The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 57

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

57

him with questions. Presently the chairman said,
‘Go ahead, brother; your time is unlimited’ He
closed after about an hour, declaring that, from his
study and experiments, he believed that with the
sweet potato and the peanut the South, if necessary,
could feed itself, grow fat, and have a surplus for
other parts of the country. When he had finished,
the chairman and the committee gave him a vote
of thanks, and the white Southern peanut pro-
moters who had brought him to Washington as
their spokesman went out elated.” (George E.
Haynes, The Trend of the Races, p.63.) We are
citing this instance to prove that the Negro mind
does not follow slavishly the beaten path of imita-
tion. Here was a man who was demonstrating,
through the discoveries in his laboratory, the high
intellectuality of the Negro.

Recently we listened for an hour and a half,
together with hundreds of other white people, to
Dr. George I. Haynes, Secretary of the Commission
on the Church and Race Relations of the Federal
Council of Churches of Christ in America and until
a short time ago Director of the Bureau of Negro
Economics, Department of Labor, who was setting
forth a sensible program of better race relationship.
In the speaker we had combined all those finer
accomplishments of intellectuality when it is coupled
with a faith in Jesus Christ. We venture to say
that no one who heard this student of sociology and
economics doubted the mental possibilities of the
Negro. Here was one whose ancestors had been
slaves, brought here from Africa, but who proved,
almost within a stone’s throw from the spot where
in 1708 the Quakers of Germantown declared them-
selves against slavery, the mental efficiency of
Negro folk.

A Remarkable Fact.

Last month there died in Concord, N. C., a Lu-
theran Negro at the unusual age of approximately
123 years. We had the privilege of knowing James
Spencer — that was his name — intimately. To us
he was a demonstration of the fact that even where
educational advantages have been lacking, the
Negro evidences fine mental capacity. We can still
hear him reciting, almost without faltering, hymns
that he had learned nearly a century ago, hymns
he had learned by “listening in” at the meetings
of the “white folks.” To these he added, in later
years, some of the beautiful hymns of our Lutheran
Church, such as “O Bleeding Head and Wounded,”
“Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,” which he
learned from hearing them sung in the church ser-
vices, for he had never learned to read. So it is

not hard for us to believe that “many of the
eighteenth century slaves had taken over modern
civilization and had made themselves useful and
skilled laborers, with a knowledge of the ‘modern
languages, the fundamentals of mathematics and
science, and acquaintance with some of the pro-
fessions.” (Zhe Negro in History, p. 41.)

The Sweet Singer of His People.

As a further proof of the mental capacity of the
Negro we desire to mention the name of Paul
Laurence Dunbar, not by any means the only Negro
who has achieved fame in the field of literature,
whose fame as a poet was great both throughout
this country and abroad. Thoroughly original,
characteristically humorous, his poetry evidences
the deepest pathos and sympathy. We here append
those eight exquisite lines of the swan song: —

Because I had loved so deeply,
Beeause I had loved so long,

God in His great compassion
Gave me the gift of song.

Because I have loved so vainly

And sung with such faltering breath,
The Master in infinite mercy

Offers the boon of death.

In this connection we cannot help mentioning
that fine group of Negro Lutheran clergymen and
teachers connected with our Lutheran Church as
splendid examples of mental endowment in the
Negro and the capability of developing it and be-
coming efficient leaders.

Sympathetic Cooperation.

Naturally the scope of this paper and the space
allotted me makes it impossible to cite still more
examples of the intellectual capacity and efficiency
of the Negro. May the few instances brought to
our attention arouse in us at least a desire to come
into contact with the best of Negro citizenship and
to cooperate with this race in its endeavor to attain
a higher development. As Lutherans, as Chris-
tians, it behooves us to bury prejudice and honestly
to try to understand and appreciate the struggle
our colored citizens are making to attain success
in the intellectual field.”

What has been achieved and the possibilities the
future promises “point to the conclusion that it is
not the lack of mental capacity and temperamental
efficiency of the Negro, but the poverty in mental
property, the accumulated knowledge of our times
and freedom to use it, which has made a great
difference between the Negro group and other races.