James T. Cleland - "Aggrey of Africa" (February 11, 1962)

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-	Let us pray.	0:08
	Let the words of my mouth	0:12
	and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable	0:15
	in thy sight.	0:19
	Oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.	0:21
	Amen.	0:26
	How would you like to plan	0:38
	a calendar	0:42
	for the university service of worship	0:43
	when you had to keep in mind	0:49
	first, the Christian year	0:51
	Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter.	0:55
	Which Sunday?	1:01
	Second, the academic year.	1:03
	Freshmen Sunday,	1:07
	Homecoming, Dad's Day,	1:09
	parent's weekend.	1:13
	Third,	1:16
	the special observances of the national council of churches,	1:18
	Waddled White Communion Sunday,	1:23
	Reformation Sunday,	1:27
	Mother's Day.	1:31
	Now this threefold interest	1:35
	is not an ecclesiastical jigsaw puzzle	1:40
	of merely normal proportions.	1:43
	It's a chronological jigsaw puzzle in three dimensions	1:48
	with one ecclesiastical observance overlaying another.	1:54
	Today is the sixth Sunday in Epiphany.	1:59
	The second Sunday of the second semester	2:04
	and race relations Sunday.	2:08
	It is also for our Catholic brethren,	2:12
	the feast of the apparition of the immaculate Virgin Mary,	2:15
	which recalls her appearing	2:21
	to Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858.	2:23
	Let me say quickly for your relief	2:28
	that we shall concentrate on but one.	2:32
	On race relations Sunday.	2:36
	Now we know the position which our various denominations	2:40
	have officially and practically unanimously	2:45
	taken a top level on this pesky subject.	2:49
	Here is a part of a statement from the recent	2:56
	New Delhi Assembly of the Wattle Council of Churches.	2:59
	Christians should work for justice, equality, acceptance,	3:04
	and community between the races.	3:09
	They should do so	3:13
	within the church and throughout society.	3:15
	Various means may be used for improving the position	3:21
	of group suffering from race discrimination.	3:26
	Conciliation,	3:31
	litigation,	3:33
	legislation,	3:36
	mediation,	3:39
	protest,	3:41
	economic sanctions,	3:43
	and non-violent direct action.	3:46
	That comes from the Wattle Council of Churches.	3:51
	December, New Delhi.	3:54
	We also know that most local congregations in the South	3:58
	and many in the North	4:02
	give this kind of spiritual direction.	4:05
	The silence treatment.	4:09
	The good that we should.	4:13
	We do not.	4:17
	We commit the sin of our mission,	4:21
	which was the kind of sin which really upset our Lord.	4:26
	I just want to see from this pulpit	4:33
	on race relation Sunday.	4:36
	Shall one repeat the texts, which we all know	4:40
	shall once cold under the pretense.	4:47
	That that is being prophetic.	4:51
	Let me tell you a story,	4:56
	a true story.	4:59
	The story of a man,	5:01
	James Amman Kwegyir Aggrey	5:07
	was born on October 18th, 1875	5:11
	at Anomabo, on the Gold Coast.	5:18
	Now Ghana.	5:23
	In West Africa.	5:24
	He was an African of the Africans who never apologized	5:28
	for his color.	5:34
	Why should he?	5:37
	Royal blood ran in his veins	5:40
	all the way from the 11th century.	5:43
	When he was seven years old,	5:49
	he was baptized	5:50
	and then took the Methodist school at Cape Coast.	5:53
	There he was educated and became drunk on learning.	5:59
	Nothing was outside his anxious, avid interest.	6:06
	French, Latin, Psychology, magnetism, electricity.	6:12
	He took as his motto Caesar's.	6:19
	Veni, Vidi, Vici.	6:22
	I came, I saw,	6:24
	I conquered.	6:27
	By the time he was 23,	6:30
	he was Headmaster of the Wesleyan Centenary Memorial School.	6:32
	And he made it the best school on the Gold Coast.	6:37
	And then without any explanation at all.	6:44
	He sailed for New York	6:48
	on July, 1898.	6:52
