Note:

  The reason that preachers in church No. 2 cannot last is because they are not prepared right under the spirit, so they cannot stand; but the people in church No. 1 come on under deep teaching and are bound to prevail.

  Communicant Mrs. Izora Robinson

  “I have one son, Willie R. Robinson, 13 years old. When I got converted, I felt the change. Reverend Mazon preached a wonderful sermon, describing how a sinner stood before God. So I decided to pray. My sister prayed too. I was hindered because my father did not want me to join the A.M.E. Church, where I wanted to join. My father was a M.E. Church member.24 I don’t remember how old I was.

  “So I got crossed and wouldn’t pray till three years later. Then I had a dream. The Lord showed me in a dream my condition. He showed me that if I died, then I would have been lost. He showed me a vision.

  “There were two men that I knew that was chained down in a dark house. I stood at the door and watched them and they grabbed me and dragged me on my stomach on those mow teeth (mowing machine blades) but did not tear my skin. It just hurt. But I managed to get loose and run and I got away from them. They ran after me but I got away. So that dream caused me to start to pray.

  “I told my ma the dream. She told me I was old enough to pray for my ownself. I went to church and give my hand to Reverend W. M. Stony. He told me to pray. Next night I went out in the garden to pray and I felt the change. I went away in spirit and when I came back, I was light as a feather (ecstasy, glory Jesus). I felt the change but I didn’t hear the voice as I had heard others say they heard. (Period of silent Ecstasy.)

  “I prayed on. Then I told the pastor and he said I was done converted because he felt me. I could sing, felt good, felt like shouting, but I missed the voice that I expected.

  “I was received in the church and was baptized. I had several travels in spirit after that. Every time I got slack in praying the Lord would warn me. I would see myself either playing around dangerous water or falling through bridges, etc. One time He showed me again. It seems I went in a big building,—the farthest one to the north—of pretty buildings. At the end of that street there was a deep well, one hundred feet or more. I went and peep in that well and there were wheels turning in that well; no water but black grease. And the wheel was turning and the people were hollering: ‘This is Hell.’ You could hear the big wheel turning like machinery. I went in [a] gray building and [a] white woman was there teaching a whole lot of colored children. I ran to another house, a pink shell building, and in that building a man was in an office. He had naked pretty men laying down on shelves on the wall. It was a pretty place. Something attractive! I ran to go out. That man who was in the office had two little horns on his head and they started to growing larger. He said: ‘I am the Devil.’ And he told the boys to ‘Shoot after her! Catch her!’ But I got away and ran towards the east.

  “I ran to a new fence gate. (Dogs began to pursue her after she left shell building.) Just as I got there, the pursuing dogs got there. But I got through and closed the gate. They opened the gate and came on behind me. When I got to the third gate, the dogs couldn’t come no further. They had been running me all night long.

  “It was now a pretty sunshine morning and I was led on to a big old beautiful white building. With everything glistening I ran up long white steps from the east side and they led right to a window with curtains. Then a lady invited me in and dressed me. She had to dress me and she showed me different parts. I said: ‘How lovely.’ It was a little child called coopid (cupid) following me everywhere. The lady dressed me and put me on a long white pretty dress, and everywhere the rooms were cut off by curtains and the winds blew and the curtains just waved gently. How pretty! How pretty! And then I wake up. I don’t remember leaving that place.”

  (MRS. ROBINSON’S EXPERIENCE WHEN SHE CAME TO HOLINESS)

  “I was teaching school at Crocketville, South Carolina, in 1922. I came to Beaufort on a visit on the 3rd Saturday in January and went to my brother’s house on King Street. He told me about sanctification. First, my sister told me about it, whose name is Isadora Ford. She told me it was right and I ought to get it. She said that she believed that I would get it. My brother got the Bible and wanted to read to me. I wouldn’t let him. I said: ‘No!’ I said that if I was wrong God would show me. I went back to my work on Monday (Crocketville).

