University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIII
THE SOCIAL AND MISSION WORK OF THE NEGRO
CHURCH

THE first mission of the Negro Church was
started in 1824, in the Black Republic of Haiti.
This was only eight years after the first
general conference of the African Methodist Church
was held at Philadelphia. Bishop Allen, the first
bishop of the African Methodist Church, was associated
about this time with Benjamin Lundy, the
Quaker abolitionist, in the effort to colonise free
coloured people on free soil, outside the limits of
the United States, in Mexico, Canada, and Haiti.
The Black Republic, where a few years before
Negroes had established an independent government,
seemed a proper place to establish a branch of the
Independent African Church. Thus it came about
that in close connection with the colony started by
Benjamin Lundy, the mission work of the African
Methodist Church was begun.

This Church has, in the meantime, extended its
influence over several of the other West India Islands,
chiefly in those regions which have not yet been
reached to any extent by missions of the other

Protestant churches. The society reports fifteen
missionaries in the Windward Islands, three in Cuba
and twenty stations in British Guiana, with five
thousand adherents.

About the same time that the African Methodist
Church was seeking to extend its work and influence
to the Republic of Haiti, Lott Cary, the noted
slave preacher of Richmond, Virginia, was the head
of a little local missionary association, started by
the Negro Baptists of Richmond, Virginia.

The Negro churches of Richmond seem to have
been stirred at that time by the general excitement
aroused by the colonisation movement, and this
mission society was founded by the Negro Baptists
at this time in the hope of sending out a missionary
from its own number to Africa.

As a matter of fact, Lott Cary, who went out to
Liberia in 1821 with the second shipload of colonists
from America, became the first Negro missionary to
that country. The mission work of the Baptist Church
owing to its congregational organisation, has never
been so systematic or so vigorously carried on as
that of the African Methodist Society, which has
maintained a strong central organisation. It is,
nevertheless, worth noting that the first Negro missionary
to Africa was of that denomination and the
name and memory of Lott Cary are still preserved today
among the Negro Baptists in this country, through
the work of the Lott Cary Missionary Society.

At the present time, the African Methodist Church
has mission stations in Sierra Leone, Lagos, and
Liberia on the west coast of Africa. It also has
churches scattered all over South Africa, as far north
as Rhodesia. It supports at the present time more
than three hundred preachers and has 11,000 members
among the native Africans.

The rapid growth in numbers and influence, during
recent years, of the African Methodist Church
in South Africa has been due to the withdrawal, in
1894 and 1895, of a number of the native members of
the Wesleyan Methodist Church in the Transvaal,
in order to form an independent Ethiopian Church.
The seceders afterward united with, and became a
part of, the African Methodist Episcopal Church
of the United States.

Whatever may have been the occasion for this
independent movement, the real causes for it seem
to be similar to those which have gradually brought
about a separation of the races, in their church life,
in this country. While there are some disadvantages
in this arrangement, and these disadvantages
may be greater in South Africa than they have
been in the United States, there are reasons, more
potent than those which appear on the surface,
that have brought this separation about and made
it perhaps inevitable. It seems rather curious to
Americans that the secession of a few of the native
churches should have caused so much alarm in

South Africa. In this country, whenever the Negro
takes it into his head to go off by himself, the white
people usually give him every encouragement. It
is a little hard to understand why a similar movement
in South Africa should make a commotion.
Perhaps, as has been asserted, the time was not ripe
for such a separation. I am inclined to believe,
however, that if it is wisely dealt with, the so-called
Ethiopian Movement, which has been the source
of so much apprehension to the British Government
in South Africa, should work to the advantage of
both races in Africa, just as the separate church
movement has done, on the whole, it seems to me,
in the United States.

In my opinion, there is no other place in which the
Negro race can to better advantage begin to learn
the lessons of self-direction and self-control than in
the Negro Church. I say this for the reason that,
in spite of the fact that other interests have from
time to time found shelter there, the chief aim of
the Negro Church, as of other branches of the Christian
Church, has been to teach its members the
funamental things of life and create in them a desire
and enthusiasm for a higher and better existence
here and hereafter.

More than that, the struggle of the masses of the
people to support these churches and to purify their
own social life, making it clean and wholesome, is itself
a kind of moral discipline and one that Negroes need

quite as much as other people. In fact, I doubt if
there is any other way in which the lessons that
Christianity is seeking everywhere to enforce, could
be brought home to the masses of the Negro people
in so thorough-going a way as through their own
societies, controlled and directed by the members
of their own race.

