Black Elitism and the Failure of Paternalism in Postbellum Georgia

Black Elitismand the Failureof Paternalismin PostbellumGeorgia: The Case of Bishop Lucius HenryHolsey

By GLENN T. ESKEW

DURING THE SPRINGOF 1858THE METHODIST CHURCH IN ATHENS,GEORGIA, sponsoreda week-longrevival exclusively for the slave and freeblack populationof the city.The warmMay nightsfostered the religious fervorof thecrowd gathered in thechurch to hearthe two circuit riders who had been sentto Athensby theplantation missions board of the southernMethodist church. A youngfree black ministerwho would laterhave his own illustriousand controversialcareer, the Reverend HenryMcNeal Turner,preached to the congregation.His powerful voice struckthe innermost souls ofmany worshipers, and by theend of theweek nearlyone hundredpeople had been convertedto Christand hadjoined theMethodist church. On thelast day of the revival a whiteevangelist, the Reverend W. A. Parks,delivered the Sundaysermon. At the end of the service,after mostof thecongregation had departed,a sixteen-year-oldslqve tarried nearthe altar, struggling "in an agonytoo greatto describe."Noticing thatthe youngman had remainedbehind, Parks announced to those leaving,"Brethren, I believe God willconvert this boy right now. Let us gatheraround him and prayfor him!" As the crowdsurrounded the youngmulatto slave, the minister intoned to God to save his soul. The object of thisattention later recalled, in thestereotypical language of religiousautobiography, that the "Lord rolled the burden of sin from my heartand heaven'slight came shiningin. 0 whata happyboy I was!" Tearscoursed down the cheeks of the convert as he lookedinto the face of theevangelist, pointed his forefingerupwards, and said, "Brother, whenyou getto heaven,and theblessed Lord places a crownon your head,I will be one starin thatcrown."1

' The chapter"Lucius HenryHolsey: The Slave Who FoundedA College," in Michael L. Thurmond,A Story Untold: Black Men and Womenin AthensHistory (Athens, Ga., 1978),

MR. EsKEwis a doctoralcandidate in theDepartment of Historyat the UniversityofGeorgia and an Albert Einstein Institution Fellow.

THE JOURNALOF SoUTmHRNHISTORY Vol. LVIII, No. 4, November1992 63 8 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

The youngmulatto slave, Lucius HenryHolsey, laterbecame a bishopin theColored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Churchin America andfrom this lofty position articulated a plantation mission ideology of paternalismas thebest method for improving the situation of his fellow blacksoutherners. He believedthat by being "Christianized" and "civilized," blacks would be assimilatedwith whites. As long as whites treatedhim with a degreeof respect, Holsey accepted the hegemony of planters;but in thelate 1890s,when they adopted a new racial code thattreated him like commonblack folk,he abandonedhis hopes for assimilationand advocated black nationalism. Holsey's transformation suggestshow one memberof the aristocracyof color respondedto whatRayford W. Logan called the"nadir" of black America.As Jim Crow erodedthe paternalism that supported a three-tieredsystem of race relations,members of themulatto elite apparently withdrew into theirown closed communities,migrated North, or passed forwhite. Those who remainedopenly in the Southcast theirlot withAfrican Americans.By 1920, when Holsey died, a rigid black-whiteline dividedthe nation as neverbefore.2 originallysuggested the subject of thisessay. The sourceson Holsey are scarce.Many original manuscriptswere destroyed in August1968 in a firethat razed Haygood Memorial Hall on the Paine College campusin Augusta,Georgia. Much of thematerial used by JohnBrother Cade in his sympatheticaccount of Holsey's life,Holsey-The Incomparable(New York, 1964), was destroyedatthat time. Lucius Henry Holsey,Autobiography, Sermons, Addresses, and Essays(2d ed.; Atlanta,Ga., 1899), includessermons and essays collectedfrom among his worksand apparentlywritten between 1873 and 1898,although they are all undated.Several of theessays werewritten as speechesmade before the general conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.A limitededition of Holsey's brief autobiographical sketch and a newintroductionby Paine College ProfessorGeorge E. Clary,Jr., recently appeared as L. H. Holsey,The Autobiography of BishopL. H. Holsey (Keysville,Ga., 1988). The accountof Holsey's conversionis takenfrom Holsey,Autobiography, 18; quotationsare fromAlfred Mann Pierce, A Historyof Methodism in Georgia(Atlanta, Ga., 1956), 132-33,and originally appeared in William Pope Harrison,ed., The GospelAmongthe Slaves (Nashville,Tenn., 1893; rpt.New York,1973), 350-53, see also 384- 88 in Chap. 18, "Testimonyof ProminentFreedmen"; Mungo MelanchthronPonton, Life and TimesofHenry M. Turner(Atlanta, Ga., 1917;rpt., New York,1970), 155-5 8; andfor a discussion ofthe revival and Turner's impression of Athens see StephenWard Angell, Bishop Henry McNeal Turnerand African-American Religion in the South (Knoxville, Tenn., 1992), 27-30. The author thanksNuman V. Bartley,W. FitzhughBrundage, Sheree H. Dendy, Eugene D. Genovese, WilliamF. Holmes,John C. Inscoe,Virginia Kent Anderson Leslie, William S. McFeely,August Meier,and BennettH. Wall fortheir helpful comments. 2 Historianstend to agreewith C. VannWoodward's analysis of a "capitulationto racism" as arguedin his seminalwork, The Strange Career ofJim Crow (New York,1955), butthe black elite'sresponse to the"nadir" remains an openquestion. In his book TheNegro in American Life and Thought:The Nadir, 1877-1901 (New York,1954), Rayford W. Logan describes"The Nadir UnderMcKinley," 79-96. Fora discussionof postbellum paternalism see GeorgeM. Fredrickson, TheBlackImage in the White Mind: The DebateonAfro-American CharacterandDestiny, 1817- 1914 (New York,Evanston, San Francisco,and London,1971), especiallyChap. 7, "The New Southand theNew Paternalism,1877-1890," 198-227. In The Crucibleof Race: Black-White Relations in the AmericanSouth Since Emancipation(New York and Oxford,1984), Joel Williamsoncharacterizes three strains of whitethought on race-conservative,liberal, and radical-that vied fordominance in theSouth during this period. Between 1897 and 1907 the radicals held sway over the region instigatinglynchings and otherforms of violentracial BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 639

Bornnear Columbus, Georgia, in 1842,Holsey was theson of his whitemaster, James Holsey. He rememberedhis "aristocratic"father as a gentlemannof classical education,dignified in appearanceand mannerof life"who couldneither black his own bootsnor saddle his own horse.With muted contempt, Holsey added that his father"never married,but mingled, to some extent, with those females of the African race thatwere his slaves-his personalproperty." These includedhis mother,Louisa, a beautifulwoman of "pureAfrican descent." She was an "intenselyreligious woman, a most exemplaryChristian" who belongedto theMethodist church.3 In 1848 Holsey's fatherdied, and Holsey became the propertyof his whitecousin, T. L. Wynn,who livedin Sparta,in HancockCounty, Georgia. Holsey's whiteancestors had lived in Hancock County,and thusthe slave grew up among relatives.Holsey served Wynn as a bodyservant until 1857, when his dyingtwenty-six-year-old master asked Holsey to choose his next ownerfrom between two of Wynn'sintimate friends. Holsey selected RichardMalcolm Johnston, a planter and teacherin HancockCounty who hadjust accepteda professorshipat FranklinCollege in Athens.4

oppression.In his NewPeople: Miscegenationand Mulattoesin the United States (New Yorkand London, 1980), Williamsonanalyzes the antebellum three-tiered system of race relationsthat createda separatesphere for free blacks-often mulattoes-between the larger slave and white worlds.He describesthe disintegration ofmulatto society and the emergence of rigid segregation at theturn of the century. In theclassic Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in theAge ofBooker T. Washington(Ann Arbor, Mich., 1963), 161-255,August Meier suggests thatthe black minditself divided over the issue betweenthe conservative ideas of Booker T. Washingtonand theradical challenge of W. E. B. Du Bois. JohnDittmer, Black Georgiain the ProgressiveEra, 1900-1920 (Urbana,Chicago, and London, 1977), suggeststhat the black nationalismof Holsey and Turneroffered a thirdsolution in additionto thosepresented by Washingtonand Du Bois, especiallyfor the black "poorand uneducated,who had littleconcern forphilosophies of accommodationor protest"(p. 177); and WillardB. Gatewood notes in Aristocratsof Color: The Black Elite,1880-1920 (Bloomingtonand Indianapolis,Ind., 1990), Chap. 11, thatthe black elite's responseto JimCrow varied. 3Holsey,Autobiography, 9. 4CharlesHenry Phillips, The Historyof the Colored MethodistEpiscopal Church in America... (Jackson,Tenn., 1898; rpt.,New York, 1972), 213; ElizabethWiley Smith,The Historyof Hancock County,Georgia (Washington,Ga., 1974), II, 90, 97; BusterW. Wright, Burialsand DeathsReported in the Columbus (Georgia) Enquirer, 1832-1872 ([Columbus,Ga.], 1984),221; andRhea CummingOtto, 1850 Censusof Georgia, Hancock County (Savannah, Ga., 1980), 18,41; fora descriptionof Hancock County see JamesC. Bonner'sessay, "Profile of a Late AntebellumCommunity," in Elinor Miller and Eugene D. Genovese,eds., Plantation, Town, and County:Essays on theLocal HistoryofAmerican Slave Society(Urbana, Chicago, London, 1974), 29-49; JohnWilliam Gibson and WilliamHenry Crogman, Progress ofa Race,or theRemarkable Advancementof theAmerican Negro ... (Atlanta,Ga., 1902; rpt.,Miami, Fla., 1969), 532-34, mentionsWynn's owning Holsey's mother. For information on thewhite and mulatto branches of theWynn family and on thearistocrats of color in HancockCounty see Adele Logan Alexander, AmbiguousLives: Free Womenof Color in Rural Georgia, 1789-1879 (Fayetteville,Ark., 1991); Holsey,Autobiography, 10, 16. Afterthe Civil War,Johnston became a famouslocal colorist whosewritings included Dukesborough Tales, published under the pseudonym Philemon Perch (Baltimore,1871); and Old Timesin Middle Georgia (New Yorkand London, 1897). See also the Autobiographyof Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston(Washington, D. C., 1900); and Edwin AndersonAlderman and JoelChandler Harris, eds., Libraryof SouthernLiterature (13 vols.; Atlanta,New Orleans,and Dallas, 1907), VI, 2781-85. 640 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

Describinghimself as the"property" of Johnston,Holsey recalled themove to Athens:"As an importantpart of his effects,I was carried along withhim and his familyas carriagedriver, house servant,and gardener."His referenceto beinga "partof his effects"and Johnston's "property"demonstrates an awarenessof thedehumanizing aspects of slavery,yet he recognizedhis favoredstatus as a house slave by referringto his own importance.Three-fourths of the slaves in the Southworked in thefields, and of the remaining one-fourth, only a few achievedthe status of bodyservant or carriagedriver. While mulatto slaves were not invariablyhouse servants,those who were blood relativesof theirowners often were.5 Holsey, whose red hair and blue-grayeyes identifiedhim as a productof miscegenation, later wrote an essayon thetopic in whichhe denouncedthe "shameful practice" because of its illegality. Obviously referringto his father,he describedthe "craving, heaving and impul- sive passionof men, [which] goads them on to blacklistedindulgences thateven racial prejudices,many of whichare strongerthan death, cannotrestrain." After condemning miscegenation, Holsey thendis- missedthe concept of racial inferiority.While acknowledgingracial differences,he identifiedthem as "conditionaland circumstantial rather thanconstitutional." Holsey argued that "no manis bornhigher, purer, andbetter than another, so faras hisreal nature and thefaculties of his humanityare concerned. One manmay be superiorto another in degree of learning,refinement and intellectualacquisitions; but this is in degreeand not in kinds."6Throughout his life,Holsey struggledto correctthis inequality, especially focusing on thepromise of education.Yet as a fifteen-year-oldslave, Holsey was illiterate. Afterarriving in Athens,Holsey developedan "insatiablecraving forsome knowledge of books." Despite laws againstslaves learningto read and write,Holsey determinedto "take whateverrisks" were necessaryto achievehis goal. He purchasedtwo Websterblue-back spellers,a copy of Paradise Lost, the Bible, and a dictionary.He enlistedthe assistance of an old blackman and severalwhite children to teachhim the alphabet and thentaught himself how to read.7

