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284  THE CRISIS

that law shall be enforced, and that constitutional guarantees shall be maintained. Here and there in some extremely out-of-the-way place mob violence directed against Negroes might find a victim, but it is unthinkable that there should be a succession of lynchings in England, Scotland or Ireland."

DINGAAN'S DAY.
In South Africa they have been celebrating the victory of the Dutch over the Kaffir, and the A.P.O., a colored paper remarks:

"But a change has come over South Africa. The two white races, so we are told, are one. They now claim equal shares in laying the foundation of a united white people. On Monday the language question, the immigration question, the naval contribution will all be forgotton. There will be perfect harmony. Dutchmen will magnify all the petty deeds of valor of their fore-fathers, and will generously grant to Englishmen some share of the honor of having defeated Dingaan; and Englishmen will slobber over Dutchmen, and strain their language to belaud their exploits, dishonorable and discreditable though they may have been in Dingaan's country seventy-four years ago. No mention will be made of the hundreds of colored and natives who fought on the side of both English and Dutch, nor of the hundreds who shed their blood in the same cause.
"Now, it is very difficult, if not impossible, from the available historical records, to arrive at any other conclusion but that Dingaan was a monster, and that the Dutch emigrants were heaven-sent saviours, whose every action was prompted by Christian benovolence toward the native. But it must be borne in mind that the history of South Africa is a record written by white persons from information supplied by white persons who had every reason to picture the blacks as a cruel, barbarous, traitorous people, and their own actions as that of tolerant Christians. Nevertheless, by reading between the lines, it is quite clear that the farmers who migrated from the colony into Dingaan's country were as cruel, traitorous, vindictive and revengeful as any set of men that ever came in contact with colored races."



REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATION.
As the representation of the South in the Republican convention is being agitated anew we may recall the last words of the lamented Frederick L. McGhee in the St. Paul (Minn.) Press:
"The Negro's presence in the national Republican convention used not to be a thing disdained and wanted to be gotten rid of. There was a time when the Republican national convention honored a Negro by making one a temporary chairman of the convention. It was the convention that nominated James G. Blaine, the plumed knight of the Republican party, and it should not be forgotten that the convention that wrote the gold plank in the Republican party platform wrote it only because it had the solid support of the Negro delegates, and that convention witnessed the end of right recognition to Negro delegates. It was in that convention that the late Mark Hanna was presiding over the deliberations concerning the credentials from the State of Texas; the lily whites, who were first springing into existence, contested the delegation headed by Wright Cuney, 'Noblest Roman' of all the Southern host, Negro though he was. Then it was first urged to willing ears that if the Negro was 'cut out,' if white men were put on the national committee in their places, they would organize in the South a white man's party, the solid South would be broken; white men would divide on economic questions an the Republican party would no be compelled to look to the Northern tier of States for its elections. Mr. Hanna listened, was charmed, was fooled, believed the lie, and by reason of his influence the Cuney delegation was seated with a half vote the lily white got the other half. Cuney then reminded Mr. Hanna that the Negro in the war had shot a full bullet; that since the was he had voted the full Republican ticket; never scratched it (the shame is that he still does it), and that as for himself and the Negroes from Texas they would refuse a half seat and left the meeting of the committee; refused to participate in the convention; went home; died f a broken heart an thus ended the old order of things and thus began the new, that has been a shame, an injustice and disgrace to both my race and the Republican party." 

Easter-Emancipation
1863-1913



I AM dead;
Yet somehow, somewhere, 
In Time's weird contradiction, I
May tell of that dread deed, wherewith
I brought to Children of the Moon
Freedom and vast salvation.
I was a woman born
And trod that streaming street
That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills
Thro' caves and canons limned in light
Down to the twisting sea.
That night of nights
I stood alone and at the End
Until the sudden highway to the Moon,
Golden in splendor,
Became too real to doubt.
Dimly I set foot upon the air;
I fled, I flew, thro' thrills of light,
With all about, above, below the whirring
Of almighty wings.
I found a twilight land
Where, hardly hid, the sun
Sent softly saddened rays of
Red and brown to burn the iron earth
And bathe the snow-white peaks
In mighty splendor.
Black were the men,
Hard haired and silent slow,
Moving as shadows
Bending with face of fear to earthward;
And women there were none.


"Woman, woman, woman!"
I cried in mounting terror. 
"Woman and Child!"
And the cry sang back
Thro' heaven with the 
Whirring of almighty wings.
Wings, wings, endless wings,
Heaven and earth are wings;
Wings that flutter, furl and fold,
Always folding and unfolding,
Ever folding yet again;
Wings, veiling some vast
And veiled face,
In blazing blackness,
Behind the folding and unfolding,
The rolling and unrolling of
Almighty wings!
I saw the black men huddle
Fumed in fear, falling face downward;
Vainly I clutched and clawed,
Dumbly they cringed and cowered,
Moaning in mournful monotone:
  O Freedom, O Freedom,
  O Freedom over me;
  Before I'll be a slave
  I'll be buried in my grave 
  And go home to my God
  And be free.
It was as angel music
From the dead,
And ever, as they sang,
The winged Thing of wings, filling all
   Heaven,
Folding and unfolding, and folding yet
   again,
Tore out their blood and entrails
'Til I screamed in utter terror 
And a silence came:
A silence and the wailing of a babe. 

Transcription Notes:
please help me correct the letter n on the word canons and the letter e in the word veiled on the second page.