[n.b. - page numbers refer to printed text. Available at https://archive.org/details/blackmansburden0000will ] CHAPTER XI Another way in which we helped the people was through the organization of our Black Belt Improvement Society. Our people are great lovers of societies, so much so that a man who does not belong to one is hardly counted. I was not a member of any society until I or- ganized the Black Belt Improvement Society at Utica,— a society similar to the organization that I had originally established in Snow Hill, Alabama. As soon as the doors were opened the colored people flocked in, until almost everybody in the community had been initiated and had “ridden the goat.’”’ But this so- ciety had a serious purpose, for its object was to help the colored people who were at the very bottom of the pit of mental darkness by showing them how to make’a start and build themselves up gradually to the status of prop- erty-owning citizens. The following extracts, taken from its constitution and by-laws, will give some insight as to how it proposed to accomplish its object: “There shall be ten degrees in this society. “(1) Members of the first degree shall be those who have and show a desire to better their condition. “(2) Members of the second degree shall be regularly employed at some occupation. (3) Members of the third degree shall be required to own at least one cow, one mule, or a horse. THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 1a7 “(4) Members of the fourth degree shall possess twelve chickens, two pigs, and a cow, together with an orderly house. ; ‘“(s) Members of the fifth degree shall be required to own live stock and to have purchased land and to be striving to pay for it. (6) Members of the sixth degree shall be required to own at least one acre of land and have erected upon it a neat and comfortable dwelling house. ‘“(7) Members of the seventh degree shall own forty acres of land. “(8) Members of the eighth degree shall own one hun- dred acres of land. ““(g) Members of the ninth degree shall own five hun- dred acres of land. “(10) Members of the tenth degree shall own one thou- sand acres of land and shall possess such other qualifications as the central society may require.” “Any member who is educating a son or daughter in some institution may be permitted to hold the fourth degree, regardless of the other qualifications mentioned. ‘“‘No member is in good standing so long as there is a mortgage on any of his substance.” The following stenographic report, made of Mr. Buck Davis at a recent conference of farmers, will shed some light as to the effect that this new organization has had upon the progress of the people in the community : “Five years ago, while riding along one evening, I hap- pened to meet Mr. Holtzclaw. He stopped me and asked me what did I owe, or whether or not I was in debt. In them times I did not think it was anybody’s business how 138 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN much I owed. I think Mr. Holtzclaw saw how I felt about it, for he said: ‘The reason I ask you is, I want to show you how to get out of debt.’ As I wanted to get out of debt, I then told him I owed $60.60. I had been working as a share tenant for thirty years and had been making big cotton crops every year most of that time, but it had taken all that I made every year to pay my debts and still they was not paid. Mr. Holtzclaw told me that the Black Belt Improvement Company would show me how to get out. I then let them take charge of my affairs. It was not long before I was able to go and hand over to the merchant all the money I owed him. He did not want to take the money at first; said he did not care whether his good customers paid him or not, just so they kept on paying. I stuck to the Black Belt Im- provement Company and attended the farmers’ confer- ences, listening to others tell how they got out! So I worked on, under the direction of the Black Belt Im- provement Society, until now I am on foot and have got started. I feel a little above owing a man now. I feel independent. I was in debt thirty years; now I do not owe any man. I have bought a lot of land on which I have paid $10 and I owe $15 more. Also, I have bought a ten-acre farm plot and have paid $50 on it. I mean to build me a house on the first lot and keep the other for farming. I have dug every nickel I possess out of the ground. I ama member of the Black Belt Improvement Company and a friend to the Utica Institute and I know Mr. Holtzclaw has helped me to become what I am.” This society has grown rapidly; in recent years it has been incorporated by the state of Mississippi, and it is no longer called the Black Belt Improvement Society, but THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 139 The Black Belt Improvement Company, capitalized at $30,000, and it has in its possession several hundred acres of valuable lands, which it is regularly selling to the col- ored people in the vicinity of the school in small tracts upon easy payments. As the school is situated five miles from the town and has no magistrate within easy reach, the Black Belt Im- provement Company established a Community Court of Justice, wholly independent of the state or local courts. This court attends to all the misdemeanors that happen within the Utica Institute colony outside of the school proper. It has grown until it has come to be recognized by all the residents as the tribunal before which they must come, if they disobey the established customs of the community. For instance, one day a resident was accused of having stolen some corn from his neighbor’s crib. His case was promptly called on a Saturday afternoon during the rest hour, and the whole Utica colony,—men, women, and children,—turned out. I was in the judge’s seat, as they have always honored me with that “office.” ‘“‘Law- yers” were appointed on both sides, and the case was thoroughly