11. John Hope Franklin, The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790–1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943), 205–6.
12. Frenise A. Logan, The Negro in North Carolina, 1876–1894 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964), 121.
13. A crucial element of this ideology, “Ethiopianism,” is discussed in Wilson J. Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 23–24. Moses defines the term thus: “Ethiopianism involved a cyclical view of history—the idea that the ascendancy of the White race was only temporary, and that the divine providence of history was working to elevate the African peoples.” For an earlier view from a White evangelical supporter of the idea of using Black missionaries to “uplift” Africa, see Rev. F. Freeman, Africa’s Redemption: The Salvation of Our Country (Fanshaw, N.Y.: 1852; reprinted Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970). The literature on this topic is too extensive to adequately summarize. A helpful introduction is provided by Sylvia M. Jacobs in her detailed literature survey, “Black Americans and the Missionary Movement to Africa: A Bibliography,” in Jacobs, ed., Black Americans and the Missionary Movement to Africa (West-port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).
14. On Shaw University see Rev. J. A. Whitted, “Shaw University,” in A History of the Negro Baptists of North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards and Broughton, 1908), 146– 65; Clara Barnes Jenkins, “An Historical Study of Shaw University, 1865– 1963,” Ed.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1965; and Wilmoth A. Carter, Shaw’s Universe: A Monument to Educational Innovation (Rockville, Md.: D.C. National Publishing [for Shaw University], 1973).
15. Benjamin E. Mays, Born to Rebel (New York: Scribner, 1971), 126–27.
16. The New Voice in Race Adjustments: Addresses and Reports Presented at the Negro Christian Student Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, May 14–18, 1914, A. M. Trawick, ed. (New York: Student Volunteer Movement, 1914). The YMCA sessions that Yergan most likely attended were those of Channing H. Tobias and Addie W. Hunton.
17. Sarah A. Allen, “A New Profession: The First Colored Graduate of the Y.M.C.A. Training School, Springfield, Mass.,” Colored American Magazine, September 1903, 661–63. Allen revealed that as of September 1, Wilder took charge of the “Colored” Y in New Haven.
18. Personal communication, Gerald F. Davis (Director, Babson Library, Springfield College) to Anthony, 18 February 1985.
19. Max Yergan File, YMCA Headquarters Library.
20. “Max Yergan, National Secretary for Africa,” The Intercollegian (de-voted to work of YMCAs in universities, colleges, and schools) 39:5 (February 1922): 4.
21. Yergan to Moorland, Box 126-64 File 1231, “YMCA—M Y—Correspondence—1916,” Moorland Papers, Manuscript Division, MSRC/HU.
22. J. E. Moorland, “The Young Men’s Christian Association and the War,” Crisis, December 1917, 65.
23. Benjamin Elijah Mays, Born to Rebel: An Autobiography (New York: Scribner, 1971), 126–27.
24. Robert E. Jones, “Breaking over Race Lines,” Southwest Christian Advocate, 27 July 1916, 1.
25. Kirby Page, Second Day Out—July 12th, On Board—“New Amsterdam”—June 11th–20th, 1916, Kirby L. Page Papers, File Cabinet 1, Drawer 1, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California. Document generously made available by Joseph “Kip” Kosek, Ph.D. candidate, Yale University, 24 August 2002.
26. Page, Fifth Day Out—July 15th, Page Papers. Reference courtesy Joseph “Kip” Kosek, Yale University.
27. Gray, a YMCA worker in Europe, subsequently became a well-known conscientious objector. Gray’s references to Yergan appear in Kenneth Irving Brown, ed., Character “Bad”: The Story of a Conscientious Objector, as Told in the Letters of Harold Studley Gray (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1934), 10, 12. I am grateful to Joseph “Kip” Kosek for sharing these citations. Kosek to Anthony, 17 April 2002.
28. Yergan to Moorland, 7 October 1916, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU. By this time Max was by his own estimation “within days of leaving for East Africa.”
29. Robert E. Jones, “Breaking over Race Lines,” Southwestern Christian Advocate, 27 July 1916.
30. Sherwood Eddy, A Century with Youth: A History of the Y.M.C.A. from 1844 to 1944 (New York: Association Press, 1944), 67.
31. Pagano, “Max Yergan,” 16–17. Paan, as this is often written, is widely associated with overseas Indian diaspora communities in Eastern, Central, or Southern Africa, as well as in the Caribbean, notably Guyana and Trinidad. Biri resembles biriyani, a rice medley, and metai may be methi, fenugreek leaves, which, like paan, could easily have been sold to train riders.
