The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-08-11
TIE SONG Of A NEGREss-

\ "A night Or Two dSO a Gin Z
evangelist held forth on one of the
vacant lots in Wichita. After spirit
ed exhortation by the evangelist, the
| inevitable collection, an announce
ment or two of minor consequence, a
young girl came forward TO the front
of the platform, erected in a tent and
lighted by fiaring gasoline torches, and
sang.
She was young and slenderiy girlish
| in form; her face was bright. intelli-
gence and pi1uant, but it had the yell
low caste of the interracial negress-
This young girl sang. At first. in
an effort to accomplish great volume
of sound and accuracy of pnonuncia-
| ton, the voice was not pleasing, but
| later, when moved by the impassiOned
spirit of the song. her voice softened
into mellowing melody. the notes bub-
| bled in globular roundnesS, sweetness
and completeness from her throat and
| trembling there mingled into an exalt-
ing ecstasy. warbling in rapturous
gladness and warm with wOrShipful
fervor.
The crowd. not a select one, not in
evening dress. not in unwrinkled broad
cloth or rustling silk. caught the SUI
preme brilliancy of the performance
and sat enchanted an immovable.
There are singers in tne world. A
Patti is wrapped with anxious care in
costly furS, is bundled into closed
carriage and hurried to the theatre and
before an audience that has paid Il
fortune to listen to one song. A Melba
is guarded in circumscribed diet, pill
lowed like babe at night and dressed
with superlative caution against
chance blasts and unkindly draughts.
An EameS is sent to a foreign land,
drilled with rigorous discipline, taught
for years the intricacieS of the notes of
the scale and is sent home a primma
donna. But none of these may sing
sweeter and purer than the little yell
low girl, who defying blasts and diet
airy precautions and tedious instruc-
tons, enters the big. windy, open tent,
where no admittance in charged,
where no primma donna is expected.
and sings as her Creator has formed
her to sing and as the southern fire
that courses in her veins inspires and
awakens the impassioned genius Of
song, which GOd-given in the tangled
wildS Of Africa, was transported to
America where the drudgery of the
field, the clank of slavery'S chain, the
sting Of expressions lash and the gall
ing injustices and humiliation Of the
brutal block could not stifie one pure
note or rob the negro voice of even a
shading Of its ineffable passion of
music. For it was the black in the
girl that sang, not the white.
By this girls side her father stood
the evangelist. He is a negro. His
talks were sharp and short. His logic
was good; his tenor optimistic. He is
engaged in a good work and he was
happy in it
And yet, thirty years ago this man
was a chattel among the horses, cows,
chickens and dogs of a southern plan
tatiOn. He could be chained, beaten,
bartered at another mans within. To-
day he is free-as free as the air, and
happy; his children are free and happy
and talented, and in this case one
daughter is extraordinarily gifted with
a wonderful voice, a voice whose sweet
influence is not confined to the twilight
sorrow at cabin door on the "MiSsis-
sippi Shore" but voice that has gone
out among men and caused them to
listen and believe that the rhapsody of
song must have God to give it.
This is the condition of one colored
family after thirty years Of freedom;
there are thousands of others like
them, happy. prosperous and content
ed; thousands whose very presence
enShrineS the name Of Abraham Lin
coin in holy light.