  “A man came to me before day. I knowed it was Jesus, long white hair—. It seemed like an avenue opened up from the east, just like the morning before the sunrise. He come. He wasn’t taking a step—He come gliding along. I was laying in the bed and He come touch me on my left arm. He said to me: ‘You are wrong.’ He pointed after me (gesture), and said: ‘There is more for you to get. When you go back let your brother tell you.’

  “I got up that morning and told the lady I was boarding with. She said: ‘Well, honey, that’s right. You let Him tell you.’

  “When my school closed I came home to my mother, Pleasant Green. She and my brother Charles were fixing to go to Charleston to a convocation under Elder P.S. Jenkins. So when she come back home that next week, she come back praising God. She got out of the back (also brother George). She was giving God the praise. She said she had been in church for thirty-odd years, but didn’t know that there was more for her to get until now. She said it was just as much difference in being sanctified as it was in a sinner life and a converted life. I stood still—couldn’t move out of my track—just the same as a gun had shot me. I went over what the man told to me in the spirit. If Mother just find there was more, there was more for me.

  “I started to church on Sunday. Brother told us to come by after we go to our church. I went instead to [a] sanctified church and found myself on my knees. After he read the Bible and explained, and after I read too, I saw my shortcomings. So I went down to seek for [the] Holy Ghost. That was in April.

  “So I seek right on and on, working too with wicked people. I could not consecrate my mind to the service. Brother sent for some saints, Elder R. D. Jamison, his wife and sister Ellen Bailey. Then I didn’t get sanctified. I seek right on. In July I was working at the tomato factor (factory). Still the girls would tease me, so I decided to give up work. I went to Walterboro.

  “Reverend Jamison run a meeting for me special, and on the third Monday night in August 1922, I got sanctified. I was saying hallelujah and everything went black. When that power strikes you, you get cold all over and you forget everything you were thinking about. Your mouth gets open but you can’t say nothing.

  “I seeked on for [the] Holy Ghost. A man come to me in the spirit. It seem to me like it was an old Jew preacher and he brought a book look like a 5th grade geography and he told me to take that book and study it. I said: ‘No. I done finished that book.’ He told me: ‘That’s all right. You just take it and study it.’ I took it out of his hand and I told him: ‘You begin this book in the 4th grade and go to page 49. And you go from 49 and finish the book in the 5th grade. Then you take up the commercial complete geography in the 6th grade. Why I done finished this book a long time.’ He told me again that it was all right and for me to take it. He pulled out a paper from the book written in blue large letters. In print was ‘P R O G R A M’ and it had a little set of scratches like a child learning to write but you couldn’t understand it. He said: ‘I must finish that book’ (which there was no printing in it. There was nothing but relief maps). He said he would then have me to fill that blank out. ‘Then you will be alright,’ he said. I took the book out of his hand and put it under my arm and he vanished away.

  “Then I told the sisters and the Elder that I was going back home. ‘I’m not going to get the Holy Ghost now,’ I said. (She went into ecstasy and said: ‘Give me witness. They know I’m telling the truth.’) Some of them said: ‘Oh yes you will!’ I said: ‘No, I’m not going to get it now. There is more work for me to do.’ And Sister Irene Lockwood said: ‘You sure a man tell you that?’ I said: ‘Yes.’ Then she said: ‘No, you won’t get it now.’ Some said: ‘Look here sister, you mustn’t know so much.’ I said: ‘No, but I won’t get it now.’

  “All the desire to seek had done leff me. I wanted to go back home. I came back home and seek off and on, but Brother was not keeping the commandment yet. He was discouraged.

  “But on the 4th Sunday in June, 1925 (I was keeping the commandment then) I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. My brother George came from the meeting with some saints from Florida (Sally Johnson and Sister Clara Goodwin). They came in that day I was in the bed sick with a fever. They came to pray with me. Brother stopped praying and went to seeking—calling Jesus, and I begin to call Jesus too and that’s how I get the Holy Ghost. I wasn’t calling Jesus ten minutes before I was gone away in the spirit.

