There are now more than one hundred and fifty-three organs of the Colored Americans, edited and managed exclusively by them, and devoted to their interests as well as to the cause of general intelligence, improvement and higher education. These organs of the “Press” are classified into: magazines, 3; daily papers, 3; school papers, 11; weekly papers, 136.
Ten of these newspapers own the buildings they occupy, and fifty-four own their own printing plants.
There is a large field here for exploitation and splendid opportunities for the development of a high order of intellect. Only one of these newspapers was established before the Civil War, the Christian Recorder, of Philadelphia, which began in 1839. All the others were established after the Civil War, one in 1865, the others after 1870—a fact which demonstrates the ability of Colored Americans to advance in intellectual ability when the opportunities are presented for its free exercise.
The sphere of influence of the newspapers can not be disputed, we know how it is regarded and the enormous deference paid to that influence among the White Americans, and the same results must obtain among the Colored Americans.
There is room in this department of intellectual development, for many strong and vigorous writers, who will be able to crystallize the energies of the Colored Americans into a determined effort to maintain their position in the onward movement of the human race toward unification.
AUTHORS, WRITERS, POETS AND THE FINE ARTS
An investment in brains has always been regarded as the most productive in profitable returns. It is becoming the fixed opinion, based upon ages of experience, that the uplift of the world, the advancement of people and their progress can be accomplished by brains only.
War and its desolations, its ravages, rapine, and cruelties, have for a time swayed and dominated various parts of the earth, but, it must be considered that violence is the mere handmaid to an uplift by intellectual effort. War prepares the way for intellect and secures it an opportunity to be made manifest without molestation.
If we refer to the “Catalogue des manuscripts Ethiopiens,” already mentioned, we shall find a most amazing condition of intellectual development among the ancient Ethiopians. It was this intellectual condition that made its impress upon Egypt, and the other nations of Europe and Asia, because the Ethiopians were not a conquering race by force of arms, except so far as it was necessary to protect themselves against attack.
If we turn to their descendants—our Colored Americans—we find the same intellectual efforts resumed and progress going on in a marked degree under favorable circumstances and highly civilized and free conditions and environments. The same talent and genius that sculptured the exquisite Ethiopian bronze statuary recently discovered in The Soudan, carved the beautiful designs on Egyptian monuments, traced the architecture of noble palaces and immortal buildings, still traceable in ruins more than three thousand years old, and other evidences of art, is manifesting itself at the present day among our Colored Americans and other descendants in foreign countries.