Activities Among Negroes
Acknowledgement is extended to the New York Times for material on "Achievements of Negro Women” from the Women International League for Peace and Freedom and the United States Department of Labor with valuable data concerning Negro labor in the various departments of the United States and a souvenir program and letter of appreciation from Rev. Bishop Gallagher of St. Paul, Minn., concerning the reporting the TRIBUNE of the recent sixth, annual conference of the National Federation of Colored Catholics. I shall in due time give recognition to this valuable data.
RECOGNITION TO WOMEN
The value of the publicity given by the TRIBUNE to the daily proceedings of the National Association of Colored Women when they held their 1926 biennial convention in this city, has in a great measure influenced the recognition of Negro club women of Oakland by the national organization. Last biennial 1928, Mrs. Esther Jones Lee, of Oakland was elected national auditor and this year made a member of an important committee. Word has just come of the appointment of Mrs. Lydia Smith Ward of Oakland, as editor for "National Notes," the official organ of the National Association of Colored Women and their clubs, representing over 60,000 colored club women.
Mrs. Lydia Smith Ward is the wife of Rev. A. M. Ward, pastor of Parks Chapel of this city. She has served as official reporter for the National Association of Colored Women during the biennial convention in 1908, held in Brooklyn; in 1912 at Hampton, Va., and in 1918 in Denver. She made daily reports of their activities to the Brooklyn Eagle. She has the distinction of having served as president, of the Empire State Federation of Colored Women Clubs.
Mrs. Ward was born in Norfolk, and was educated in Hampton Institute, Va. Later she taught for two years in Roanoke and was the first volunteer Y. W. C. A. worker for colored work. She was sent to Kansas City, where she became one of the organizers and founders of the Salone Yates Young Women's Christian Association branch and served as their general secretary for two years, resigning to marry Rev. Ward. She then went to Denver, where she became an organizer and founder of the Phyllis Wheatley Y. W. C. A. branch.
Mrs. Lydia Ward has the added honor of being a member of the Equal Suffrage club of Brooklyn and was one of the 60,000 women to march through the streets of New York singing "Onward Christian Soldiers," in an effort to create public sentiment for Women. Later she became the first Negro woman in the United States to be elected as a delegate to a national political convention. Since coming to California and Oakland she has served for six years as president of the California Conference of the Women's Mite Missionary Society.
RE-ELECT HURSE
A clipping received from the New York Times concerning the Golden Jubilee celebration of the National Negro Baptist convention held in New York stated: "After a four-day deadlock over the election of a president, which threatened to spilt the National Negro Baptist convention of America, Dr. W. Hurse of Kansas City was unanimously re-elected titular head of the convention for the ensuing year at the closing session of the Golden Jubilee celebration held in the Salem Methodist Episcopal church.”
Dr. Hurse's election was effected after the Rev. S. S. Jones of Muskogee, the challenger, withdrew his name. A motion was then made and carried to re-elect Dr. Hurse, who, six months ago succeeded to the presidency following the death of Dr. J. Edmund Wood of Danville, Ky. Dr. Jones was reelected secretary and harmony again reigned. Other officers elected were Rev. G. C. Coleman of Oakland, first vice-president. The following board chairmen were elected: The Rev. G. L. Prince of Denver, educational board; J. P. Robinson of Little Rock, home mission board; the Rev. J. H. Wunn of Fort Worth, foreign mission board, and John Robinson, publishing board. Cincinnati was chosen as the city for the next convention.
FISK UNIVERSITY OPENS
Fisk university, located in Nashville, opened its fifty-seventh school year Friday, September 26, with several new members of the faculty. A. A. Taylor, who acted as dean last year, now becomes dean. Lloyd Coffer, a graduate of lifts college and former worker in Y. M. C. A. in New York City, becomes responsible for personal work with men as assistant to Dean Taylor.
Dr. Charles S. Johnson, who will return about October 1 from investigation in Liberia, will continue his work as head of the department of social science at Fisk. Dr. Homer Morris will head the department of economics. He is a graduate of Earlham college and has his doctors degree from Columbia. He is a Quaker and for 16 years taught at Penn college, Oskaloosa, and at Earlham college. Three years ago he was chosen by the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace to study political conditions in strategic centers in Europe. Previously he had studied in Germany and Russia for the American service committee.
The new head of the department of education is Dr. Harold Smith, a resident of California, a Presbyterian, a graduate of Stanford university and doctor from Columbia. Most of his teaching work has been in China, where he had wide experience in college administrative work and the formation of educational policies for whole provinces. Lloyd Alexander master of arts from the University of Michigan, will assist Dr. Folger in the department of biology. Miss Eulacie Shamberger, a graduate of Fisk and a recent master of arts from Radcliff, will teach English. Miss Henrie Ward, formerly of the West End branch Y. W. C. A. Cincinnati, succeeds Miss Luella Hoover as director of physical education. Miss Alice Simmons, formerly of the Fisk faculty, has returned after studying in Oberlin, to do extension work for the Fisk school of music, fostering choral music in towns near Nashville under a grant of the Juilliard Foundation. Warner Lawson, graduate of Fisk and bachelor of music from Yale, will become professor of piano after studying for the past summer with Schnabel in Berlin.
Many of the faculty and staff are returning after studying during the summer. Miss Edith Baker, instructor in music, studied at Oberlin college; Louis Shores, librarian, taught at McGill university, in Canada; Mrs. Adele Shaw, assistant professor of French, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.
LOCAL NOTES
Rev. Francis J. Van Horne, pastor of First Congregational church of Oakland, and Rev. R. C. Waddell, chairman of the "social service department. Oakland council of churches," have supplied the following news item: "Rev. Harold M. Kingsley of Chicago, Ill., pastor of the Church of the Good Shepherd, an outstanding leader of Negro work, holding the degree of B. D. from Yale university in 1911, having pastored in Rhode Island and other eastern states, and as superintendent of A. M. A. church work in the south, has been enabled to contribute to the solution of the problems arising from the great influx of Negroes in the cities of the north. At Cleveland O., Detroit, and now in Chicago, he has built up large Negro congregations and provided them with adequate church facilities. His present church, which was organized in 1925 with 24 members, according to the Chicago Tribune, has now a membership of 625, with standing room only at most of the services.
"In 1927 he was honored by being elected assistant moderator of the national council of churches. He has become one of the country's foremost leaders in helping the south-born colored person to adjust himself to a new environment. He will speak twice on the program of the Pacific Slope Congress of Congregational churches, to be held in First Congregational church in Berkeley, September 30 - October 1-2. Tuesday evening, September 30, he will speak on 'Exploring New Racial Frontiers' and on Thursday morning, October 2 , he will speak on 'Adventures in Brotherhood.' On Sunday evening, October 6, at 7:30, in the First Congregational church in Oakland, he will open the 'World Friendship Institute.' In his different addresses he will endeavor to set forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it applies to interracial questions."
Dr. Van Horne is extending a cordial invitation to all the Day district colored pastors to attend the Sunday night's meeting or send church representatives hear this outstanding Negro minister. He wishes to further state that they will be welcome to attend any of the other meetings.
The local branch N. A. A. C. P. committee who are sponsoring the bringing to Oakland of the Negro paintings and sculptures are meeting with much cooperation.
