The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States Part 5

What kind of Negroes do the American people want? That they must have the Negro in some relation is no longer a question of serious debate. What kind of Negroes do the American people want? Do they want a voteless Negro in a republic founded upon universal suffrage? Do they want a Negro who shall not be permitted to partic.i.p.ate in the government which he must support with his treasure and defend with his blood? Do they want a Negro who shall consent to be set aside as forming a distinct industrial cla.s.s, permitted to rise no higher than the level of serfs or peasants? Do they want a Negro who shall accept an inferior social position, not as a degradation, but as the just operation of the laws of caste based on color? Do they want a Negro who will avoid friction between the races by consenting to occupy the place to which white men may choose to a.s.sign him? What kind of a Negro do the American people want?

... Taught by the Declaration of Independence, sustained by the Const.i.tution of the United States, enlightened by the education of our schools, this nation can no more resist the advancing tread of the hosts of the oncoming blacks than it can bind the stars or halt the resistless motion of the tide.[3]

[Footnote 3: Quoted from "Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence," 314-5.]

Two men, by reason of great natural endowment, a fitting appreciation of great occasions, and the consistency with which they produced their effects, have won an undisputed place in any consideration of American orators. These men were Frederick Dougla.s.s and Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton.

Frederick Dougla.s.s was born in 1817 and lived for ten years as a slave upon a Maryland plantation. Then he was bought by a Baltimore s.h.i.+pbuilder. He learned to read, and, being attracted by "The Lady of the Lake," when he escaped in 1838 and went disguised as a sailor to New Bedford, Ma.s.s., he adopted the name _Douglas_ (spelling it with two _s's_, however). He lived for several years in New Bedford, being a.s.sisted by Garrison in his efforts for an education. In 1841, at an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, he exhibited such intelligence, and showed himself the possessor of such a remarkable voice, that he was made the agent of the Ma.s.sachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He now lectured extensively in England and the United States, and English friends raised 150 to enable him regularly to purchase his freedom. For some years before the Civil War he lived in Rochester, N.Y., where he published a paper, _The North Star_, and where there is now a public monument to him. Later in life he became Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia, and then Minister to Hayti. At the time of his death in 1895 Dougla.s.s had won for himself a place of unique distinction. Large of heart and of mind, he was interested in every forward movement for his people; but his charity embraced all men and all races. His reputation was international, and to-day many of his speeches are to be found in the standard works on oratory.

Mr. Chesnutt has admirably summed up the personal characteristics of the oratory of Dougla.s.s. He tells us that "Dougla.s.s possessed, in large measure, the physical equipment most impressive in an orator. He was a man of magnificent figure, tall, strong, his head crowned with a ma.s.s of hair which made a striking element of his appearance. He had deep-set and flas.h.i.+ng eyes, a firm, well-moulded chin, a countenance somewhat severe in repose, but capable of a wide range of expression. His voice was rich and melodious, and of carrying power."[4] Dougla.s.s was distinctly dignified, eloquent, and majestic; he could not be funny or witty. Sorrow for the slave, and indignation against the master, gave force to his words, though, in his later years, his oratory became less and less heavy and more refined. He was not always on the popular side, nor was he always exactly logical; thus he incurred much censure for his opposition to the exodus of the Negro from the South in 1879. For half a century, however, he was the outstanding figure of the race in the United States.

[Footnote 4: "Frederick Dougla.s.s," 107-8.]

Perhaps the greatest speech of his life was that which Dougla.s.s made at Rochester on the 5th of July, 1852. His subject was "American Slavery,"

and he spoke with his strongest invective. The following paragraphs from the introduction will serve to ill.u.s.trate his fondness for interrogation and biblical phrase:

Pardon me, and allow me to ask, Why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout grat.i.tude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that had wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.[5]

[Footnote 5: Quoted from Williams, II, 435-6.]

The years and emanc.i.p.ation and the progress of his people in the new day gave a more hopeful tone to some of the later speeches of the orator. In an address on the 7th of December, 1890, he said:

I have seen dark hours in my life, and I have seen the darkness gradually disappearing, and the light gradually increasing. One by one I have seen obstacles removed, errors corrected, prejudices softened, proscriptions relinquished, and my people advancing in all the elements that make up the sum of general welfare. I remember that G.o.d reigns in eternity, and that, whatever delays, disappointments, and discouragements may come, truth, justice, liberty, and humanity will prevail.[6]

[Footnote 6: Quoted from Foreword in "In Memoriam: Frederick Dougla.s.s."]

Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton was born about 1858, in Franklin County, Virginia.

After the Civil War his mother and stepfather removed to Malden, W. Va., where, when he became large enough, he worked in the salt furnaces and the coal mines. He had always been called Booker, but it was not until he went to a little school at his home and found that he needed a surname that, on the spur of the moment, he adopted _Was.h.i.+ngton_. In 1872 he worked his way to Hampton Inst.i.tute, where he paid his expenses by a.s.sisting as a janitor. Graduating in 1875, he returned to Malden and taught school for three years. He then attended for a year Wayland Seminary in Was.h.i.+ngton (now incorporated in Virginia Union University in Richmond), and in 1879 was appointed an instructor at Hampton. In 1881 there came to General Armstrong, princ.i.p.al of Hampton Inst.i.tute, a call from the little town of Tuskegee, Ala., for someone to organize and become the princ.i.p.al of a normal school which the people wanted to start in that place. He recommended Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, who opened the school on the 4th of July in an old church and a little shanty, with an attendance of thirty pupils. In 1895 Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton came into national prominence by a remarkable speech at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, and after that he interested educators and thinking people generally in the working out of his ideas of practical education. He was the author of several books along lines of industrial education and character-building, and in his later years only one or two other men in America could rival his power to attract and hold great audiences.

Harvard University conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts in 1896, and Dartmouth that of Doctor of Laws in 1901. He died in 1915.

In the course of his career Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton delivered hundreds of addresses on distinguished occasions. He was constantly in demand at colleges and universities, great educational meetings, and gatherings of a civic or public character. His Atlanta speech is famous for the so-called compromise with the white South: "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." On receiving his degree at Harvard in 1896, he made a speech in which he emphasized the fact that the welfare of the richest and most cultured person in New England was bound up with that of the humblest man in Alabama, and that each man was his brother's keeper. Along somewhat the same line he spoke the next year at the unveiling of the Robert Gould Shaw Monument in Boston. At the Chicago Peace Jubilee in 1898 he reviewed the conduct of the Negro in the wars of the United States, making a powerful plea for justice to a race that had always chosen the better part in the wars of the country. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton delivered many addresses, but he never really surpa.s.sed the feeling and point and oratorical quality of these early speeches. The following paragraph from the Atlanta speech will ill.u.s.trate his power of vivid and apt ill.u.s.tration:

A s.h.i.+p lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and a fourth signal for water was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are"--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.[7]

[Footnote 7: Quoted from "Story of My Life and Work," 165-6.]

The power to realize with fine feeling the possibilities of an occasion may be ill.u.s.trated from the speech at Harvard:

If through me, an humble representative, seven millions of my people in the South might be permitted to send a message to Harvard--Harvard that offered up on death's altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell, and scores of others, that we might have a free and united country--that message would be, Tell them that the sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming up. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up--often through oppression, unjust discrimination and prejudice, but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and property, there is no power on earth that can permanently stay our progress.[8]

[Footnote 8: Quoted from "Story of My Life and Work," 210-11.]

The eloquence of Dougla.s.s differed from that of Was.h.i.+ngton as does the power of a gifted orator differ from the force of a finished public speaker. The one was subjective; the other was objective. Dougla.s.s swayed his audience, and even himself, by the sweep of his pa.s.sion and rhetoric; Was.h.i.+ngton studied every detail and weighed every word, always keeping in mind the final impression to be made. Dougla.s.s was an idealist, impatient for the day of perfect fruition; Was.h.i.+ngton was an opportunist, making the most of each chance as it came. The one voiced the sorrows of the Old Testament, and for the moment produced the more tremendous effect; the other longed for the blessing of the New Testament and spoke with lasting result. Both loved their people and each in his own way worked as he could best see the light. By his earnestness each in his day gained a hearing; by their sincerity both found a place in the oratory not only of the Negro but of the world.

