The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920

The close connection between Dr. Moton and Dr. Booker T. Washington whom he succeeded, is made the important feature of the book. The comradeship of these two men and their cooperation in a common cause stand out as eloquent facts leading the way to the choice of Dr. Moton as the successor of his great friend at Tuskegee. In this he states how he has taken up this unusually hard task and solved the problems which have come his way. The calls upon him for service in other fields requiring his time in all matters touching the uplift of the Negro race show an enlarging usefulness of the man. Among these efforts may be mentioned the work in connection with the National Urban League, the Young Men's Christian Association, the war work movements, and his mission to the colored soldiers in France after the war. On the whole, this story of the direct descendant of an African brought to a tobacco plantation and finally rising to a position of usefulness and honor, is of much value. It not only throws light on the history of that group of which he formed a part in a State considered one of the most important in the Union, but served also as a striking example of the ability of the Negro in spite of all of the handicaps against which he must struggle.

Unwritten History. By Bishop L. J. Coppin. The A. M. E. Book Concern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1920. Pp. 375.

Here we have under this peculiar caption the auto-biography of a man who for a number of years has figured very largely in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In his preface he says that, intermingled with this unwritten history, is the story of his life. He frankly states that it is all from memory with the exception of a number of verifications. The effort toward a thorough biography has not been the objective of the author, for as he states he has merely written down those things that impressed him most and facts that seem to him the most significant among the things to be noted.

The work begins with an account of his birth and boyhood in Frederick Town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where Frederick Douglas was born. There is much information about the life of Frederick Town referring to particular places along the rivers and bays and various persons who figured in the life of these people. Bishop Coppin directs attention to the social, moral and intellectual condition of the State at the time of his birth, giving full account of the religious atmosphere in which he lived and the particular strivings of his oppressed people.

Leaving this phase of the story one finds the book more interesting in that part discussing the events leading up to the Civil War and the rôle which the Negroes played in that drama. The sketch of the situation after the Civil War is equally well set forth because of the increasing power of the author during this period to appreciate and participate in the larger things which concerned the Negro people. His call to the ministry, service in various fields and the election to the bishopric add further interest to the story. How in his travels in this country and abroad men and things impressed him, constitute another value of the autobiography. The book closes with a chapter giving a view of the domestic life of Bishop Coppin, making honorable mention of his family.

For the popular reader this book may appear to be distinctly rough in style and certain details may prove to be tiresome in that the author omitted a good many things that some persons might want to learn and drifted into those things which, by the average reader, may not be considered worth while. On the whole, however, the scientific student will find this autobiography just what it is entitled, Unwritten History. Here is an opportunity to learn of the struggles of a Negro during the period of great handicap and to understand his reaction to what was going on in the world about him. It will be from such biographies that some one in the future will have to write an actual history of the Negro race to set forth exactly what this group has thought and felt and done. A book of this sort, therefore, must have a value. It is to be hoped that other distinguished churchmen and Negroes who have thus touched the life of the race will emulate the example of Bishop Coppin in leaving a written record.

Negro Migration during the War. By Emmett J. Scott, Secretary-Treasurer of Howard University. Oxford University Press, New York, 1920. Pp. 189.

Under the imprint of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Editorship of Professor Kinley, Mr. Emmett J. Scott has brought out a monograph study of Negro Migration during the War, based upon the careful and wisely distributed observation and records of several collaborative agents and agencies. The subject is of too great and too immediate economic and social importance to have waited for the final interpretation as to results or the finer analysis as to causes which must ultimately be given it. The entire series, in fact, modestly styles itself a series of preliminary economic studies; and as such, Volume XVI presents a sanely proportioned, clearly expounded, and systematic survey of the vital and outstanding facts of one of the most significant movements in the recent economic life of America.

Profounder consequences may ensue from this movement of the Negro population, which, though started by war conditions, has by no means halted with the war, than can be realized on superficial observation. In this light, Mr. Scott's diagnosis is as important as his chronicle of the facts. The reaction of the Negro masses away from untoward and repressing social conditions and their awakening to the simple but effective expedient of carrying their labor to better markets, are the significantly new features of the after-war aspects of the Negro problem. Economic adjustment, in most respects automatic—and fortunately so—would be the controlling factor were there not considerable evidence to show that the efficient causes of the movement are social. In which case, as the concluding chapter suggests, better living conditions, a more liberal social attitude, improved interracial feeling will prove to be the only stabilizing remedy. That the South has awakened to the realization of this, and is about to apply to the situation more constructive and well-intentioned effort than hitherto, is the confident belief and optimistic message of the writer.

Reactions and effects of the Exodus upon northern community conditions have not been gone into as thoroughly as the reactions upon conditions in the South; though there is evidence pointing on the whole to salutary effects in both sections. Certainly the study serves to call timely attention without undue alarmist effect to very momentous changes, and should be read by every alert, public-minded citizen.

