The Journal of Negro History
Chapter 133 : Interesting from other points of view are the reproductions of the remarkable collecti

Interesting from other points of view are the reproductions of the remarkable collection of Benin antiquities at the Peabody Museum, of the celebrated Vai syllabary, and of an interesting poem of 100 lines in the Suaheli language said to have been dictated by a dying mother to her daughter. Transliteration and translation accompany the reproduction in the original script.

ROBERT E. PARK.

_Fifty Years and Other Poems._ By JAMES WELDON JOHNSON. With an Introduction by BRANDER MATTHEWS. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917. Pp.

xiv, 92.

From time to time for the last fifteen years Mr. James Weldon Johnson has been remarked as one of the literary men of the race. He has now brought together his verses in a little volume, _Fifty Years and Other Poems_, an introduction to which has been written by Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University. The task was eminently worth while.

The book falls into two parts. The first is made up of poems in the commonly accepted forms, though there are one or two examples of _vers libre_; and the second is ent.i.tled _Jingles and Croons_. This second division consists of dialect verses, especially the songs that have been set to music, most frequently by the poet's brother, Mr. J.

Rosamond Johnson. Outstanding are the very first lines, _Since you went away_. It is well that these pieces have been brought together.

For artistic achievement, however, attention will naturally be fixed upon the first division. _Fifty Years_ was written in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the emanc.i.p.ation of the race. Professor Matthews speaks of it as "one of the n.o.blest commemorative poems yet written by any American--a poem sonorous in its diction, vigorous in its workmans.h.i.+p, elevated in its imagination, and sincere in its emotion." This is high praise, and yet it may reasonably be asked if there are not in the book at least four pieces of finer poetic quality. These are, first of all, the two poems that originally appeared in the Century, _Mother Night_ and _O Black and Unknown Bards_, and _The White Witch_ and _The Young Warrior_. The first of these four poems is a sonnet well rounded out. The second gains merit by reason of its strong first and last two stanzas. _The White Witch_ chooses a delicate and difficult theme, but contains some very strong stanzas. _The Young Warrior_ is a poem of rugged strength and one that deserves all the popularity it has achieved with Mr. Burleigh's musical setting. Mr. Johnson is strongest in the simple, direct, and sometimes sensuous expression that characterizes these latter poems, and it is to be hoped that he may have the time and the inclination to write many more like them.

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY.

_Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth._ By CHARLES ALEXANDER.

Sherman, French and Company, Boston, 1914. Pp. 429.

Here we have the story of a successful Negro born a slave in Kentucky but who, determined to succeed, rose to the distinction of a teacher and preacher and finally to that of a chaplain in the United States army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The value of this book to the historian, however, is not the mere sketch of Colonel Allensworth but the valuable facts bearing on the history of the Negroes in various parts of the United States. The philanthropic att.i.tude of the Quakers toward Negroes, the life of the slave on the Mississippi, the relations between the poor whites and the slaves, the escape of fugitives to Canada, and the work of the abolitionists are all mentioned from page to page.

The larger portion of the book, however, gives details of the life of Allensworth, which would interest only those who knew him personally.

But his founding a town in California inhabited altogether by Negroes stamps him as a pioneer whose achievements in this field must engage the attention of the historian. The detailed accounts of his service as a chaplain in the United States army in the Spanish-American War and later in the Philippines add other valuable experiences which the public should know. The book contains also references to the work of Frederick Dougla.s.s, Judge William Jay and John Brown. The author mentions also scores of other persons who have in various ways helped to make the history of the Negro in the United States and especially those who were effective in bringing about the emanc.i.p.ation of the race.

The style of this book is decidedly rough. The work does not show organization. It is written in such a way as to indicate that the writer recorded his facts as they came to him at random without regard as to the principles of composition. It was wholly unnecessary for him to wander astray, discussing in detail the careers of almost every man of that time influencing the life of the Negro, without showing the connection between those facts and the life of the subject of this sketch. The chief value of this work, therefore, is that of a source book.

