The Three Rs In my travels over the country a great many ministers have asked me for a brief statement of the origin of the work among the colored people of the Southland, and also for a statement of the work as it is now being carried on by our Presbyterian Church. The following brief statement is submitted with the prayerful hope that it may be useful to those who speak in the interest of this great cause. JOHN M. GASTON April, 1925 Pittsburgh, Pa. OFFICERS OF THE DIVISION REV. JOHN M. GASTON, D.D., Secretary and Assistant Treasurer REV. S. J. FISHER, D.D., Assistant Secretary MRS. W. T. LARIMER, Assistant Secretary ? An ijistoriral g>ketrl| T HE Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., be- gan missionary work among the Negroes of the South fully a year before the close of the Civil War. As early as 1864 two committees were at work under the direction of the General Assembly (0. S.) one with headquarters at Indianapolis, the other at Philadelphia. In May 1865 the General As- sembly at its meeting in Pittsburgh united these under the title, “The General Assem- bly’s Committee on Freedmen.” By order of this same Assembly the committee met and was organized on June 22, 1865 in the lecture room of the First Church, Pittsburgh. In 1868, however, the Freedmen’s Department of the Presbyterian Committee of Home Mis- sions (N. S.) began a similar work with headquarters in New York. At the reunion of the two branches of the church, the old and the new school, this department, which had been in existence only two years, and the department in Pittsburgh were consolidated, and a new committee was appointed. This committee was organized by direction of the reunited General Assembly in Pittsburgh on June 10, 1870, and continued without change of plan or organization for twelve years. Problems arising, however, from the owner- ship of property and from the handling of bequests indicated that some change was necessary; consequently in 1882 at Spring- field, Illinois, the General Assembly sanctioned a change and on September 16 of the same year the committee obtained a charter and became a corporate body, The Board of Mis- sions for Freedmen of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 3 HELP FROM THE WOMEN’S MISSIONARY SOCIETIES In 1884 the Assembly recommended that the Women’s Executive Committee of Home Mis- sions, afterwards the Woman’s Board of Home Missions, permit societies under its care to contribute, if they so wished, to the cause of the Freedmen. When, the following May, 1885, $3,010.58 were reported as contributed by these societies, the General Assembly adopted unanimously the following resolution: “That in view of the success which has already attended the organization of a Women’s Department for Freedmen, under the Women’s Executive Committee of Home Missions, and of the pressing demand for labor within the sphere marked out for this department it be affectionately urged upon all the Wom- en’s Home Missionary Societies of our Church to give this work a place in their sympathies, their prayers and their benefactions.” This was the beginning of the Women’s De- partment of the Freedmen’s Board. While the action of the Assembly only recommended that the Women’s Societies be permitted to contribute according to their pleasure to the Freedmen’s work, these societies have for thirty years very generously encouraged the efforts of the Board. Their contributions and their interest in the work for the Negro have grown steadily from year to year. The money received from the women’s missionary so- cieties goes in the main to the support of teachers and the maintenance of school work. In May, 1923, the General Assembly in ses- sion at Indianapolis, Indiana, adopted the re- port of the Committee on Reorganization and Consolidation of the Boards. By the terms of the consolidation, the Board of Missions for Freedmen became a holding corporation, the 4 actual work previously carried on by that Board becoming a part of the work of the Board of National Missions under the Division of Missions for Colored People. The head- quarters of this Division at 507-511 Bessemer Building, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. tKpapmtfiibiUltpa THE FIELD PRESENT NEGRO POPULATION Based on the United States Census of 1920 Alabama 900,652 Arkansas 472,220 Delaware 30,335 Dist. Columbia 109,966 Florida 329,487 Georgia 1,206,365 Kentucky 235,938 Louisiana 700,257 Mississippi 935,184 Maryland 244,479 Missouri 178,241 North Carolina 763,407 South Carolina 864,719 Oklahoma 149,408 Tennessee 451,758 Texas 741,694 Virginia 690,017 West Virginia 86,345 Total in S. States 8,912,000 Total in N. States 1,472,000 In connection with the study of distribution it will be interesting to note the education of the White and the Negro child of school age. S ANNUAL EXPENDITURES BY STATES FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS Whites Negroes Alabama $15.80 $ 3.00 Arkansas 13.15 6.85 Delaware 20.00 12.00 Florida 30.00 5.75 Georgia 16.31 2.83 Kentucky 10.29 9.46 Louisiana 25.37 3.49 Maryland 22.09 10.52 Mississippi 18.12 3.91 North Carolina ... 