The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States

Of the novels, "The House Behind the Cedars" is commonly given first place. In the story of the heroine, Rena Walden, are treated some of the most subtle and searching questions raised by the color-line. Rena is sought in love by three men, George Tryon, a white man, whose love fails when put to the test; Jeff Wain, a coarse and brutal mulatto, and Frank Fowler, a devoted young Negro, who makes every sacrifice demanded by love. The novel, especially in its last pages, moves with an intensity that is an unmistakable sign of power. It is Mr. Chesnutt's most sustained treatment of the subject for which he has become best known, that is, the delicate and tragic situation of those who live on the border-line of the races; and it is the best work of fiction yet written by a member of the race in America. In "The Marrow of Tradition" the main theme is the relations of two women, one white and one colored, whose father, the same white man, had in time been married to the mother of each. The novel touches upon almost every phase of the Negro Problem. It is a powerful plea, but perhaps too much a novel of purpose to satisfy the highest standards of art. The Wellington of the story is very evidently Wilmington, N. C., and the book was written immediately after the race troubles in that city in 1898. "The Colonel's Dream" is a sad story of the failure of high ideals. Colonel Henry French is a man who, born in the South, achieves success in New York and returns to his old home for a little vacation, only to find himself face to face with all the problems that one meets in a backward Southern town. "He dreamed of a regenerated South, filled with thriving industries, and thronged with a prosperous and happy people, where every man, having enough for his needs, was willing that every other man should have the same; where law and order should prevail unquestioned, and where every man could enter, through the golden door of hope, the field of opportunity, where lay the prizes of life, which all might have an equal chance to win or lose." Becoming interested in the injustice visited upon the Negroes in the courts, and in the employment of white children in the cotton-mills, Colonel French encounters opposition to his benevolent plans, opposition which finally sends him back to New York defeated. Mr. Chesnutt writes in simple, clear English, and his methods might well be studied by younger writers who desire to treat, in the guise of fiction, the many searching questions that one meets to-day in the life of the South.

V

W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS was born February 23, 1868, at Great Barrington, Mass. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Fisk University in 1888, the same degree at Harvard in 1890, that of Master of Arts at Harvard in 1891, and, after a season of study at the University of Berlin, received also the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard in 1895, his thesis being his exhaustive study, "Suppression of the Slave-Trade." Dr. DuBois taught for a brief period at Wilberforce University, and was also for a time an assistant and fellow in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, producing in 1899 his study, "The Philadelphia Negro." In 1896 he accepted the professorship of History and Economics at Atlanta University, the position which he left in 1910 to become Director of Publicity and Research for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In connection with this work he has edited the Crisis since the beginning of that publication. He has made various investigations, frequently for the national government, and has contributed many sociological studies to leading magazines. He has been the moving spirit of the Atlanta Conference, and by the Studies of Negro Problems, which he has edited at Atlanta University, he has become recognized as one of the great sociologists of the day, and as the man who more than anyone else has given scientific accuracy to studies relating to the Negro.

Aside from his more technical studies (these including the masterly little book, "The Negro," in Holt's Home University Library Series), Dr. DuBois has written three books which call for consideration in a review of Negro literature. Of these one is a biography, one a novel, and the other a collection of essays. In 1909 was published "John Brown," a contribution to the series of American Crisis Biographies. The subject was one well adapted to treatment at the hands of Dr. DuBois, and in the last chapter, "The Legacy of John Brown," he has shown that his hero has a message for twentieth century America, this: "The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression." "The Quest of the Silver Fleece," the novel, appeared in 1911. This story has three main themes: the economic position of the Negro agricultural laborer, the subsidizing of a certain kind of Negro schools, and Negro life and society in the city of Washington. The book employs a big theme in its portrayal of the power of King Cotton in both high and lowly life in the Southland; but its tone is frequently one of satire, and on the whole the work will not add much to the already established reputation of the author. The third book really appeared before either of the two works just mentioned, and embodies the best work of the author in his most highly idealistic period. In 1903 fourteen essays, most of which had already appeared in such magazines as the Atlantic and the World's Work, were brought together in a volume entitled, "The Souls of Black Folk." The remarkable style of this book has made it the most important work in classic English yet written by a Negro. It is marked by all the arts of rhetoric, especially by liquid and alliterative effects, strong antithesis, frequent allusion, and poetic suggestiveness. The color-line is "The Veil," the familiar melodies, the "Sorrow Songs." The qualities that have just been remarked will be observed in the following paragraphs:

I have seen a land right merry with the sun, where children sing, and rolling hills lie like passioned women wanton with harvest. And there in the King's Highway sat and sits a figure veiled and bowed, by which the traveler's footsteps hasten as they go. On the tainted air broods fear. Three centuries' thought has been the raising and unveiling of that bowed human heart, and now behold a century new for the duty and the deed. The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

-

My journey was done, and behind me lay hill and dale, and Life and Death. How shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And all this life and love and strife and failure – is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?

Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow car.

-

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they all come graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?

Where merit is so even and the standard of performance so high, one hesitates to choose that which is best. "The Dawn of Freedom" is a study of the Freedmen's Bureau; "Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" is a frank criticism of the late orator and leader; "The Meaning of Progress" is a story of life in Tennessee, told with infinite pathos by one who has been the country schoolmaster; "The Training of Black Men" is a plea for liberally educated leadership; while "The Quest of the Golden Fleece," like one or two related essays, is a faithful portrayal of life in the black belt. The book, as a whole, is a powerful plea for justice and the liberty of citizenship.

W. E. Burghardt DuBois is the best example that has so far appeared of the combination of high scholarship and the peculiarly romantic temperament of the Negro race. Beneath all the play of logic and statistic beats the passion of a mighty human heart. For a long time he was criticised as aloof, reserved, unsympathetic; but more and more, as the years have passed, has his mission become clearer, his love for his people stronger. Forced by the pressure of circumstance, gradually has he been led from the congenial retreat of the scholar into the arena of social struggle; but for two decades he has remained an outstanding interpreter of the spiritual life of his people. He is to-day the foremost leader of the race in America.

VI

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

THE foremost of the poets of the race at present is William Stanley Braithwaite, of Boston. Mr. Braithwaite is not only the possessor of unusual talent, but for years he has worked most conscientiously at his art and taken the time and the pains to master the fundamentals that others all too often deem unimportant. In 1904 he published a small book of poems entitled "Lyrics of Life and Love." This was followed four years later by "The House of Falling Leaves." Within recent years he has given less and less time to his own verse, becoming more and more distinguished as a critic in the special field of American poetry. For several years he has been a regular and valued contributor of literary criticism to the Boston Evening Transcript; he has had verse or critical essays in the Forum, the Century, Scribner's, the Atlantic, etc.; and in 1916 became editor of the new Poetry Review of Cambridge. He has collected and edited (publishing chiefly through Brentano's) "The Book of Elizabethan Verse," "The Book of Georgian Verse," and "The Book of Restoration Verse"; and he has also published the "Anthology of Magazine Verse" for each year since 1913. He is the general editor of "The Contemporary American Poets Series," which is projected by the Poetry Review Company, and which will be issued in twelve little books, each giving a sympathetic study of a poet of the day; he himself is writing the volume on Edwin Arlington Robinson; and before long it is expected that a novel will appear from his pen. Very recently (1917) Mr. Braithwaite has brought together in a volume, "The Poetic Year," the series of articles which he contributed to the Transcript in 1916-17. The aim was in the form of conversations between a small group of friends to discuss the poetry of 1916. Says he: "There were four of us in the little group, and our common love for the art of poetry suggested a weekly meeting in the grove to discuss the books we had all agreed upon reading… I made up my mind to record these discussions, and the setting as well, with all those other touches of human character and mood which never fail to enliven and give color to the serious business of art and life… I gave fanciful names to my companions, Greek names which I am persuaded symbolized the spirit of each. There was nothing Psyche touched but made its soul apparent. Her wood-lore was beautiful and thorough; the very spirit of flowers, birds and trees was evoked when she went among them. Our other companion of her sex was Cassandra, and we gave her this name not because her forebodings were gloomy, but merely for her prophesying disposition, which was always building air-castles. The other member besides myself of our little group was Jason, of the heroic dreams and adventuresome spirit. He was restless in the bonds of a tranquillity that chafed the hidden spirit of his being." From the introduction we get something of the critic's own aims and ideals: "The conversational scheme of the book may, or may not, interest some readers. Poetry is a human thing, and it is time for the world – and especially our part of the world – to regard it as belonging to the people. It sprang from the folk, and passed, when culture began to flourish, into the possession of a class. Now culture is passing from a class to the folk, and with it poetry is returning to its original possessors. It is in the spirit of these words that we discuss the poetry of the year." Emphasis is here given to this work because it is the sturdiest achievement of Mr. Braithwaite in the field in which he has recently become most distinguished, and even the brief quotations cited are sufficient to give some idea of his graceful, suggestive prose.