_The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh, A study in Social Economics._ By ABRAHAM EPSTEIN. Published under the supervision of the School of Economics, University of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, Pa., 1918.

The movement of the Negroes from the South to the North during the present world war bids fair to be recorded as the most significant event of our local history during this decade. In about two years a million Negroes have gone North to take the places of those immigrants who annually sought our sh.o.r.es prior to this upheaval. To show the significance of the exodus a number of writers have sketched it in newspapers and magazines. Books bearing on the subject are forthcoming. The first scientific study of the transplanted southern Negroes to appear in print, however, is Epstein's interesting and valuable work.

Departing from the newspaper Pullman-palace-car method of studying social conditions, Mr. Epstein a.s.siduously applied himself to the task of making a house-to-house investigation of the home life of this large and typical community of Negroes recently brought to the North.

He learned whence they came, their antecedent circ.u.mstances, why they abandoned their old homes, what they seek in the North and to what extent they are realizing their dreams. The various factors contributing to the solution of their local problems in Pittsburgh and those effective in confusing the situation are well treated.

This work is especially valuable in its portrayal of home conditions.

The author directed his attention to what these migrants do, where they live, how they spend their earnings and how they amuse themselves. In this treatment, therefore, appears a discussion of health, disease and crime as influenced by the presence of these newcomers from a section in which their condition differed materially from what they find in the North. Whether or not we agree with him in his conclusions, therefore, this treatise must claim the attention of students of present-day problems, desiring to deal with facts rather than theories.

On the whole, Mr. Epstein does not find the Negro an exception to any other migrant. Most of the facts which he sets forth are after all favorable to blacks when one considers that their peculiar circ.u.mstances are due to race prejudice and the proscription of trades unions. The author did not find them unusually afflicted with disease, as was predicted, and he saw no evidence of a wave of crime. Most of the offenses charged to the account of the migrants are of the petty sort which arise from the stimulus given such by the denizens of vice tolerated by the community. Students of Negro life and history, therefore, should read this dissertation.

C. G. WOODSON.

NOTES

Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard who was kind enough to call our attention to the misprint of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton Hart, for Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart., on page 20 of the January number of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, has sent us the following note in William Lloyd Garrison's own words concerning his relations with this distinguished friend of the Negro in England:

"On arriving in London I received a polite invitation by letter from Mr. Buxton to take breakfast with him. Presenting myself at the appointed time, when my name was announced, instead of coming forward promptly to take me by the hand, he scrutinized me from head to foot, and then inquired, somewhat dubiously, 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison, of Boston, in the United States?' 'Yes, sir,'

I replied, 'I am he; and I am here in accordance with your invitation.' Lifting up his hands he exclaimed, 'Why, my dear sir, I thought you were a black man! And I have consequently invited this company of ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, the black advocate of emanc.i.p.ation from the United States of America!'

I have often said that that is the only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I care to remember, or to tell of! For Mr. Buxton had somehow or other supposed that no white American could plead for those in bondage as I had done, and therefore I must be black!"

"The worthy successor of Wilberforce, our esteemed friend and coadjutor, Thomas Fowell Buxton," had this picture drawn of him by his guest (Mr. Garrison) on his return to America:

"Buxton has sufficient fleshly timber to make two or three Wilberforces. He is six feet and a half in height, though rather slender than robust. What a formidable leader of the anti-slavery cause in appearance! We always felt delighted to see him rise in his seat in Parliament to address the House, for his towering form literally caused his pro-slavery opponents to 'hide their diminished heads.' He is a very good speaker, but not an orator: his manner is dignified, sincere, and conciliating, and his language without pretence. But he has hardly decision, energy, and boldness enough for a leader. His benevolent desires for the emanc.i.p.ation of the colonial slaves led him to accede to a sordid compromise with the planters, and he advocated the proposition to remunerate these enemies of the human race, and to buy up wholesale robbery and oppression, in opposition to the remonstrances of the great body of English abolitionists, and it furnishes a dangerous precedent in the overthrow of established iniquity and crime throughout the world. The results of the bargain do not (January, 1836) reach Mr. Buxton's antic.i.p.ations.... Still, aside from this false step, Mr. Buxton deserves universal admiration and grat.i.tude for his long-continued, able and disinterested efforts, amidst severe ridicule and malignant opposition, to break every yoke and set the oppressed free."

