Award

In Chicago last week the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ended its annual deliberations. Many a notable such as Julius Rosenwald and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, friendly to Negroes, had been heard. Resolutions were passed and a million dollar program for promoting more perfect race equality was adopted. The climax came when the Spingarn medal, the symbol of Negro distinction, was presented to Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson for "ten years' service in collecting and publishing records of the Negro in America."

Ten years after Appomattox, unto two ex-slaves of Virginia was born a ninth child--Carter Godwin Woodson. Doubly handicapped by color and by poverty, he nevertheless had acquired by 1912 a University of Chicago M. A. and a Harvard Ph. D. His outstanding achievement was the organization of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in connection with which he has devoted his life to the collection of sociological and historical documents of Negro significance. Interested readers perusing casually the maze of unfamiliar facts portrayed in history viewed through smoked glasses* glance twice at such information as: Several Negroes were included among the "minutemen" of the Revolutionary War. Crispus Attucks, Negro, was one of the first four soldiers to shed blood in behalf of U. S. liberty. Southern Aristocrat Jefferson openly opposed slavery; Henry Laurens, George Wythe, George Mason, George Washington tacitly did likewise. At Bunker Hill, Peter Salem, Negro, achieved distinction by killing Major Pitcairn. Jacob Bishop, Negro, was one-time pastor of the First Baptist (white) church of Portsmouth, Va. In 1773, in Maryland, two-thirds of those teaching both Whites and Negroes were felons. An escaping slave prior to 1865 wore "a black cloth coat, a high hat, white flannel waistcoat, a checked shirt, a pair of everlasting breeches, a pair of yarn stockings, a pair of old pumps . . . and sundry other clothes.

A considerable number of Negroes owned slaves before the Civil War.

One Phyllis Wheatly, obfuscate Boston demoiselle, wrote good poetry at an early date.

A sister of President Madison once said, "We Southern ladies are complimented with the name of wives; but we are only the mistresses of seraglios."

The University of Heidelberg conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon J. W. C. Pennington, Maryland slave.

Josiah Henson, prototype of Uncle Tom of Uncle Tom's Cabin, was received by Queen Victoria.

"Henry O. Tanner, with the white artist Sargent, represents the best America has produced in painting."

Negro B. K. Bruce served a full term as U. S. Senator from Mississippi.

"Most Negroes who sat in Congress during the 80's and 90's . . . had more formal education than Warran G. Harding."

The 370th (8th Illinois) colored regiment (officered by Negroes) received more citations and croix de guerre than any other American regiment in France.

*THE NEGRO IN OUR HISTORY--Associated Publishers, Washington, D.C. ($2.)