of the South. She was an embodied Sorrow, an
anomaly crucified on the cross of her own neglected children for the sake of the children of
masters who bought and sold her as they bought
and sold cattle. Whatever she had of slovenliness
or neatness, of degradation or of education she
surrendered it to those who lived to lynch her
sons and ravish her daughters. From her great
full breast walked forth governors and judges,
ladies of wealth and fashions, merchants and
scoundrels who lead the South. And the rest gave
her memory the reverence of silence. But a few
snobs have lately sought to advertise her sacrifice
and degradation and enhance their own cheap success by building on the blood of her riven heart a
load of stone miscalled a monument.
In religion as in democracy, the Negro has been a peculiar test of white profession. The American church, both Catholic and Protestant, has been kept from any temptation to over-righteousness and empty formalism by the fact that just as Democracy in America was tested by the Negro, so American religion has always been tested by slavery and color prejudice. It has kept before America’s truer souls the spirit of meekness and self abasement, it has compelled American religion again and again to search its heart and cry “I have sinned;” and until the day comes