32. For comprehensive compendia on the civilization of Mysore in all its complexity, consult Hebbalalu Velpanuru Nanjudayya, diwan Bahadur, The Ethnographic Survey of Mysore (Bangalore: Government Press, 1906– 15); Mysore Gazetteer, Compiled for Government, C. Hayavadana Rao, ed. (Bangalore: Government Press, 1930), 2–242. Bangalore district is dealt with in volume 5. On Bangalore’s Christian tribes see H. V. Nanjundayya and Rao Bahadur L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer, The Mysore Tribes and Castes, vol. 3 (Bangalore: Mysore University Press, 1930), chapter 1, “Indian Christian” (Roman Catholic), 1–60, and chapter 2, “Indian Christian” (Protestant), 61–76.
33. Yergan to Moorland, 30 August 1916, Box 126-64, File 1231, “YMCA—Max Yergan—Correspondence—1916,” Moorland Papers, Manuscript Division, MSRC/HU.
34. Mark Naison, Communists in Harlem during the Depression (New York: Grove Press, 1984), 293.
35. Mary White Ovington, Portraits in Color (New York, 1927), 34.
36. A. J. (Aiyadurai Jesudasen) Appasamy, “A Challenge to India’s Educators,” The Young Men of India 29:11 (November 1918): 653–62; and 29:12 (December 1918): 708–16.
37. Pagano, “Max Yergan, a Biography,” chapter 7, 57. For barrister Gandhi’s South African apprenticeship, see his Satyagraha in South Africa (1928; reprinted Ahmedabad: Navajivan Trust, 1970); An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Boston: Beacon, 1957), passim; John Haynes Holmes et al., Mahatma Gandhi, The World Significance: Appended with Mahatma Gandhi’s Jail Experiences, Both South African and Indian, and All about His Fast (Calcutta: C. C. Basak, [1925?]); and Maureen Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985).
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
1. Yergan to Moorland, 12 October 1916, Moorland Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University (MSRC/HU).
2. Yergan to Moorland, 7 November 1916, Mombasa, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU.
3. Every recruit received a copy of the Field Manual.
4. Yergan to Moorland, 26 November 1916, Dar-es-Salaam, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU. He mentioned military censorship.
5. Yergan to Moorland, “Somewhere in German East Africa,” 19 December 1916, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU.
6. Yergan to Moorland, “Somewhere in German East Africa,” 23 December 1916, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU.
7. Yergan to Moorland, 23 February 1917, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU. Yergan erred in inscribing Lloyd’s middle initial as “A.”
8. Moorland to Yergan, 14 March 1917, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU. The saga of American Negro missionaries in East Africa during World War One is treated in Rodney Hugh Orr’s “African American Missionaries to East Africa, 1900–1926: A Study of the Ethnic Reconnection of the Gospel,” Ph.D. dissertation (History), Edinburgh University, 1998.
9. Yergan to Dr. Sanders, Dar es Salaam, British East Africa, 17 March 1917.
10. Caption beneath photo titled, “Our Army Secretaries in Africa,” Association Men 43:3 (November 1917): 213A.
11. Yergan to Moorland, 18 September 1917, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU.
12. Herbert Stuart, “Colonel Newcome in Dar es Salaam, The Young Men of India 29:1 (January 1918): 29. A banda is a tent.
13. “The Men of Me,” n.d., YMCA pamphlet, YMCA Bowne Historical Library, now in YMCA Archives.
14. Stuart, “Colonel Newcome,” 29.
15. V
ernon Nash, “The Y.M.C.A. in East Africa in 1917,” The Young Men of India 29:6 (June 1918): 355.
16. Yergan to Moorland, 8 March 1917, Moorland Papers, MSRC/HU.
17. J. E. Moorland, “The Y.M.C.A. and the War,” Crisis 40:2 (December 1917): 68.
18. Max Yergan, “A Y.M.C.A. Secretary in Africa,” Southern Workman 48 (August 1918): 401–3.
19. Kenneth James King, Pan Africanism and Education (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 59, footnote 3. Thanks to David Carmichael, YMCA of the USA Archives, for providing copies of the World War One card files of Ballou and Lloyd. Ballou, Lloyd, and Yergan are pictured with Webster in Association Men 43:3 (November 1917): 213A. A copy of this photo was provided by the YMCA of the USA archives. Reprinted with permission, Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries. A separate image of Ballou (misidentified as “Hallon”) appeared in Young Men of India 29 (November 1918) sans Pritchett. A death notice was run in Young Men of India 29 (November 1918). Memorials also appeared in Summary of World War Work of the YMCA (N.p.: Young Men’s Christian Association, National War Work Council, ca. 1920). See “Honor Roll,” Frederick D. Ballou, 229, and Robert S. Pritchett, 232.
