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248   THE CRISIS

[[image 1 - drawing of woman sitting on a bench]]

Again It Is September

By JESSIE FAUSET
With a Drawing
By LAURA WHEELER

Again it is September!
It seems so strange that I who made no vows
Should sit here desolate this golden weather
And wistfully remember—

A sigh of deepest yearning,
A glowing look and words that knew no bounds,
A swift response, an instant glad surrender
To kisses wild and burning!

Ay me!
Again it is September!
It seems so strange that I who kept those vows
Should sit here lone, and spent, and mutely praying
That I may not remember


THE SO-CALLED BLACK PERIL IN SOUTH AFRICA      249

NEGRO SOLDIERS
By ROSCOE D. JAMISON

THESE truly are the Brave,
These men who cast aside 
Old memories, to walk the blood-stained pave
Of Sacrifice, joining the solemn tide 
That moves away, to suffer and to die
For Freedom—when their own is yet denied!
O Pride! O Prejudice! When they pass by,
Hail them, the Brave, for you now crucified!

These truly are the Free,
These souls that grandly rise
Above base dreams of vengeance for their wrongs,
Who march to war with visions in their eyes
Of Peace through Brotherhood, lifting glad songs
Aforetime, while they front the firing-line.
Stand and behold! They take the field today,
Shedding their blood like Him now held divine,
That those who mock might find a better way!


[[image 2 - African American soldier holding rifle]]

THE SO-CALLED BLACK PERIL IN SOUTH AFRICA
By ALICE WERNER

I HAVE often been asked by Englishwomen whether I was not afraid to go about alone in Africa, and have always had to answer that I never found cause to regret doing so. It is true that my solitary journeyings took place not in South Africa but in Nyasaland and other regions where white people were comparatively few. In Natal, to which my South African experience was confined, there was the same need for reasonable precautions (or perhaps not quite so much!) as in any "civilized" country.

South Africa is, or was till recently, subject to periodical outbursts of panic in connection with what is termed the "Black Peril" (or, in my day, the "Social Pest"), and this involves a great deal of wild talk and writing—as usual, from those who know least about the matter. This was especially marked just after the "rising" of 1906 (another story, and a deplorable one). I have a note, e. g., of some articles by Mr. Arnold White—one of them in the Sunday Sun, in which he said that there was "scarcely a family" in South Africa, Dutch or British, without some tragedy to serve as an excuse for race-hatred. No evidence was offered and I have no hesitation in saying that the statement, as it stands, is untrue.

My business is with that aspect of the question which especially concerns women. The subject is one which many people shrink from handling at all, while others cannot touch it without losing their heads,—this does not make it easier to ascertain the truth.

I lived for some years in Central and Southern Africa—part of the time virtually alone with another white woman among "kraal" natives, and but for the newspapers should scarcely have known that a Black Peril existed. One heard of bad characters sometimes, though I, personally, did not

Transcription Notes:
image 1 - drawing of a woman seated on a bench with a wooded area and gazebo behind her image 2 - drawing of an African American soldier holding rifle, with American flag draped behind hi