ACTIVITIES AMONG NEGROES
Several years ago a national church organization was celebrating a special event in the south. The choirs of the Negro churches had been invited to furnish music for the occasion. One of the speakers, Rev. Will Alexander, of Atlanta, Ga., upon discovering that the Negro singers had been seated, to the gallery so far back that the audience could not even see them, instead of delivering his scheduled address, began to flay the white churchmen who invited these Negroes to sing and afterwards slighted them. Alexander made a public vow that he would spend the remainder of his life in an effort to create a better Race-Relations Cooperation with headquarters in Atlanta.
The reader will recall the fine service this commission is performing thought the many news items appearing in this column concerning the efforts being made by the level headed white people in the south to abolish lynching. It was this correspondent's privilege to be a press delegate at the annual spring conference of the National Association of Colored People Colored People held in June, 1927, in Indianapolis, and to listen to an address by Rev. Alexander who said in part:
"It is not because I love the Negro so much that I am making this fight against lynching and jim-crow laws, but because the evils following such will eventually undermine and destroy the very foundation of our civilization if it is not stopped.
"We white people in the South will have to begin to realize that the Negro is a human being and an American citizen, and as such must be treated differently.”
The many projects Rev. Alexander has launched during the past few years to carry out his program, perhaps none will or has had more wide influence than the recent tour of goodwill together in a Pullman car throughout the south, studying race conditions. One city where they had been told the Negro members of the party would have to be "jim-crowed” the party refused to stop. The one objective Alexander was aiming to drive home was that Negroes traveling throughout the south or any other part of the country should be accorded the same courtesy as other travelers without the insult of being forced into unsanitary cars with "jim-crow" signs. In the party was such well known and Internationally respected Negroes as Mrs. Mury McLeod Bethune, founder in Daytona Beach, Florida, of the Bethune-Cookman college for Negro girls.
The effect of this tour of the south with Negroes and others travelling together in a pullman car, has been commented upon in articles published in many eastern magazines and papers throughout the nation, resulting in an entirely different viewpoint having been gained in regard to Negroes travelling. An example of the same was definitely established when last week a committee of men visited the heads of the Pennsylvania railroad offices in Philadelphia and asked these officials to abolish from trains coming into that city, all Jim-crow signs, adding that unless this was done, the meeting of the supreme lodge of National and International Negro Elks would have to cancel the forthcoming convention to be held in that city. They were told that the signs would be removed.
One of the more recent demonstrations of better racial understanding and cooperation was received from the national headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in New York, of which organization Rev. Alexander is a firm believer, and member. The news item reads:
"A strong movement in the state of Maryland hacked editorially by the powerful Baltimore Sun, to repeal the jim-crow law requiring separate accommodations for Negro passengers in traffic within the state, is noted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as an encouraging sign of growing enlightenment."
After the passage of the act repealing the jim-crow law, in the state house, the Baltimore Sun urged similar action in the state senate, saying: "Conditions of travel have changed since the enactment of the law, which no longer serves a good purpose but remains a source of grievance and vexation. How little the white people of Maryland care about this kind of protection is illustrated by absence of serious protest to its elimination. The senate should follow the house and approve the measure."
This correspondent will add that every member of the Maryland legislature who voted for this bill has made history for himself and the Negro peoples throughout the nation will not soon forget their acts of justice. It is because of the crushing effect of jim-crow laws that Negroes notwithstanding having been Freedmen or United States citizens for nearly 70 years are still refused the privilege of voting in some sections of the United States, lynched, denied trial by the courts, referred to and in writing, “niggers,” “picanninies” and other objectionable terms.
It is because of jim-crow laws, and the constant use of these objectionable terms, as reminder of their former status as slaves, that Negroes do not like, admire or sing "Negro Spirituals. " They do of course sing them when paid to do so. But until these jim-crow laws service are abolished throughout the United States, and these objectionable terms abolished by American speaking citizens, and the word Negro capitalized in the daily press throughout the nation will the Negro enjoy and sing “Negro Spirituals” as other groups enjoy their folklore. They will them sing with consciousness, that the broken dialect is not reminding the listening public of their former status as Negro slaves. There is far too much "peonage" now in the south with Negroes as the victims for any self-respecting Negro to take any other view of the situation.
It is a source of pride with the Negro peoples throughout the nation that The TRIBUNE for nearly nine years has led the fight in capitalizing the word Negro, and giving to the reading public the better side of Negro activities through this column, that a "better Interracial understanding of this group might be obtained.”
LOCAL
The North Oakland Baptist church on Easter Sunday will hold of Good Will exercises at 3 p. m. when the Masonic grand lodge of California and jurisdiction will lay the corner stone of their newly built church at Thirty-second and Linden streets. Hon. Grand Master Theo Moss of San Jose will be the principal speaker. Music will be furnished by the community band with Peter Crawford as director. Rev. G. C. Coleman is extending an invitation to all to attend this history-making event. It will also mark his 18th anniversary as pastor of this church in Oakland.
ART CLUB ACTIVITIES
The Imperial Art and Literary club met Tuesday evening in Linden branch Y. W. C. A. with their president, Mrs. John Maxwell, presiding. The principal business was the observance of the annual "Religious Day" program and having Harry J. Harding, chairman of the board of governors for the Council Manager Plan form of government, address the club.
DEATHS
Charles Garner, a native of Alexander, Va., died Friday morning March 20. The deceased lived in this city during the past three and one half years. He was identified with North Oakland Baptist church, as an official and a faithful member. While he had been in poor health for the past year, during the past month apparently had regained his former strength sufficiently to attend church and visit the sick. His last illness was only of four days duration.
He leaves a wife, Mrs. Ella Payne Garner, a brother Warren, in New Haven Conn., a sister Mrs. Emma Hogan, of Lancaster Pa.
ACTIVITIES AMONG NEGROES
BY DELILAH L. BEASLEY 29 Mar 1931, Sun Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Newspapers.com
