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    “The Southern Field Is Closing!”

    Did Adventists study these trends? Were they aware of what was happening in their country? Did Ellen White know that the Negro was being betrayed? Did she speak out on the issue? The answer to all of these questions is Yes.EGWCRR 37.1

    Valuable insights into how Seventh-day Adventists viewed these developments are gained from a pamphlet titled An Agitation and an Opportunity, published by the church’s Pacific Press Publishing Association in 1907. 1An Agitation and as opportunity, Ellen G. White Publications Office Document File, No. 42. The author” of this pamphlet is uncertain: it might have been penned by Clarence Crisler. In the scrapbooks he was collecting one finds material very similar to that cited in this pamphlet. Some quotations in the scrapbooks are identical to three in the pamphlet, though they come from different sources. Furthermore, on page 26 of the pamphlet, the author cites the “Proceedings of the Fifth Conference for Education in the South,” a work listed in the bibliography of books from the Ellen G. White File Library in 1915, the year in which she died The pamphlet is a collection of reprints from editorials and articles in Southern newspapers that indicated, according to the view of the pamphlet’s author, thatEGWCRR 37.2

    God ...is staying the progress of the “reactionary movement” for a time, and is making it possible for His people to finish their work of proclaiming the third angel’s message to the Negroes of the South.... The winds of racial strife are being held in a way wondrous to behold. 2Ibid., p. 5

    The author of the pamphlet fully expected that Adventist work in the South would be curtailed by the “reactionary movement.”EGWCRR 37.3

    For several years, it has been recognized by observant men both in the North and in the South, that a “reactionary movement” has been gradually developing and gaining strength. This movement tends toward the more or less complete control of the Negro in educational and religious as well as in civil matters. 3Ibid., p. 3EGWCRR 38.1

    “It has seemed,” the author said, “as if the field would not long remain open for unrestricted effort.” 4Ibid Ellen White voiced virtually the same view. Speaking to the students and teachers of the Madison school in 1909, she said:EGWCRR 38.2

    In past years the colored people have been terribly neglected. The time is coming when we can not easily give them the message. Restrictions will be placed about them to such an extent that it will be next to impossible to reach them; but at the present time this is not the case, and we can go to many places where there are colored people, and can open the Scriptures to their understanding. 5Ellen G. White, Manuscript 15, 1909 (Words of Encouragement to Self-Supporting Workers April 26, 1909)

    The introduction to the pamphlet An Agitation and an Opportunity cites an article by Carl Schurz in McClure’s Magazine of January, 1904, to support the contention about worsening conditions in the South. Schurz said that it could not be denied that there were, in the South, “strenuous advocates of the establishment of some sort of semi-slavery”: and he continued by saying that the articles in Southern newspapers and the speeches of Southern men at the time bore “a striking resemblance to the pro-slavery arguments.” 6Carl Schurz, “Can the South Solve the Negro Problem?” McClure’s Magazine, XXII (January, 1904). pp. 270-272EGWCRR 38.3

    On the other hand—and this is the point of the pamphlets author—Schurz observed that there were “united efforts for education in the South,” and that the crimes committed in peonage cases had been revealed by Southern law officers and rebuked by Southern judges. 7Schurz op. cit., pp. 272-274. “Peonage” is another term for the convict lease system under which prisoners were leased to private corporations. See Woodward, Origins pp. 212-215, for a descriptionEGWCRR 38.4

    These things showed, according to Schurz, “symptoms of moral forces at work.” The whole point of the pamphlet was that these “moral forces” indicated that God was holding back the winds of racial strife. “‘The waters are troubled’”: proclaimed the fine print on the front of the pamphlet, “‘step in, O, step in!’”EGWCRR 39.1

    Bear in mind that the author of this pamphlet looked upon the material he was bringing to light as “favorable.” Yet his materials contained statements such as the following, made by Dr. Ira A. Landrith, of Nashville, to the annual assembly of Northern Presbyterians:EGWCRR 39.2

    The certain remedy, therefore, of all racial ills lies in the direction of good schools and churches—good, but racially separate schools ...and good, but for the best interests of all concerned, racially separate congregations. 8An Agitation, and as Opportunity, p. 7

    In the same speech, Landrith said:EGWCRR 39.3

    The strongest leaders and most upright members of the Negro race are not ambitious for social equality, but are content to be, and to help their people to become, the best examples of what God made of them—Negroes, not white people, nor yet the unwelcome intimates of white people in white homes and schools and churches. 9Ibid

    Commenting favorably upon this speech, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution said:EGWCRR 39.4

    He [Landrith] shows that the dominant leaders of the Negroes have no thought of social equality—an irrevocable premise upon which the plans of both races must be based. But he also indicates the solemn duty of the ruling race. 10Quoted in An Agitation and an Opportunity, p. 9

