THE TRIBUNAL Al(^
VOLUME r\, NO. 11
Wi DNESDA^. AUGUST 1«. 1976
Publishers Association
PFRYT.AR
25 CENTS
A VIABLE, VALID REQUIREMENT
RESPONDING TO
BLACK NORTH CAROLINA
North Carolina Press Association, Inc.
The 1976 Editions of THE TRIBUNAL AID will
be dedicated to America s bicentennial Cele
bration. with emphasis on contributions our Race
has made in the making of America, from
bi_rth to the present.
In 1976 there should not 1m‘ a need to lift these
^contributions from isolated sources. Our past
should ne interwoven into the fabric of our ci-
vilization. because we are, except for the Indian.
America s oldest ethnic minority.
\^e have helped make America what it was.
and what it is. since the founding of Virginia.
^ e ha\«* been a factor in tnany major issues in
our history. There have been manv misdeeis
Faye Ashe, Black History Editor
against us. yet v^e ha>e lM*en able to live through
them anl fight back. This is living proof of our
hjstorv.
Our role in the making of America is neither
wrll kno\^n or correctl) known. Many positive
contributions have escap*d historians and have
not lound their wav into the pages of many
history books,
We will strive to give readers. Black and ^
white, many little-known facts about our past
and it is hoped that a proper perspective of our
historv will be of value to persons who
believe that as Black people we h#ve ^ uflf'
worthy past: and hence, no strong clainfS to
all rights of other Americans.
THE BLACK CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS
ART IN ITS BROAD SENSE IS THE
EXPRESSION OF BEAUTY IN
FORM, COLOR, SOUND, SPEECH,
AND MOVEMENT. ART EM
BRACES NOT ONLY DRAWING,
PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND
ARCHITECTURE, BUT POETRY,
MUSIC, DANCING AND DRAMA
TICS. OUR CULTURE IS RICH IN
ALL OF THESE ARTS FORMS, WE
WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH
YOU SOME EXAMPLES OF THIS
PARTICULAR ART FORM.
A contemporary of Horton's in
Philadelphia was FRANCES ELLEN
(WATKINS) HARPER, whose
I OEMS ON MISCELLANEOUS
SUBJECTS had been pubhshed in
Philadelphia in 1854. She was pop
ular as an "elocutionist", and read her
poem- which helped the sale of her
hook. The book sold-ten thousand
copies in the first five years, and it
was reprinted three times before her
cond work, MOSES, A STORY OF
THE NILE, appeared in 1869. She
was devoted to the cause of freedom,
as a Black poets were inclined to be
ill the middle of the nineteenth cen
tury, as a Black poet was practically
obliged to be, she promptly came to
grips with this theme, as shown in
this poem:
I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze oj the passer-by.
All that my yearning spirit craves '
Is hury Die not in a land of slaves.
Seven years after the publication of
her first little volume, the war of
liberation having begun and Mrs.
Harper having established herself
very fa\orably in the public eye as a
.-lack poet and a shining example
(along with FREDERICK DOUGLASS
nd ther personalities) of what a
Negro might become in freedom. She
I egan to comtemplate on provocative
subjects. When Frances Harper was
no writing about the specific pro
blems that confronted her people, she
wrote on themes of the evil of strong
drink and childhood, its innocence
aui. blessedness. In her poem;
"THE DOUBLE STANDARD" she
treats still another.
Crime has no sex and yet today
I wear the Brand of shame.
Whilst He amid the Gay and Proud
Still hears an Honest Name.
uage it pufinto the mouths of Negro
charaiters. While avoiding dialect,
as it later was to be used and popula
rized by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
she evertheless sought to suggest
the flavor of Negro speech through
charai'teristic patterns, phrases and
nuances, techniques not unrelated to
ihosr u.-ed in the twentieth century by
sucii writers as JAMES WELDON
JOHNSON AND Langston Hughes.
There were more that thirty volumes
o' poetry by Black Americans publish
ed between Phillis Wheatley's Col
ection and Dunbar's first.
hoMtine, lorniat, and substance of
ill iiLstrel show originated with
Negro slaves in the United States
around 1820. Dunbar's lyrics came at
the high tide ol minstrel popularity. A
son of foinier slaves, Dunbar greeted
the t entieth century with LYRICS
OF LOWLY LIFE (1896), a book
vvhi won for him a national reputa
tion and enabled him to pursue a
li erary career lor the rest of his life.