5Holsey, Autobiography, 16; and Eugene D. Genovese,Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the SlavesMade (New York,1976), 328-30. Although little is knownof Holsey'sfather, the informationonWynn and Johnston suggests that they were indulgent masters. See Genovese's discussionon paternalism, 3-7; approximately one-third (39 percent) of all mulattoes inthe U. S. livedin the Deep South, and most of these were slaves. See Williamson,New People, 24-26. 6 Theessay, "Amalgamation orMiscegenation" appeared in Holsey, Autobiography, 233-38, (firstquotation p. 238,second p. 233,third and fourth p. 234);and for a physicaldescription of Holseyby his granddaughter, Kate Dickson McCoy-Lee, see VirginiaKent Anderson Leslie, "Womanof Color,Daughter of Privilege:Amanda America Dickson, 1849-1893" (Ph.D. dissertation,Emory University, 1990), Appendix II-1, pp. 139-43. 7 Holsey,Autobiography, 16-18 (quotationsfrom p. 16); and WilliamA. Hotchkiss,A Codificationofthe Statute Law of Georgia... (New York, 1845),772. For a discussionon slaves' BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 641

Holsey's purchaseof theBible and Paradise Lost suggeststhat he learnedto read followinghis conversion.In an effortto Christianize the slaves, the southernMethodist church had initiatedplantation missionssuch as theone thatsponsored the revival where Holsey was converted.Under the directionof Bishop WilliamCapers, southern Methodistspromoted a plantationmission ideology of paternalism withits mutual obligations and reciprocalduties that reinforced black subservience.By Christianizingand civilizing their slaves, southerners attemptedto pacifythe growing northern abolitionist movement while stabilizingtheir work force. The MethodistEpiscopal Church,South (MEC,S), whichwas formedas a resultof an 1844 schismin the nationaldenomination over the issue of slavery,supported plantation missions.Between 1829 and 1864the southern Methodist church spent $1.8 millionon the effortand claimed,by theoutbreak of theCivil War,207,766 black members, of whom66,559 belongedspecifically to theplantation missions. However practical Christianizing the slaves mighthave been,it is morelikely that the black and whiteevangelists actedout of genuinemissionary zeal.8 Holsey praised"these men of

self-education,see JanetDuitsman Cornelius, When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery,and Religionin theAntebellum South (Columbia, S. C., 1991). 8 In his "Testimony"included in Harrison,ed., GospelAmong the Slaves, 384-86, Holsey explainedthat he learnedto readin orderto readthe Bible. Havingfinanced missionaries to the nativeAmericans since 1819-Bishop Capersoriginally served as a missionaryto theIndians beginningin 1821-the Methodistchurch expanded its activityto includeAfrica in 1832 and Chinain 1848 as well as theplantation South. After its formation in 1844 theMEC,S continued financingforeign missions although not at thesame level as theplantation missions. See James Cannon,III, Historyof Southern Methodist Missions (Nashville, Tenn., 1926); and WilliamMay Wightnan,Life of WilliamCapers (Nashville,Tenn., 1902), 291-96. Wightmanwas ordaineda bishop in the MEC,S in 1866 and knew Capers personally.Capers's catechismfor slaves reinforcedthe servile status of blacks, see WilliamCapers, Catechismfor the Use ofthe Methodist Missions... (Nashville,Tenn., 1861), 13. Fora discussionof the catechism see OthalHawthorne Lakey,The Rise of "ColoredMethodism ': A Studyof the Background and theBeginnings of the ChristianMethodist Episcopal Church(Dallas, Texas, 1972); foran accountof theschism see Donald G. Mathews,Slavery and Methodism:A Chapterin AmericanMorality, 1780-1845 (Princeton,N. J.,1965). Mathewsargues that the southern Methodists established the plantation missionsas an answerto thegrowing antislavery movement; see also JamesP. Brawley,7Wo Centuriesof Methodist Concern: Bondage, Freedom, and Educationof BlackPeople (New York, 1974); severalscholars have developed the argument that planters used Christianityas a meansof social and laborcontrol. See Genovese,Roll, Jordan, Roll, 183-93, on Methodism,233-35, on slave resistance,658-59; see also E. P. Thompson,The Makingof theEnglish Working Class (New York,1966), 34-42. Like Capers,the Reverend Charles ColcockJones, a Presbyterianfrom Georgia,argued in his treatiseThe ReligiousInstruction of theNegroes in the UnitedStates (Savannah,Ga., 1842;rpt., New York, 1969), 104-5, 156-71,206-11, thatthroughChristianization, slaves would have a "betterunderstanding of therelation of masterand servant:and of their reciprocalduties" (p. 206) and thatthe "pecuniary interests of masters" would be "advancedas a necessaryconsequence" (p. 208) whilecontributing "to safety"(p. 210). An excellentstudy of Jones'spaternalism is ErskineClarke, Wrestlin' Jacob: A Portraitof Religion in theOld South (Atlanta,Ga., 1979). Clarkerecognizes the irony involved in the plantationmissions inthat whites wereconcerned with the salvation of their slaves and not just the desire to make them obedient and dependentservants. See also Blake Touchstone'sessay, "Planters and Slave Religionin theDeep South,"in JohnB. Boles, ed., Mastersand Slaves in theHouse ofthe Lord: Race and Religionin theAmerican South, 1740-1870 (Lexington,Ky., 1988), 99-126. 642 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

God in [the]ante-bellum decades" as "themost apostolicsince the daysof Pentecost .... "9Holsey himself had experienceda "changeof heart"after heating the charismaticTurner.10 Following his conversion,Holsey felt called "topreach the gospel" but "saw no openingfor sucha thingin thedays of slavery...." Yet a persistenthope remained thathe wouldone dayhave an "opportunitytoproclaim God's truth."" Withthe outbreak of theCivil War,Johnston left Athens and took his familyand slaves back to Hancock County.There Holsey met HarriettA. Turner(no relationto H. M. Turner),a younghouse slave formerlyowned by Bishop GeorgeFoster Pierce of theMEC,S, who had giventhe young woman to his daughteras a weddingpresent. In 1862 Holsey marriedthe fifteen-year-oldHarriett, and a wedding ceremonywas heldfor the two favored slaves in the"spacious hail of the Bishop's residence,"Sunshine. Pierce personallyconducted the service.Holsey recalled:"The Bishop's wifeand daughtershad pro- vided forthe occasion a splendidrepast of good thingsto eat. The table,richly spread, with turkey, ham, cake, and manyother things, extendednearly the whole lengthof the spacious dininghall. 'The house girls' and 'thehouse boys' and themost prominent persons of color wereinvited to thewedding of thecolored 'swells.' The ladies composingthe Bishop's family,dressed my bridein the gayestand mostartistic style, with red flowers and scarletsashes predominating in thebrilliant trail."12 A strongfriendship developed between Holsey and Pierce,who recognizedthe slave's hungerfor knowledge,his strongChristian faith,and his evidentleadership potential. The son of theReverend Dr. LovickPierce, a leaderof southernMethodism, George F. Piercewas bornin GreeneCounty, Georgia. Ordained a bishopin theMEC,S in 1854, Pierce had previouslyserved as presidentof both Wesleyan

9 Holsey,Autobiography, 255. '?Ibid., 18; Ponton,Life and Timesof Henry M. Turner,156. 11Holsey,Autobiography, 11; Hotchkiss,Codification of theStatute Law, 840-41. 12Holsey,Autobiography,11-12(quotations), 18; R. M. Johnstongaveanotheraccountof the wedding.Johnston's property adjoined Pierce's plantation, and, as a result,"there were several intermrriagesbetween his Negroes and mine. I onceattended one between one of mine, Lucius (nowone of your colored bishops) and Harriet, a fine woman belonging then to the Bishop. He performedthe ceremony inhis mansion, after which the bridal party with Negro and the whites spentthe evening together until a latehour. He seemedto have partaken ofsome of the joyousness ofourhumbledependents."JohnstondescribedPierce as a kindmasterwhopreachedpateralism. Johnstonadded that if someone mistreated a slave, knowledge of the transgression would get aroundand that the offender, "stepping into the Methodist church at Sparta might hear words from Pierceon the treatment ofslaves, that would make him feel like hastening toundo or repair any wronghe may have done." See R. M. JohnstontoA. G. Haygood,February 12, 1885, Folder 1, Box 1,Atticus Greene Haygood Papers (Special Collections Department, Robert W. Woodruff Library,Emory University, Atlanta); for information onthe life of Harriet Tumer Holsey see Sara JaneMcAfee, History of the Woman'sMissionary Society in theColored Methodist Episcopal Church(rev. ed.; Phenix City, Ala., 1945). BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 643

College and EmoryCollege. Duringthe early postwar years he took Holseyunder his tutelageand trainedhim in theology.For therest of his life,Pierce referred to Holsey as his pupil. The relationshipbe- tweenHolsey and Pierce reflected the interracial cooperation expressed throughreligion. By worldngtogether as evangelists,blacks and whites inbiracial churches came closer to racial equality than in anyother area of southernsociety.13 A deep faithsustained Holsey, and he experiencedan almost"mys- tical"relationship with God. Holseyonce recalledfeeling "out of the body and in anothersphere where God and angels stood nearerto men." These strongreligious beliefs enabled Holsey to predictthat assimilationwould occur through Christianity: "Shem, Ham, and Japhet are all nearlyin thesame house and eating at thesame table, saying the sameprayers, singing the same songs, and worshipping the same God. ... In the onward trendand roundingout of this great civilization, whiteand black, red and swarthy,with all the seven colors of the rainbow,shall be groundto dustand calcinedby the stately tramp of a goldencivilization, culminating in theexternal fixedness of the golden standardand crownedwith the age of diamonds."14 Followingemancipation, southern Methodist freedmen could leave thediscriminatory MEC,S andjoin one ofthe black independents-the AfricanMethodist Episcopal (AME) Churchor theAfrican Methodist EpiscopalZion (AME Zion) Church-orthe northern Methodist Epis- copal Church.Most left.By 1866, only78,742 of the207,766 black membersof theMEC,S in 1860 remainedin thechurch. That number droppedto 19,686by 1869.In evaluatingthe inability of the plantation missionideology to continueinculcating values of blacksubservience and whitepaternalism in thepostbellum era, the bishops of the MEC,S fearedthat the African-American independents and northernbranches of Methodismwould radicalize the freedmen. Thus theleaders of the

"Followingemancipation, Holsey remained with his formermaster, R. M. Johnston,renting landas a tenantfarmer until 1868. His wife did the laundry of students taught by Johnston athis school,Rockby. George Gilman Smith, The Life and Timesof George Foster Pierce ... (Sparta, Ga., 1888);and Othal Hawthorne Lakey, The History of the CME Church(Memphis, Tenn., 1985),127, 246-47. Lakey is a bishopin the CME Church.Smith, History of Hancock County, II, 123-24; Phillips,History of the Colored MethodistEpiscopal Church,213; Isaac Lane, Autobiographyof Bishop Isaac Lane ... (Nashville,Temn., 1916), 152; inhis Autobiography (p. 11)Holsey described Pierce as a "wonderfulpreacher, with wide influence, and august presence. Everybodyloved, respected, and somealmost adored him." See also pp. 10, 15, 20; fora discussionof antebellumbiracial religion see JohnB. Boles's introductionto and Randy J. Sparks'sessay, "Religion in Amite County, Mississippi, 1800-1861," in Masters and Slaves, 1- 18, 58-80; and KatharineL. Dvorak,An African-AmericanExodus: The Segregationof the SouthernChurches (Brooklyn, N. Y., 1991),59-60, 156. 14 Lakey,History of the CME Church,396 (first two quotations); Holsey, Autobiography, 278 (thirdquotation). See theessay, "The Trend of Civilization," ibid., 273-78, in whichHolsey predictsa new civilization where "racial prejudice must fall and bow to thebetter and higher interestsof man" (p. 277). 644 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