  “I went to the east under beautiful shade trees and the green was like a carpet on the ground. There was a band of people. They all had different musical instruments. All was standing up and all was small children. I was a child myself. There was no grown folks at all. All had on khaki suits. I stood outside the ring. The director, he was a man marking time, giving the measures to the music. He just handed me a box (guitar) and didn’t stop beating time. I played it. (Ecstasy—‘Glory, sweet! Better felt than told! Glory!’) I just went to play and went to laughing. Came through in the holiness, laughing and shouting in the bed. That was the glorious time of my life. That was the day!

  “When I came through there was a huge round head with ‘see-me’ eyes on me and it was just laughing. I come through speaking in tongues. Before, when I opened my mouth nothing would come out, but now the spirit spoke through me as it gave utterance. (Ecstasy—‘Glory, hallelujah! Unknown tongue and see-me eyes.’)”

  Communicant Mr. Hugh Washington (23 years of age)

  “In August 1935 I entered holiness, following the meetings for several years.

  “One day I went to a meeting at Port Royal. There was a great crowd. I always had it in my mind that I was going to seek but I couldn’t date the time. They asked me when I would decide to come in the word. I would track behind him to see if the preacher was telling the truth or not. They sang a song: ‘Most Too Late to Wait on You.’ I loved it. That night, with several more, I got down with my whole mind on God and I seek for several hours. Many things came to my mind about the combats of life, but when they came I stopped and prayed to God to take them away. And when I became earnest in my seeking, the burden of sin rolled away. I got happy and felt new all over, but I didn’t stop seeking. I seeked right on.

  “When I was seeking it, it seemed as if the spirit was tapping me on my shoulders. Then I was taken away in the power for many hours. I saw the Heavenly hosts. Everything was white and glittery. It was a beautiful city and when I came through (No action, just people), I felt new after that. And I knew I had on my traveling shoes. And I had the evidence of speaking in unknown tongues as the spirit give me utterance. That is the real evidence. (He had been seeking from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.)

  “We have the custom of seeking for higher power every Sabbath. I ask to have things taken away and my mind cleared. Many things are heard and seen. Many times when you talk in unknown tongues you can understand what is said, but nobody else can. If there is an interpretation of the message it is through an interpreter, if there is one in the house. If the spirit is talking directly to me, I understand, but if the word is meant for someone else, I cannot understand it.

  “I always pay strict attention to the prophecy.” (At Port Royal the prophet told Hugh and his pal what they were talking about before they entered church. Also told him that he was going to be a widow etc.) (The prophecy comes at any service, when the power comes on.)

  Hugh has never had an open vision. It has always been closed.

  Communicant Mrs. Hattie Mae Washington (Age—19)

  (OPEN VISION)

  “I had wanted to be sanctified since a small girl. In seeking I saw a large church (in vision) with music. Went in and to [the] altar to be prayed for and I saw myself coming through. I went to shouting and singing. Many evil thoughts came to my mind and I went to crying. They went away and I was rejoicing.

  “Songs that helped me to seek:

  ‘This World Is a Mean World’

  ‘Lead-uh Me On.’

  “After that I begin feeling better and better every time. (When she went to church.) So I sang the song ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’25 The prophet says that I was to be a teacher. I have not had no desire of turning back since I joined October 16, 1939.”

  Communicant Carrie Washington (15 years of age)

  “While I was seeking I saw what looked like a dog in front of a cave. It looked like I saw a man with a shepherd staff. I ax him for the staff and he give it to me and I thanked him. While I was seeking many things come to my mind: dancing, hog meat, card playing, and so forth. I gave them up and I seek and I seek. I don’t know how many hours, but I seek for a long time before I get the power. When I was seeking, I start talking in other tongues and then that same night I kept on talking in other tongues.

  “Some others was seeking the same time I was but they didn’t get it because they seek awhile and then they open their eyes. You have to keep your eyes closed to keep your mind clear and call the name of Jesus monotonously.

  “And you keep on calling until your tongue gets heavy, and that is the time that the other tongues come. You don’t know what you are saying and nobody else knows. The reason you know when the power strikes you is it moves you. You do not move yourself. You can tell when somebody moves themselves because they can’t move as fast as when the spirit move them.

