Part 13 (1/2)
If I have been of any service to my people, I owe it all to Mr.
Was.h.i.+ngton and to one of the n.o.blest women that ever lived, Mrs. Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton, nee Davidson, both of whom indelibly impressed upon me while attending the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute those lessons which led me to want to spend myself in the helping of my people.
X
UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED Ma.s.sES
BY W. J. EDWARDS
I was born in Snow Hill, Wilc.o.x County, Ala., in the year 1870. My mother died when I was twelve months old. About five or six years after this, perhaps, my father went away from Snow Hill; the next I heard he was dead. Thus at the age of six I was left without father or mother. I was then placed in the care of my old grandmother, who did all that was in her power to send me to the school located near us. Often for weeks I would go to school without anything but bread to eat. Occasionally she could secure a little piece of meat.
I well remember one morning, when I had started to school and she had given me all the meat that we had in the house, how it worried me that she should have nothing left for herself but bread. Worrying over our cramped condition, I resolved that what she did for me should not be thrown away. I longed for the time when I could repay her for all she had done for me.
At the age of twelve it pleased the Almighty G.o.d to take from me my grandmother, my only dependence. I was now left to fight the battle of life alone. I need not tell of the hard times and sufferings that I experienced until I entered school at the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute. But knowing that I was without parents, and being sick most of the time, my hards.h.i.+ps can be imagined.
Through a minister I heard of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Inst.i.tute in the early part of 1888, and so favorably was it recommended that I decided I would rent two acres of land and raise a crop, and take the proceeds and go to Tuskegee the following fall. After paying my rents and other small debts I had $20 left with which to buy my clothes and start for Tuskegee, which I did, starting on the 27th of December, 1888, and arriving at Tuskegee on the first day of January, 1889, with $10. I had walked most of the way. I was at Tuskegee for four and one-half years. I managed to stay there for that length of time by working one day in the week and every other Sat.u.r.day during the term and all of the vacations.
During my Senior year I was helped by Mr. R. O. Simpson, the owner of the plantation on which I was reared. I had trouble that year in deciding just what I should do after graduation. It had been my conviction that I must be a lawyer or a minister. In contemplating the idea of becoming a lawyer, however, I could not see wherein I could carry out the Tuskegee Idea of uplifting the ma.s.ses. The ministerial profession was very little better, since the work of the minister in our section of the country must be limited almost wholly to one denomination. So I finally decided to try to plant an inst.i.tution similar to the Tuskegee School, an undenominational one, in a section of Alabama where such work should be needed. I chose, as my field of labor, Snow Hill, the place from which I had gone to enter school at Tuskegee.
The school is now known as the Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Inst.i.tute, and is located in the very center of the ”Black Belt” of the State of Alabama. This is a much-used term; it is not applicable, however, to every Southern State, neither does it apply to every county in any one State. It is only to certain counties in certain States to which it may properly be applied. Wilc.o.x and the seven adjoining counties const.i.tute one of these sections in Alabama. The latest census shows that these eight counties have a colored population of 201,539, and a white population of 69,915.
Alabama has sixty-seven counties, with a total colored population of 827,307. Thus it will be seen that one-eighth of the counties contain one-fourth of the entire colored population. Because the colored people outnumber the white people in such great proportion, this is called the ”Black Belt” of the State. These counties lie in the valley of the Alabama River, and const.i.tute the most fertile section of the State.
During the early settlement of the State, white men coming into these fertile counties not only would settle as much land as a family of four or five in number could cultivate, but as much as they were able to buy Negroes to cultivate. Quite a few families with only five or six in number would have land enough to work from 100 to 1,000 Negroes. One can see from this how a few white families would, as they often did, own a whole county. Now the Negro is not migratory in his nature; having been brought to these counties during slavery, he has remained here in freedom. He is not, therefore, primarily responsible for his being here in such great numbers. These white families settled in little villages seven or eight miles apart. The distances between were made up of their plantations, on which were thousands of slaves. Only a few Negroes were employed as domestics in comparison with the great numbers who worked on plantations. It was only these few who, in learning to serve the white man, properly got a glimpse of real home life. The ma.s.ses had absolutely no idea of such a life; nothing was done that would lead them to secure any such knowledge.
