Lawson Andrew Scruggs

“ Although deprived of the advantages of even a common school education, that once slave girl became the most remarkable woman this century has produced; a wonder to the philosopher, the philanthropist and sage. A bold defender of the rights of men, a powerful temperance advocate, lecturer, preacher, reformer, and a most profound thinker and reasoner; a poet of no small merit, and in fact a sojourner wherever she found opportunity to do good. The world has indeed had but one Sojourner Truth. ”

“ That old colored woman was so earnest, so fearless and untiring a laborer for her race during the long contest between freedom and slavery that she is known and loved by thousands in every State in the Union. Very black and without much education, she has remarkable faith in God, wonderfully clear perception of moral right and wrong, the most devoted love for the poor and needy, and the most untiring determination to carry forward plans for the amelioration of the condition of her race. ”

“ The well-known and highly respected "Bert Islew" of the Boston Advocate is a remarkable young woman, of whom the race may be exceedingly proud. Pleasing as a writer, stylish as a lady, able as a thinker, fascinating as a speaker and wise as an editor, apt as a scholar, true and reliable as a stenographer and rapid as a typewriter, Miss Lewis, though young, is, nevertheless, destined to become a potent factor in the advance lines of the march of the race towards that higher and more refined plane of civilization to which she is striving, as a leader to carry her followers. ”

“ Can you find one in which you would have the power to do more, be of more real value to your neighbor, your friends and to the world than by rearing your children with such pains and care as to make them real examples to others?
It should be a pleasure as it is your duty to sacrifice, toil and study for the well-being of your children.
Look at the noble men and women we have among us to-day. Ask many of them where the power lies that prompted them to such positions in life, and the answer will be, "I owe it all to my loving, patient, self-sacrificing, forbearing mother."—Ringwood's Journal. ”

“ Nowhere had such a thing as a musical recital ever been heard of until Miss Tilghman went to Montgomery and parents sat and listened to their own children perform in public on the piano, and their hearts swelled with pride as they looked and listened. This young lady is doing a grand and noble work in that city. She has not been without her trials and afflictions in life, but no woman has ever fought through them more nobly and womanly than she. No woman has ever taken a truer stand for the right. ”

“ You have adopted as a fundamental doctrine that all men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights, namely, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You pity England, with her Lords and Commons; Russia, with its Czar and subject, and yet practically acknowledge that you have a people among you of American birth whom you consider by God created for your servants, your inferiors by nature rather than by condition. We would ask also, if not in the land we have enriched with our labor, where would you send us that we may enjoy the civil treatment we ask? ”

“ She felt that the mortality of women is due to their timidity in expressing themselves freely to male physicians, and with this fact in mind, she determined to alleviate their suffering by making herself proficient in medicine, especially to that part which pertained to female ills and their remedies. Like all else she did she threw her whole soul into it, having a private teacher from among the best and most skilled physicians of lyouisville. What woman, who reads this sketch, will take up the work she so nobly began and make the most of it for the good of the race and humanity at large? ”

“ Some years later this same lady told Miss Shoecraft that she never thought she would make a teacher. The gulf between the little washer-woman and a school-mar'm was too great to be bridged by this young colored girl—so thought her once employer. But she has changed her mind since she has seen how much Miss Shoecraft has accomplished by her indomitable will and strength of purpose. These essentials to success are so overshadowed by the womanly graces of our subject that even many of her friends fail at first to note these sterling qualities. ”

“ But the crowning feature of the company is the elocutionist, Miss Hallie Q. Brown. Nothing finer in elocution has been heard in this city, with no exception or reservation in favor of other eminent elocutionists who have appeared in this city. She is capable of touching every chord of emotion, equally effective in pathos and humor. The intonations of her voice are as exquisite as those of an seolian harp, and as melodious as music itself, and in dramatic fervor and power of dramatic expression Miss Brown is inimitable. ”

“ A heart true as steel; a manner without affectation or reserve; at once sincere and direct; a plump, compactly built body, five feet high; a symmetrical head and speaking countenance; eyes which dance with fun, or are eloquent with tender feeling; a musical laugh, a bright, cheery personality that looks determined on the bright side of life; a keen sense of the humorous and ridiculous, yet a nature bubbling over with the milk of human kindness; a shrewed business woman, yet counting no labor too arduous for the comfort of those she loves ”

“ Is that any more than could have been naturally expected of a people who have been from under the yoke of bondage only thirty years, and who came into citizenship in one day more than four millions in number without a dollar and without an established credit for one dollar's worth, or is it possible that the world has so little of the sense of justice or charity for an oppressed people as to expect them en masse to become a perfect people in one-quarter of a century—a thing that no race has ever done? ”

“ She was for forty years a slave in the State of New York. Wholly uneducated, her eloquence is that of Nature, inspired by earnest zeal in her Heaven-appointed mission. She speaks to crowded houses everywhere. Let Rochester give her a cordial reception.
The lecturer is a child of Nature, gifted beyond the common measure, witty, shrewd, sarcastic, with an open, broad honesty of heart and unbounded kindness. Wholly untaught in the schools, she is herself a study for the philosopher, and a wonder to all. ”

“ Miss Shoecraft was a success in every particular. She gained and holds the hearts of her fellow-teachers, the students and friends of the institution. She is, indeed, not only a born and cultivated teacher, but a leader and a commander. She was faithful and competent in any position in which she consented to serve, whether in charge of the whole school, or a class, or laboring for the people in church or Sunday-school. ”

“ Her zeal, keen intellect, kind disposition and general scholarship, all combined, did much to stimulate the writer during those three memorable years to greater effort in study, for it was then that he often had to burn midnight oil in order to come out even with her in the next day classes. She was a student from whom the writer could always, when discouraged, catch new inspiration; a real genius in the class-room, yet gentle, never arrogant, always wearing a pleasant smile, occasionally interrupted by a blush passing over her face. ”

