M •»*.' ft Voice from Ite Soul / m,ck >ffi] I xr_ "*•* -* as J6/*v^-. S. G. & E. L. ELBERT #tfe?aw *r£ Mfellm (£itUmu\ f£?ft»tlr£t Int ELIA_ SMITH ELBIR^J 88 ^o MSARrp J ._ COMAH Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://archive.org/details/voicefromsouthOOcoop £^2^>^^ A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH. BY A BLACK WOMAN OF THE SOUTH, XENIA, OHIO : THE ALDINE PRINTING HOUSE. 1892. COPYRIGHT 1892 BY ANNA JULIA COOPER. A VOICE p^OM Tf4E SOUTH- " IS5WK E>EG^EJH I FO^GEE If cthe song be living yet, tjew pmembe^ vaguely now, lm WAS HONESm, ANYHOW." Bishop Benjamin William J^nejuw, With profound ^bgai^d foi^ his hbi^oig devotion to GOD AND JUHE I^AGE, both in Church and in State,—and with sincere esteem for his unselfish espousal of the cause of the Black Woman and of every human interest that lacks a Voice and needs a Defender, this, the primary utterance of my heart and pen, Is Affectionately Inscribed. CONTENTS. PART FIRST. Soprano Obligato. Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regene- ration and Progress of a Race ...••• 9 The Higher Education of Woman 48 "Woman vs. The Indian" 80 The Status of Woman in America 127 1 PART SECOND. ©uctcti fLD IlIBIJUUM. Has America a Race Problem; If so, How can it best be Solved ? 149 The Negro as presented in American Literature 175 What Are We Worth ? 228 The Gain from a Belief . 286 ; OUH ^fllSOJSt D'ETRE. N the clash and clatter of our American Con- flict, it has been said that the South remains Silent. Like the Sphinx she inspires vocifer- ous disputation, but herself takes little part in the noisy controversy. One muffled strain in the Silent South, a jarring chord and a vague and uncomprehended cadenza has been and still is the Negro. And of that muffled chord, the one mute and voiceless note has been the sadly expectant Black Woman, An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light And with no language—but a cry. The colored man's inheritance and apportion- ment is still the sombre crux, the perplexing cut de sac of the nation,—the dumb skeleton in the closet provoking ceaseless harangues, indeed, but little understood and|Seldom con- sulted. Attorneys for the plaintiff: and attor- IT neys for the defendant, with bungling gaucherie have analyzed and dissected, theorized and synthesized with sublime ignorance or pathetic misapprehension of counsel from the black client. One important witness has not yet been heard from. The summing up of the evidence deposed, and the charge to the jury have been made—but no word from the Black Woman. It is because I believe the American people to be conscientiously committed to a fair trial and ungarbled evidence, and because I feel it essential to a perfect understanding and an equitable verdict that truth from each stand- point be presented at the bar,—that this little Voice has been added to the already full chorus. The " other side" has not been represented by one who " lives there." And not many can more sensibly realize and more accurately tell the weight and the fret of the " long dull pain " than the open-eyed but hitherto voice- less Black Woman of America. The feverish agitation, the nerfervid energy, the busy objectivity of the more turbulent life of our men serves, it may be, at once to — Ill- cloud or color their vision somewhat, and as well to relieve the smart and deaden the pain for them. Their voice is in consequence not always temperate and calm, and at the same time radically corrective and sanatory. At any rate, as our Caucasian barristers are not to blame if they cannot quite put themselves in the dark man's place, neither should the dark man be wholly expected fully and adequately to reproduce the exact Voice of the Black Woman. Delicately sensitive at every pore to social atmospheric conditions, her calorimeter may well be studied in the interest of accuracy and fairness ill diagnosing what is often con- ceded to be a " puzzling " case. If these broken utterances can in any way help to a clearer vision and a truer pulse-beat in study- ing our Nation's Problem, this Voice by a Black Woman of the South will not have been raised in vain. Tawawa Chimney Corner; Sept. 17, 1892, ; SOPHfl^O OBLilGRTO, For they the Royal-hearted Women are Who nobly love the noblest, yet have grace For needy, suffering lives in lowliest place Carrying a choicer sunlight in their smile, The heavenliest ray that pitieth the vile. >fC >f. 5f. Though I were happy, throned beside the king, I should be tender to each little thing With hurt warm breast, that had no speech to tell Its inward pangs ; and