15.37 5.83 Missouri 22.24 19.40 Oklahoma 31.59 14.05 South Carolina ... 19.33 2.06 Tennessee 18.05 10.43 Texas 19.01 13.16 Virginia 20.55 5.59 The Board of National Missions is responsi- ble for its share of work among the nine million Negroes of the South and the one- and-a-half million of the Northern States. * * * THE TASK In the North the Presbyterian Church over- sees 31 new churches and missions for Ne- groes which have been organized by the Board since 1914. In the South this Division educates preach- ers and teachers, maintains ministers in their work and teachers in their schools, repairs churches, manses, and builds school houses, seminaries, academies, looks after the condi- tion of buildings, and orders all repairs and extensions, appoints instructors, provides all necessary utensils and furnishings for the boarding department, manages the various in- stitutions of learning, receives monthly finan- cial statements for all schools, and audits all bills. 6 IfBUltH PAST ACCOMPLISHMENTS Out of confusion, ignorance, and poverty, there has arisen a system of educational and evangelistic work that commands the atten- tion and demands the support of the entire Church. Schools, academies, seminaries, and one large university, have gathered within their walls young men and young women to the number of more than 500,000 who are brought under religious influence and are being trained in the ways of the Presbyterian Church. Congregations have been gathered, and churches have been organized until now the Division has under its watch and care 530 churches and missions containing 39,932 mem- bers, 136 day schools with 18,765 pupils. Church buildings have been repaired and prop- erty valued at $553,650.00 secured for the use of churches. School property is estimated as worth about $3,000,000.00. Funds per- manently invested for the use of the work amount to $968,934.26. * * * PRESENT EFFORT 1. In Respect to Churches There are now four colored synods covering the work under the care of the Board, — At- lantic, Catawba, Canadian, and East Ten- nessee. Atlantic Synod has five presbyteries, viz; Atlantic, Fairfield, and McClelland, which are in South Carolina; Hodge and Knox in Georgia. Knox Presbytery takes in also sev- eral churches that are in Florida. Catawba Synod has four presbyteries, viz; Cape Fear, Catawba, and Yadkin, which are in North Carolina and Southern Virginia in the south- ern part of Virginia. Canadian Synod has three presbyteries, viz; Kiamichi and Rendall 7 which are in Oklahoma, and White River in Arkansas. East Tennessee has three pres- byteries, viz; Birmingham, which takes in Alabama, Mississippi, and some churches in Tennessee, and Le Vere and Rogersville, both in Tennessee. Rogersville takes in also two churches in western North Carolina. The one additional colored presbytery, Lin- coln, in the Synod of Kentucky, brings the total of colored presbyteries to sixteen. With the exception of five white men in charge severally of four girls’ seminaries and one co-educational boarding school, all the min- isters in these sixteen presbyteries are col- ored. In all, 251 Presbyterian ministers are working among Negroes. Each year the churches receive on an average 3,500 mem- bers on confession of faith, an increase of about 9 per cent. According to the annual reports of the ministers working under the Division of Mis- sions for Colored People, the people on the field gave this year for church work includ- ing that for buildings, repairs, contingent ex- penses and ministerial support $244,114.51. In addition the churches under the Board con- tributed $14,697.08 for benevolences. 2. In Respect to Schools The Presbyterian church maintains 137 schools for Negroes classified as follows: (a) Two schools for men: Johnson C. Smith University at Charlotte, N. C., and Har- bison Agricultural college, at Irmo, S. C. The professors in these schools are all colored men. (b) Five seminaries for girls only: Scotia at Concord, N. C.; Ingleside at Burkeville, Va.; Mary Holmes at West Point, Miss.; Barber Memorial at Anniston, Ala.; and Mary Allen at Crockett, Texas. 