In a review of this writer's poetry we have to consider especially the two collections, "Lyrics of Life and Love," and "The House of Falling Leaves," and the poems that have more recently appeared in the Atlantic, Scribner's, and other magazines. It is to be hoped that before very long he will publish a new edition of his poems. The earlier volumes are out of print, and a new book could contain the best of them, as well as what has appeared more recently. "Lyrics of Life and Love" embodied the best of the poet's early work. The little book contains eighty pages, and no one of the lyrics takes up more than two pages, twenty in fact being exactly eight lines in length. This appearance of fragility, however, is a little deceptive. While Keats and Shelley are constantly evident as the models in technique, the yearning of more than one lyric reflects the deeper romantic temper. The bravado and the tenderness of the old poets are evident again in the two Christmas pieces, "Holly Berry and Mistletoe," and "Yule-Song: A Memory":

The trees are bare, wild flies the snow,Hearths are glowing, hearts are merry —High in the air is the Mistletoe,Over the door is the Holly Berry.Never have care how the winds may blow,Never confess the revel grows weary —Yule is the time of the Mistletoe,Yule is the time of the Holly Berry.* * * * *December comes, snows come,Comes the wintry weather;Faces from away come —Hearts must be together.Down the stair-steps of the hoursYule leaps the hills and towers —Fill the bowl and hang the holly,Let the times be jolly.

"The Watchers" is in the spirit of Kingsley's "The Three Fishers":

Two women on the lone wet strand —(The wind's out with a will to roam)The waves wage war on rocks and sand,(And a ship is long due home.)The sea sprays in the women's eyes —(Hearts can writhe like the sea's wild foam)Lower descend the tempestuous skies,(For the wind's out with a will to roam.)"O daughter, thine eyes be better than mine,"(The waves ascend high on yonder dome)"North or South is there never a sign?"(And a ship is long due home.)They watched there all the long night through —(The wind's out with a will to roam)Wind and rain and sorrow for two —(And heaven on the long reach home.)

The second volume marked a decided advance in technique. When we remember also the Pre-Raphaelite spirit, with its love of rhythm and imagery, we are not surprised to find here an appreciation "To Dante Gabriel Rossetti." Especially has the poet made progress in the handling of the sonnet, as may be seen in the following:

My thoughts go marching like an armèd hostOut of the city of silence, guns and cars;Troop after troop across my dreams they postTo the invasion of the wind and stars.O brave array of youth's untamed desire!With thy bold, dauntless captain Hope to leadHis raw recruits to Fate's opposing fire,And up the walls of Circumstance to bleed.How fares the expedition in the end?When this my heart shall have old age for kingAnd to the wars no further troop can send,What final message will the arm'stice bring?The host gone forth in youth the world to meet,In age returns – in victory or defeat?

