A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories

by Bettye Collier-Thomas

  The Children’s Christmas

  With the tinkle of joy-bells in the air, the redolence of pine and the untasted anticipation of saccharine joys to be, the child steps forward into the full heyday of his prerogatives. For this is childhood’s time—it is the commemoration of a child’s birth and the gifts brought him. It is a time of peace and gladness, say the children; it is our reign of love and gift-giving.

  Yet even the small kings and queens who reign over this carnival of joy are not happy. There are many who have never come into their kingdom at all—to whom the luxury of a real Christmas would be a foretaste of Paradise. Did you ever stop to think of this? You who are pushing and jostling in the shopping crowd, your arms full of expensive toys, and your heart full of cheery cares lest someone be forgotten? We might have a little panorama for your especial benefit if you do not mind.

  Julia is in school. She is seven and as unkempt as the school authorities will permit her. She is frequently absent from the morning session. We wondered why until we learned that her mother was “mos’ all the time drunk” and didn’t get up mornings, so Julia slept too to reduce the necessity for breakfast and came straggling in, in the afternoon, half stupid, wholly indifferent.

  “What will Santa bring you?” asked her nearest neighbor in school during a lively discussion about Christmas.

  She shrugged her tiny shoulders, “Nothin’ but another beatin’ I guess.” And the nearest neighbor turned away to tell her chosen friend that as she had four dolls now she didn’t want another one just yet.

  Matilda is in the same school. She is a swarthy, pretty black-eyed Hebrew. Her black locks are cropped short. She wears the uniform of an asylum not far away. Christmas? It is incomprehensible to her. Who was the Christ child? Why keep his birthday? But Santa Klaus she understands, and the gifts that are denied her. Dolls! Why to possess even the tiniest one would seem too much happiness for a mortal Hebrew maiden. As she heard the other children enumerating their toys it seemed to her wonderful that they did not unfurl wings, for surely angels are so blessed. Why if she only had the wee smallest toy she would never need to speak in school again, so complete would be the measure of her bliss.

  Florence is on the other side of the river and too small to be in school. So when it is warm she plays in the sunshine which freely attempts to clear the stagnant atmosphere. When the winds nip through from river to river she seeks shelter in a tenement, dark and fetid and noisy with brawls and drunkenness. Christmas? It means cold weather and shivering in a poor, thin jacket whose warmth was a thing of the past when it fell to her two years ago. Toys? Once she actually touched the dress of a gorgeously dressed lady doll, and the memory of it was like wine for weeks. Even now she regarded that hand in some measure as sacred.

  Frank stands musingly before a window resplendent with gold and silver Christmas tree “fixin’s.” The poor child gazing hungrily in brilliant windows at holiday time is a figure that is well-nigh threadbare in juvenile fiction, but it is so pitifully, painfully true and ever-recurring. He clutches his baby brother by the arm and dreamfully wonders if there was ever one person on earth who was rich enough to buy all that. Baby brother grows impatient, for he is whimsical, and nurse Frank moves away signing hopelessly. It was like longing for ice cream the year round to even dare wish for one toy.

  Hattie listens to the Christmas talk and the Christmas noise and the fakir’s wondrous stream of unchecked gab, and wrinkles her little face painfully. You see she is almost blind, and subjects are but an indistinct blur to her. Blind at six, through carelessness and ignorance, with not a helping hand, that will lead her to a dispensary for treatment. She cannot see the wondrous windows; she can only hear and wonder. Who knows if in her groping, mental as well as physical, there does not form the faultily famed wish for the Christmas present of seeing?

  These little folks are not imaginary small personages created for Sunday-school literature and sentimental dissertations on so-called sociology. They are actual, evident, their counterparts around us, no matter where we may live. They have been robbed of the most precious birthright that Heaven bestows—their childhood—and their annual birth-feast is denied them not because the world wishes them ill, but because the world is scarcely cognizant of their existence. And yet “Christmas is the children’s time, the day of their rejoicing.” Does it seem fair that to the least of them there does not filter some minute molecule of the general happiness, some infinitesimal spangled toy that would never be missed from the more fortunate ones?

