Biographies for Week Nine
Anna Julia Cooper, Norton pg 635, http://blackhistorynow.com/anna-julia-cooper/
Ida Wells-Barnett, Norton pg 675, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/idawells.html
Pauline Hopkins, Norton pg 650, http://blackhistorynow.com/pauline-e-hopkins/
Ida Wells-Barnett, Norton pg 675, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/idawells.html
Pauline Hopkins, Norton pg 650, http://blackhistorynow.com/pauline-e-hopkins/
Readings for Week Nine
1) Anna Julia Cooper: (I copied out part of one of her works. You do not need to read any more than this)
To me, faith means treating the truth as true. Jesus
believed in the infinite possibilities of an individual soul. His faith
was a triumphant realization of the eternal development of the best in man--an
optimistic vision of the human aptitude for endless expansion and
perfectibility. This truth to him placed a sublime valuation on each individual
sentiency--a value magnified infinitely by reason of its immortal destiny. He
could not lay hold of this truth and let pass an opportunity to lift men into
nobler living and firmer building. He could not lay hold of this truth and allow
his own benevolence to be narrowed and distorted by the trickeries of
circumstance or the colorings of prejudice.
Life must be something more
than dilettante speculation. And religion (ought to be if it
isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship
linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable
credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth,
development--begun now and ending never. And a life made true cannot confine
itself--it must reach out and twine around every pulsing interest within reach
of its uplifting tendrils. If then you believe that intemperance is a
growing vice among a people within touch of your sympathies; if you see that,
whereas the "Lord had shut them in," so that from inheritance there are but few
cases of alcoholized blood,--yet that there is danger of their becoming under
their changed circumstances a generation of inebriates--if you believe this,
then this is your truth. Take up your parable and in earnestness and faith
give it out by precept and by example. Do you believe that
the God of history often chooses the weak things of earth to confound the
mighty, and that the Negro race in America has a veritable destiny in His
eternal purposes, --then don't spend your time discussing the 'Negro Problem'
amid the clouds of your fine havanna, ensconced in your friend's well- cushioned
arm-chair and with your patent leather boot-tips elevated to the opposite
mantel. Do those poor "coward's in the South" need a leader--then get up and
lead them! Let go your purse-strings and begin to live your creed. Or is it
your modicum of truth that God hath made of one blood all nations of the earth;
and that all interests which specialize and contract the broad, liberal,
cosmopolitan idea of universal brotherhood and equality are narrow and
pernicious, then treat that truth as true. Don't inveigh against lines of
longitude drawn by others when at the same time you are applying your genius to
devising lines of latitude which are neither race lines, nor character lines,
nor intelligence lines--but certain social-appearance circlets assorting your
"universal brotherhood" by shapes of noses and texture of hair. If you object to
imaginary lines--don't draw them! Leave only the real lines of nature and
character. And so whatever the vision, the revelation, the idea, vouchsafed
you,
Think it truly and thy thoughts shall the soul's famine feed.
Speak it truly and each word of thine shall be a fruitful seed;
Live it truly and thy life shall be a grand and holy creed!
(A passage from http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/cooper/cooper.html_)
2) Pauline Hopkins "Talma Gordon" http://www.hornpipe.com/mystclas/myscl19.pdf
To me, faith means treating the truth as true. Jesus
believed in the infinite possibilities of an individual soul. His faith
was a triumphant realization of the eternal development of the best in man--an
optimistic vision of the human aptitude for endless expansion and
perfectibility. This truth to him placed a sublime valuation on each individual
sentiency--a value magnified infinitely by reason of its immortal destiny. He
could not lay hold of this truth and let pass an opportunity to lift men into
nobler living and firmer building. He could not lay hold of this truth and allow
his own benevolence to be narrowed and distorted by the trickeries of
circumstance or the colorings of prejudice.
Life must be something more
than dilettante speculation. And religion (ought to be if it
isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship
linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable
credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth,
development--begun now and ending never. And a life made true cannot confine
itself--it must reach out and twine around every pulsing interest within reach
of its uplifting tendrils. If then you believe that intemperance is a
growing vice among a people within touch of your sympathies; if you see that,
whereas the "Lord had shut them in," so that from inheritance there are but few
cases of alcoholized blood,--yet that there is danger of their becoming under
their changed circumstances a generation of inebriates--if you believe this,
then this is your truth. Take up your parable and in earnestness and faith
give it out by precept and by example. Do you believe that
the God of history often chooses the weak things of earth to confound the
mighty, and that the Negro race in America has a veritable destiny in His
eternal purposes, --then don't spend your time discussing the 'Negro Problem'
amid the clouds of your fine havanna, ensconced in your friend's well- cushioned
arm-chair and with your patent leather boot-tips elevated to the opposite
mantel. Do those poor "coward's in the South" need a leader--then get up and
lead them! Let go your purse-strings and begin to live your creed. Or is it
your modicum of truth that God hath made of one blood all nations of the earth;
and that all interests which specialize and contract the broad, liberal,
cosmopolitan idea of universal brotherhood and equality are narrow and
pernicious, then treat that truth as true. Don't inveigh against lines of
longitude drawn by others when at the same time you are applying your genius to
devising lines of latitude which are neither race lines, nor character lines,
nor intelligence lines--but certain social-appearance circlets assorting your
"universal brotherhood" by shapes of noses and texture of hair. If you object to
imaginary lines--don't draw them! Leave only the real lines of nature and
character. And so whatever the vision, the revelation, the idea, vouchsafed
you,
Think it truly and thy thoughts shall the soul's famine feed.
Speak it truly and each word of thine shall be a fruitful seed;
Live it truly and thy life shall be a grand and holy creed!
(A passage from http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/cooper/cooper.html_)
2) Pauline Hopkins "Talma Gordon" http://www.hornpipe.com/mystclas/myscl19.pdf