Aside from those missionaries sent out to Africa
by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, some
of the most enterprising and successful missionaries
sent out to Africa by the white churches have been
Negroes. Some of the most distinguished of these
men, also, have been native Africans. There was,
for instance, Samuel Crowther, who was rescued
when a boy from a slave-ship; taken to Sierra Leone,
where he was educated in Fourath Bay College, and
in 1864, consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral, England,
the first native Bishop of Africa. In the
same year he received the title of Doctor of Divinity
from the University of Oxford, and afterward became
a member of the Royal Geographical Society, because
of the contributions he made to the knowledge of
the geography of Africa. He helped to translate
the Bible into the Yoruba language, and his studies
in the Nupe and Ibo languages are said to have
shown unusual ability.

The story of Daniel Flickinger Wilberforce,
another and a later of these African missionaries,
reads like a romance. Daniel Flickinger was a

companion of George Thompson in Africa. He
aided in establishing the United Brethren Mission
on the west coast of Africa, and made six voyages
through that continent. During his first visit to
Africa, in 1855, while at Good Hope Station, Mendi
Mission, on the eastern banks of Sherboro Island,
he employed a native to watch him at night. While
this native was so employed, his wife gave birth to a
child, which he named Wilberforce, and then, in
honour of the visiting missionary, he added the
name Daniel Flickinger.

Sixteen years later, in 1871, while his boxes were
being loaded and unloaded at the American mission
rooms in New York, Dr. Flickinger noticed
a young Negro employed about the offices of the
Missionary Association, who seemed to take an
unusual interest in the names upon the boxes which
he was assisting to load and unload. It turned out
that the name of this boy was Daniel Flickinger
Wilberforce, and the reason he was so interested
in the boxes was that he had been able to decipher
a portion of his own name upon them. It appeared
that the boy had been sent over from Africa as a
servant to one of the missionaries who was returning
home ill. Dr. Flickinger became so interested
in the young man that he determined to give him
an education. He was sent to Dr. Flickinger's
office in Dayton, Ohio, with an express-tag around
his neck. Seven years later he returned to Africa

as a preacher, teacher and physician. He had succeeded
in completing his education in the primary
school in four years, from there he went into the
Dayton High School, where he graduated at the
head of his class, having completed the course in
three years. In the meantime he had been given
instruction in medicine and in theology, so that he
went out to Africa a fully equipped missionary.

While young Wilberforce was studying in the
high school, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was
born in Dayton, Ohio, was a boy playing about
the streets. Daniel Flickinger Wilberforce left
Dayton in 1878, and returned as a missionary to his
own people, where he has since lived and worked.

One of the most successful of the missionaries of
Africa to-day is W. H. Sheppard, who was a student
in my day at Hampton Institute, and later at the
Stillman Institute at Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He
went out to the Kongo in 1896 with Reverend Samuel
N. Lapsley, of Alabama, as a missionary of the
Southern Presbyterian Church. Mr. Lapsley chose
a station to establish his mission at Luebo, far in
the interior of Africa, and Mr. Sheppard remained
and worked with him there until Mr. Lapsley's death.
After this the work of the mission was continued,
with great success by Mr. Sheppard, in association
with Mr. William Morrison. Mr. Sheppard has
returned to America several times since then, and
spoken throughout the South in the interest of his

work in Africa. Everywhere I hear him referred to
with the greatest respect, and even affection.

I have spoken thus far of the work that the
Negro churches are doing for missions in Africa
and elsewhere. The amount of money raised for
this purpose is small compared to that which is
contributed every year by the Negro churches
for the purpose of education. Unfortunately, no
detailed study has ever been made, so far as I know,
which gives any adequate notion of the money that
is actually contributed by Negroes through all the
religious organisations to which they belong, to their
own education.

The Negro Baptists, for example, have never
published a complete list of the schools conducted
by their different churches and church organisations.
In the Year Book for 1907, one hundred and ten
schools were reported as owned by Negro Baptists.
There were 16 in Louisiana, 13 in North Carolina,
11 in Mississippi, 9 in Kentucky, 8 in Arkansas,
6 in Texas, 5 in Virginia, 5 in South Carolina, 5 in
Florida, 4 in Georgia, 3 in Tennessee, 3 in West
Virginia, 2 in Illinois, 2 in Oklahoma, 1 in Kansas,
1 in Missouri, I in Ohio, 1 in Maryland, 1 in Indiana,
and 5 in Africa. Besides those mentioned in the
Year Book there are, I have been told, several others
in Louisiana, Virginia, and North Carolina, so that
all together there are no less than 120 schools owned
entirely by Negro Baptists.

