Papers of the American Negro Academy Part 4

Other ways of discrimination by which the purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment may yet be defeated will be found in "Everybody" (33:251-2).

"The South and the Negro Vote" forms the t.i.tle of an elaborate article in the North American Review, by J. C. Hemphill (202:213-19), while "Our Debt to the Negro" is the theme in Miss. R. 38:772. Sociological features, Homes and Housing, as a general proposition, is considered in Survey, 34:67, 158-9; Business Men, in 34:550; and Loosening of Louisiana, in 34:266-9. t.i.tustown, a new community near Norfolk, Va., is given special notice in 34:531, and B. T. Was.h.i.+ngton, in Conference, Charities and Correction, 1914:121-7.

The Separate Coach Statutes and Their Const.i.tutionality are discussed in Central Law Journal, 43:44 (January 15, 1915); 18 Law Notes, 182 213 (January 7, 1915); 20 Va. Law Register, 781-785 (February 15, 1915).

These will tend to such race discrimination as to affect Civil Rights, and as such are treated in 50 Nat. Cor. Reg., 595.

"The Saloon as a Place of Public Amus.e.m.e.nt" is brought under review in 49 Amer. Law Review, 131. "Segregation: A Burning Question in Southern Social Adjustments," is made the subject of an article by Philip A.

Bruce, the well-known Southern author, in Hibberts Journal, 13 V.

867-86. B. F. Benson, in Va. L. Reg. n. s. 330-356, treats the local segregation ordinances. Their application to rural Southern communities is the theme in Survey, 33:375-7. The const.i.tutionality of these ordinances is briefly considered in 13 Mich. Rev., 599-600; in Harper's Weekly, 59:620, 1D. and in New Republic, November 22-29, 1915. "The Roots of the War in the Race Question" is a very illuminating article by W. E. B. Du Bois in the Atlantic Monthly for May.

Three notable books, the product of the year 1915, are deserving of special mention. They are all devoted to Negroes of the Eighteenth Century, and are the outcome of the activities, the enterprise and the research of the Twentieth Century, and that by white Americans. The t.i.tles are (1) "Phillis Wheatley (Phillis Peters) Poems and Letters: First Collected Edition," edited by Charles Fred Heartman, with an appreciation by Arthur A. Schomburg, 112 pages. Ben Day paper, 50 on Fabriano hand-made paper, and 10 on j.a.pan vellum.

(2) "Phillis Wheatley (Phillis Peters): A Critical Attempt and a Bibliography of Her Writings," by Charles Fred Heartman; 99 copies of this were printed by the author on Alexandra j.a.pan paper. There are 50 pages in this bibliography, from which we learn that there are 43 t.i.tles of different editions of Phillis Wheatley's poems. The forty-third is that of six broadsides relating to Phillis Wheatley, with portrait and fac-simile of her handwritings; 25 copies of this were printed for the same publisher. They consist of four pages and eight productions on eight leaves.

The last (3) item is certainly the most interesting. It flashes the name of Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Joseph Lloyd, of Queen's Village, on Long Island, now in Hartford. The t.i.tle is "Jupiter Hammon: American Negro Poet. Selections From His Writings and a Bibliography."

By Oscar Wegelin, with five fac-similes; 99 copies were printed for Charles Fred Heartman, New York, 1915. Jupiter Hammon was the first member of his race to write and publish poetry in this country. One of his poems was printed before Phillis Wheatley had written her first poem.

This bibliography is slightly connected with that of books issued before the present year, such as "Negro Culture in West Africa," by George W.

Ellis, 290 pages; "The Haitian Revolution From 1791 to 1804," by T. G.

Steward, 292 pages; "The Facts of Reconstruction," by John R. Lynch, 326 pages; "Out of the House of Bondage," by Kelly Miller, and "The Negro in American History," by John W. Cromwell, 296 pp. which have found places in some of the princ.i.p.al public libraries of the country.

"Redder Blood," by William M. Ashby, published by the Neale Publis.h.i.+ng Company, is described as a novel which, written in literary English and not in the jargon known as Negro dialect; a story told for the sake of the story and not a treatise under disguise. Its author, a Negro, is a graduate of Yale College.