Iola Leroy - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (suggested reading txt) 📗

if shared, is better done than when it is performed alone. Don’t you think your lifework will be better done if someone shares it with you?” asked Dr. Latimer, slowly, and with a smile in his eyes.

“That would depend on the person who shared it,” said Iola, faintly blushing.

“Here,” said Robert, a few evenings after this conversation, as he handed Iola a couple of letters, “is something which will please you.”

Iola took the letters, and, after reading one of them, said: “Miss Delany and Harry will be here on Wednesday; and this one is an invitation which also adds to my enjoyment.”

“What is it?” asked Marie; “an invitation to a hop or a german?”

“No; but something which I value far more. We are all invited to Mr. Stillman’s to a conversazione.”

“What is the object?”

“His object is to gather some of the thinkers and leaders of the race to consult on subjects of vital interest to our welfare. He has invited Dr. Latimer, Professor Gradnor, of North Carolina, Mr. Forest, of New York, Hon. Dugdale, Revs. Carmicle, Cantnor, Tunster, Professor Langhorne, of Georgia, and a few ladies, Mrs. Watson, Miss Brown, and others.”

“I am glad that it is neither a hop nor a german,” said Iola, “but something for which I have been longing.”

“Why, Iola,” asked Robert, “don’t you believe in young people having a good time?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Iola, seriously, “I believe in young people having amusements and recreations; but the times are too serious for us to attempt to make our lives a long holiday.”

“Well, Iola,” answered Robert, “this is the first holiday we have had in two hundred and fifty years, and you shouldn’t be too exacting.”

“Yes,” replied Marie, “human beings naturally crave enjoyment, and if not furnished with good amusements they are apt to gravitate to low pleasures.”

“Someone,” said Robert, “has said that the Indian belongs to an old race and looks gloomily back to the past, and that the negro belongs to a young race and looks hopefully towards the future.”

“If that be so,” replied Marie, “our race-life corresponds more to the follies of youth than the faults of maturer years.”

On Dr. Latimer’s next visit he was much pleased to see a great change in Marie’s appearance. Her eye had grown brighter, her step more elastic, and the anxiety had faded from her face. Harry had arrived, and with him came Miss Delany.

“Good evening, Dr. Latimer,” said Iola, cheerily, as she entered the room with Miss Lucille Delany. “This is my friend, Miss Delany, from Georgia. Were she not present I would say she is one of the grandest women in America.”

“I am very much pleased to meet you,” said Dr. Latimer, cordially; “I have heard Miss Leroy speak of you. We were expecting you,” he added, with a smile.

Just then Harry entered the room, and Iola presented him to Dr. Latimer, saying, “This is my brother, about whom mamma was so anxious.”

“Had you a pleasant journey?” asked Dr. Latimer, after the first greetings were over.

“Not especially,” answered Miss Delany. “Southern roads are not always very pleasant to travel. When Mr. Leroy entered the cars at A⁠⸺, where he was known, had he taken his seat among the white people he would have been remanded to the colored.”

“But after awhile,” said Harry, “as Miss Delany and myself were sitting together, laughing and chatting, a colored man entered the car, and, mistaking me for a white man, asked the conductor to have me removed, and I had to insist that I was colored in order to be permitted to remain. It would be ludicrous, if it were not vexatious, to be too white to be black, and too black to be white.”

“Caste plays such fantastic tricks in this country,” said Dr. Latimer.

“I tell Mr. Leroy,” said Miss Delany, “that when he returns he must put a label on himself, saying, ‘I am a colored man,’ to prevent annoyance.”

XXX Friends in Council

On the following Friday evening, Mr. Stillman’s pleasant, spacious parlors were filled to overflowing with a select company of earnest men and women deeply interested in the welfare of the race.

Bishop Tunster had prepared a paper on “Negro Emigration.” Dr. Latimer opened the discussion by speaking favorably of some of the salient points, but said:⁠—

“I do not believe self-exilement is the true remedy for the wrongs of the negro. Where should he go if he left this country?”

“Go to Africa,” replied Bishop Tunster, in his bluff, hearty tones. “I believe that Africa is to be redeemed to civilization, and that the negro is to be gathered into the family of nations and recognized as a man and a brother.”

“Go to Africa?” repeated Professor Langhorne, of Georgia. “Does the United States own one foot of African soil? And have we not been investing our blood in the country for ages?”

“I am in favor of missionary efforts,” said Professor Gradnor, of North Carolina, “for the redemption of Africa, but I see no reason for expatriating ourselves because some persons do not admire the color of our skins.”

“I do not believe,” said Mr. Stillman, “in emptying on the shores of Africa a horde of ignorant, poverty-stricken people, as missionaries of civilization or Christianity. And while I am in favor of missionary efforts, there is need here for the best heart and brain to work in unison for justice and righteousness.”

“America,” said Miss Delany, “is the best field for human development. God has not heaped up our mountains with such grandeur, flooded our rivers with such majesty, crowned our valleys with such fertility, enriched our mines with such wealth, that they should only minister to grasping greed and sensuous enjoyment.”

“Climate, soil, and physical environments,” said Professor Gradnor, “have much to do with shaping national characteristics. If in Africa, under a tropical sun, the negro has lagged behind other races in the march of civilization, at least for once in his history he has, in this country, the privilege of using climatic advantages and developing under new conditions.”

“Yes,” replied Dr. Latimer, “and I do not wish our people to become restless and unsettled before