Newspapers / Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.) / May 19, 1938, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
AND YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE T1 CHARLOTTE, N. C, THURSDAY, 1 ■ B ■ 1J I 1 A PRE-VIEW OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY Philadelphia, May 14.—Four ministers are expected to be en tered by their friends in a con test for election as Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly at its annual meeting here, May 24-June 1. The four most widely mentioned in va rious parts of the Church for this highest Presbyterian hon or are the following: The Rev. Dr. Robert Free man, pastor of Pasadena Pres byterian church, Pasadena, Cal ifornia. The Rev. Dr. S. Willis Mc Kelvey, pastor of Second Pres byterian church, Kansas City, Missouri. The Rev. Dr. Ezra Allen Van Nuys, pastor of Calvary Pres byterian church, San Francis nr\ Poli^Aimio The Rev. Dr. Charles W. Welch, pastor of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian church, Louisville, Kentucky. The moderatorial election this year is considered of unusual interest because the Assembly over which the new Moderator will preside is the Sesquicenten nial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It marks the 150th anniversary of the organization, at Phila delphia in 1788, of the first General Assembly of American Presbyterianism. The Assembly . Moderator holds a position of influence in the Church for three years aft er his election. At the Assem » bly he appoints the chairmen of the principal committees. He continues in office for one year, during which he is chair man of the General Council of the Church, and during the next two years he is a Council member. The present Modera tor is the Rev. Dr. .William Hi ram Fowlkes* of. Newark, New Jersey. Much interest is being shown throughout the Church in a second election. The Philadel phia General Assembly will elect for a five-year term a suc cessor to the Rev. Dr. Lewis Seymour Mudge, of Philadel phia, as its Stated Clerk, or ex ecutive secretary. Dr. Mudge will reach the retirement age in August after seventeen years in the office. According to the rules of the Church the Stated Clerk, who gives all his time to the position, is eligible for re-election at the end of each five-year term. » A nominee for the office will be reported to the May General Assembly by a committee which has been considering names since last June. Nominations may be made from the floor also, after the committee has made its report. Other elections to be made by the 1938 Assembly include those of members of the Gen eral Council, the Permanent Judicial Commission and the four national boards of Nation al Missions, Foreign Missions, Christian Education and Pen sions. These four agencies of the Church expend a combined annual total of about $9,000, 000. A new order of commissioned church workers will be estab lished by the Presbyterian Church if it adopts a recommen dation of its General Council. Hie proposed new status is that of “commissioned church work er.” Without giving such full time workers in local churches an ordination such as minis \ters receive, the new status liquid confer a formal commis siohkon each of them, and would list sheir names in the official “Minhtes” or yearbook of the Church, in the same volume as the ministers but in a separate listing. Aids in providing unemployed ministers with churches and vacant churches with ministers are contained in another pro posal that will be acted on by the Philadelphia Assembly, and that would set up “committees on ministerial relations.” A third recommendation provides for grants in aid of churches unable to pay their ministers a minimum “living” salary, and a forth would retire all pastors .. J . ,.s£ . JmL.*. of churches at the age of 70. Several movements for closer relations with other Churches, including action on an invita tion from the Protestant Epis copal Church looking .toward organic union of the two Com munions, are among other lead ing subjects to be considered by the May Assembly. Eleven sessions of the Gen eral Assembly will be given to celebration of its sesquicenten nial, which will note the fact that Presbyterianism in the United States is 308 years old, and that as a formal organiza tion the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America is 232 years old, dating from the establishment of the Gen eral Presbytery, at Philadel phia, in 1706. six oi uie sesquicenienmai meetings will be evening and Sunday afternoon mass meet ings, and five will be held dur ing the Assembly’s business sessions. Each of the meetings will have addresses by distin guished Churchmen and wom en of America and abroad. Presbyterian women from all parts of the country will hold separate meetings May 27-39, with ^men and women speakers from Alaska, Asia and several States. The women’s meetings will be held while the General Assembly is in session. An Afro-American Congress is scheduled for May 29, in con nection with the General As sembly’s sessions, to celebrate the beginning in 1807 of or ganized Presbyterian work for Negroes. Before the General Assem bly