The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  MAMMY: Gals neber know nothin’ ’bout sech things; an’ seein’s tomorror’s Christmas, we’ll celebrate it wif a weddin’, whether Jinny’s willin’ or not. What dyo say ol’ man?

  CAESAR: Den is jes’ my senimens ol’ ’ooman, we’ll has a weddin’. (SAM and VIRGINIA talk at one side)

  JUNO: Somebody hold me, or I shall bust. I’m so full. (to company) Come on boys and girls, let’s have an ol’ Virginia, it’s the only safe exit for surplus steam.

  CAESAR: (rising) Dat’s jes the thing, I feel mysel’ growin’ twenty-five years younger dis blessed minute, aint dat so ol’ ’ooman?

  MAMMY: Dat’s jes so ol’ man.

  JUNO: But Lor’, I forgot, we can’t dance anything but high-toned dances, we must remember that ther’s the dignity of an M.C. to be upheld. But anyhow, you fellows have out the chairs and things, an’ we’ll have a quadrille.

  (Stage cleared. Lively music. Each one selects partner, PETE with JUNO, JIM with POMP. SAM as caller. Go through three or four figures lively, JUNO, MAMMY, and CAESAR begin to get happy. Suddenly SAM stops calling, rushes to footlights)

  SAM: Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will excuse me for laying aside the dignity of an elected M.C., and allow me to appear before you once more as peculiar Sam of the old underground railroad.

  (Plantation chorus, SAM dancing to “Golden Slippers,” remainder happy)

  (Curtain)

  “Talma Gordon” (1900)

  SOURCE: Pauline Hopkins, “Talma Gordon,” Colored American Magazine 1, no. 5 (October 1900): 272–3.

  The Canterbury Club of Boston was holding its regular monthly meeting at the palatial Beacon Street residence of Dr. William Thornton, expert medical practitioner and specialist. All the members were present, because some rare opinions were to be aired by men of profound thought on a question of vital importance to the life of the Republic, and because the club celebrated its anniversary in a home usually closed to society. The Doctor’s winters, since his marriage, were passed at his summer home near his celebrated sanitarium. This winter found him in town with his wife and two boys. We had heard much of the beauty of the former, who was entirely unknown to social life, and about whose life and marriage we felt sure a romantic interest attached. The Doctor himself was too bright a luminary of the professional world to remain long hidden without creating comment. We had accepted the invitation to dine with alacrity, knowing that we should be welcomed to a banquet that would feast both eye and palate; but we had not been favored by even a glimpse of the hostess. The subject for discussion was “Expansion: Its Effect Upon the Future Development of the Anglo-Saxon Throughout the World.”

  Dinner was over, but we still sat about the social board discussing the question of the hour. The Hon. Herbert Clapp, eminent jurist and politician, had painted in glowing colors the advantages to be gained by the increase of wealth and the exalted position which expansion would give the United States in the councils of the great governments of the world. In smoothly flowing sentences marshaled in rhetorical order, with compact ideas, and incisive argument, he drew an effective picture with all the persuasive eloquence of the trained orator.

  Joseph Whitman, the theologian of worldwide fame, accepted the arguments of Mr. Clapp, but subordinated all to the great opportunity which expansion would give to the religious enthusiast. None could doubt the sincerity of this man, who looked once into the idealized face on which heaven had set the seal of consecration.

  Various opinions were advanced by the twenty-five men present, but the host said nothing; he glanced from one to another with a look of amusement in his shrewd gray-blue eyes. “Wonderful eyes,” said his patients who came under their magic spell. “A wonderful man and a wonderful mind,” agreed his contemporaries, as they heard in amazement of some great cure of chronic or malignant disease which approached the supernatural.

  “What do you think of this question, Doctor?” finally asked the president, turning to the silent host.

  “Your arguments are good; they would convince almost anyone.”

  “But not Doctor Thornton,” laughed the theologian.

  “I acquiesce whichever way the result turns. Still, I like to view both sides of a question. We have considered but one tonight. Did you ever think that in spite of our prejudices against amalgamation, some of our descendants, indeed many of them, will inevitably intermarry among those far-off tribes of dark-skinned peoples, if they become a part of this great Union?”

  “Among the lower classes that may occur, but not to any great extent,” remarked a college president.

  “My experience teaches me that it will occur among all classes, and to an appalling extent,” replied the doctor.

  “You don’t believe in intermarriage with other races?”

  “Yes, most emphatically, when they possess decent moral development and physical perfection, for then we develop a superior being in the progeny born of the intermarriage. But if we are not ready to receive and assimilate the new material which will be brought to mingle with our pure Anglo-Saxon stream, we should call a halt in our expansion policy.”

  “I must confess, Doctor, that in the idea of amalgamation you present a new thought to my mind. Will you not favor us with a few of your main points?” asked the president of the club, breaking the silence which followed the Doctor’s remarks.

  “Yes, Doctor, give us your theories on the subject. We may not agree with you, but we are all open to conviction.”

  The Doctor removed the half-consumed cigar from his lips, drank what remained in his glass of the choice Burgundy, and leaning back in his chair contemplated the earnest faces before him.

