The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  It is interesting and illuminating to see what class of men have been indicted for holding their fellows in bondage in the stockades of the South. A few years ago a leading member of the Georgia legislature, together with his brothers, operated an extensive camp in Lowndes Co. Witnesses testified before the grand jury that in this camp, owned by a member of the legislature, the brutalities practiced were too revolting to describe. It is also interesting to know that a member of that same family was awarded 100 convicts on the 1st of April 1904, and this lease is good for five years. Witnesses testified that this member of the Georgia legislature operated a camp in which prisoners were stripped and unmercifully lashed by the whipping bosses for the slightest offence. It was also alleged that this lawmaker for a sovereign State and his brothers were accustomed to go into counties adjoining Lowndes, pay the fines of the misdemeanor convicts, carry them into their Ware county camp and there keep them indefinitely.

  The grand jury claimed that at least twenty citizens of Ware Co. were held as slaves in the camp owned by the brothers to whom reference has been made, long after their terms had expired. An ex-sheriff of Ware Co. and a well-known attorney of Georgia pleaded guilty not very long ago to the charge of holding citizens in a condition of peonage, and were each fined 1,000 dollars (500 dollars of which was remitted) by Judge Emory Speer. A sheriff in Alabama was recently indicted for peonage. Manufacturers of Georgia and railroad contractors in Tennessee have recently been indicted for holding men and women in involuntary servitude. The chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Bradford Co., Fla., was indicted not long ago for the same offence. In March 1905 the Federal Grand Jury indicted the city of Louisville and the superintendent of the workhouse for violating the federal statute against peonage.

  There is no doubt whatever that every misdemeanor convict in the chain gangs and convict lease camps in the South operated by private individuals could appeal to the courts and secure release. Incarceration of misdemeanor convicts in these camps is as much disobedience of the laws as the original offence which led to conviction. There is no doubt that every misdemeanor camp in the southern States which is controlled by private individuals is a nest of illegality. Every man employing misdemeanor convicts for private gain is a law-breaker. Every county official who leases or permits to be leased a misdemeanor convict for other than public work transgresses one of the plainest statutes on the law books of some of the States in which the offence is committed, and violates an amendment to the constitution of the United States besides. There is no lack of law by which to punish the guilty, but they are permitted to perpetrate fearful atrocities upon the unfortunate and helpless, because there are thousands of just and humane people in this country who know little or nothing about the methods pursued in the chain gangs, the convict lease system and the contract labor system, which are all children of one wicked and hideous mother, peonage.

  The negro was armed with the suffrage by just and humane men, because soon after the War of the Rebellion the legislatures of the southern States began to enact vagrant or peonage laws, the intent of which was to reduce the newly emancipated slaves to a bondage almost as cruel, if not quite as cruel, as that from which they had just been delivered. After the vote had been given the negro, so that he might use it in self-defense, the peonage laws became a dead letter for a time and lay dormant, so to speak, until disfranchisement laws were enacted in nearly every State of the South. The connection between disfranchisement and peonage is intimate and close. The planter sees the negro robbed of his suffrage with impunity, with the silent consent of the whole country, and he knows that political preferment and great power are the fruits of this outrage upon a handicapped and persecuted race. He is encouraged, therefore, to apply the same principle for profit’s sake to his business affairs. The politician declares that the negro is unfit for citizenship and violently snatches from him his rights. The planter declares the negro is lazy and forces him into involuntary servitude contrary to the law. Each tyrant employs the same process of reasoning to justify his course.