MEC,S decided to ordainblack preachersand to organizea black branchof southernMethodism that would exist under the direct influence and indirectcontrol of thesouthern white church.15 In 1868 Pierceconducted a reviewboard of Methodiststhat exam- ined Holsey and grantedhis ministeriallicense. Appointedto the HancockCounty circuit, the young preacher led thenewly organized EbenezerMethodist Church made up of blackformer members of the whiteSparta Methodist Church. Pierce gave land to the new black churchthat was led by his pupil,and a year laterhe administered deacon's ordersto Holsey and otherblack ministersin the Georgia Colored Conferenceof the MEC,S. Appointedpastor of the black AndrewChapel in Savannah,Holsey found when he arrivedin theport citythat the congregation was underthe influence of the AME Church. Holseystruggled to swaythe black communicants back to theMEC,S. In 1869Pierce ordained Holsey as an elder,and at thattime Holsey was electeddelegate to theOrganizing General Conference of theColored MethodistEpiscopal (CME) Churchscheduled to convenethe follow- ingDecember in Jackson,Tennessee. At theconference white leaders of the MEC,S ordainedtwo black bishops,and the CME Church officiallycame underthe directcontrol of AfricanAmericans. The blackdelegates to theconference determined not to use theirchurches forpolitical purposes and in returnreceived church property from the MEC,S. Threeyears later, in March 1873,the CME GeneralConfer- ence metin Holsey's parish,Trinity CME Churchin Augusta,where Pierceassisted CME BishopWilliam Henry Miles in ordainingHolsey and twoothers as bishopsin theCME Church.'6

Is Statisticsfrom Dvorak, African-American Exodus, 121. Dvorak argues thatthe CME Churchorganized after a failed attemptby black memberswithin the MEC,S to achieve ecclesiasticalequality. William B. Gravely,"The Social, Politicaland ReligiousSignificance of theFormation of theColored Methodist Episcopal Church(1870)," MethodistHistory, XVIII (October 1979), 3-25, especially15-16; Gravelyasserts that the property question led to the formationof the separateblack church.Holland N. McTyeire,A Historyof Methodism... (Nashville,Tenn., 1884), 666-71; McTyeirewas ordaineda bishop in the MEC,S in 1866. Brawley,Two Centuries ofMethodist Concern, 411-13; KatharineL.Dvorak, "AfterApocalypse, Moses," in Boles, ed., Mastersand Slaves, 186; and C. Eric Lincolnand LawrenceH. Mamiya, TheBlack Churchin theAfrican American Experience (Durham, N. C., and London,1990), 60- 61. 16Holsey, Autobiography, 11-20; ForrestShivers, The Land Between:A Historyof Hancock County,Georgia, to 1940 (Spartanburg,S. C., 1990),216-17; inAmbiguousLives, Adele Logan Alexandernotes thatmembers of the CME chose theirdenominational name because they "consideredthemselves 'colored' ratherthan 'African,'" (p. 159); and she recountsan anecdote thatcharacterizes the elitistnature of Ebenezer,also called Holsey Memorial Church:"A heavyset,dark-skinned woman wearing a bandannaaround her head, an apron,and generally shabbyclothing supposedly rushed into the service at theEbenezer church and positioned herself in a front-rowpew, interrupting Bishop Holsey's sermon.Her color, her unpolished manner, and herdress immediately told the more affluent and lighter-skinned parishioners, decked out in their finestattire, thatshe was neitheramembernoraninvitedguest. The womanfanned herself, gasped forbreath, and triedto recoverfrom her exertions while the minister and churchmembers stared in stunnedsilence following her unexpected intrusion. Then, slowly, a solemnhymn reportedly swelledaround the visitor as thecongregation began to sing:'None butthe yellow, None but the BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 645

Criticsof the CME Churchclaimed that the MECS had "setup" the separatechurch in orderto "setoff" its remaining black members. As Holseyexplained in 1897: "I understandthat we were'set up' and not 'set off.' In no sense does this 'settingup' businessdestroy, neither was it intendedto destroythe religious inter-racial relation that had obtainedin daysof old." As Holseymakes clear, the MEC,S couldnot have set offthe CME Churchbecause of theplantation mission ideology of paternalism.Atticus Greene Haygood, later a bishop of the MEC,S, explainedthat the CME Churchneeded the "help of its mother" and thatif anyone thought that setting them up equatedto settingthem offin orderto get "ridof a burden,"then "let them repent of thisevil thought."'7 Manyblack communicantssupported and othersacquiesced in the MECS plan to set up the CME Church;but not all black members wantedto leave theMECS. Towardthe end of his life,Holsey angrily recalled:"So far,therefore, as theNegro was concerned,many were pushedout of the MethodistEpiscopal Church,South, against their will, and had to set up organizationsof theirown, duplicatingthe motherchurch as faras possiblein all thingsthat seemed legitimate and necessaryfor its developmentand its perpetuity."Apparently, some of theAfrican Americans who joined theCME Churchdid so onlybecause theycould no longerstay in theMECS. Theywere not giventhis option.'8 Althoughseparated from the Methodist Episcopal Church,South, the Colored MethodistEpiscopal Churchretained strong ties to its whiteparent. CME Bishop OthalHawthorne Lakey in his Historyof theCME Churchnoted that a "close affinity"between black and white Methodistshad developedduring slavery and thatdespite the social and politicalchanges brought on by emancipation,"the personal rela-

yellow,None butthe yellow ... shallsee God.'" (p. 162). Holseyworked under the auspices of theMEC,S in Savannah,and thechurch ultimately regained control of AndrewChapel, which it gave to theCME Church;see HaygoodS. Bowden,History of Savannah Methodism from John Wesleyto Silas Johnson(Macon, Ga., 1929), 139, 141. The renegadecongregation then formed St. Phillip'sAME Church.Whereas the AME Churchactively supported the Republican party duringReconstruction, the CME Churchmaintained an apoliticalpolicy reflecting the conserva- tivenature of itsmembers, many of whomhad tiesto thewhite elite. Consequently, the MEC,S gave its formerplantation mission properties to the CME Church.See Angell,Bishop Henry McNealTurner, 104-5; Clarence E. Walker,A Rockin a WearyLand: The African Methodist EpiscopalChurch During the Civil War and Reconstruction(Baton Rouge, 1982); Phillips, Historyof the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, 26,57-60; and Lakey, History of the CME Church,36, 126, 159-61,220; on paternalismand theformation of the CME Churchsee Lakey, Rise of 'Colored Methodism; and Eula Wallace Harrisand Maxie HarrisCraig, Christian MethodistEpiscopal Church: Through the Years (rev. ed.; Jackson, Tenn., 1965), 54-55. 17 Holsey,Autobiography, 247; AtticusG. Haygood,Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future(Nashville, Tenn., 1881; rpt.,Nashville, Tenn., 1887),236-37. Haygoodwrote: "The 'ColoredMethodist Episcopal Church in America'that was 'set up'-I hopenot 'set off-needs thehelp of itsmother." "I Quotationfrom Cade, Holsey-The Incomparable,71; by 1892 only357 blackcommuni- cantsremained in theMEC,S. See Dvorak,African-American Exodus, 168. 646 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY tionshipsand therapport that had been establishedduring slavery for themost part continued." Lakey concluded that "many of the leaders of theM.E. Church,South, had broughtthem [African Americans] the Gospel,and had servedthem as pastors,presiding elders, and bishops. Hence,the ties between the former slaves and the Southern Methodists werereligious as wellas personal."Certainly Pierce had been Holsey's teacher,mentor, and friend.19 Duringthe turmoil of thepostwar years and Reconstruction,when manyblacks struggledfor independence from whites through active involvementin politics,an apoliticalHolsey remained loyal "to those who appearedto be my enslaversand oppressors."He describedthe reactionof otherAfrican Americans to his loyaltyto whiteswhen he recalledin 1919 that"in theseventies and eightiesI was verymuch slandered,persecuted, and rejectedby my own race and people."20 Holsey's favorablereferences to slaveryseem puzzling.In one essay he wrote:"However unrighteous or repugnantto a Christianciviliza- tion the institutionseems to have been, and whateverchanges have come over thepublic mind since its abolition,one thingis clear,and thatis, theNegro race has lostnothing by it,but has gaineda thousand pounds sterlingwhere it has lost a penny."2'A second passage on slaverywritten by Holseyis of a morepersonal nature: "The training thatI receivedin thenarrow house of slaveryhas been a ministerof correctionand mercyto me in all theseyears of struggle,trial, labor and anxiety.I have no complaintagainst American slavery. It was a blessingin disguise to me andto many. It has madethe negro race what it could not have been in its nativeland. Slaverywas but a circumstance or a link in the transitionsof humanity,and musthave its greatestbearing upon the future."22 Both referencesto slaveryreveal important elements of Holsey's personalphilosophy. First, Holsey believed that, as a resultof slavery, the black man was Christianizedand thus saved fromdamnation, hence gaininga "thousandpounds sterling." Second, as a resultof slavery,the black man was exposedto the"superior" white civilization.Holsey dismissed the concept of racial inferiority, but he believed thatblacks could learnfrom the "superior training, [and] highercul- ture"of whites.23

19Lakey, History of the CME Church,127. 20 Holsey,Autobiography, 10; the 1919 quote fromHolsey is takenfrom a citationof his unpublishedrevised autobiography in Cade, Holsey-The Incomparable,53; apparentlyan exceptionto the rule, Holsey's apoliticalviews during Reconstruction differed greatly from those ofotherblackpreachers. See EdmundL. Drago,Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A SplendidFailure (BatonRouge and London,1982), especially24-25, 33-34, 46-47. 21 Holsey,Autobiography, 253. 22 Ibid., 10. 23 Ibid.,235. See theessay "Amalgamation or Miscegenation" for Holsey's rejectionof racial inferiority(pp. 233-38). However,Holsey describedAfrican Americans as a "semi-civilized people" (p. 22). BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 647

Froma blackperspective, Holsey espoused what John David Smith has describedas thepostbellum "new proslavery argument." The case of Holseysuggests that some black people viewed slavery as a civilizing and Christianizinginfluence and thusnot as unmitigatedevil. Holsey's positionas a highlyrespected bishop of the CME Church grewout of theacceptance by his black constituencyof his views on slaveryand race relations.CME memberscould have joined more activistsects but chose to remainin the smallestof the African- AmericanMethodist denominations, the "old Slaverychurch." Other bishopsof the CME Churchalso expressedbeliefs in keepingwith thoseof Holseyand of thechurch's laity. Bishop Henry M. Turnerof theAME Churchaccepted the slavery-as-school metaphor, as did the editorof theIndianapolis Freeman, George L. Knox,who had been a slave. Even BookerT. Washington,as Smithnotes, thought of slavery as a "divineplan forblack progress."24 Thus Holseywas notalone in his attitudes. Althoughit did not alter his belief in paternalism,a revealing incidentoccurred in 1875 whenBishop Holsey spent some timewith northernMethodists at a camp meetingin Round Lake, New York. Holseypreached before the thousands of mostly white people gathered at theresort. Later he reported:"The impressionhad been made on my mindthat these Northern white brethren would scorn us and wouldnot receiveus intotheir houses, and accordinglyI expectedto meetwith suchtreatment; but far from it. We werekindly, cordially, and warmly receivedand entertainedduring the meeting. We werenot treated as an

