Ariel S. Bowen on African American Youth - 1902
Essay by Ariel Bowen 1902
This essay is reprinted from Twentieth Century Negro Literature, edited by D. W. Culp (Dr. Daniel Wallace Culp), published 1902. The biographical sketch of Ariel S. Bowen is presumably written by Culp. Related articles on this site include:
- More African American Women's Essays from Twentieth Century Negro Literature
- African American Women's History
- African American Women: Biographies
Is the Young Negro an Improvement, Morally, on His Father?
BY Mrs. Ariel S. Bowen.
Mrs. Ariel Serena Hedges Bowen, wife of Dr.
J. W. E. Bowen of Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., was born in
Newark, N. J. Her father was a Presbyterian clergyman in that city. He had
graduated from Lincoln University, Pa., and had organized churches in New
York State. Her mother represents one of the oldest Presbyterian families of
that State. Her grandfather was a bugler in the Mexican war, and was a Guard
of Honor when Lafayette revisited the United States. Her parents removed
early to Pittsburg, Pa., where she attended the Avery Institute. She
completed the Academic course of this school. Her parents then moved to
Baltimore, Md., where her father became pastor of Madison Avenue
Presbyterian Church, and finally of Grace Presbyterian Church. She was sent
to the High School of Springfield, Mass., where she remained and graduated
with honor in a large class in 1885. She also took the Teachers' Course and
Examination and passed a creditable examination and was favorably considered
as teacher for one of the schools of that city. She was then called to teach
History and English Language in the Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.,
under Prof. B. T. Washington.
In the year 1886 she was married to Dr. J. W. E. Bowen. She became a Life
Member of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. She removed to Atlanta with her husband in 1893. She became
Professor of Music in Clark University in 1895. She is the State President
of the Georgia W. C. T. U., No. 2. She has written very largely, among which
may be mentioned, "Music in the Home," "The Ethics of Reform," etc. She is
an accomplished vocalist and musician with the piano and pipe organ. She is
busily engaged in temperance and reform work, together with training and
fitting her family of one boy and three girls for life. She is regarded as
one of the foremost and best cultured women of her race. She reads Greek,
Latin and German with facility, and is a superb housekeeper.
The most important and vital factors in the
development of a race are physical strength, intelligence and morality,
these three, but the greatest of these is morality.
The individual or the race possessed of either or both of the first two, and
that utterly ignores the third, can never attain to the full status of man,
nor reach the zenith of full racial development or the pinnacle of
civilization. To-day we hear much about the survival of the fittest and the
"superior race and the inferior races." The earnest, thoughtful student of
life and its affairs immediately raises the question, To whom do such titles
"fittest," "superior" and "inferior" refer, and why? The history of a people
shows the advance and growth of that people. Their development can be traced
from the crude barbarous or semi-barbarous[Pg 265] state in which physical
prowess predominated through the period of intellectual development where
the mind begins to grasp new ideas and where new ideals of higher and nobler
purposes are sought after. Then came the greater perfection, the nobler
aspiration, the purer, higher civilization, growing out of the purer thought
and purer life of a purified people. This is true of all races, therefore
the Negro race is no exception, and is entitled to the same justice that is
accorded to every race that has had its rise and fall.
The writer takes it that the young "Negro" and his father are to represent
only the ante-bellum and the post-bellum Negro. To go beyond that, to take
him in his earlier state in the native wilds of his fatherland, before the
Anglo-Saxon missionary reached him and gave to the world a true picture of
his morality, would be to present to the world some startling facts that
would not only put to shame the "young Negro," but also the hosts of men of
all nations who glory in the progress they have made in morals.
It can be proven by the best authorities that many of the heathen Africans,
though crude in ethics, were pure morally.
But the discussion resolves itself into two very important questions. What
was the moral condition of the Negro before the war, and what is his moral
condition to-day? Before the war, what a picture comes before us at these
words, what a panorama of deeds passes before our mind's eye. Years of gross
darkness, darkness that deepens into the blackness of the pit, those days
that seem like a hideous nightmare to the hoary headed, and the story of
which sounds to the youth like a heart-rending and nauseating recital. Yet,
it was not all dark, some would say; perhaps not, but the bright spots only
tended to intensify the darkness.
What morals were chattels expected to have, and who gave to these chattels
their moral code? It was certainly not of their own making. What could be
the moral condition of a race to whom family rights were forbidden and whose
business, next to labor, was to propagate solely for the master's gain? The
words mother, father, were used only in the language of the "big house."
Womanhood, the foundation stone of moral eminence, passed through a crucial
ordeal, and it is to be greatly wondered at that the Negro woman emerged
with even the crudest type of moral capacity.
Every line on every page of the history of those dark days teem and[Pg 266]
reek with the abandon of licentiousness, nor could this be otherwise. It was
the natural sequence of a debasing system. It is no disparagement upon the
noble few whose garments were kept unspotted, nor upon those who would have
reached towards higher ideals, if they had been masters of themselves, to
say that the ante-bellum Negro did not possess a great degree of morality.
There can be no other conclusion drawn from such demoralizing conditions.
The moral status of the Negro is to-day an all-absorbing theme, and is
discussed pro and con by friend and enemy in other races, and by the
optimist and pessimist of his own. Comparisons concerning his morals and
moral growth are made as all other comparisons are made concerning him, not
between his present and former condition, nor between his condition and that
of any other people at the same stage of development, under the same
conditions and environments. On the contrary, inconsistency is ever present
in the attempts to show the world existing facts. Whenever an attack was
made upon the system of slavery, the defenders of the system immediately
pointed to the poor slaveholder and the dearth of Negro criminals as points
in favor of a time when the Negro enjoyed the blessings of a "mild and
humane system."
