But colored women have also had special reasons of their own for feeling that association is desirable. We were told that the immediate occasion for the formation of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs was a letter written to an English woman, impugning the morality of the negro race, and especially of the negro women. This letter came into the hands of a noble-minded negro woman in Boston. Because this good woman felt that the burden was too heavy for her to bear alone, she called some of her friends—some of the foremost women of her own race—to her assistance. They looked the facts fairly in the face. While repudiating the wholesale charges in the letter as cruelly unjust, they freely admitted that, while there was too much sexual immorality everywhere, special circumstances' had aggravated the evil among their people. It is impossible to suppose that any race which had been denied marriage and family life for centuries would, in thirty or forty years, have learned to respect the marriage tie as it should be respected. So the National Association of Colored Women was founded in 1894 with especial reference to combating this evil and to creating a pure home life.
Methods of securing a higher moral tone for the race received a great deal of attention in the Detroit convention. It was pointed out that the moral status of the race must be raised as the moral status of any race must be raised—through the home, the church, the school, and good literature. The tenement-house evil in the city and the one-room cabin evil in the country were denounced as fruitful causes of immorality. A special plea was made for an educated ministry—a ministry with book knowledge, but also with knowledge of life. Consecrated men are needed, who understand the wants and the failings of their people, and who can hold before them high ethical ideals. There are such men among the negroes, but more are needed. One woman, herself the wife of a prominent negro divine, said: "The pulpit must at least keep pace with the pew. Intelligence can never be led by ignorance."
In their efforts to elevate their people these cultured women do not stop with talk. They are actually doing a great deal,
