The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-08-21
AFRO-AMER|CAN CULL|NCS


In his 1.-THE Education of the Negro
Prior to 1861" Putnam's). c. G. Wood
son says of the abolitionist agitation
that it excited the more active minded
of the Negroes. = Ie story of Tous-
saint lOuverture and the talk of the
rights of man that followed after the
French revolution were disturbing in
fluences. About Baltimore, Norfolk,
Charleston and New Orleans insurrec-
%tionary ideas were spread by Negroes
coming from unhappy Santo Domingo
in 1893. In 1900 General" Gabriel, a
slave, led an uprising in Virginia, and
there was one in South Carolina. In
1916 Camden and in 1922 Charleston
were threatened by Negro plots. Den
mark Vesey, a slave who had bought
his freedom, was an arch-conspirator.
There were uprisings, more or less
extensive, in North Carolina, and in
1881 Nat Turner's mad raid spread ter
ror among the white folks of South
ampton county, Virginia.
While these disorders were going
on, however, the elementary education
of the mass of the colored population
was proceeding quietly. That it
should do so was simply inevitable. In
Vulnerable cases are cited of slaves,
intelligent and ambitious and not at all
inclined to political rebellion or an
archy, who learned to read and write
and make good use of those funda-
mental acquisitions in advancing
themselves along the road to higher"
learning. In their W upward pro-
gression they lifted others, the natural
and efficient form of "uplift."
When in its later phases the coloni-
cation movement centered upon Ii
IBERIA its more liberal advocates ia
voTed higher education for Negroes in
the hope that enlightenment would
make them so discontinued with the
lot of their race in this land that they
would voluntarily emigrate. In the
South the general feeling among col
o~niZationists was that the education
should be conditional on expression of
intention to carry it away from the
American Negro. The promoters of
the scheme planned to educate young
Negroes in mechanic arts, agricul-
ture, science and Biblical literature"
while the exceptionally bright ones
were to be fitted for professional life
and for public office. A curious museum
of antiquities is the result of this in
vestigatiOn; from a school opened at
Parsippany, n. j., in 1917 to give a
four-year course to African youth"
of talent, discretion and piety" and
similar efforts at Newark, N. j., and
Hartford, Conn, to the African Educa-
ton society and the scramble for the
"Kosciuszko fund" that seems never
to have existed but in the Imagination
of the colonizationists.
Unyielding opposition of free Ne
groes and abolitionists, who could see
no philanthropy in educating persons
to prepare for doom in a deadly eli
mate kept the institutions planned
by the colonizationists from material
izing. At Philadelphia in 1880 a con
vention of the free people of color
centralized the opposition. There
after the c~olonizing propaganda in this
NOullll "oo NohNNANA oNCA uPOh AlI
vidual cases, and the policy of push
was changed to one of pull; that is tc
say, the plan was to make Liberia at
t~ractive instead of making the United
States repulsive.
1t was in 1916 that the National
Colonization society of America was
organized, that strange compound Of
r1ntfnonpt ,na h,.tna,1 oraa,
Stockton made a treaty with native
princes in 1921. The native headmeI
themselves were slow to give up theil
When it is realized how far tn,
Negro has come in the last fifty year
it is not hard to account for the ex
tent and degree of confidence in hi
future, The census of 1910 show
that two out of every five persons en-
gagged in gainful occupations in tn
16 southern states are Negroes. o
the entire Negro population in thes
states SO per cent are in some forn
Of industrial occupation. OF all tn
Negroes engaged in industrial activ
ties 60 per cent are agricultural work
ers. Something like a million Negroe
have developed from agricultural Ia
borers to farmers in so years.
The efforts of the colored man I
help himself have been strongly in hi
favor, for they have inspired the col
fidence of the white people and mad
a plan of cooperation between tn
two much easier than 1t would othe
wise have been. Because of this ne
valuation of the agricultural or indu
trial Negro there has come a true
appreciation of the human qualities II
volved.
There has been the feeling that tn
fine qualities in the character Of tn
faithful slave were the fruitage
Signor Marconi has been ~inspecti1
the wireless stations Of Italy, and ht
found them ready for any war enc
gency.
The erection of two universities, OF
at Cape Town and the other at Pr
toria, is being urged by a governme
commission.
1t is all right for a woman to pI
tend her dinner was a failure, but