New Daughters of Africa

by Margaret Busby

  Now with an army of organized women standing for purity and mental worth, we in ourselves deny the charge and open the eyes of the world to a state of affairs to which they have been blind, often willfully so, and the very fact that the charges, audaciously and flippantly made, as they often are, are of so humiliating and delicate a nature, serves to protect the accuser by driving the helpless accused into mortified silence. It is to break this silence, not by noisy protestations of what we are not, but by a dignified showing of what we are and hope to become that we are impelled to take this step, to make of this gathering an object lesson to the world.

  For many and apparent reasons it is especially fitting that the women of the race take the lead in this movement, but for all this we recognize the necessity of the sympathy of our husbands, brothers and fathers. Our women’s movement is woman’s movement in that it is led and directed by women for the good of women and men, for the benefit of all humanity, which is more than any one branch or section of it. We want, we ask the active interest of our men, and, too, we are not drawing the color line; we are women, American women, as intensely interested in all that pertains to us as such as all other American women: we are not alienating or withdrawing, we are only coming to the front, willing to join any others in the same work and cordially inviting and welcoming any others to join us.

  If there is any one thing I would especially enjoin upon this conference it is union and earnestness. The questions that are to come before us are of too much import to be weakened by any trivialities or personalities. If any differences arise, let them be quickly settled, with the feeling that we are all workers to the same end, to elevate and dignify colored American womanhood.

  This conference will not be what I expect if it does not show the wisdom, indeed the absolute necessity of a national organization of our women. Every year new questions coming up will prove it to us. This hurried, almost informal convention does not begin to meet our needs, it is only a beginning, made here in dear old Boston, where the scales of justice and generosity hang evenly balanced, and where the people “dare be true” to their best instincts and stand ready to lend aid and sympathy to worthy strugglers. It is hoped and believed that from this will spring an organization that will in truth bring in a new era to the colored women of America.

  H. Cordelia Ray

  (1852–1916)

  Born in New York City to Charlotte Augusta Burrough and abolitionist and newspaper publisher Charles B. Ray, she had six siblings (one of her two sisters, Charlotte E. Ray, was the first Black American female lawyer). She graduated from the University of the City of New York with a master’s degree in pedagogy, but gave up working as a teacher in order to write. After an 1876 memoir of her father, she published her first poetry collection, Sonnets (1893), which opened with a poem celebrating her mother. Demonstrating an engagement with Black politics, Ray dedicated the sonnet below to Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803). Her subsequent book, Poems, was published in 1920.

  Toussaint L’Ouverture

  To those fair isles where crimson sunsets burn,

  We send a backward glance to gaze on thee,

  Brave Toussaint! thou wast surely born to be

  A hero; thy proud spirit could but spurn

  Each outrage on thy race. Couldst thou unlearn

  The lessons taught by instinct? Nay! and we

  Who share the zeal that would make all men free,

  Must e’en with pride unto thy life-work turn.

  Soul-dignity was thine and purest aim;

  And ah! how sad that thou wast left to mourn

  In chains ’neath alien skies. On him, shame! shame!

  That mighty conqueror who dared to claim

  The right to bind thee. Him we heap with scorn,

  And noble patriot! guard with love thy name.

  To My Mother

  January 1, 1891

  Sweet Mother! rare in gifts of tenderness!

  Thou who didst nurse my child-life into bloom,

  And for each native grace made ample room

  To blossom in love’s light, —how can we bless

  The Power that gave thee to us! In the stress

  Of life’s great conflict, what could e’er illume

  Its mystic shadows and its deepest gloom,

  Like smiles and loving words from thee! No less

  Than widest sunshine is thy sympathy.

  O precious Heart! so rich in sacrifice.

  And—boon beyond compare—supremest love,

  May Heaven’s choicest blessings rest on thee.

  Rarer than jewels of the costliest price!

  And Peace brood o’er thy path like calmest dove!

  Florida Ruffin Ridley

  (1861–1943)

  Born in Boston to pioneering parents—writer, civil rights leader, and suffragist Josephine St. Pierre and George Lewis Ruffin, the first black graduate of Harvard Law School and first black judge in the US—she too became an activist, involved with founding the Woman’s Era Club and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and one of the first black public schoolteachers in Boston, as well as having a literary career as journalist, essayist, writer of short stories and editor of the black woman’s newspaper The Woman’s Era. In the latter capacity she was the only female contributor to a feature on manners in The Boston Globe on May 27, 1894. Days earlier, an open protest letter she had written to visiting English writer Laura Ormiston Chant appeared in the same pages.

  Our Manners—Are They Bad?