8 The first four of these seminaries are presided over by white ministers, and most of the teachers are white. Mary Allen alone has a colored president, and colored faculty members. The total enrollment at these five schools is more than one thousand. (c) Twenty-one co-educational boarding schools as follows: Andrew Robertson Institute, Aiken, S. C. Albion Academy, Franklinton, N. C. Alice Lee Elliott Memorial, Valliant, Okla. Arkadelphia Academy, Arkadelphia, Ark. Boggs Academy, Keysville, Ga. Bowling Green Academy, Bowling Green, Ky. Brainerd Institute, Chester, S. C. Coulter Memorial Academy, Cheraw, S. C. Cotton Plant Academy, Cotton Plant, Ark Emerson Industrial Institute, Blackville, S. C. Fee Memorial Institute, Nicholasvillc, Ky. Gillespie Normal, Cordele, Ga. Haines Industrial, Augusta, Ga. Hot Springs School, Hot Springs, Ark. Kendall Institute, Sumter, S. C. Mary Potter Memorial, Oxford, N. C. Monticello Academy, Monticello, Ark. Redstone Academy, Lumberton, N. C. Richard Allen Institute, Pine Bluff, Ark. Selden Institute, Brunswick, Ga. Swift Memorial College, Rogersville, Tenn. Of these Brainerd Institute, alone, has a white president. (d) Other schools to the number of 109, classified as institutes, academies, and church schools. These are all in charge of colored ministers and teachers. In these schools 18,765 children are enrolled. The Bible and the Shorter 9 Catechism are everywhere required studies. Only Christian teachers are em- ployed; usually they are Presbyterians. In all the larger schools and in as many of the smaller ones as the budget will allow industrial training is offered. At Johnson C. Smith instruction is given in carpentry, ma- sonry, printing, plumbing, shoemaking, tailor- ing, etc. At Harbison the boys are taught intensive farming; in Scotia, Ingleside, Mary Allen, Mary Holmes, and Barber Memorial, the girls are trained in cooking, sewing, and gen- eral housekeeping. Many of the co-educa- tional schools have farms attached where the boys may do practical farming. The crops go to the support of the school. * * * IN RESPECT TO COMMUNITY SERVICE For the purpose of assisting worthy colored families one thousand acres of land have been purchased at Keysville, Georgia, in the neigh- borhood of Boggs Academy, and four thou- sand acres at Irmo, S. C„ near Harbison Col- lege. This land is divided into small farms of from ten to forty acres each. These farms are then sold to respectable Negro men of families, Presbyterians preferred, at fair prices and on easy terms. To assist pur- chasers in building houses, buying tools and seed, cash advances are made to these Negro men with the understanding that the money is to be repaid with a fair rate of interest out of the annual savings of the farms. Capable superintendents are employed to direct the purchasers in their work so that the farmers may in the end own their own land. Thus every effort is made to build communities sound both morally and industrially. Many of these tenants are helpful in the churches. Their children attend the schools. Their farms and homes are attractive. In every way the families are a credit to their com- munities. 10 Srsnums IN FUNDS When one compares the work done with the money expended one soon realizes that few mission fields cost so little as the field of colored work, and that in few places does a little go so far. The average aid granted a minister is about $500 a year. The average salary of a colored teacher is about $35 a month. It should be at least $50. Terms run from six to eight months. Sunday Schools that give $25 a year or more may receive a share certificate in one of the Negro schools. Lincoln’s Day Pro- grams will be furnished without charge to all Sunday Schools which will make an offering for the colored work. Young People’s So- cieties are urged to set aside one evening each year to the consideration of this work and to make an offering toward it. Scholarships in Johnson C. Smith Univer- sity, the Seminaries, and co-educational schools are $100 a year. A half scholarship costs $50. * * * IN SERVICE The five schools where there are white fac- ulties offer excellent opportunity for young people to engage in the work of the King- dom. The transformations both in the char- acter and the appearance of the pupils is a constant source of joy and inspiration to the teachers. * * * IN PRAYER For the work as carried on through this agency special reliance is put upon the pray- ers of the hosts of God’s people, upon the loving interest and co-operation of the thou- sands of Presbyterians in the faithful and de- voted service of the 726 missionaries, min- isters, and teachers. 11 Issued by the Division of Missions for Colored People of the BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A., 507-511 Bessemer Bldg., Pittsburgh, Penna.