  “We may make laws, but laws are but straws in the hands of Omnipotence.

  There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

  Rough-hew them how we will.

  And no man may combat fate. Given a man, propinquity, opportunity, fascinating femininity, and there you are. Black, white, green, yellow—nothing will prevent intermarriage. Position, wealth, family, friends—all sink into insignificance before the God-implanted instinct that made Adam, awakening from a deep sleep and finding the woman beside him, accept Eve as bone of his bone; he cared not nor questioned whence she came. So it is with the sons of Adam ever since, through the law of heredity which makes us all one common family. And so it will be with us in our re-formation of this old Republic. Perhaps I can make my meaning clearer by illustration, and with your permission I will tell you a story which came under my observation as a practitioner.

  “Doubtless all of you heard of the terrible tragedy which occurred at Gordonville, Mass., some years ago, when Capt. Jonathan Gordon, his wife, and little son were murdered. I suppose that I am the only man on this side of the Atlantic, outside of the police, who can tell you the true story of that crime.

  “I knew Captain Gordon well; it was through his persuasions that I bought a place in Gordonville and settled down to spending my summers in that charming rural neighborhood. I had rendered the Captain what he was pleased to call valuable medical help, and I became his family physician. Captain Gordon was a retired sea captain, formerly engaged in the East India trade. All his ancestors had been such; but when the bottom fell out of that business he established the Gordonville Mills with his first wife’s money, and settled down as a money-making manufacturer of cotton cloth. The Gordons were old New England Puritans who had come over in the Mayflower, they had owned Gordon Hall for more than a hundred years. It was a baronial-like pile of granite with towers, standing on a hill which commanded a superb view of Massachusetts Bay and the surrounding country. I imagine the Gordon star was under a cloud about the time Captain Jonathan married his first wife, Miss Isabel Franklin of Boston, who brought to him the money which mended the broken fortunes of the Gordon house, and restored this old Puritan stock to its rightful position. In the person of Captain Gordon the austerity of manner and indomitable wi
llpower that he had inherited were combined with a temper that brooked no contradiction.

  “The first wife died at the birth of her third child, leaving him two daughters, Jeannette and Talma. Very soon after her death the Captain married again. I have heard it rumored that the Gordon girls did not get on very well with their stepmother. She was a woman with no fortune of her own, and envied the large portion left by the first Mrs. Gordon to her daughters.

  “Jeannette was tall, dark, and stern like her father; Talma was like her dead mother, and possessed of great talent, so great that her father sent her to the American Academy at Rome, to develop the gift. It was the hottest of July days when her friends were bidden to an afternoon party on the lawn and a dance in the evening, to welcome Talma Gordon among them again. I watched her as she moved about among her guests, a fairylike blonde in floating white draperies, her face a study in delicate changing tints, like the heart of a flower, sparkling in smiles about the mouth to end in merry laughter in the clear blue eyes. There were all the subtle allurements of birth, wealth, and culture about the exquisite creature:

  ‘Smiling, frowning evermore,

  Thou art perfect in love-lore,

  Ever varying Madeline,’

  quoted a celebrated writer as he stood apart with me, gazing upon the scene before us. He sighed as he looked at the girl.

  “‘Doctor, there is genius and passion in her face. Sometime our little friend will do wonderful things. But is it desirable to be singled out for special blessings by the gods? Genius always carries with it intense capacity for suffering: “Whom the gods love die young.” ’

  “‘Ah,’ I replied, ‘do not name death and Talma Gordon together. Cease your dismal croakings; such talk is rank heresy.’

  “The dazzling daylight dropped slowly into summer twilight. The merriment continued; more guests arrived; the great dancing pagoda built for the occasion was lighted by myriads of Japanese lanterns. The strains from the band grew sweeter and sweeter, and ‘all went merry as a marriage bell.’ It was a rare treat to have this party at Gordon Hall, for Captain Jonathan was not given to hospitality. We broke up shortly before midnight, with expressions of delight from all the guests.

  “I was a bachelor then, without ties. Captain Gordon insisted upon my having a bed at the Hall. I did not fall asleep readily; there seemed to be something in the air that forbade it. I was still awake when a distant clock struck the second hour of the morning. Suddenly the heavens were lighted by a sheet of ghastly light; a terrific midsummer thunderstorm was breaking over the sleeping town. A lurid flash lit up all the landscape, painting the trees in grotesque shapes against the murky sky, and defining clearly the sullen blackness of the waters of the bay breaking in grandeur against the rocky coast. I had arisen and put back the draperies from the windows, to have an unobstructed view of the grand scene. A low muttering coming nearer and nearer, a terrific roar, and then a tremendous downpour. The storm had burst.