  Without doubt the Americans have not generally the finished manner which characterizes some other nations; that they are not lacking in the foundation of good manners, the kindly heart, is also without doubt; but what the influence is that has brought about a certain poverty in the outward expression of an inward grace it is difficult to say. Even the black man with his traditional courtesy has succumbed to the hidden influence, and is now seldom seen bestowing his genial and elaborate bows upon all alike—he is even dropping his old epistolary style which was so delicious in its affluence.

  Some say that in this latter day Americans are too busy after the material things of life, and that they have little faith in devoting time to anything that has not a marketable value: others believe that their naturally honest and independent spirit has revolted against the tendency to degrade manners into mannerism and to bow down to a conventional code.

  Doubtless there is some justification for both these beliefs, and, as far as the latter is concerned, who of us has not been astounded at the way common sense and common kindness are sometimes prostrated before rules of etiquette? A beautiful, but, as some would say, overbred girl was the source of much amusement to me upon a rainy day. She was about to take, unknowingly, a seat in an open car, which had become very wet from the rain. I attempted to detain her, but she was so shocked at my lack of breeding in addressing a stranger that she deliberately sat down in the water and tried to administer a deserved rebuke by turning upon me a cold, but decidedly shapely, shoulder. Before this I had though Rev. E. E. Hale’s story of the girl in the car who preferred to lose her bundle rather than pick it up at the suggestion of a man who had never received an introduction to her something of a joke, but now I know it is true.

  Whatever the causes which prevent a more general use of the outward signs of cultivation, American women can and do congratulate themselves that in this country the relation between men and women generally is that of real dignity and true courtesy. For all this, a tendency to discredit the proper and legitimate cultivation of manners is to be regretted. True cultivation is never lost. It makes the coarse man presentable and the fine man irresistible, and lack of attention in this direction is apt to lead before long to a deterioration of standard. Witness the number of excellent people who characterize that fine, manly and altogether delightful little fellow, Lord Fauntleroy, “as a prig.” There are already too many who mistake boisterousness for manliness, who call that in a girl whi
ch is “pertness,” “brightness,” and who forget that gentleman is a gentle man.

  After all, the surest and truest way to measure people is by their children, and tried by this test can we really and truly put a great big NO after the question, “Are our manners bad?”

  If we could but draw a veil over the lack of reverence and deference to elders, and over the intrusiveness of the average American child! It is hard to criticize our own, but sometimes it is best that it should be done.

  Doubtless we are in a transition state. After a time, when we shall have become better acquainted with ourselves, we shall have thrown off that which is superficial and burdensome in the accepted code of manners, and shall present as an example to our children a people almost ideal in manners, a people who are free to give full expression to their kindliness of heart, who believe in the value of a current form of intercourse, but who do not mistake form for substance. I believe there is now a chance for criticism of our manners just because we are, unconsciously perhaps, struggling towards that end.

  Protest Against Lynch Law

  Dear Mrs. Ormiston Chant,

  One year ago this month the members of the Woman’s Era club of Boston were privileged to have you address them as a body. The occasion was the first public meeting of the club, and besides yourself, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Diaz and Mrs. Spaulding spoke.

  It is safe to say that of all these noble women and fine speakers no one did more than yourself in strengthening the impulse to good works, in giving fresh inspiration toward right living,

  Your name and that speech has been to us a refreshing memory. Think, then, the shock it has occasioned us to hear that through your efforts a resolution at the national conference of the Unitarian church denouncing lynching was defeated.

  We feel assured, and do truly believe, that you opposed the resolution from a high moral standpoint, but we also feel assured that your position on this subject is the result of influences entirely one-sided, and that you will at least be interested to hear “the other side.”

  We, members of the Woman’s Era club, believe we speak for the colored women of America. We have organized, as have our women everywhere, to help in the world’s work, not only by endeavoring to uplift ourselves and our race, but by giving a helping hand and an encouraging word wherever they may be called for.

  As colored women, we have suffered and do suffer too much to be blind to the sufferings of others, but naturally we are more keenly alive to our own sufferings than to others, and we feel that we would be false to ourselves, to our opportunities and to our race, should we keep silence in a case like this.

  In the interest of common humanity, in the interest of justice, for the good name of our country, we solemnly raise our voice against the horrible crimes of lynch law as practiced in the south, and we call upon Christians everywhere to do the same or be branded as sympathizers with the murderers.

  We here solemnly deny that the black men are the foul fiends they are pictured; we demand that until at least one crime is proved upon them judgment be suspended.

  We know positively of case after case where innocent men have died horrible deaths; we know positively of cases that have been “made up;” we know positively of cases where black men have been lynched for white men’s crimes. We know positively of black men murdered for insignificant offense.

  All that we ask for is justice, not mercy or palliation—simple justice.

  Surely that is not too much for loyal citizens of a free country to demand.

  We do not pretend to say there are no black villains; baseness is not confined to race. We read with horror of two different colored girls who have recently been horribly assaulted by white men in the south.