IX

THE STAGE

In no other field has the Negro with artistic aspirations found the road so hard as in that of the cla.s.sic drama. In spite of the far-reaching influence of the Negro on American life, it is only within the last two years that this distinct racial element has begun to receive serious attention. If we pa.s.s over Oth.e.l.lo as professedly a Moor rather than a Negro, we find that the Negro, as he has been presented on the English or American stage, is best represented by such a character as Mungo in the comic opera, "The Padlock," on the boards at Drury Lane in 1768.

Mungo is the slave of a West Indian planter; he becomes profane in the second act and sings a burlesque song. Here, as elsewhere, there was no dramatic or sympathetic study of the race. Even Uncle Tom was a conventional embodiment of patience and meekness rather than a highly individualized character.

On the legitimate stage the Negro was not wanted. That he could succeed, however, was shown by such a career as that of Ira Aldridge. This distinguished actor, making his way from America to the freer life of Europe, entered upon the period of his greatest artistic success when, in 1833, at Covent Garden, he played Oth.e.l.lo to the Iago of Edmund Kean, the foremost actor of the time. He was universally ranked as a great tragedian. In the years 1852-5 he played in Germany. In 1857 the King of Sweden invited him to visit Stockholm. The King of Prussia bestowed upon him a first-cla.s.s medal of the arts and sciences. The Emperor of Austria complimented him with an autograph letter; the Czar of Russia gave him a decoration, and various other honors were showered upon him.

Such is the n.o.blest tradition of the Negro on the stage. In course of time, however, because of the new blackface minstrelsy that became popular soon after the Civil War, all a.s.sociation of the Negro with the cla.s.sic drama was effectively erased from the public mind. Near the turn of the century some outlet was found in light musical comedy.

Prominent in the transition from minstrelsy to the new form were Bob Cole and Ernest Hogan; and the representative musical comedy companies have been those of Cole and Johnson, and Williams and Walker. Bert Williams is to-day generally remarked as one of the two or three foremost comedians on the American stage. Even musical comedy, however, is not so prominent as it was ten years ago, by reason of the compet.i.tion of vaudeville and moving-pictures; and any representation of the Negro on the stage at the present time is likely to be either a burlesque, or, as in such pictures as those of "The Birth of a Nation,"

a deliberate and malicious libel on the race.

In different ones of the Negro colleges, however, and elsewhere, are there those who have dreamed of a true Negro drama--a drama that should get away from the minstrelsy and the burlesque and honestly present Negro characters face to face with all the problems that test the race in the crucible of American civilization. The representative inst.i.tutions give frequent amateur productions, not only of cla.s.sical plays, but also of sincere attempts at the faithful portrayal of Negro character. In even wider fields, however, is the possibility of the material for serious dramatic treatment being tested. In the spring of 1914 "Granny Maumee," by Ridgely Torrence, a New York dramatist, was produced by the Stage Society of New York. The part of Granny Maumee was taken by Dorothy Donnelly, one of the most emotional and sincere of American actresses; two performances were given, and Carl Van Vechten, writing of the occasion in the New York _Press_, said: "It is as important an event in our theater as the first play by Synge was to the Irish movement." Another experiment was "Children," by Guy Bolton and Tom Carlton, presented by the Was.h.i.+ngton Square Players in March, 1916, a little play in which a mother shoots her son rather than give him up to a lynching party. In April, 1917, "Granny Maumee," with two other short plays by Mr. Torrence, "The Rider of Dreams," and "Simon the Cyrenian," was again put on the stage in New York, this time with a company of colored actors, prominent among whom were Opal Cooper and Inez Clough. This whole production, advertised as "the first colored dramatic company to appear on Broadway," was under the patronage of Mrs.

Norman Hapgood and the direction of Robert Edmond Jones, and its success was such as to give hopes of much greater things in the future.

Three or four other representative efforts within the race itself in the great field of the drama must be remarked. One of the most sincere was "The Exile," written by E. C. Williams, and presented at the Howard Theater in Was.h.i.+ngton, May 29, 1915, a play dealing with an episode in the life of Lorenzo de Medici. The story used is thoroughly dramatic, and that part of the composition that is in blank verse is of a notable degree of smoothness. "The Star of Ethiopia," by Dr. DuBois, was a pageant, elaborately presented. Originally produced in New York in 1913, it also saw performances in Was.h.i.+ngton and Philadelphia. The spring of 1916 witnessed the beginning of the work of the Edward Sterling Wright Players, of New York. This company used the legitimate drama and made a favorable impression, especially by its production of "Oth.e.l.lo." At present special interest attaches to the work of the Lafayette Players in New York, who have already made commendable progress in the production of popular plays.

