Voice of the Negro (1906) Vol. 3, No. 7. pp. 502-5.

https://archive.org/details/sim_voice_1906-07_3_7

A New Method of Dealing With the Race Problem

An event of widespread interest was the first annual meeting of The Frederick Douglass Center of Chicago, Ill., held at the Center house on Wabash Avenue, on the eighth day of May last.

When this Institution was organized, incorporated, and established one year ago, it was regarded as altogether a new departure in methods of dealing with the so-called race problem. It will be remembered, perhaps, that the Frederick Douglass Center was created out of a deep anxiety on the part of many prominent and large-souled white women and men, not only to help worthy colored people to realize all their citizenship rights and privileges, but also to save white people from the soul-belittling effect of inherited and cultivated prejudices. It will also be remembered that this new association is not a "settlement" and does not aim, primarily, to do Settlement work. "Center" is the vital term in its declaration of purposes and principles—a place or Institution from which shall generate influences helpful to a more cordial relationship between white and black people. These purposes or objects are best stated as follows:

"To promote a just and amicable relation between the white and colored people.

To remove the disabilities from which the latter suffer in their civil, political and industrial life.

To encourage equal opportunity irrespective of race, color, or other arbitrary distinctions.

To establish a center of friendly helpfulness and influence in which to gather useful information and for mutual cooperation to the ends of right living and a higher citizenship."

What has been accomplished in the first experimental year?

The detailed report of the many intellectual and ethical activities of this first year gives abundant and encouraging answers. However, the best results can scarcely be shown in facts and figures. The movement has been mostly ethical and spiritual, but there are some figures that are significant of the generous interest shown in the work of this new Center of beneficent influences. The movement was started a little over a year ago without money or habitation. At the end of the year it occupies its own home, consisting of a three-story white stone building purchased at a cost of $5,500. During this year the members of the Association and friends of the Center have paid $4,000 on the property. The significant thing about this good showing is that the colored people themselves have paid quite half of this sun. In addition to this amount paid on the building, the current expenses of furnishings and equipment have all been paid. To accomplish these results, white and colored people have worked together in a spirit of comradeship and good fellowship, each experiencing a spirit of uplift both helpful and inspiring.

The roll of membership comprising the Association is perhaps the most interesting to be found connected with any institution in the country. There are between three and four hundred members, men and women, white and black. The names of prominent white persons in every walk of life are to be found in line with colored men and women representing the best life of the race. The high character of the membership of the Frederick Douglass Center is sufficiently indicated when the names of Jane Adams of Hull House, Mary McDowell of the University [of Chicago Social] Settlement, Celia Parker Woolley, Graham Taylor of Chicago Commons, and several judges of the courts are to be found on its roll of membership. Prominent people also in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, and other places have indicated their interest in the Center by becoming members.

During the year it has been the center of the best social and intellectual life of the city. Among the distinguished visitors of the year have been Booker T. Washington, President Merrill of Fisk University, Prof. H.T. Kealing of Philadelphia, Editor J. Max Barber of The Voice of The Negro, President R.R. Wright of Georgia State College, L. G. Jordan, and W.G. Stewart of Louisville, Ky.

During this first experimental year, the Center has become one of the most interesting places in the city. Nearly every afternoon and evening something is going on of interest to many. Among the more practical things are a Kindergarten and Sewing school. In another part of the building a Gymnasium and Boys Club are in progress. There is also a Girls' Club. The fact that the Center can attract and hold together such a large number of young people, of both sexes, ranging from 15 to 18 years of age, is one of the best evidences of its usefulness. The influences surrounding them here are thoroughly wholesome, interesting and uplifting. They engage themselves in a great variety of studies, health-giving exercises and innocent amusements. This is about the only place in the city where the "younger set" of the young people can find intellectual and physical recreation similar in kind to that afforded to the young people of other races.

In this opportunity provided for the young people, there has developed in them a sense of gratitude and a desire to reciprocate in every way possible. Indeed they have done almost as much as the older people to make the Center interesting and important. Along with the other uses of the Center as a rallying place for study, exercise and recreation, they have instituted among themselves an organized interest in neighborhood decency and cleanliness. For example, they have formed themselves into squadrons to keep the streets, for a radius of about six blocks around the Center, clear of paper and other rubbish. Not only so, but they gather the papers and rubbish from unsightly vacant lots, sewing grass seed instead to make green and beautiful to the eye these neglected plague spots. Anyone familiar with the slovenly appearance of some of our streets and city lots can appreciate what it means for these school boys to voluntarily organize themselves into bands to make clean and cheerful these waste places. The enthusiasm of these boys and the effect of their work have raised the tone of respectability for the entire neighborhood, while the boys who engage in this kind of service are learning their first and most important lessons of good citizenship.

