African Americans; African Americans -- Politics and government -- 20th century; African Americans -- Social conditions -- To 1964
There is perhaps no more notable example of this phase of Negro life than
the Hon. Richard Theodore Greener, our present Consul at Vladivostok. He
was, I believe, the first of our race to graduate from Harvard and he has
always been regarded as one of the most scholarly men who, through the
touch of Negro blood, belongs to us. He has been historian, journalist and
lecturer, but back of all this he was a teacher; and for years after his
graduation he was a distinguished professor at the most famous of all the
old Negro colleges. This institution is now a thing of the past, but the
men who knew it in its palmy days speak of it still with longing and
regret. It is claimed, and from the names and qualities of the men, not
without justice, that no school for the higher education of the black man
has furnished a finer curriculum or possessed a better equipped or more
efficient faculty. Among these, Richard T. Greener was a bright,
particular star.
After the passing of the school, Mr. Greener turned to other activities.
His highest characteristics were a fearless patience and a hope that
buoyed him up through days of doubt and disappointment. Author and editor
he was, but he was not satisfied with these. Beyond their scope were
higher things that beckoned him. Politics, or perhaps better, political
science, allured him, and he applied himself to a course that brought him
into intimate contact with the leaders of his country, white and black. A
man of wide information, great knowledge and close grasp of events he made
himself invaluable to his party and then with his usual patience awaited
his reward.
The story of how he came to his own cannot be told without just a shade of
bitterness darkening the smile that one must give to it all. The cause for
which he had worked triumphed. The men for whom he had striven gained
their goal and now, Greener must be recognized, but--
Vladivostok, your dictionary will tell you, is a sea-port in the maritime
Province of Siberia, situated on the Golden Horn of Peter the Great. It
will tell you also that it is the chief Russian naval station on the
Pacific. It is an out of the way place and one who has not the
world-circling desire would rather hesitate before setting out thither. It
was to this post that Mr. Greener was appointed.
"Exile," his friends did not hesitate to say. "Why didn't the Government
make it a sentence instead of veiling it in the guise of an appointment?"
asked others sarcastically.
"Will he go?" That was the general question that rose and fell, whispered
and thundered about the new appointee, and in the midst of it all, silent
and dignified, he kept his council. The next thing Washington knew he was
gone. There was a gasp of astonishment and then things settled back into
their former state of monotony and Greener was forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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