24JohnDavid Smith,An Old Creedforthe New South: Proslavery Ideology and Historiogra- phy,1865-1918 (Westport, Conn., and London, 1985; rpt., Athens, Ga., andLondon, 1991), especiallypp. 197-238; Smith paraphrases Washington onp. 206.Smith emphasizes blacks who rejectedthe revised "old creed," especially the slavery-as-school analogy, and deemphasizes thosewho accepted it. In his current work, he addresses the acceptance of the proslavery creed by themulatto conservative William Hannibal Thomas. See JohnDavid Smith, "How I became'a doubtingThomas'-Methodological Problems with Local BlackHistory Research" (unpublished paper,author's possession). For studies of the "old creed" see WilliamSumner Jenkins, Pro- SlaveryThought in the Old South (Chapel Hill, 1935; rpt., Gloucester, Mass., 1960), and for a differentperspective see LarryE. Tise, Proslavery:A Historyof the Defense of Slaveryin America,1701-1840 (Athens, Ga. and London, 1987). Fortheotherbishops' views onslavery see CharlesHenry Phillips, From the Farm to theBishopric: An Autobiography (Nashville, Tenn., 1932),7-8; andHarrison, ed., Gospel Among the Slaves, 380-82; for a lessfavorable picture see MonroeFranklin Jamison, Autobiography and Workof BishopM. F. Jamison... (Nashville, Temn.,1912), 32; for"old SlaveryChurch" see Phillips,History of theColored Methodist EpiscopalChurch, 72. In 1884the CME Churchclaimed some 155,000 laymembers as opposed to 391,044for the AME and300,000 for the AME Zionchurches; see McTyeire,History of Methodism,Appendix A. On Turnersee EdwinS. Redkey,Black Exodus: BlackNationalist and Back-to-AfricaMovements, 1890-1910 (New Haven, Conn., and London, 1969), 35-36 and Angell,Bishop Henry McNeal Turner,263; WillardB. Gatewood,Jr., ed., Slave and Freeman: TheAutobiography ofGeorge L. Knox(Lexington, Ky., 1979); and Knox's essay "The American Negroand His Possibilities," inD. W. Culp,ed., Twentieth Century Negro Literature (Atlanta, Ga., 1902),454-63. Indeed, aristocrats ofcolor perceived themselves as carrying white culture andcivilization tothe black world; see Gatewood, Aristocrats ofColor, 27-29; and Williamson, New People, 130. 648 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

inferiorrace of beings, neither were we knownby the color of theskin or thepeculiarities of thehair, but as brethrenin theLord. These good brethrendid everythingto makeus happy."His surprisesuggests that thedamnyankee was notnearly the devil he had beenled to believe.-5 Whenthe CME Churchwas invitedto be a participantin thefirst EcumenicalMethodist Conference in London, England, Bishop Holsey traveledthere in September1881 to representhis church. Delegates fromnearly thirty branches of Methodismworldwide attended the twelve-daymeeting. Holsey addressed the conference and thentoured Europe,including Paris, where one ofhis daughtersstudied piano. The nextyear, Holsey's nineteen-year-olddaughter, Louisa M. Holsey,a studentat AtlantaUniversity, died at homein Augusta.26Holsey left the fifthGeneral Conference of the CME churchthen meeting in Washington,D. C., to conductthe funeral.In his absence the CME Churchelected Holsey "fraternaldelegate" to the MEC,S General Conferenceconcurrently held in Nashville,Tennessee, and instructed himto appealto theMEC,S foreducational assistance. After returning to Washingtonand receivingthese instructions,Holsey left for Nashville.27 Holsey had long been an advocatefor educating his fellowfreed-

25Phillips, History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church,100. Towardthe end of the decade, Holsey wrotean articleon Methodisttheology, "Wesley and theLove Feast,"that he intendedto be his (and the CME Church's)contribution to the WesleyMemorial Volume,a collectionof essays edited by the Rev. JamesOsgood Andrew Clark of the MEC,S tocommemo- ratethe building of theWesley Memorial Church in Savannah,Georgia. Instead of including Holsey's theologicalpaper in thecollection of essays,Clark replaced it withanother essay by Holsey, "Wesley and the Colored Race." The substitutionof subjectmatter-a black man's statementon racerelations rather than his ideas on religion-sadlydemonstrates Holsey's rolein thechurch while suggesting he envisionedequal footingas a theologian;see J.0. A. Clark,The WesleyMemorial Volume (New York,1880), 256-67; andL. H. Holseyto J. 0. A. Clark,January 29, March 19, April11, 1879,Box 2, JamesOsgood AndrewClark Papers (Special Collections Department,Robert W. WoodruffLibrary, Emory University). 26Holsey, Autobiography, 28-30; and "WorldMethodist Conference" in Nolan B. Harmon, ed., The Encyclopediaof WorldMethodism (2 vols.; Nashville,Tenn., 1944), II, 2600-2. Apparentlycalled "Ruth"by herfamily, Louisa "was becomingwidely acclaimed as a talented musician."Of Luciusand HarriettHolsey's other children, James Henry graduated from Howard Universityand opened a dentalpractice first in Augusta, then in Atlanta; Katie M. marriedCharles Dickson-the grandsonof white Hancock County planter David Dickson-but divorcedhim and afterwardlived withher father;the Rev. C. Wesleyserved as theCME presidingelder of the AugustaDistrict but failed in his attempt to be chosenbishop in 1922;and Ella B., Claud Lucius, andthe painter and publisher Sumner L. movedto Boston, Massachusetts. Two otherchildren died shortlyafter birth. Quotation from Cade, Holsey-The Incomparable,148; AtlantaIndependent, May 7, 1904; Leslie, "Womanof Color,Daughter of Privilege";and Lakey,History of the CME Church,392. 27 Phillips,History of the Colored MethodistEpiscopal Church,124-27; GeorgeEsmond Clary,Jr., "The Founding of Paine College-A UniqueVenture in Inter-Racial Cooperation in the New South (1882-1903)" (Ed.D. dissertation,University of Georgia,1965), 39-40; see also WilliamL. Graham,"Patterns of Intergroup Relations in the Cooperative Establishment, Control and AdministrationofPaine College (Georgia)by SouthernNegro and White People: A Studyof IntergroupProcess" (Ph.D. dissertation,New YorkUniversity, 1955). BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 649 men,and he broughtthat concern to the1882 MEC,S GeneralConfer- ence.As earlyas 1869he had championeda schoolfor black ministers and teachersto continuethe evangelistic work of theplantation missions. Speakingbefore the assembled white clergy, Holsey explained therole of AfricanAmericans as threefold:"servants," "citizens," and "Church-children."He elaborated:"With this three-fold cable we are stronglybound together and united in a mannerthat cannot be analyzed or fullyunderstood by a stranger.... It seemsnatural that we should followyou, and make ourselves a duplicateof you as faras we areable. We have looked,and stilllook, to you forguidance an [sic] counsel. We ask yoursympathy, aid, and cooperation in redeemingyour friends and formerslaves fromthe long nightof darknessand degradation. Who willcome to therescue? Who will hear the cries of the children of Ham?"28After thirteen years the MEC,S had at lastheard the cries of the CME Churchand endorsedHolsey's conceptof education.The GeneralConference collected $251 forCME educationalpurposes but did littleelse forblack schools. The groundfor this limited success had beenprepared by Haygood who,in Our Brotherin Black, first published in 1881,had calledon the whitemother church "to establisha great'training-school' for this coloreddaughter." During the summer of 1882 Haygoodassisted his mentorPierce and otherson the MEC,S educationalcommission, which charteredPaine Institutein Augusta.Pierce was the senior bishop in the MECS and chairedthe meetingthat established the school and appointedHolsey to theboard of trustees.Yet Piercedid not see educationas leadingto assimilation.Haygood later accused Pierceof throwing"cold wateron thenegro education business" and thusfailing to supportPaine Institute.Pierce viewed blacks as inferior and theirefforts to achieveequality as committing"violence (contrary to) theordination of nature."29 Whether Holsey recognized this charac-

28Holsey, Autobiography, 23; Cade, Holsey-The Incomparable,80-81; Phillips,History of theColored Methodist Episcopal Church,84-85; "BishopHolsey's Address"before the MEC,S GeneralConference of 1882,meeting in Nashville,is reprintedin fullas AppendixB in Lakey, Historyof the CME Church,667-70 (quotationfrom 669-70); see also 442-49. Holseyused the racistrhetoric of the day by describingAfrican Americans as the descendantsof Ham. See ThorntonStringfellow, "The Bible Argument:Or Slaveryin theLight of Divine Revelation"in E. N. Elliott,ed., CottonIs King,and Pro-slaveryArguments... (Augusta, Ga., 1860),461-92. 29 C. T. Wright,"The Developmentof Educationfor Blacks in Georgia,1865-1900" (Ph.D. dissertation,Boston University,1977), 162-66; Clary,"Founding of Paine College," 64-65; Haygood,Our Brotherin Black,236-37. Haygood,who was a paternalist,dedicated his lifeto improvingthe condition of southernblacks, and he was at timesostracized for his efforts,being called the "NiggerBishop." In Our Brotherin Black, Haygood stressedthe need forracial toleration,acceptance of black land ownership,and supportfor African-American schools. A nativeof Georgiaand presidentof EmoryUniversity, Haygood served as thefirst general agent of theJohn F. SlaterFund, which emphasized manual education for blacks. See JohnE. Fisher, TheJohn F. SlaterFund: A NineteenthCenturyAffirmativeActionfor Negro Education (Lanham, 650 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

teristicof his friendremains uncertain. Holsey,in line withthe guiding principles of Paine Institute,proposed thatsouthern white teachers be employedto trainthe black students.Many African Americans ridiculed the concept as an extensionof the "Southern sentiment" expressed during slavery. Some black peoplereferred to Holseyand theblack supporters of whatwas called thePaine Idea as "'Democrats,''bootlicks,' and 'whitefolks' niggers,' whoseonly aim was ultimatelyto remandthe freedmen back to abject bondage."Holsey responded to his criticsin a statementthat reflected his personalviews of Reconstruction:"It oughtto be said, however, thatafter emancipation the Negroesheld themselvesaloof fromthe Southernpeople to such extentthat no propositionmade by thelatter could reach the former.Consequently, the marginfor evangelistic laborsamong Negroes by Southern white people was narrow."In other words,the struggle for black independence from whites during Recon- structionhindered the Christianization of freedmen.Holsey's defense of thePaine Idea exhibitshis trustin whitemen: "From the time of the emancipationof theslaves by thefortunes of war,I have notseen any reasonwhy the Southern people should not be thereal and truefriends ofthe Negro race. The very religion that they taught, and practiced, and preachedto the Negroes,directed them to be the friendsof the ex- slaves. Consequently,I can see no reasonswhy they should not teach Negroesin theschool room."30 The Paine Idea demonstratedan unusual featurethat set Paine Instituteapart from the other institutions founded for black education