During the year 1907, these schools employed 613
teachers, and gave instruction to 18,644 students.
During this year also the Baptist churches reported
collections for educational purposes amounting to
$97,032.75. This did not include the amounts
raised in Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia,
churches in those states for some reason or
other making no report.

Educational work of the Negro Baptist churches
was at first largely carried on under the control of
the American Baptist Home Mission Society, which
is managed by white people. In recent years, however,
there has been a movement among Negro
Baptists to do their educational work independently.

One of the first things that was done after the
Negro Baptists had decided to carry on their Sunday-school
and educational work independently
of the white Baptist churches, was to establish
a printing plant in order to publish books and
pamphlets needed in Sunday-school and church
work. In 1896, Reverend R. H. Boyd established
the National Baptist Publishing Company. Mr.
Boyd had been a preacher in Texas, and his only
experience as a publisher was a brief one, in association
with a white man, from which he emerged,
as he says, with much valuable experience, but
with a financial loss of five hundred dollars.

The new publishing business was started with
almost no capital, and under the most discouraging

circumstances. Nevertheless, the enterprise has
prospered steadily until, at the present time, the
value of the stock equipment and property of the
concern is worth, according to an inventory made
by Bradstreet's Agency, not less than $350,000.

The building in which the company is located
occupies half a block in the business portion of
Nashville, Tennessee. According to a statement
made at the National Negro Business League at
Louisville, Kentucky, in 1909, the Company circulated,
during the previous year, not less than
12,000,000 issues of the different periodicals that
it published. During the same year the Company
paid its employees $165,000 for labour.

Notwithstanding that many Negro Baptists have
become independent, the Baptist Home Mission
Society (white) is every year receiving an increasingly
large number of contributions for the schools they
maintain from the Negro themselves. Of the
twenty-three schools under the direction of this
society, for instance, fourteen are owned by Negroes
themselves. The report of the educational work
of the society for the year 1907–08 shows that the
receipts for that year from all sources, including
the fees paid by students, were $269,795.78. Of
this amount $10,782.36 was contributed by white
churches and individuals, while $27,724.42 was contributed
by Negro churches and individuals.

The educational work of the African Methodist

Episcopal Church began in 1844, with the purchase
of 120 acres of land in Ohio for the Union
Seminary, which was opened in 1847. In 1856,
the A. M. E. Church united with the Methodist
Episcopal Church (North) in establishing Wilberforce
University. In 1863, this University became
the sole property of the A. M. E. Church. At the
present time this denomination maintains twenty
schools and colleges, one or more in each of the
Southern states, two in Africa, and one in the West
Indies. These schools and colleges employ 202
teachers and have something like 5,700 pupils.

The third Sunday in September is set aside in
all of the A. M. E. churches as Educational Day.
On this day a general collection is taken in all the
churches for educational purposes. The amount
collected in 1907 was $51,000. In addition to this,
every member of the church is taxed eight cents per
year for the general educational fund. I have not
been able to learn the amount of money collected
in this way, but the quadrennial reports show that
these schools collect from all sources, including the
fees paid by students, something like $150,000 a
year.

The A. M. E. Zion Church carries on educational
work in twelve institutions, four of which are colleges,
one a theological seminary and seven secondary
schools. These schools have 150 teachers and more
than 3,000 pupils. During the year 1907, these

schools raised from all sources something over
$100,000.

In 1906 I had an opportunity to be present and
take part in the twenty-fifth anniversary exercises
of Livingstone College at Salisbury, North Carolina.
This college was established and has been maintained
by the A. M. E. Zion Church. The leading
spirits in establishing it were the present Senior
Bishop, Right Reverend J. W. Hood, and the late
Dr. Joseph C. Price, who was its first president,
and did the most to put the college on its feet and
make it known to the world.

Joseph Price was a remarkable man. He was,
in the first place, like Lott Cary, Alexander Crummell,
and Henry Highland Garnet, a man of
unmixed African blood. He was a remarkable
orator, and when only twenty-seven years of age,
he was sent as a delegate of the A. M. E. Zion
Church to the Ecumenical Council in London.
While he was there, through the eloquence with
which he described the condition of education in
the South, he succeeded in raising ten thousand
dollars, which was used in purchasing the grounds
upon which Livingstone College now stands, and
in erecting some of the buildings.