  43

  MARY V. COOK

  (1863–1945)

  Mary Virginia Cook Parish was a lifelong activist for the rights of black women. She was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and despite limited academic opportunities, Cook progressed through school and graduated at the head of her class, going on to become a professor and principal at the normal department at Simmons University. Throughout her career, Cook lectured and wrote as means of fighting for educational equality between the races. She spoke at many Baptist Conventions, and her columns appeared in the South Carolina Tribune, American Baptist, Our Women and Children, and Hope. Cook was one of the founders of the National Association of Colored Women (1896) and the National Baptist Women’s Convention (1900). In 1898 Cook married George Henry Parrish, a pastor and president of the Eckstein Norton Foundation. The couple moved to Louisville, where Cook took on leadership roles in Louisville’s National Association of Colored Women, the Thirteenth Annual Convention of the National Association in Louisville, the Parent Teacher Association, and the YWCA. She also was the first president of the Colored Republicans Women’s Club in Louisville and served as an alternative delegate to the 1932 National Republican Convention in Chicago.

  Cook argues here for women’s historical importance through a Christian lens, recalling women from scripture who were important to the development of Christianity. Cook draws on her own experience in the Baptist Church to inspire Christian women to be more aware of their importance in their own communities. She argues, essentially, that behind every good Christian man is a good Christian woman. One of the most notable sections of this essay, “The Newspaper Work of the Denomination,” encourages women to write and edit publications.

  “Women’s Place in the Work of the Denomination” (1887)

  SOURCE: Mary V. Cook, “Women’s Place in the Work of the Denomination,” American National Baptist Convention, Journals and Lectures, 45–56, 1887.

  How pleasant it is to wander over, and enjoy this beautiful world God has made. Its green meadows, its beautiful fields, its dense forests with wild flowers and rippling streams, its wide expanse of water and lofty mountains all delight us. But while charmed with its beauty, our joy is greater if we can comprehend that it “was without form and void” and contrast its present beauty with the roughness of its former state. So in viewing the wonders of divine grace, we need to note its results in connection with what might have been, and before attempting to describe woman’s work in the denomination and the great blessings God has bestowed upon her, we will first consider her condition when His gospel found her, that we may better appreciate the grace which wrought the change. Among all nations woman was degraded. Besides being bartered or sold as a thing of merchandise, there were barbarous laws and customs among the Phoenicians, Armenians, Carthaginians, Medes and Persians, and all too revolting and indecent to be mentioned. Greece, whose land abounded in scholars, heroes, and sages where the sun of intellect illumined the world, looked upon her as an object “without a soul.” Gibbon says; “the Romans married without love, or loved without delicacy or respect.”

  In China, Japan and Africa the condition is the same except where christianity has emancipated her. And wherever the religion of the true Messiah has spread its snowy white pinions and lighted up the deep dark recesses of man’s heart, woman has been loved adored respected. I will not affirm that all virtue and joy were unknown: There are some fertile spots in the most arid deserts; there is light in the darkest places amid all this wickedness and infidelity. God has preserved the spark of faith, purity, and love. Though we live in the Nineteenth century, and have it in its beauty and strength, our own beloved America is not free from the curse. Modern Athens is not totally unlike ancient Athens.

  The leaven of infidelity is infesting this land. Immoralities, indecencies and crimes as revolting as ever withered and blighted a nation are of usual occurrence. They fearlessly mai
ntain their hold and flaunt their wicked banners in the face of the government which is either too corrupt to care, or to timid to oppose. Who is to wipe these iniquities from our land if it be not christian women? A reform in these things can not be effected by the ballot, by political station, or by mere supremacy of civil law.

  It must come by woman’s unswerving devotion to a pure and undefiled christianity, for to that alone, woman owes her influence, her power and all she is. To establish this truth we will recount history as its light comes to us from the pages of the Bible. Fortunately the records of the past present an array of heroic and saintly women whose virtues have made the world more tolerable, and chief among these are the wives, mothers and daughters of the Holy Scriptures.

