Nebraska Newspapers

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^ NEBRASKA’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OP COLORED AMERICANS
\ THE REV. JOHN ALBERT WILLIAMS, Editer.
$5 |. Year—5 Cent* a Copy OMAHA, NEBRASKA, DECEMBER 24, 1926 Vol. XII—No. 26 Whole Number 596
Christmas greetings to you
Anti-Lynching Crusade Is Taken
Up By “Graphic” New York Daily
New York, N. Y.—The anti-lynch
ing crusade carried on for 16 years
by the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People has
now enlisted the interest of the New
York Evening Graphic, a daily “tab
loid” newspaper, which has begun
a series of articles on race relations.
The Graphic began the series with
a first page composite photograph,
prepared from a description of a
lynching read by James Weldon
Johnson, N. A. A. C. P. secretary,
before the Senate Judiciary commit
tee last year. The photograph shows
a Negro chained to a stake being
burned alive by a Mississippi mob.
Below the picture is the following
caption: “How Long Will This Go
on in Civilized America?” This com
posite photograph was carefully pre
pared from the description of the
burning of a Negro at the stake in
Rocky Ford, Miss. This outrage was
described before the Senate Judi
ciary Committee by James Weldon
Johnson, in a plea for the Dyer
Anti-Lynching act which has not yet
been passed in Congress.
In the article in the Graphic ac
companying this photograph are the
following statements: “Not long
ago there was a strange drama en
acted in the historic Capitol at Wash
ington.
"Within the halls of the Congress,
eloquent statesmen were busy de
nouncing the barbarism to which
Americans were subjected in foreign
lands.
"The unspeakable Turk was at
tacked as a savage and a monster
because of his cruelties. There was
angry criticism against the Mexi
cans. The Chinese were denounced.
“Meanwhile in another room in
the capitol, another voice was raised,
quietly, earnestly, in a deliberate ad
dress to the members of a sub-com
mittee of the Senate Judiciary Com
mittee.
“The speaker was a colored man.
He was James Weldon Johnson, sec
retary of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People. His job that day was to
speak in behalf of a measure that
had no chance to pass—the Dyer
Anti-Lynching act.
“That measure had no chance to
pass, in spite of the fact that 3,224
persons have been lynched in the
United States in the last thirty years
and most of them were colored peo
ple!"
The Graphic then quotes the de
scription of the lynching read by Mr.
Johnson before the Senate Commit
tee. And the article continues:
“The colored people propose now
to become human beings with the
rights of all other fellow citizens.
Not only by this is meant political
rights, but social rights. They pro
pose to be heard from on their mer
its as individuals. They do not want
to lose their identity at all. They
do not wish to see their color fade
into some neutral, indistinguished
blend. They are proud of their col
ored skin and mean to see it honor
ed in the world. They are not
ashamed of their history or of their
descent. . . . They do not pro
pose to be set apart because of their
color and their race.”
Some Popular Fallacies
About Race Relations
By ROBERT B. ELEAZER
Educational Director, Commission
on Interracial Co-operation.
Yes, like measles, everybody has
to have them, even the best of us.
There the analogy ends, however; for
most folks get over measles pretty
promptly. Nobody wants to go
around speckled forever with a mil
lion red bumps. And one would think
that nobody would want to go through
life with his mind bumpy with mis
information and inflamed with bad
feeling concerning his fellow men.
Yet lots of people do just that.
1. For example, a college student
gravely informed me the other day
that God turned one of Noah’s sons
black and sentenced his descendants
to perpetual servitude. He spent a
half hour searching the Bible to prove
it. He didn’t find it, of course, for
the Bible says nothing of the kind.
There is no suggestion that God
cursed anybody or that anybody was
turned black. Read Genesis 9 and
see for yourself.) The scientists tell
us that our color variations are due
to the influence of climate and en
vironment working through long ages.
Probably we were all red at first; the
name Adam means “red earth,” you
know. Then those of us who settled
in the North faded out, while those
farther South grew darker.
2. "Oh, yes,” someone says, “the
Negro is all right in his place.” An
obvious truth that oftens hides a fal
lacy; for generally it means that the
man who uses it has already assumed
to fix the Negro’s place as one of
inherent inferiority and servitude.
Has one human being the right thus
to rate another and to deny him the
chance to improve his status? Am I
God, that I should set limits to the
possibilities of any of God’s children?
Yet that is the philosophy of some to
day who would keep the Negro ignor
ant in order to keep him subservient
and content. It is the philosophy of
a past age und of paganism. The
highest welfare of all, not the selfish
convenience of a few, is the only
standard that meets the test of twen
tieth century intelligence and Chris
tianity.
3. “But no genuine Negro ever
showed real intelligence or ability.”