Md., New York,and London,1986); Meier,Negro Thought in America, 90-99; quotationson Pierce cited in Harold W. Mann, AtticusGreene Haygood: MethodistBishop, Editor,and Educator (Athens,Ga., 1965), 190; Elam FranklinDempsey [ed.], Aticus Green Haygood (Nashville,Tenn., 1940), 182-97. In CrucibleofRace, 88-93, JoelWilliamson presentsHaygood as thequintessential racially liberal clergyman who personified the continuity of paternalism. This view is evidentin Haygood's January17, 1888, letterto RutherfordB. Hayes, thena board memberof the Slater Fund: "Ourpeople will come to theirduty slowly-but thedebate is overas to the generalquestion." The MEC,S had decidedto supportblack education;and Haygood, Pierce, Holsey, and othershad requested$250,000 fromthe SlaterFund forPaine's initial endowment.Pierce and Haygood's protege,Bishop WarrenA. Candler,did notsupport higher educationfor African Americans, and theschool did notreceive the grant from the Slater Fund. Haygoodcriticized Pierce in a letterto Hayes,see Louis D. Rubin,Jr., ed., Teachthe Freeman: The Correspondenceof Rutherford B. Hayes and theSlater Fund for NegroEducation, 1888- 1893 (BatonRouge, 1959), 6. 30 Holsey,Autobiography, 25, (firsttwo quotations), 24 (thirdquotation), 23 (lastquotation); in his Autobiography,21, CME BishopLane describedthe African-American opposition to the denomination:"We wereseverely criticized and malignedbecause we did notrebel and secede. Otherindependent Negro Methodist Churches had rebelledand seceded,and because we chose tobe regularand orderlywe werecharged with being sympathizers with slavery. In manyplaces we werecalled Democratsand thelike." Bishop W. H. Miles recalledan altercationwith some black Methodistsin East Texas: "One veryold lady,bending over a long staff,said: 'My God, brethren;I am a radicalall over! Go away fromhere, you conservatives!'" See ChristianIndex, June12, 1873,quoted in Phillips,History of theColored Methodist Episcopal Church,72-73. BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 651 duringthe period. In essence an extensionof theplantation mission ideologyof paternalism,the school representeda biracialattempt by indigenouswhite southerners to educatethe black man. Holsey advocated whiteassistance, and he soughta mutualrelationship between southernblacks and whitesworking together to improvethe situation of AfricanAmericans and by extensionthe South. The Augusta Chroniclewelcomed the school, noting that "it will be greatlyto the negro'sadvantage that those who best know him and his wantsshould teachhim; and it is muchbetter for the whitepeople thatthe negro shouldfind his teacherin thesuperior race in whosemidst he lives."31 Not everyoneshared Holsey's vision.Many of thewhite elite in Augusta opposed the educationof AfricanAmericans, and blacks dislikedthe Paine Idea so muchthat in orderto get students Holsey had to pay themto attendclass. Nevertheless,the bishop persisted. He sent his own childrento school there,and his daughter,Katie M. Holsey, graduatedin thefirst class in 1886.Ultimately he placedthe institution on finnerfinancial footing with the help of patronsand a successful fund-raisingcampaign. The school was renamedPaine College in 1903, and theMEC,S continuedto supportit financially.Until 1971 thepresident was alwaysa whitesouthern Methodist.32 Fromthe beginning Paine Institute offered a classicalcurriculum in keepingwith Holsey's originalconcept of a liberalarts college that crownedan educationsystem of elementary,secondary, and industrial schools-a conceptsimilar to ThomasJefferson's model for the Uni- versityof Virginia.Like W. E. B. Du Bois, Holsey did notdisparage industrialeducation; but, unlike Booker T. Washington,Holsey rejected exclusivereliance upon manual training. By theend of his life Holsey had establishedseveral industrial schools across Georgia,in particularin 1892 the Holsey Normal and IndustrialAcademy at Cordele,and theHelena B. Cobb School at Barnesville;yet the Paine Idea remainedfocused on thetraining of blackministers and teachers by southernwhites.33 As correspondingsecretary, Holsey wielded extensive power in the CME Church,yet infighting among its members suggested his weak-

31Clary, "Founding of Paine College," 143-51; and AugustaChronicle, March 6, 1883,p.4, col. 2. 32 Holsey,Autobiography,23-27; Cade,Holsey-TheIncomparable, 78-102,148; andLakey, Historyof the CME Church,442-49. In 1885 theRev. Moses U. Payne of Missouridonated $25,000 to the school, whichwas namedafter Bishop RobertPaine of the MEC,S, who had presidedover the organization of theCME Church.See Clary,"Founding of Paine College,"7- 12,42,69-74. 33 Curriculumof Paine Collegefor 1887 outlined as Appendix6 in Clary,"Founding of Paine College," 161-62 and 107-10; Cade, Holsey-The Incomparable,79-80; and Lakey,History of the CME Church,394. Meier,Negro Thoughtin America,remains the seminalwork on the conflictingideologies of Washingtonand Du Bois. 652 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY ened controlover the denomination.At the GeneralConference of 1894,Holsey's candidateto succeedBishop William Henry Miles was selectedin a heatedcontest. Despite Holsey's oppositiona resolution to createa "Committeeon theState of theCountry" passed by a slim margin.These spiritedpolitical races contradictedthe CME Church's "dispositionto separateherself from every question that was political in tendency."Suffering from tuberculosis, Holsey asked the confer- encefor a breakfrom his episcopal duties so thathe couldrecuperate in New Mexico-a triphe was financiallyunable to take.His healthhad declinedthroughout the 1880s; an earlierrequest for a respitehad been denied in 1890 by the College of Bishops,but it had reducedhis workload.During his convalescence,Holsey focusedon writing.He returnedto his episcopalburden in thefall of 1896,about the time he launcheda new churchnewspaper, the Gospel Trumpet,to counter CharlesHenry Phillips's editorials in the Colored Methodist Episcopal ChristianIndex. A futurebishop in theCME Church,Phillips used his positionas editorto campaignfor higher office, consequently placing himselfat odds withHolsey.34 Solicitingfunds for the construction of a majorbuilding on thePaine campusto be namedafter the late Bishop Haygood, Holsey addressed the MEC,S GeneralConference of 1898. He envisionedthat Paine would prepareblack missionariesto go to Africaand redeemthe "fatherland";but he dismissedthe idea of emigrationto Africa,which had been proposedby BishopH. M. Turnerof theAME Churchas a solutionto the failureof Reconstruction.Holsey acknowledgedthat "theNegro is hereand en massehe is hereto stay.He is an important partof thebody politic.... As such he is a factorin thegrowth and developmentof this greatcivilization." During his speech, Holsey summarizedhis philosophyand subsequent teachings: "The Negrodid notmarch out of slaveryempty-handed, but .... came out withdeep touchesof your Christianityand flashesof your civilization,and receivedan upwardpropulsion that he could nothave obtainedin his nativeland." Referring to master-slavereciprocity, Holsey argued that "emancipationdid not abrogate moral obligation." Despite the changed relationsbetween the races, southern whites were obligated to assist AfricanAmericans in the "dawn" of their"Christian civilization." Reemphasizingthe goal ofracial cooperation with the ultimate hope of assimilation,Holsey concluded: "You need ourbrawn and muscle; we needyour brain and culture. You needour sinews of brass and bones of

34Phillips, History of the CME Church, 164-71 (first two quotations are on p. 171),176, 191; andPhillips, From the Farm to the Bishopric, 128-31. Phillips also supported self-segregation in responseto whitediscrimination butopposed legal Jim Crow. See Meier,Negro Thought in America,49,56; Lakey, History of the CME Church, 317-36. A bimonthlythat ran for six years, theGospel Trumpet first published on September 2, 1896. Apparently there are no extant copies. BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 653 iron.We needyour steady hand to prosecutethe noble ends of life,and thetriumphs of a Christiancivilization. You havethe mental force, we havethe physical power, and I cometo plead for a combinationof both ...."35 Althoughappealing to white ministers and laymen to contribute to theconstruction of HaygoodMemorial Hall, Holsey's articulation of theplantation mission ideology of paternalismstemmed from his own personalbelief rather than from a cynicaldesire to raisemonies. Holsey's Autobiography,Sermons, Addresses, and Essays-first publishedin 1898, reprintedin 1899, and used as a textfor MEC,S seminarystudents-advocated Christianizing and civilizingAfrican Americans.Written during the 1880s and 1890s, the essays reflect whatDr. GeorgeWilliams Walker, the white president of Paine Insti- tute,called a "faithfulproduct of themissionary zeal of thischurch [MEC,S] thatwas awakenedby Bishop Capers in foundingthe missions to the slaves." From the beginningHolsey adhered to the paternalisticethos that pervaded the doctrine and practiceof theCME Church.That ethos lay behindhis supportof thePaine Idea in education.As secretaryof the College of Bishops forforty years, Holsey controlledchurch policy. He selectedMEC,S literature,doctrine, and evenministers as teachersin theCME Church.In 1894he publishedA Manual ofthe Discipline of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America,which was a revisionof the 1874 MEC,S Manual of Discipline,and severalhymnals including the popular Songs of Love and Mercy.As Lakeynoted, Holsey gave theCME Church"its defini- tionand providedthe rationale for its being. "36 Holsey's leadershipin thechurch made him a prominentmember of themulatto elite in Augusta,a thrivingblack community.Spared by Gen. WilliamT. Sherman'smarch to thesea duringthe Civil War, postbellumAugusta quicklyreturned to business and experienced financialsuccess thatwas sharedby some blacks in the city-espe-

35See "Speech Delivered Before Several Conferences oftheM. E. Church,South," inHolsey, Autobiography,239-48 ("fatherland" onp. 243,first quotation p. 242,second, third, fourth and fifthquotations p.243, last quotation p.246). Holsey raised about eight thousand dollars in support of thebuilding; see Phillips,History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church,217. 36 Walkerwrote the introduction to Holsey, Autobiography, 5-7 (quotationp. 5), andhe concludedthat Holsey discerned in slavery a "providentialblessing to both white and black-a harshmeasure to bring the ignorant Negro in contact with the educated Caucassian [sic]" (p. 5). Cadeclaims that the MEC,S used Holsey's Autobiography as a seminarytext; see Holsey-The Incomparable,42; and L. H. Holsey,A Manual of the Discipline of the Colored Methodist EpiscopalChurch inAmerica (Jackson, Tenn., 1894). Holsey added a prefaceand a revisedritual tothe MEC,S hymnbook and published itas theCME Hymn Book in 1891.In collaboration with FayetteMontgomry Hamilton, Holsey wrote the hymn "0 RapturousScenes," which is the unofficialanthem of the CME Church.See TheHymnal of the CME Church (Memphis, Tenn., 1987);and F. M. Hamiltonand L. H. Holsey,Songs of Love and Mercy (Memphis, Tenn., 1968). Holseyalso published a collection of inspirational poems and prose, Little Gems (Atlanta, 1905). Lakey,History of the CME Church,392 (secondquotation), 116, 246-47; Lakey referred to Holseyas the"driving force of the CME Church"(ibid., 33). 654 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY ciallythe few free persons of color who had owned property before the war.These light-skinned, upper-class Negroes were the pillars of black societyin Augusta,and theycontrolled the few influentialAfrican- Americaninstitutions in thecity-such as TrinityCME Church,Paine Institute,and WareHigh School.37 Race relationsin Augusta-forthe timeand place-were consideredmutually satisfactory for blacks and whites.The blackprincipal of Ware,H. L. Walker,noted in 1894 that "in Augustayou will findtwo races of people livingtogether in such accord and sympathyas are nowhereelse to be foundin all this Southland."Indeed, many AfricanAmericans found Augusta "the gardenspot of thecountry" in regardsto race relations.Despite sepa- rateschools and hotels,public transportation remained unsegregated. A fewblacks owned businesses that catered to an integratedclientele. Severalblack newspapers were published in thecity, and theRepubli- can partycontinued to operateuntil displaced by thePeople's party.38 AfricanAmericans exercised a decisivebalance of politicalpower in RichmondCounty and even supporteda reformelement in the Democraticparty opposed to the corruptionof the rulingBourbon Democrats.But bothreform and regularDemocrats opposed Thomas E. ("Tom") Watsonand thePopulist movement. With heavy-handed corruptionthe Democrats crushed the Populists in 1896. The Demo- cratic"reform element" then sought to maintain"honest, local reform government"by disfranchisingthe black and poor whitePopulists.39 Black politicalallegiances shifted in the 1890s as therace politicsof theDemocrats turned harsher. In theTenth Congressional District, the Republican party had sup- portedWatson in the electionsof 1892 and 1894. Many ministers

37 On themulatto elite in Augustasee Gatewood,Aristocrats of Color, 90-91, 158; Howard N. Rabinowitz,Race Relationsin the Urban South, 1865-1890 (Urbana,IMI., 1980),189,248-49; RichardHenry Lee German,"The Queen Cityof theSavannah: Augusta, Georgia, During the UrbanProgressive Era, 1890-1917" (Ph.D. dissertation,University of Florida, 1971), 37; Leslie, "Womanof Color,Daughter of Privilege,"245; and Horace CalvinWingo, "Race Relationsin Georgia,1872-1908" (Ph.D. dissertation,University of Georgia, 1969).Thenoted educatorJohn Hope grewup amongAugusta's aristocracy of color;see RidgelyTorrence, The Storyof John Hope (New York,1948). 38AugustaChronicle, October 10, 1880,p.7; J.Morgan Kousser, "Separatebut notEqual: The SupremeCourt's FirstDecision on Racial Discriminationin Schools," Journalof Southern History,XLVI (February1980), 17-44; also see Kousser's unpublishedCalifornia Institute of TechnologyWorking Paper No. 204 (March1978), 4-7, 15-19 (quotationson p. 15). Thispaper is a similarlytitled, unedited version of theJSH essay. Torrencequotes Augustanative Dr. ChanningTobias as saying"it was possiblefor a Negroin theAugusta of JohnHope's boyhood to aspireto theheights and to receiveencouragement from white people in so doing."See Story of JohnHope, 59. The leadingblack newspaperin Augusta,the ReverendWilliam Jefferson White'sthe Georgia Baptist, was publishedfrom 1881 to 1909,but apparently there are no extant copies. 39 German,"Queen Cityof the Savannah,"45, 65-66, 130-36; C. Vann Woodward,Tom Watson:Agrarian Rebel (New York, 1938), 241-42, 265-69, 286-87; and Wingo, "Race Relationsin Georgia,"85-93. BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 655 endorsedthe People's partyin 1896 because its platformopposed convictlease andadvocated temperance. As economicconditions wors- enedduring the decade, black workers lost ground to new whitewage earners.Some Negro monopoliesfailed as competitionwith white tradesmenand a declinein whitecustomers undermined black artisans. Hardpressed, the mulatto elite in Augustacondemned the corruption of theDemocratic party and urgedAfrican Americans to supportthe Populists.40 It appearsthat in 1896 Holsey abandonedhis apoliticalstance: He endorsedthe People's partybecause he was disenchantedwith Bour- bon Democracy,opposed to convictlease, and in favorof prohibition. The actionsof Augusta'saristocracy of color,which joined therevolt againstthe Democratic party, influenced Holsey as well. For whatever reasons,this atypical Populist became directly involved in politics.In 1896 his new publication,the Gospel Trumpet,began to express- howeverinconsistently-disenchantnent with planter hegemony. The People's party,Holsey wrote, "allows free speech to theblack man as well as to thewhite man." It was the "politicalemancipator fromthe bondage of slaveryand ostracismof theNegro vote and all othervotes in the stateof Georgia."On racial exploitation,Holsey explainedthat the black man's "wages,when he has any,are so low, andthe discrimination against him is so great,universal and unyielding, thatoften he is baffled,confused, and dispirited.There is butlittle to encourageand inspirehim as a man and a citizenin this land of oppressionand wherehe is madethe dumping ground for every moral evil, and the scavengerfor the rot and virus of society."Out of desperation,some blacksturned to crime,but unlike white men who "stealfifty and a hundredthousand dollars, and are hardly ever hurt by it" becauseof a legal systemthat protects them, the "poor Negro, half starved,half naked, and half paid forhis labor,steals a hog,a cow,or a sheep,or perhaps, a fewmelons or a handfulof fruit, goes tothe 'gang' or thepenitentiary for months and years."41 Condemningthe Bourbon Democrats for the "shameful, degrading, and disgusting"convict lease systemthat allowed "plutocrats, nabobs, millionaires,and goldmagnates" to exploita disproportionatenumber of blackconvicts for "blood money," Holsey acknowledged the Popu- list partyas "anxiousto correctthe evil, and removethe shameand

40 JohnMichael Matthews,"Studies in Race Relationsin Georgia, 1890-1930" (Ph.D. dissertation,Duke University,1970), 55-74; on blacks and prohibitionsee Dittmer,Black Georgia in theProgressive Era, 112-13; and EdwardAaron Gaston, "A Historyof theNegro Wage Earnerin Georgia,1890-1940" (Ph.D. dissertation,Emory University, 1957), 232-35, 278-88. 41 Two editorialsby Holsey fromthe Gospel Trumpet-"The Negro and Democracyin Georgia"and "The ConvictLease System"-are excerptedby Cade in Holsey-The Incompa- rable, 126-37 (quotationsare on pages 129, 136, and 137). 656 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY disgracefrom the great state of Georgia."Holsey accused the Bourbon Democratsof making a mockeryof the "awful splendors of statesman- ship"previously exhibited by the "angelic Stephens, the archangel Ben Hill,and the mighty Cobbs, whose undimmed radiance in thegalaxy of shiningstars is alwaysbrilliant...."42 Referringto former Confederate vicepresident Alexander Hamilton Stephens, former Confederate sena- torBenjamin Harvey Hill, formerConfederate generals Howell Cobb and Thomas R. R. Cobb, Holsey defendedthe Old South's planter aristocracyand thus revealedthe long-termeffects of paternalism while expressinghis growingdisaffection with the rulingBourbon Democrats. He approved of the election of Republican William McKinleyin 1896because he supportedthe gold standard and disliked theDemocrats' sectional politics. Holsey's shiftingpolitical opinion reflectedthe unraveling of his worldview. The political turmoil created by thePopulist movement, and theconcomitant change in race relations,apparently encouraged him to questionhis basic assumptions. Discrimination,segregation, and ostracismincreased in the late 1890s as white"reformers" implemented a new racial code. In 1897 theRichmond County School Board voted to close theall-black Ware High School. The closingof thissymbol of interracialcooperation shockedAfrican Americans in Augusta,whose leaders filed a lawsuit to secureimplementation of "separatebut equal" treatmentunder the law as pertainingto education.Holsey's old friendsamong the black elite-JosephW. Cumming,James S. Harper,and John C. Ladeveze- financedthe legal challenge, which reached the U. S. SupremeCourt in 1899.In Cummingv. RichmondCounty Board of Education the court ruledthat the closure of Ware High School did not constitutestate- supportedracial discrimination ineducation; nevertheless, the decision usheredin an age of unequalfunding. After 1897 a new era in race relationsbegan in Augusta.While a boycottby blacksprevented the segregationof streetcarsin 1898, the cityenforced separate seating followinga murder,a lynching,and a riotin 1900.The yearbefore, the creationof an all-whiteDemocratic primary effectively removed Afri- can Americansfrom local politics.By theturn of the century, there was a newracial code thatviewed the black community as monolithic,and class differencesamong blacks were no longerrecognized by whites. Holsey,who-by virtueof his elitestatus and paternalistic relationship withwhites-had been sparedsome of the indignitiessuffered by averageAfrican Americans, was suddenlyplaced on an equal footing withcommon black folk,and his new statusproved quite unsettling. Two ofthe three light-skinned friends of Holsey's whohad foughtand

42Ibid., 130-31; on theBourbon Democrats, see KennethColeman, ed.,A Historyof Georgia (Athens,Ga., 1977), 207-308. BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 657

lostthe Cumming case leftAugusta and passed forwhite. Unable, and perhapsunwilling, to denyhis race,Holsey recanted his earlierbelief in assimilation.From his new home on AuburnAvenue in Atlanta, wherehe had movedin 1896,Holsey struggled with the so-called race problem.43 The changein the racial attitudesof the whiteSouth forced the mulattoHolsey to identifywith full-blooded African Americans. De- nouncingwhat he recognizedas a "vastlegalized scheme throughout theSouth to set theiron heel morepermanently and desperatelyupon the head of the black man as a race, and as individualcharacters," Holseyconfessed that "there would be hope to therejected and aspir- ingAfro-American ifgood characterand becoming behavior would or couldcount for anything in thecivic arena. But we arenow confronted by conditionswhere merit in theblack man does notweigh one iotain humanrights, and verylittle in humanlife, if that life and characteris undera black or brownskin."44 Drawing on personalexperience, Holsey lamented: "Learning, personal accomplishments, the achievementof wealth,the reign of morality,and skilledhandicraft amountto nothingwhatever in theblack man. Meritand fitnessfor citizenshipand advanced qualifications for the high and holy functions of civil lifecannot win for him the rights and safetythat is thenatural and God-giveninheritance of all. Nowherein theSouth is theblack man as safe in his personand propertyas is thewhite man." Holsey continued:"Black men and black women, though cultured and refined, are treatedas serfsand subjectedto everyimaginable insult and degradationthat can be inventedor discoveredby an ill-plightedand perverseingenuity."45

43Kousser, "SeparatebutnotEqual,"27-28,42-44; Kousser, Working PaperNo.204,pp. 13- 15,45-46; the Georgia Baptist reprinted an articleconcerning a murder and lynching that had occurredin Augusta. The black newspaper's reprinting the article so outragedelements of the whitecommunity that a mobformed and attacked the editorial offices. Two days later the Augusta CityCouncil segregated the streetcars. See AugustaChronicle, June 3, 1900,p. 1,and June 5, 1900,pp.3,5; and August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, "The Boycott Movement Against Jim Crow Streetcarsinthe South, 1900-1906,"Journal ofAmerican History, LV (March1969),756-75. See alsoCumming v. Richmond County Bd. of Educ. 175 U. S. 528(1899). The reasons for Holsey's moveto Atlanta are unclear but could be churchrelated. According to Howard's Directory of Augusta... 1892/3(Augusta, Ga., 1892), 273, Holsey lived at 163315th Street, which was near thecampus at PaineInstitute. The house, which later served as theparsonage for Williams MemorialCMEChurch,nolongerstands.TheAtlanta CityDirectory (Atlanta, Ga., 1899), XXIII, 801,lists Holsey's Atlanta address as 335Auburn Avenue. The Reverend Dr. MartinLutherKing, Jr.,Center for Nonviolent Social Change now occupies the site of Holsey's house. For information concerningthe elite African-American community oh AuburnAvenue see AugustMeier and DavidLewis, "History of the Negro Upper Class in Atlanta, Georgia, 1890-1958," Journal of NegroEducation, XXVIII (Spring 1959), 128-39. 44L. H. Holsey,"Race Segregation," in The Possibilities of the Negro in Symposium... ([Atlanta,Ga.], 1904),99-119 (quotation on p. 102); see also ClarenceA. Bacote,"Negro Proscriptions,Protests, and Proposed Solutions in Georgia,1880-1908," Journal of Southern History,XXV (November 1959), 471-98. 45 Holsey,"Race Segregation," inPossibilities ofthe Negro, 102-3. 658 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

Revealinghis earlierbelief thatthrough the plantationmission ideologyblacks would achieve assimilation, Holsey admittedthat he had supposedthat "whenever the negro is preparedfor the duties and responsibilitiesof citizenship,by culture,wealth and moralstanding, and thatwhenever he becomesa skilledartisan and scientificfarmer, thenas a racethe white people of the South will bestow upon him equal politicalprivileges with themselves." As racerelations achieved a new low by the turnof the century,Holsey realized the sham of his convictions."How, then,"he demanded,"can theAfro-American rise to thedignity of good citizenshipand aspireto itspossibilities, when politicalrights, privileges and agenciesare takenfrom him?"46 Findinglittle solace in thepaternalistic relations he had longmain- tainedwith whites, Holsey despaired, "no manof color, no matterhow culturedand worthy,or howeveraccomplished, refined and fitted,has everbeen allowedto occupythe same civicplane with the white man ofthe South for a singlehour." Where once he had advocatedassimiila- tion,now Holseysaw racialprejudice as makingit "impossiblefor the twoseparate and distinctraces to live togetherin thesame territoryin harmoniousrelations, each demandingequal politicalrights and equal citizenship."Holsey dismissed his favoredstatus as a mulatto,which had reinforcedhis faithin paternalism,instead claiming that "the rulingrace" rejectedmixed bloods "to thesame extentas thetypical negro."With a finalitythat belies his earlierbelief in assimilation, Holseyresolved: ""The white people of the South have not been willing in thepast; they are less willingnow, and reason and experienceteach us thatthey will not be willingat anytime in theendless future for the race of blackmen to becometheir political equals, or occupythe same planeof freedomand citizenship, with themselves, no matterhow well qualifiedthey may be forit." Holsey concluded that there would never be peace betweenthe races in theUnited States until "black Ham and whiteJapheth dwell together in separatetents."47 The grislylynching of Sam Hose on Sunday,April 23, 1899, in Newnan,Georgia, typified the decade's dehumanizationof blackfolk and demonstratedthe barbarity that many white southerners accepted. One accountof the atrocityreported that some "2,000 people sur- roundedthe small sapling to which he [Hose] was fastenedand watched theflames eat away his flesh,saw his bodymutilated by knivesand witnessedthe contortions of his bodyin his extremeagony."'" A week laterin theAtlanta Constitution, columnist John Temple Graves called forthe separationof the races: "These two oppositeand inherently

