Viewing page 8 of 28

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

222              THE CRISIS

Mrs. Manson is an Ohio girl, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles F. Smith. For years she has lived in Chicago, the wife of Mr. David Monson, a representative citizen who has made for himself a remarkable place in the iron and steel business of the city.

AN ANTHROPOLOGIST.
IN the dealth of Dr. Alexander F. Chamberlain the Negro race loses an honest man who did not consider that science must be made the handmaiden of race prejudice despite the facts.
Dr. Chamberlain was born in England January 12, 1865. He was a graduate of Toronto University and took his Ph.D. at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1892. He was a member of many learned societies all over the world and a careful student of anthropology. He is known to colored people by his excellent article on the contributions of the Negro race to civilization, first published in the Journal of Race Development. This article will soon be republished by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and should be in the hands of every colored person in the United States and every person who is unafraid of the truth.
Dr. Chamberlain died in the midst of his work at the early age of forty-eight.

A JOURNALIST.
NATHANIEL B. DODSON, of Brooklyn, is the son of the late Armstead and Lucy Carnard Dodson, of Boydton, Va. He was reared on his father's farm and received his early education at the New Liberty and the Shiloah public schools of Mecklenburg County, taught by the late Southall Townes and James A. Gayles, respectively. After finishing at the latter school he taught in 1886-7. In the spring of 1887 he came to Brooklyn and was employed to run an elevator in the old Pierrepont House, which was at the time the leading hotel in Brooklyn. In the fall and winter, from 1887 to 1889 he attended the Boydton, Va., Institute at his home, returning to his same position at the Pierrepont House during his vacation until his graduation from the Boydton Institute with the class of '89.
Having the desire to obtain a higher education he matriculated for the senior class at Wayland Seminary in Washington (now the Virginia Union University, Richmond, Va.). Where he graduated in 1891 as class salutatorian. He continued his studies in the academic department at Wayland for a year and returned to Brooklyn and became night cleark in the Pierrepont House.
In 1895-96 Mr. Dodson was engaged with a company of men as manager in the grocery business in Brooklyn. After giving up his business he found employment at the American Press Assosciation, New York, in 1897, as general inside messenger, telephone operator and confidential man to the president. He rendered faithful and valuable service in this work.  In 1907 he suggested to the president of the American Press Association the idea of starting a weekly plate service for the use of papers published by the colored people.  The late Major Orlando J. Smith, founder and president of the firm until his death in the fall of 1908, took kindly to the suggestion of Mr. Dodson and sent for Mr. Thomas T. Fortune, editor of the New York Age, with whom he discussed the matter at length.
No action, however, was taken at the time but Mr. Dodson kept the matter prominently

[[large image in center of article]]
THE LATE DR. A.F. CHAMBERLAIN.

MEN OF THE MONTH   223

[[Image: Mr. N. B. Dodson.]]
before the firm. After the death of Major Smith, the matter was again taken up with Mr. Courtland Smith who became the General Manager of the firm upon the death of his father. Mr Courtland Smith gave his consent to the proposition and on January 4, 1909, Mr. Dodson started the Afro-American Page, a six-column illustrated weekly new service of which he is still the editor and manager.
Other positions of trust and responsibility held by Mr. Dodson are, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Negro Press Association, member of the Executive Committee of the Brooklyn Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and President of the New England Baptist Sunday School Convention.
Mr. Dodson has a wife and six children.  

FAITHFUL
CLEM PAGE died recently in Toledo, Ohio. He was for thirty-three years caretaker for the Merchants National Bank. The following paragraphs, written by the bank president’s son, appeared in a local paper:
“It was never mine to know an honester man, either white or colored, nor one in whom the cardinal virtues of simplicity and truth were more sacred and inviolate. He was a man of the most kindly impulses, and to him no sacrifice was ever to great when the welfare or pleasure of others was at stake ....
“When bowed by the weight of years, and his weary footsteps told the mute but touching story of a life worn by hardships and exacting toil, the radiant smile of sincerity and good cheer never forsook his countenance, and he passed from earth to whatever reward awaits those who have done far more for others than they in turn seemed willing to do for him....
“The deceased was a veteran of the Civil War. He was honorably discharged from service in the Union Army by order of the authorities at Washington, in 1865. At the outbreak of the rebellion he joined a Mississippi regiment of colored volunteers and fought in several desperate conflicts wherein national renown won its highest records and victory was achieved at the cost of many precious lives....
“Poor, honest, faithful, valiant Page. I knew him well, and his memory will ever remain an inspiration, as though from some cherished legend of yore, to all honest men who were thus so happily favored.”

[[Image: THE LATE CLEM PAGE]]