Do you think not? What about
George Carver, the South’s foremost
agricultural chemist and Fellow of
the London Royal Society of Arts?
; What about Phyllis Wheatley, Afri
| can-born slave who wrote such good
j poetry that she was complimented by
| President Washington and entertain
I ed by the royalty of England? What
of Robert R. Moton, head of Tuske
gee Institute, a school with 2,000 stu
, dents and an annual budget of half
a million dollars? What of Roland
Hayes, world-famous tenor, who sings
perfectly in four languages and has
j been honored by the crowned heads
of Europe? What of Mary McLeod
i Bethune, who has built up a great
' school for girls at Daytona, Florida,
with a plant worth $600,000? What
, about hundreds more who have
achieved notably in spite of great
I handicaps? Better inquire before
you retail that particular fallacy
■ again.
4. “The Negro has had no worthy
part in American history,” someone
says. No? Had you heard that
Crispus Attacks, a Negro, was the
first martyr of American independ
ence; that Peter Salem, a Negro, was
the hero of the Battle of Bunker
Hill; that Salem Poor, another Ne
gro, distinguished himself in the same
battle; that 3,000 American Negroes
took part in the Revolutionary War;
that General Andrew Jackson warm
ly commended the courage of the
Negro troops at the Battle of New
Orleans und credited one of them
with the death of the British com
mander; that Commodore Perry spoke
in high praise of his Negro sailors in
the Battle of Lake Erie; that Negro
soldiers distinguished themselves in
the Spanish-American War at Guasi
mas, El Caney and San Juan Hill;
that two Negros were the first Am
erican soldiers decorated in the World
War; that four entire Negro regi
ments were cited for bravery in that
war, and that sixty Negro officers
received decorations? Look up the
record. You’ll find it interesting.
5. “But Negroes want to break
down the social line between the
races.” Who told you so? The fin
est types of Negro leaders deny it
emphatically. They say frankly that
they prefer the society of their own
j Christmas !
Christmas commemorates a great fact, the greatest R
3 fact that ever has been or ever will be. That Fact is the X
3 advent of God in human flesh, the Birth of Jesus Christ. X
R “The Word was made (became is the more accurate ren- 3
8 dering) Flesh and dwelt among us.” He who from all 3
* eternity was God for “in the beginning was the Word and a
* the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, for the £
£ love He bore the human race willed to enter into human R
3 life through the gateway of human birth, and for us men R
3 was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and 3
£ became man. It was Divine Love that wrought His 3
8 wondrous Incarnation and Holy Nativity which we com- 3
* memorate with joy and gladness every Christmastide. 3
Christmas therefore is a great religious festival and X
2 should be kept as such, in gratitude to God for the won- X
Iderful gift of His Only Begotten Son to reveal His love 3
for all mankind and to save them from their sins. “Thou 8
shalt call His Name JESUS for He shall save His people 3
from their sins.” £
“From their sins.” Sins of omission as well as f
sins of commission; the leaving undone of the things we X
ought to have done; as well as doing the things we ought X
not to have done. To save us from the sins of lust, im- 3
purity, lying, dishonesty, avarice, greed, selfishness, 3
pride, hatred and hypocrisy. In a word Jesus Christ 3
our Saviour was born on Christmas Day to bring in the £
reign and rule of righteousness, link the world in uni- 2
versal brotherhood and make all mankind—for all are X
I* His children—live in love and peace together as heirs X
of eternal life. £
Human nature, though marred by sin, is a wonder- £
ful and most glorious thing in the light of the Christmas 3
story. The Christmas story tells us that human nature £
is of such dignity and worth that the Eternal Son of God R
did not disdain to assume it, to take it upon Himself, X
He clothed Himself with our nature, with a human body X
and a human soul, like ours with all the properties and j
faculties that belong to man, to set before us the true 3
standard of human life and enable us to attain it.
“Emmanuel, God with us,” to enable us to become 2
and live as worthy children of our Heavenly Father R
should be the uppermost thought in our minds at this X
season. With this as the central thought and grasping X
the true idea of the great fact for which Christmas stands 31
our Christmas will indeed be not only a merry, but a hap- 5|
py Christmas. No place will be found in our hearts for 3
selfishness, or hatred or ill-will. We will indeed be “Men R
of Good Will” of whom the angels sang on that first v
Christmas morn over Judea’s star-lit plain. We will first R
“Worship and adore Him born the King of Angels” X
and thereafter strive to carry the spirit of the Christ 3
Child wherever we may go and into everything that we 3
people. Perfectly natural, too. Be
sides, experience does not justify any
such charge. Negroes want- justice,
not social relations. Education, pro
tection, decent living conditions, a
chance to develop their best—these
are the things they ask. And these
requests the white man must grant,
if he proposes to be reasonably fair.
