National Uplift Organization founded and run by Negroes

The National Negro Business League

IN 1900 the late Dr. Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute, organized in Boston, Mass. The National Negro Business League, which is now under the forceful and energetic leadership of Dr. Robert R. Moton. Such nationally known men as Chas. Banks, J. C. Napier and Emmett J. Scott are among those who are closely allied with the president of this League in so widely spreading its influences of encouragement, inspiration and business knowledge.

As a description of the workings of this organization, the writer gives below some extracts from an article written for the August 13, 1921 issue of The Chicago Defender by E. Davidson Washington, son of the late Dr. Booker T. Washington.

“While the Business League has a distinctive purpose (that of promoting the commercial and financial development of our Race,) it does not attempt to prescribe for every racial endeavor; yet it is a significant fact that through the instrumentality of this the national body and its more than 600 local branches or local leagues scattered throughout the country a very large part of the progress made by the Race in the direction of home and farm ownership, banking, insurance, manufacturing and mercantile enterprises has been achieved since the organization of the Business League.

“Among the many subjects discussed are such as: “Making Farming Pay,” “Building a Negro Town,” “The Relation of Education to Business,” “Conducting a Grocery Store,” “Editing a Newspaper” and many others which space will not permit me to mention here. Questions are asked, and in that way those who did not come up to their expectations the previous year try, when they return to their various communities, as far as possible, to put into practice what they have gained through the league.

“The symposiums conducted in the main convention by the following organizations are highly interesting and instructive: The National Negro Bankers’ Association, the National Negro Funeral Directors’ Association, the National Negro Press, the National Negro Bar Association and the National Negro Insurance Men.

“Finally, as a Race we must not be discouraged. There will come to us, as to all races, seasons of depression and gloom. Once in a while even those in high places may seem to seek to insult, humiliate and harass us, but they cannot last. “The morning cometh.” Those who treat us unjustly are losing more than we are. Above all, we must not lose faith in ourselves nor in our Race. We must be as proud of being Negroes as a Japanese is of being a Japanese. It is through such meetings as the National Negro Business League that the Negro is encouraged and made to look upon the brighter side of life and with more optimism for the future than ever before.”

Association For The Study of Negro Life and History

American school white boys and girls get the larger part of their inspirations to become great men and women mostly from what they read in the public school United States Histories about big things members of their race have done. As white authors in writing such histories saw fit to leave out of them all references (with the exception of slavery) to the parts the American Colored people have had in helping to make American history, public school Colored boys and girls get no racial encouragements nor inspirations from such histories.

The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, organized in 1915, is doing a grand work in helping to supply the American Colored youth with the desired encouraging and inspiring information relating to Negro historical achievements in the United States. The president of this organ, R. E. Park is ably assisted in this work by such scholars as Drs. J. E. Mooreland and C. G. Woodson.

The National Equal Rights League

The National Equal Rights League was started in 1910 and one of its chief purposes is contending for and securing in peaceful but firm ways the same equal rights in the United States for American Colored citizens as those so generously given to members of other races, especially many foreigners in this country who do not understand the laws, cannot speak the language and have no intentions of becoming naturalized. The president of this organization is N. S. Taylor, who is loyally assisted by such race leaders as Wm. Monroe Trotter, and B. N. Murrell.

The Lincoln League of America

The Lincoln League of America is an organization that was started in 1919, and one of its main objects is to instil race pride on a broader scale among Colored people and at the same time encourage them along all lines of citizenship privileges and advancement. Roscoe C. Simmons is president of this body and is nobly aided in this work by such national figures as Henry Lincoln Johnson and Walter Cohen.

National Association of Teachers for Colored Schools

The National Association of Teachers for Colored Schools is under the scholarly and experienced leadership of Prof. J. M. Gandy. It is due mostly to this organization that the managements and sentiments of the different Southern Colored colleges and schools have come to better understand each other and thereby work in closer conjunction and harmony for the broadest and most practical development of Negro youths in both industrial and higher education. Other officials who have helped to bring about such good feelings are S. X. Floyd and W. H. A. Howard.

Negro Organization Society

Although it has not yet developed into a national organization, the Negro Organization Society of Virginia is making rapid strides in that direction. It was organized several years ago, at the wise suggestion of the late Dr. H. B. Frissell, by Major R. R. Moton, who with the valuable assistance of Captain Allen Washington, Profs. J. M. Gandy, T. C. Erwin, Rev. A. A. Graham, Lawyer T. C. Walker, Hon. Robert. E. Clay and others soon made it a leading source of encouragement and helpfulness throughout the entire State. While its purpose is to unite into one large solid body for more mutual understandings all the church, fraternal and social organizations and societies, big and little, in the State; it has no desires nor intentions whatever of selfishly absorbing within itself or taking away the individuality of any organized body that comes under its advice and help.

One of the chief objects of this society is to gather all such organizations in the state under its guiding wisdom and sheltering arms into one big congenial family, whose members may then be constantly taught how best to work in helpful understandings and harmony among themselves and in brotherhood co-operations with their white neighbors in order to secure “better health, better schools, better homes and better farms” for the Colored people. These efforts have proven so fruitful that this society has already overflown its Virginian cup of uplift influence that is now running and dripping over the sides into surrounding states. And under the continued successful “Whooping-up” campaigns of its present leader, Major Allen Washington, this organ is destined some day to become one of the most helpful national movements in America in aiding to bring about stronger and broader good-will feelings between the two races and at the same time more friendly and solidly uniting all Colored organizations for a more rapid and all-round advancement of the Negro Race.