	He came to Salisbury, North Carolina.	6:57
	To Livingstone College to work for the BA degree.	7:02
	Would you like to know his courses?	7:09
	Freshman year.	7:14
	Greek, Xenophon and Homer.	7:16
	Latin Cicero and Virgil.	7:20
	English, Geometry, and Geography.	7:25
	By the time he graduated in 1902, with honors	7:31
	and at the head of his class.	7:35
	He had read Damascius, Plato, and Aeschylus	7:38
	in Greek.	7:43
	Livy, Horace and Juvenal in Latin,	7:45
	much English literature,	7:51
	much theoretical math and science,	7:54
	much history,	7:57
	some philosophy and political economy.	7:59
	He delivered a Latin salutary at commencement.	8:05
	Having already made the first Greek oration	8:10
	ever heard at the college.	8:13
	I regret to add that he was no athlete,	8:17
	but when he became a member of the faculty.	8:23
	He was treasurer of the athletic association.	8:25
	He was also ordained elder in the Zion Methodist Church.	8:31
	In 1905 he married Ms. Rose Douglas of Portsmouth, Virginia.	8:38
	Now began years of varied and multicolored activity.	8:47
	Professor and registrar of Livingston College in Salisbury,	8:53
	Pastor of two small churches near Salisbury,	8:59
	student during the summers at Columbia university	9:06
	in New York.	9:10
	Where his interests turned to sociology.	9:11
	The amazing thing is that he excelled in all areas.	9:17
	He was a superb speaker to almost any kind of audience.	9:23
	A Negro said of his preaching.	9:28
	"There was always gravy in his sermons.	9:31
	Good solid meat yes, in plenty,	9:36
	but also gravy that made it tasty."	9:39
	He studied Spanish until he could read Don Quixote	9:44
	in the original.	9:49
	He learned Japanese with a Japanese student in New York.	9:52
	In 1922 he graduated MA from Columbia university,	9:57
	gaining honors in six of the eight courses.	10:02
	The following year,	10:06
	he completed the residents and the preliminary examinations	10:07
	for the PhD degree.	10:11
	Then his life was set off in a new direction.	10:15
	So that he never completed the doctorate in philosophy.	10:20
	In November 1919,	10:26
	the trustees of the Phelps Stokes fund,	10:29
	which had already carried out a survey of Negro education	10:33
	in the United States.	10:38
	Were asked to do a similar job in Africa.	10:40
	Aggrey was invited to be a member of the commission.	10:47
	Why was he chosen?	10:54
	His biographer tells us	10:58
	"It was because of his African origin,	11:01
	his mocked ability as an observer,	11:06
	his broad training in sociology and education	11:11
	and his constructive attitude toward the perplexing problems	11:17
	of racial relations."	11:25
	There's no time to tell in detail of the itinerary.	11:28
	Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gold Coast, Nigeria, French Cameroon,	11:32
	Belgian Congo, Angola, South Africa, Natal.	11:38
	The study covered almost 12 months in 1920 and 21.	11:46
	But in 1924,	11:51
	he sailed again on the second Phelp Stokes commission	11:53
	to Abyssinia, Kenya, Uganda,	11:58
	Nyasaland, Rhodesia, and South Africa.	12:02
	Aggrey was the star of the study team.	12:07
	He could make contact with the natives	12:13
	as no white member could.	12:16
	And yet he could interest white hearers	12:18
	as no white member could.	12:23
	He could think.	12:26
	He could speak.	12:29
	He could smile.	12:31
	One settler in East Africa summed up the reaction	12:36
	of most white settlers in east Africa to Aggrey,	12:40
	"the man's a Saint. Damn his color."	12:45
	"The man's a Saint. Damn his color."	12:52
	That is the sentence with which his biography opens.	12:55
	We must now return to his native land to Gold Coast	13:03
	because Aggrey did.	13:06
	In 1924, the foundation stone	13:10
	of the Prince of Wales College was laid at Achimota	13:13
	and Aggrey was appointed assistant vice principal	13:19