G. Finally, the most fundamental
fallacy of all—the universal “super
iority complex.” Every racial group
has it. Each thinks itself better than
the rest, and consequently entitled to
exploit the others, if it can. Jews
thought themselves better than Gen
tiles; Greeks felt superior to Romans,
and Romans to everybody. We white
Americans are just as bad. We think
ourselves the pick of the world,—
“God’s last and best.” Meantime,
Chinese and Koreans and East Ind
ians look down on us in turn, as vul
gar, excitable, noisy newcomers, su
perficial thinkers and gross material
ists. Nor do Europeans think much
better of us, if the truth were told.
It is high time for the world to
outgrow that fallacy. Nobody knows
which is the superior race—or wheth
er there be one. All we can say is
that we differ in physical characteris
tics and in degree and kind of devel
opment. History shows that the back
ward race of one age often becomes
the dominant race of the next, and
vice versa. It behooves us all to be
humble; to remember that we are all
human beings, owing to each other
respect and good will. And the more
advantaged any of us happen to be,
the greater is our obligation to serve
the others.
New Orleans, La.—Charles Hamil
ton, pianist of Sellers, La., has been
engaged by the Columbia Phonograph
Company to record several original
numbers, prominent among them be
ing. the “Chicago Defender’s Blues”
and “Mr. Hamilton’s Strut.”
PORTER WHO SET TEXAS
CAPITOL ON FIRE IN 1878
REAPPOINTED BY STATE
Now Serving Forty-Ninth Successive
Year in Employ of State of |
Texas; Hopes to Round Out
Half-Century
Austin, Texas — Henry McBride,
the colored porter in the State At- j
torney-General’s department of the ,
State Capitol, who has the distinc
tion of the burning of the capitol
building of Texas forty-eight years
ago, is practically assured of his re
appointment by the incoming attor
ney, Mr. Pollard.
McBride, whose greatest ambition
is to round out a half-century of
service to the state, was porter in
the Attorney-General’s department
in the days of the old capitol and
one cold day he built a fire in the
stove in the office and during his
absence from the room the blaze in
some manner communicated to the
waste paper upon the floor and in
a short time the entire building was
enveloped in flames.
It was the destruction of the old
capitol that brought about the erec
tion of the present granite building
and McBride takes no little pride in
the thought that he had something to
do with the bringing this about.
Chicago, 111.—Figures r e c e n tly
made public by Dr. E. R. Mowrer,
social psychologist of the University
of Chicago, discloses the fact that
the neighborhood in which one lives
has a definite influence on the mari
tal happiness of the individual. Va
rious residential districts in Chicago
were studied. The business or Loop
district showed 47 cases per thou
sand, the wealthy district as 37, the
Jewish area as 35 and the colored
district but 34.
THREE JAILED
ON CHARGE OF
NIGHT-RIDING
Arkansa* White* Impriconed Follow
ing Waiving of Examination
On Intimidation
Charge*.
• Helena Ark.—Waiving preliminary
examination, three Woodruff county
white men charged with “conspiracy
to intimidate certain United States
citisens,” were held for Federal court
Monday and returned to jail in de
fault of $1,000 bail each. Several
colored witnesses testified against (
the men and were instructed to re
turn during the March term of Fed
eral court.
The men held were arrested at
Augusta, Ark., on Sunday night on a
charge of night riding. They were
I brought to Helena by Deputy U. S.
Marshal W. W. Stout. Ernest Green,
land sales manager for the Chicago
I Mill and Lumber company of Mc
Clellan, Ark.,H. D. Rollins and Joe
Eweratt, farmers of the same dis
J trict, are the men being held.
The incident for which they were
arrested occurred at McClellan the
night after Thanksgiving. On that
night, it was charged, several white
men notified colored dwellers in the
vicinity that they had better be out
of the vicinity within ten days, or
suffer the consequences.
_
MANY FOREIGN THEATRES
FEATURE NEGRO ACTS
French Stars Presented in Mixed
Cast Revue at Champs-Elysses
Music Hall and Receive
Cordial Welcome
Paris, France—(Pacific Coast
News Bureau)—American colored
artists are receiving an extremely
welcome in the foreign amusement
: centers of London, Paris and Berlin
| where they are to be found as the j
! featured attractions in many of the 1
largest theatres.
In London Florence Mills “Black
birds Revue” continues to draw at
the London Pavilion where the
Prince of Wales recently witnessed
his fourth performance of this fast
stepping attraction.
In Paris at the Champs-Elysses j
Music hall the featured number is a
tabloid revue by Henri Falk and j
Jean Wiener, entitled “Olive at the '
Home of the Negroes.” Besides sev
eral noted French stars the cast con
tains Jesse Crawford, Allegretti An
derson, Joe Alex, the colored dancer,
and a race troupe with Vance Low
ry and his jazz kings. In musical'
circles Leslie Hutchinson, the color- ,
ed American pianist who has played
in practically every capital of Europe
during the past two years, recently
gave a recital that attracted favor
able attention.