In such delicate issues, however, facts outweigh opinions. Mr. Scott has wisely struck the balance in favor of a dispassionate recital of facts. It is a positive gain and welcome change of tone in the recent discussion of racial issues to note in this study, as in Carl Sandburg's Chicago Riots, the growing tendency to be objective and to leave conclusions to the intelligence of one's readers. Indeed, since it is facts that are of paramount interest, it is regrettable that, with the great resources of the foundation, more explicit statistics concerning the movement could not have been compiled. It is this aspect of the subject which in consequence calls for further treatment. Without the scientific pretensions, therefore, of Mr. Epstein's intensive study of the Negro migrant or Dr. Woodson's historical survey, the book, as a capable popular treatment of the public questions and social issues involved in the recent migration of the Negro population, serves its own distinctive purpose, and achieves a measure of real public service.

Alain Locke.

NOTES

On the 18th and 19th of November the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History will hold its annual meeting in Washington. This will be a convocation of teachers and scholars throughout the United States, now giving attention to research and instruction in this field. The management of the Association is endeavoring to make this meeting one of the most representative ever assembled.

The purpose of the meeting is to promote the collection of sociological and historical documents, to stimulate studies in this field through clubs and schools, and finally to bring about more harmony between the races by interpreting the one to the other.

The reports of the work accomplished by the Association during the past year will be made, further plans for the more successful prosecution of the work will be devised and a number of instructive addresses will be delivered by some of the most distinguished men of the country.

Among the speakers will be A. B. Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University, Franz Boas, Professor of Ethnology at Columbia University, L. Hollingsworth Wood, President of the Urban League, and Oswald Garrison Villard, the Editor of the Nation. These addresses will cover almost every phase of Negro life and history.

Three important works bearing on the Negro have recently come from the press. Among these are The Voice of the Negro, by Robert T. Kerlin, Professor of English, Virginia Military Institute, published by E. P. Dutton and Company, New York; The Negro Faces America, by Herbert J. Seligman, formerly a member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Times and the New Republic, published by Harper and Brothers, New York; and the Republic of Liberia, being a general description of the Negro republic with its history, commerce, agriculture, flora and fauna, and present methods of administration, by R. C. F. Maugham, Consul General at Monrovia, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Reviews of these books will appear in the next number of the Journal of Negro History.

The United States in Our Times, 1865-1920, by Paul L. Haworth, is the title of a work recently brought out by Charles Scribner's Sons. Covering the period during which the Negroes have had a chance to play a part in freedom, it contains some information and comment which will be mentioned in this publication.

During the academic year 1920-1921 Dr. C. G. Woodson will, in the capacity of Dean, reorganize the College Department of the West Virginia Collegiate Institute. He will endeavor to finish this work during one or two years, at the expiration of which he plans to devote all of his time to research and publication. This new task of the Director will not necessitate any change in the management of the Journal of Negro History. The editorial office will remain in Washington as formerly.

1

In the preparation of this manuscript the following books have been useful: Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South (New York: the Neale Publishing Company, 1914); Benjamin Griffith Brawley, A Short History of the American Negro (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913); Daniel Wallace Culp, Twentieth Century Negro Literature (Naperville, Illinois, J. L. Nichols and Company, 1902); Albert Bushnell Hart, The Southern South (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1912); Mary White Ovington, Half a Man (New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911); William Passmore Pickett, The Negro Problem (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909); Charles Victor Roman, American Civilization and the Negro (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1916); Gilbert Thomas Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1910); Booker T. Washington, My Larger Education (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1911); Booker T. Washington, Working with the Hands (New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1904); Booker T. Washington and W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Negro in the South (Philadelphia: G. W. Jacobs and Company, 1907); Booker T. Washington and others, The Negro Problem (New York: J. Pott and Company, 1903); Willis Duke Weatherford, Negro Life in the South (New York: Young Men's Christian Association Press, 1910); Carter Godwin Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915).

The following articles have also been used: Henry E. Baker, The Negro in the Field of Invention (Journal of Negro History, January, 1917, p. 21); W. H. Baldwin, Jr., The Present Problem of Negro Education (American Journal of Social Science, 37, 1899, p. 52); W. E. Burghardt DuBois, The College Bred Negro (Atlanta University Publications, No. 15, Atlanta, 1910); The Common School and the Negro American (Atlanta University Publications, No. 16, 1911); The School (Atlanta University Publications, No. 14, 1909); Education and Crime Among Negroes (Review of Reviews, 55, 1917, p. 318); Hampton Negro Conference, Annual Report, July, 1899 (Hampton Institute Press, 1889); Higher Education of the Negro (The Nation, 100, 1915, p. 187); George Johnson, Education of the Negro (The Nation, 100, 1915, p. 443); Jesse Lawson, How to Solve the Race Problem (Report of the Washington Conference on the Race Problem in the United States, Washington, D. C., 1904); William Mathews, The Negro Intellect (North American Review, 149, 1889, p. 91); More Testimony on Negro Migration (Survey, July 14, 1917, p. 340); National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 1, November, 1915; Michael E. Sadler, Education of the Colored Race (Great Britain Educational Department, Special Reports of, 1902, Volume II); Charles Dudley Warner, The Education of the Negro (American Journal of Social Science, 38, 1900, p. 1); Booker T. Washington, Fifty Years of Progress (Forum 55, 1916, pp. 269-79); Monroe N. Work, The Negro Year Book (Nashville, Sunday School Union Print, 1915).

