The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  In the eyes of many of the later writers featured in this anthology, Christianity, temperance, and racial equality were linked causes ushering a new era of social progress into American society. Mossell advocates for the expansion of the A.M.E. Church into Africa and extols the value of temperance within the American family. Mossell’s eloquence and social stature made her an important figure around whom many women could rally. She represented a national black progressive movement to unify the regional clubs and churches organized during and after Reconstruction.

  “Baby Bertha’s Temperance Lesson” (1885)

  SOURCE: Gertrude Bustill Mossell, “Baby Bertha’s Temperance Lesson,” Christian Recorder (January 8, 1885).

  Baby Bertha in the doorway,

  Stands with slow, reluctant feet,

  Wide the blue eyes still are open,

  Hushed the cheek so fair and sweet.

  She has listened to her mother

  Pitying poor drunken Lynn,

  Heard her pray for his salvation

  From his downward path of sin.

  Heard her Auntie say, “Lets offer

  Him a glass of water cool,

  As he passes to the tavern,

  Every noon, as in his rule.”

  But Mamma says, “No, I think not,

  It would only do us harm,

  He might offer blow or insult.”

  Thus she spoke in quick alarm.

  Then they sighed, and soon forgot him;

  Passed the time in quiet talk,

  Bade goodbye, and then they parted,

  Each one for her homeward.

  But our Baby Bertha listened,

  And the firm resolve was made;

  “For a little child shall lead them,”

  Gospel truth that will not fade.

  So next noon as Lynn was passing,

  In his path the child’s form stood

  With her little cup and pitcher

  And a plate of wholesome food.

  “Please don’t go to drink to-day sir,

  Have some of this water, cool,

  Have some of my bread and cheese, sir,

  I will hold your hat and rule.”

  Quick, the thirsty man took from her,

  Drained the goblet at one draught;

  Then he stopped and smiled and kissed her,

  And would then have onward passed,

  But to him the child was clinging,

  “I will give my little cup,

  You may take it, have and keep it,

  If you’ll give the drinking up.”

  Then he understood her nature,

  And his cheek was flushed with shame,

  But he made and kept that promise

  In the strength of Jesus’ name.

  Thus the mother learned a lesson,

  That the faith though small indeed,

  Joined unto prayer of Christians

  Shall the wanderer homeward lead.

  PHILADELPHIA, PA.

  “Will the Negro Share the Glory That Awaits Africa?” (1893)

  SOURCE: Gertrude Bustill Mossell, “Will the Negro Share the Glory that Awaits Africa?,” Christian Recorder (January 5, 1893).

  Mr. Editor:

  Under the above title there appeared in your last issue an appeal from J. M. Henderson one of the most forcible writers for the columns of the RECORDER. This appeal closed with the following thought: “There is wisdom, deep wisdom in Bishop Turner’s ceaseless appeal for the evangelization of Africa. It is disheartening to see that it is musunderstood and unresponded to.”

  These words went straight to my heart. I am not a member of the A.M.E. Church, nor do I favor the Negroes leaving America in a body and colonizing in Africa, but several years ago I was present at Lincoln University, when President Rendall brought on the stage ten native African boys. It was my first sight of a native African. I loved those children from that day. Year after year I met them, went to their graduations until the last one bade the college farewell. It was a marvel to witness their ability, their eloquence.

  One of the noblest souls that it has ever been my lot to meet—Thomas H. Roberts—was among that number. Some of these men remained in this country, some are still laboring efficiently. Knowing these ten, I feel that I know the capabilities in ten tribes at least. My heart is in the work. I believe with Dr. Decker Johnson, that Bishop Turner with his influence, his boundless enthusiasm, could, if one more Bishop would unite with him, carry the work to a successful issue. What grander work to close an already memorable career. If our people will rally to the support of the effort, those in the A.M.E. Church and out of it, make it our work in this new century about to open, we will make for ourselves a glorious place in history. To become one of the first and most successful agencies in the redemption of Africa, in the evangelization of its unconverted human souls, to establish firmly commercial relations (through the agency of this church) between Africa and America would be to us like the discovering of a new world.

  The A.M.E. Church has gone on conquering and to conquer, North, South, East and West, and the Islands of the sea; why not Africa? Every great effort towards progress has first been cradled in the boundless enthusiasm of one individual, but others must come to their aid, must encourage their drooping spirits by words of sympathy, by the assistance that lies in their power.

  At this present hour Bishop Turner seems by his appointment for this quadrennium to mission work, and his known stand upon the question, best able to lead the forces. Why not rally to his support? We hope to live to see the work and accomplished fact.

  The “Voice of Missions” will certainly aid in the accomplishment of this work, bring it near us. Let each Sabbath School in the Church take one little native boy or girl under its wing; show them each others pictures; let them write to each other. Let Kings Daughters and Sons Circles take a man or woman and do the same. Let all take a share in the Steamship Co. Let us for once UNITE in favor of a great object. To the women and children it would be but a widening of the loving influences they throw around their own home circle.