46Ibid., 105 47 Ibid., 106, 100, 107, 110, 119. 4 AtlantaConstitution, April 24, 1899,p. 1. Hose was one oftwenty-sevenpeople lynched in Georgiain 1899; see Coleman,ed., Historyof Georgia,286. BISHOP LUCIUS HENRYHOLSEY 659 antagonisticraces cannotgrow up side by side on equal termsof law andpossession in thesame territory."49 Through a letterto theeditor of theConstitution, published August 30, 1899,Holsey publicly responded to Gravesand thelynching of Hose withhis call fora separateblack statewithin the United States.50 In a speechof August18, 1899,Holsey announced his supportfor "separationand segregation"of theraces with the goal of establishing a black statewhere, as "governor,legislator and judge," theAfrican American"could be a manamong men." Holsey justified his demand by explainingthat "each yearthe racial differencesare renderingit moreand moreimpossible for the whites and theblacks to occupythe sameterritory, and there is nothingfor the black man to do butto move or remainhere as an oppressedand degradedrace." For Holsey, "segregation"meant the separation of theraces, which would end the perceivedNegro "menace" to whitecivilization while preventing the "completeserfdom" of the AfricanAmerican. Holsey identifiedthe Oklahomaand New Mexico territoriesas possible locationsfor the proposedblack state.He believedthat only the United States had the authorityto solvethe "race problem" and that blacks "should remain in theirown country."According to his plan, the federalgovernment wouldestablish the segregated territory and protect blacks from whites, who were to be deniedcitizenship unless married to AfricanAmeri- cans. The separateblack state would then function like otherstates in theUnion.51 Retaining his elitistperspective, Holsey desiredthat the voluntarycitizenry meet certain requirements, such as having"a repu- tablecharacter, some degreeof education,and perhapsa competency forone year'ssupport."52 The likelihoodof Holsey's plan everbeing implemented was re- mote.Some twentyyears earlier, Atticus Haygood had dismissedsuch an idea froma racistperspective that captured the white sentiment of thetime: "The preposterousscheme of colonizingthe whole six mil- lionsof ournegro fellow-citizens in somepart of theUnited States, as Arizona,for example, has beenmentioned a fewtimes. Such a scheme could neveroriginate in the serious thinkingof any representative Southernman. For the Southern people, with all thathas beensaid and

49AtlantaConstitution, April 30, 1899,p. 9. o Ibid.,August 30,1899; W. E. B. Du Bois respondedsimilarly; see Duskof Dawn: AnEssay Towardan Autobiographyof a Race Concept(New York, 1971). 51 "BishopHolsey on theRace Problem" and "Bishop Holsey's Plan," both on p. 4 ofthe AtlantaConstitution, August 30, 1899; and L. H. Holisy, The Racial Problem(Atlanta, Ga., 1899). This pamphletincludes reprints of Holsey's letters(August 30 and September29, 1899) tothe Constitution, that newspaper's editorial response, the opinion of the Augusta Chronicle, and theChicago Times-Heraldcoverage of theAugust 18, 1899,speech-apparently the first public expressionof his viewson racialseparation-that Holsey delivered before a meetingof the Afro- AmericanCouncil. Quotations are fromHolsey, Racial Problem,14, 15, 17, 16. 52Holsey, "Race Segregation,"in Possibilitiesof the Negro, 116. 660 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY thoughtabout them, know the negro too thoroughlyand love himtoo wellto wishhim such a fate.What utter nonsense! what inhuman folly! A negroState! A littleAfrica in America!"Newspaper editor George L. Knoxpresented one blackview when he describedMoses Madden's 1920 planto createa blackstate near the Rio Grandeas "an unmistak- able attemptat Jim Crowing our people." Yet for Holsey such segregationof the qualified,educated, and financiallysecure-the Negroupper class-would allow at leastsome AfricanAmericans to experiencefirst-class citizenship." Holsey's dramaticresponse to thenadir of race relationswas no moredrastic than the actions taken by othermembers of themulatto elite duringthis twilight of the aristocracyof color. The antebellum three-tieredsystem persisted in thepostbellum period. Despite political cooperationduring Reconstruction, the mulatto elite had distanced itselfsocially from the black masses in partbecause of thecontinuity ofpaternalism, which reinforced segregation within the black community.As WillardB. Gatewoodhas demonstrated,the aristocracyof colorhad self-consciouslycreated a complexclass structurethat was almostimpenetrable from below. JimCrow removedthis third class. By redefiningsoutherners as eitherblack or white,segregation de- stroyedthe paternalism that had allowed upper-class blacks to maintain a separateworld sanctioned by whites.After the turn of thecentury, class divisionssurvived in theblack community, but the aristocracy of colorpassed away.-4 Gatewoodnotes that the mulatto elite responded in severaldifferent ways to the nadir,and it appears thatthe degreeto which whites "capitulatedto racism"influenced the reactionsof the black aristocrats.In borderstate cities such as Louisvilleand Baltimorea milder formof segregationdeveloped. In both,streetcars remained integrated and blackmen voted, thanks in partto theefforts of themulatto elite whoorganized protests against Jim Crow. In New Orleansand Charles- ton, where the three-tieredsystem had flourished,the mulattoes' responseto segregationwas moresevere. New OrleansCreoles at first

53Haygood, Our Brotherin Black,20; and Gatewood,ed., Slave and Freeman,36. 54Michael P. Johnsonand JamesL. Roark,eds., No ChariotLet Down: Charleston'sFree People of Color on theEve of theCivil War(Chapel Hill and London,1984) and Johnsonand Roark,Black Masters:A Free Familyof Color in theOld South(New Yorkand London,1984) describethethree-tieredsysteminSouthCarolina.WhileinNewPeople,3,82,108-9, Williamson arguesthat most mulattoes permanently merged with freedmen during Reconstruction, Thomas Holtconvincingly demonstrates that class differencesprevented racial bonding in his study Black over White:Negro Political Leadershipin South Carolina During Reconstruction(Urbana, Chicago,and London, 1977). Holseyfits Gatewood's analysis: "The risingtide of racism and the fadingof hopes foran integratedsociety, as well as thedecline in theeconomic base of theold upperclass, erodedthe prestige and influenceof a groupthat had nurturedties with whites and advocatedassimilation into the larger society" (Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color, 335); on class structuresee pp. 23-29; and on declinesee "Intothe 1920s,"332-40. BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 661 foughtdiscriminatory laws, taking the case of HomerA. Plessyto the U. S. SupremeCourt; but following the Court's "separate but equal" ruling,they withdrew into their private world and refusedto associate withthe larger African-American community. The non-Creoleblack PinckneyBenton Stewart Pinchback, a formergovernor of Louisiana, sold his elegantmansion on BienvilleStreet near the New Orleans Customhouseand abandonedthe South forthe relativesecurity of Washington,D. C. Like othersof the mulatto elite, he escapedthrough migration.Nevertheless, despite the opennessof the U. S. capital duringReconstruction, the atmospherethere chilled as the century ended.In Charleston,the drawing of thecolor line forcedmany elite light-skinnedAfrican Americans to move Northand pass forwhite. Whole familiesescaped this way, but those who chose to remain espoused collectiveactivism. Black sociologistHorace Mann Bond concludedthat between 1880 and 1925those mulattoes who wanted to and could passed for whiteand those who remainedin the black communityorganized for "racial survival."55 BookerT. Washingtonadvocated the easiest, and probablysafest, way to survive-accommodation.Some of the aristocracyof color, especiallyin theDeep South,chose this route and becameBookerites. They mergedwith a risingblack middle class representedby the National Negro Business League. Yet othersfound Washington's compromiseon equalityintolerable, and whenthe Niagara Movement evolvedinto the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, the black elite had an alternativeto Washington'saccommodationist Tuskegee Idea. Indeed,a listof early memberswho formedlocal NAACP chaptersreads like a Who's Who of aristocratsof color. Withthe deathof Washingtonin 1915, the NAACP movedquickly to becomethe dominant civil rights organiza-

55George C. Wright,Life Behind a Veil:Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865-1930 (Baton Rouge and London,1985), Chap.2; WilliamGeorge Paul, "The Shadowof Equality: The Negro in Baltimore,1864-1911" (Ph.D. dissertation,University of Wisconsin,1972), 3-4, 287-92; ArtheAgnes Anthony,"The NegroCreole Communityin New Orleans,1880-1920: An Oral History"(Ph.D. dissertation,University of California,Irvine, 1978), 39-58; and JamesHaskins, PinckneyBenton Stewart Pinchback (New York, 1973), 249-58. Pinchback'sfriend, former Mississippicongressman John Roy Lynch, sold his plantations in Natchez, moved to Washington, and foundrefuge as paymasterin the United States Army.See JohnHope Franklin,ed., Reminiscencesofan ActiveLife: The Autobiography ofJohn Roy Lynch (Chicago and London, 1970), xxvi-xxix;Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A Historyof Race Relations in theNation's Capital (Princeton, N. J., 1967), 119-54; and Mary ChurchTerrell, A Colored Womanin a WhiteWorld (rpt., New York,1980). As Washingtonresident Mary Church Terrell learned,no matterhow aristocratic they appeared, mulattoes could not escape proscriptions based on race,which supports Woodward's point that "Jim Crow laws appliedto all Negroes."See Woodward,Strange Career of Jim Crow, 107; Gatewood,Aristocrats of Color,301-2; and EdmundL. Drago, Initiative,Paternalism, and Race Relations:Charleston's Avery Normal Institute(Athens, Ga., 1990), 2-5, 81-82, 137-40. In an interestingtwist Drago analyzesthe "Yankeepaternalism" of the American Missionary Association. Bond quoted in Willimason, New People,103. 662 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY tionin theSouth. By the 1920s,the old mulattoelite had eitherfaded intoa largerwhite world or been forcedinto a unionwith the black masses.The remnantsof thearistocracy of colormade common cause withthe new blackbourgeoisie to lead thetwentieth-century fight for assimilation.56 Holsey had rejectedassimilation, yet his demandfor a separate blackstate was notas unusualas itmay seem. While his plandiffered fromTurner's call foran Africanemigration movement, the two had similarities.Both Holsey and Turner sought to escape froman oppres- sive whitesociety into a blackworld where African Americans could exerttheir rights as citizens.Both believed that God had used slavery to Christianizeand civilizeAfrican Americans but that white America had failedto give blacksthe opportunity to exerciseself-government and control.Both accepted white assistance in blackefforts at separatism,both rejected assimilation, and bothadmitted that their programs wouldmeet opposition from the Negro elite.57 Yet Turnerhad formu- latedhis separatistideas morethan twenty-five years before Holsey reluctantlyconverted to blacknationalism. AugustMeier has suggestedthat racial separatismsuch as Holsey proposedwas an extremevariant of theideas of racialsolidarity, self- help,and groupeconomy that many blacks in the 1890s adoptedas a defenseagainst worsening race relations. While a gradualiston matters of race, Holsey,like othersof themulatto elite, until the mid-1890s held assimilationas an uncompromisablegoal and thuslooked some- whataskance on BookerT. Washington'saccommodation. Only when