    The favorable idea in Landrith’s speech was that he advocated education and evangelization for the Negro. A Constitution reader wrote in, commenting on the discussions. He agreed with Landrith, but added: “One of the greatest obstacles is that conscientious white men and women, taking this view, are exposed, by the unthinking, to accusations of ‘Negro-loving,’ and that sort of very undesirable and unjust notoriety.” 11Ibid., p. 10EGWCRR 40.1

    In responding to this letter, the editor begged his readers to ignore the “thoughtless fallacy” that those who were striving to further a solution to the race problem through religion were seeking to “coddle” the Negro. “Anglo-Saxon supremacy is established for all time in America,” he said. And those who dreamed or raged about “social equality” or “Negro domination” dealt with dead and buried issues. 12Ibid., p. 12EGWCRR 40.2

    The implications of this pamphlet seem to be that the “favorable” position was one of wanting to evangelize and educate the Negro, but that it could easily include total acceptance of segregation and white supremacy. Today this looks like racism. Then it looked as though God was holding the winds of strife so that His work could be finished. Certainly education, with white supremacy assumed, would be better than no education, with white supremacy assumed: Evidently the Negro in the first decade of this century was faced with different alternatives from those with which he is faced today.EGWCRR 40.3

    As has already been pointed out, Ellen White observed that it was becoming more and more difficult to work for the Negro. She predicted in 1901 that “the Southern field will be closed, locked up.” 13Ellen G. White, Remarks on “The Southern Work,” General Conference Bulletin, IV (April 25, 1901) p. 482 Ellen White evidently used the terms “the Southern field” and “the Southern work” interchangeably, and she meant by the latter “especially the work for the colored people.” 14Ellen G. White, Remarks on The Southern Work General Conference Bulletin, V (April 14, 1903) p. 202. Confusion had arisen over what she meant by the term, and she made a special point of saying that she used it to refer especially to the work among Negroes (see p. 11) We may assume, then, that she meant that the Adventist work among Negroes in the South would be “closed, locked up.”EGWCRR 41.1

    She made a somewhat similar statement in volume 9, although it is not quite so final in its tone. The volume 9 statement reveals that she probably referred to the opportunity for white laborers to work with the Negro in the South when she said the Southern field would be closed: “There is danger of closing the door so that our white laborers will not be able to work in some places in the South.” 15Testimonies for the Church 9:214EGWCRR 41.2

    Earlier, in 1904, she also mentioned the increasing difficulty of the work:EGWCRR 41.3

    The work in the Southern field should be fifteen years in advance of what it now is. Warning after warning has been given, saying that the time to work the Southern field was fast passing, and that soon this field would be much more difficult to work. It will be more difficult in the future than it is today. 16Ellen G. White, Letter 99, 1904 (to James Edson White, February 25, 1904).

    At least part of this difficulty she had attributed to racial prejudice: “It is more difficult to labor for the people in the South than it is to labor for the heathen in a foreign land, because of the prejudice existing against the colored people.” 17Ellen G. White. Manuscript 24, 1891 (“The Work in the Southern Field”).EGWCRR 41.4

    It is evident that Ellen White was painfully and acutely aware of the rising tide of racial hatred, and this, coupled with the religious prejudice which Adventists faced particularly in the South because of their beliefs about Sunday, did close certain portions of the South to white laborers for a time.EGWCRR 41.5

    Opposition and mob violence closed Edson White’s work around the Yazoo River in Mississippi at the turn of the century. He came out with a special number of the Gospel Herald, saying: “‘But the fields are closing, and what will our record be when presented with our failure to move out in this work while yet we can?’” 18James Edson White, “The Southern Field Closing to the Message, Gospel Herald, II (October, 1900) p. 85EGWCRR 42.1

    In spite of the worsening conditions she observed, Ellen White was also aware that there were evidently some pangs of conscience among national leaders concerning these trends, and she wrote to the Nashville church in 1907:EGWCRR 42.2

    The attention of statesmen is being called to the condition of the colored people, and by some the national laws are being studied in the light of Bible requirements. Ere long we are to have a closer view of the conflict that is before us. The workers in our institutions, the members of our churches, should now be cleansing from their lives every wrong principle, that they may be prepared to meet the emergency when it comes. 19Ellen G. White, Letter 317, 1907 (to Nashville church, September 24, 1907).

    For those who have lived through the 1960’s, these words seem almost a prophecy of the events that have taken place. Statesmen have taken a look at our national laws in the light of Bible requirements, and those laws have been changed. And certainly the latter part of the statement above, about how Adventists should prepare for “the emergency,” is still as applicable today as it ever was.EGWCRR 42.3

    Ellen White and other Adventists saw these events as a threat to their work among the Negroes in the South, and foresaw the possible closing of the work among Negroes as far as white laborers were concerned.EGWCRR 42.4

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