	and did more than his share in getting the school going.	13:24
	In May of 1927 he returned to New York	13:30
	to write his PhD thesis,	13:35
	and he died there	13:39
	two months later of meningitis.	13:41
	Memorial services were held for him in New York.	13:46
	Achimota, Accra, Cape coast,	13:50
	Lagos and London.	13:56
	He was buried in Salisbury, North Carolina	14:01
	early in August 1927, age 51.	14:06
	Sir Gordon Guggisberg who had been the governor	14:19
	of the Gold Coast had this to say of Aggrey,	14:22
	"He was the finest interpreter,	14:27
	which the present century has produced	14:30
	of the white man to the black.	14:34
	Of the black man to the white."	14:38
	Of course that was written in 1929.	14:42
	But in the first 30 years of the century,	14:46
	Aggrey was the finest interpreter	14:49
	of the white man to the black	14:52
	and of the black man to the white.	14:54
	In my college days,	14:56
	his name was the name which led all others	14:59
	in the student Christian movement.	15:02
	It meant to us what,	15:06
	who means to you.	15:11
	Who?	15:13
	What goes into the makeup of Aggrey?	15:19
	So that the name becomes an honor	15:24
	to one in Africa,	15:27
	in Great Britain, in the United States.	15:28
	Of course Aggrey was a Christian,	15:31
	but does that tell us very much?	15:34
	He was a serious Christian.	15:39
	He was a committed Christian.	15:42
	He was a working Christian.	15:45
	Yes.	15:48
	The adjectives help.	15:49
	Although his biographer never mentions the fact	15:53
	in so many words.	15:56
	Aggrey seems to me to be two verses	15:59
	of our scripture lesson become flesh.	16:03
	First, John 3, 11, and 18.	16:09
	"For this is the message which you have heard	16:14
	from the beginning	16:17
	that we should love one another	16:20
	and little children, let us not love in word or speech,	16:25
	but in deed and in truth."	16:34
	Dr. Moffitt translates the latter verse.	16:39
	"Dear children, let us put out love,	16:41
	not into words or into talk,	16:46
	but into deeds	16:51
	and make it real."	16:53
	Aggrey lived his faith.	16:58
	He described it so far	17:02
	as his relation with others is concerned	17:03
	in one word.	17:06
	Cooperation.	17:08
	This is the golden word in all his messages.	17:10
	The cooperation of black and white is essential.	17:17
	The white man cannot keep the black in the mud	17:24
	without remaining there himself.	17:28
	He was against amalgamation of the races	17:34
	as he was against conflict.	17:37
	He never apologized for his color.	17:39
	"If I went to heaven and God said,	17:44
	'Aggrey, I'm going to send you back.	17:46
	Would you like to go as a white man?'	17:51
	I should reply 'No.'	17:55
	'Send me back as a black man. Yes, completely black.'	17:58
	And if God should ask why I would reply	18:06
	'because I have work to do as a black man	18:11
	that no white man can do.	18:14
	Please send me back.	18:18
	As black as you can make me.'"	18:21
	He had no illusions of what it meant to be a black man.	18:27
	He once said, "some white people	18:34
	ought to be transformed into Negroes just for a few days.	18:38
	So as to feel what we feel	18:45
	and suffer what we suffer."	18:49
	And yet he expressed his belief in	18:55
	and his confidence in cooperation over and over again	18:58
	in the parable of the piano keys.	19:03
	"You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys,	19:08
	and you can play a tune of sorts on the black keys.	19:15
	But for harmony,	19:22
	you must use both the black and the white."	19:25
	There's no time for me to dwell on the store of facts	19:33
	and opinions and ideas.	19:37
	Which he collected by spending strenuous and long hours	19:40
	pouring over books	19:45
	so that he would have the data	19:48
	to make his decisions and to substantiate his judgment.	19:49
	There is something that should not be forgotten	19:55