During the days that the anniversary celebration
lasted, something like $8,000 in cash and pledges
was secured for the benefit of the college. I was
interested to see the way in which this money was

secured. When the hour for taking the subscriptions
arrived, you would see, perhaps, a coloured
bishop rise and announce his subscription for
something like fifty dollars. Then a coloured
woman would stand up and announce that she
would give ten dollars. Then others would announce
more modest sums. Altogether the amounts of
the different contributions ranged, as I remember,
from twenty-five cents to a thousand dollars. The
man who gave a thousand dollars would not permit
his name to be known, but it is now an open
secret that this generous gift was contributed by
Dr. W. H. Goler, the Negro president of the college.

The Coloured Methodist Church, which was
organised among the coloured people who, after
the Civil War, still clung to the Southern branch
of the Methodist Church (South), has done, according
to the number of its members, quite as much
as any other coloured religious organisation for the
education of the Negro race. This denomination
controls six educational institutions, among them
Lane College, at Jackson, Tennessee, founded by
Bishop Isaac Lane, and the Mississippi Theological
and Industrial College, founded by Bishop Elias
Cottrell, of Holly Springs, Mississippi.

The interesting thing about Bishop Cottrell's
school is that it was started as a result of the veto
by Governor Vardaman of the appropriation for
the State Normal School, which was formerly

located at Holly Springs. When that school went
out of existence, as a result of this action of the
Governor, the Negroes of Mississippi, under Bishop
Cottrell's leadership, determined that they would
build a school of their own to replace it. They
succeeded in raising in the short period of three
years something like $65,000, and erected two handsome
modern buildings. At the last meeting of the
National Negro Business League in Louisville,
Kentucky, Bishop Cottrell said that within the last
eight years, the Coloured Methodist Church had
raised, within the State of Mississippi alone, over
$100,000, of which all but $35,000 had been collected
in small contributions from the Negro people themselves.

The African Union Methodist Protestant Church,
which has less than 6,000 members, has been able,
in spite of its small membership, to support three
schools—one at Baltimore, Maryland, one at
Franklin, Pennsylvania, and a third at Holland,
Virginia.

Besides the contribution of Negroes to Negro
education, made through their own Negro organisations,
the coloured people have contributed
largely to education through the Freedmen's Aid
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North);
the Freedmen's Board of the American Missionary
Association, the Church Institute for Negroes of the
Episcopal Church, and through the Catholic Church.

No record has been published of the amount of
money contributed by Negroes to the support of
schools conducted by the Catholic Church, but
the total amount must have been considerable.
For instance, in 1829, when the St. Francis Academy
was founded in Baltimore by Negro sisters of the
Catholic Church in the West Indies, these sisters
gave all that they had in the way of furniture and
real estate to this institution. Nancy Addison left
this institution $15,000 and a Haitian, by the
name of Louis Bode, left the institution $30,000.
The contributions of Colonel John McKee, of
Philadelphia, and Mr. Thomy Lafon, of New
Orleans, made to the Catholic schools and benevolent
institutions, amounted, at a low estimate, to
something like a million dollars.

The contributions, made through the churches,
do not include those that are constantly made by
coloured people to local and independent institutions,
which are not connected with any church
organisation. For example, Tuskegee Institute
receives annually a number of small contributions
from the coloured people of the country, and from
its former students. The largest sum received
in this way was the legacy of Mrs. Mary E. Shaw,
a coloured woman of New York City, which
amounted to $38,000.

Among the other notable contributions which
have been made from time to time to Negro education

by Negro philanthropists, I might mention
that of a coloured man by the name of George
Washington, a former slave, of Jerseyville, Illinois,
who is said to have left $15,000 to Negro education.
Mr. Thomy Lafon gave Straight University, of
New Orleans, $6,000. It is known that Bishop D.
A. Payne, the founder of Wilberforce, gave at different
times and in different amounts, several thousand
dollars to that institution. Mr. Wheeling Gant
gave $5,000 to Wilberforce. Bishop J. B. Campbell
gave $1,000, Bishop and Mrs. J. A. Shorter
gave $2,000, and Henry and Sarah Gordon gave
$2,100 toward the endowment of this same school.