I would sooth it well With tender touch and with a low, soft moan For company. —George Eliot. * WOMANHOOD A VITAL ELEMENT IN THE REGENERATION AND PROGRESS OF A RACE. HE two sources from which, perhaps, modern civilization has derived its noble and ennobling ideal of woman are Christianity and the Feudal System. In Oriental countries woman has been uni- formly devoted to a life of ignorance, infamy, and complete stagnation. The Chinese shoe of to-day does not more entirely dwarf, cramp, and destroy her physical powers, than have the customs, laws, and social instincts, which from remotest ages have governed our Sister of the East, enervated and blighted her men- tal and moral life. Mahomet makes no account of woman whatever in his polity. The Koran, which, unlike our Bible, was a product and not a •Read before the convocation of colored clergy of the Protestant Epis- copal Church at Washington, D. C, 1886. 10 A VOICE FROM growth, tried to address itself to the needs of Arabian civilization as Mahomet with his cir- cumscribed powr ers saw them. The Arab was a nomad. Home to him meant his present camping place. That deity who, according to our western ideals, makes and sanctifies the home, was to him a transient bauble to be toyed with so long as it gave pleasure and then to be thrown aside for a new one. As a personality, an individual soul, capable of eternal growth and unlimited development, and destined to mould and shape the civiliza- tion of the future to an incalculable extent, Mahomet did not know woman. There was no hereafter, no paradise for her. The heav- en of the Mussulman is peopled and made gladsome not by the departed wife, or sister, or mother, but by houri—a figment of Ma- homet's brain, partaking of the ethereal qual- ities of angels, yet imbued with all the vices and inanity of Oriental women. The harem here, and—" dust to dust " hereafter, this was the hope, the inspiration, the summum bonum of the Eastern woman's life ! With what re- sult on the life of the nation, the "Unspeaka- ble Turk," the "sick man" of modern Europe can to-day exemplify. Says a certain writer : "The private life of THE SOUTH. 11 the Turk is vilest of the vile, unprogressive, unambitious, and inconceivably low." And yet Turkey is not without her great men. She has produced most brilliant minds ; men skilled in all the intricacies of diplomacy and statesmanship; men whose intellects could grapple with the deep problems of empire and manipulate the subtle agencies which check-mate kings. But these minds were not the normal outgrowth of a healthy trunk. They seemed rather ephemeral excrescencies which shoot far out with all the vigor and promise, apparently, of strong branches; but soon alas fall into decay and ugliness because there is no soundness in the root, no life-giv- ing sap, permeating, strengthening and per- petuating the whole. There is a worm at the core ! The homelife is impure ! and when we look for fruit, like apples of Sodom, it crum- bles within our grasp into dust and ashes. It is pleasing to turn from this effete and immobile civilization to a society still fresh and vigorous, whose seed is in itself, and whose very name is synonymous with all that is progressive, elevating and inspiring, viz., the European bud and the American flower of modern civilization. And here let me say parenthetically that 12 A VOICE FROM our satisfaction in American institutions rests not on the fruition we now enjoy, but springs rather from the possibilities and promise that are inherent in the system, though as yet, perhaps, far in the future. " Happiness," says Madame de Stael, "con- sists not in perfections attained, but in a sense of progress, the result of our own endeavor under conspiring circumstances toward a goal which continually advances and broadens and deepens till it is swallowed up in the Infinite." Such conditions in embryo are all that we claim for the land of the West. We have not yet reached our ideal in American civilization. The pessimists even declare that we are not marching in that direction. But there can be no doubt that here in America is the arena in which the next triumph of civilization is to be won ; and here too we find promise abundant and possibilities infinite. Now let us see on what basis this hope for our country primarily and fundamentally rests. Can any one doubt that it is chiefly on the homelife and on the influence of good women in those homes? Says Macanlay: "You may judge a nation's rank in the scale of civilization from the way they treat their women." And Emerson, "I have thought THE SOUTH.