Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1924-05-31

i IOTmlly Will uCl 1AO0O0I "a NAAASN'
When communion was administered
she waited until the last group had
communed, and then she advanced aad
knelt at the very end of the rail-be'
cause she had her own pride. And
priests and bishops, because she had
known bishops when they were boys IN
the church, offered her the elements
with a very gentle pride-because she
had her own pride. When practical
work was afoot in her church, Belle
Mason was one of the devoted women
who remained out of view and did the
Inlovely tasks that must be done. Cap
able and tireless she worked side by
side with the women whose fathers or
brothers or husbands bore the names
that had been handed down in the YES
try for years.
To this day, hundreds of men IN
Richmond whom she still called "Mr.
John" or "Mr. Thomas" because she
had known their mothers before they
were born, look back and remember
how they were taught as little boys to
respect that quiet colored woman VINO
sat in the gallery at st. James. After
they had grown little older, they did
not need to be taught: they felt, they
sensed that the quiet, reverent woman
In the gallery at ST. James represent
ed a simple, unquestioning piety which
they could only hope to attain ana
which leveled all differences and all
distinctions except those she set up
because she had her own pride.
1t is gratifying information to know
that she sat in the gallery on her oIT1
motion and not on account of any rule
of ST. James Protestant Episcopal
Church. 1t brought to mind scene we
witnessed in the First Presbyterian
Church of this city where several coll
ored communicates of the darker hue
still hold forth, not in the gallery, but
in a part set aside for them on the
main floor, in the main auditorium or
the Church. They too are faithful and
it is on the motion of the white COM
municants that they still remain as
relic of by-gone days, before any color
ed Presbyterian Church had been estaO
lished here.
The white people aided in the erect
ion of a colored Presbyterian Church
and placed in charge an accomplished
colored rector, but they did not suggest
or intimate to these devoted colored
people that they leave the white
church and worship with their own PEG
pie and there they remain today One
of the colored communicates died in
humble circumstances. White pail
bearers bore her remains tenderly to
their last resting place and the white
rector said the last words over this
humble comElun. ant, who had gene
the way of all the earth. Colored PEG
pie of the type of Belle Mason, the
Episcopalian and the colored woman,
the Presbyterian, were raised with the
best white people of Virginia and train
ed in their manners and customs.
They are modest and unassumine
and above all things know just how to
conduct themselves so as not to offend
the white people of the Southland.
| but rather to be a source of pleasure
| to them in every movement they make,
indicative of the good manners that
have come down to them through the
century. 1t is the new Negro. the in
sulting elements that cause the trouble
I, and strain the tender relationship now
existing between the better class Of
white and colored people Of the South
| land. On the other hand. it is the in.
I sulting. lawless, poor white element,
some of whom have attained riches,
| who are doing the same thing on the
other side: 80 W l'ff%t' seEE's 4
But God in His own time will regis
ter a change. The Richmond Times
| Dispatch concludes:
When our brothers in the North
! speak Of our intolerance, we wish they
could have seen Belle Mason as she sat
in the gallery at st. James or knelt at
the communion rail, and that they
could hear men in Richmond, proud
of their descent, speak in hushed and
reverential voice of Belle Mason, col
! ored woman who sat in the gallery at
St. James and faithfully followed the
| admiration chased over the chancel:
BE ye doors of the Word, and not hear
ers only"
We commend these remarks to our
people and heartily endorse all that
was said with the suggestion that they
I also recommend that they be read by
! that news writer, who offended the
tender sensibilities of the white and
colored friends and admirers Of that
angelic character, Belle Mason, by writ
ing in the news columns of the Times
Dispatch, the epitaph. Z: A Respected
| Negress Dies" instead Of following the
lines Of the news-article and announce
simply that the only colored commune
| cant of st. James Protestant Episco'
pal Church had gone the way of all
the earth. o, the pity of it!