The field is comparatively new. It is, however, one peculiarly adapted to the ability of the Negro race, and at least enough has been done so far to show that both Negro effort in the cla.s.sic drama and the serious portrayal of Negro life on the stage are worthy of respectful consideration.

X

PAINTERS.--HENRY O. TANNER

Painting has long been a medium through which the artistic spirit of the race yearned to find expression. As far back as in the work of Phillis Wheatley there is a poem addressed to "S. M." (Scipio Moorhead), "a young African painter," one of whose subjects was the story of Damon and Pythias. It was a hundred years more, however, before there was really artistic production. E. M. Bannister, whose home was at Providence, though little known to the younger generation, was very prominent forty years ago. He gathered about himself a coterie of artists and rich men that formed the nucleus of the Rhode Island Art Club, and one of his pictures took a medal at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. William A.

Harper, who died in 1910, was a product of the Chicago Art Inst.i.tute, at whose exhibitions his pictures received much favorable comment about 1908 and 1910. On his return from his first period of study in Paris his "Avenue of Poplars" took a prize of one hundred dollars at the Inst.i.tute. Other typical subjects were "The Last Gleam," "The Hillside,"

and "The Gray Dawn." Great hopes were awakened a few years ago by the landscapes of Richard L. Brown; and the portrait work of Edwin A.

Harleston is destined to become better and better known. William E.

Scott, of Indianapolis, is becoming more and more distinguished in mural work, landscape, and portraiture, and among all the painters of the race now working in this country is outstanding. He has spent several years in Paris. "La Pauvre Voisine," accepted by the Salon in 1912, was afterwards bought by the Argentine government. A second picture exhibited in the Salon in 1913, "La Misere," was reproduced in the French catalogue and took first prize at the Indiana State Fair the next year. "La Connoisseure" was exhibited in the Royal Academy in London in 1913. Mr. Scott has done the mural work in ten public schools in Chicago, four in Indianapolis, and especially was he commissioned by the city of Indianapolis to decorate two units in the city hospital, this task embracing three hundred life-size figures. Some of his effects in coloring are very striking, and in several of his recent pictures he has emphasized racial subjects.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY O. TANNER]

The painter of a.s.sured fame and commanding position is Henry Ossawa Tanner.

The early years of this artist were a record of singular struggle and sacrifice. Born in Pittsburgh in 1859, the son of a minister of very limited means, he received his early education in Philadelphia. For years he had to battle against uncertain health. In his thirteenth year, seeing an artist at work, he decided that he too would become a painter, and he afterwards became a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. While still a very young man, he attempted drawings of all sorts and sent these to various New York publishers, only to see them promptly returned. A check, however, for forty dollars for one that did not return encouraged him, and a picture, "A Lion at Home," from the exhibition of the Academy of Design, brought eighty dollars. He now became a photographer in Atlanta, Ga., but met with no real success; and for two years he taught drawing at Clark University in Atlanta. In this period came a summer of struggle in the mountains of North Carolina, and the knowledge that a picture that had originally sold for fifteen dollars had brought two hundred and fifty dollars at an auction in Philadelphia. Desiring now to go to Europe, and being encouraged by Bishop and Mrs. Hartzell, the young painter gave in Cincinnati an exhibition of his work. The exhibition failed; not a picture was regularly sold. Bishop and Mrs. Hartzell, however, gave the artist a sum for the entire collection, and thus equipped he set sail for Rome, January 4, 1891, going by way of Liverpool and Paris.