President Nathan B. Young, of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, has kindly directed our attention to the following facts which appeared in an article in the _Tampa Tribune_, showing how adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment was effected:

"How the vote that made the Federal amendment abolis.h.i.+ng slavery was polled in the house of representatives on January 26, 1863, was told to a representative of _The Tribune_ yesterday by the reading clerk of that congress--now a Florida winter resident and nearing ninety years of age.

"A change of two votes would have defeated the amendment; and urgent business kept one man from being present to cast his vote against the measure, so it is seen that history came near being made another way that memorable day.

"The story was told, with all the vigor and freshness of a man just from the existing scenes and actions, by E. W. Barber, editor of the Jackson (Mich.) _Daily Patriot_, now at Crooked Lake, happy in the summer of Florida's winter. Mr. Barber was reading clerk for the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth and fortieth congresses, from December, 1863 to 1869; and he is today the only official of that body who is living. He will be ninety years old on the third of July, coming, and is wonderfully preserved, all except his leg. Indeed he laughingly declared that he would have been a dead tree if he had not been pruned of a dead limb!

_Tells of Memorable Day_

"On the morning of December 26, 1863, said Mr. Barber, there was a stillness in the house that betokened doubt even then of the pa.s.sage of the amendment, for but four men in the world knew that it was a matter of accomplishment before the roll was called.

"The senate had already pa.s.sed the amendment, he said, and the house had defeated it in the first session of the congress; and there was a doubt of its pa.s.sage over in the lower body.

"After its defeat in the house, the party machinery was put in motion to bring into line sufficient votes to make the necessary three-fourths required. J. M. Ashley of Toledo and Augustus Frank of Warsaw, N. Y., were appointed a committee of two to see if votes enough could be secured at the short session to pa.s.s the bill through the house.

"Edward W. Barber, the reading clerk, and Richard U. Sherman, the tally clerk, kept a secret rollcall under lock and key in their desk, and on this was marked the name of every man who had voted against the amendment. As a man was changed or converted, his name was reported to these two and his name added to those already secured for the amendment. One by one the change came, and at last one day when a name was added--the member from the Gettysburg district--Ashley exclaimed "There, by G.o.d. We've got enough."

"That day in the house Ashley, who had changed his vote to "nay" after the defeat of the bill earlier so he could move its reconsideration, and had complied with that parliamentary condition, gave notice that on January 26 he would call up the bill for a vote.

_Measure Sways in Balance_

"Betting ran high for and against the pa.s.sage of the amendment, says Mr. Barber. The odds were that it would not be pa.s.sed because of the violent opposition which it had evoked at the former attempt. There were but four men who knew how the matter would go, and those were E.

W. Barber, reading clerk; Richard U. Sherman, tally clerk; J. M.

Ashley, and Augustus Frank, the committee of two named to get the proper number of votes for the bill.

"The margin was close, two changes would have defeated it; and one member opposed to the amendment was absent, so he said afterward, because a large number of soldiers from his state were at Aquia Creek, and he felt he must pay them some attention. The name of this member was not given.

"Mr. Barber is still editing his paper, sending some fourteen editorials a week to Jackson, Mich., for publication in _The Daily Patriot_, from his Florida home, five miles south of Lake Wales.

"He has been coming to Florida for forty-five years and, while he has been delaying his coming until well into December, he said yesterday that from now on he expects to come early in November and stay until well into spring.

"He is a most entertaining and interesting speaker and is full of enthusiasm for his adopted home and his future prospects here."