Help d by the minstrel tradition his
popularity was al first based mainly
on po> ms written in the broad dialect
of plantation folk. In another sense
liis writing is in the tradition of Robert
Burns, a poet mentioned by literate
Blacks, who had themselves come out
of plantation slavery. Other volumes
of Dunbar's works include: OAK
AND IVY, LYRICS OF SUNSHINE
A'D SHADOW, '.YRICS OF LOVE
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON was
a contemporary of Dunbar, but his
lirst collection of poems was not pub
lished until eleven years after Dunbar
4«
publi. schools of Charlotte and
Fayetteville, North Carolina. At the
age of twenty-four he became princi-
' al ol the State Normal School in
Fayetteville, North Carolina. In 1887,
he began in the ATLANTIC
MONTHLY a series of stories based
on the superstitions of Black living
near the Coast in North Carolina.
Thes stories were later brought to-
u ther in a volume entitled THE
L NJURE WOMAN 1899. Followed
by THE WIFE OF HIS YOUTH, AND
OTHER STORIES OF THE COLOR
LINE (1899). The first novel, THE
HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS,
(1900) treats in the story of the hero
ine, Reqa Walden, some of the most
searchin'g questions raised by the
color line. The MARROW TRADI—
110' ( 901), based on the Wilming
ton riots of 1898, touches upon practi-
call ev ery phase of the race problem.
THE COLONEL'S DREAM (1905),
give.' the experience of one who was
o ginally from the South and who had
achieved success in New York. Chest-
nutt also wrote a compact life of
Frederick Douglass in the series of
BEACON BIOGRAPHIES OF EMI-
NEN AwLRICANS.
IF WE MUST DIE
Ifw must die-let it not be like hogs
Hunted ana penned in an inglorious spot.
While round iis bark the mad and hungry dogs.
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If M'c must die-Oh, let us nobly die.
S that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain: then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh. kinsmen! We must meet the common foe.
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave
A for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
like men we 11 face the murderous, cowardly pack
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
WE HAVE JUST TOUCHED THE
SLRF CE OF BLACK WRITERS.
WE WILL AT A LATER DATE RE—
■ URN WITH MORE BLACK
WRITERS AND EXAMPLES OF
THtIh WORK.
REFERENCES:
BLACK COINTRIBUnONS
AM' RICAJN LETTERS
TO
death. Johnson was known mainly at
that timt by popular song lyrics,
including, LIFT EVERY VOICE AND
SING,which since its composition in
1900 has become the Negro National
Al em. His FIFTY YEARS AND
T..ER POEMS, (1917) ended what
had begun to seem like silence by
lack poels in the wake of Dunbar's
eath. The publications of James
Weld I, Johnson were numerous and
var'Cd. Among his more important
works were: fifty years and other
poems, the book of american negro
poetr> (1922) GOD'S TROMBONES,
SEVEN NEGRO SERMONS IN
VERSE (1927) m which he endeavor-
to catch something in rhythm and
imagery ol ihe older Black Preachers,
BLA K MANHATTAN (1930), which
v>as mainly concerned with giving a
record ol Black progress on the New
ork stage; and along with this was
(193 ), an autobiography. From
God's Troiiibones-THE CREATION
begins:
*■'. ‘St-
I
CLALDE MCKAY, who came to
the Lnited States from Jamaica, was
the nii.st vigorous of the new group of
poets. A militanl , Sonnet "IF WE
Negro Heritage Library Volume II
Davis, !)hn I’. Ed., The American
\*‘gr> Ret renc(* Book Educational
Heritagi', Inc. Yonkers o. 1966.
Du bar, Paul Laurence, ITie Com
plete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar
I)Kld. Mead and Co. New York c.1970
Katz, William Lorene Eyewitness:
The N gro in American History
Pit an New York c. 1967
Wowlson, Carter The Negro in
Our History, Associated Publisher,
Washington, 1>.C. c. 1922
iBICENTENNIAlii
ISIACK HISTORY
“lost-Strayed-Or Staleii ”
by Fay Ashe
'OooooeoBooooooocxsoeeO
And God stepped out on space.