Then there is the epilogue with its heart-cry:

Lord of the mystic star-blown gleamsWhose sweet compassion lifts my dreams;Lord of life in the lips of the roseThat kiss desire; whence Beauty grows;Lord of the power inviolateThat keeps immune thy seas from fate,* * * * *Lord, Very God of these works of thine,Hear me, I beseech thee, most divine!

Within very recent years Mr. Braithwaite has attracted unusual attention among the discerning by a new note of mysticism that has crept into his verse. This was first observed in "Sandy Star," that appeared in the Atlantic (July, 1909):

No more from out the sunset,No more across the foam,No more across the windy hillsWill Sandy Star come home.He went away to search it,With a curse upon his tongue,And in his hands the staff of lifeMade music as it swung.I wonder if he found it,And knows the mystery now:Our Sandy Star who went awayWith the secret on his brow.

The same note is in "The Mystery" (or "The Way," as the poet prefers to call it) that appeared in Scribner's (October, 1915):

He could not tell the way he cameBecause his chart was lost:Yet all his way was paved with flameFrom the bourne he crossed.He did not know the way to go,Because he had no map:He followed where the winds blow, —And the April sap.He never knew upon his browThe secret that he bore —And laughs away the mystery nowThe dark's at his door.

Mr. Braithwaite has done well. He is to-day the foremost man of the race in pure literature. But above any partial or limited consideration, after years of hard work he now has recognition not only as a poet of standing, but as the chief sponsor for current American poetry. No comment on his work could be better than that of the Transcript, November 30, 1915: "He has helped poetry to readers as well as to poets. One is guilty of no extravagance in saying that the poets we have – and they may take their place with their peers in any country – and the gathering deference we pay them, are created largely out of the stubborn, self-effacing enthusiasm of this one man. In a sense their distinction is his own. In a sense he has himself written their poetry. Very much by his toil they may write and be read. Not one of them will ever write a finer poem than Braithwaite himself has lived already."

VII

OTHER WRITERS

IN addition to those who have been mentioned, there have been scores of writers who would have to be considered if we were dealing with the literature of the Negro in the widest sense of the term. Not too clearly, however, can the limitations of our subject be insisted upon. We are here concerned with distinctly literary or artistic achievement, and not with work that belongs in the realm of religion, sociology, or politics. Only briefer mention accordingly can be given to these latter fields.

Naturally, from the first there have been works dealing with the place of the Negro in American life. Outstanding after the numerous sociological studies and other contributions to periodical literature of Dr. DuBois are the books of the late Booker T. Washington. Representative of these are "The Future of the American Negro," "My Larger Education," and "The Man Farthest Down." As early as 1829, however, David Walker, of Boston, published his passionate "Appeal," a protest against slavery that awakened Southern legislatures to action; and in the years just before the Civil War, Henry Highland Garnet wrote sermons and addresses on the status of the race in America, while William Wells Brown wrote "Three Years in Europe," and various other works, some of which will receive later mention. After the war, Alexander Crummell became an outstanding figure by reason of his sermons and addresses, many of which were preserved. He was followed by an interesting group of scholarly men, represented especially by William S. Scarborough, Kelly Miller, and Archibald H. Grimké. Mr. Scarborough is now president of Wilberforce University. He has contributed numerous articles to representative magazines. His work in more technical fields is represented by his "First Lessons in Greek," a treatise on the "Birds" of Aristophanes, and his paper in the Arena (January, 1897) on "Negro Folk-Lore and Dialect." Mr. Miller is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University. He has collected his numerous and cogent papers in two volumes, "Race Adjustment," and "Out of the House of Bondage." The first is the more varied and interesting of the two books, but the latter contains the poetic rhapsody, "I See and Am Satisfied," first published in the Independent (August 7, 1913). Mr. A. H. Grimké, as well as Mr. Miller, has contributed to the Atlantic; and he has written the lives of Garrison and Sumner in the American Reformers Series. "Negro Culture in West Africa," by George W. Ellis, is original and scholarly; "The Aftermath of Slavery," by William A. Sinclair, is a volume of more than ordinary interest; and "The African Abroad," by William H. Ferris, while confused in construction and form, contains much thoughtful material. Within recent years there have been published a great many works, frequently illustrated, on the progress and achievements of the race. Very few of these books are scholarly. Three collaborations, however, are of decided value. One is a little volume entitled, "The Negro Problem," consisting of seven papers by representative Negroes, and published in 1903 by James Pott & Co., of New York. Another is "From Servitude to Service," published in 1905 by the American Unitarian Association of Boston, and made up of the Old South Lectures on the history and work of Southern institutions for the education of the Negro; while the third collaboration is, "The Negro in the South," published in 1907 by George W. Jacobs & Co., of Philadelphia, and made up of four papers, two by Dr. Washington, and two by Dr. DuBois, which were the William Levi Bull Lectures in the Philadelphia Divinity School for the year 1907.

