rum. 
 
 N. AMER. 
 
 The Negro Girl 
 
 Mrs. Daisy McLain Bulkley 
 
 I DO not wish to prey too heavily upon your 
 sympathy by giving you an overdrawn picture 
 of the Negro girl. 
 
 I shall try to be fair and impartial in stating 
 the facts. 
 
 For two hundred and fifty years the Negro girl, 
 who did not force herself upon the American 
 people, but who was invited to come here and 
 make this her home, and who has helped to make 
 America what it is today, was forced to leave her 
 babe in the cabin while she hurried to the "big 
 house" to take care of the babe of her mistress. 
 
 She was made to see the importance of the 
 regular bath, fresh air, sunshine and many other 
 things conducive to health for the white child, 
 and was not given time to do these things for her 
 own child. 
 
 Do you wonder then that the Negro babe de- 
 veloped physical rickets, moral rickets and every 
 other sort of rickets? 
 
 The Negro girl was not allowed to follow the 
 dictates of her own heart, but was given a new 
 husband whenever her master saw that he could, 
 with financial gain, sell her husband, the father 
 of her children. Are you surprised that with 
 such an inheritance the Negro girl is not free 
 indeed? Are you surprised that she is not 
 perfect? 
 
 Do you realize that freedom is not a thing 
 that comes altogether with a proclamation, but 
 that freedom comes with development? Fifty 
 
years is but a day, as it were, in the development 
 of a race. 
 
 The Negro girl asks that you do not judge her 
 from newspaper accounts, because she never gets 
 newspaper notoriety except when she oversteps 
 the moral or civil law. Cognizance is never taken 
 of her efforts to obtain an education, of her 
 church work, social service work, or her strenuous 
 efforts to rise above preisent conditions. If it 
 takes kindness, patience, sympathy, love, to help 
 the Indian, Japanese, Mexican, and Alaskan, the 
 -same kind of kindness, patience, sympathy and 
 love will help the Negro girl. 
 
 It matters not how thorough her education 
 has been, she cannot be a competitor with the 
 white girl. Efficiency does not count in the South 
 when the Negro girl is concerned. The Negro 
 girl who has been well trained and who is quick 
 and accurate with figures must stand at the 
 counter, while the white girl ofttimes has to use 
 her fingers in counting the amount of her pur- 
 chases. 
 
 The Negro girl's father has not had time or 
 money to establish business enterprises or to 
 open up avenues of employment for his daughter. 
 He is struggling to get a home and to educate 
 his children. He worked hard for two hundred 
 and fifty years to make the South the Eden 
 that it is and now he must pay a fabulous price 
 for a home for himself. 
 
 The Negro girl does not need your pity, or any 
 patronizing courtesy, but she asks that you give 
 her a chance. Give her a chance equal to that 
 offered to the foreign girl who has but recently 
 come to America. 
 
 The Negro girl who cooks your food, washes 
 your clothes, or pushes your baby cart, is not the 
 
scum of the earth. She has been created in 
 God's image and represents one of His great 
 races. 
 
 Since you must become pro-Japanese, or pro- 
 Indian to help the Japanese or the Indian, you 
 must be pro-Negro to help him. 
 
 In the city of Charleston, S. C, the Negro 
 girl is not allowed to teach in the public schools 
 provided for her own people. These schools are 
 taught by Southern- white women because free- 
 ing of the slaves made them poor. Their fathers' 
 wealth consisted of slaves. 
 
 In another town in the state Negro boys are 
 afraid to attempt to keep company with the at- 
 tractive Negro girl. On several occasions the 
 boys have been told by white men that they would 
 be thrashed and made to leave the town if they 
 persisted. 
 
 Oh, what a conflict for the Negro girl with 
 the white vulture on- one side and the black rascal 
 on the other ! 
 
 The Negro girl who lives in the remote country 
 district and labors patiently, helping to make and 
 gather the crop, is much to be pitied because 
 she has not more than a three months' school in 
 her district. When her mistakes carry her into 
 the courts she is not tried as a girl, but as a 
 Negro girl. She has no Rescue Home, no Salva- 
 tion Army, no Door of Hope Home to shield her, 
 or to inspire her to be a better girl, or to help 
 her out of her present difficulty. 
 
 The Negro girl lifts her voice in praise to 
 God for the great Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 for her Freedman's Aid Schools, for the Woman's 
 Home Missionary Society Schools and Industrial 
 Homes, for the women of the church who heard 
 her cry years ago and, because God had given 
 
them vision, unflinchingly went to her rescue. 
 Go right on, don't stop to ask, "Does it pay?" 
 
 Every Negro girl does not make good, but do 
 one hundred per cent, of anybody's girls make 
 good? Hundreds of girls who have been trained 
 in the schools of the Woman's Home Missionary 
 Society are filling positions of trust and honor, 
 many are teaching in their own home schools — 
 leading the people out into the sunlight of God, 
 making the desert to blossom as the rose. Be- 
 cause you have taught her to accept Christ as 
 her personal Saviour, you have taught her to be 
 strong. You have taught her that the life that 
 counts must toil and fight; the life that counts 
 must be one of service. 
 
 The Negro girl is debtor to the Woman's Home 
 Missionary Society for her schools and Industrial 
 Homes, which stand out as beacon lights in the 
 towns and cities of the South. 
 
 Help the Negro girl so that she may be able 
 to look at the Stars and Stripes and know that 
 they mean freedom, protection, to her. Help her 
 to sing sincerely. 
 
 "My country, 'tis of thee. 
 Sweet land of liberty, 
 Of thee I sing." 
 
 Woman's Home Missionary Society 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church • 
 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 
 50 or less, 6c; 50 to 100, 10c