In the story of his career that he contributed to the _World's Work_ some years ago, Mr. Tanner gave an interesting account of his early days in Paris. Acquaintance with the great French capital induced him to abandon thoughts of going to Rome; but there followed five years of pitiless economy, broken only by a visit to Philadelphia, where he sold some pictures. He was encouraged, however, by Benjamin Constant and studied in the Julien Academy. In his early years he had given attention to animals and landscape, but more and more he was drawn towards religious subjects. "Daniel in the Lions' Den" in the Salon in 1896 brought "honorable mention," the artist's first official recognition. He was inspired, and very soon afterwards he made his first visit to Palestine, the land that was afterwards to mean so much to him in his work. "The Resurrection of Lazarus," in 1897, was bought by the French government, and now hangs in the Luxembourg. The enthusiasm awakened by this picture was so great that a friend wrote to the painter at Venice: "Come home, Tanner, to see the crowds behold your picture."

After twenty years of heart-breaking effort Henry Tanner had become a recognized artist. His later career is a part of the history of the world's art. He won a third-cla.s.s medal at the Salon in 1897, a second-cla.s.s medal in 1907, second-cla.s.s medals at the Paris Exposition in 1900, at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901, and at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, a gold medal at San Francisco in 1915, the Walter Lippincott Prize in Philadelphia in 1900, and the Harris Prize of five hundred dollars, in 1906, for the best picture in the annual exhibition of American paintings at the Chicago Art Inst.i.tute.

Mr. Tanner's later life has been spent in Paris, with trips to the Far East, to Palestine, to Egypt, to Algiers, and Morocco. Some years ago he joined the colony of artists at Trepied, where he has built a commodious home and studio. Miss MacChesney has described this for us: "His studio is an ideal workroom, being high-ceilinged, s.p.a.cious, and having the least possible furniture, utterly free from ma.s.ses of useless studio stuff and paraphernalia. The walls are of a light gray, and at one end hangs a fine tapestry. Oriental carved wooden screens are at the doors and windows. Leading out of it is a small room having a domed ceiling and picturesque high windows. In this simply furnished room he often poses his models, painting himself in the large studio, the sliding door between being a small one. He can often make use of lamplight effects, the daylight in the larger room not interfering." Within recent years the artist has kept pace with some of the newer schools by brilliant experimentation in color and composition. Moonlight scenes appeal to him most. He seldom paints other than biblical subjects, except perhaps a portrait such as that of the Khedive or Rabbi Wise. A landscape may attract him, but it is sure to be idealized. He is thoroughly romantic in tone, and in spirit, if not in technique, there is much to connect him with Holman Hunt, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. In fact he long had in mind, even if he has not actually worked out, a picture ent.i.tled, "The Scapegoat."

"The Annunciation," as well as "The Resurrection of Lazarus," was bought by the French government; and "The Two Disciples at the Tomb" was bought by the Chicago Art Inst.i.tute. "The Bagpipe Lesson" and "The Banjo Lesson" are in the library at Hampton Inst.i.tute. Other prominent t.i.tles are: "Christ and Nicodemus," "Jews Waiting at the Wall of Solomon,"

"Stephen Before the Council," "Moses and the Burning Bush," "The Mothers of the Bible" (a series of five paintings of Mary, Hagar, Sarah, Rachel, and the mother of Moses, that marked the commencement of paintings containing all or nearly all female figures), "Christ at the Home of Mary and Martha," "The Return of the Holy Women," and "The Five Virgins." Of "Christ and His Disciples on the Road to Bethany," one of the most remarkable of all the pictures for subdued coloring, the painter says, "I have taken the tradition that Christ never spent a day in Jerusalem, but at the close of day went to Bethany, returning to the city of strife in the morning." Of "A Flight into Egypt" he says: "Never shall I forget the magnificence of two Persian Jews that I once saw at Rachel's Tomb; what a magnificent 'Abraham' either one of them would have made! Nor do I forget a ride one stormy Christmas night to Bethlehem. Dark clouds swept the moonlit skies and it took little imagination to close one's eyes to the flight of time and see in those hurrying travelers the crowds that hurried Bethlehemward on that memorable night of the Nativity, or to transpose the scene and see in each hurrying group 'A Flight into Egypt.'" As to which one of all these pictures excels the others critics are not in perfect agreement. "The Resurrection of Lazurus" is in subdued coloring, while "The Annunciation" is noted for its effects of light and shade. This latter picture must in any case rank very high in any consideration of the painter's work. It is a powerful portrayal of the Virgin at the moment when she learns of her great mission.