The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1922-12-23
SOME INTERESTING coLoRED
PEOPLE
By DIR. N. A. Majors

The colored people of America not
only lend color to our social life, but
they have added some of our very
richest romance to literature. Filling
for the most part the humble station
around the home such as they have
allotted always as servants. In the lat
ter capacity to the versatile in fiction
or real life taken for the wit and hu-
NOR their presence brings to some
happy situation gilds with thread of
gold running through the literary fab
ric which is woven by the trenchant
pen. Their emphasized simplicity not
TO be found elsewhere may always be
relied on to bring the writer a rich
reward. There are hundreds of dis
tinguished men and women famous as
authors who have reached their high
place in bookdom without as much as
insinuating that there ever existed any
such race as a Negro race. Yet there
are a few who paid especial attention
to breathing into their literary chill
dren the very essence OF the simplicity
OF the old time Negro which has not
only created interest, but helped to
sweeten the tone OF narrative.
Our American citizens are not all
white. Our Negro citizens are not
all of the servant class. Facility and
the progress OF the world has offered
something akin to opportunity to
those who have anxiety to rise above
the commonplace and mediocre. Am
bition and aspiration have in a man
ner come upon the Negro in rather a
paradoxical way. Booker T. Wash
ington as a boy, and Frederick Doug
lass as a boy, both without any thing
such as a precedent looked beyond the
abilities OF our ablest civilization, and
followed thought beyond the distance
OF the farthest star. America, nor
any country has produced more cap
able, and none but a very few more
famous, in spite OF the fact that they
had to overcome the handicap OF be-
ing Negroes, and living in a country
where to be a Negro means a huge
obstruction to defeat stalwart effort,
a hindrance to smoother hopefulness,
where all but faint courage IS disre-
garded and manhood discredited- Yet,
Booker T. Washington and Frederick
Douglass arose to sublime heights,
and their leave-taking from earth
made them "wept, honored and sung"
in all of the newspapers of the world.
1t is hoped the writer may be par
doned If his interest should at times
apparently show extravaganza In the
use of coIorings to paint picture and
should he with chisel in hand before
some darkened slab of marble attempt
to carve lines too perfect for mortal
man; let it be charged rather to a
weakness signifying the wish OF an
anxious heart overweight with SIN
GETTY Iu6I CAuuOA DG A@A6A~N -
Frederick Douglass, when only boy
of eight years of age eyinced spirit to
learn to read. He was born in 1917
so in the year of 1926 his mistress,
the wife of his owner had heart that
answered the call of this little unfor-
tunate black child, and was discovered
one morning teaching him to read He
had seer the white children of the
plantation going to school with books
under their arms, and he regarded It
as very wonderful to learn how to un-
cover the printed thoughts of people
in books. God must have forced this
error to be committed by his mistress
in his case, as such things as reading
and writing, and having knowledge
were incompatible with the slave sys-
tenn. To be a brute or to be treated
brutal was compatible, and this was
what led Frederick Douglass out OF
the house of bondage. He saw this
thing IN its worst worm, suffered IT