Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [347]
Although nearly every postwar black convention and newspaper praised the white benevolent societies for their efforts, these same spokesmen insisted that “the great work of elevating our race” properly belonged to black people. If the freedmen were to be taught self-respect, if they were to be inculcated with pride in their race and begin to view themselves as the equals of whites, what better examples for them to follow than those who had already demonstrated in their own lives the capacity for improvement and leadership. If the freedmen were to be introduced to new forms of church government and worship, would not black ministers be the ideal guides, since they would at once remove “the greatest stigma” that could be attached to such reforms—“that of being a ‘white man’s religion.’ ” And if the freedmen were to be encouraged to drop “the old broken brogue language” of slavery, they should listen to “enlightened” and educated ministers of their own color who spoke “in plain English.”25
With blacks undertaking responsibility for their own people, the potential for a conflict of interest would also be minimized. Although the emissaries of both races in the South stressed the importance of former slaves returning to work and proving their capacity for free labor, the suspicion grew that some white missionaries stood to profit materially from such counsel. Economic and moral objectives were not always easy to separate, as in the Sea Islands, for example, and if the same people who supervised black laborers in the field sometimes taught in the classroom or preached in the church, the distinctions blurred even more. “The danger now seems to be—not that we shall be called enthusiasts, abolitionists, philanthropists,” Laura Towne noted with concern, “but cotton agents, negro-drivers, oppressors.” Not far from where Miss Towne taught school in the Sea Islands, the Reverend A. Waddell preached in the First African Baptist Church, and he obviously thought her concern more than justified.
Some of our white ministerial friends do more in the way of procuring farms, and keeping our poor race in ignorance, than any thing else. They are more concerned about the cotton bag than they are about souls. They pretend, when they are North, that they would come down here and do any thing for our race in the way of enlightening them; but, instead of this, when they see the cotton bag, they forget all about Christ and Him crucified, and the saving of souls.
Equally concerned with “pretended benefactors of the colored race” who “make lucre the chief idol of their devoted shrine,” Henry M. Turner voiced the not uncommon fear that white missionaries and teachers, by virtue of their color and eagerness to be accepted in the communities in which they worked, might naturally gravitate toward the native whites and be the more easily beguiled by them. For the black missionary, however, as Turner quickly noted, “no sumptuous tables, fine chambers, attractive misses, springy buggies, or swinging carriages” would distract him from his labors, since “he would find his level only among the colored race.” Not only would he gain easier access to the homes and social gatherings of the freedmen but “his influence and personal identification with them would go farther than the white man’s” and he would be more apt to expose and resist schemes which exploited the labor of the freed slaves in the guise of philanthropic enterprise.26
The black missionary moved quickly to exploit a critical advantage he had over his white denominational rivals. He could offer the freedmen an immediate alternative to the white man’s church and