Metropolis weekly gazette. (Metropolis, Ill.) 1???-19??, 1915-09-03
AFRO-AMER|CAN CU[L|NCS

In his 1.-The Education of the Negro
Prior to 1861" putnam 50. c. G. Wood
son says of the sbolitionist agitation
that it excited the more active minded
of the Negroes. The story of Tous-
saint TOuverture and the talk of the
rights of man that followed after the
French revolution we're disturbing In
fuences. 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
hS16 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 we're 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 1t
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 own upward pro-
gression they lifted others, the natural
and efficient form of "uplift."
When in its later phases the coloni-
cation movement centered upon LII
IBERIA its more liberal advocates ia
vored higher education for Negroes in
the hope that enlightenment would
make them so disconnected with the
lot of their race in this land that they
would voluntarily emigrate. In the
South the general feeling among col
onizationists was that the education
should be conditional on expression of
intention to carry 1t 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 school opened at
Parsippany, N j., in 1917 to give a
four-year course to African you'll"
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 desSly eli
mate" kept the institutions Manned
by the colonizationists from material.
izing. At Philadelphia In 1880 con
vention OF the free people of color"
centralized the opposition. There
after the colonizing propaganda in this
country was concentrated upon indi-
vidual cases, and the policy of push
was changed to one of pull; that is to
say. the plan was to make Liberia at.
tractive instead of making the United
States repulsive.
1t was in 1916 that the National
Colonization society of America was
organized. that strange compound OF
sentiment and business. Lieutenant
Stockton made a treaty with native
princes In 1921. The native headmen
themselves were slow to give up their
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When 1t Is realized how far the
Negro has come in the last fifty years
II Is not hard to account for the ex.
tent and degree of confidence in his
future. The census of 1910 shows
That two out of every five persons en-
gagged in gainful occupations In the