The co-operative spirit of the Center is aptly illustrated by the Woman's Club connected with the Center. This club has a membership of about seventy women, a third of whom are white. Most of the officers however are colored women. The character of the membership is high, and the women of both races are among the most representative of the city in all things that make for the higher life of the community. This Club affords a fine example of how genuine can be the comradeship of kindred spirits when class and race distinctions are minimized or held to the vanishing point. The work is keyed up to subjects and interests that profoundly effect the social life of the community. The Club is divided into departments representing the following activities:

• The Home Department.
• Educational Department.
• Philanthropic Department.
• Domestic Science Department.

With the amount of intelligence and experience to be found in this club, these Departments have meant something more than mere names on which to hang pretenses of "work along higher lines." Take for example the Education Department. As is well known, education in a big city like Chicago is a tremendous responsibility. There is needed all the time not only the official staff of teachers, superintendents and officers, but the active, diligent and continuous co-operation of parents and citizens. Hence this Department of Education under the aggressive leadership of women who are in touch with the whole range of religious, ethical and social problems has been wonderfully active. It can be stated generally that during the past year more has been done to arouse parental interest in the public schools where colored children are largely represented than ever before.

As an example of how practical has been the work of the Center Woman's Club, we need only call attention to what has been accomplished in securing for the first time a "Vacation School" in a District where its benefits will include colored children, almost entirely. The Vacation schools are, as the term implies, open during the Vacation months. They are in no sense compulsory and are not wholly supported by the Public School fund. The Course of study is quite different from the regular Curriculum, but is in the form of nature studies, modeling, light manual training, games and plays properly conducted, free excursions into the country once or twice a week, and instructions in many things that have proved both a delight and benefit to thousands of children in our hot and congested districts. These Vacation Schools are immensely popular, and eager applicants always exceed the accommodations, as they are not yet a part of the Public School system.

In neighborhoods where there are no play grounds,73 and limited house yards, the children of poor people suffer many deprivations. To such these schools are a veritable boon. Now if the residents of a certain neighborhood want one of these Vacation schools, they cannot obtain it by merely asking for it. The community and their friends must pay a certain amount for teachers' service and equipment. The people in colored neighborhoods have never been able to raise the required amount of money. Under the leadership of the Frederick Douglass Center forces were organized to raise the required amount that has brought joy to the parents and children of the Black Belt.

The kind of energy, intelligence and cooperative enthusiasm that characterized the work and success of the Committee on Education has been significant of the work of the other Departments as well.

Perhaps the most distinctive work of the Center during the first year of its life has been to cultivate a more active and intelligent interest in Civic affairs. There is a tendency even among our most intelligent men and women to be self-centered in their interests. The corporate life of the community with its multitudinous interests and responsibilities, we seem to have but little interest in. We vote, pay taxes, pay licenses, send our children to school, drink the city water, use the city's light and pay for it, comply as best we can with the sanitary laws, etc., but there is no ambition amongst us to share in the making and creating of these activities. The colored people in these great centers of human life and action act as if they had no right to participate in the thought or discussion of the questions that concern the life and well-being of all the people. For example, when a new Charter is to be planned for and worked out into practicalities, when civil service is to be the law of appointments, when new schools and new courses of study are to be considered, colored people act as if they were not expected to be interested in these things. In other words, the colored people of this and other cities are the only race of people who take no part in the initiative of great civic movements.

To the credit of the Frederick Douglass Center this indifference to our civic responsibilities and opportunities has been recognized and one of the most interesting features of its program of activities has been the addresses by the head of the Civil Service Commission, prominent members of the teachers fraternity, one of the experts in the movement for a new Charter, and an address by the President of the Woman's Club on the value of Vacation Schools.

Although the Civil Service has long been a force in Chicago and also Cook county, this is the first time that its importance has been brought directly to the notice of our young men and women. In other words, if the proper interest had been urged upon our people years ago, many of our men and women would have been in the public service and by this time advanced by merit to positions of trust and responsibility. The Civil Service law is liberal, fair and just. The variety of talents and accomplishments required to run a government like Chicago is large enough to afford everybody a chance. A great number of our people could qualify for the public service if they would but make the effort, and thus far ignorance of these possibilities has restrained them from making the effort. What is true of the Civil Service is equally true of the proposed new Charter for our city government. In this revolution of the methods of government our competent men and women should be able to find many new opportunities for honorable employment. Yet the matter has not been brought pointedly to our attention, either by the press or other agencies. It is the purpose of the Douglass Center to make as much as possible of this effort to arouse a new interest among the colored people of the city to get in at the beginning and as far as possible be a part of the working force in the formation of these new conditions in our civil life.

Perhaps enough has been said to show that what one year ago was an interesting experiment, with no precedent to follow, has within twelve months become more than a realization. Those who saw here only another attempt to force "social equality" have lived to see that the Center is working out something better than social equality. The Center has reached hundreds of important white people and made those interested in our problems, who were heretofore ignorant of or indifferent to our progress or status. The Center is the only agency in the city that is easily and effectively responsive to every wrong, near or remote, that threatens to belittle the life of the colored people. It has won the respect and confidence of both races and in one year it has succeeded in making its mission felt as important and increasingly necessary.