opens its business sessions on May 26, two “Pre-Assem bly” meetings will be held May 24-26 in the municipal Conven tion Hall, under Assembly aus pices: One is a “Coiigress^df New Americans,” concerned with the Presbyterian Church’s work for immigrants and its work in the cities and with in dustrial groups. The second is an interdenominational Confer ence on Evangelism under aus pices of the Unit of Evangelism of the Board of National Mis sions. The latter will empha size the 200th anniversary of what often is called the conver sion of John Wesley, May 24, 1738. Evangelistic meetings using two sound trucks will be held on the streets of Philadelphia daily during the sessions of the General Assembly. DEATH OF MRS. HARRIET LIVINGSTONE Mrs. Harriet Livingstone passed away April 27, 1938, at the home of her brother, Rev. Benjamin F. Mallard, D. D.,'of the A. M. E. church, 210 So. Franklin Street, Mobile, Ala. She was the only sister living of the six girls and six boys of the late John R. Mallard, Sr., and Nancy Mallard, of McIn tosh, Ga., who passed away in 1905 and 1920 respectively. Dr. Peter S. Mallard passed away in 1922 in Detroit, Mich., where he was practicing medi cine, leaving four brothers and three sisters to mourn their loss. In 1927 the death angel passed through and took Anna C. Mallard and Mary Mallard Gregg, who were teachers, leaving Harriet, Rev. Julius W. Mallard, Rev. John R. Mallard, Jr., Rev. B. F. Mallard, and Rev. Samuel D. Mallard to mourn their loss. Mrs. Livingstone was a Christian and a member of First Congregational church, of Savannah, Ga., where she resided before going to Mobile. “Only Good Night, beloved, and not farewell, A little while and all His Saints shall dwell In hallowed union indivisible: Good Night. Until we meet before His throne, Clothed in the spotless robe He gave His own, Until we know even as we are known: Good Night. J. W. M. j With the unusual success achieved by “Haiti” at the La fayette Theatre, Harlem is re viewing with new interest and excitement the illustrious ca reer of that great Negro lead er, Toussaint L’Ouverture. Neglected by school books and heretofore ignored as ma terial for the drama, Toussajnt for too many years has been only a name associated with dates in Haitian history. Now that he has been immortalized in the stirring drama by Will iam Du Bois, intelligent mem bers of the Negro race every where are clamoring for more information about L’Ouverture. In newspaper reviews of “Haiti” and in the columns of many newspapers are found references to the famous speech by Wendell Phillips, in which he defended the importance of Toussaint L’Ouverture in the world’s history. Phillips, who was one of the greatest orators of his day, identified himself with the abolitionist cause and succeeded William Lloyd Garri son as president of the Anti Slavery Society in 1865. me ionowing lecture, extoll ing Toussaint L’Ouverture as incontrovertible proof that the Negro is one of the most heroic of races, is given because of its ( historical interest; “If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great cap tain of the nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts—you who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his country. But ‘’F-anTfo'tell 'you the' story of a* Negro, Toussaint L’Ouverture, who has left hardly one writ ten line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who despised him because he was a Negro and a slave, hated him because he had beaten them in battle. “Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, at the age of twenty-seven, ' was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. Crom well never saw an army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Crom well manufactured his own army—out of what? English men—-the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen—the best blood of the island. And with it he con quered0 what? Englishmen— their equals, This man manu factured his army out of what? Out of what you call the despic able race of Negroes, debased, demoralized by two thousand years of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intel ligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked nome to Jamaica, inow, it Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. “Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century and select what statesmen you please. Let him be either American or Europe an; let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture; let him have the ripest training* of university routine; let him add to it the better ed ucation of practical life; crown his temples with the silver of seventy years, and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine admir er will wreathe a laurel, rich as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this Negrb,—rare military skill, profound knowl edge of human nature, content / ♦ - *' • .. to Iblot out all party distinc tions, and trust'a state to the blood of its, sons,—anticipating Si#Robert Peel fifty years, and tng his station by the side Roger Williams before any :lishman or American had the right; and yet this is record which the history of il states makes