Recently Mr. French Gray gave land, said to be
valued at $2,000, to the Dooley Normal and Industrial
School in Alabama. Bishop Isaac Lane has
given at various times considerable more than a
thousand dollars to the college bearing his name
at Jackson, Tennessee. Fisk University received
from Mrs. Lucinda Bedford, of Nashville, Tennessee,
$1,000, and John and James Barrows, of the
same city, gave $500 to the same institution. Joshua
Park gave $6,000 to the State College of Delaware,
George, Agnes and Molly Walker gave $1,000 to
Straight University, New Orleans.

After the Kentucky Legislature, in 1904, passed
a law which made it illegal for white and black
students to attend the same school, Berea College,
which had been conducted as a mixed school for

both races since 1865, was closed to Negroes. After
the case had been finally settled in the highest
courts, a campaign of education was started under
the direction of Reverend James Bond, the coloured
trustee of the college, to raise money to
found a school for coloured students to take its
place. In about twelve months, $50,000 was
raised in the state of Kentucky. Of this sum,
$20,000 was pledged by the coloured people of
Kentucky.

Considering the small amount of money that
Negroes have thus far accumulated, and the
hard struggle that they have had to get it, the
facts that I have mentioned indicate that Negroes
appreciate the value of education for their race and
are willing to contribute generously to its support.[1]

While the chief work of the Negro church has
been and still is among the people of the small towns
and the country districts, where the bulk of the
Negro population is located, in recent years a serious
effort has been made by some of the larger city
churches to deal with some of the comparatively
new problems of the city Negro. I have already
mentioned the work of the First Congregational
Church, under H. H. Proctor, in Atlanta, and of
the Berean Presbyterian Church, of Philadelphia.
In addition to the Berean Building and Loan Association,

to which I have referred, the Church started,
in 1884, a free kindergarten, which it still maintains.
Then in 1889 the Berean Manual Training and
Industrial School was started, which gives instruction
in carpentry, upholstering, millinery, practical
electricity, plain sewing and dressmaking, stenography,
cooking, waiting and tailoring. Two years
before this, in 1897, a bureau of mutual help was
established in order to find employment, particularly
in domestic service, for the large numbers of coloured
people who are constantly coming to Philadelphia
from the South.

Another organisation, the Berean Trades Association,
seeks to aid Negro tradesmen and other
skilled workmen to find employment in the trades.
In addition to these the church has charge of the
Berean Seaside Home, a seaside resort for respectable
coloured persons, near Asbury Park, New
Jersey. In 1900 the Berean Educational Conference
was started, and in 1904 there was added to this
the Berean Seaside Conference. All of these institutions,
though started and maintained by this
Church, are each independent of the other, and are
patronised by thousands of persons who are neither
members of the congregation of the Berean Church,
nor of the Presbyterian denomination.

In addition to these institutional churches there
have grown up in connection with the large city
churches, literary societies and organisations for

mutual improvement, which meet Sunday afternoon
to read papers or discuss general topics. These
societies help to furnish wholesome recreation for
young men and women, and sometimes they do
something more than this. For example, there was
organised in Savannah, Georgia, in 1905, what was
known as the Men's Sunday Club. At that time
there was very little effort made to close the saloons
in Savannah on Sunday; a law against minors entering
these places was not enforced, at least with respect
to the coloured youths. Thousands of coloured
people spent their Sundays at a park in the suburbs
of the city, which had been erected for the special
use of the coloured people, and which was infested
by a number of disreputable characters who made it
a dangerous place for young men and girls to go.

The Young Men's Sunday Club, which was
composed of some of the better educated and more
serious young men of the city, determined to do
something to counteract the evil influences of this
resort. By means of this club hundreds of young
men and women were kept off the streets, and were
induced to come to the meetings of this society,
where they heard interesting discussions, not merely
of literary subjects, but topics of vital interest to
the coloured people of the city. One of the things
that the club attempted to do was to inculcate a
respect for law and order, and make the coloured
people realise the fact that it was especially important

for them, who so frequently needed the protection
of the law, to see to it that they themselves
obeyed it.

One of the chief temptations to the coloured
young men and women of Savannah were dance halls,
run in connection with saloons in those sections of
the city in which the majority of the coloured people
lived. The Men's Club was instrumental in having
these dance halls abolished by law. After the
law had been passed a committee of the club was
appointed to see that it was enforced.

