A. The Interview Setting
The major portion of Ellen White’s statement and writings on the race issue were made between 1891, when she first began to call attention to the need for work among the blacks, in her Our-Duty-to-the-Colored-People message, and 1908, when she completed the materials for sections of the Testimonies, volume 9, entitled Among the Colored People.EGWUTRW 6.2
As a result of this emphasis, her son, William White, had felt for some time the need to prepare a book that would give Adventists a just and fair picture of the evangelistic work that needed to be done in the “Southern field” (a term generally referring to work among the blacks in the South). It had been more than forty years since the Emancipation Proclamation, and William believed that people would better appreciate the work to be done if a book were available to give a fairly complete overview of the needs. EGWUTRW 6.3
He said he wanted such a book to “give our people a picture of the fields in the Southern states and the work to be done there”; and further, to be the “means of encouraging young people to give themselves to the work” to be done there. He believed that a book like this would help build up the Southern work.EGWUTRW 6.4
As of January, 1895, James Edson White, his brother, was doing a commendable work in the South on the riverboat, Morning Star. But he needed help, and his cry was for more means and more workers. William, like his mother, no doubt realized that the sooner work could be done there, the more lasting and fundamental would be the progress made before the avenues started to close up.EGWUTRW 7.1
For these reasons, and with these burdens on their minds, William White, Percy Magan, and Dores Robinson arranged an interview with Ellen White on Tuesday, April 29, 1907, at Loma Linda, California. They wanted to share their thoughts with her and get her counsel.EGWUTRW 7.2
William explained in his opening comments that every time he would plan to work on such a proposed book, something would come up to throw the plans off. His conclusion as to how to complete such a project was:EGWUTRW 7.3
What we have needed all the time was someone in the South—someone who was in contact with the actual conditions there—to take part in preparing the book by giving a picture of the field.
He saw that need as being filled by Percy Magan, who was then serving as dean of Madison College in the Nashville, Tennessee, area. He summed up his feeling by saying:EGWUTRW 7.4
It seems now as though Brother Magan would help in this work. He has been long enough in that field to know the conditions, and he has access to the writings of the best men there, and it seems to me that he could do the work nicely.
As a result he had invited Percy Magan out to California to help him with the book, to give insight on the planning and re-organizing of the work in the South, and to plan to get before the people “a correct understanding of the work of [the] Madison School.” EGWUTRW 7.5
They tentatively planned to put the book out in sections. Percy Magan was to describe the conditions in the South and then at some point include the counsel that Ellen White had made in regard to the Southern work.EGWUTRW 8.1
In a similar line, Ellen White had said in 1895, twelve years before:EGWUTRW 8.2
The colored people might have been helped with much better prospects of success years ago than now. The work is now tenfold harder than it would have been then.
And again in 1900, seven years previous to this same interview, she said:EGWUTRW 8.3
The Lord is grieved at the indifference manifested by His professed followers toward the ignorant and oppressed colored people. If our people had taken up this work at the close of the Civil War, their faithful labor would have done much to prevent the present condition of suffering and sin.
In Southern Work she restated this same thought (in 1895) and referred to the fact that some work had been done:EGWUTRW 8.4
When freedom was proclaimed to the captives, a favorable time was given in which to establish schools and to teach the people to take care of themselves. Much of this kind of work was done by various denominations, and God honored their work.