Civilization and Black Progress: Selected Writings of Alexander Crummell on the SouthUniversity of Virginia Press, 1995 - 265 pages Friend and mentor to W. E. B. Du Bois, outspoken critic of Booker T. Washington, and founder of the American Negro Academy, Alexander Crummell (1819-1898) played a pivotal role in later nineteenth-century debates over race and black intellect. Yet compared with the widely available texts of Du Bois and Washington, Crummell's speeches and publications remain relatively inaccessible. Here, for the first time, is a full scholarly edition of Crummell's most significant writings on the South. The eighteen texts that J. R. Oldfield has assembled cover the last twenty-three years of Crummell's life, when he was at the height of his influence as both an Episcopal minister and president of the ANA. All of the pieces, directly or indirectly, are concerned with the fate of Southern blacks in the areas of politics, education, religion, gender, and race relations. Oldfield provides a thorough biography of Crummell in his introduction, as well as detailed annotations to the text, tracking down often-obscure sources for Crummell's numerous quotations. Additionally, Oldfield prefaces each address with a concise statement of its immediate context and its importance to Crummell's work as a whole. More specific publication information is listed in an Appendix. As this collection makes clear, Crummell's writings speak in the elegant and scholarly voice of a transitional figure who bridged two radically different worlds separated by the bloodshed and upheaval of the Civil War. |
Contents
Introduction I | 1 |
Editorial Method | 27 |
The Social Principle among a People and Its Bearing on Their Progress | 29 |
The Destined Superiority of the Negro 133 | 43 |
The Assassination of President Garfield | 54 |
The Dignity of Labour and Its Value to a New People | 65 |
A Defence of the Negro Race in America from the Assaults on Charges of Rev J L Tucker D D of Jackson Mississippi | 78 |
Her Neglects and Her Needs | 101 |
Common Sense in Common Schooling | 134 |
An Address before the Garnet Lyceum of Lincoln University | 143 |
The Best Methods of Church Work among the Colored People | 155 |
The RaceProblem in America | 163 |
Incidents of Hope for the Negro Race in America | 174 |
At Hampton Institute 1896 | 185 |
Civilization the Primal Need of the Race | 195 |
The Prime Need of the Negro Race | 200 |
Excellence an End of the Trained Intellect | 114 |
The Need of New Ideas and New Aims for a New Era | 120 |
Alexander Crummell | |
Common terms and phrases
abiding Alexander Crummell Alexander Pope Almighty ambitions American mind American Negro Academy black race black woman blood Bois centuries chap character Christian cities civilization College colored condition Crummell's cultivation culture degradation duty earth elevation emancipation England Episcopal Church everywhere fact faculties force forget freedom future girls give grand heart hence Henry Highland Garnet higher human ideas ignorant industrial intellect John Kelly Miller labor land leaders learning Liberia living mental minister missionary moral nation nature Negro Race never noble numbers Phillis Wheatley plantation political population principle progress qualities Race in America race-problem racial religion rude scholars scholarship schools servants slave slavery social society soul South Southern spirit superiority Tacitus teachers things thought tion to-day toil Tucker University W. E. B. Du Bois Washington West Africa whole William Wordsworth women York young