, SUenus, (Edipus,
Brittany Peasant, Primitive Man, two of the
heads from Three Gray Women, Peeping Tom,

116 The Negro in Literature and Art
Falstaff, Oriental Dancer, Portrait of WiUiam
Thomas, The Wrestlers, Death in the Wind,
Desespoir, The Man with a Thorn, The Man
who Laughed, the Two-Step, Sketch for a
Monument, Wild Fire, and the following
studies in Afro-American types: An Old Woman,
The Schoolboy, The Comedian (George W.
Walker), The Student, The Artist, and Mu
latto ChUd, as well as a few unfinished pieces.
Such a misfortune has only rarely befallen a
rising artist. Some of the sculptor's most re
markable work was included in the Ust just
given. Fortunately surviving were the foUowing:
The Wretched (cast in bronze and remaining
in Europe), Man Carrying Dead Body, Medusa,
Procession of Arts and Crafts, Portrait of the
late William Still, John the Baptist (the only
piece of her work made in Paris that the
sculptor now has), Sylvia (later destroyed by
accident), and Study of Expression.
The exhibition of 1914 included the follow
ing: A Classic Dancer, Brittany Peasant (a
reproduction of the piece destroyed), Study of
Woman's Head, "A Drink, Please" (a statu
ette of Tommy Fuller), Mother and Baby,

Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 117
A Young Equestrian (Tommy Fuller), "So
Big" (Solomon FuUer, Jr.), Menelik II of
Abyssinia, A Girl's Head, Portrait of a ChUd,
The Pianist (portrait of Mrs. Maud Cuney
Hare), Portrait of S. Coleridge-Taylor, Relief
Study of a Woman's Head, Medallion Por
trait of a Child (Tommy Fuller), Medallion
Portrait of Dr. A. E. P. Rockwell, Statuette of
a Woman, Second model of group made for the
New York State Emancipation Proclamation
Commission (with two fragments from the
final model of this), Portrait of Dr. A. E. P.
RockweU, Four Figures (Spring, Summer,
Autumn, Winter) for over-mantel panel, Por
trait-Bust of a Child (Solomon Fuller, Jr.),
Portrait-Bust of a Man (Dr. S. C. Fuller),
John the Baptist, Danse Macabre, Menelik
II in profile, Portrait of a Woman, The Jester.
Since 1914 the artist has produced several
of her strongest pieces. "Peace Halting the
Ruthlessness of War" in May, 1917, took a
second prize in a competition under the aus
pices of the Massachusetts Branch of the
Woman's Peace Party. Sinrilarly powerful are
"Watching for Dawn," "Mother and Child,"
"Immigrant in America," and "The SUent

118 The Negro in Literature and Art
Appeal." Noteworthy, too, are "The Flower-
Holder," "The Fountain-Boy," and "Life in
Quest of Peace." The sculptor has also pro
duced numerous statuettes, novelties, etc., for
commercial purposes, and just now she is at
work on a motherhood series.
From time to time one observes in this
enumeration happy subjects. Such, for in
stance, are "The Dancing Girl," "The Wres
tlers," and "A Young Equestrian." These are
frequently winsome, but, as wiU be shown in
a moment, they are not the artist's character
istic productions. Nor was the Jamestown
series of tableaux. This was a succession of
fourteen groups (originaUy intended for seven
teen) containing in all one hundred and fifty
figures. The purpose was by the construction
of appropriate models, dramatic groupings, and
the use of proper scenic accessories, to trace
in chronological order the general progress of
the Negro race. The whole, of course, had its
peculiar interest for the occasion; but the
artist had to work against unnumbered handi
caps of every sort; her work, in fact, was not
so much that of a sculptor as a designer; and,
while the whole production took considerable

Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 119
energy, she has naturaUy never regarded it
as her representative work.
Certain productions, however, by reason of
their unmistakable show of genius, caU for
special consideration. These are invariably
tragic or serious in tone.
Prime in order, and many would say in
power, is "The Wretched." Seven figures
representing as many forms of human anguish
greet the eye. A mother yearns for the loved
ones she has lost. An old man, wasted by
hunger and disease, waits for death. Another,
bowed by shame, hides his face from the sun.
A sick chUd is suffering from some terrible
hereditary trouble'; a youth reaUzes with de
spair that the task before him is too great for
his strength; and a woman is afflicted with
some mental disease. Crowning all is the
plrilosopher, who, suffering through sympathy
with the others, realizes his powerlessness to
reUeve them and graduaUy sinks into the stoni-
ness of despair.
"The Impenitent Thief," admitted to the
Salon along with "The Wretched," was de-
moUshed in 1904, after being subjected to a
series of unhappy accidents. It also defied

120 The Negro in Literature and Art
convention. Heroic in size, the thief hung on
the cross, all the whUe distorted by anguish.
Hardened, unsympathetic, blasphemous, he was
still superb in his presumption, and he was
one of the artist's most powerful conceptions.
"Man Carrying Dead Body" portrays a
scene from a battlefield. In it the sculptor
has shown the length to which duty wUl spur
one on. A man bears across his shoulder the
body of a comrade that has evidently lain on
the battlefield for days, and though the thing
is horrible, he lashes it to his back and totters
under the great weight until he can find a place
for decent burial. To every one there comes
such a duty; each one has his own burden to
bear in silence.
Two earner pieces, "Secret Sorrow," and
"CEdipus," had the same marked character
istics. The first represented a man, worn and
gaunt, as actually bending his head and eating
out his own heart. The figure was the per
sonification of lost ambition, shattered ideals,
and despair. For "(Edipus" the sculptor
chose the hero of the old Greek legend at the
moment when, realizing that he has kihed his
father and married his mother, he tears his

Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 121
eyes out. The artist's later conception, "Three
Gray Women," from the legend of Perseus,
was in similar vein. It undertook to portray
the Grsese, the three sisters who had but one
eye and one tooth among them.
Perhaps the most haunting creation of Mrs.
FuUer is "John the Baptist." With head
slightly upraised and with eyes looking into
the eternal, the prophet rises above all sordid
earthly things and soars into the divine. AU
faith and hope and love are in his face, aU
poetry and inspiration in his eyes. It is a
conception that, once seen, can never be for
gotten. The second model of the group for the New
York State Emancipation Proclamation Com
mission (two feet high, the finished group as
exhibited being eight feet high) represents a
recently emancipated Negro youth and maiden
standing beneath a gnarled, decapitated tree
that has the semblance of a human hand
stretched over them. Humanity is pushing
them out into the world, whUe at the same
time the hand of Fate, with obstacles and
drawbacks, is restraining them in the exer
cise of their new freedom. In the attitudes

122 The Negro in Literature and Art
of the two figures is strikingly portrayed the
uncertainty of those embarking on a new life,
and in their countenances one reads all the
eagerness and the courage and the hope that
is theirs. The whole is one of the artist's
most ambitious efforts.
"Immigrant in America" was inspired by two
fines from Robert Haven Schauffler's "Scum
of the Earth":
Children in whose frail arms shall rest
Prophets and singers and saints of the West.
An American mother, the parent of one strong
healthy child, is seen welcoming the immigrant
mother of many chUdren to the land of plenty.
The work is capable of wide application. Along
with it might be mentioned a suffrage medallion
and a smaller piece, "The Silent Appeal."
This last is a very strong piece of work. It
represents the mother capable of producing
and caring for three children as making a silent
request for the suffrage (or peace, or justice,
or any other noble cause). The work is char
acterized by a singular note of dignity.
"Peace Halting the Ruthlessness of War,"
the recent prize piece, represents War as

Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 123
mounted on a mighty steed and trampling to
death helpless human beings, while in one hand
he bears a spear on which he has impaled the
head of one of his victims. As he goes on in
what seems his irresistible career Peace meets
him on the way and commands him to cease
his , ravages. The work as exhibited was in
gray-green wax and treated its subject with
remarkable spirit. It must take rank as one
of the four or five of the strongest productions
of the artist.
Meta Warrick FuUer's work may be said to
fall into two divisions, the romantic and the
social. The first is represented by such things
as "The Wretched" and "Secret Sorrow," the
second by "Immigrant in America" and "The
Silent Appeal." The transition may be seen
in "Watching for Dawn," a group that shows
seven figures, in various attitudes of prayer,
watchfulness, and resignation, as watching for
the coming of daylight, or peace. In technique
this is like "The Wretched," in spirit it is like
the later work. It is as if the sculptor's own
seer, John the Baptist, had, by his vision, sum
moned her away from the ghastly and horrible
to the everyday problems of needy humanity.