Halfway between works on the Negro Problem and those in history, are those in the field of biography and autobiography. For decades before the Civil War the experiences of fugitive slaves were used as a part of the anti-slavery argument. In 1845 appeared the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," this being greatly enlarged and extended in 1881 as "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass." In similar vein was the "Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro," by Samuel Ringgold Ward. Then Josiah Henson (the original of Uncle Tom) and Sojourner Truth issued their narratives. Collections of more than ordinary interest were William Wells Brown's "The Black Man" (1863), James M. Trotter's "Music and Some Highly Musical People" (1878), and William J. Simmons's "Men of Mark" (1887). John Mercer Langston's "From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol" is interesting and serviceable; special interest attaches to Matthew Henson's "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole"; while Maud Cuney Hare's "Norris Wright Cuney" was a distinct contribution to the history of Southern politics. The most widely known work in this field, however, is "Up From Slavery," by Booker T. Washington. The unaffected and simple style of this book has made it a model of personal writing, and it is by reason of merit that the work has gained unusual currency.

The study, of course, becomes more special in the field of history. Interest from the first was shown in church history. This was represented immediately after the war by Bishop Daniel A. Payne's studies in the history of the A. M. E. Church, and twenty-five years later, for the Baptist denomination, by E. M. Brawley's "The Negro Baptist Pulpit." One of the earliest writers of merit was William C. Nell, who, in 1851, published his pamphlet, "Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812." "The Rising Son," by William Wells Brown, was an account of "the antecedents and advancement of the colored race"; the work gave considerable attention to Africa, Hayti, and the colonies, and was quite scholarly in method. Then, in 1872, full of personal experience, appeared William Still's "The Underground Railroad." The epoch-making work in history, however, was the two-volume "History of the Negro Race in America," by George W. Williams, which was issued in 1883. This work was the exploration of a new field and the result of seven years of study. The historian more than once wrote subjectively, but his work was, on the whole, written with unusually good taste. After thirty years some of his pages have, of course, been superseded; but his work is even yet the great storehouse for students of Negro history. Technical study within recent years is best represented by the Harvard doctorate theses of Dr. DuBois and Dr. Carter G. Woodson. That of Dr. DuBois has already been mentioned. That of Dr. Woodson was entitled "The Disruption of Virginia." Dr. Woodson is the editor of the Journal of Negro History, a quarterly magazine that began to appear in 1916, and that has already published several articles of the first order of merit. He has also written "The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861," a work in the most scientific spirit of modern historical study, to which a companion volume for the later period is expected. Largely original also in the nature of their contribution have been "The Haitian Revolution," by T. G. Steward, and "The Facts of Reconstruction," by John R. Lynch; and, while less intensive, interesting throughout is J. W. Cromwell's "The Negro in American History."