56Meier, Negro Thought inAmerica, 161-255; and Gatewood,Aristocrats ofColor, 311-21, 332-40. 57 On Turnersee Angell,Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, 119-22, 134-38, 173-75, 262-65; Redkey,Black Exodus, 35-40, 99-107; Ponton, Life and Timesof Henry M. Turner;and E. MortonCoulter, "Henry M. Turner:Georgia Negro Preacher-Politician During the Reconstruc- tionEra," GeorgiaHistorical Quarterly, XLVIII (December1964), 371-410. On western settlementand theidea of a separateblack state see Nell IrvinPainter, Exodusters: Black MigrationtoKansasAfter Reconstruction (New York, 1977). According toSterling Stuckey, The IdeologicalOrigins of Black Nationalism (Boston, 1972), 11, receiving assistance from whites wasone of the tenets of nineteenth-century blacknationalism. Turner said that the black "so-called leadingmen worshipped white" (Redkey, Black Exodus, 39) andthus favored integration, and Holseylikewise identified the potential source of opposition tohis plan: "It will come from that classof Negroes who live in the cities and condensed centers of population where they have police protection,and are doing fairly well. They have but little cause for complaints. They care but little forthe down trodden and debased millions of their race who are dying by peace meal [sic] in the ruraldistricts where the great mass of the Negro race lives, or rather where they merely breathe inpoverty and ignorance [sic], and die in despair, ignominy and shame. Strange to say some of theseobjectors are editors of papers, teachers, preachers, and political office holders. They do not go inthe rural districts ofthe black belts, and are ignorant ofthe true state of affairs. They know nothingof the real condition of the oppressed and suffering millions of their race, and since they donot feel the sorrow, the unrest, nor see the distress, ignorance and squalidness of the millions, theyobject to everything that may be proposedto settlethe race problem." (Holsey, Racial Problem,17). BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 663

Holsey's dreamappeared too elusivein theface of starkwhite racism did he turnto separatism.Holsey fitsthe descriptionof nineteenth- centuryblack nationalistspresented by SterlingStuckey in The IdeologicalOrigins of Black Nationalism. According to Stuckey,the componentsof a blacknationalist ideology included "a consciousness of a sharedexperience of oppressionat thehands of whitepeople, an awarenessand approvalof thepersistence of grouptraits and prefer- encesin spiteof a violentlyanti-African larger society, a recognitionof bondsand obligationsbetween Africans everywhere, [and] an irreduc- ible convictionthat Africans in Americamust take responsibility for liberatingthemselves." As Edwin S. Redkeynotes in Black Exodus, whetherpractical or not,the importancebehind the Back-to-Africa movementand otherefforts at blacknationalism lies in theirreflection of a "widespreaddream of economicand politicalpower, of indepen- denceand manhood."58 Through the creation of a separateblack state, Holseysought these rights. In 1903 Holsey and Turnercontributed to a symposiumon "The Possibilitiesof the Negro" organized to showthe African American as " 'nota beast,'but a man."Holsey eloquently stated his programfor a separateblack state, and Turner did likewise for emigration to Africa.59 Accordingto JohnBrother Cade, after1903 Holsey made "no other seriousattempt . .. to advance the 'segregation'theory as the best methodof settlingthe Negro problemin America."Following the Atlantarace riot of September 1906, which occurred on DecaturStreet, a few blocks fromHolsey's house, and in which some thirty-five blacks were killedby whitemobs, Holsey joined a groupof leading black and whitecitizens at a mass meetingwhere they urged their fellowAtlantans to obey thelaw. Frustratedwith his failedefforts at blacknationalism, Holsey grew increasingly pessimistic. Personal problems,ranging from his declininghealth to his weakenedcontrol of the CME Church,contributed to hisbitterness. After he advocatedsepara- tion,Holsey began to distancehimself from Paine College,becoming hostiletoward the institution by 1910.60

58Meier, Negro Thought in America, 65-68, 146-49. Meierrecognizes the subtle distinction betweenblack paternalismadvocating assimilation and Washington'saccommodation (see p. 234). No recordof any correspondence between Holsey and Washington exists in Louis R. Harlan et al., eds., The BookerT. WashingtonPapers (14 vols.; Urbana,Chicago, and London, 1972- 1989); nor did Holsey correspondwith Du Bois accordingto HerbertAptheker, ed., The Correspondenceof W. E. B. Du Bois, VolumeOne (Amherst,Mass., 1973); on territorial separationand a senseof black distinctiveness see JohnH. Bracey,Jr., August Meier, and Elliott Rudwick,eds., Black Nationalismin America(Indianapolis and New York, 1970), especially 156-210; Stuckey,Ideological Origins ofBlackNationalism, 1-2,6 (firstquotation); andRedkey, Black Exodus,x (secondquotation), 288. 59The proceedings and other papers were published in Possibilities of the Negro (quotation on p. 1); Holsey's paperis "Race Segregation,"99-119; andTurner's is "Races MustSeparate," 90- 98. 60Cade,Holsey-The Incomparable,116; see also L. H. Holsey,"Will It Be Possiblefor the 664 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY

In 1919and 1920,Holsey rewrote his autobiography, but the revised versionwas never publishedand now appears to have been lost. Having gainedaccess to the unpublishedmanuscript from Holsey's daughter,Katie Holsey Dickson, Cade citedseveral long excerpts from itin his biographyof Holsey.61 The selectionsreveal a manattempting to rationalizehis life. Thinkingback in 1919, Holsey explainedthat the CME Church neededthe sanction of theplanter class, so he designedit "to be so organized,constructed, and directedthat it wouldbe meansof propa- gandato makeand maintain, as faras possible,the reign of peace and harmony... ." Whetheror notHolsey intendedto admitthat he had assistedwhite southerners in usingthe CME Churchto controlpart of the black communityis open to debate.The CME Churchcertainly functionedin thatcapacity by defendingplanter hegemony. With an uncharacteristiccynicism, Holsey reflected on hispast actions: "I have always been impressedand so understoodfrom boyhood, that no matterwhat might take place in therise or fall of Americanciviliza- tion;and no matterwhat social orpolitical changes or upheavals might appear,the white man of the South would be on thetop. I thinkI had a propheticvision and ratheran uncloudedview of those things to come thatwould affect the religious and political condition of thepeople of color,and it was folly,if not madness, to ignoreand set at noughtsuch a conclusion."62Thus he explainedhis supportfor interracial coopera- tionthat buttressed the plantation mission ideology of paternalism. Here is theremarkable story of a self-educatedslave, Lucius Henry Holsey,who becamebishop of a churchand foundedseveral schools. Yet todayhe seems unattractivefor his oppositionto Reconstruction and his defenseof planterhegemony. The Methodistplantation mission to theslaves couldnot have produced a moreperfect product than

Negroto Attain in this Country unto the American Type of Civilization?" inCulp, ed., Twentieth CenturyNegro Literature, 46-48; in this essay, written in 1901,he appears to pull back from his demandof separatism. Atlanta Independent, October 6, 1906,refers to a meetingat theWheat StreetBaptist Church, where -Bishop L. H.Holsey made some fitting remarks, which meant much tothe interested audience"; see also Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line: An Account ofNegro Citizenship intheAmerican Democracy (1904; rpt., Williamstown, Mass., 1973), 3-25, especially20; CharlesCrowe, "Racial Violence and Social Reform-Origins ofthe Atlanta Riot of 1906,"Journal of Negro Histroy, LIII (July1968), 234-57; and Crowe, "Racial Massacre in Atlanta,September 22, 1906,"ibid., LIV (April1969), 150-73. For a hair-raisingaccount of the Atlantarace riot see WalterWhite, A ManCalled White: The Autobiography ofWalter White (Bloomingtonand London, 1948); on Holsey'sactivities within the CME Churchsee Atlanta Independent,November 18, 1905, April 28, 1906,and November 22, 1913. 6"Cade,Holsey-The Incomparable. The quotations from the unpublished revised autobiog- raphyare identified assuch by Cade in the text or in the footnotes. Inthe bibliography to"Founding ofPaine College" Clary refers to the missing manuscript as being in the possession of Cade, who is now deceased.In his history,Lakey also quotesCade's Holsey-TheIncomparable for referencestothe manuscript. Apparently theunpublished revised autobiography nolonger exists. 62 Cade,Holsey-The Incomparable, 60-61 (quoted from the unpublished revised autobiography). BISHOP LUCIUS HENRY HOLSEY 665

Holsey.His personalrelationships with elite whites shaped his percep- tion of self and epitomizedthe debilitatingeffects of paternalism. Althoughhe neverexperienced equality with whites, he remainedloyal to a conceptof mutualobligations that elevated himself and other aristocratsof color whilerelegating common blacks to a subservient position-loyal,that is, untilthe late 1890swhen white society adopted a new racial code thatdumped him into a monolithicblack mass. Forcedto rethinkhis perceptionof race,Holsey in 1899 advocateda separateblack stateas the solutionto the race problem.When the privateprivilege of themulatto elite no longerexisted, Holsey advo- catedremoval from the South rather than acceptance of second-class citizenship.The dramaticshift in Holsey's philosophyfrom assimila- tionto separationunderscores the crisisfaced by the aristocracyof coloras thefinal vestiges of the antebellum three-tiered system of race relationsdisappeared. Despite the rationalizations of a dyingHolsey in 1919,his fundamental belief in theequality of the races never wavered; onlyhis view on how to achieveequal rightschanged. While Holsey's plan for an African-Americanstate expressed a desirefor black nationalism, it demonstrated that Holsey still believed in the benevolenceof the United States government.Despite his condemnationof Bourbon Democracy, he neverquite brought himself to repudiateplanter hegemony or paternalism.Holsey seemed to characterizethe white elite as theAfrican American's best friend. Yet theactions of those very whites demonstrated the failure of postbellum paternalism.While some membersof thewhite elite, such as Pierce, Haygood,and otherMEC,S bishops,attempted, through the founding of theCME Churchand otherproposals, to recreatethe master-slave relationshipof reciprocalduties that had existedbefore the Civil War, theeffort received little support. No longerwas religionperceived as theproper method of social control.Instead, the white community used violenceinstituted through the state with its penal system and through thevigilance committee with its lynchlaw. In largemeasure for the whiteSouth, the religious imperative behind the mutual obligations of the plantation mission ideology of paternalism ended with emancipation.63 To his five-year-oldgranddaughter, Kate DicksonMcCoy-Lee, the grayingbishop appeared the sun-baked color of an Egyptian.From his wonderfullgarden" on AuburnAvenue (the currentsite of the sar-

63 Clarycompares the MEC,S financial support for plantation missions with its postbellum financialsupport for black education, and his findings demonstrate thefailure of pateralism: PlantationMissions 1844-1864 $1,706,207.70 Paineand Lane Institutes 1882-1903 $160,000.00 Claryconcludes that the MEC,S "had committed itself to support Negro education, and when everyextenuating circumstance is taken into consideration, itssupport of this work was indeed 'painfuland pitiful.'" See Clary,"Founding of Paine College," 95-96. 666 THE JOURNALOF SOUTHERN HISTORY cophagusof the Reverend Dr. MartinLuther King, Jr.) she remembers eating"beautiful strawberries." Since childhoodHolsey had worked out-of-doorsas a curefor his tuberculosis,which was aggravatedby his earlier,difficult years as a circuitrider. Hemorrhages left him helpless,and as he grew older,the hemorrhagesincreased. By his deathat age seventy-eighton August3, 1920,other African Americans had takenover the debateon the race problem.Holsey's obituaries rememberedhis churchwork and not his call for a separateblack state." Perhapsthe disparitybetween his early and late teachings preventeda fullassessment of his contributions.Holsey's hopes for assimilationachieved through Christianity and education foundered on thereality of whiteracism in thelate nineteenth century. Although he lived until1920, Holsey's earlierdream remained shattered. Nearly fortyyears passed beforeanother preacher from Georgia articulated thestruggle that others had continuedto wage and broughtthe dream closerto reality.

"Leslie, "Womanof Color,Daughter of Privilege,"139-43; Cade, Holsey-The Incompa- rable,44; and AtlantaIndependent, August 7, 1920,p. 1, editorialon p. 4. The AtlantaJournal obituaryof August4, 1920,is almostcompletely inaccurate. The funeraloccurred on August6, 1920, in theWest Mitchell Street CME Church,with burial in Atlanta.