Mr. Braithwaite is the best known Negro critic of poetry in the world today.
As for me who has always lived in the South and know the Southern Negro through and through, I feel and believe that Carmichael has interpreted Negro life as never before.
We hope and pray that Carmichael will live through this great ordeal and come back to us and continue his work of interpreting Negro life.
There are hundreds of other graduates and ex-students who have won distinction in other fields and are doing equally as well as those who have been mentioned here. We have their record at the school, and any one can have them for the asking. I only wish to mention in a brief way two other graduates because they have established a first and second prize at Snow Hill. They are John W. Brister and Edmond J. O’Neal.
Several years ago the late Misses Collins (Ellen and Marguerite) of New York, two of the most sainted women whom I ever met, established an annual prize at the school known as the Sumner Peace Prize, of $15.00. But at their death this prize would have stopped unless some one had taken it up. Both Mr. Brister and Mr. O’Neal had won these prizes several times while they were in school. So at the death of the Misses Collins they came forward and said that they would be responsible for the prize each year on condition that the school make a first and second prize instead of one, Mr. Brister giving $10.00 in gold for the first prize and Mr. O’Neal giving $5.00 in gold for the second. This they have done for several years, and they constantly assure me that it will be kept up during their lifetime. This shows that our graduates are carrying with them the spirit of Christ, “Freely receive, freely give.”
CHAPTER 13.
The Solution of the Negro Problem.
All prophecies pertaining thus far to the solution of the Negro Problem have failed. Men in all parts of the country are becoming alarmed over the situation and are asking, “whither are we drifting?” And yet although everyone admits that there is a Negro problem, few are agreed as to the exact nature of the problem, and still fewer are agreed as to what the final answer should be.