“ Long after this great building, "Jubilee Hall," which is dedicated to their memory, shall have crumbled to dust and shall no longer mark the spot upon which it now rests; long after its present occupants and the Jubilee Singers, who gave it birth, along with this humble author, shall all have returned to their mother, dust, and be no more among the living creatures of earth, still the deeds of this most wonderful company of self-sacrificing singers and ex-slaves will ever live as imperishable monuments to their memory. ”

“ When a man quits his home and goes upon a public street, enters a public car or hotel, we say he becomes one of the public and has no exclusive right of occupancy. He has no right to say that a man tall or short, white or black, shall not receive the same civil treatment as himself. This we call a civil right; and we hold that to be in a car or in the same hotel does not make one man society for another any more than to occupy the same air makes all birds of one feather. ”

“ Flora Batson, known as the greatest colored singer in the world, created such a furore in Old City Hall last evening that before the programme was half through the excitement became so intense that cries of "Bravo!" were heard from all parts of the house. Many people arose to their feet and the applause was uproarious and deafening in its intensity, and not only rounded out the conclusion of selections but broke in spontaneously at every interlude. ”

“ Wherever she has gone there her impress has been left as a pleasant reminder. The honors that have been heaped upon her, a knowledge of her own influence and ability, her excellence as a speaker before the public and as an elocutionist at large, the encomiums of the public press and the voice of the people, have not turned her head. ”

“ Scruggs' demise carried consternation all through the city. While many knew she was sick but few thought that death was so near, and at this writing our beautiful city is buried in sorrow and tears, and our community loses one of its purest and brightest characters and society its purest gem. Not within the writer's memory has the death of a lady cast such gloom and left so many sad hearts. The Church loses one of its most valuable members, society its most earnest worker, and the poor their dearest friend. ”

“ Her mother died early and her father deserted her soon afterwards.
From that time she has been her own bread-winner, and has made her way into prominence over many and great obstacles. Her voice is indeed a delightful chord of fine, mellow sweetness of song. She is temperate, and is a consistent Christian. She has a bright future before her, and if she fails to make herself felt it will certainly be the fault of some one. Her steady onward progress from humble conditions to better in the past bespeak great things for her in the future. ”

“ Would you say to England, France or Ireland, "Though in times of oppression in your countries we have afforded your oppressed an asylum on American soil, strange to say we have a people among us who, because of a color which to us is a badge of inferiority, we cannot suffer equal rights with ourselves, and we would ask you to take them from us, and give them what they ask"? ”

“ Should not those who have capacity and inclination be allowed to receive this higher education? Should not those who have a gift be allowed to develop and to exercise it? If a woman has a message for the world, must she remain dumb? Notwithstanding woman has been hedged in by certain artificial limitations from time almost immemorial, the effort to repress powerful intellect, magnificent genius, because found in her person, has not always been successful. ”

“ Miss DeBaptiste loves literary pursuits, and, although she has many pressing duties, she has not given up this work. She aims to be one of real power of mind and character, with true dignity of soul, not for mere social attainments, but that such might only be the outward expression of inward grace and courtesy. Miss DeBaptiste is one of the progressive young women of the race. She is not only at home in the school-room, but also in social and literary circles as well as at the musical instrument. ”

“ But not satisfied with freedom for herself only, she returned as best she could as many as nineteen times and carried other slaves to the then land of the free, until, besides herself, she had been the guiding star of the east to as many as four hundred human beings from the then land of oppression to the then land of freedom. Was not this remarkable for an uneducated slave to outgeneral all the intelligence of the South in her locality? ”

“ She is not pretty, but plain. * * * Still she is gifted with a beauty of soul which makes her countenance agreeable in conversation; and in singing, especially when her social nature is called into activity, there is a grace and beauty in her manner which soon make those unaccustomed to her race forget all but the melody. * * * Nature has done more for Miss Greenfield than any musical prodigy we have ever met, and art has marred her execution less. ”

“ To develop along all the diverging and converging lines that take their beginning in the comprehensive word "education" it becomes necessary for us to sometimes turn aside, as others have done, from the ordinary school-room to the workshop, where we may train the eye and the hand to a skillful use of the implements of industry and thrift; and at the same time broaden and sharpen the intellect in original thought and description by the use of the chisel and the brush.
The Afro-American sculptress is an infallible proof of the possibilities of the race along this line. ”

“ As teachers they have shown that spirit of hardy endurance, combined with patient self-sacrifice, from which springs heroic deeds; and by it they have helped to lay the foundations of a harmonious race development deep and strong, upon which the youths of to-day and of succeeding generations must place the superstructure. Necessity is the mother of invention, and applying the implied principle to the urgent necessities of our case "in equity," these teachers, instinctively, as it were, early adopted the tenets of the New Education as the most rational if not a royal road to knowledge. ”

“ The writer delights to think of her as he knew her, a pure and faithful Christian woman. We cannot lay hands upon any creditable statements as to her real work as a missionary apart from that already referred to, but knowing her as we did, we are confident that it was all well done, kindly and freely done, with willing hands and heart.
In her death the mission has lost a vigorous and energetic worker. How her place will be filled we know not, nor by whom, but some good seeds have been sown that may yet make our hearts glad with the sight of a fruitful harvest. ”

“ Doubtless a short sketch of her life will be an incentive to girls who may find themselves surrounded by difficulties that rise as walls of adamant between them and long-cherished desires. Her hio-hest aim in life was to get a thorough education, and then touch the sleeping heart of the masses and set it throbbing with a newer and a better life. ”