Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New YorkOvington, Mary White
History
Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York
Ovington, Mary White
African Americans -- New York (State) -- New York
Of the five colored Episcopal churches, St. Philip's and St. Cyprian's
have parish houses. St. Philip's has moved into a new parish house on
West One Hundred and Thirty-Fourth Street, where with its large,
well-arranged rooms, its gymnasium, and its corps of enthusiastic
workers it will soon become a powerful force in the Harlem Negro's life.
St. Cyprian's is under the City Episcopal Mission, and has unusual
opportunity for helpfulness since it is separated only by Amsterdam
Avenue from the San Juan Hill district and yet stands amid the whites.
Its clubs and classes, its employment agency, its gymnasium, its
luncheons for school children, its beautiful church, are all primarily
for the Negroes; but the colored rector has a friendly word for his
white neighbors, tow-headed Irish and German boys and girls sit upon his
steps, and his ministry has lessened the belligerent feeling between
the east and the west sides of Amsterdam Avenue. St. David's Episcopal
Church in the Bronx has a fresh air home at White Plains, cared for
personally by the rector and his wife, who spend their vacation with
tenement mothers and their children, the tired but grateful recipients
of their good-will.
If there were ninety colored clergymen in New York in 1900, as the
census says, a number must have been without churches, itinerant
preachers or directors of small missions, supporting themselves by
other labor during the day. Those men who now fill the pulpits of
well-established churches have been trained in theological schools of
good standing, for the ignorant "darky" of the story who leaves the hot
work of the cotton field because he feels a "call" to preach does not
receive another from New York. The colored minister in this city works
hard and long, and finds a wearying number of demands upon his time. The
wedding and the funeral, the word of counsel to the young, and of
comfort to the aged, a multiplicity of meetings, two sermons every
Sunday, the continual strain of raising money, these are some of his
duties. With a day from fourteen to seventeen hours long he earns as few
men earn the meagre salary put into his hand. But his position among
his people is a commanding one, and carries with it respect and
responsibility.
Strangers who visit colored churches to be amused by the vociferations
of the preacher and the responses of the congregation will be
disappointed in New York. Others, however, who attend, desiring to
understand the religious teaching of the thoughtful Negro, find much of
interest. They hear sermons marked by great eloquence. In the
Evangelical church the preacher is not afraid to give his imagination
play, and in finely chosen, vivid language, pictures his thought to his
people. Especially does he love to tell the story of a future life, of
Paradise with its rapturous beauty of color and sound, its golden
streets, its gates of precious stones, effulgent, radiant. He dwells not
upon the harshness, but rather upon the mercy of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account