124 The Negro in Literature and Art
There are many, however, who hope that she
will not utterly forsake the field in which she
first became famous. Her early work is not
deficate or pretty; it is gruesome and terrible;
but it is also intense and vital, and from it
speaks the very tragedy of the Negro race.

XII
MUSIC
THE foremost name on the roll of Negro
composers is that of a man whose home
was in England, but who in so many ways
identified himself with the Negroes of the
United States that he deserves to be consid
ered here. He visited America, found the in
spiration for much of his best work in African
themes, and his name at once comes. to mind
in any consideration of the history of the
Negro in music.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor * (1875-1912) was
born in London, the son of a physician who
was a native of Sierra Leone, and an EngUsh
mother. He began the study of the violin
when he was no more than six years old, and
as he grew older he emphasized more and more
* This account of Coleridge-Taylor is based largely, but
not wholly, upon the facts as given in Grove's Dictionary of
Music (1910 edition, Macmillan). The article on the com
poser ends with a fairly complete list of works up to 1910.
125

1*23 The Negro in Literature and Art
the violin and the piano. At the age of ten he
entered the choir of St. George's, at Croydon,
and a little later became alto singer at St.
Mary Magdalene's, Croydon. In 1890 he en
tered the Royal College of Music as a student
of the violin; and he also became a student of
Stanford's in composition, in which department
he won a scholarship in 1893. In 1894 he was
graduated with honor. His earliest pubUshed
work was the anthem, "In Thee, O Lord"
(1892); but he gave frequent performances of
chamber music at student concerts in his
earlier years; one of his symphonies was pro
duced in 1896 under Stanford's direction, and
"a quintet for clarinet and strings in F sharp
minor (played at the Royal CoUege in 1895)
was given in Berlin by the Joachim Quartet,
and a string quartet in D minor dates from
1896." Coleridge-Taylor became world-famous
by the production of the first part of his
"Hiawatha" trilogy, "Hiawatha's Wedding-
Feast," at the Royal CoUege, November 11,
1898. He at once took rank as one of the
foremost Uving English composers. The second
part of the trilogy, "The Death of Minne
haha," was given at the North Staffordshire

Music 127
Festival in the autumn of 1899; and the third,
"Hiawatha's Departure," 'by the Royal Choral
Society, in Albert HaU, March 22, 1900. The
whole work was a tremendous success such
as even the composer himself never quite
dupficated. Requests for new compositions for
festival purposes now became numerous, and
in response to the demand were produced
"The BUnd Girl of Castel-CuUlS" (Leeds,
1901), "Meg Blane" (Sheffield, 1902), "The
Atonement" (Hereford, 1903), and "Kubla
Khan" (Handel Society, 1906). Coleridge-
Taylor also wrote the incidental music for the
four romantic plays by Stephen Phillips pro
duced at His Majesty's Theatre, as follows:
"Herod," 1900; "Ulysses," 1901; "Nero,"
1902; "Faust," 1908; as well as incidental
music for "Othello" (the composition for the
orchestra being later adapted as a suite for
pianoforte), and for "A Tale of Old Japan,"
the words of which were by Alfred Noyes.
In 1904 he was appointed conductor of the
Handel Society. The composer's most dis
tinctive work is probably That reflecting his
interest in.. the Negro folk-song. "Character
istic of the melancholy beauty, barbaric color,

128 The Negro in Literature and Art
charm of musical rhythm and vehement passion
of the true Negro music are his symphonic
pianoforte selections based on Negro melodies
from Africa and America: the 'African Suite,'
a group of pianoforte pieces, the 'African Ro-4
mances' (words by Paul L. Dunbar), the
'Songs of Slavery,' 'Three Choral Ballads'
and 'African Dances,' and a suite for violin
and pianoforte." * The complete list of the
works of Coleridge-Taylor would include also
the following: "Southern Love Songs,"
"Dream-Lovers" (an operetta), "Gipsy Suite"
(for violin and piano), "Solemn Prelude" (for
orchestra, first produced at the Worcester Fes
tival, 1899), "Nourmahal's Song and Dance"
(for piano), "Scenes from an Everyday Ro
mance," "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors" (con
cert march for orchestra), "Five Choral Bal
lads" to words by Longfellow (produced at
the Norwich Festival, 1905), "Moorish Dance"
(for piano), "Six Sorrow Songs," several vocal
duets, and the anthems, "Now Late on the
Sabbath Day," "By the Waters of Babylon,"
"The Lord is My Strength," "Lift Up Your
Heads," "Break Forth into Joy," and "0
* Crisis, October, 1912.

Music 129
Ye that Love the Lord." Among the things
published since his death are his "Viking
Song," best adapted for a male chorus, and a
group of pianoforte and choral works.
In America the history of conscious musical
effort on the part of the Negro goes back even
many years before the CivU War. "Some of
the most interesting music produced by the
Negro slaves was handed down from the days
when the French and Spanish had possession
of Louisiana. From the free Negroes of
Louisiana there sprang up, during slavery days,
a number of musicians and artists who dis
tinguished themselves in foreign countries to
which they removed because of the prejudice
which existed against colored people. Among
them was Eugene Warburg, who went to
Italy and distinguished himself as a sculptor.
Another was Victor SSjouTj who went to-Paris
and gained distinction as a poet and composer
of tragedy. The Lambert family, consisting
of seven persons, were noted as musicians.
Richard Lambert, the father, was a teacher of
music; Lucien Lambert, a son, after much
hard study, became a composer of music.
Edmund Dede, who was born in New Orleans

130 The Negro in Literature and Art
in 1829, learned while a youth to play a number
of instruments. He accumulated enough money
to pay his passage to France. Here he took
up a special study of music, and finally became
director of the orchestra of L' Alcazar, in Bor
deaux, France." *
The foremost composer of the race to-day is
Harry T. Burleigh, who within the last few
years has won a place not only among the
most prominent song-writers of America, but
of the world. He has emphasized compositions
in classical vein, his work displaying great
technical exceUence. Prominent among his
later songs are "Jean," the "Saracen Songs,"
"One Year (1914-1915)," the "Five Songs" of
Laurence Hope, set to music, "The Young *
Warrior" (the words of which were written by
James W. Johnson), and "Passionale" (four
songs for a tenor voice, the words of which/
were also by Mr. Johnson). Nearly two years
ago, at an assemblage of the Italo-American
ReUef Committee at the Biltmore Hotel, New
York, Mr. Amato, of the Metropolitan Opera,
sang with tremendous effect, "The Young
Warrior," and the Italian version has later
* Washington: "The Story of the Negro," II, 276-7.

Music 131
been used all over Italy as a popular song in
connection with the war. Of somewhat stronger
quaUty even than most of these songs are "The
Grey Woff," to words by Arthur Symons, "The
Soldier," a setting of Rupert Brooke's well
known sonnet, and "Ethiopia Saluting the
Colors." An entirely different division of Mr.
Burleigh's work, hardly less important than
his songs, is his various adaptations of the Negro
melodies, especially for choral work; and he
assisted Dvorak in his "New World Sym
phony," based on the Negro folk-songs. For"
his general achievement in music he was, in
1917, awarded the Spingarn Medal. His work .
as a singer is reserved for later treatment.
Another prominent composer is Will Marion
Cook. Mr. Cook's time has been largely given
to the composition of popular music; at the
same time, however, he has produced numerous
songs that bear the stamp of genius. In 1912
a group of his tuneful and characteristic pieces
was published by Schirmer. Generally his
work exhibits not only unusual melody, but
also excellent technique. J. Rosamond John
son is also a composer with many original
ideas. Like Mr. Cook, for years he gave much

182 The Negro in Literature and Art
attention to popular music. More recently he
has been director of the New York Music
Settlement, the first in the country for the
general cultivation and popularizing of Negro
music. Among his later songs are: "I Told
My Love to the Roses," and "Morning, Noon,
and Night." In pure melody Mr. Johnson is
not surpassed by any other musician of the
race to-day. His long experience with large
orchestras, moreover, has given him unusual
knowledge of instrumentation. Carl Diton,
organist and pianist, has so far been interested
chiefly in the transcription for the organ of
representative Negro melodies. "Swing Low,
Sweet Chariot" was published by Schirmer and
followed by "Four Jubilee Songs." R. Nathaniel
Dett has the merit, more than others, of at
tempting to write in large form, life carol,
"Listen to the Lambs," js especially note
worthy. Representative of his work for the
piano is his "Magnolia Suite." This was pub
lished by the Clayton F. Summy Co., of Chi
cago. As for the very young men of promise,
special interest attaches to the work of Edmund
T. Jenkins, of Charleston, S. C, who three
years ago made his way to the Royal Academy