When the progress of the black race in America is placed in the balance, the
lowest and most degraded and careless of the masses who have not come out of
a state of inertia are brought into comparison with the noblest types that
have ascended the scale of life. What wonder then that there is so much
adverse criticism; what is needed is a search for facts and an unprejudiced
putting of all that appertains to the Negro, and a just acknowledgment of
the results attained.
That the American Negro has made an advance along all lines that make for
the higher development of a people cannot be denied. He has improved morally
in a corresponding way. The limit of this paper will not permit a
statistical comparison, but a few points may be noticed in passing. His
moral instinct is quickened and his moral nature asserts itself in higher
forms of life under the new conditions. He has started at the fountainhead
and the purity of his home and hearthstone is a magnificent memorial to the
purity of the black woman.
Were it possible to give in numbers the correct estimate of these beautiful
homes and their characters, even the most bitter of his enemies and the
pessimists of his own race would look with doubt upon the pernicious libels
disseminated in the periodical literature of the day.[Pg 267] The dark
picture of the Negro's shortcomings is thrown on the canvas and so familiar
has it become that not a few seldom think that there is another picture
which the Negro himself knows to be truer to life and more prophetic of his
real nature, taken from real life, and one that ought to give inspiration
and hope to all seekers after facts.
The Negro ministry has made rapid and marked progress in moral achievements
for itself and also for the race in their wide influence upon the same.
There is a constant and ever-increasing demand coming from the people for a
higher and nobler service in the pulpit, and the demand is being met in a
comparative measure. Moreover there are professional men whose lives prove
the possessors' estimate of virtue and are being spent in bringing others up
to these lofty ideals.
The noble army of teachers, most of whom are women, are not to be overlooked
or underestimated. Next to the faithful mother, these noble women have lived
and worked for the race. They have proved themselves ever against untoward
conditions. Their work and worth should not be reflected against because of
the few whose lives are not up to the standards of true womanhood. It is
undeniably true that the virtues of Solomon's virtuous women may be
duplicated in multitudes of our women teachers.
A word concerning the criminal record of the Negro might be worth
considering. It is here that the moral weakness of the race is said to be
most manifest. We are told that figures do not lie, and an appeal from the
records is not to be considered for a moment. Yet, he who wants facts and is
in search of the truth must appeal and must make personal investigation.
As yet statistics, the press and history, have not given a truthful,
unbiased record of the Negro of to-day as he really is. One side has been
faithfully followed, and elaborately and painfully portrayed, but of the
other side only here and there an item, a reference and a charitable surmise
rewards the seeker after knowledge. A careful study of the environments of
the so-called criminal class, also the courts of justice before which the
criminals are arraigned, would develop some interesting, not to say
startling, facts; for example, "it has been shown by Prof. Branson, of the
Georgia State Normal School, that while the illiterate Negro population of
the state furnish three convicts per thousand, the Negroes who have profited
by the public schools furnish only one convict per thousand."[Pg 268] Many
of the criminals start from the court-room and are the victims of injustice.
Such untoward conditions serve rather to stamp out every vestige of nobility
rather than inspire to a reaching out after higher ideals.
The young or post-bellum Negro is steadily improving morally. In the face of
strong opposition, in his moral development, just as he does in mental,
financial and civil growth, against all the opposing forces that would
hinder his growth and relegate him to the lowest stratum of mankind, he is
forcing his way up the stream. His spiritual and moral nature is beating
under the animal nature which for so long a time held him as a slave. He now
does right for right's sake, and loves the pure and good. He honors the
women of his race and is raising her to nobler plains in his thoughts and
life.
The Negro woman is asserting herself also and is building for herself a
character that rests upon a foundation of personal purity. This she is doing
not only for herself, but for others. The building up of pure homes is her
chief concern and in them she reigns with womanly queenliness.
Social reform receives her attention, and in these walks she may be found
teaching the young the single standard of purity for both sexes. Her way is
the roughest, her path most closely beset with snares, but her works show
for themselves.
If there had been no advancement along moral lines, the Negro's material and
intellectual attainments would count for very little in the world of
affairs, for he would degenerate to a mere mechanical factor in human
society and become a tool in every case in the hands of a stronger race. But
he has added to his material and intellectual strength a greater and higher
force, viz., that of moral worth, which at once raises him to higher planes
in the social and civil world, and brings him into contact with his enemies
and oppressors.
The Negro has met and overcome the great barriers to his progress one by
one. Despite the snares that are all about his path, and their hidden evils
that seek to hold him in thralldom, yet he bursts his chains and marches
forward with renewed purpose and greater zeal.
Yes, the young Negro is embodying nobler ideas in his nature and reaching
forward after higher ideals because of his superior advantages. He is to
face a future pregnant with struggles of a higher order and of a more
diverse character, than the struggles of an earlier day. He enters[Pg 269]
into competition, not with one race only, but with all the races of mankind.
As the knowledge of the fierceness of the battle comes to him, he raises
himself from his lethargy and in the strength of his manhood he goes
forward.
He who doubts not the Negro's growth and development along intellectual and
financial lines cannot gainsay his steady and sturdy growth in moral and
social power.
This essay is reprinted from Twentieth Century Negro Literature, edited by D. W. Culp (Dr. Daniel Wallace Culp), published 1902. The biographical sketch of Ariel S. Bowen is presumably written by Culp. Related articles on this site include:
