Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading | Page 2

COMMITTEES 38
CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES 40
OFFICERS OF THE WOMAN'S BOARD 42
CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES, WOMAN'S BOARD 44
NEGRO BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA. 46
A. MEANS, MEMPHIS, TENN. 48
E. W. JACKSON, ORLANDO, FLA. 52
EMMA O. KENNEDY, MEMPHIS, TENN. 56
IDA B. WELLS BARNETT 60
L. J. BROWN, WASHINGTON, D. C. 68
DR. GEORGIA E. L. PATTON, MEMPHIS, TENN. 71
MRS. GEORGIA GORDON TAYLOR 75
FREDERICK DOUGLASS 77
REV. C. A. A. TAYLOR, OCALA, FLA. 80
MADAM SISSIRETTA JONES 88
HALLIE Q. BROWN 92
HENRIETTA VINTON DAVIS 96
MRS. V. W. BROUGHTON, MEMPHIS, TENN. 99
CANE FIELD IN LOUISIANA 102
REV. M. VANN, D.D., CHATTANOOGA, TENN. 106
F. A. STEWART, M.D., NASHVILLE, TENN. 112
CHARLIE JOHNSON, LOUISIANA 120
REV. J. M. CONNER, LITTLE ROCK, ARK. 125
J. P. NEWTON, MEMPHIS, TENN. 129
PROF. B. T. WASHINGTON, TUSKEGEE, ALA. 132
PROF. DENNIS S. THOMPSON, KANSAS CITY, MO. 140
GEN. ANTONIO MACEO 148
MRS. M. A. MCCURDY, ROME, GA. 162
EDWARD SEABROOK, SAVANNAH, GA. 166
JOHN Q. ADAMS, CHICAGO, ILL. 189
JOHN G. JONES, CHICAGO, ILL. 191
REV. R. H. BOYD, D.D., SAN ANTONIO, TEX. 193
DR. WILLIAM KEY, SHELBYVILLE, TENN. 195
JIM KEY, SHELBYVILLE, TENN. 197
REV. JOHN HENRY DICKERSON, OCALA, FLA. 200
[Illustration: DR. ALEX CRUMMELL, WASHINGTON, D. C.]

SPARKLING GEMS.

THE NEED OF NEW IDEAS AND NEW AIMS FOR A NEW ERA.
BY ALEX CRUMMELL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
This subject divides itself into two heads: (1) The "Need" suggested; and (2) The "Aims for a New Era," which shall meet the need.
It seems to me that there is an irresistible tendency in the Negro mind in this land to dwell morbidly and absorbingly upon the servile past. The urgent needs of the present, the fast-crowding and momentous interests of the future appear to be forgotten. Duty for to-day, hope for to-morrow, are ideas which seem oblivious to even leading minds among us. Enter our schools, and the theme which too generally occupies the youthful mind is some painful memory of servitude. Listen to the voices of the pulpit, and how large a portion of its utterances are pitched in the same doleful strain! Send a Negro to Congress, and observe how seldom possible it is for him to speak upon any other topic than slavery. We are fashioning our life too much after the conduct of the children of Israel. Long after the exodus from bondage, long after the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, they kept turning back, in memory and longings, after Egypt, when they should have kept both eye and aspiration bent toward the land of promise and of freedom.
Now I know, my brethren, that all this is natural to man. God gave us judgment, fancy, and memory, and we cannot free ourselves from the inheritance of these or of any other faculty of our being; but we were made to live in the future as well as in the past.
Nothing can be more hurtful for any people than to dwell upon repulsive things. To hang upon that which is dark, direful, and saddening tends to degeneracy. There are few things which tend so much to dwarf a people as the constant dwelling upon personal sorrows and interests, whether they be real or imaginary.
The Southern people of this nation have given as evident signs of genius and talent as the people of the North; but for nigh three generations they gave themselves up to morbid and fanatical anxieties upon the subject of slavery. To that one single subject they gave the whole bent and sharpness of their intellect, and history records the result.
For more than two hundred years the misfortune of the black race was the confinement of its mind in the pent-up prison of human bondage. The morbid, absorbing, and abiding recollection of that condition is but the continuance of that same condition in memory and dark imagination. But some intelligent reader of our race will ask, Would you have us as a people forget that we have been an oppressed race? No. God gave us memory, and it is impossible to forget the slavery of our race. The memory of this fact may ofttimes serve as a stimulant to high endeavor. What I would have you guard against is not the memory of slavery, but the constant recollection of it, as the commanding thought of a new people, who should be marching on to the broadest freedom of thought in a new and glorious present, and a still more magnificent future. You will notice here that there is a broad distinction between memory and recollection. Memory is a passive act of the mind, while recollection is the actual seeking of the facts, the endeavor of the mind to bring them back again to consciousness.
The fact of slavery is that which cannot be faulted. What I object to is the unnecessary recollection of it. The pernicious habit I protest against as most injurious and degrading. As slavery was a degrading thing, the constant recalling of it to the mind serves by the law of