Music 133
in London. Able before he left to perform
brilliantly on half a dozen instruments, this
young man was soon awarded a scholarship;
in 1916-17 he was awarded a silver medal for
excellence on the clarinet, a bronze medal for
his work on the piano, and, against brilliant
competition, a second prize for his original
work in composition. The year also witnessed
the production of his "Prelude Religieuse" at
one of the grand orchestral concerts of the
Academy. Outstanding pianists are Raymond Augustus
Lawson, of Hartford, Conn., and Hazel Har
rison, now of New York. Mr. Lawson is a
true artist. His technique is very highly de
veloped, and his style causes him to be a
favorite concert pianist. He has more than
once been a soloist at the concerts of the Hart
ford PhUharmonic Orchestra, and has appeared
on other noteworthy occasions. He conducts
at Hartford one of the leading studios in New
England. Miss Harrison has returned to
America after years of study abroad, and now
conducts a studio in New York. She was a
special pupil of Busoni and has appeared "in
many noteworthy recitals. Another prominent

184 The Negro in Literature and Art
pianist is Roy W. TibbSj. now a teacher at
HowardUniversily."'rHelen Hagan, who a few
years ago was awarded the Sanford scholarship
at Yale for study abroad, has since her return
from France given many exceUent recitals;
and Ethel Richardson, of New York, has had
several very distinguished teachers and is in
general one of the most promising of the
younger performers. WhUe those that have
been mentioned could not possibly be over
looked, there are to-day so many noteworthy
pianists that even a most competent and well-
informed musician would hesitate before passing
judgment upon them. Prominent among the
organists is MelvUle Charlton, of Brooklyn,
an associate of the American Guild of Organ
ists, who has now won for himself a place
among the foremost organists of the United
States, and who has also done good work as a
composer. He is still a young man and from
him may not unreasonably be expected many
years of high artistic endeavor. Two other
very prominent organists are WUliam Herbert
Bush, of New London, Conn., and Frederick
P. White, of Boston. Mr. Bush has for thirty
years filled his position at the Second Congre-

Music 135
gational Church, of New London, and has also
given much time to composition. Mr. White,
also a composer, for twenty-five years had
charge of the instrument in the First Methodist
Episcopal Church, of Charlestown, Mass. Ex
cellent violinists are numerous, but in con
nection with this instrument especially must
it be remarked that more and more must the
line of distinction be drawn between the work
of a pleasing and talented performer and the
effort of a conscientious and painstaking artist.
Foremost is Clarence Cameron White, of Bos
ton. Prominent also for some years has been
Joseph Douglass, of Washington. Felix Weir,
of Washington and New York, has given un
usual promise; and Kemper Harreld, of Chi
cago and Atlanta, also deserves mention. In
this general sketch of those who have added
to the musical achievement of the race there
is a name that must not be overlooked. "BUnd
Tom," who attracted so much attention z\/
generation ago, deserves notice as a prodigy
rather than as a musician of soUd accompUsh-
ment. His real name was Thomas Bethune,
and he was born in Columbus, Ga., in 1849.
He was peculiarly susceptible to the influences

136 The Negro in Literature and Art
of nature, and imitated on the piano all the
sounds he knew. Without being able to read
a note he could play from memory the most
difficult compositions of Beethoven and Men
delssohn. In phonetics he was especiaUy skUl-
ful. Before his audiences he would commonly
invite any of his hearers to play new and
difficult selections, and as soon as a rendering
was finished he would himself play the com
position without making a single mistake.
Of those who have exhibited the capabUities
of the Negro voice in song it is but natural
that sopranos should have been most distin
guished. Even before the CivU War the race
produced one of the first rank in Elizabeth
Taylor Greenfield, who came into prominence
in 1851. This artist, born in Mississippi, was
taken to PhUadelphia and there cared for by
a Quaker lady. Said the Daily State Register,
of Albany, after one of her concerts: "The
compass of her marvelous voice embraces
twenty-seven notes, reaching from the sonorous
bass of a baritone to a few notes above even
Jenny Lind's highest." A voice with a range
of more than three octaves naturaUy attracted
much attention in both England and America,

Music 187
and comparisons with Jenny Lind, then at the
height of her great fame, were frequent. After
her success on the stage Miss Greenfield be
came a teacher of music in Philadelphia.
Twenty-five years later the Hyers Sisters,
Anna and Emma, of San Francisco, started on
their memorable tour of the continent, winning
some of their greatest triumphs in critical New
England. Anna Hyers especially was remarked
as a phenomenon. Then arose Madame Selika,
a cultured singer of the first rank, and one who,
by her arias and operatic work generally, as
weU as by her mastery of language, won great
success on the continent of Europe as weU as
in England and America. The careers of two
later singers are so recent as to be stiU fresh
in the public memory; one indeed may stiU
be heard on the stage. It was in 1887 that
Flora Batson entered on the period of her
greatest success. She was a ballad singer and
her work at its best was of the sort that sends
an audience into the wildest enthusiasm. Her
voice exhibited a compass of three octaves,
from the purest, most clear-cut soprano, sweet
and fuU, to the rich round notes of the baritone
register. Three or four years later than Flora

188 The Negro in Literature and Art
Batson in her period of greatest artistic success
was Mrs. Sissieretta Jones. The voice of this
singer, when it first attracted wide attention,
about 1893, commanded notice as one of un
usual richness and volume, and as one ex
hibiting especially the plaintive quaUty ever
present in the typical Negro voice.
At the present time Harry T. Burleigh in
stantly commands attention. For twenty years
this singer has been the baritone soloist at
St. George's Episcopal Church, New York,
and for about half as long at Temple Emanu-El,
the Fifth Avenue Jewish synagogue. As a
concert and oratorio singer Mr. Burleigh has
met with signal success. Of the younger^ien,
Roland W. Hayes^a tenor, isoutstanding^ He
has the temperament of an artist and gives
promise of being able to justify expectations
awakened by a voice of remarkable quaUty.
Within recent years Mme. Anita Patti Brown,
a product of the Chicago conservatories, has
also been prominent as a concert soloist. She
sings with simplicity and ease, and in her
voice is a sympathetic quality that makes a
ready appeal to the heart of an audience.
Just at present Mme. Mayme Calloway Byron,

HARRY T. BURLEIGH

Music 139
most recently of Chicago, seems destined within
the near future to take the very high place
that she deserves. This great singer has but
lately returned to America after years of study
and cultivation in Europe. She has sung in
the principal theaters abroad and was just on
the eve of filling an engagement at the Opera
Comique when the war began and forced her to
change her plans.
In this general review of those who have
helped to make the Negro voice famous, men
tion must be made of a remarkable company -
of singers who first made the folk-songs of l
the race known to the world at large. In .¦
1871 the Fisk Jubilee Singers began their/
memorable progress through America and Eu
rope, meeting at first with scorn and sneers,
but before long touching the heart of the
world with their strange music. The original
band consisted of four young men and five
young women; in the seven years of the ex
istence of the company altogether twenty-four
persons were enroUed in it. Altogether, these
singers raised for Fisk University one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and secured school
books, paintings, and apparatus to the value

140 The Negro in Literature and Art
of seven or eight thousand more. They sang
in the United States, England, Scotland, Ire
land, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany,
sometimes before royalty. Since their time
they have been much imitated, but hardly
ever equaled, and never surpassed.
This review could hardly close without men
tion of at least a few other persons who have
worked along distinctive lines and thus con
tributed to the general advance. Pedro T.
Tinsley is director of the Choral Study Club
of Chicago, which has done much work of
real merit. Lulu Vere Childers, director of
music at Howard University, is a contralto
and an excellent choral director; while John
W. Work, of Fisk University, by editing and
directing, has done much for the preserva
tion of the old melodies. Mrs. E. Azalia Hack-
ley, for some years prominent as a concert
soprano, has recently given her time most
largely to the work of teaching and showing
the capabiUties of the Negro voice. Possessed
of a splendid musical temperament, she has
enjoyed the benefit of three years of foreign
study, has published "A Guide to Voice Cul
ture," and generally inspired many younger

Music 141 '
singers or performers. Mrs. Maud Cuney
Hare, of Boston, a concert pianist, has within
the last few years elicited much favorable
comment from cultured persons by her lecture-
recitals dealing with Afro - American music.
In these she has been assisted by William H.
Richardson, baritone soloist of St. Peter's
Episcopal Church, Cambridge. Scattered
throughout the country are many other capa
ble teachers or promising young artists.

