A mile or so away was Virginia College, a red-brick structure in the woods, where in happy seclusion a few hundred colored men and women were being enfranchised of civilization and culture. A student took me to his study-bedroom, hung with portraits of John Brown and Booker T. Washington. The Bible was still the most important book, and it occupied the pride of place, though it was interleaved with pages of the Negro radical monthly, The Crisis. The student was an intense and earnest boy with all the extra seriousness of persecuted race consciousness. He said, in a low voice, that he would do anything at any cost for his people. He said the present leaders of the Negro world would fail, because of narrow outlook, but the next leaders would win great victories for color. And he would be ready to follow the new leaders. What a contrast they were!—the boss of the tobacco factory, cigar in hand, “talking wise” on the nigger, and the quiet Negro intellectual in his college, whetting daily the sword of learning and ambition.
III
ORATORS AND ACTORS, PREACHERS AND SINGERS
The aspirations and convictions of the Negroes of to-day were well voiced in a speech I heard at Harlem. I had been warned that I ought to hear the “red-hot orator of the Afro-American race,” and so I went to hear him. The orator was Dean Pickens, of Morgan College, Baltimore. When he came to the platform the colored audience not only cheered him by clapping, but stood up and cried aloud three times:
“Yea, Pickens!”
The chairman had said he would have to leave about half after five, but the speaker must not allow himself to be disturbed by that, but go right on. Pickens, who was one of the very black and very cheerful types of his race, turned to the chairman and said:
“You won’t disturb me, brother! But if you’re going at half after five, let’s shake hands right now, and then I can go straight ahead.”
And they shook hands with great gusto, and everyone laughed and felt at ease. Pickens was going to speak; nothing could disturb Pickens; they relaxed themselves to a joyful, anticipatory calm.