  CHRISTMAS EVE STORY

  Fanny Jackson Coppin

  A well-known educator, civic and religious activist, and feminist, Fanny Muriel Jackson was born enslaved in Washington, DC. Her freedom was purchased by Sarah Clark, her aunt. At a relatively young age, she was sent to live with another aunt in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she worked as a domestic. At the age of fourteen she moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where she was employed for six years as a servant in the home of George Henry Calvert, a writer and the great-grandson of Lord Baltimore, who settled Maryland. In Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints on Teaching, Jackson wrote that it was during those years that she attended public school and became determined to “get an education and become a teacher of my people.”

  Fanny Jackson passed the entrance examination and was admitted to the Rhode Island State Normal School at Bristol, where she excelled. Following graduation, she was accepted by Oberlin College, one of the few white institutions of higher learning that admitted African Americans. At Oberlin, she pursued the classical course, known as the gentleman’s course of study. The college did not prevent women from taking the classical course but did not advise it. As the course emphasized Latin, Greek, and mathematics, it was felt that women would not fare well.

  Following her graduation from Oberlin, in 1865, Fanny accepted an appointment to teach at the Institute for Colored Youth, a school established in Philadelphia in 1837 by the Quakers. During the antebellum period, this school developed a reputation for excellent teachers, a classical curriculum, and the high quality of its graduates. The institute was a showplace, visited by interested persons from throughout the United States and Europe.

  Contrary to the belief of many whites that blacks were inferior and suited only for menial labor, the Institute for Colored Youth proved that African Americans were quite capable of learning and could acquire a higher level of education. Fanny taught Greek, Latin, and mathematics, and served as principal of the girls’ high school department. She was delighted to teach children and see them master Caesar, Virgil, Cicero, Horace, and Xenophon’s Anabasis.

  In 1869, the general principal of the institute, Ebenezer D. Bassett, was appointed minister to Haiti by President Ulysses S. Grant. Fanny Jackson replaced him as head principal, becoming the first black woman in the US to hold a position at that level in an educational institution. During her thirty-seven-year tenure at the institute, several students—future black leaders—came under Jackson’s tutelage, and she was influential in shaping some of the major patterns of black education in the late nineteenth century.

  In 1881, Fanny married the Reverend Levi Jenkins Coppin, a noted minister and bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Although she held membership in a Baptist church, Mrs. Coppin became involved in the AME Church, and she was active in the missionary field and as president of the Women’s Home and Foreign Missionary Society. In 1888, she was a delegate to the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World, held in London. At that meeting she spoke forcefully about the intelligence of African American women and the tremendous responsibilities they assumed in every endeavor, including missions. In 1893, she delivered the same message at the Chicago World’s Fair.

  Although she is best remembered for her work in education, Fanny Jackson was also widely known as a writer, lecturer, and organizer in the black women’s club movement. “Christmas Eve Story” reflects her concerns for poor black children and illustrates the plight of
many she came in daily contact with in the alleys and hovels where they resided in Philadelphia. This short story is written in the style of a fairy tale with an appeal to very young readers and listeners. It opens on Christmas Eve, 1879, and concludes on Christmas Eve, 1880. The references to Acorn Alley and the almshouse suggest a large city, most likely Philadelphia, where Fanny Jackson Coppin resided.

  “Christmas Eve Story” was published in December 1880 in the Christian Recorder, the organ of the AME Church and one of the earliest black publications to publish the literary efforts of African Americans. Its diverse offerings attracted wide readership among black Methodists and appealed to a broad-based national African American audience. The story makes an appeal for the community to address the poverty experienced by so many black children who lived in filthy alleys infested with disease.

  Christmas Eve Story

  Once upon time, there was a little girl named Maggie Devins, and she had a brother named Johnny, just one year older than she. Here they both are. Now if they could they would get up and make you a bow. But dear me! We all get so fastened down in pictures that we have to keep as quiet as mice, or we’d tear the paper all to pieces. I’m going to tell you something about this little boy and girl, and perhaps some little reader will remember it. You see how very clean and neat both of them look. Well, if you had seen them when Grandma Devins first found them you never would have thought that they could be made to look as nice as this. Now hear their story:

  Last Christmas Eve while Grandma Devins was sitting by her bright fire there was a loud knock at the door, and upon opening it, she found a policeman who had in his arms two children who were nearly dead.