APPENDIX

1. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN FICTION
EVER since Sydney Smith sneered at American
books a hundred years ago, honest critics have
asked themselves if the literature of the United States
was not really open to the charge of provincialism.
Within the last year or two the argument has been
very much revived; and an English critic, Mr.
Edward Garnett, writing in The Atlantic Monthly,
has pointed out that with our predigested ideas
and made-to-order fiction we not only discourage
individual genius, but make it possible for the mul
titude to think only such thoughts as have passed
through a sieve. Our most popular novelists, and
sometimes our most respectable writers, see only
the sensation that is uppermost for the moment in
the " mind of the crowd — divorce, graft, tainted
meat or money — and they proceed to cut the cloth
of their fiction accordingly. Mr. Owen Wister, a
"regular practitioner" of the novelist's art, in sub
stance admitting the weight of these charges, lays
the blame on our crass democracy which utterly
refuses to do its own thinking and which is satisfied
only with the tinsel and gewgaws and hobbyhorses
of Hterature. And no theme has suffered so much
from the coarseness of the mob-spirit in literature
as that of the Negro.
As a matter of fact, the Negro in his problems
145

146 The Negro in Literature and Art
and strivings offers to American writers the greatest
opportunity that could possibly be given to them
to-day. . It is commonly, agreed that only one other
large question, that of the relations of capital and
labor, is of as much interest to the American pub
lic; and even this great issue fails to possess quite
the appeal offered by the Negro from the social
standpoint. One can only imagine what a Victor
Hugo, detached and philosophical, would have
done with such a theme in a novel. When we see
what actually has been done — how often in the
guise of fiction a writer has preached a sermon or
shouted a political creed, or vented his spleen —
we are not exactly proud of the art of novel-writing
as it has been developed in the United States of
America. Here was opportunity for tragedy, for
comedy, for the subtle portrayal of all the relations
of man with his fellow man, for faith and hope
and love and sorrow. And yet, with the Civil War
fifty years in the distance, not one novel or one
short story of the first rank has found its inspiration
in this great theme. Instead of such work we .have
£9£3JsJ^]y^ad , JscadiiionaTrtaies, , ^oliiiical^racts,
.and l-jaM melodxanias.
Let us see who have approached the theme, and
just what they have done with it, for the present
leaving out of account all efforts put forth by Negro
writers themselves.
The names of four exponents of Southern life
come at once to mind — George W. Cable, Joel
Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and Thomas
Dixon; and at once, in their outlook and method
of work, the first two become separate from the

Appendix 147
last two. Cable and Harris have looked toward the
past, and have^ embalmed vanished or vamsEIng
t*^esrTRr?rP^geand^]K&. Dkon,jvn}hL their thqughjj
ori the present (though for the most part they
portraythe recent past), have used the novel as a
vehicle for political propaganda.
It was in 1879 that "Old Creole Days" evidenced
the advent of a new force in American literature;
and on the basis of this work, and of "The Grandis-
simes" which followed, Mr. Cable at once took his
place as the foremost portrayer of life in old New
Orleans. By birth, by temperament, and by train
ing he was thoroughly fitted for the task to which
he set himself. His mother was from New England,
his father of the stock of colonial Virginia; and
the stern Puritanism of the North was mellowed
by the gentler influences of the South. Moreover,
from his long apprenticeship in newspaper work
in New Orleans he had received abundantly the
knowledge and training necessary for his work.
Settingjiknself -to a .study-of-^tiieLNegrO-oi„Jb.h,e,.old, j
regime, he made a specialty of the famous — and (1
infamous — quadroon ^bciety3^^°^sJ^a^3^P ^
third and fourth "of cades jg&ths. last .century. And
excellent as WasTns work, turning his face to the
past in manner as well as in matter, from the very
first he raised the question propounded by this
paper. In his earliest volume there was a story
entitled " "Tite Poulette," the heroine of which was
a girl amazingly fair, the supposed daughter of
one Madame John. A young Dutchman fell in
love with "Tite Poulette, championed her cause at
all times, suffered a beating and stabbing for her,

148 The Negro in Literature and Art
and was by her nursed back to life and love. In
the midst of his perplexity about joining himself
to a member of another race, came the word from
Madame John that the girl was not her daughter,
but the child of yellow fever patients whom she
had nursed until they died, leaving their infant in
her care. Immediately upon the publication of
this story, the author received a letter from a young
woman who had actually lived in very much the
same situation as that portrayed in "'Tite Pou
lette," telling him 'that his story was not true to
life and that he knew it was not, for Madame
John really was the mother of the heroine. Accept
ing the criticism, Mr. Cable set about the composi
tion of "Madame Delphine," in which the situation
is somewhat similar, but in which at the end the
mother tamely makes a confession to a priest.
What is the trouble? The artist is so bound by
circumstances and hemmed in by tradition that he
simply has not the courage to launch out into the
deep and work out his human problems for himself.
Take a representative portrait from "The Grandis-

Clemence had come through ages of African savagery,
through fires that do not refine, but that blunt and blast
and blacken and char; starvation, gluttony, drunken
ness, thirst, drowning, nakedness, dirt, fetichism, de
bauchery, slaughter, pestilence, and the rest — she was
their heiress; they left her the cinders of hum-in feelings.
. . . She had had children of assorted colors — had one with
her now, the black boy that brought the basil to Joseph;
the others were here and there, some in the Grandissime
households or field-gangs, some elsewhere within occasional

Appendix 149
sight, some dead, some not accounted for. Husbands —
like the Samaritan woman's. We know she was a con
stant singer and laugher.
Very brilliant of course; and yet Clemence is a
relic, not a prophecy.
Still more of a relic is Uncle Remus. For decades
now, this charming old Negro has been held up
to the children of the South as the perfect expression
of the beauty of life in the glorious times "befo'
de wah," when every Southern gentleman was
suckled at the bosom of a "black mammy." Why j
should we not occasionally attempt to paint the
Negro of the new day — intelligent, ambitious,
thrifty, manly? Perhaps he is not so poetic; but
certainly the human element is greater.
To the school of Cable and Harris belong also
of course Miss Grace King and Mrs. Ruth McEnery
Stuart, a thoroughly representative piece of work
being Mrs. Stuart's "Uncle 'Riah's Christmas Eve."
Other more popular writers of the day, Miss Mary
Johnston and Miss Ellen Glasgow for instance,
attempt no special analysis of the Negro. They
simply take him for granted as an institution that
always has existed and always will exist, as a hewer
of wood and drawer of water, from the first flush
of creation to the sounding of the trump of doom.
But more serious is the tone when we come to
Thomas Nelson Page and Thomas Dixon. We
might tarry for a few minutes with Mr. Page to
listen to more such tales as those of Uncle Remus;
but we must turn to living issues. Times have
changed. The grandson of Uncle Remus does not

150 The Negro in Literature and Art
feel that he must stand with his hat in his hand
when he is in our presence, and he even presumes
to help us in the running of our government. This
will never do; so in "Red Rock" and "The Leop
ard's Spots" it must be shown that he should
never have been allowed to vote anyway, and those
honorable gentlemen in the Congress of the United
States in the year 1865 did not know at all what
they were about. Though we are given the char
acters and setting of a novel, the real business is to
show that the Negro has been the "sentimental
pet" of the nation all too long. By all means let
us have an innocent white girl, a burly Negro, and
a burning at the stake, or the story would be in
complete. We have the same thing in "The Clansman,"
a "drama of fierce revenge." But here we are con
cerned very largely with the blackening of a man's
character. Stoneman (Thaddeus Stevens very thin
ly disguised) is himself the whole Congress of the
United States. He is a gambler, and "spends a
part of almost every night at Hall & Pemberton's
Faro Place on Pennsylvania Avenue." He is hys
terical, "drunk with the joy of a triumphant
vengeance." "The South is conquered soil," he
says to the President (a mere figure-head, by the
way), "I mean to blot it from the map." Further:
"It is but the justice and wisdom of heaven that
the Negro shall rule the land of his bondage. It
is the only solution of the race problem. Wait
until I put a ballot in the hand of every Negro, and
a bayonet at the breast of every white man from
the James to the Rio Grande." Stoneman, moreover,

Appendix 151
has a mistress, a mulatto woman, a "yellow vam
pire" who dominates him completely. "Senators,
representatives, politicians of low and high degree,
artists, correspondents, foreign ministers, and cabi
net officers hurried to acknowledge their fealty to
the uncrowned king, and hail the strange brown
woman who held the keys of his house as the first
lady of the land." This, let us remember, was for
some months the best-selling book in the United
States. A slightly altered version of it has very
recently commanded such prices as were never be
fore paid for seats at a moving-picture entertain
ment; and with "The Traitor" and "The South
erner" it represents our most popular treatment of
the gravest social question in American life! "The
Clansman" is to American literature exactly what
a Louisiana mob is to American democracy. Only
too frequently, of course, the mob represents us
all too well.
Turning from the longer works of fiction to the
short story, I have been interested to see how the
matter has been dealt with here. For purposes of
comparison I have selected from ten representative
periodicals as many distinct stories, no one of which
was published more than ten years ago; and as
these are in almost every case those stories that first
strike the eye in a periodical index, we may assume
that they are thoroughly typical. The ten are:
"Shadow," by Harry Stillwell Edwards, in the
Century (December, 1906); "Callum's Co'tin': A
Plantation Idyl," by Frank H. Sweet, in the
Craftsman (March, 1907); "His Excellency the
Governor," by L. M. Cooke, in Putnam's (Febru-

