The orator spoke for two hours, and the above is only a personal remembrance put down afterwards. His actual speech is therefore much shortened. But that was the sense and the flavor of it. It was given in a voice of humor and challenge, resonant, and yet everlastingly whimsical. Laughter rippled the whole time. I shook hands with him afterwards; for he was warm and eloquent and moving as few speakers I have heard. He was utterly exhausted, for he had drawn his words from his audience, and two thousand people had been pulling at his spirit for two hours. It was delightful to listen to a race propagandist so devoid of hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. Some regard humor as the greatest concomitant of wisdom, and this representative Negro certainly had both. He never touched on the tragedy of race hatred and racial injustice, but he saw the humor of them also. And the colored audience saw the humor also. With the English there would have been anger, with the French spontaneous insurrection, with the Jews gnashing of teeth, but with the Negroes it was humor. There was no collective hate or spite, but, manifest always, a desire to be happy, even in the worst circumstances. It is curious, however, that the Negro has a livelier sense of the humor of tragedy than the white man. For two months I visited a Negro theatre every week, and I was much struck by the fact that where there was most cause to weep or feel melancholy, the colored audience was most provoked to mirth. Negro companies, such as the Lafayette Players, play “Broadway successes,” melodramas, classical dramas, musical comedies, and indeed anything that would be staged in a white man’s theatre. But the result is nearly always comedy. As upon occasion white men burn cork and make up as Negroes, so the Negroes paint themselves white and make up as white men and women. Watching them is an entrancing study, because there is not only the original drama and its interest, but superadded the interpretation by Africans of what they think the white man is and does and says. Some of it is like the servants’ hall dressed up as master and mistress and their friends, but has remarkable felicity in acting. A large party, all in full evening dress, is very striking—only the Negro women are on the average so huge that when painted white and exposing vast fronts of bosoms, they are somewhat incredible. A typical evening party on the stage, with villain and hero, looks very handsome, but not in any way Anglo-Saxon, if conceivably foreign American. The hero may have a perfectly villainous expression. One’s mind is taken away from America to the Mediterranean. Even when painted, it is impossible to look other than children of the sun. The drama is played with a great deal of noise. When the moments of passion arrive, everyone lets himself go, and the stage is swallowed up in a hurly-burly of violent word and action. There is never any difficulty in hearing what is being said.