The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-11
A VISION OF AFRICA FUMU CHECHECHI LECTURES TO NEGRO AUDIENCE. Predicts a Great Country in Future and Scolds Blacks for Remain
 ing in the United
 States.

|
 United Africa, with territory three times as large as the United States and
 with a hundred million people conquer ing the world was prediction of what the future holds made by Fumu Cheche- chi, a native African, in a lecture at the Columbus Street Negro Baptist Church last night.
 'Tn a hundred years" declared Cheche- chi, Africa will have its one hundred million people with an independent gov- ernment, with It's own navy and own army, and we will conquer the world. The negro conquered the world once. Did you know that? And the Bible says there is nothing new under the sun" | Fumu Chechechi says he is the son of Mohammed Chechechi, native king of Africa. He is touring the South in the | interest of missions and the National Me- gro Commercial Association, which has | for its purpose the removal of the negro to Africa. The lecturer last night allud- ed to missions only incidentally. His | lecture was in the main taken up with the hardships and injustices which the negro was bearing in this country and a glowing account of what awaited him in | the country from which his ancestors came.
 Chechechi was hurt because the news papers in announcing his lecture had de- | scribed him as a negro of midnight black ness. He resented this remark, which he called a criticism, and in talking of it | his face, which is about the complexion of the blackboard behind the pulpit, slowed with indignation.
 The lecture was altogether interesting The speaker is plainly a native of Af- | rica with an education. In his cooler moments his words were we'll chosen and his sentences were well constructed But he has manifest difficulties with the Eng fish language during intervals of excite ment. His years of school and college life have not enable him to make Eng fish @ clear and ready means of commu- nfcation. His ''brogue"-the word is not a good ones but no other word describes 1t so welf-is very similar to the cultural, but almost musical mode of speech of the ante-oellum negro, not one gener- ation removed from African ancestors
 He has the rude eloquence which has been noted as a characteristic of the black man. Fumu Chechechi. whether prince or tribesman, found 1t easy to play upon the fancy and emotion of his African-descended hearers
 | Africa Is a country of mystery" said the lecturer Tt is wrapped in mystery, Explorers have penetrated the country but they have never learned its language or learned its people You have been liv- ing in this country with the white man for 3)0 years. He doesn't know you. He doesn't understand you. That's the req son he fears you"
 He said he knew his name sounded funny, but the names his hearers were entitled to would sound funny if they could hear them in African.
 If you ask an American negro where he got his name he will tell you that he got 1t because his grandfather belonged to so and so," said the lecturer. "The American negro has got no name. no country, no home, no language, no noth- Ing And you read of such things as that Springfield burning tell you the North Is as much hell on the negro as the South The prejudice against the negro Is just as strong in Springfield as it Is in Montgomery"
 Amen" "amen." came heartily from different parts of the church at this statement.
 He secuted the idea that the African language was a dialect. It was. he sand. language of music and beauty. He would speak in African, he said, to show how musical 1t was.
 'The African language Is away up yon- der." he said. "The explorers who have gone there have never learned it. The civilized world looks upon the African language as the fox looked on the grape. |" Great injustices had been done the African tribes. he said, by the writings of
 missionaries and explorers. The people were hospitable. civil and courteous. | Whenever the first white man approach | ed an African village they swept it clean 1 for him. built him a palm leaf shade with
 a seat of honor, and went out on the
 road with an escort to bring him in. l. | had been the case too often that the vlI-
 lagers were robbed of their diamonds,
 their gold and their worries by these frs, 1 white men.
 When the second white men came along | the Africans knew what to expect, and
 they received them with spears in their | hands 1t was this, the lecturer said, | which gave the Africans the reputation | of being savages. He said that he had | travelled all through Africa and he had never seen human burning nor heard of one. nor had he ever heard of a man
 being bound al a stake while other men stuck knives in his body.
 1 Some African negroes are afraid to /, go to Africa because they don't know the language" said the lecturer. But 1t will come to them quick enough. They will be going back home. They will learn African quicker than they would learn English. if they studied until doomsday. | The African language Is built like the negro. It looks funny and is musical"
 In describing the uncivilized tribes, he | said:
 Each man has more than one wife, it | he can support them. But. while they | have more than one wife, 1t Is the GUS l tom to be faithful to them. In this coun- try man has only one wife and the GUS is-well. you know what the custom it" | Whereat his hearers laughed heartily In the unclvilized tribe, he said the men did nothing but fish and hunt, while the women did what little digging there was about the village.
 The condition of the American negro he described thus:
 You are like dog paving and paving all the time with your eye on a bone and the bone gets further and further away from you. You have been doing it for forty years. and you will continue to du 1t until you fall down dead" He did not preach emigration to Africa as thing of today or tomorrow, he said, but he preached it to draw the at- tention of the American negro to that land and have him investigate it. ''rha time has come" said the iecturar