	in a University community.	19:58
	There's no time for us to dwell on the very practical,	20:01
	down to earth suggestions he made to his own colored folk	20:05
	to better their conditions.	20:09
	Raise chickens,	20:13
	sell eggs,	20:15
	plant trees and cotton and tobacco.	20:18
	Study home economics,	20:21
	as well as Latin.	20:23
	Aggrey had his feet on the ground,	20:26
	which is where feet to be.	20:30
	But there is time for us to look at	20:35
	and learn from his laughter.	20:37
	Especially his capacity to laugh at himself.	20:42
	When he was being hurt.	20:48
	Such laughter did not come to him naturally,	20:51
	easily.	20:55
	After all the blood of Kings ran in his veins.	20:57
	Insults to his race, cut him to the quick.	21:03
	Especially when they were offered by persons	21:08
	who were hardly his equals.	21:11
	Either intellectually or socially,	21:14
	but he took Jesus seriously.	21:19
	Not merely in turning the other cheek,	21:22
	but in smiling when he did.	21:26
	He summed up this part of the gospel in these words.	21:29
	"Laughing is the way to go through life.	21:34
	It is the positive side of Christ's law of non-resistance."	21:39
	His biographer says of Aggrey,	21:46
	"He rediscovered the ancient Christian virtue of hilarity	21:48
	and Webster defines hilarity as boisterous mercy.	21:57
	Now this capacity for laughter, let me repeat,	22:02
	was an acquired characteristic,	22:05
	etched into his character	22:09
	by his understanding of what it meant	22:11
	to be a follower of the Christ.	22:14
	That took practice and discipline.	22:18
	He writes, "continue to pray for me,	22:23
	I need the prayers of the saints	22:30
	to keep on seeing the joke.	22:34
	As I traveled from colony to colony."	22:38
	Yet he saw the joke	22:42
	and he chuckled over it on a clouded British ship	22:45
	sailing between America and England,	22:49
	he was given a cabin to himself	22:52
	and a table to himself	22:56
	because some of the passengers thought it intolerable	22:59
	to associate with a black man.	23:03
	An acquaintance asked him what he thought about it.	23:06
	"Well," said he. "The jokes on my side,	23:09
	you're packed like sardines in a tin.	23:13
	I have a cabin to myself,	23:17
	a table to myself,	23:20
	a whole steward to myself."	23:23
	Didn't somebody once define this kind of humor as,	23:31
	grace under pressure?	23:35
	Grace under pressure.	23:40
	That was the social gospel,	23:44
	the social aspect of the gospel in parliament in Africa,	23:46
	Greece under pressure in all relations of man to man.	23:51
	Aggrey died in 1927.	24:00
	His biography was written in 1929.	24:05
	I read it then.	24:09
	I read it again last month.	24:12
	There is one tremendous change in circumstances,	24:18
	which Aggrey may have foreseen	24:22
	but which he did not live to see.	24:26
	It is the white man	24:32
	who had better recapture the Christian virtue of hilarity.	24:35
	Whose prayer of supplication had better be that	24:42
	he may see the joke.	24:46
	For changes have come in race relations	24:51
	and greater changes are aborning.	24:55
	Between the Stan pacifism of many of our white brothers	25:00
	and the militant hate of the black Muslims	25:07
	there's room for all kinds of attitudes and maneuvers.	25:11
	Picket lines, boycotts, sit-ins.	25:15
	Even for the mayor's committee on human relations.	25:22
	But what shall we do on this campus?	25:27
	When the token desegregation at the graduate	25:33
	and professional levels becomes real desegregation	25:38
	in all areas of the campus life.	25:44
	It's coming.	25:50
	It has to come for all kinds of reasons.	25:52
	The latest issue of Sports Illustrated has this comment	25:58
	under the column, headed the inside track.	26:02
	That's one sentence.	26:04
	"The University of Maryland will award some football	26:07
	and basketball scholarships to Negro athletes this fall	26:12