2

Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, p. 24.

3

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 104; Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 16.

4

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 104.

5

Washington, My Larger Education, p. 241.

6

Sadler, Gr. Britain Edu. Reports, p. 537.

7

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 16.

8

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 94.

9

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 103.

10

Ibid., p. 102.

11

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 21.

12

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 135.

13

Ibid., 137.

14

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 94.

15

Work, Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 201.

16

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 139.

17

Ibid., p. 141.

18

Ibid., p. 168.

19

Ibid., p. 140.

20

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 22.

21

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 22.

22

Washington, The Negro Problem, p. 19.

23

Stephenson, Race Distinction in American Law, p. 189.

24

Ibid., p. 154.

25

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 20.

26

Ibid., p. 27.

27

Hart, The Southern South, p. 310.

28

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 96.

29

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 108.

30

Ibid., p. 96.

31

Work, Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 223.

32

Baily, Race Orthodoxy, pp. 273-280.

33

Hart, Southern South, p. 324.

34

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 98.

35

Hart, Southern South, p. 294.

36

Washington, My Larger Education, p. 191.

37

Ibid., p. 152.

38

Ibid., p. 146.

39

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 127.

40

Work, The Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 216.

41

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 129.

42

DuBois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 16, p. 128.

43

Brawley, The Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 147

44

Washington, The Negro Problem, p. 20.

45

Ibid., p. 22.

46

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 153.

47

Ibid., p. 142.

48

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 145.

49

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 15, p. 45.

50

Ibid., p. 54.

51

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 15, p. 46.

52

Ibid., p. 28.

53

Ibid., p. 57.

54

Work, The Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 229.

55

Work, The Negro Yearbook, p. 235

56

Washington, Working with the Hands, p. 72.

57

Brawley, History of the Negro, p. 174.

58

Ibid., p. 169.

59

Du Bois, Atlanta U. Pub. No. 14, p. 18.

60

Washington, My Larger Education, p. 310.

61

Ibid., p. 139.

62

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 87.

63

Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South, p. 265.

64

Hart, The Southern South, p. 319.

65

Ibid., p. 326.

66

Ibid., p. 327.

67

Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South, p. 269.

68

Hart, The Southern South, p. 327.

69

Work, Negro Yearbook, 1915, p. 226.

70

Ibid., p. 226.

71

Hart, The Southern South, p. 294.

72

Ibid., p. 292.

73

Washington in the Forum, p. 270.

74

Review of Reviews, p. 318.

75

Review of Reviews, p. 319.

76

Ibid., p. 319.

77

Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, p. 110.

78

Washington and Du Bois, The Negro in the South, p. 64.

79

Ibid., p. 71.

80

Washington, Working with the Hands, p. 239.

81

Washington and Du Bois, The Negro in the South, p. 61.

82

"One of the most assailable laws ever passed by the Congress of the United States … Under this act … the Negro had no chance; the meshes of the law were artfully contrived to aid the master and entrap the slave." Rhodes, History of the United States, I, 185.

83

"A large proportion of the colored persons who have fled from the free states have sought refuge in Canada where they have been received with remarkable kindness and have testified the grateful sense of their reception by their exemplary conduct." American Anti-slavery Society, annual report for 1851, p. 31.

84

Liberator, October 18, 1850.

85

Annual report for 1851, p. 30.

86

A file of this paper for 1851 and 1852 is in the library of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

87

American Missionary Association, Sixth Annual Report, 1852, p. 34.

88

Mitchell, Underground Railroad, p. 113.

89

Liberator, October 4, 1850.

90

Ibid., October 18, 1850.

91

Ibid., October 4, 1850.

92

Ibid., April 25, 1851.

93

Ibid., May 2, 1851.

94

Siebert, Underground Railroad, p. 249.

95

Ibid., p. 249.

96

Stevens, Anthony Burns, a History, p. 208.

97

American Anti-slavery Society, Eleventh Annual Report, 1851, p. 31.

98

The Voice of the Fugitive, April 9, 1851.

99

Cong. Herald, May 13, 1861, quoted in American Missionary Association, 15th annual report, 1861, p. 28. There is evidence that the Fugitive Slave Law was used in some cases to strike fear into the hearts of Negroes in order to cause them to abandon their property. The Liberator of October 25, 1850, quotes the Detroit Free Press to the effect that land speculators have been scaring the Negroes in some places in the north in order to get possession of their properties.

100

American Anti-slavery Society, Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1861, p. 49.

101

In The Liberator of July 30, 1852, a letter from Hiram Wilson, at St. Catharines, says: "Arrivals from slavery are frequent."

102

The Voice of the Fugitive, July 29, 1852.

103

Ibid., July 1, 1852.

104

St. Catharine's Journal, quoted in The Voice of the Fugitive, September 23, 1852.

105

Quoted in The Liberator, September 12, 1851.

106

Liberator, February 14, 1851.

107

The Voice of the Fugitive, August 27, 1851.

108

Quoted in American Anti-slavery Society, Twenty-seventh Report, 1861.

109

American Anti-slavery Society, Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1861, pp. 48-49.