In Berlin, Louis Douglas is at the
Grosse Schausplehaus; the team of |
Mutt and Jeff are at the Barberina, |
while at the Wintergaden, Green- j
lee and Drayton, who came over with '■
the “Chocolate Kiddies” under the !
management of Dr. Leonidoff (Rus
sian) are domiciled for the month
as the feature attraction.
Josephine Baker, who was with the
Revue Negro is now engaged in
motion picture work in Berlin.
At the Theatre Des Westens in
Berlin Ruth Bayton, formerly of the
Follies Bergere in Paris, is serving
a three months contract as the only
colored performer in the cast.
TELLS SOUTH TO LET
THE NORTH ALONE
Washington, D. C.—Southern dem
ocrats who oppose modification of
the Volstead act, are advised in a
letter to the Thomas Jefferson
League, to remember what the South
did to nullify the spirit of the Four
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments in
taking the ballot away from the Ne
gro. The letter was written by L. A.
Whipple* an attorney of Cochran,
Ga. It is Mr. Whipple’s belief that
the North should be let alone to nul
lify the spirit of the Eighteenth
Amendment so long as the South is
permitted to laugh at the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth. Otherwise, he argues,
something may happen to make the
South change its position.
%
FEDERAL COUNCIL
OF CHURCHES HOLDS
IMPORTANT MEET
P*»» Resolutions Denouncing Lynch
ing and Urging That Churches
Arouse Nation to Take
Action
SOUTHERN BISHOP IS REBUKED
Methodist Prelate Who Spoke Un
wisely is Politely Told “Nigger"
is an Offensive Term to Be
* Promptly Resented
Minneapolis, Minn.—The meeting
of the Executive Committee of the
Federal Council of the Churches of
Christ in America held at Minneapo
lis, on Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday, of last week was a bigger
thing than most people in the Twin
Cities seemed to realize. The Fed
eral Council of Churches, composed
of twenty-eight different protestant
denominations, has a program of
constructive Christian uplift that is
far and away ahead of anything ever
before attempted in Christian en
deavor.
The meeting brought to the Twin
I Cities prominent Negroes from va
j rious parts of the United States who
are members of the organization,
! among whom were Dr. George E.
, Haynes, secretary of the committee
on race relations, New York; Bishop
George C. Clements, African Meth
odist Episcopal Zion, Louisville; Dr.
Lacy K. Williams, president, Nation
al Baptist Convention, Chicago; Dr.
L. G. Jordan, Foreign Mission Board,
National Baptist Convention, Phila
delphia; L. Allen, Jr., Shreveport,
La; Rev. J. H. Henderson, Hot
Springs, Ark; Lawyer W. T. Fran
cis, member Committee on Interna
j tional Good Will, St. Paul; Rev. R.
H. Broyles, Waterloo, la.; Rev. J.
H. Griffin, St. Paul, representative
of Bishop Gaines, A. M. E. Church;
Rev. W. Jemagen of Washington, D.
C., and others. The local pastors of
the Twin Cities were well represented
at all the sessions and great bene
fit was derived by them as a result.
A resolution condemning lynching
was unanimously adopted and one
of the high spots of the meetings
was the report made by Dr. Haynes
on the work done and the future
plans of the committee on race re
lations.
One discordant note was struck
throughout the entire session was
the statement made by Bishop John
M. Moore, of the M. E. Church
South, who was presiding, in com
menting upon the work of the Race
Relations Committee and the good
feeling between the white and col
ored people in the South, made the
mistake of ending his remarks with
the statement “with a good nigger
chauffeur and a good nigger cook
a man can be happy ever after."
The impropriety of the Bishop’s
statement was very clearly called to
his attention by the Rev. J. H. Grif
fin, who without passion or vehe
mence, yet forcefully and with dig
nity, informed the good bishop that
the word “nigger” was offensive to
the race, and not only that, but that
the race had made such progress in
the past sixty years in the ministry,
in business and the professions that
it was no longer to be judged, meas
ured or remembered by its chauf
fers and cooks. It is barely possible
that the good bishop meant no of
fense and merely spoke from the
fullness of his southern heart and
without thinking of the effect it
would produce; but if that be true
it will never occur again, for it will
not be possible for him to forget
Rev. Mr. Griffin’s reply. With the ex
ception of this incident the entire
session was a pleasure and profitable
j to all the attending members.
Christmas is a time of good
will; a time to forget old
grudges, quarrels and misun
derstandings and to make up
with your neighbors.
Merry Christmas to all our
readers.