Two Unreconciled Strivings
 Education
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"Minutes of the American Assocation of Educators of Colored Youth: session of 1894, held at Baltimore,
Maryland, July 24, 25, 26, 27, 1894."
| Alexander Crummell (1819-1898) offers in this 1886 sermon a plan for
the beginning and sustaining at home the education of children. |
What kind of education was best suited
for African-Americans in the post-Reconstruction years? In one
of many opinions, some of which his hearers disagreed with, the
Reverend C. N. Grandison asserted that to enjoy the liberties
of the majority required that African-Americans receive a classical
college education. Rev. C.N. Grandison, said, the college would
do for the black man the same it would do for the white man-all
blessings of civilization flow from the college. They tell me
I am an American but I am not certain about it, but if I'm accused
of a crime and come before a white jury its a foregone conclusion
that I'm guilty, (a voice, yes, they will lynch you too)-Grandison
replied, "And lynch you before being found guilty."
So we are not equal, but I know of one republic where we are equal,
that is the republic of letters, when man has that sweep of vision
with which the human mind may be conversant there is no white
man can say he has what the black man has not, there is no color
in thought, when I can read as much greek as he can, they can't
say I have not got it. A John Hopkins Professor says: a colored
child can go along with a white child for a certain time but after
a while the white child leaves him. It's a part of God's plan
that one race should not know what the other is doing, God, did
not tell Pharoah what Moses was doing, else Pharoah would have
killed him. So the Negro is getting what will hurt white men in
the future. Colored men are learning to write books. The mission
of college lifts us up to the republic of letters, when we get
there we can't say we haven't got it. Don't be satisfied with
any superficial high school education, but there's room at the
top.-Give man the right kind of education, he will certainly succeed.
Whites have everything, banks, railroads, stocks while we sing,
"You may have all the world but give us Jesus."
Full text
(Library of Congress/Daniel A. P. Murray Collection)
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