BOOK REVIEWS

The History of the Negro Church. By Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D. The Associated Publishers, Inc., Washington, D. C. 1921. Pp. 330.

With due regard for the modern scientific methods of historiography, the author of this book has traced the rise and spread of institutionalized Christianity among American Negroes. He discusses such salient points as the early efforts of white missionaries to evangelize the heathen bondmen, the difficulties which beset their labors, the respective contributions of the white denominations, showing the Baptists in the lead, followed closely by the Methodists, with the Presbyterians, Catholics and Congregationalists in the rear. There are set forth the psychological, geographical and other reasons why the Negro was attracted more readily to the Baptist and Methodist denominations, the causes for the reactions of slave holders for and against the evangelization of the slaves, the rise of Negro preachers of merit in the Baptist and Methodist denominations during the eighteenth century, and the founding of the first churches by Negroes of these sects. Among these he mentions the first African Baptist Church by Andrew Bryan in 1788, the first African Methodist Episcopal Church by Richard Allen in 1794, and the first African Presbyterian Church by John Gloucester in 1807.

The factors which caused the cleavage of the white denominations into North and South, the causes of the separation of the Negro communicants from the whites and the threefold cleavage of the Negro Methodists are adequately discussed. Attention is given also to the increase in the number of churches and the State and national centralization of the churches within the respective denominations. The ante-bellum beginnings of the only Negro education which aimed to develop Negro preachers through instructors of both races, the importance of Negro churches in developing race leaders, educators, and statesmen who figured in the economic, social and political life of the Negro after the war, are ably treated. The book gives an account of the rise of the conservative and progressive elements within the church and [Pg 224]closes with a chapter on the present-day Negro church statistics which indicate the enormous spread of Christianity through the ascendancy of the Methodists and Baptists.

One can hardly appreciate the sympathetic and scholarly character of this work from the bald outline given above. Just therein may it be characterized as a pioneer work, a genuine contribution. In a larger sense it is more than the history of the Negro church; it is the very life history of the Negro race in America, so intimately have the spiritual strivings of the Negro been bound up with his sentiments and interests, his habits and endeavors, his situation and circumstances, his monuments and edifices, his poetry and song.

F. C. Sumner

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Unsung Heroes. By Mrs. Elizabeth Ross Haynes. N. Y. DuBois & Dill. 1921. 279 pp. Illustrated.

One of the gravest problems now facing the Negroes in the United States, and a problem none the less grave because unrecognized by the unthinking majority, is that of reading for their children. Can anything be more dangerous than the continual subjection of our children to the influence of books, magazines, and newspapers in which their race is being held up constantly to pity or contempt? The use of opprobrious and insulting epithets with reference to the Negro is so common in English and American publications as to need no more than a mere reference here, and this practice is to be noted even in authors who are conscious of no active race hostility. If the psychological influence of such endlessly reiterated and therefore inescapable slurs is bad for adults, how much worse must it be for children. In The Brownies' Book, published by DuBois and Dill, a most praiseworthy attempt has been made to meet this need in the form of a children's magazine free from all objectionable matter, and it is nothing short of a national calamity that this periodical has been forced to suspend publication because of a lack of sufficient patronage. It is fitting, then, that the same publishers should issue the book now under our hand, a fine specimen of the printer's art in paper, presswork, binding, and illustrations.

In it the author, the wife of Dr. George E. Haynes, the well-known sociologist, has set forth in a language and style suited to young readers the lives of seventeen of the most celebrated men [Pg 225]and women of Negro descent. Eight of them—Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Banneker, Phillis Wheatley, Josiah Henson, Sojourner Truth, Attucks, and Paul Cuffé—belong to the ante-bellum period in America; five—Dunbar, Booker Washington, B. K. Bruce, Crummell, and Langston—to the reconstruction and late nineteenth century periods; and four—Pushkin, the Russian; L'Ouverture, the Haytian; Coleridge-Taylor, the Englishman; and Alexandre Dumas, the Frenchman—belong across the ocean. It will be seen that the selection is a representative one, and that no living person is included. The material chosen from each life is carefully selected, too, to suit the minds and tastes of children. There are six illustrations by four of our well-known young artists. Altogether the book is the most satisfactory addition yet made to our children's literature in this country, and should be in every home where there are colored children, and in every library in which they are readers.

E. C. Williams

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Les Daïmons du Culte Voudo. By Dr. Arthur Holly, Port-au Prince, Haiti, 1919. Pp. lx-523.

The author of this unique volume declares himself "boldly, but without vanity, or false modesty" an esoterist, that is to say, one who is an adept at the interpretation of the occult and secret doctrines. This book, an exposition of the secret doctrine, is not, therefore, as its title might suggest, a scientific treatise upon the Voudo cult as it has existed and as it still exists in Haiti. It is rather an interpretation and defense of the primitive religion of Africa, particularly as it is represented in the religious customs and practices of the common people in Haiti today.

The sentiments which have inspired this undertaking are altogether admirable. "Haitiens," he says, "have reached a point in their efforts to conform to an alien culture where they are in danger of losing their personality as a people as well as their native culture." But now if ever is the moment, after the great cataclysm in Europe, to lift the ancestral cult from the dust and make it worthy of Haiti, of the African race.