  “I come, mum,” he said, “to ask you, if you will let these poor little young ones stay here to-night in your kitchen; their mother has just died from the fever. She lived in an old hovel around in Acorn Alley, and I’m afraid to leave the young ones there to-night, for they’re half starved and half frozen to death now. God pity the poor, mum, God pity the poor, for it’s hard upon then, such weather as this.”

  Meanwhile, Grandma Devins had pulled her big sofa up to the fire and was standing looking down upon the dirty and pinched little faces before her. She didn’t say anything, but she just kept looking at the children and wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. All at once she turned around as if she had been shot; she flew to the pantry and brought out some milk which she put on the fire to boil. And very soon she had two steaming cups of hot milk with nice biscuit broken into it, and with this she fed the poor little creatures until a little color came into their faces, and she knew that she had given them enough for that time.

  The policeman said he would call for the children in the morning and take them to the almshouse. The fact is the policeman was a kindhearted man, and he secretly hoped that he could get someone to take the children and be kind to them.

  As soon as Maggie and Johnny had their nice warm milk they began to talk. Johnny asked Grandma Devins if she had anybody to give her Christmas presents, and Grandma said, “no.” But Maggie spoke up and said her mamma told her before she died that God always gave Christmas presents to those who had no one to give them any. And throwing her arms around Grandma’s neck she said, “God will not forget you, dear lady, for you’ve been so good to us.” Like a flash of light it passed through Grandma Devins’ mind that God had sent her these children as her Christmas gift. So she said at once:

  “Children, I made a mistake. I have had a Christmas present.”

  “There,” said Maggie, “I knew you would get one; I knew it.” When the policeman came in the morning his heart was overjoyed to see the “young ones,” as he called them, nicely washed and sitting by the fire bundled up in some of Grandma Devins’ dresses. She had burnt every stitch of the dirty rags which they had on the night before. So that accounted for their being muffled up so.

  “You can go right away, policeman; these children are my Christmas gift, and please God I’ll be mother and father both to the poor little orphans.”

  A year has passed since then, and she says that Johnny and Maggie are the best Christmas gifts that any old woman ever had. She has taught Maggie to darn and sew neatly, and one of these days she will be able to earn money as a seamstress. Have you noticed her little needle-case hanging against the wall? Do you see the basket of apples on one side? Johnny was paring them when Maggie asked him to show her about her arithmetic, for Johnny goes to school, but Maggie stays at home and helps Grandma. Now as soon as Grandma comes back she is going to make them some mince pies for Christmas. Johnny will finish paring the apples, while Maggie is stoning the raisins. Oh! What a happy time they will have to-morrow. For I will whisper in your ear, little reader, that Grandma Devins is going to bring home something else with her other than raisins. The same kindhearted policeman who I told you about in the beginning, has made Johnny a beautiful sled, and painted the name “Hero” on it. Grandma has bought for Maggie the nicest little hood and cloak that ever you saw. Is that not nice? I guess if they knew what they’re going to get they wouldn’t sit so quietly as we see them; they’d jump up and dance about the floor, even if they tore the paper all to pieces. Oh! Let every little girl [and boy] thank our heavenly father for the blessed gift of His dear Son on the first Christmas Day, eighteen hundred and eighty years ago.

  MOLLIE’S BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT

  Mary E. Lee

  Mary E. Lee, the daughter of Simon S. and Adelia M. Ashe, was born free in Mobile, Alabama, on January 12, 1851. In 1860, the family moved to Xenia, Ohio, the site of Wilberforce University, one of the first institutions of higher learning to be established for African Americans in the United States. Founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), Wilberforce included what was known as a “normal” department, which provided primary and secondary instruction for black children and adults in addition to the college course. Lee attended Wilberforce and graduated with a BS degree in 1873. As a student, she distinguished herself as a poet and essayist, and after graduation, she taught in the public schools of Galveston, Texas. In December 1873, she married Benjamin Franklin Lee, president of Wilberforce and a professor of theology. In 1892, he was elected a bishop of the AME Church.