152 The Negro in-Literature and Art
ary, 1908); "The Black Drop," by Margaret De-
land in Collier's Weekly (May 2 and 9, 1908);
"Jungle Blood," by Elmore Elliott Peake, in Mc-
Clure's (September, 1908); "The Race-Rioter," by
Harris Merton Lyon, in the American (February,
1910); "Shadow," by Grace MacGowan Cooke
and Alice MacGowan, in Everybody's (March,
1910); "Abram's Freedom," by Edna Turpin, in
the Atlantic (September, 1912); "A Hypothetical
Case," by Norman Duncan, in Harper's (June,
1915); and "The Chalk Game," by L. B. Yates, in
the Saturday Evening Post (June 5, 1915). For
high standards of fiction I think we may safely
say that, all in all, the periodicals here mentioned
are representative of the best that America has to
offer. In some cases the story cited is the only one
on the Negro question that a magazine has pub
lished within the decade.
"Shadow" (in the Century) is the story of a Negro
convict who for a robbery committed at the age
of fourteen was sentenced to twenty years of hard
labor in the mines of Alabama. An accident dis
abled him, however, and prevented his doing the
regular work for the full period of his imprisonment.
At twenty he was a hostler, looking forward in
despair to the fourteen years of confinement still
waiting for him. But the three little girls of the
prison commissioner visit the prison. Shadow per
forms many little acts of kindness for them, and
their hearts go out to him. They storm the governor
and the judge for his pardon, and present the Negro
with his freedom as a Christmas gift. The story is
not long, but it strikes a note of genuine pathos.

Appendix 153
"Callum's Co'tin'" is concerned with a hard
working Negro, a blacksmith, nearly forty, who
goes courting the girl who called at his shop to get
a trinket mended for her mistress. At first he makes
himself ridiculous by his finery; later he makes the
mistake of coming to a crowd of merrymakers in
his working clothes. More and more, however,
he storms the heart of the girl, who eventually
capitulates. From the standpoint simply of crafts
manship, the story is an excellent piece of work.
"His Excellency the Governor" deals with the
custom on Southern plantations of having, in imi
tation of the white people, a Negro "governor"
whose duty it was to settle minor disputes. At the
death of old Uncle Caleb, who for years had held
this position of responsibility, his son Jubal should
have been the next in order. He was likely to be
superseded, however, by loud-mouthed Sambo,
though urged to assert himself by Maria, his wife,
an old house-servant who had no desire whatever
to be defeated for the place of honor among the
women by Sue, a former field-hand. At the meeting
where all was to be decided, however, Jubal with
_the aid of his fiddle completely confounded his
rival and won. There are some excellent touches
in the story; but, on the whole, the composition
is hardly more than fair in literary quality.
"The Black Drop," throughout which we see
the hand of an experienced writer, analyzes the
heart of a white boy who is in love with a girl who
is almost white, and who when the test confronts
him suffers the tradition that binds him to get the
better of his heart. "But you will still believe that

154 The Negro in Literature and Art
I love you?" he asks, ill at ease as they/ separate.
"No, of course I can not believe that," replies the
girl. "Jungle Blood" is the story of a simple-minded,
simple-hearted Negro of gigantic size who in a
moment of fury kills his pretty wife and the white
man who has seduced her. The tone of the whole
may be gleaned from the description of Moss
Harper's father: "An old darky sat drowsing on
the stoop. There was something ape-like about
his long arms, his flat, wide-nostrilea nose, and the
mat of gray wool which crept down, his forehead to
within two inches of his eyebrows.'f
"The Race-Rioter" sets forth the stand of a
brave young sheriff to protect his prisoner, a Negro
boy, accused of the assault and murder of a little
white girl. Hank Egge tries by every possible
subterfuge to defeat the plans, of a lynching party,
and finally dies riddled with bullets as he is defend
ing his prisoner. The story is especially remarkable
for the strong and sympathetic characterization
of such contrasting figures as young Egge and old
Dikeson, the father of the dead girl.
"Shadow" (in Everybody's) is a story that de
pends for its force very largely upon incident.
It studies the friendship of a white boy, Ranny,
and a black boy, Shadow, a relationship that is
opposed by both the Northern white mother and
the ambitious and independent Negro mother.
In a fight, Shad breaks a collar-bone for Ranny;
later he saves him from drowning. In the face of
Ranny's white friends, all the harsher side of the
problem is seen; and yet the human element is

Appendix 155
strong beneath it all. The story, not without
considerable merit as it is, would have been infinitely
stronger if the friendship of the two boys had been
pitched on a higher plane. As it is, Shad is very
much like a dog following his master.
"Abram's Freedom" is at the same time one of
the most clever and one of the most provoking
stories with which we have to deal. It is a perfect
example of how one may walk directly up to the
light and then deliberately turn his back upon it.
The story is set just before the Civil War. It deals
with the love of the slave Abram for a free young
woman, Emmeline. "All his life he had heard and
used the phrase 'free nigger' as a term of contempt.
What, then, was this vague feeling, not definite
enough yet to be a wish or even a longing?" So
far, so good. Emmeline inspires within her lover
the highest ideals of manhood, and he becomes
a hostler in a livery-stable, paying to his master
so much a year for his freedom. Then comes the
astounding and forced conclusion. At the very
moment when, after years of effort, Emmeline has
helped her husband to gain his freedom (and when
all the slaves are free as a matter of fact by virtue
of the Emancipation Proclamation), Emmeline,
whose husband has special reason to be grateful
to his former master, says to the lady of the house:
"Me an' Abram ain't got nothin' to do in dis worl'
but to wait on you an' master."
In "A Hypothetical Case" we again see the
hand of a master-craftsman. Is a white boy' jus
tified in shooting a Negro who has offended him?
The white father is not quite at ease, quibble's a

156 The Negro in Literature and Art
good deal, but finally says Yes. The story, how
ever, makes it clear that the Negro did not strike
the boy. He was a hermit living on the Florida
coast and perfectly abased when he met Mercer
and his two companions. When the three boys
pursued him and finally overtook him, the Negro
simply held the hands of Mercer until the boy had
recovered his temper. Mercer in his rage really
struck himself.
"The Chalk Game" is the story of a little Negro
jockey who wins a race in Louisville only to be
drugged and robbed by some "flashlight" Negroes
who send him to Chicago. There he recovers his
fortunes by giving to a group of gamblers the cor
rect "tip" on another race, and he makes his way
back to Louisville much richer by his visit. Through
out the story emphasis is placed upon the super
stitious element in the Negro race, an element
readily considered by men who believe in luck.
Of these ten stories, only five strike out with
even the slightest degree of independence. " Shadow "
(in the Century) is not a powerful piece of work,
but it is written in tender and beautiful spirit.
"The Black Drop" is a bold handling of a strong
situation. "The Race-Rioter" also rings true, and
in spite of the tragedy there is optimism in this
story of a man who is not afraid to do his
duty. "Shadow" (in Everybody's) awakens all
sorts of discussion, but at least attempts to deal
honestly with a situation that might arise in any
neighborhood at any time. "A Hypothetical Case"
is the most tense and independent story in the list.
On the other hand, "Callum's Co'tin'" and

Appendix 157
"His Excellency the Governor," bright comedy
though they are, belong, after all, to the school of
Uncle Remus. "Jungle Blood" and "The Chalk
Game" belong t<» the class that always regards the
Negro as an animal, a minor, a plaything — but
never as a man. "Abram's Freedom," exceedingly
well written for two-thirds of the way, falls down
hopelessly at the end. Many old Negroes after
the Civil War preferred to remain with their former
masters; but certamly no young woman of the
type of Emmeline would sell her birthright for a
mess of pottage.
Just there is the point. That the Negro is ever
to be taken seriously is incomprehensible to some
people. It is the story of "The Man that Laughs"
over again. The more Gwynplaine protests, the
more outlandish he becomes to the House of Lords.
W_e_*"irp. simjply asking-that-those. writ£j*axiLfjciiQni
whojieal with the Negro shall be thoroughly honest
with, themselves, and~n6t~remaTn forever content
to embalm old types and work over outworn ideas.
Rather should they "sift the "present and 'forecast
the future. But of course the editors must be con
sidered. The editors must give their readers what
the readers want; and when we consider the popu
lace, of course we have to reckon with the mob.
And the mob does not find anything very attractive
about a Negro who is intelligent, cultured, manly,
and who does not smile. It will be observed that
in no one of the ten stories above mentioned,
not even in one of the five remarked most favor
ably, is there a Negro of this type. Yet he is
obliged to come. America has yet to reckon with