up for this ired black St. Domingon. ’Some doubt the courage of Negro. Go to Haiti, and id on those fifty thousand ives of the best soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think of the Negro’s sword. ‘‘I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This main never broke his word. I wqaild call him Cromwell, but Crpmwell was only a soldier, anji the state he founded went with him into his grave. I wqjuld call him Washington, but great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave tr$de in the humblest of his dbininions. ) IOU thlnK me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyfes, but with your prejudices. Bdt fifty years- hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse' of History will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Ro man, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright con summate flower of our earliest civilization, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write inv the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, statesman, and martyr, Tous saant L’Ouverture. REtA*i©N& >1N -*** TENNESSEE By James D. Burton, Oakdale, Tennessee, State Executive Secretary, Tennessee In terracial Commission (Abstract of report to 19th annual meeting in Nashville, April 28, 1938. Released by direction of Commission) The 'Tennesssee Interracial Commission was organized in 1918 to foster helpful coopera tion between the white and col ored races. Leading men and women of Tennessee serve oh its committees. It is promot ing mutual understanding of viewpoints and needs through joint conferences. Under the strain of existing conditions, the Commission is happily adapting itself to the needs of the day, and at the same time conserving the prin ciples which brought it into ex istence. It believes that Chris tianity applied to the social, business and economic system will mean newer and higher leyels of life for all people. The Church alone among ex tant organizations should be able to show an unselfish ap proach in racial adjustment. Business organizations might be accused of seeking commer cial advantage, political organ izations might be accused of seeking political power, but the Church is in position to under take the task of developing a Christian attitude among the races. There is no other or ganization so well situated to demand justice among the races as.: is the Church. It must un hesitatingly lead the way. The childlikeness of the racial attitude, even among Chris tians, may be suggested by sup posing that the white race had the privilege of naming tlie conditions of the heaven to which they hope to go. Logi cally, the white man’s heaven would have no place in it for the Negro. If, on the other hand, the present attitude de veloping among some of our Negro brethren continues, prac tically the same sort of Negro heaven will be demanded, with the white man excluded. Ra cial differentiation amounts al most to religious antagonism. Tlie trouble is that man cannot summarily dismiss his atti tudes, because they come to be a constituent part of his men tal being. New attitudes come as a re sult of revolutionary processes; they have to be developed, evolved. This is the reason why a program of race relations is so slow. We are trying to sweep back the tides set in mo tion through the accumulating centuries of the past. Progress can be made only as we adhere to the principle of human brotherhood. There is a large responsibil ity resting upon educational in stitutions in matters of race re lations, and they should share in it. The People must be taught. Trained people are the hope of advancement toward correct attitudes. Ingorance and superstition are breeders of prejudice. We are depend ent upon the best elements in all races to give drift to senti ment. There is hope in human ity and steady progress is be ing made in standardization of ideals for the races. We must think of all citizens as human beings, with human rights, and entitled to equality before the law, equal sanitary provisions, and equal protection of person and property. FOUNDERS DAY AT MARY POTTER Mary Potter-Redstone-Albion Academy of Oxford, North Car olina, celebrated fifty years of service in the field of sec ondary education by appropri ate Founder’s Day exercises May 9th, honoring the late Dr. George Clayton Shaw, who passed away January 1, 1936. * After the invocation by Dr. L. B. West, field representative of the Board of National Mis 4ttoBs, - principal of the school, the Rev. H. S. Davis, acting as Master of ceremonies, spoke of the founding of the in stitution in 1888 by Dr. Shaw, beginning with a donation of $600 by Mrs. Mary Potter, of Schenectady, New York. With this beginning, the founder built an institution which has five brick buildings and twc teachers’ cottages, all now val ued at more than a quarter of a million dollars. It is an “A” class accredited high schol, and a member of the Southern As sociation of Secondary Schools aim colleges, nev. ivir. uavis mentioned the greetings re ceived from other schools. • Several speakers offered fe licitations on this golden anni versary occasion, paying tribute to the founder and to his