Trivialities are not to be despised. Inborn love implanted in a woman’s heart for a luxurious, esthetic home life, running on well-oiled wheels amid flowers, sunshine, books and priceless pamphlets, easy chairs and French gowns, may be the means of developing a Paderewski or freeing a race from servitude. It was amusing to watch the way in which she governed societies and held her position. In her hands committees were as wax, and loud murmurings against the tyranny of her rule died down to judicious whispers. If a vote went contrary to her desires, it was in her absence. Thus she became the pivot about which all the social and intellectual life of the colored people of her section revolved. No one had yet been found with the temerity to contest her position, which, like a title of nobility, bade fair to descend to her children. It was thought that she might be eclipsed by the younger and more brilliant women students on the strength of their alma mater, but she still held her own by sheer force of willpower and indomitable pluck.
The subject of the talk at this meeting was: “The place which the virtuous woman occupies in upbuilding a race.” After a few explanatory remarks, Mrs. Willis said:
“I am particularly anxious that you should think upon this matter seriously, because of its intrinsic value to all of us as race women. I am not less anxious because you represent the coming factors of our race. Shortly, you must fill the positions now occupied by your mothers, and it will rest with you and your children to refute the charges brought against us as to our moral irresponsibility, and the low moral standard maintained by us in comparison with other races.”
“Did I understand you to say that the Negro woman in her native state is truly a virtuous woman?” asked Sappho, who had been very silent during the bustle attending the opening of the meeting.
“Travelers tell us that the native African woman is impregnable in her virtue,” replied Mrs. Willis.
“So we have sacrificed that attribute in order to acquire civilization,” chimed in Dora.
“No, not ‘sacrificed,’ but pushed one side by the force of circumstances. Let us thank God that it is an essential attribute peculiar to us—a racial characteristic which is slumbering but not lost,” replied Mrs. Willis. “But let us not forget the definition of virtue—‘Strength to do the right thing under all temptations.’ Our ideas of virtue are too narrow. We confine them to that conduct which is ruled by our animal passions alone. It goes deeper than that—general excellence in every duty of life is what we may call virtue.”
“Do you think, then, that Negro women will be held responsible for all the lack of virtue that is being laid to their charge today? I mean, do you think that God will hold us responsible for the illegitimacy with which our race has been obliged, as it were, to flood the world?” asked Sappho.
“I believe that we shall not be held responsible for wrongs which we have unconsciously committed, or which we have committed under compulsion. We are virtuous or non-virtuous only when we have a choice under temptation. We cannot by any means apply the word to a little child who has never been exposed to temptation, nor to the Supreme Being ‘who cannot be tempted with evil.’ So with the African brought to these shores against his will—the state of morality which implies willpower on his part does not exist, therefore he is not a responsible being. The sin and its punishment lies with the person consciously false to his knowledge of right. From this we deduce the truism that ‘the civility of no race is perfect whilst another race is degraded.’ ”
“I shall never forget my feelings,” chimed in Anna Stevens, a school teacher of a very studious temperament, “at certain remarks made by the Rev. John Thomas at one of his noonday lectures in the Temple. He was speaking on ‘Different Races,’ and had in his vigorous style been sweeping his audience with him at a high elevation of thought which was dazzling to the faculties, and almost impossible to follow in some points. Suddenly he touched upon the Negro, and with impressive gesture and lowered voice thanked God that the mulatto race was dying out, because it was a mongrel mixture which combined the worst elements of two races. Lo, the poor mulatto! despised by the blacks of his own race, scorned by the whites! Let him go out and hang himself!” In her indignation Anna forgot the scissors, and bit her thread off viciously with her little white teeth.
Mrs. Willis smiled as she said calmly: “My dear Anna, I would not worry about the fate of the mulatto, for the fate of the mulatto will be the fate of the entire race. Did you never think that today the black race on this continent has developed into a race of mulattoes?”
“Why, Mrs. Willis!” came in a chorus of voices.
“Yes,” continued Mrs. Willis, still smiling. “It is an incontrovertible truth that there is no such thing as an unmixed black on the American continent. Just bear in mind that we cannot tell by a person’s complexion whether he be dark or light in blood, for by the working of the natural laws the white father and black mother produce the mulatto offspring; the black father and white mother the mulatto offspring also, while the black father and quadroon mother produce the black child, which to the eye alone is a child of unmixed black blood. I will venture to say that out of a hundred apparently pure black men not