158 The Negro in Literature and Art
him. The day of Uncle Remus as well as of Uncle
Tom is over.
Even now, however, there are signs of better
things. Such an artist as Mr. Howells, for instance,
has once or twice dealt with the problem in excellent
spirit. Then there is the work of the Negro writers
themselves. The numerous attempts in fiction
made by them have most frequently been open to
the charge of crassness already considered; but
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles W. Chesnutt, and
W. E. Burghardt DuBois have risen above the
crowd. Mr. Dunbar, of course, was better in
poetry than in prose. . Such a short story as "Jim
sella," however, exhibited considerable technique.
"The Uncalled" used a living topic treated with
only partial success. But for the most part, Mr.
Dunbar's work looked toward the past. Somewhat
stronger in prose is Mr. Chesnutt. "The Marrow
of Tradition" is not much more than a political
tract, and "The Colonel's Dream" contains a good
deal of preaching; but "The House Behind the
Cedars" is a real novel. Among his short stories,
"The Bouquet" may be remarked for technical
excellence, and "The Wife of His Youth" for a
situation of unusual power. Dr. DuBois's "The
Quest of the Silver Fleece" contains at least one
strong ^dramatic situation, that in which Bles
probes the heart of Zora; but the author is a
sociologist and- essayist rather than a novelist.
The grand .epic of the race is yet to be produced.
Some day we shall work out the problems of
our great country. Some day we shall not have a
state government set at defiance, and the massacre

Appendix 159
of Ludlow. Some day our little children will not
slave in mines and mills, but will have some chance
at the glory of God's creation; and some iJayJJie
Negro will cease to be a problem "and become a
hTrrrrannS'emg. TlienT^^rutrrf^we^snaii nav^ th©
Pronused~TJaiId. 'But until that day comes let
those who mold our ideals and set the standards
of our art in fiction at least be honest with them
selves and independent. Ignorance we may for a
time forgive; but a man has only himself to blame
if he insists on not seeing the sunrise in the new
day.

2. STUDY OF BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE following bibliography, while aiming at i
fair degree of completeness for [books and ar^
tides coming within the scope of this volume, cam
not be finally complete, because so to make it would
be to cover very largely the great subject of the
Negro Problem, only one phase of which is here
considered. The aim is constantly to restrict the
discussion to that of the literary and artistic life
of the Negro; and books primarily on economic,
social, or theological themes, however interesting
within themselves, are generally not included.
Booker T. Washington may seem to be an excep
tion to this; but the general importance of the
books of this author would seem to demand their
inclusion, especially as some of them touch directly
on the subject of present interest.

BOOKS BY SIX MOST PROMINENT AUTHORS
Wheatley, Phillis (Mrs. Peters).
Poem on the Death of the Reverend George
Whitefield. Boston, 1770.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.
London and Boston, 1773.
160

Appendix 161
Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel
Cooper. Boston, 1784.
Liberty and Peace. Boston, 1784.
Letters, edited by Charles Deane. Boston, 1864.
(Note. — The bibliography of the work of
Phillis Wheatley is now a study within itself.
Titles just enumerated are only for what may
be regarded as the most important original
sources. The important volume, that of 1773,
is now very rare and valuable. Numerous
reprints have been made, among them the
following: Philadelphia, 1774; Philadelphia,
1786; Albany, 1793; Philadelphia, 1801; Wal
pole, N. H, 1802; Hartford, 1804; Halifax,
1813; "New England," 1816; Denver, 1887;
Philadelphia, 1909 (the last being the accessible
reprint by R. R. and C. C. Wright, A. M. E.
Book Concern). Note also Memoir of Phillis
Wheatley, by B. B. Thatcher, Boston, 1834;
and Memoir and Poems ,of Phillis Wheatley
(memoir by Margaretta Matilda Odell), Bos
ton, 1834, 1835, and 1838, the three editions
in rapid succession being due to the anti-
slavery agitation. Not the least valuable
part of Deane's 1864 edition of the Letters is
the sketch of Phillis Wheatley, by Nathaniel
B. Shurtleff, which it contains. This was first
printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, Dec.
21, 1863. It is brief, but contains several facts
not to be found elsewhere. Duyckinck's
Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1855 and
1866) gave a good review and reprinted from
the Pennsylvania Magazine the correspondence

162 The Negro in Literature and Art
with Washington, and the poem to Washington,
also "Liberty and Peace." Also important
for reference is Oscar Wegelin's Compilation
of the Titles of Volumes of Verse — Early Amer
ican Poetry, New York, 1903. Note also The
Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, by G.
Herbert Renfro, edited by Leila Amos Pendle
ton, Washington, 1916. The whole matter of
bibliography has recently been exhaustively
studied in Heartman's Historical Series, in beau
tiful books of limited editions, as follows: (1)
Phillis Wheatley: A Critical Attempt and a
Bibliography of Her Writings, by Charles Fred
Heartman, New York, 1915; (2) PhiUis Wheat-
ley: Poems and Letters. First Collected Edi
tion. Edited by Charles Fred Heartman, with
an Appreciation by Arthur A. Schomburg, New
York, 1915; (3) Six Broadsides relating to Phillis
Wheatley, New York, 1915. These books are
of the first order of importance, and yet they
awaken one or two questions. One wonders why
"To Maecenas," "On Virtue," and "On Being
Brought from Africa to America," all very early
work, were placed near the end of the poems in
"Poems and Letters"; nor is the relation be
tween "To a Clergyman on the Death of His
Lady," and "To the Rev. Mr. Pitkin on the
, Death of His Lady," made clear, the two poems,
evidently different versions of the same subject,
being placed pages apart. The great merit of
the book, however, is that it adds to "Poems
on Various Subjects" the four other poems not
generally accessible: (1) To His Excellency,

Appendix 163
George Washington; (2) On Major-General
Lee; (3) Liberty and Peace; (4) An Elegy
Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper.
The first of Heartman's three volumes gives
a list of books containing matter on Phillis
Wheatley. To this may now be added the
following magazine articles, none of which
contain matter primarily original: (1) Christian
Examiner, Vol. XVI, p. 169 (Review by W. J.
Snelling of the 1834 edition of the poems);
(2) Knickerbocker, Vol. IV, p. 85; (3) North
American Review, Vol. 68, p. 418 (by Mrs. E.
F. Ellet); (4) London Athencmm for 1835,
p. 819 (by Rev. T. Flint); (5) Historical
Magazine for 1858, p. 178; (6) Catholic World,
Vol. 39, p. 484, July, 1884; (7) Chautauquan,
Vol. 18, p. 599, February, 1894 (by Pamela
Mc Arthur Cole).
Dunbar, Paul Laurence.
Life and Works, edited by Lida Keck Wiggins.
J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, 111., 1907.
The following, with the exception of the
sketch at the end, were all published by Dodd,
Mead & Co., New York.
Poems: Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896.
Lyrics of the Hearthside, 1899.
Lyrics of Love and Laughter, 1903.
Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow, 1905.
Complete Poems, 1913.
Specially Illustrated Volumes of Poems:
Poems of Cabin and Field, 1899.

164 The Negro in Literature and Art
Candle-Lightin' Time, 1901.
When Malindy Sings, 1903.
LiT Gal, 1904.
Howdy, Honey, Howdy, 1905.
Joggin' Erlong, 1906.
Speakin' o' Christmas, 1914.
Novels: The Uncalled, 1896.
The Love of Landry, 1900.
The Fanatics, 1901.
The Sport of the Gods, 1902.
Stories and Sketches:
Folks from Dixie, 1898.
The Strength of Gideon, and Other Stories, 1900.
In Old Plantation Days, 1903.
The Heart of Happy Hollow, 1904.
Uncle Eph's Christmas, a one-act musical
sketch, Washington, 1900.
Chesnutt, Charles Waddell.
Frederick Douglass: A Biography. Small, May-
nard & Co., Boston, 1899.
The Conjure Woman (stories). Houghton Mifflin
Co., Boston, 1899.
The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of
the Color-line. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston,
1899.
The House Behind the Cedars (novel) . Houghton
Mifflin Co., Boston, 1900.
The Marrow of Tradition (novel). Houghton
Mifflin Co., Boston, 1901.
The Colonel's Dream (novel). Doubleday, Page
& Co., New York, 1905.