	thus integrating the Atlantic coast conference."	26:17
	Period.	26:22
	One sentence.	26:23
	But the problem is this.	26:28
	How shall we,	26:29
	as followers of the Christ,	26:31
	transform desegregation into integration?	26:35
	What shall we say,	26:42
	what shall we ask for in sororities and fraternities?	26:46
	Oh, I can speak to this point	26:51
	because my own chapter was expelled	26:54
	from the national fraternity	26:58
	because it admitted a Negro,	27:00
	but for the grace of God,	27:04
	it had both financial backing and a the sense of humor.	27:05
	And that's a good combination.	27:10
	(audience laughs)	27:13
	It's got something to do	27:15
	with the doctrine of the incarnation.	27:16
	Phi Kappa Si, throw it out.	27:20
	Do you know what they did?	27:24
	They went out 100% including alumni	27:27
	and they renamed themselves,	27:32
	Phi Alpha Si	27:33
	and called themselves Phi Si.	27:35
	Simple as that,	27:38
	just go to name as row dammit row.	27:39
	You got me thinking.	27:42
	(audience laughs)	27:44
	And one of my Phi Si brethren down here said,	27:46
	"sir, I don't mind them being thrown out.	27:48
	I object to the reason they were thrown out."	27:51
	I said, "I never knew the reason they were thrown out."	27:53
	He said "they were officially thrown out	27:55
	for un-fraternal conduct."	27:57
	(laughs)	27:59
	Because they admitted a Negro.	28:00
	I said, "what would you call it?"	28:02
	He said, "I'd call it over-fraternal conduct."	28:03
	(audience laughs)	28:05
	All right, what will we do someday.	28:07
	Hm?	28:09
	(indistinct)	28:10
	For that part,	28:11
	what will we do in the YMCA?	28:12
	What will we do in the YWCA?	28:15
	What should we do in the cafeterias?	28:20
	In the dormitory?	28:24
	Does all faith	28:28
	have something to say about cooperation,	28:29
	about mediation,	28:33
	about seeing the joke about the humor	28:35
	which is grace under pressure?	28:40
	The biography of Aggrey	28:46
	is dedicated to the Aggreys that shall be.	28:49
	Will the next Aggrey be white?	28:56
	Would he make the kind of dent on coming student generations	29:01
	that Aggrey did on mine?	29:07
	Will he be from Duke?	29:11
	Shortly after Aggrey's death,	29:18
	the Prince of Wales College in Achimota	29:22
	decided that it needed a shield	29:26
	with a coat of arms.	29:29
	Two members of the faculty designed it.	29:35
	It is utterly simple.	29:40
	All it does is to reproduce	29:45
	part of the keyboard of a piano.	29:47
	Showing both white keys and black keys.	29:53
	Thus is Aggrey, pictorially and vividly remembered.	30:00
	For while we can play some sort of a tune on the white keys	30:07
	and some sort of a tune on the black,	30:13
	it requires both for harmony.	30:17
	For God seems to have meant it that way.	30:22
	Do we believe it?	30:29
	Do we really believe it?	30:34
	Let us pray.	30:44
	Almighty God who has given us the Saints	30:50
	to make thyself and thy will known to man.	30:53
	Inspire, embarrass, harry,	30:58
	transform us into followers of thy sun.	31:05
	That we may join hands now with all thy children.	31:09
	Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord	31:14
	and may the blessing of the Lord	31:18
	come upon you abundantly.	31:20
	May it keep you strong and tranquil	31:23
	in the truth of his promises	31:25
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	31:28

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Aggrey of Africa" (February 11, 1962)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4v120n1x

Date:

February 11, 1962

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0173
ref5550_0fc
uachapelsermaud
duke:628556
dcrau002186
ark:/87924/r4v120n1x
b91133dc-5d7a-4873-9440-5d4d0aa1a374

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James T. Cleland - "Aggrey of Africa" (February 11, 1962)

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