  To the men but one more responsibility that would strengthen the developing manhood of the race. Let it be one of our New Year resolutions to co-operate with this work of uniting America and Africa. Let us lay the foundation with Our Father and “the times that are in his hands” remaineth the harvest.

  48

  AMELIA L. TILGHMAN

  (1856–1931)

  Amelia L. Tilghman was born in the free black community of Washington, D.C.; her mother was a laundress and her father was a servant. After graduating with honors from the Normal program at Howard University in 1871, she taught at public schools in Washington, D.C., and pursued a career in singing. While traveling the country directing and performing in choral works, such as William Bradbury’s Esther the Beautiful Queen (1856), Tilghman befriended scores of African American musicians and writers. In 1886 Tilghman founded the Musical Messenger, the first periodical dedicated to African American music and musicians.

  Tilghman’s “Dedicated to Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, of England” unabashedly praises Queen Victoria, a figure held in high esteem by many women of the era, notably Ida B. Wells and Ella Sheppard. Victoria represented female power. Moreover, English royalty’s pro-abolition stance gave nineteenth-century African American women overseas allies in their fight for justice. She was a role model, and England had long been a haven for African Americans seeking refuge from race violence at home.

  “Dedicated to Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, of England” (1892)

  SOURCE: Amelia L. Tilghman, “Dedicated to Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, of England,” Women of Distinction: Remarkable in Works and Invincible in Character. Ed. Lawson A. Scruggs (Raleigh, NC: L. A. Scruggs, 1893).

  Reign on! most glorio
us Queen!

  And let thy sceptre sway,

  Till Ireland’s people are redeemed,

  Their darkness turned to day.

  Reign on! till right shall rule,

  And wrong shall buried be,

  Reign on! most generous, noble soul!

  The world needs such as thee.

  Reign on! ne’er let thy power

  Be ever rent in twain,

  Thy life so noble, good and pure,

  Be tarnished with one stain.

  Reign on! for God doth guide

  Thy sovereigns at His will,

  And He who stills the raging tide

  Will bid thy foes be still.

  Reign on! unequaled Queen,

  Till man to man is free,

  Till not one shackle shall be seen,

  And nowhere slaves shall be.

  Reign on! reign ever on!

  Not in this world alone,

  But may thy pure and holy life

  Be echoed at God’s throne.

  Reign on! till Heaven is gained,

  And thou with the redeemed

  Shall there receive the victor’s crown,

  Most noble, glorious Queen!

  49

  JOSEPHINE J. TURPIN WASHINGTON

  (1861–1949)

  Josephine J. Turpin Washington was born in Goochland County, Virginia. She attended Howard University and worked as a typist for Frederick Douglass during her summer vacations. After graduating in 1886, she taught at Richmond Theological Seminary, Howard University, and Selma University. Washington was a prolific writer from the time she was a teenager. She is most well known for her essays, which were published widely in periodicals of her time.

  The selections here begin with “A Great Danger,” a thorough dismantling of the racist views of a white woman, Annie Porter, published in the Independent under the headline “A Few More Plain Words.” On a gentler note, Washington argues, in “The Province of Poetry,” that in poetry “[o]ur most indefinite yearnings for higher things, our half unconscious longings and aspirations are recognized and expressed.” In “Needs of Our Newspapers,” Washington offers a constructive critique of the black press. She returns to her biting tone in “Anglo Saxon Supremacy,” excoriating white Northerners “who came South and out-Herod Herod himself in injustice to the Negro.”

  “A Great Danger” (1884)

  SOURCE: Josephine J. Turpin Washington, “A Great Danger,” New York Globe 2 (February 1884).

  Annie Porter Excoriated.

  A Vehement Onslaught Against the Negro Replied to by a Female Representative of the Race

  TO THE EDITOR OF THE GLOBE:—In the Independent of December 27, appeared an article bearing the title quoted above and written by one who signed herself Annie Porter. The communication is a vehement onslaught against the Negro, who is held up and denounced as “a great danger” to Louisiana in particular and the United States in general. The falsity of some of the statements is apparent from the very nature of things, and the contradictions running through many of the others attest their untruthfulness.

  The writer opens with a bitter bewailing of the “extraordinary relapse into barbarism which is going on among the Negroes in Louisiana at this moment;” and shows how dangerous it is to this country that a “large and increasing population of savages should be established in its borders.” What does Annie Porter mean by the Negro’s relapse into barbarism? A relapse is a falling back into a former state. The use of this term then implies that the Negro was at some subsequent period in a state of barbarism, that he rose above it into some degree of civilization and that he is now falling back or “relapsing,” into his former degradation. Is this true? That the Negro in the United States has been in an ignorant and debased condition bordering on barbarism, he, together with his friends and his enemies, is ready to admit. That he has during any time in the country been more advanced in civilization than now, is not conceded. When was this period of pristine wisdom and goodness? Annie Porter cannot mean that it was in the “good old times of slavery;” for, in her own words, she “never approved of slavery” but “always considered it a curse to the people and the country.” If then she does think the race a “large and increasing populations of savages,” she certainly uses the wrong word when she speaks of their “relapse into barbarism.” Without saying anything in regard to the improvement that has been made—an improvement which thousands of honest men and women are ready and glad to declare, these past twenty years has undoubtedly witnessesed no relapse.