Appendix 165
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt.
Suppression of the African Slave-Trade. Long
mans, Green & Co., New York, 1896 (now
handled through Harvard University Press,
Cambridge) .
The Philadelphia Negro. University of Penn
sylvania, Philadelphia, 1899.
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches.
A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1903.
The Negro in the South (with Booker T.
Washington). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Phila
delphia, 1907.
John Brown (in American Crisis Biographies).
Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1909.
The Quest of the Silver Fleece (novel). A. C.
McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1911.
The Negro (in Home University Library Series).
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1915.
Braithwaite, William Stanley.
Lyrics of Life and Love. H. B. Turner & Co.,
Boston, 1904.
The House of Falling Leaves (poems). J. W.
Luce & Co., Boston, 1908.
The Book of Elizabethan Verse (anthology).
H. B. Turner & Co., Boston, 1906.
The Book of Georgian Verse (anthology). Bren-
tano's, New York, 1908.
The Book of Restoration Verse (anthology).
Brentano's, New York, 1909.
Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913 (including
the Magazines and the Poets, a ^review).
Cambridge, Mass., 1913.

166 The Negro in Literature and Art
Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1914. Cam
bridge, Mass., 1914.
Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915. Gomme
& Marshall, New York, 1915.
Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1916. Laurence
J. Gomme, New Ysrk, 1916.
The Poetic Year (for 1916) : A Critical Anthology.
Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1917.
Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1917. Small,
Maynard & Co., Boston.
Edwin Arlington Robinson, in "Contemporary
American Poets Series," announced for early
publication by the Poetry Review Co., Cam
bridge, Mass.
Washington, Booker Taliaferro.
The Future of the American Negro. Small,
Maynard & Co., Boston, 1899.
The Story of My Life and Work. NicholsJ&
Co., Naperville, 111., 1900.
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Double-
day, Page & Co., New York, 1901.
Character Building. Doubleday, Page & Co.,
New York, 1902. v
Working With the Hands. Doubleday, Page &
Co., New York, 1904.
Putting the Most Into Life. Crowell & Co., New
York, 1906.
Frederick Douglass (in American Crisis Biogra
phies). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia,
1906.
The Negro in the South (with W. E. B. DuBois).
Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1907.

Appendix 167
The Negro in Business. Hertel, Jenkins & Co.,
Chicago, 1907.
The Story of the Negro. Doubleday, Page &
Co., New York, 1909.
My Larger Education. Doubleday, Page & Co.,
Garden City, N. Y., 1911.
The Man Farthest Down (with Robert Emory
Park). Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City,
N. Y., 1912. II
ORIGINAL WORKS BY OTHER AUTHORS
Brown, William Wells: Clotelle: A Tale of the
Southern States. Redpath, Boston, 1864 (first
printed London, 1853).
Carmichael, Waverley Turner: From the Heart
of a Folk, and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co.,
Boston, 1917.
Douglass, Frederick: Life and Times of Frederick
Douglass. Park Publishing Co., Hartford, Conn.,
1881 (note also "Narrative of Life," Boston,
1846; and "My Bondage and My Freedom,"
Miller, New York, 1855).
Dunbar, Alice Moore (Mrs. Nelson) : The Good
ness of St. Rocque, and Other Stories. Dodd,
Mead & Co., New York, 1899.
Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence (edited).
The Bookery Publishing Co., New York, 1914.
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins: Poems on
Miscellaneous Subjects. Boston, 1854, 1856;
also Merrihew & Son, Philadelphia, 1857, 1866
(second series), 1871.

168 The Negro in Literature and Art
Moses:' JA Story of the Nile. Merrihew & Son,
Philadelphia, 1869.
Sketches of Southern Life. Merrihew & Son,
Philadelphia, 1872.
Horton, George Moses: The Hope of Liberty.
Gales & Son, Raleigh, N. C, 1829 (note also
"Poems by a Slave," bound with Poems of
Phillis Wheatley, Boston, 1838).
Johnson, Georgia Douglas: The Heart of a
Woman, and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co.,
Boston, 1917.
Johnson, Fenton: A Little Dreaming. Peterson
Linotyping Co., Chicago, 1913.
Visions of the Dusk. Trachlenburg Co., New
York, 1915.
Songs of the Soil. Trachlenburg Co., New
York, 1916.
Johnson, James W.: Autobiography of an Ex-
Colored Man (published anonymously). Sher
man, French & Co., Boston, 1912.
Fifty Years and Other Poems, with an Intro
duction by Brander Matthews. The Corn
hill Co., Boston, 1917.
Margetson, George Reginald: The Fledglmg
Bard and the Poetry Society. R. G. Badger,
Boston, 1916.
McGirt, James E. : For Your Sweet Sake. John C.
Winston Co., Philadelphia, 1909.
Miller, Kelly: Race Adjustment. The Neale
Publishing Co., New York and Washington, 1908.
Out of the House of Bondage. The Neale
Publishing Co., New York and Washington,
1914.

Appendix 169
Whitman, Albery A.: Not a Man and Yet a
Man. Springfield, Ohio, 1877.
Twasinta's Seminoles, or The Rape of Florida.
Nixon-Jones Printing Co., St. Louis, Mo., 1884.
Drifted Leaves. Nixon-Jones Printing Co.,
St. Louis, 1890 (this being a collection of
two former works with miscellanies).
An Idyl of the South, an epic poem in two
parts (Part I, The Octoroon; Part II, The
Southland's Charms and Freedom's Magni
tude) . The Metaphysical Publishing Co., New
York, 1901. Ill
BOOKS DEALING IN SOME MEASURE WITH THE LIT
ERARY AND ARTISTIC LIFE OF THE NEGRO
Brown, William Wells: The Black Man, His
Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements.
Hamilton, New York, 1863.
Child, Lydia Maria: The Freedman's Book.
Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1865.
Cromwell, John W.: The Negro in American
History. The American Negro Academy, Wash
ington, 1914.
Culp, D. W. : Twentieth Century Negro Literature.
J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, III, 1902.
Ellis, George W. : Negro Culture in West Africa.
The Neale Publishing Co., New York, 1914.
Fenner, Thomas P.: Religious Folk-Songs of the
Negro (new edition). The Institute Press, Hamp
ton, Va., 1909.

170 The Negro in Literature and Art
Gregory, James M.: Frederick Douglass the
Orator. Willey & Son, Springfield, Mass., 1893
(note also "In Memoriam: Frederick Douglass,"
John C. Yorston & Co., Philadelphia, 1897).
Hatcher, William E.: John Jasper. Fleming H.
Revell Co., New York, 1908.
Holland, Frederic May: Frederick Douglass, the
Colored Orator. Funk & Wagnalls, New York,
1891 (rev. 1895).
Hubbard, Elbert: Booker Washington in "Little
Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers."
The Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y., 1908.
Krehbiel, Henry E.: Afro-American Folk-Songs.
G. Schirmer, New York & London, 1914.
Pike, G. D. : The Jubilee Singers. Lee & Shepard,
Boston, 1873.
Riley, Benjamin F. : The Life and Times of Booker
T. Washington. Fleming H. Revell Co., New
York, 1916.
Sayers, W. C. Berwick: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor:
Musician; His Life and Letters. Cassell & Co.,
London and New York, 1915.
Schomburg, Arthur A. : A Bibliographical Check
list of American Negro Poetry. New York, 1916.
Scott, Emmett J., and Stowe, Lyman Beecher:
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization.
Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y. 1916
(note also Memorial Addresses of Dr. Booker T.
Washington in Occasional Papers of the John
F. Slater Fund, 1916).
Simmons, William J.: Men of Mark. Geo. M.
Rewell & Co., Cleveland, Ohio, 1887.

y

Appendix 171
Trotter, James M.: Music and Some Highly
Musical People. Boston, 1878.
Williams, George W., History of the Negro Race
in America from 1619 to 1880. 2 vols. G. P.
Putnam's Sons. New York and London, 1915.

IV
select list of thirty-six magazine articles
(The arrangement is chronological, and articles of
unusual scholarship or interest are marked *.)
* Negro Spirituals, by Thomas Wentworth Higgin-
son. Atlantic, Vol. 19, p. 685 (June, 1867)
Plantation Music, by Joel Chandler Harris. Critic,
Vol. 3, p. 505 (December 15, 1883).
* The Negro on the Stage, by Laurence Hutton.
Harper's, Vol. 79, p. 131 (June, 1889).
Old Plantation Hymns, Hymns of the Slave and
the Freedman, Recent Negro Melodies: a series
of three articles by William E. Barton. New
England Magazine, Vol. 19, pp. 443, 609, 707
(December, 1898, January and February, 1899).
Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt's Stories, by W. D.
Howells, Atlantic, Vol. 85, p. 70 (May, 1900).
The American Negro at Paris, by W. E. Burghardt
DuBois. Review of Reviews, Vol. 22, p. 575
(November, 1900).
Sojourner Truth, by Lillie Chace Wyman. New
England Magazine, Vol. 24, p. 59 (March, 1901).
A New Element in Fiction, by Elizabeth L. Cary.
Book Buyer, Vol. 23, p. 26 (August, 1901).