20. Report of the International Committee, YMCA, to the 40th Annual International Convention, Detroit, 19–23 November 1919, Part 2, Work of National War Work Councils, 132, Moorland File, Box 126-66, folder 1272, Manuscript Division, MSRC/HU.
21. Moorland, “The YMCA and the War,” Crisis 15:2 (1917): 68.
22. From Torrey B. Stearns, “Max Yergan: Missionary to His Own People,” Christian Herald (n.d.), courtesy of Ruth Hartson, YMCA International Division. The line, “Dar es Salaam had become one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities,” appears to have been lifted from Webster. See his “Wide Open Africa,” Association Men 43:6 (February 1918): 432.
23. K. J. Saunders to A. K. Yapp (cc Edward Clark Carter, Yergan, and Mott), 1 August 1919, YMCA of the USA Archives.
24. D. H. Anthony, “Oswin Boys Bull and the Emergence of Southern African ‘Nonwhite’ YMCA Work.” Unpublished manuscript.
25. Bull to Mott, 23 July 1919, Max Yergan File, YMCA of the USA Archives.
26. Saunders to Yapp, 1 August 1919, Yergan File, YMCA of the USA Archives.
27. Kenneth J. Saunders, London, to Edward Clark Carter, Paris, 1 August 1919.
28. Carter to Jenkins, 8 August 1919.
29. Carter to C. V. Hibbard, 8 August 1919.
30. Statement of Returning Secretary for Registration. YMCA of the USA Archives.
31. E. C. Jenkins to Yergan, 16 September 1919.
32. J. E. K. Aggrey to Oswin B. Bull, 19 June 1921. Secretary’s Record, YMCA Archives.
33. Aggrey to Bull, 19 June 1921.
34. Yergan to John W. Davis, 16 and 29 November 1920, John W. Davis Papers, West Virginia State College Archives, Institute, West Virginia.
35. Davis to Yergan, 3 December; Yergan to Davis, 8 December; Davis to Yergan, 13 December; Yergan to Davis, 21 December; Davis to Yergan, 23 December; Davis to Yergan, 28 December; Davis to Yergan, 31 December 1920, John W. Davis Papers, West Virginia State College Archives (JWDP/WVSCA).
36. Yergan to Davis, 10 January and 5 February 1921 (JWDP/WVSCA).
37. Bull to Mott, 18 February 1921, Yergan file, YMCA. A copy later reached Dr. Du Bois. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, reel 9.
38. Bull to Mott, 18 February 1921.
39. On Jones the best source remains Kenneth James King, Pan-Africanism and Education: Africa and the Southern States of America (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). King held that Jones, Loram, and J. H. Oldham of the International Missionary Council became triumvirs on the subject of interwar-era African education.
40. Education in Africa: A Study of West, South, and Equatorial Africa by the African Education Commission, under the Auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and Foreign Mission Societies of North America and Europe: Report Prepared by Thomas Jesse Jones, Chairman of the Commission (New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, ca. 1922).
41. Bull to Mott, 18 February, Yergan file, YMCA.
42. Aggrey to Bull, 30 June 1921, Yergan file, YMCA.
43. Edwin W. Smith, Aggrey of Africa: A Study in Black and White (London: Student Christian Movement, 1929), chapter 11, “South Africa,” 166.
44. Yergan to Moton, Yergan to M. W. Johnson, Yergan to J. W. Dillard, 29 March 1921; M. W. Johnson to Du Bois, 23 May 1921; J. W. D. to Yergan, 31 March 1921, Du Bois Papers, reel 9.
45. Yergan to Davis, 29 March 1921, JWDP/WVSCA.
46. Yergan to Davis, 29 March 1921, JWDP/WVSCA. This was the subsequent written communication of the same date.
47. Davis to Yergan, 31 March 1921, JWDP/WVSCA.
48. Davis to Yergan, 31 March 1921, JWDP/WVSCA. A copy of this letter also made its way to Du Bois.
49. L. G. Jordan to Yergan, 4 April (replying to Yergan to Jordan, 2 April); A. A. Graham (Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention) to Yergan, 5 April; M. W. Johnson to Yergan, 20 April; Yergan to F. de Frantz, 21 April 1921; copies in Du Bois Papers, reel 9. Yergan to J. J. Rho[a]des, 22 April 1921, Tuskegee University Archives, General Correspondence, Box 71, File 477.