  “You cannot seek in love. You have got to give up love.”

  Communicant Henry Moore (Box 103, Beaufort, S.C.)

  “I was trying to make love to a young woman and I found it just tore me all up. I couldn’t seek and make love. I seeked from 10 a.m. until sundown. There was not a dry thread on me. (Sweat.) After this the spirit of the Lord visited me and uh it appeared to me that someone was speaking behind a curtain, saying: ‘Just steal away and go to another city and seek the Lord, and you’ll receive the baptism of [the] Holy Ghost.’

  “Whilst being under the power the Lord showed me a large field. There was quite a host; I couldn’t mention the numbers. The spirit bid me to go in and tell them and show them what to do. Since that time I have been in holiness.

  “A man came in, opened my mouth and fixed my tongue, and led me to a church and told me to open my services always with a spiritual.”

  Part Two

  On Art and Such

  You Don’t Know Us Negroes

  The decade just past was the oleomargarine era in Negro writing.1 Oleomargarine is the fictionized form of butter. Like the gopher in the Negro folk fables about God, the Devil, and the high land turtle, it will “go for (gopher)” butter.

  Margarine is yellow, it is greasy, it has a taste that paraphrases butter. It even has the word “butter” printed on the label often. In short, it has everything butterish about it except butter.

  And so the writings that made out they were holding a looking-glass to the Negro had everything in them except Negroness. Some of the authors meant well. The favor was in them. They had a willing mind, but too light behind.

  Two hundred and forty-six years of outward submission during slavery time got folks to thinking of us as creatures of tasks alone. When in fact the conflict between what we wanted to do and what we were forced to do intensified our inner life instead of destroying it. We developed [a] turtle shell. So when folks come feeling around they find something smooth and round and simple on the outside. Like the six blind men who felt all over the elephant.2 But if more had been known about us, this mistaken simplicity never would have got abroad.

  So I’m going to take some folks out of the Bible and make a parable so folks can understand and know. Pictures were made before words, and signs before talking.

  Hagar’s Ishmael was yet a lad of a boy when old Sarah pulled her miracle by birthing Isaac.3 It wasn’t proper then no more than it is now for ninety year old ladies to be giving birth to babies. But Sarah wasn’t in a position where manners were apt to seem important to her. The birth of Isaac was like that tree-climbing rabbit in the Uncle Remus tales. She was “Jus’ ’bleeged to do it.”

  Here she was the wife of Abraham, one of the richest men of his time, playing second fiddle to her former handmaiden. And for why? Because the young and luscious Hagar was the mother of a son by Abraham. Sarah never realized how gripping the thing was going to be when she made that arrangement so that her husband might be a father. It took her nearly twelve years to understand what any modern married woman could have told her in a minute. But ’way along she got sensed into the fact that nothing but a baby and a boy baby at that was going to help her case. So Sarah just up and had Isaac in spite of all the odds against it. Nobody knows where old Sarah got Isaac from and I don’t care. We didn’t come here to talk about that old time tale nohow. We aim to talk about Negro writings, and Ishmael, Hagar and Sarah are just stuff to make a parable out of in the case.

  Well, now, if Ishmael had been a man grown when Isaac was born, Isaac never would have become Abraham’s heir. He would have just been another new born baby that nobody ever heard about. Ishmael, as a man, could have defended his rights. But Sarah timed her miracle well. Ishmael was too young and weak to contend for the place that was his by birth right. So Sarah had him declared a bastard and sent out upon the desert to die. There was to be no coming back to dispute her power and prestige.

  II

  And that is just what happened to the po’ Ish of Negro literature. Shoved off into the desert to dry up and die. Before he even got dry behind the ears here come Brer Isaac pushing and shoving. So we have the Margarine Era in Negro writings.

  You see, a lots of folks have never tasted real butter that a cow laid . . . been raised entirely on margarine. If somebody set sure ’nough butter before ’em they’d be just like the little boy from the city slums who was sent to the country for a week. He didn’t like fresh eggs because he said they didn’t have the twang he was used to at home.