172 The Negro in Literature and Art
The True Negro Music and its Decline, by Jean-
nette Robinson Murphy. Independent, Vol. 55,
p. 1723 (July 23, 1903).
Biographia — Africana, by Daniel Murray. Voice
of the Negro, Vol. 1, p. 186 (May, 1904).f
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, by William V. Tunnell.
Colored American Magazine (New York), Vol. 8,
p. 43 (January, 1905).
The Negro of To-Day in Music, by James W.
Johnson. Charities, Vol. 15, p. 58 (October 7,
1905).
William A. Harper, by Florence L. Bentley. Voice
of the Negro, Vol. 3, p. 117 (February, 1906).
Paul Laurence Dunbar, by Mary Church Terrell.
Voice of the Negro, Vol. 3, p. 271 (April, 1906).
Dunbar's Best Book. Bookman, Vol. 23, p. 122
(April, 1906). Tribute by W. D. Howells in
same issue, p. 185.
Chief Singer of the Negro Race. Current Literature,
Vol. 40, p. 400 (April, 1906).
Meta Warrick, Sculptor of Horrors, by William
Francis O'Donnell. World To-Day, Vol. 13, p.
1139 (November, 1907). See also Current Liter
ature, Vol. 44, p. 55 (January, 1908).
Afro-American Painter Who Has Become Famous
in Paris. Current Literature, Vol. 45, p. 404
(October, 1908).
*The Story of an Artist's Life, by H. O. Tanner.
World's Work, Vol. 18, pp. 11661, 11769 (June
and July, 1909).
Indian and Negro in Music. Literary Digest, Vol.
44, p. 1346 (June 29, 1912).
The Higher Music of Negroes (mainly on Coleridge-

Appendix 173
Taylor). Literary Digest, Vol. 45, p. 565 (October
5, 1912).
* The Negro's Contribution to the Music of America,
by Natalie Curtis. Craftsman, Vol. 23, p. 660
(March, 1913).
Legitimizing the Music of the Negro. Current
Opinion, Vol. 54, p. 384 (May, 1913).
The Soul of the Black (Herbert Ward's Bronzes).
Independent, Vol. 74, p. 994 (May 1, 1913).
A Poet Painter of Palestine (H. O. Tanner), by
Clara T. MacChesney. International Studio (July,
1913).
The Negro in Literature and Art, by W. E. Burg-^
hardt DuBois. Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, Vol. 49, p. 233
(September, 1913).
Afro-American Folksongs (review of book by
Henry Edward Krehbiel). Nation, Vol. 98, p.
311 (March 19, 1914).
Negro Music in the Land of Freedom, and The
Promise of Negro Music. Outlook, Vol. 106, p.
611 (March 21, 1914).
Beginnings of a Negro Drama. Literary Digest,
Vol. 48, p. 1114 (May 9, 1914).
George Moses Horton: Slave Poet, by Stephen B.
Weeks. Southern Workman, Vol. 43, p. 571
(October, 1914).
The Rise and Fall of Negro Minstrelsy, by Brander
Matthews. Scribner's, Vol. 57, p. 754 (June.
1915).
The Negro in the Southern Short Story, by H. E.
Rollins. Sewanee Review, Vol. 24, p. 42 (Janu
ary, 1916).

174 The Negro in Literature and Art
H. T. Burleigh: Composer by Divine Right, and the
American Coleridge-Taylor. Musical America,
Vol. 23, No. 26 (April 29, 1916). (Note also An
American Negro Whose Music Stirs the Blood
of Warring Italy. Current Opinion, August, 1916,
p. 100.)
The Drama Among Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du
Bois. Crisis, Vol. 12, p. 169 (August, 1916).
Afro-American Folk-Song Contribution, by Maud
Cuney Hare. Musical Observer, Vol. 15. No. 2,
p. 13 (February, 1917).
After the Play (criticism of recent plays by Ridgely
Torrence), by "F. H." New Republic, Vol. 10,
p. 325 (April 14, 1917).

THE END

INDEX

Aldridge, Ira, 98.
B
Bannister, E. M., 103.
Batson, Flora, 137.
Bethune, Thomas, 135-136.
Braithwaite, William Stanley,
56-64.
Brawley, E. M., 70.
Brown, Anita Patti, 138.
Brown, Richard L., 104.
Brown, William Wells, 66, 69,
70, 72.
Burleigh, Harry T.,, 80, 130-
131 138
Bush/ William Herbert, 134.
Byron, Mayme Calloway, 138-
139.

Diton, Carl, 132.
Douglass, Frederick, 4, 34,
68, 86, 88-91, 95-96.
Douglass, Joseph, 135.
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, 4,
50-55, 65, 68, 70, 158.
Dunbar, Alice Ruth Moore
(Mrs. Nelson), 36, 71, 86.
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 4,
33-44, 79, 101, 128, 158.
E
Elliott, Robert B., 85.
Ellis, George W., 67.
F
Ferris, William H., 67.
Fuller, Meta Warrick, 4, 112-
124. G
Garnet, Henry H., 66.
Greenfield, Elizabeth Taylor,
136-137.
Grimkg, Archibald H., 66, 67.

Charlton, Melville, 134.
Chesnutt, Charles W., 45-49,
89, 158.
Childers, Lulu Vere, 140.
Clough, Inez, 101. rr
Cole, Bob, 99. a
Coleridge - Taylor, Samuel, Hackley E. Azalia, 140.

125—129.
Cook, Will Marion, 131.
Cooper, Opal, 100.
Cromwell, J. W., 71.
Crummell, Alexander, 66.
D
Dedd, Edmund, 129-130.
Dett, R. Nathaniel, 132.

Hagan, Helen, 134.
Hare, Maud Cuney, 69, 141.
Harleston, Edwin A., 104.
Harper, Frances E. W., 75-76.
Harper, William A., 103-104.
Harrela, Kemper, 135.
Harrison, Hazel, 133.
Hayes, Roland, 138.
Henson, Josiah, 68.
175

176

Index

Henson, Matthew, 69.
Hogan, Ernest, 99.
Horton, George M., 73-75.
Hyers, Anna and Emma, 137.

Jackson, May Howard, 113.
Jasper, John, 84-85.
Jenkins, Edmund T., 132-133.
Johnson, James W., 79-82,
130.
Johnson, J. Rosamond, 80,
131-132.
Jones, Sissieretta, 138.

Richardson, Ethel, 134.
Richardson, William H., 141.
S
Scarborough, William S., 66.
Scott, William E., 104-105.
Sejour, Victor, 129.
Selika, Mme., 137.
Simmons, William J., 69.
Sinclair, William A., 67.
Stafford, A. O., 72.
Steward, T. G., 71.
Still, WiUiam, 70.

Lambert, Lucien, 129.
Lambert, Richard, 129.
Langston, John M., 69, 85.
Lawson, Raymond Augustus,
133.
Lee, Bertina, 113.
Lewis, Edmonia, 112-113.
Locke, Alain, 72.
Lynch, John R., 71.
M
Mason, M. C. B., 85.
MiUer, KeUy, 66-67.
Moorhead, Scipio, 103.
N
Nell, William C, 70.

Payne, Daniel A., 69.
Price, J. C, 86. R
Ranson, Reverdy C, 86-87.

Tanner, Henry O., 4, 105-111.
Tibbs, Roy W., 134.
Tinsley, Pedro T., 140.
Trotter, James M., 69.
Truth, Sojourner, 69, 84.
Tubman, Harriet, 83.
W
Walker, Charles T., 85.
WaUrer, David, 66.
Warberry, Eugene, 129.
Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 68.
Washington, Booker T., 4, 54,
65, 68, 69, 88, 92-96.
Weir, FeUx, 135.
Wheatley, Phillis (Mrs. Pe
ters), 10-32, 73, 75, 103.
White, Clarence Cameron,
135.
White, Frederick P., 134, 135.
Whitman, Albery A., 76-79.
Williams, Bert, 99.
Williams, E. C, 101.
Williams, George W., 70.
Wilson, Edward E., 72.
Woodson, Carter G., 71.
Work, John W., 140.
Wright, Edward Sterling, 101.

T«L£ UNIVERSITY

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