Since their emanc.i.p.ation the ma.s.ses of these people have had neither competent preachers nor teachers; consequently most of them have remained hopelessly ignorant even until this day. One hearing the great condemnation heaped upon the Negro in these sections for his failure to measure up to the standards of true citizens.h.i.+p and to proper standards of life would get the idea that the proud Anglo-Saxon has spent a great deal of time in trying to teach him the fundamental principles that underlie life; but this is not the case. There are exceptions to all rules, however, and here and there one may find n.o.ble and patriotic white men laboring for the uplift of fallen humanity without regard to race, color, or previous condition.
During the summer of 1893, after returning from Tuskegee, being anxious to learn more of the real condition of our people in the ”Black Belt,” I visited most of the places in Wilc.o.x County and a few places in the counties of Monroe, Butler, Dallas, and Lowndes, making the entire journey on foot.
It was a bright and beautiful morning in June when I started from my home, a log cabin. More than two hundred Negroes were in the near-by fields plowing corn, hoeing cotton, and singing those beautiful songs often referred to as plantation melodies. Notably, I am Going to Roll in my Jesus' Arms; O Freedom! Before I'd be a Slave I'd be Carried to My Grave, etc., may be mentioned. With the beautiful fields of corn and cotton outstretched before me, and the s.h.i.+mmering brook like a silver thread twining its way through the golden meadows, and then through verdant fields, giving water to thousands of creatures as it pa.s.sed, I felt that the earth was truly clothed in His beauty and the fulness of His glory.
But I had scarcely gone beyond the limits of the field when I came to a thick undergrowth of pines. Here we saw old pieces of timber and two posts.
”This marks the old cotton-gin house,” said Uncle Jim, my companion, and then his countenance grew sad; after a sigh he said: ”I have seen many a Negro whipped within an inch of his life at these posts. I have seen them whipped so badly that they had to be carried away in wagons. Many never did recover.”
From this our road led first up-hill, then down, and finally through a stretch of woods until we reached Carlowville. This was once the most aristocratic village of the southern part of Dallas County. Perhaps no one who owned less than a hundred slaves was able to secure a home within its borders. Here still are to be seen the stately mansions of the Lydes, the Lees, the Wrumphs, the Bibbses, the Youngbloods, and the Reynoldses. Many of these mansions have been partly rebuilt and remodeled to conform to modern styles of architecture, while others have been deserted and are now fast decaying. Usually these mansions are occupied by others than the original families. The original families have sold out or have died out.
In Carlowville stands the largest white church in Dallas or Wilc.o.x Counties. It has a seating capacity of 1,000, excluding the balcony, which, during slavery, was used exclusively for the Negroes of the families attending.
Our stay in Carlowville was necessarily short, as the evening sun was low and the nearest place for lodging was two miles ahead. Before reaching this place we came to a large one-room log cabin, 30 feet by 36 feet, on the road-side, with a double door and three holes for windows cut in the sides. There was no chimney nor anything to show that the room could be heated in cold weather. This was the Hope-well Baptist Church. Here 500 members congregated one Sunday in each month and spent the entire day in eating, shouting, and ”praising G.o.d for His goodness toward the children of men.” Here also the three months' school was taught during the winter. A few hundred yards beyond this church brought us to the home of a Deacon Jones.
He was living in the house occupied by the overseer of the plantation during slavery. It was customary for Deacon Jones to care for strangers who chanced to come into the community, especially for the preachers and teachers. So here we found rest.
His family consisted of himself, his wife, and six children--two boys and four girls. Mrs. Jones was noted for her ability to prepare food well, and in a short while invited us to a delicious supper of fried chicken, fried ham, some very fine home-made sugar-cane sirup, and an abundance of milk and b.u.t.ter. At supper Deacon Jones told of the many preachers he had entertained and their fondness for chicken.
After supper I spent some time in trying to find out the real condition of the people in this section. Mr. Jones told me how, for ten years, he had been trying to buy some land, and had been kept from it more than once, but that he was still hopeful of getting the right deeds for the land for which he had paid. He also told of many families who had recently moved into this community. These newcomers had made a good start for the year and had promising crops, but they were compelled to mortgage their growing crops in order to get ”advances” for the year.
When asked of the schools, he said that there were more than five hundred children of school age in his towns.h.i.+p, but not more than two hundred of these had attended school the previous winter, and most of these for a period not longer than six weeks. He also said that the people were very indifferent as to the necessity of schoolhouses and churches. Quite a few who cleared a little money the previous year had spent it all in buying whisky, in gambling, in buying cheap jewelry, and for other useless articles. After spending two hours in such talk I retired for the evening. Thus ended the first day of my search for first-hand information.
We had a fine night's rest. Mr. Jones was up at early dawn to feed his horses and cattle, and before the sun was up he was out on his farm.