  During the late nineteenth century, Mary E. Lee was well known as a poet, fiction writer, and religious worker in the AME Church. Her articles, poems, and short stories appeared in the Christian Recorder, AME Quarterly Review, Ringwood’s Journal, and other publications. During the 1890s, the Lee family resided in Philadelphia, where Mary was affiliated with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Ladies’ Christian Union Association, and the AME Women’s Mite Missionary Society. In 1892, she was elected vice president of the Afro-American Press Association.

  “Mollie’s Best Christmas Gift” was published in the Christian Recorder in December 1882. Lee wrote the story to emphasize the importance of putting Christ back in Christmas. The Christmas celebration, introduced in the United States during the late eighteenth century, was officially recognized by most states as a legal holiday by 1865. By 1850, the celebration had taken on its more modern character, with feasting and gift giving being the foremost focus. Lee’s concern in 1885 is echoed today by many, especially parents who are besieged by children who view Christmas simply as a time to receive toys and presents.

  “Mollie’s Best Christmas Gift” not only imparts a message for Christians, but it also provides the reader with a glimpse of what Christmas was like for middle-class black children in the late nineteenth century.

  Raised as a free black child of privilege, Mary Lee spoke from experience. Little is known about the reading and recreational habits of black children in the late nineteenth century, but in this story, we learn that they read traditional US history books such as The Pilgrim’s Progress and Line upon Line and fairy tales including “Cinderella,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

  Lee’s message in “Mollie’s Best Christmas Gift” is simple yet profound. It is that Chr
istmas is about the birth of the Christ child and that the best present a child can receive is the Bible, which provides one the opportunity to know and to understand the teachings of Jesus.

  Mollie’s Best Christmas Gift

  Mollie’s parents had been “well-to-do,” and she had always looked forward to Christmas as a day of joy and merriment. She awoke Christmas morning to find her stockings filled or the Christmas tree laden with toys and good things. Among her presents were so many fairy stories, including of course, “Cinderella,” “Puss in Boots,” “Beauty and the Beast,” etc. She also had “Line upon Line” and “Pilgrim’s Progress.” A week before the Christmas in which our story begins, Mollie had been trying to decide in her mind what she would like to get on Christmas as a present. She had almost every kind of toy, so she could think of nothing new that she had not had on previous holidays. She consoled herself with the hope that her parents and friends would think of something new and beautiful. But the circumstances of her parents had changed; her father found himself less able than he had ever been before to provide many presents for the children so he concluded to buy only such things as would be useful.

  Mollie, herself, was somewhat changed from what she had been on other Christmases. She was older now and more thoughtful. She had a restlessness [which she did not understand], a feeling that there was some duty she had neglected, with an undefined desire for something which she might have attained, but had not. Thus she looked forward to Christmas. What was her chagrin when she found that her presents consisted of only a pair of shoes, a dress and a silver dollar! She was so greatly disappointed in receiving what she considered no present—only the things necessary to her comfort, which her father would provide for her at any time—that she hid her face in the folds of her blue merino dress to conceal her tears; then looking around she saw under the mantle a parcel addressed thus “To Mollie from her brother, Joseph.” It contained a book, “The Prince of the House of David.” She began that day to read her book and carefully read it with growing interest in the history day by day. Of course she had long since learned the story of the cross, both at home and at the Sunday school, though she had not felt that she had a personal concern in it. But in reading this book, Jesus of Nazareth appeared to her the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely. Yet she thought the book might not be true. Perhaps, these letters were not written by the Alexandrian maiden, after all. But, she [told herself], “The Bible tells the story. I will read my Testament.” So she began to read the story of Jesus in her Testament as she had never read it before. There was new light upon the pages as she read; light grew lighter and lighter until her heart seemed to run over with love and sympathy for Christ and to melt with shame at her own unworthiness.