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Greatest Needs of the Negro Race
I HAVE been asked to gi"e my opinion on what I regard as the greatest
need for the further development of the Negro along moral, religious,
intellectual, and industrial lines, and how these are related to ollr youth
and in what order.
In the study of this question I had no
difficulty in arriving at the conclusion
that the religious training of the Negro
is of supreme importance, and in its
relation to other forces and agencies
must occupy first place in his continued
development.
A serious, sincere, and deeply reverent
spirit will obtain from the cuI ture of his
religious nature, and his moral awakening
will naturally follow. He will act in
accordance with the laws of right and
wrong, and put into practical use these
laws as they relate to the paying of
debts, "keeping one's word, honoring
obligations, and in performing all the
general businesses of life.
His moral development is only secondary
in importance. His intellectual
and industrial advancement has long
been considered by many all-sufficient,
and must, to a very large degree, play
an incalculable part in his continued uplift.
He responds to the same elevating
agencies that have produced the civilization
of other races. And what these
agencies have wrought for the whites,
they will have the corresponding effect in producing the same results
for the blacks. And now abideth religious, moral, intellectual, and
industrial forces in our race development, but the greatest of these is
the religious.
I regard a larger number of converted, educated, consecrated leaders
as the greatest need for the further development of the Negro along the
lines indicated.
We need leaders who possess good judgment, large faith, optimistic
spirit, and high moral ideals; leaders whose conception of
honor and dishonor, of probity and righteousness, are on the highest
plane. The qualities that contribute to the making of successful
leaders, be they men 'or women, are needed in every home,
church, Sunday-school, college, or Christian organization throughout
the land.
For some time to come, these are to be the most powerful, as well as
the most available, forums in which race propaganda are to be manufactured
and Christian training crystallized. We want a large number
of leaders who have faith in (;Qd, in themselves, and in others; leaders
who look hopefully to the future.
BISHOP CHARLES H. PffiLLIPS, D.D.
Reaidence: Naahvil1e. Tenn.
Bishop Charles H. Phillips,
D.D.
Colored !t. E. Charch
BISHOP PJnLLIPS presides over the Tennessee,
Texas, East Texas, and VI'est Texas
conferences, and his jurisdiction extends over
portions of New Mexico, Arizona, and Cali-f
. , orwa.
He was born in MilledgeviUe, Ga., January
17, 1858. As a boy, he worked on his
father's farm in . tillllTIer and attended school
during the \\~ltters. He entered Atlanta
University in 1874, and four years later became
a tudent at Walden University, ashville,
Tenn. He gmduated from Walden in
1880 with tlle degree of A.B. He entered
Meharry Medical College at the close of
his work at Walden, and graduated ,vith the
degree of M.D. in 1882.
He was converted in 1874. He joined
the Tennessee Conference of the Colored
Methodist Episcopal Churc!l in 1879; was
president of Lane College, 1884-85; pastor
in Memphis, Washington, and Louisville,
188&--92; presiding elder in Kentucky, 1893;
editor Christian Index, the official organ of
the Colored Methodist Epi copal Church,
1898--1902, and elected bishop 1902.
He has been the recipient of many additional
honors. He was fraternal delegate
to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1886;
delegate from Washington to the World's First Sunday-8chool Convention,
London, 1889; delegate to the Second Ecumenical Conference, Washington,
1891, and the third, London, 1901; fraternal delegate to tlle Methodist Episcopal
General Conference, 1896; and one of the chief participants in the cente.nnial of
the" Mother Zion" Church in New York, in 1896.
As a preac!ler, financier, college president, and a trusted leader among his
people, Bishop J>hillips has an enviable record, In 1907, ,vith three Texas
conferences participating. he raised $11,514, - said to be the largest amount
ever raised under similar conditions by a Negro for education. Bishop PhiUips
has accomplished so Dluch in the cause of the development of Texas College, at
Tyler, Tex., that the trustees in recognition of his work changed the name of the
school to Phillips University.
