Stories

We Couldn’t Say

Down in the country, on a small mound

Sat a small brick house, down from the town.

The birds sang songs that all birds knew,

Flying and chirping in the late spring hue.

The children all loved this place in the hills,

Working and playing and looking for thrills.

Some folks say this family was great;

There were only a few that showed their hate.

Some others that you thought would never be a friend

Named their children after this famous man’s kin.

But one winter day our father did show

A small brown album with relatives aglow.

“These are your ancestors,” he said to us.

We were shocked and amazed but warned not to make a fuss.

After years of silence, as the world can see,

This famous man was kin to me.

(published in Timeless Voices, a poetry anthology of the International Library of Poetry)

“In the early days of the [AME] Church when its ministers were illiterate and humble, and her struggles with poverty and proscriptions were long and severe, and when it required perseverance, and patience, and fortitude, and foresight, and labor, the women were ready, with their time, their talent, their influence and their money, to dedicate all to the upbuilding of the Church.  No class of persons did more to solicit and bring in the people than they.  They raised money to build churches and to support the ministers. They assisted in the prayer-meetings and class-meetings and Sabbath-schools, and taught there to love the ordinances of the Church and to respect the ministry.  Where there were no churches built they opened their doors for public worship and gladly received the care-worn and weary travelling preachers into their families and provided bountifully for their necessities. They were not only zealous in labors, but were talented in speech.  Some were gifted in prayer; so much so that persons were often convinced by hearing them pray, and were led to God and soundly converted and became useful members of the Church.” (Sarah Woodson Early, from speech given at Chicago World’s Fair, 1893)

Advantages are opening for educational purposes among us, but we must prepare our minds to avail ourselves of these advantages; and if we cannot adorn our children’s bodies with costly attire, let us provide to adorn their minds with that jewel that will elevate, ennoble, and rescue the bodies of our long injured race from the shackles of bondage, and their minds from the trammels of ignorance and vice.  (Lewis Woodson, 1856, in History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 404)

“Vicksburg is ours. Glory!  Glory!  Glory!  I have just returned from the city and actually saw the heads, hides and entrails of mules which the rebels have been subsisting on for days.  We all feel so joyful today. Even the poor sickly soldiers in the hospitals seem to revive, and look well again. Congress, at its next session, must be petitioned to add 24 hours to the 4th of July, making it 48 hours long, because hereafter we cannot possibly get done celebrating the day in 24 hours.” (Wisconsin State Journal, July 1863)

“Since I have been in Ohio I have learned to read and write, but my duties as a laborer would not permit me to acquire much of an education.  But such as I possess I am truly thankful for, and consider what education I have as a legitimate fruit of freedom.

The private life of Thomas Jefferson, from my earliest remembrance, in 1804, till the day of his death, was very familiar to me.  For fourteen years I made the fire in his bedroom and private chamber, cleaned his office, dusted his books, ran of errands, and attended him about home.  He used to ride out to his plantations almost every fair day, when at home, but unlike most other Southern gentlemen in similar circumstances, unaccompanied by any servant.  Frequently gentlemen would call upon him on business of great importance, whom I used to usher into his presence, and sometimes I would be employed in burnishing or doing some other work in the room where they were.  On such occasions I used to remain; otherwise I retired and left the gentlemen to confer together alone.  In those times I minded but little concerning the conversations which took place between Mr. Jefferson and his visitors.  But I well recollect a conversation he had with the great and good Lafayette, when he visited this country in 1824 and 1825, as it was of personal interest to me and mine.  General Lafayette and his son George Washington, remained with Mr. Jefferson six weeks, and almost every day I took them out to a drive.

On the occasion I am now about to speak of, Gen. Lafayette and George were seated in the carriage with him.  The conversation turned upon the condition of the colored people—the slaves.  Lafayette spoke English indifferently; sometimes I could scarcely understand him.  But on this occasion my ears were eagerly taking in every sound that proceeded from the venerable patriot’s mouth.

Lafayette remarked that he thought that the slaves ought to be free; that no man could rightfully hold ownership in his brother man; that he gave his best services to and spent his money in behalf of the Americans freely because he felt that they were fighting for a great and noble principle—the freedom of mankind; that instead of all being free a portion were held in bondage, (which seemed to grieve his noble heart); that it would be unusually beneficial to masters and slaves if the latter were educated, and so on.  Mr. Jefferson replied that he thought the time would come when the slaves would be free, but did not indicate when or in what manner they would get their freedom.  He seemed to think that the time had not then arrived.  To the latter proposition of Gen. Lafayette, Mr. Jefferson in part assented.  He was in favor of teaching the slaves to learn to read print; that to teach them to write would enable them to forge papers, when they could no longer be kept in subjugation.

This conversation was very gratifying to me, and I treasured it up in my heart.” (Israel Jefferson, Pike County Republican, 25 Dec. 1873)