  Speaking of the majority of Negroes in the village in which she resides, it is remarked that the “Negroes’ tendency to leave country homes and drift together in centers either of towns or hamlets is inveterate.” Is this social inclination peculiar to the Negro, so that it is worthy of being the subject of special comment? And even if it were, would the fact be in any wise discreditable? Why, Annie Porter herself, in applying the remedies for manifold Negro ills, descants on the advantages of having them together in “industrial centers.”

  We are entertained (?) with a graphic and extended description of a Negro applicant for the situation of cook. Is Annie Porter as deeply impressed by the dress and manners and conversation of all the unlettered and uncultured characters with whom she comes into contact? Can she not find hundreds of women who differ materially in no respect, save perhaps in color, from the one depicted? Would like ignorance of an Irish woman be attributed to the fact that she is Irish, or of a Dutch that she is Dutch, or of any Anglo-Saxon to the fact of her race? Is it just to Judge the Negro by a standard altogether different from that according to which other people are judged?

  That “Negro men are sunk in sloth,” is information as unique as it is startling. It seems rather strange, to say the least, that the men who for, lo, these many years have worked the great plantations of the South have hoed the corn, picked the cotton, cultivated the rice; the men who are the very bone and sinew of the South, should be spoken of as “sank in sloth.”

  How one believes in the power and efficacy of the gospel can think a people possessing any knowledge whatever of it “worse of than if they had never heard of Christianity,” I cannot divine. Yet this is what Annie Porter says of the Negroes, concerning whom she further asserts: “Their idea of God is of the most material and at the same time the most superstitious description. Of Jesus they only know as a sort of charm, though common belief prevails among them that he was a black man.” They are, in the language of the writer, “given up to the wildest, most extraordinary ideas and superstitions.” Superstition exists to a greater or less degree among any ignorant people. The proud Anglo-Saxon will find this exemplified in tracing back the history of his race to the early days of their barbarous and savage state. There are ignorant classes of white people, and as a natural consequence of the ignorance there is superstition among them; but that their idea of God is of the kind declared and their knowledge of Christ as limited as is affirmed, I most emphatically deny. I am of these people; and I know them better than one who stands afar off and fears to have her dainty robes touch their rough and toil-stained garments.

  An account is given of a young man “born and brought up a mule-driver,” who wanted to become a minister. (Rather strange idea, that of being “born a mule-driver!”) A better plan of action than to deride his desire because of his unfitness, would have been to attempt to impress him with the importance of due preparation for the accomplishment of his mission. The fact that she had “tried faithfully to teach him,” but that he still had “no knowledge of anything except his trade,” signifies nothing. Annie Porter shows her lack of faith in the Negro’s capacity, when she declares him “entirely unable to take in geographical and political distinctions.” That teacher who has no belief in the existence of the very powers which it is her office to draw out, is calculated to do harm rather than good. Had the young man referred t
o studied this trade under this fair instructress he would probably have known nothing of that.

  And now I quote the foulest aspersion against the women of the race: “I firmly believe that no Negro woman brought up in a former slave state and among those who have been slaves knows the meaning of the word chastity, or grasps the idea of physical morality in the slightest degree.” Is a Negress less than a woman, that any condition could rob her of all natural modesty and delicacy? It is false; I repeat it, it is false. Slavery has much for which to render an account; it invaded the sanctity of homes, it nullified the marriage bond, it exposed the temptation and induced to immorality, it prostrated virtue at the foot of vice; it did all this and more; it was a huge blot upon the face of society, a great ulcer upon the body politic, a burning shame to the American people; but it did not, because it could not, take from the women of the oppressed race that innate regard for purity and chastity which remained theirs by right of their womanhood. The instance of a well-taught and well-trained girl falling from virtue and then making excuses for her wrong-doing, is not an uncommon one and is by no means restricted to the Negro race.

  If Annie Porter is to write next of murder and bloodshed in the South, she might gain some information by conning matter relative to the late Danville massacre. She might, too, study the art of lynching, prevalent among her white brethren of the south; and might, also, with profit examine into the history of the Ku-Klux. For a Negro to appear as midnight assassin and cut-throat would be an entirely new role. When he had ample opportunities for gratifying any such propensity it did not disclose itself. When the strong and brave among his enemies were away fighting to keep him in bondage and those near and dear to them were at his mercy, instead of rising up to kill and to slay he watched over, worked for, cared for, and harmed not a hair in their heads. Was this the manifestation of a violent and vindictive spirit?