50. Du Bois to Yergan, 18 May; Du Bois to J. W. Dillard, 19 May; Yergan to Du Bois (handwritten), 23 May; Mordecai W. Johnson to Du Bois, 23 May; Du Bois to Rev L. Fenninger, Hampton Institute, 26 May 1921, Du Bois Papers, reel 9. A rare dissenting voice on Jones was John Hope. Hope to Du Bois, 1 June 1921.
51. Yergan to Moton, 2 September; Moton to Yergan, 15 September, Yergan to Moton, 21 September 1921, Tuskegee University Archives and Max Yergan file, YMCA.
52. N. B. Young, Florida A & M, to Du Bois, and Lyman Ward, principal, Southern Industrial Institute, to Du Bois, 30 September; James E. Shepard, National Training School, to Du Bois, 1 November 1921, Du Bois Papers, reel 9.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 3
1. Xhosa, “people with a hole” or “pierced people.” Noni Jabavu, Drawn in Colour (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1960), 130.
2. Zulu, “believers,” used of converts. Albert Luthuli, Let My People Go (New York: McGraw Hill, 1962).
3. Gilbert Anthony Williams, The Christian Recorder, Newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church: History of a Forum for Ideas, 1854–1902 (Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland, 1996), 81–102; James T. Campbell, Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); J. Mutero Chirenje, Ethiopianism and Afro-Americans in Southern Africa, 1883–1916 (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), passim; Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (Oxford, 1948); Josephus R. Coan, “The Expansion of the Missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896–1908,” Ph.D. dissertation, Hartford Seminary, 1961.
4. Campbell, Songs of Zion; Chirenje, Ethiopianism and Afro-Americans, 75–76; Carol Ann Page, “Black Americans in White South Africa: Church and State Reaction to the AME Church in Cape Colony and Transvaal, 1896– 1910,” Ph.D. dissertation, History, Edinburgh University, 1978.
5. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, chapter 2, “The Rise of the Independent Church Movement”; Edwin S. Redkey, Black Exodus: Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890–1910 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969) and Respect Black: The Writings and Speeches of Henry M. Turner (New York: Arno, 1971); Chirenje, Ethiopianism and Afro-Americans, 62–64.
6. Report, Charles Loram Papers, Yale.
7. A Congregationalist, Yergan had ties to both denominations. Black YMCA pioneer W. A. Hunton was converted by AME cleric J. Albert Johnson, posted to South Africa in 1910. Yergan’s grandfather Frederick had been a Baptist elder and trustee. Shaw University emerged out of First Baptist Church (Colored) and was funded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society. In April 1921 he had met with National Baptist Convention Foreign Mission corresponding secretary L. G. Jordan on discrimination against American Negroes. The same year Yergan had been in touch
with AME Bishop W. T. Vernon, who was posted to South Africa from 1920 to 1924 and would become a Yergan familiar. Black Y staff were part of each church.
8. Julia C. Wells, We Now Demand! The History of Women’s Resistance to Pass Laws in South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1993), 53– 54. For the 1913 antecedent of this threat see chapter 1, “The Bloemfontein Milieu,” 15–31.
9. F. G. Bridgman to E. W. Riggs, 9 January 1922, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) Papers, Box 805, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
10. Bridgman to Riggs, 14 March 1922. ABCFM Collection, Box 805, Houghton Library, Harvard.
11. “Confidential Memorandum on the Attitude of South African Political Parties towards the Native Population,” appended to Report Letter for year ending 31 December 1922, Max Yergan, Cape Town, S. A. Moorland Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University (MSRC/HU). Yergan closed: “I hand you this full statement of what I believe to be the beliefs desires and practices characterizing European life in South Africa in the midst of which millions of Natives have got to make their future. You cannot think of the Native apart from the entire life of the country. What touches one touches all.” This presages the slogan of the later Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), founded 1955: “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
12. Fraser to Mott, 18 February 1897, 3–4. World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) Collection, MS 46, John R. Mott Papers, Box 254, Folder 2129, Mott Room, Divinity School Library, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University (DSLMA/YU).
13. Fraser to Mott, 1 February 1897, WSCF Collection, MS 46, John R. Mott Papers, Box 254, Folder 2129, Mott Room, DSLMA/YU.
14. “Mr John R. Mott to Visit South Africa,” Rand Young Men’s Journal (RYMJ) 3:1 (March 1906): 9; “Mr. John R. Mott, M.A. Work in South Africa Conference This Month,” RYMJ 3:3 (May 1906): 15.
15. Mott, Amanzimtoti, Natal, 6 June 1906, John R. Mott Papers, MS Collection #45, Box 117, Folder 1940, “Reports, Letters, Diaries, Visit to South Africa, 1906,” Mott Room, DSLMA/YU.
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