"We are," he continues, "African-Latins. But our Latin culture is all on the surface. The old African heritage persists in us and controls us to such an extent that under certain circumstances we feel ourselves moved by mysterious forces when the [Pg 226]silence of the night, throbs with the irregular rhythm, melancholly, passionate and magical, of the sacred dances of Voudo."

Dr. Arthur Holly is evidently learning, but he draws his knowledge from sources that are esoteric and therefore inaccessible to all except the adepts. What he has written is, therefore, neither science nor history. It has the character rather of revelation. It is impressive, but not intelligible to the uninitiated.

From his introduction, however, one gathers that he intends to show that Christianity and Voudoism are from a common source, that "the Bible," as he says, "belongs to us," i.e., the black people, but that this earlier and more primitive form of religion which is revealed in it has been corrupted by the white race.

It is an interesting idea, but more interesting is the evidence that it offers of the rise, among the Negro people of Haiti, of a racial consciousness which embraces in one conscious unity the Negro peoples of Africa and America. It is another spontaneous manifestation of that unrest of the black man which has found expression in pan-Africanism and in the movement in this country headed by Marcus Garvey, whose program is Africa for the Africans.

Robert E. Park

University of Chicago

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The Wings of Oppression. By Leslie Pinckney Hill. The Stratford Company, Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts. Price by mail, $2.15.

Bearing the certificate of the Lyric Muse, Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, schoolmaster of Cheney, Pennsylvania, and authentic singer, is the newest arrival on the slopes of Parnassus. A first glance tells that he is an agile climber, sinewy, easy of movement, light of step, with both grace and strength. Every indication in form and motion is for some point far up toward the summit. Youthful is he, ambitious plainly, and, in spite of a burden, buoyant. "Climber," I said. I will drop the figure. Poets were never pedestrians. Mr. Hill comes not afoot. If not on the wings of Pegasus, yet on wings he comes—the wings of oppression. Sad wings! Yet it must be remarked that it is commonly on such wings that poets of whatever race and time rise. And Mr. Hill's race knows no other wings. On the wings of oppression the[Pg 227] Negro poet and the Negro people are rising toward the summits of Parnassus, Pisgah, and other peaks. This they know, too, and of it they are justly proud.

In his Foreword Mr. Hill thus states the case of his people, and, by implication, of himself:

"Nothing in the life of the nation has seemed to me more significant than that dark civilization which the colored man has built up in the midst of a white society organized against it. The Negro has been driven under all the burdens of oppression, both material and spiritual, to the brink of desperation, but he has always been saved by his philosophy of life. He has advanced against all opposition by a certain elevation of his spirit. He has been made strong in tribulation. He has constrained oppression to give him wings."

The significant thing about these wings, in a critical view, is that they fulfill the proper function of wings—bear aloft and sustain in flight through the azure depths. Mr. Hill's wings do bear aloft and sustain: if not always, nor even ever, into the very empyrean of poetry, yet invariably, seventy times, into the ampler air. Like all his race, he has suffered much; and, like all his race still, he has gathered wisdom from sorrow. As a true poet should have, he has philosophy, also vision and imagination—vision for himself and his people, imagination that sees facts in terms of beauty and presents truths with vital imagery. Add thereto craftsmanship acquired in the best traditions of English poetry and you have Hill the poet.

The merits of this book cannot be shown by the quoting of lines and stanzas. As ever with true art, the merit lies in the effect of complete poems. Still, we can here detach from this and that poem a stanza or two, despite the wrong to art. The first and fourth stanzas of the title-poem will indicate Mr. Hill's technique and philosophy:

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Significant as interpreting the character and temper of the Negro with whom today the white world has to deal, are the following lines from the blank verse poem entitled Armageddon:

If these poems, taken collectively, do not declare "what is on the Negro's mind," they yet truly reveal, to the reflecting person, what has sunk deep into his heart. They are therefore a message to America, a protest, an appeal, and a warning. They will penetrate, I predict, through breast armor of aes triplex into the hearts of those whom sermons and editorials fail to touch in the springs of action. Such is the virtue of music wed to persuasive words.

A sonnet entitled To a Caged Canary in a Negro Restaurant will present the poet's people and his own manner of poetic musing:

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It would be an injustice to this poet did I convey the idea that his seventy-odd poems are exclusively occupied with race wrongs and oppression. Not a few of them bear no stamp of an oppressed or afflicted spirit, though of sorrow they may have been nurtured.

A lyric of pure loveliness is the following, entitled:

To a Nobly-Gifted Singer

The Wings of Oppression strikes a high level of artistic expression and makes a quite extraordinary appeal. It is intense poetry, lyrical and meditative.

Here is that solid body of thought which, in addition to artistic expression, is requisite to poetry that attains and holds a high place of esteem. Great variety of form is also here; excellent blank verse with a movement at once easy and restrained, an equable, strong flow, bearing lofty meditations; sonnets after the manner of the masters; octo-syllabics of sententious felicity; various apt lyrical stanzas. Culture alone, of which there is abundant evidence, could not have produced these poems. The poetic endowment, thoroughly disciplined, was necessary. Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill is a poet. His powers are rich, varied, and developing. His second book will be better than this excellent first.

But more than the merit that has been intimated there is in these lyrics and measured musings a pathos, a restrained Laocoön cry, that must be to thousands an arresting revelation of the unimagined sufferings of the cultured colored people of our land. Mr. Hill's Wings of Oppression has a message in it for America.

Robert T. Kerlin

Lexington, Va.

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