Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture

Dr. Crummell was right. If there ever was a time in the Negro’s history when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership, it is now, when the recent world war has brought about a new earth, when new problems affecting Europe, America and Africa are pressing for solution, and when a readjustment of social, political and industrial conditions will be made, not only in Europe and Africa but in America. If there was ever a time in the Negro’s history when he needed trained and well-equipped leadership, it is now when tens of thousands of black Africans and black Americans have demonstrated on scores of bloodstained battlefields in France that heroism can wear a sable hue and be clothed in ebony; when the American Negro proved his patriotism and loyalty by subscribing to the Liberty Loan, the War Chest, War Savings Stamps and by Red Cross service, and when by reason of his helping to lay low the Prussian menace to civilization, he has established his title clear to recognition and respectful consideration.

At a time, when the humanitarian plums will be handed out at the Peace Table at Versailles, at a time when the small and weak nations of Europe will have their day in court, at a time when the oppressed and suppressed peoples of Europe, Palestine and Armenia will have their innings, now is the time for the Negro to make his appeal, present his plea and submit his case.

Twenty years ago we did not fully realize that the treatment and consideration that an individual, a race or a nation received, is determined by the estimate in which the world holds the individual or race, and that this estimate is largely determined by the estimate in which the individual or race holds itself. And at this golden moment and rare opportunity, we need far-sighted pilots, wise guides, who can seize and utilize the civic, political, economic and industrial opportunities, which may present themselves.

We have had too many leaders who have pursued the Fabian policy of watchful waiting, who have been the creatures of circumstance, who have been the sport of chance, who have been determined by their environment, and who have been dependent upon the turn or course that events would take.

We need a Scipio Africanus, who saw with an eagle eye that Rome must carry the war into Africa and forthwith proceeded to take the initiative, made himself the compeller of circumstances, himself determined the course that events would take, and made himself the master of Rome’s fate and the architect of her destiny.

In the past we have been dependent upon what our Anglo-Saxon friends have thought of us and have blindly worshipped the hand-picked leaders our Anglo-Saxon godfathers have set up for us, to bow down to. The time has now arrived for us to mold the opinion of our Anglo-Saxon friends by what we think of ourselves, and to select and follow our own leaders. The time has now arrived for us to take a hand in shaping our destiny.

CONCLUSION

But there are other motives for education, besides bread winning and bettering one’s material condition. I remember at Harvard how Charles Eliot Norton, Prof. Thayer, the New Testament Greek scholar, and Dean C. C. Everett, of the Harvard Divinity School, impressed students by the grandeur and nobility of their character. And one, knowing them instinctively, felt that they realized our ideal of personality. I can see again the cultured Norton, whom Ruskin said was the only American he met who was a gentleman. I can see the tall, handsome, erect Thayer, with musical voice, gracious manners and buoyant walk, whom the boys called “the captain.” I can see again Dean Everett, who blended the wisdom of a Nestor with a transparent simplicity who blended granite strength of character with a Christ-like tenderness. And I can see again that trio of famous Harvard professors, James, Royce and Palmer – the first distinguished by his buoyancy of spirit, the second by his serenity and the third by his refinement. And then I can see that famous Yale philosopher, George Trumbull Ladd, a descendant of Elder Brewster and Governor Bradford, who came over in the Mayflower, and who himself was a splendid representative of modern puritanism. These and a score of other professors in my college days were what ex-President Timothy Dwight of Yale would call men of high character, and they made the students feel that merely to achieve character was something worth the effort and striving. And Dr. Alexander Crummell thought so too. One of the blessings which this terrible war brought to the world was the lesson that there are other values in life besides the piling up and the hoarding of money.

I realize that this is a materialistic age. But I am an optimist, not so much because I believe in the Englishman or the American, as because I believe in God. I do not believe that the universe is the product of the blind play of atoms or the chance concourse of electrons. But I believe that the intricacy of the structure of the atoms, the law and order that is enthroned in the heavens above from farthest star across the milky way to farthest star are silent but patent witnesses to the fact that a Universal Mind is back of and behind and manifests Himself in the universe. I believe that this Universal Mind works in the hearts and consciences of men and that He is the ground and source and fount of their noble impulses and higher aspirations. And I believe that “Eternal Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,” will continue to stir in the hearts and minds of men until they see the sin of damning a man because of the color of his skin.

If we believe in God and believe as Crummell believed that the black man can scale the heights of human achievement and gain the summit, if we believe that we do not represent a stage in the evolution from the monkey to man, but that, in the language of Terence, Rome’s tawny-colored poet, we are men and that nothing that is common to humanity is foreign to us, a spirit will be generated in us that no oppression can crush, no obstacles can daunt and no difficulties can overpower. Quicken in the Negro youth of the land a belief in the mighty hopes that make us men and we will write deeds upon the pages of history, as our black brothers wrote theirs in letters of blood upon the sunlit plains of fair France, that will command the attention and compel the recognition of a hostile world.