wid ow, Mrs. G. C. Shaw, also ex pressing faith in the progress of the school under its present principal. Mayor Pro-Tern F. W. Medford, and Mr. C. G. Credle, Supt. of schools of Oxford, both spoke of Dr. Shaw’s lead ership and of the faith of the community in its standards. Dr. B. K. Hays, representing the white citizens, very force fully commended the work of Dr. Shaw and attributed the success of the institution to his ability to mold character. Dr. J. A. Cotton, of Henderson In stitute, emphasized the import ance of the church-supported schools to our education, and Dr. E. E. Toney, an elder of Timothy Darling church, spoke of Dr. Shaw as a man who thought constantly in terms of the comfort of others. After Mr. Alfonse Henin burg, of N. C. College, brought greetings from the Negro col leges of the State and expressed their appreciation for the type of training offered at Mary Pot ter, the President of the Alum ni Association, Mr. A. R.. Dees, of the Scotland Neck High School, emphasized the inspira tion the alumni had received from the guidance and noble lives of Dr. and Mrs. Shaw. The main address was deliv ered by the Secretary of the Unit of Colored Work of the Board of National Missions, Dr. J. M. Gaston, of Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Gaston spoke feelingly of his (Continued on Page 8) - t THE NEGRO AND WHITE CHURCHES MUST MOVE FORWARD TOGETHER Hot Springs, Ark., May 6.—In a forceful address before the General Conference of the Col ored Methodist Episcopal Church in session here this week at the Municipal Audito rium, Dr. George E. Haynes, Executive Secretary, Depart ment of Race Relations, Fede ral Council of Churches, re- - viewed the action of Negro and white Church leaders in' race re lations the past four years and pointed to the need of the Church today as never before to gird itself with stronger leadership and more united ac tion in behalf of justice to ra cial minorities. Offiqially representing the Federal Council, Dr. Haynes ^ brought greetings from that body in which twenty-three Protestant denominations in this country have voice, and described the work accom plished through its Department of Race Relations to eliminate old evils of race discrimination. His review of the past four years covered what the Depart ment has done for justice dur ing the 'National Recovery pro* gram; work in behalf of Negro tenants and sharecroppers un der Governmental plans; stim ulation of the development of consumers, cooperatives; the continual drive of the churches for the passage of anti-lynch ing legislation; the promotion of Race Relations Sunday which this year marked the sixteenth annual observance and its ex tension into Interracial Week; 4 the expansion of the Depart ment’s promotion of interracial conferences, publication of lit erature on various phases of the subject; and its representa tion before various Church and educational conventions and conferences for the presenta tion M>f; race problems which challenge the Church of Amer ica today. In a plea for unity of Church ‘ forces, Dr. Haynes said: “The evangelical denominations, Ne gro arid white, cannot single handed and separately success-, fully grapple with this hydro headed monster of race hatred, bigotry and prejudice. We must move forward with united forces. ...Negro masses are be ing told that the road of vio lence and revolution is the only highway to manhood rights and opportunity. This comes to them in no uncertain terms by leaders of radical groups. If we are to hold their loyalty and convince them that the way of goodwill and understanding is the way toward democratic equality and justice we must close the gaps in our own ranks. “Our churches today lack unity and vision; piany of our church methods are outworn and do not meet the require ments of these terrible times. . . . The Church must strength en its able leadership. That leadership must be an informed leadership; a leadership of knowledge. It must be a lead ership of courage. . . . The times demand men and women who will stand for the rights of the people, the right of liberty of movement, the right to equal ity before the law, equal pay for equal work, equal treatment on the job, the right of privi lege to share in all agencies that control the forces that make their lives. . . . Leaders should put the good of the peo ple they serve before their own personal profit. Instead of fighting each other in a mad scramble for honor and for of fice, real leaders should vie with each other in seeing how much ojf themselves and their livjes they can devote to the ad vancement of all the people. This is not only good religion; it is plain common self-interest of the highest kind. If the masses of the Negro people do not rise, then the preacher and. his church cannot prosper. If the masses of the people do not share largely in the wealth of America ourv churches cannot grow and flourish. .: . The chal lenge, then, is for unity of or ganization in the Church, unity of the Negro Church.”
Africo-American Presbyterian (Wilmington, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 19, 1938, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75