  31

  KATHERINE DAVIS CHAPMAN TILLMAN

  (1870–after 1922)

  Katherine Davis Chapman Tillman published variously under the names Kate D. Chapman, Katie D. C. Davis Tillman (in 1893), and Katherine Davis Tillman (in 1898). She was born in Mound City, Illinois, into a poor family and did not attend school until the age of twelve, when the family moved to Yankton, South Dakota. She finished high school and took classes at State University in Louisville, Kentucky, and Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio. While at Wilberforce, she married George M. Tillman, an A.M.E. minister from Pennsylvania. His first assignment had been in Yankton, where they likely met. Tillman was known as a literary prodigy: she published poems, short fiction, and journalism in many of the black publications of the time and edited the Women’s Missionary Recorder. She was also socially active, serving as an officer in the National Association of Colored Women. After 1922, and a long illness, she stopped publishing.

  The following three poems are concerned with history and the idea of black progress within American society. They take the stance of looking back from a future imagined by Tillman in which African Americans can pursue greatness. Tillman, in her work, highlights historical figures, singling them out from within important American moments as if to preempt future attempts at hiding black progress behind a greater theme of American progress. These extraordinary individuals, Tillman argues, lived violently, apart from, and often at odds with the history of their own nation.

  “A Question of To-day” (1889)

  SOURCE: Kate D. Chapman, “A Question of To-day,” Freeman (June 8, 1889).

  “Human we are, of blood as good;

  As rich the crimson stream;

  God-planned, ere creation stood.

  However it may seem.

  “Oh! sit not tamely by and see

  Thy brother bleeding sore;

  For is there not much work for thee,

  While they for help implore?

  “From Wahalak came the news,

  Our men are lying dead.

  Did it not hatred rank infuse

  When word like this was read?

  “And now White Caps, with hearts as black

  As hell,—of Ku-Klux fame,

  Still ply the lash on freedman’s back;

  And must he bear the same?”

  Thus said a woman, old and gray,

  To me, while at her door,

  Speaking of what so heavy lay

  And made her heart so sore.

  “What, woman! dost thou speak of war.

  The weaker, ’gainst the strong?

  That, surely, would our future mar.

  Nor stop the tide of wrong.

  “We must be patient, longer wait.

  We’ll get our cherished rights.—”

  “Yes, when within the pearly gate.

  And done with earthly sights,—”

  Replied the woman, with a sneer

  Upon her countenance.

  “You men do hold your lives too dear

  To risk with spear or lance.”

  “Naomi, at Fort Pillow fell

  Three hundred blacks one day;

  The cannon’s roar their only knell,

  In one deep grave they lay.

  “Our men have bravely fought, and will,

  Whene’er the time shall come;

  Bat now we hear His ‘Peace, be still!’

  And stay within our home.

  “Let but our people once unite,

  Stand firmly as a race,

  Prejudice, error, strong to fight,

  Each hero in his place,—

  “And not a favored few demand

  Bribes of gold, position,

  While many freemen in our land

  Bewail their hard condition,—

  “Liberty, truly, ours will be,

  And error pass away;

  And then no longer shall we see

  Injustice hold her sway.

  “As Americans we shall stand.

  Respected by all men;

  An honored race in this fair land,

  So praised by word and pen.

  “And those to come will never know

  The pain we suffered here;

  In peace shall vow, in peace shall plow,

  With naught to stay or fear.”

  Said Naomi: “You may be right;

  God grant it as you say.

  I’ve often heard the darkest night

  Gives way to brightest day.”

  “Lines to Ida B. Wells” (1894)

  SOURCE: Kate D. Chapman, “Lines to Ida B. Wells,” Christian Recorder (July 5, 1894).

  Thank God, there are hearts in England

  That feel for the Negro’s distress,

  And gladly give of their substance

  To se
ek for his wrongs a redress!

  Speed on the day when the lynchers

  No more shall exist in our land,

  When even the poorest Negro

  Protected by justice shall stand.

  When no more the cries of terror

  Shall break on the midnight air,

  While poor and defenseless Negroes

  Surrender their lives in despair.

  When the spirit of our inspired Lincoln,

  Wendell Phillips and Summer brave

  Shall enkindle a spirit of justice

  And our race from oppression save.

  When loyal hearts of the Southland

  With those of the North, tried and true,

  Shall give to the struggling Negro

  That which is by nature his due.

  And the cloud that threatens our land

  Shall pale beneath Liberty’s sun,

  And in a prosperous future

  Be atoned the wrongs to us done.

  Go on, thou brave woman leader,

  Spread our wrongs from shore to shore,

  Until clothed with his rights is the Negro,

  And lynchings are heard of no more.

  And centuries hence the children

  Sprung up from the Hamitic race

  On history’s unwritten pages

  Thy daring deeds shall trace.

  And the Afro-American mother

  Who of Negro history tells

  Shall speak in words of grateful praise

  Of the noble Ida B. Wells!

  “A Tribute to Negro Regiments” (1898)

  SOURCE: Kate D. Chapman, “A Tribute to Negro Regiments,” Christian Recorder (June 9, 1898).

  Watch as they march from the West to the Sea,

  Cavalry brave and armed infantry:

  Men who have fought, so the records say,

  Like lions, on the frontiers far away.

  “Black Buffaloes,” the Indians called them first,

  But when in the fight they got the worst