The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-10
A SOCIAL QUESTION.

The Negro Problem from Church Stand
point in the South.
Bishop Hugh Miller Thompson. in New Orleans Times
There are quarter of a million of negro chill
| dren in the common schools of Mississippi
| Half million of public money is spent upon
| them yearly. There are also three universities
and one normal school for the education of teach
ers--all State institutions for negroes. And the
negroes am glad to say, are using them. But
in their advance in education this fact is met
that the younger class are becoming disguised
with the old plantation religion, the Voudoc
caricature of Christianity. Some of them are
even calling themselves, in imitation of white
mems conceit sAgnosticsW Now, an ignorant
negro population would be sufficiently danger
Gus population, but what shall we say to semi
educated negro population under the leadership
of men who have thrown off superstition
which they mistook for Christianity only to be-
come atheists
Here are some of the facts about this problem
as they face one in Mississippi am speaking
only of this State, though / believe the same
conditions hold in others. 1t follows that the
negro people are in no need of schools to teach
secular education any more than the whites.
saw, some time since, remark In church pa
per that what the negro wants from the church
is schools. Yes, if the white children OF the
South need the church to teach them reading,
writing and ciphering, SO do the negro children,
but no more There are public schools for
them, and they are filled, and trained colored
teachers in them, too, all over Mississippi.
Neither does the negro want charity. / say it
after considerable acquaintance with the work
ing classes, not only in various parts OF our own
country, but on the Continent and in Great
Britain and Ireland, that no working population
is so well fed, housed and clothed for such
small amount of labor as the negro population
of Mississippi There is absolutely no pauper-
ism and no beggary in the State. There are
white tramps or beggarS at my gate occasion
ally, but never colored l am speaking for my
own State, but say distinctly that any aid
sought for the negro on the ground that his sec
ular educational advantages are not free and.
ample, or that he needs aims for physical neces-
stiles, is sought in misapprehension or for evil
ends.
How, then, does the.problem stand to the
church? We eliminate the need of her provid-
ing secular education for the negro more than
FOR the white as a charity. We eliminate the
need of caring for any pauperism among
working class which produces four seventies of
all the cotton and corn of Mississippi. There is
left just this: Can we teach these people a re-
ligion which will commend itself to the younger
educated class growing into disgust with the
plantation caricature of Christianity, and which
will have the fixity of faith, and the restraint
and training of a lava The problem, it will be
seen is not to convert heather, but to convert
from poor distorted, and barren simulaerum
of Christianity, its nominal professors to the
Catholic faith.
In other words believe the church must
take up her work among the negroes exactly as
she does among other people: by her own exist
ing clergy They will need, as the case now
stands to be gathered into separate congrega-
tons That is necessary in New York as in
Vicksburg or New Orleans They would insist
upon that even more determinedly than white
people-certainly than white people of the
South. But believe the best work yet DONE
and the best work likely to be done among them
is by white clergy
Let me confess that the 600, 900 black Missis-
sippians burden on my conscience and my
h01nf fChf, az hloro nd Onya1f
give 1T a half answer. / must try at it, anyhow.
| may fail But l will never be satisfied till |
try. My plan is to build in Jackson, where the
late Rev. Dr. Crane, and Rev. DR.. Tucker after
him. had Sunday school work for colored peo-
pie, chapel, and school rooms, for night schools
for adults, and perhaps industrial schools, and
put them in charge of white missionary, who
has seen something of such work. / have al
ready received $500 for this purpose, and want
g. 900 more The $500 came quite unexpectedly,
and | am induced to have faith that the other
s., 900 may come equally so. The property at
all events will be safe, belonging to the diocese.