After a time there was organised, in connection
with the Men's Club, a woman's auxiliary, which,
in turn, organised a number of mothers' clubs in
various sections of the city.

In these mothers' meetings an effort was made
not only to interest mothers in keeping their children
off the streets, and away from the association of
criminals, but also to teach the proper care of children
and inculcate some of the simple rules of the
hygiene of the home.

Another organisation which is now doing an
important and valuable work for Negroes is the
coloured Y. M. C. A. Under another name the
work of this organisation has been carried on since
before the Civil War, although no definite organisation
was formed until 1879, when the first international
secretary to take charge of the work among
the coloured people was appointed.

From 1879 to 1890 this work was carried on under
the direction of Henry E. Brown. In 1890, the first
coloured international secretary, Mr. W. A. Hunton,
was appointed to do this work. In 1898 another
secretary, Dr. J. E. Moorland, was appointed to
assist Mr. Hunton.

These two men now have under their supervision
one hundred and ten associations. Seventy-three
of these are student associations, and thirty-seven
of them are city associations. Sixteen of these
associations employ general secretaries and twelve
of them conduct night schools. The total membership
in these associations now exceeds 9,000 men.
Twelve associations own real estate to the value of
$80,000.

One of the most interesting of these associations
is that which was formed at Buxton, Iowa. This
town is made up almost wholly of Negro miners.
Of the population of five thousand, 93 per cent. are
black and 7 per cent. white. It has no regular city
government, since all the property in the town belongs
to the Consolidated Coal Company, in which these
men are employed.

This mining company is therefore enabled to
exercise a benevolent despotism, so far as maintaining
order in the community is concerned, and no disreputable
characters are allowed to remain there. In
the company's plan of government the Y. M. C. A.,
which was conducted for some time, and very

successfully, under the direction of Lewis E. Johnson,
a young coloured man, who is now secretary of the
Y. M. C. A. in Washington, District of Columbia,
has played an important part.

The mining company at Buxton erected a $20,000
Y. M. C. A. building, which was provided with a
library, and served as a social centre for the 1,500
coloured employees of the company, which make
up the bulk of the population. By furnishing innocent
recreation for the miners during the time that
they were idle, by encouraging them to read, save
their money, and by giving them religious instruction,
it was found possible to maintain something approaching
perfect order in this little town, without
the necessity of banishing any large number of the
employees of the company for misbehaviour.

Perhaps the greatest achievement, in a material
way, of the coloured Y. M. C. A., has been the
undertaking to erect a $100,000 building in Washington,
District of Columbia. Washington has the
largest coloured population of any city in the United
States, and in this city the problems of city life present
themselves in a most difficult form. It is,
therefore, peculiarly appropriate that in the nation's
capital, where so large a number of coloured people
live, the work of the Y. M. C. A. should be conducted
on a scale adequate to the need.

In the fall of 1906 Mr. John D. Rockefeller offered
to give $25,000 toward the erection of a permanent

home for the coloured Y. M. C. A. in Washington,
provided a similar sum could be collected from
among the coloured people of the city. From April
7 to May 7, 1908, a campaign was carried on among
the coloured residents of Washington, and $30,535
in subscriptions was secured. Since that time this
amount has considerably increased, and it is hoped
eventually to raise enough money to insure the
erection of a $100,000 building, for which plans have
already been drawn.

Aside from the direct influence which the coloured
Young Men's Christian Association has been able
to exert upon its members, these local organisations
have frequently exercised an important indirect influence
for good in the community. For example, I
learned, during the meeting of the National Negro
Business League, in Louisville, in August, 1909, that
the Young Men's Christian Association had been
largely instrumental in securing, for the coloured
people of Louisville, the magnificent library they now
possess, erected in 1908 by the generosity of Mr.
Andrew Carnegie. This library, which is a regular
branch of the Louisville Public Library, is probably
the most complete and best equipped library for
coloured people in the South. The total cost,
including the books, was something like $42,000.
Thomas F. Blue, who was formerly Secretary of
the Coloured Young Men's Christian Association, is
the librarian in charge.

The work of the coloured Y. M. C. A. began in
the colleges. It is gradually reaching out, however,
to the larger cities and, to some extent, into the
smaller towns. As this work extends steadily it is
getting a larger hold upon the masses of the coloured
people, and is forming a nucleus for work of social
service in the cities, the places where that work is
most needed. In this way the Y. M. C. A. is
supplementing the mission and social work of the
Negro Church.