  In the formation of the world when the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea and the beautiful garden of Paradise were made for the happiness of man, and when man himself was made in the image of his Creator, God plucked Eve from the side of Adam “without childhood or growth” to be “a helpmeet for him.” When Adam first looked upon her he was enraptured with the perfectness of her form, the splendor of her beauty, the purity of her countenance and in this excess of joy he exclaimed: “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife.” They knew naught but divine happiness. Their hearts were filled with pure love unsullied by sin, but alas! in a short time the scene was changed—Eve was tempted—partook of the forbidden fruit and gave to Adam and he did eat. In this fallen state they were driven from the garden, yet she proved still a helpmeet for her husband, sharing his sorrow as she had shared his joy. Many have been the reproaches uttered against her—few have been her defenders. Dr. Pendleton says: “Eve acting under a mistake and a delusion was by no means excusable, but Adam was far more inexcusable than she for he acted intelligently as well as voluntarily. He knew what he was doing.” There is much to admire in the character of Sarah, wife of Abraham, her reverence for her husband; her devotion to her son; her faithfulness to duty; her willingness in its performance. She was beautiful, chaste, modest and industrious—all these she sacrificed for the good and welfare of those around her. It was in this family God preserved the seed of righteousness. Also we find Miriam cheering on the hosts of Israel with her timbrel in her hands as she uttered the songs of praise “Sing, sing ye to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” God’s thought and appreciation of woman’s work appears when he appoints Deborah to be a warrior, judge and prophet. Her work was distinct from her husband’s who, it seems took no part whatever in the work of God while Deborah was inspired by the Eternal expressly to do His will and to testify to her countrymen that He recognizes in His followers neither male nor female, heeding neither the “weakness” of one, nor the strength of the other, but strictly calling those who are perfect at heart and willing to do his bidding. She was a woman of much meekness and humility, but of great force of character. Her song of praise, when Israel overcame the enemy, has only been excelled by the Psalms of David: “and Israel had rest forty years.” Mention might also be made of Huldah, wife of Shallum, who dwelt in Jerusalem in a college, to whom went Hilkiah, the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor and Shapham and Asaiah to enquire concerning the words of the book that was found in the house of the Lord. It was a woman whom God had chosen as a medium between Him and His people who would faithfully report all that he desired. Huldah’s dwelling in college shows that she was anxious to become familiar with the law—to better prepare herself for the work of Him Who had called her. Woman’s faith and devotion are beautifully illustrated by the touching scene between Ruth and Naomi, when Naomi besought Ruth to return to the home of her birth, thinking that the pleasure of childhood days had endeared it to her, and when Ruth with that pathos of devotion, and fairness said: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me and more too if aught but death part thee and me.” We cannot forget the maternal tenderness of Hagar, the well kept promise of Hannah, the filial devotion of Jephthah’s daughter, nor the queenly patriotism of Esther. But no woman bore such recognition as Mary the mother of Jesus, who was chosen to bear a prominent part in human regeneration. After the fall of our first parents, God promised that a virgin should bear a son who should be the Redeemer of the human race. The memory of this promise was preserved through all nations, and each was desirous of the honor. The story of the birth of Romulus and Remus coincides with the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ. Silvia became their mother by the God Mars, even as Christ was the son of the Holy Ghost. An effort was made to take the life of these boys by throwing the cradle which contained them into the river Arno, whence it was carried into the Tiber. The cradle was stranded at the foot of Palatine and the infants were carried by a she-wolf into her den where they were tenderly cared for. This escape is likened to the flight into Egypt, and while this story has become a myth, the birth of Christ becomes more and more a reality. There are others who claim this mysterious birth. The most revered goddess of the Chinese sprung from the contact of a flower. Buddha was claimed to have been borne by a virgin named Maha-Mahai, but none realized the power of the words spoken by the angel, “Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee! Blessed are thou among women, save Mary.” History and tradition tell us she excelled all her young companions in her intelligence and skill. Denis, the Areopagite says: “She was a dazzling beauty.” St. Epiphanius, writing