Newspaper Page Text
The Campus Mirror
3
Upper left—Front and side view of New Jerusalem Baptist Temple at Providence Industrial Mission, Chiradzulie, Nyasaland, Africa. Upper right—
Front row. from left to right: 1. The Builder, Jackson Chiwula: 2. Mr. R. Patterson, Principal of Blantyre Mission Church of Scotland—our friend:
3. Mrs. Flora E. Z. Malekebu. teacher, mother and instructor of girls: 4. Dr. D. S. Malekebu, Contractor, Pastor and Physician. Lower left—The
Primary Children taking physical exercises. Lower right—Congregation marching into the New Jerusalem Baptist Temple on the opening day, Sunday,
September 10, 1933. More than 9,000 people gathered that day.
Africa Contacts with Spelman
(Continued from Page 1)
buildings arose, beautifully planned out by
Dr. I). S. Malekebu. One of these beautiful
buildings is “Spelman Hall,” named sueli
because my beloved ones at Spelman were
the very first ones to send me the first
money of fourteen pounds, English sterling,
which in American currency is one hundred
and twenty dollars. This went a long way
to pay the workers and buy window panes
and furnishings to finish the house. This,
we used for school and church services until
this beautiful New .Jerusalem Baptist Tem
ple was completed and opened on September
10, 1933, as you will see. School also
opened, with more than four to five bundled
students from everywhere enrolled; until up
to date, during our sojourn here, there are
six thousand Christians, men, women, and
children, “clothed and in their right minds.”
Hundreds of these speak and understand
the English language, although English was
not allowed to be taught in this part of
the country before we came. Our work, if
fully written up, would cover several vol
umes of history, which time does not per
mit me to do now. Some day, should the
good Lord open a way for us to return
home, Dr. Malekebu, will no doubt supply
the Literary World with fine, interesting
books on this matter. Now making a long
story short, or rather putting a long history
into a nut-shell, I shall close by saying that
during these eight years or more here, we
have been trying to teach sewing, cooking,
dress-making, literature, Sunday School, B.
Y. P. U., music and everything for the up
lift of human-kind.
I wish here, to thank my beloved ones
at Spelman for the help you gave me in the
years before the great financial depression
set in; it indeed went a long way to feed
and clothe hundreds of suffering people be
sides ourselves The Fttje pictures will
speak for themselves, and this bit of his
tory will be helpful for both the Messenger
and Mirror. Please continue to send them
to me. The beautiful pictures in them are
a great uplift to our boys and girls. They
all express the sincere desire of wishing
they were able to go to America also and
learn “big sense.”
Very sincerely yours,
Flora E. Z. Malekebu.
One of the teachers of the Home Study
Department of Columbia University wrote
to a foreign student correspondent, “I am
thrilled that we are able to carry on our
geometric discussions across the Atlantic.”
We at Spelman are something more than
thrilled proud that Mrs. Malekebu has so
nobly represented Spelman in Africa and
still keeps the lines of interest connected.
Mr. James at Fortnightly
1 lie Negro work songs proved an interest
ing and enjoyable topic to the members and
visitors of Fortnightly as they were dis
cussed by Mr. .Janus, of our Music Depart
ment, last Friday evening at 7:30 in the
Fire-place room of Morgan hall.
Mr. James told us that the Negro was
brought to America for the sole purpose
of working and ever since, he has been
steadily at it, and singing all the while. Tt
does not matter in what situation the Negro
found, and still finds himself, he was able
to translate his feelings into songs.
The types of work songs which Mr. James
spoke about and illustrated were field songs,
river songs, road songs, and street cries.
We shared a number of experiences of
Mr. James and learned what a field hand
meant when he said that he worked from
‘can t to can t, which is: “3 our boss makes
you go to the field so soon in the morning
that you can’t see, and he makes you work
so late at night that you can’t see.” Thus
they worked from “can’t to can’t"; still they
were able to sing and they sang their feel
ings to the boss, especially in the song,
Captain, Look-a Yonder Whar <le Sun Done
Done. His wish was to stop work for the
day; but knowing not to tell his boss, he
simply sang what he wanted him to know.
Iht* men who worked on the river saw
many a cold morning on which they wore
forced to work without complaint. The
roust-a-bouts who had to tie a rope around
their waists and swim to shore in order
that the boat could be drawn in, suffered
untold harm and pain on cold winter morn
ings, yet they were able to sing about it.
"I)is ole river, dis ole river, di> ole river
so cole. Smoke in de stacks afraid to come
out- Ole Jack Frost is doing the round-a
bout—Dis ole river so cole." Imagine a
morning which was so cold that smoke was