the reports of the officers of last year. The Director read his report and the report of the Secretary-Treasurer was presented by his assistant, Miss A. H. Smith. They follow: THE REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR During the year 1919-1920 the Association has made steady progress in spite of the difficulties resulting from the increasing cost of labor and supplies. There has been some difficulty in raising additional funds adequate to the needs of the Association and for this reason the organization is now suffering from a deficit of about $2500. Persons of means, however, have from time to time volunteered so as to give sufficient relief to keep the work going. Efforts are now being made to remove this deficit in the near future through the increase in the contributions annually received and gifts from other friends who will be asked to make sacrifices for the cause. The study of Negro history has not extended by leaps and bounds but the progress of the work is in every way encouraging. The number of subscribers to the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY has not increased because of the necessity to double the subscription price in keeping with the demands of high prices, but the influence of the work has considerably expanded. This magazine is now being used as collateral reading in most of the leading white and Negro institutions of the country and the number of classes thus engaged are increasing every year. There is also a healthy public opinion in favor of prosecuting the study of Negro history more vigorously. Almost any book setting forth facts as to what the Negro has thought and felt and done now has considerable demand among persons in this country and abroad. While this Association does not claim credit for all which has been accomplished in this field, it has certainly given a decided stimulus to the work. It will be interesting to report, moreover, the number of institutions closely cooperating with the Association in prosecuting the study of the Negro. Among these may be mentioned special classes in this work at Howard University, conducted by the Director himself last year, and at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, where he is now engaged. In Lincoln Institute, Missouri, considerable good has been accomplished among students even of a high school grade, whereas at the State Normal and Industrial Institute at Frankfort, Kentucky, the work has interested a larger number of more advanced students. Institutions like Straight College, Fisk, Atlanta, Morehouse, Wilberforce, and Lincoln are laying a good foundation in this field. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-TREASURER. The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Incorporated, Washington, D. C. Gentlemen: I hereby submit to you a report of the amount of money received and expended by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Incorporated, from September 30, 1919 to September 30, 1920, inclusive: After a brief discussion these reports were accepted and approved. The Association then spent some time in discussing the advisability of holding annual meetings at strategic points and there prevailed a motion to the effect that the Executive Council be requested to hold the next annual meeting of the Association in Atlanta, Georgia. The meeting adjourned after electing the following as officers: Robert E. Park, President, Jesse E. Moorland, Secretary-Treasurer, Carter G. Woodson, Director of Research and Editor; who with Julius Rosenwald, George Foster Peabody, James H. Dillard, John R. Hawkins, Emmett J. Scott, William G. Willcox, Bishop John Hurst, Albert Bushnell Hart, Thomas Jesse Jones, A. L. Jackson, Moorfield Storey, and Bishop R. E. Jones, were made members of the Executive Council. At the evening session at the John Wesley A. M. E. Z. Church, the Association was addressed by three men of distinction. The first speaker was Professor Kelly Miller of Howard University who briefly discussed the Limits of Philanthropy in Negro Education, endeavoring to show that helpful as has been the program of the whites to educate the Negroes, their work must be a failure, if it does not ultimately result in equipping the Negro to take over his own school systems that the direction, hitherto in the hands of whites, may be dispensed with. Professor Robert T. Kerlin of the Virginia Military Institute, having misunderstood his place on the program appeared at this meeting and, as one of the persons scheduled to address the session did not present himself, he was permitted to speak. His discourse was an extensive discussion of the rôle played by poetry in the civilization of a people and how the Negro poet is rendering his race and the country service in singing of his woes and clamoring for a new opportunity. The meeting was closed with an address by Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, the Editor of the Nation, discussing the subject, The Economic Bases of the Race Question. His discourse was a political and sociological treatise based upon facts of history and economics to show the hopelessness of a program to right the wrongs of the Negroes unless that program has its foundation in things economic, in as much as the present day situation offers no hope that politics will play any particular part in the solution. All three speakers made a very favorable impression upon the audience and so enlightened it by the masterful array of facts presenting their point of view as to make this one of the most interesting sessions ever held by the Association. The first session of the second day consisted of a conference on the Negro in America. In the absence of Dr. R. E. Park, Dr. C. G. Woodson spent most of the time discussing the achievements in the writing of history of the Negro in America, especially in the United States. He discussed the various motives actuating persons to enter this field, showing that in most cases these were propagandists and for that reason a non-partisian and unbiased history of the Negro has not yet been written. He then discussed the possibility of producing interesting, comprehensive and valuable works by the proper use of the various materials. These materials, however, contended he, would have to be given scientific treatment that the whole truth might be extracted therefrom. He then showed the possibility of error in accepting as evidence the opinions of the proslavery element about the antislavery element, the opinions of the abolitionists about the colonizationists and vice versa. These will have to be scientifically examined and after all the actual facts of Negro history must be determined from such sources as letters, diaries, books of travel, and unconscious evidence in the current publications of the times. At the conclusion of the address remarks were made by Mr. A. H. Grimke, Mr. T. C. Williams, Mr. G. C. Wilkinson, Mr. A. C. Newman, Professor A. H. Locke, Professor Walter Dyson, and Professor William L. Hansberry. Professor Hansberry discussed for a few minutes the value of the sources in African history making his talk very illuminating and instructive. The afternoon was devoted to a meeting of the Executive Council to which the public was not invited but in the evening a large number of members and friends of the cause attended the session, at the John Wesley A. M. E. Z. Church. The speakers of the occasion were Mr. Charles E. Russell of Washington, D. C., and Professor Albert Bushnell Hart of Harvard University. Mr. Russell discussed the Negro's Right to Justice taking the record of the Negro as a worthy one and the fallacy of discrimination against him in the midst of the struggle for democracy. The address was both illuminating and convincing. Then followed the address of Professor Hart on Free Men by Choice. He endeavored to show that no person is actually free. That all elements of the population and all classes are more or less restricted. This discussion was both legal and historical, presenting in its various ramifications the social order in the country and the legislation underlying the He finally brought out the important fact that although the institution of slavery imprisoned the body of the Negroes, it could not control their minds. same. 126. APR 1 5 1921 OF NEGRO HISTORY EDITED BY CARTER G. WOODSON VOL. VI., No. 2 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY APRIL, 1921 CONTENTS A. A. TAYLOR: Making West Virginia a Free State 131 FRED LANDON: Canadian Negroes and the John Brown Raid 174 ....... 183 ARNETT G. LINDSAY: The Economic Condition of the Negroes of 190 DOCUMENTS: 200 The Appeal of the American Convention of Abolition Societies to Anti- CORRESPONDENCE: 241 BOOK REVIEWS: 248 Grimke's Rachel; Burlin's Songs and Tales from the Dark Continent; NOTES: 259 THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE 41 NORTH QUEEN Street, Lancaster, Pa. $2.00 A YEAR 60 CENTS A COPY FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS, 25 CENTS EXTRA BOUND VOLUMES, $3.00 by Mail COPYRIGHT 1921 BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF Negro Life and HISTORY Entered as second-class matter January 1, 1916, at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 3, 1879. |