rt, Mitchell and H. T.
Johnson. Then, too, there are noted names as magazine
writers--Scarborough, Kelly Miller, D. W. Culp and B. T. Washington
and H. T. Kealing.

The Negro has been a failure nowhere. In war, there stands Toussaint
L'Overture and Maceo; in education, B. T. Washington; in oratory,
Frederick Douglas; in art, H. O. Tanner; in letters, Phyllis Wheatley
and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. These and others like them are our prophets
of the future. Being thus judged by our best men, it doth not yet
appear what we shall be. The Greeks are great in a large measure
because they wrote of themselves. So the Anglo Saxon, and any race for
that matter. The Negro must do the same. His story will not be
adequately told till it is done by himself. The Negro poet, novelist
and historian have a vast wealth of material before them. Every
southern city and plantation are vocal with the past history of our
race. From the past and the present, from our achievements and our
suffering, the Negro writer, whether poet, novelist or historian, will
deliver our message to the world.

SECOND PAPER.

THE NEGRO AS A WRITER.

BY WALTER I. LEWIS.

[Illustration: Prof. W. I. Lewis]

WALTER I. LEWIS.

Walter I. Lewis was born near Chester, S. C. No record
having been kept, it is not possible to determine the date
of his birth. Walter is the third of seven children that
were born to William Charles and Mollie Lewis who were
slaves to a man by the name of W. T. Gilmore.

He successfully passed from the common schools to the
preparatory department of Biddle University.

Walter I. Lewis graduated with the second honor of his class
of five from Biddle University, in Charlotte, N. C., and at
once began his life-work, public school teaching, at
Spartanburg, S. C.

After teaching in that city for three years, two of which he
succeeded in securing a sufficient donation from the Peabody
Fund to have the school term increased from five to nine
months, he accepted an appointment under the Freedmen's
Board of the Presbyterian Church, to take charge of their
parochial school in Columbia, Tenn.

Special inducements were offered him to take a position in
the newly organized graded schools of that city, and he
resigned the parochial school after serving one year, and
accepted work with the graded school. This he found