  We do not expect that white women shall feel as deeply as we. We know of good and high-minded women made widows, of sweet and innocent children fatherless by a mob of unbridled men and boys “looking for fun.”

  In their names we utter our solemn protest. For their sakes we call upon workers of humanity everywhere, if they can do nothing for us, in mercy’s name not to raise their voices against us.

  Florida Ruffin Ridley,

  Secretary, Woman’s Era Club, Boston, May 19, 1894

  Effie Waller Smith

  (1879–1960)

  Born in the rural mountain community of Chloe Creek in Pike County, Kentucky, she was the child of former slaves Sibbie Ratliff and Frank Waller, who ensured that their children were well educated. She attended Kentucky Normal School for Colored Persons, and from 1900 to 1902 she trained as a teacher, then taught for some years. Her verse appeared in local papers, and she published her first collection, Songs of the Months, in 1904. That same year she entered a marriage that did not last long, and she divorced her husband. In 1908 she married Deputy Sheriff Charles Smith, but this union was also short-lived. In 1909 she published two further collections, Rhymes from the Cumberland and Rosemary and Pansies. She appears to have stopped writing at the age of 38 in 1917, when her sonnet “Autumn Winds” appeared in Harper’s Magazine. She left Kentucky for Wisconsin in 1918.

  The “Bachelor Girl”

  From Rhymes from the Cumberland

  She’s no “old maid,” she’s not afraid

  To let you know she’s her own “boss,”

  She’s easy pleased, she’s not diseased,

  She is not nervous, is not cross.

  She’s no desire whatever for

  Mrs. to precede her name,

  The blessedness of singleness

  She all her life will proudly claim.

  She does not sit around and knit

  On baby caps and mittens,

  She does not play her time away

  With puggy dogs and kittens.

  And if a mouse about the house

  She sees, she will not jump and scream;

  Of handsome beaux and billet doux

  The “bachelor girl” does never dream.

  She does not puff and frizz and fluff

  Her hair, nor squeeze and pad her form.

  With painted face, affected grace,

  The “bachelor girl” ne’er seeks to charm.

  She reads history, biography,

  Tales of adventure far and near,

  On sea or land, but poetry and

  Love stories rarely interest her.

  She’s lots of wit, and uses it,

  Of “horse sense,” too, she has a store;

  The latest news she always knows,

  She scans the daily papers o’er.

  Of politics and all the tricks

  And schemes that politicians use,

  She knows full well and she can tell

  With eloquence of them her views.

  An athlete that’s hard to beat

  The “bachelor girl” surely is,

  When playing games she makes good aims

  And always strictly minds her “biz.”

  Amid the hurry and the flurry

  Of this life she goes alone,

  No matter where you may see her

  She seldom has a chaperon.

  But when you meet her on the street

  At night she has a “32,”

  And she can shoot you, bet your boots,

  When necessity demands her to.

  Her heart is kind and you will find

  Her often scattering sunshine bright

  Among the poor, and she is sure

  To always advocate the right.

  On her pater and her mater

  For her support she does not lean,

  She talks and writes of “Woman’s Rights”

  In language forceful and clean.

  She does not shirk, but does her work,

  Amid the world’s fast hustling whirl,

  And come what may, she’s here to stay,

  The self-supporting “bachelor girl.”

  The Cuban Cause

  From Songs of the Months

  What was it caused our nation

  To
take up arms ’gainst stubborn Spain?

  Was it to only conquer her

  That she might praise and glory gain?

  Or was it territorial greed,

  That she might richer be?

  Or was it beneficial

  To her on land or sea?

  Oh, no, not these, not these at all

  Did ever cause this war;

  For it was something nobler

  And holier by far.

  It was for suffering Cuba,

  ’Twas for her liberty

  To save her from the Spanish yoke

  Of awful cruelty.

  Who then would dare to say: “Don’t go,”

  To relatives or friends, “And fight for rights and freedom

  ’Till Cuba’s suffering ends.”

  1900s

  Meta Davis Cumberbatch

  (1900–1978)

  Although born in Trinidad, she spent most of her life in The Bahamas, where she became known as the “Mother of the Arts”. Her parents sent her to England to study medicine, along with her two sisters, but she chose to follow her passion for music instead, graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 1925. She married fellow Trinidadian Dr Roland Cumberbatch, and when he accepted a post through the Colonial Medical Service in The Bahamas they relocated there. A pioneering cultural activist, she taught piano, gave recitals and lectures, wrote poetry, plays and essays, and was a catalyst for an annual national arts festival. “A Child of Nature (Negro of the Caribbean)”, one of her most celebrated poems, appears in Complete Works of Meta Davis Cumberbatch (edited by her grandson Peter D. Maynard, who also wrote the 2010 companion volume Great Awakening: Meta Davis Cumberbatch).