thrashed out. I charged the jury (we have but five jurymen), who withdrew and after a while re- turned a sealed verdict. When it was opened it read somewhat like this: “We, the jury, find according to the evidence that the defendant, when he left the neighbor’s crib, did have something under his coat like a sack of corn, but we the jury are unable to say that every lump a man has under his coat is of necessity a sack of corn. We, therefore, recommend that the man be discharged with the cost of 140 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN court and warned that hereafter when he leaves a neigh- bor’s crib he should carry his coat on his arm, so that the world can see that he has no corn.” The man was dismissed, and so far as I know no more corn has been reported stolen in the Utica colony. Another case in point was a man who had been re- ported for whipping his wife. After all the evidence was in, and the “lawyers” had made their arguments, the “jury” retired and disagreed. I asked the parties to the controversy if they would be willing to abide by the de- cision of the “judge,” and when they promptly agreed to do so I ordered the man to stand still and let his wife strike him thirty-nine times. This she proceeded to do, and the court adjourned, and no case of wife-beating has come under my notice since. These happenings served in the early years to break the monotony and dispel gloom, and at the same time they taught valuable lessons and created a spirit of gen- eral progress in the right direction. By these methods,— the extension work, the conferences, and the Black Belt Improvement Society,—we have been enabled to get a firm grip on the people, not only in the immediate vicinity of the school, but throughout the two counties in which we labor, and even farther still. In those early days the community was very different from what it is now. The Negroes were constantly “crossing one another’s paths,” so to speak, so that there were every week somewhere in the neighborhood some quarrels to be adjusted. These misunderstandings be- tween neighbors were usually thrashed out in the courts, very often entailing considerable expense on one or the THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 141 other of the parties, and sometimes on both. Once we had succeeded in getting all the people of the community to agree to accept the decision of our local court in all these small matters, it was an easy matter to keep them out of the state and county courts, and in this way to save them a great deal of money,—to say nothing of time. In all these years not one member of the community has failed to keep his pledge to abide by the decision of the local court. At this stage of our work various newspapers and magazines were beginning to take interest in our efforts, and they endorsed from time to time, either in editorials or in articles, the effort we were making. Collier’s Weekly at this time published a strong editorial describ- ing the work in detail as its reporter had gleaned the story on our grounds. Soon after this editorial was published I received a large number of letters from various parts of the country offering assistance, both moral and finan- cial. In this way our efforts were brought, more and more, to public notice. During that same year the Natchez Democrat,—a white Democratic paper published at Natchez, Mississippi,— published in full the story of its own representative. The story gives a pretty clear idea of the situation at this time, and is as follows: _ “Quietly, and without the blowing of a trumpet, Wil- liam H. Holtzclaw, of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, located at Utica, Mississippi, is doing a remark- able work for the uplift of his people in that community. 142 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN From a humble beginning, a few years ago, under the shade of an old oak tree, the Utica Normal and Indus- trial Institute has assumed mammoth proportions. At present (March, 1908) it has on its farm of 1500 acres fourteen buildings, large and small, where more than 400 students are taught the various trades and are given an English education by its faculty of twenty-two teachers. But the good of the school cannot be measured by build- ings and land alone. Its influence upon the people of that community is so remarkable and the possibilities for greater work in the future are so encouraging that the careful observer is compelled to make a mental reserva- tion in favor of the future of the Negro race. “Under the example set by the school authorities, the men of the community seek to have more comfortable homes for their families; the young men, who used to shoot dice within a stone’s throw of the little house used for holding monthly church services, have taken on a more serious air, are less boisterous, and are at least care- ful of their morals. As a direct result of the industrial propaganda, they are content to stay on the farms and thus win competence for themselves and their families instead of flocking to the cities, and the Negroes of the community themselves contribute on an average of fifteen hundred dollars a year to the support of the institution, thus learning the glorious lesson of self-help. “The greater part of the funds necessary to maintain the Institution annually comes from the North, but the white people of the immediate community lend their financial aid and moral support to an astonishing degree. This statement is verified by the names of Bishop Charles B. Galloway, Mr, W. J. Ferguson, President of the Bank THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 143 of Utica, and other leading Mississippi white men. This work is destined to be a factor in the development of the Negro in this state, and by his work and from his public speeches William H. Holtzclaw proves that in matters affecting his race he will make a leader safe and sane.”