And he . ooked around and said.
/ ni lom'l\ -
I 'II make me a world.
Yes Blame me for my downward course.
But Oh! Remember well,
\Mthin your homes you press the hand
That led me down to hell.
No golden weigths can turn the scale
Of justice in his sight.
And what is wrong in woman s life
III man 's cannot be right.
SKETCHES OF SOUTHERN LIFE,
Mrs. Harper's third book, was pub
lished in 1873 and is notable for lang-
poaeBGBaoooDBeoBe
A .D I, .UGHTER, and COMPLETE
POEMS. The latter has never been
out of pr.nt, and it is found to contain,
along with dialect poems that made
him famous, many poems in Standard
Lnglisi., some of which provide the
ly.ic> for songs which remain well
know”. EXAMPLE:
DAWN
An angel, robed in spotless white.
B nt down and kissed the sleeping night.
Nighi woke to blush: the sprite was gone. Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Men saw the blush and called it dawn.
One of Dunbar's poems in dialect
whi h most of us are familiar with is:
Little Brown Baby
Li lie Bn>\ n Baby wif spa klin ' eyes.
Come toyo ' pappy an ' set on his
knee.
What you been doin '. suh-makin ' san
pies?
Look at dill hib-you 's ez du 'ty ez me.
Look at dat mouj-dat 's merlasses. I bet.
Come hyeah. Maria, an ' wipe off his
han's.
Be s gwine to ketch you an ' eat you up
yit. ~
Bein so sticky an sweet-goodness
Ian's.
Set to music by Louis Gruenberg,
"THE CREATION" was produced by
the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING
"L ft every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Let our rejoicing rise
high us the lisicning skies.
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song
Full ofthe faiih that the dark past has
Sing a song
Full of the hope that the present has
brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day
begun
Let IIS march on till victory is won.
Blark history in the I’stcrn Hemisphere most probably be-
jiins w ith the discovery ol the ,\ew ^'orld by (Christopher Co-
lutiibus in 1492. Hlarks are known to have participated inean-
in^lully in a number of later explorations made by Kurojieans in
\arious parts of the lnited States and Spanish America. Facts
such as these at once fashion a ne» dimension for Black history
«ithin Ihe mainstream ol American history. Inasmuch as one of
the primary purposes of this feature is to record some historical
achie\ements of the Black, it becomes most im|Mirtanl to offer the
reailer chronological accounts through which he can conveniently
\amiliari/,e himself with the broad sweep of American Black
historv. Ihe years covered h're are H92-19.^.
CHARLES W. CHESTNUT won a
place in literature not previously
attained by any man identified with
Black people. Chestnut taught in the
MUST DIE", was much quoted in the
months immediately after the war,
and this author's best verse was
brough together in HARLEM
SHAi.^O\\ S (1922). There have since
app' ai-ed three novels HOME OF
HARLEM (1928) BANJO (1929) and
BA' A A BOTTOM (1933(; also
GINGERTOWN, a collection of
sto ies.
1»44 CALIFORNIA
Jim Beckwourth discov-
I a pass ihrough the
Siena Nevadas to Cali
fornia and the Pacific
Oeeaii.
1845 Worchester Mass.
Mucon B. Allen becomes
ihe lirst Negro formally
admitted to the bar in
the . nited States.
1846 NEW \ ORK
Abolitionist Gerritt
S itli' plan to parcel up
ihousan , of acres of his
la . in ,ew York fails
to attract prospective
Negro larmers. Lack of
ca, ita among Negroes
and the infertility of the
land itself combine to
iioom the project.
1847 ST. LOUIS, MISS.
Dred Scott first files suit
for his freedom m the
Circuit Court of St. Louis
1847 ROCHESTER, NY
Frederick Douglass pub
lishes the first isue of his
abolitionist newspaper,
' he .North Star.
1848 BUFFALO
The convention of the
Fiee Soil Party is attend
ed by a number of Negro
abol tionisis.
1849 MARYLAND
Harriet Tubman, soon to
be a conductor on the
"Underground Railroad"
escapes frum slavery in
Maryland. Miss Tubman
later returns to the
South no less than 19
times, and helps trans
port more than 300
slaves to freedom.
staves lo iieeuoni.
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1776 Honoring America's Bicentennial 1976