INTRODUCTION CONTINUED – 6

(CONTINUED FROM 7/20/24)

Dr. Simmons, in his modesty, does not claim for this work any special literary excellence, but his aim is simply to embalm in some place the lives of these men for future historians, who may take isolated cases and do justice to each. He also wishes to inspire the youth of the land, giving the many trials through which these men have had to pass, and have them further influenced by the great degree of promotion which has been granted to them. His talents, developed by cultivation, are also enriched by the love of God and man which reaches beyond the boys of today who are trying to be somebody, to the boys of the future, who will inquire into the deeds and achievements of their fathers. As a man, Dr. Simmons is loyal to his convictions, sympathetic, independent, far sighted, therefore a wise counselor, methodical and liberal. He regards money as a trust from God, to be invested in every cause relative to bettering the condition of his fellow men and advancing the cause of Christ. His hand is shut when those who do not want, come to him; but when the really needy and friendless come to him, it is like a strainer full of holes, letting all he possesses pass through. To friends he is faithful; to enemies he shows a steady resistance, but no aggressiveness.

Thus far, I have sketched a few of the prominent phases in the life of the doctor, more in a biographical outline than in analysis of his true worth, reserving for the conclusion a few facts adumbrated in the preceding remarks.

I regard Dr. Simmons as one of the most replete scholars to his age in the country, for all the invincibility that attached to his boyhood and youthful days, enabling him to triumph over every obstacle that confronted him, still incites him to literary research, so that almost every subject within the circle of learning has been pierced by his intellectual prowess. Yet it could not be expected that a man of his age could be the master of every branch, for such exalted attainments only come by years of laborious application, which a young man has not had time to accomplish. The doctor has a large, symmetrically developed head, elevated in the center at the organ of veneration, with a brain texture of the highest type, attesting marvelous powers, when, even in many instances the head is oblong, but infinitely more so when rightly shaped, thus giving the doctor giant powers to use while employed in ferreting out the deep things of science, philosophy and theology, which will, if the doctor lives fifty years, culminate in making him one of the most mighty men of our race upon the globe.

As has been said of liberty, vigilant application is the price of profound scholarship; and this being the charm of his life, nothing but premature death can avert it. Too many of our young men after reaching literary distinction forget the rock from whence they were hewn, and waist their lives in endeavoring to become white, or expend it in worshiping white gods. But this charge cannot be made against the doctor. He is as true to his race as a needle is to the pole, and no stronger evidence is required than the work that will contain these sketches of eminent colored men. The future historian will ponder these pages, glean their contents as he traces the great men of this age, and wonder at the achievements made by them, in the face of so many environments that militated against them. Negro giants now sleeping in the womb of the future, will come forth an Armada that will defy the powers of earth, trample colored prejudice in the dust, write glory, honor and immortality itself upon the brow of black; frown thunders at race distinctions, fire the citadels of manhood discriminations and burn them to the ground; hurl defiance in the face of our defamers and contemners, and with pens of lightning write up the history of our ancestry, and present them before earth and heaven as no one now ever dream.

When that time comes, as it will, unless God ceases to reign, this work of Dr. Simmons’ will form the foot – base of the mighty superstructure that will be reared with chancel, dome, spire and minaret, to the undying worth, merits and fame of the Negro. The abominable heresies set adrift by pseudo – philosophers, pseudo – scientists, and other figureheads as ignorant as they were mean and low, that the Negro race were naturally inferior, and nothing great could ever be evolved from them, will be remembered in the grand hereafter as the overflowing slag or dross which precedes the incandescent rocks dashed from the volcano’s fiery jaws, while hurtled thunders shook the ground as though the gods were in battle arrayed. The Indian represents the past, the white man the present, but the Negro the future. The Indian is old, decayed and worn out; the whites are in the prime of life and vigor; but the Negro is a boy, a youth at school, a mere apprentice, learning his trade. When the white race reaches decrepitude, as races are periodical as well as worlds, the Negro will have reached his prime, and being in possession of all he has and will acquire from the whites, and his own genius and industry to manufacture more and lift him to a higher civilization, he will stand out the wonder of the ages. The earth will tremble beneath his tread, while nature opens her bosom and pours into his lap her richest treasures. With mystic keys he will unlock her coffers, and her very arcana will divulge the secrets which she never whispered before into inquiring ears. Then, if not before, the name of Dr. Simmons will be as familiar to the millions as that of Herodotus, Josephus, Pliny, Plutarch and other historians enshrined in the gratitude of the world. For him the world will have to look largely for a true narrative of the merits of the men who came upon the tapis at the death of our enslavement, and directed affairs while we were in a transitional state, rather while we were bursting the chrysalis that bound our intellectual and moral pinions, and barred our development until we had thrown off the slave forms, slave ears, slave doubts, as to our ability to live by merit and to claim rank among the more favored of earth.

Little as the common observer may regard it, we men who gather up the fragments of our labors, acts, achievements, sayings, songs, oddities, peculiarities, fun, speeches, lectures, poems, war struggles, bravery, degradation and sufferings, and preserve them for the future, now while they are within reach, will stand out as heroes in the day to come. The future orator, statesman, minister, poet, journalist, ethnologist, as well as the historian, will from these gather materials to build towers heaven – reaching that will monument the grandeur of our race, and still grander struggles that lifted them from the barren plains of the contempt of the world, to the majestic heights that we are destined to scale in God’s Providence. To this book, when Dr. Simmons will be numbered with the dead for centuries, will come the men above described, and others in countless scores, to light their torches, inspire their young, encourage the doubtful, animate the faltering and forward the tide of elevation till the last Negro boy and girl on the globe shall be proud of their color, their hair, their origin and their race.

HENRY M. TURNER.

END OF INTRODUCTION. NEXT FROM MEN OF MARK

HON. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, LL. D.