“Long years have come and gone since she was laid away in the narrow house appointed for all the living. No marble headstone marks the spot, yet I am sure the humble mound that lies above her sleeping dust covers a heart as honest and as faithful, as patient and as gentle, as kindly and as true, as any that rests beneath the proudest monument that art could fashion or affection buy. She reared a large family of children, the Rev. Charles T. Walker, ‘The Black Spurgeon,’ among them, and transmitted to them all a character for honesty and virtue marked even in those, the better days of the Republic.
“Wisely or otherwisely, in the order of Providence, or in the order of Napoleon’s ‘heavier battalions,’ we have in this good year of our Lord (1900) not only a New South, but a new type of Aunt Hannah. The old is, I fear, a lost Pleiad, whose light will shine no more on land or sea or sky.”
The Walker family produced a number of able and successful preachers—some say more, some say less. As already shown, two of Dr. Walker’s uncles—Joseph T. Walker and Nathan Walker—were ministers. The latter is still living, venerated and honored, at the good old age of 85. He was one of the founders of the Walker Baptist Association, and was for more than twenty years its moderator, retiring about ten years ago on account of the infirmities of old age. The Association was named in honor of the Rev. Joseph T. Walker. The Walker Baptist Institute at Augusta, named also for the Rev. Joseph T. Walker, was founded by this Association and has been for many years supported by it. In all respects the Walker Baptist Association is to-day the leading Association in Georgia. An older brother of Dr. Walker, the Rev. Peter Walker, now retired on account of age, was, in his day, a man of great force and power in the pulpit. A nephew of Dr. Walker, the Rev. Prof. Joseph A. Walker, son of Rev. Peter Walker, was up to the time of his death, about eight years ago, the honored and successful Principal of Walker Baptist Institute. Besides these, there are two first cousins of Dr. Walker who are among Georgia’s most distinguished clergymen—the Rev. W. G. Johnson, D. D., Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Macon, Ga., who is Secretary of the Walker Baptist Association, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Walker Baptist Institute, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Atlanta Baptist College; and the Rev. R. J. Johnson, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Millen, Ga., and Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of the Walker Baptist Institute. Other cousins in the ministry are the Rev. Samuel C. Walker, Augusta, Ga., Rev. A. J. Walker, Millen, Ga., Rev. T. W. Walker, Wrightsville, Ga., Rev. Solomon Walker, Savannah, Ga., Rev. Matthew Walker, Savannah, Ga., an elder in the C. M. E. Church, and Rev. Nathan Wilkerson, Waynesboro, Ga. In addition to these, there are many of this family who were once in the ministry of earth, but who have long since gone to join the ministry on high.
Descended from a generation of preachers, Dr. Walker towers above them all like Saul among his brethren. So great is his fame and so celebrated has he made the name of Walker that the other members of the family find it a passport in many places for them to make it known that they belong to the generation of Walkers.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY CHILDHOOD.
The first seven years of young Walker’s life were spent under the hard tuition of slavery, though, of course, he cannot have any very vivid recollections of the hardships of those days. It is fair, nevertheless to assume that his lot was not different from that of thousands and thousands of other black children in different parts Of the South. Richmond County, one of the large “Black Belt” counties of Georgia, which had then, and which has to this day, a larger black than white population, was in no respect different in its slave customs and regulations from other slave communities, excepting possibly the religious privileges enjoyed by the slaves. They had their own churches and enjoyed for the most part the ministrations of colored preachers, such as they were. They had their own houses of worship, their own church officials, and held regular and stated religious meetings. This was true in only a very limited number of places in the South during the slave period. In this respect, Richmond County was somewhat in advance of other localities. But only in this respect. In other matters, it was the same in Richmond County as elsewhere. The slaves received regular rations or allowances. The monthly ration consisted of eight pounds of pickled pork or its equivalent in fish. The pork was often tainted and the fish of the poorest quality. With this, they had one bushel of unbolted Indian meal, of which quite fifteen per cent. was fit only for pigs, and one pint of salt. This was the entire monthly allowance for a full grown slave. The children had no regular allowance, and often were compelled to dispute with dogs and cats and pigs over the scraps thrown into the yard or into the swill tub. Children not large enough to work in the field had neither shoes, stockings, jackets nor trousers given them. Their clothing consisted of two coarse tow linen shirts per year, and when these were worn out, they were literally naked until the next allowance day. Flocks of children from five to ten years old might be seen on the plantations as destitute of clothing as any little heathen in Africa, and this even in the cold and dreary months of winter. These children had no school advantages—certainly not. It was made a misdemeanor by law to teach a colored person to read or write. These children had no home life. The night for the slave—male and female—was shortened at both ends. The slaves worked as long as they could see, and were usually up late cooking and mending for the coming day, and at the first gray streak of the morning were summoned to the fields by the driver’s horn. Young mothers working in the field were allowed to go home about ten o’clock in the morning to nurse their children. Sometimes they were compelled to take their children with them and leave them in the corners of the fences in order to prevent loss of time. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who got his knowledge of slavery while sojourning in the colony of Georgia, did not err when he denounced slavery as “the sum of all villainies.”
In such a school as this, Charles Thomas Walker received his early training. How different from the early training of such men as Henry Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, James A. Garfield, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and other white men who were born to poverty. Though these men were born in humble circumstances, yet they were born to freedom. Charles Thomas Walker was born poor, and—what was worse—he was born a slave. These men owned at least themselves; they were free to go wherever they desired or to pursue any course of study or line of work that they wished. Charles Thomas Walker owned nothing—not even himself—and was compelled to go wherever his master ordered and do whatever his master commanded.
As to this slave system, the ancient question might well be asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” And the reply is,
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;