BY EDWARD MACKNIGHT BRAWLEY, A. M., D. D.
REV. EDWARD MacKNIGHT BRAWLEY, A. M., D. D.
Edward MacKnight Brawley was born at Charleston, S. C., March 18, 1851. His parents, James M. and Ann L. Brawley, were both free. Before the Civil War, in order that he might secure good educational advantages, he was sent to Philadelphia, Pa., where he passed through the grammar school; then he entered the Colored High School, of which Prof. E. D. Bassett was principal, and there prepared for college. In the fall of 1871 he entered Bucknell University, where he was graduated Bachelor of Arts in the class of 1875. During his college course he also pursued theological studies and was ordained for the ministry on the day after his graduation, by a council composed largely of professors of the university. He was the first colored student to attend Bucknell, and in 1878 he secured from his college the degree of Master of Arts. In 1885 the State University of Louisville, Ky., conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and Rev. E. M. Brawley has this distinction, that he has held this degree for a longer time than any other living colored Baptist minister. For eight years he was State Missionary in South Carolina for the American Baptist Publication Society.
In 1883 he was called to the presidency of Selma University, Selma, Ala., and devoted several years to educational work. He then became District Secretary for the South for the American Baptist Publication Society, which work he resigned in 1890 to accept the call to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church of Petersburg, Va., the oldest colored Baptist Church in the country, which he subsequently left to go back to the work of the Society, at its earnest solicitation. He has also served in the pastorate at Greenville, S. C., Darien, Ga., and Palatka, Fla. He has done considerable newspaper work, and has devoted much time to religious writing, many pamphlets and books along race and denominational lines having been written by him. He is now Editorial Secretary of the National Baptist Publishing Board, of Nashville, Tenn., under the auspices of the National Baptist Convention. Dr. Brawley's qualifications and experience well fit him for his present position, for he has made a specialty of Sunday-school and denominational literature.
A generation has come since the passing away of the period to which the old Negro belonged, and this generation has lived in the period of the new Negro. Is this new Negro an improvement morally on his father? Zealous friends of the race stoutly maintain that he is; while enemies assert that he is not as good. It is the purpose of this article to present some facts which will prove that the young Negro, in spite of his dreadful inheritance, has, by the aid of generous friends and the grace of God, lifted himself to a higher moral plane than that upon which his unfortunate father stood.
It is well, however, to note carefully at the very beginning, that we are not dealing with exceptions in this discussion, but with the race as a whole. At a river bank the water sometimes appears to run up stream, while if one will but look in the middle, he will see the river in full force gliding smoothly on to the ocean. So in all matters belonging to the realm of morals we must discard the narrow vision, and, taking the broad view of the Christian philosopher, sweep the entire horizon.
Let us first, as an antecedent matter, consider some reasons why the young Negro should be expected to be better than his father.
1. His father had no moral training. His very person was the victim of a prodigious theft, and his labor was daily stolen. Could such a man be effectively taught honesty? To have taught the slave the elements of morals meant the quickening not only of his moral, but also of his intellectual nature; and such a thing would ultimately have developed resistance on the part of the slave. No true instruction in morals was possible in a condition of slavery. Look over the entire moral code as set forth in the Ten Commandments, and the impossibility of teaching effectively those great truths to slaves—American slaves—becomes apparent. The old enslaved Negro was destitute of true moral training; and very much of what was offered to him as such was nothing more than "sounding brass," and he knew it and could not profit by it.
2. And while the old Negro did not have true moral training, he did have positive training in the opposite direction. For the very system under which he lived was a training in evil. His ancestors had been stolen; he himself was stolen; his civil liberty was stolen. Could he form any adequate conception of property rights? And is it now a matter of surprise to us that the old man sometimes did a little stealing himself in order to relieve a hungry stomach? He was not taught the sacredness of the married life. Indeed, he was not taught to marry at all. He was, as a rule, simply told to live with a woman whom he might call his wife, and when the good pleasure or the necessities of his master demanded that she should be sold away, to take another woman and live with her and call her wife, also. He was not allowed to develop the idea of fatherhood toward his children, for they were not his, but rather mere chattel, to be sold at the pleasure of his master. The two great vices charged against the Negro race are theft and adultery. Whatever truth there is in this charge is due to the long training slavery gave. Indeed, slavery was largely a training in moral evil. Antecedently, therefore, we expect the old Negro to be worse than his son.
But, now, what are the positive arguments to prove that the young Negro is an improvement morally on his father?