in the fourth century, from traditions and manuscripts says: “In stature she was above the medium, her hair was blonde; her face oval; her eyes bright and slightly olive in color; her eyebrows perfectly arched, her nose equaline and of irreproachable perfection and her lips were ruby red. The ardent sun of her country had slightly bronzed her complexion; her hands were long, her fingers were slender” as a virgin she honored one of the most beautiful virtues of woman; as a mother she nourished a Redeemer. She gave the world an example of non-excelled maternal devotion; of the most magnificent grief which history affords. The life of Christ furnishes many examples of woman’s work, love and devotion. They took part in the Savior’s work, followed Him on His journeys, believed on Him and loved Him. They were “last at the cross and first at the grave.” Christ did certainly atone for the sins of man, but His mission to woman was a great deal more; for He has not only saved her soul, but actually brought out and cultivated her intellect for the good of His cause. He was her friend, her counselor and her Savior. She bathed His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. He found comfort in the home of Mary and Martha when burdened, or tired from a day’s journey. At the well of Samaria He converses with a woman which was unlawful for a man of respect to do, but He not only talked with her but permitted her to do good for mankind and the advancement of His cause. Filled with enthusiasm she leaves her water pot and hastens to proclaim her loyalty to One Who had won her heart and spoken to her of “living water.” She testified that she had seen the true Messiah and invites others to see Him for themselves. To Mary Magdalene was the commission given to bear the joyful intelligence that Jesus had risen. It was the women more than men whose faith ventured to show Jesus those personal kindnesses which our Lord ever appreciated. In the lives and acts of the Apostles women are discovered praying, prophesying and spreading the gospel. Prominent for good works and alms deeds which she did was Dorcas. Like the Savior she went about doing good, but in the midst of this usefulness she died and so great was the grief of the widows unto whom she had ministered that the Lord again restored her to them. Paul placed much value on the work of Phebe and commends her to the churches as “our sister.” Phebe was a deaconess of the church of Cenchrea and was, no doubt a great helper of Paul’s “in the gospel.” In the letter she carries to Rome, mention is made of quite a number of
women who had been co-workers with the apostle. One of the first on the list was Priscilla, the wife of Aquilla who had with her husband laid down her neck for him. She possessed high qualities and did active work in the cause which she espoused. Lydia was the first European convert—after she received the word into her heart; at once opens her house and offers a home to the apostle who had been instrumental in her conversion. At Thessalonica we find “the chief women not a few” among the workers of the church. The church today wants more Priscillas, Phebes, Chloes, Elizabeths, Marys, Annas, Tryphenas, Tryphosas, Julias and Joannas to labor in the gospel, to give of their substance; to follow Jesus; to be willing to sacrifice their substance; to follow Jesus; to be willing to sacrifice their lives for the love they bear their Lord. It is not christianity which disparages the intellect of woman and scorns her ability for doing good, for its records are filled with her marvelous successes. Emancipate woman from the chains that now restrain her and who can estimate the part she will play in the work of denomination? In the Baptist denomination women have more freedom than in any other denomination on the face of the earth. I am not unmindful of the kindness you noble brethren have exhibited in not barring us from your platforms and deliberations. All honor I say to such men.

  Every woman in the world ought to be a Baptist, for in this blessed denomination men are even freer than elsewhere. Free men cannot conscientiously shut the doors against those whom custom has limited in privileges and benefits. As the vitalizing principles of the Baptists expand and permeate the religious principles of the world women will become free. As the Bible is an iconoclastic weapon—it is bound to break down images of error that have been raised. As no one studies it so closely as the Baptists their women shall take the lead. History gives a host of women who have achieved and now enjoy distinction as writers, linguists, poets, physicians, lecturers, editors, teachers and missionaries. Visit the temples of the living God and there you will find them kneeling at His shrine as ready now as in centuries past, to attest their faith by their suffering and if need be by the sacrifice of life. As they by their numbers, who followed Christ up Calvary’s rugged road, caused the cowardice of man to blush, so in the crowds of worshippers who do Him honor to-day put to shame the indifference and the coldness of man’s allegiance to God. But to the limited subject,