From Our Brooklyn Correspondent.

My Dear Douglass:—When a boy, nothing to me was more refreshing than to wade the stream that passed in gentle ripples, near by the home of my childhood.

At Summer eve, or morn—or—when—
Upon the strength of day, reclined the [illegible] hours.

It was equally refreshing, even at this day of life, to wade, last week, through some two columns, nearly, of my neighbor Communipaw'sSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. cogitations, in your paper, tending to show that a determined man, now matter how low his condition, or what his color, despite all opposition, may, if he persevere, raise himself up to the highest niche in the profession he marks out for himself; and, at the same time, have not only a name and a praise among men, but something more substantial for himself and children. I own, I labored, but failed to show it so conclusively as he has done; and all who are anxious about our welfare, as I am, heartily thank him for it.

As I, my dear sir, proposed in the outset, to Crayon for you and your numerous subscribers, with a charcoal, Africo-America: giving a faithful picture, with all its lights and shades. I am, upon the whole, rather pleased with neighbor Communipaw's "Heads of the Blacks, with a white wash brush," since it leaves me free to sketch more faithfully their HANDS, and HOMES, and HEARTS, as time and occasion present themselves for so doing. * * * * *

Encased in my best coat (not blue) and pants, and gloves, I crossed over to Gotham the other Sunday to attend worship at St. Philip's Church. Old St. Philip's!!! As I entered her portals, the atmosphere seemed cold and strange; and as I stood in the aisle, and one after another swift[l]y passed by me, none recognized me. I listened but heard not, as once, the short quick step of the little old man, as his goose-quilled shoes squeakingly glided up the aisle, announcing, by their presence, to everybody, that "meeting was now in." He was not there!!! And as I bowed my head in silence, I heard a voice; but oh! it was not the meek and heavenly voice of the Rev. Peter Williams; it was another's, whose feet were occupying that place, where, for so may years, that venerable father so faithfully proclaimed the gospel of Christ to his flock. I looked, and lo!! it was a white man!!! a dictator sent to dictate to his flock; and he did dictate: an they, I fear, alas! have learned too well how to sub-

missively obey. Why is this? Where is Bery? Where the talented Cromwell? Would any black man have dared to utter an hundredth part of what this white man has, upon a matter so vital to the people of color, and have retained that pulpit a day, or even an hour? Would he have dared to utter such language, and found New York sufficiently large for his trembling feet twenty-four hours? How is it, then, that blacks will submit to so much from whites, and hear nothing from one of themselves, even though it be proper? A colored man, whose pretension to respectability is about equal to most of ours, informed me the other day, that it was his solemn conviction, that it was highly improper for blacks to employ whites in menial stations, such as servants, &c., while they ought to fill all important stations among us, such as preaching, and in otherwise overseeing, &c.; or in other words, we should look up to them solely for all these things, and they should look down to, and hand to us such as they think proper, and at such times as they think mete. The idea with him, of receiving instruction from black lips, no matter how valuable, was not to be thought of; or a black head "wagging in a pulpit," was scarcely to be endured; or the feeling a pulse with shady fingers, or attending to our law cases, by a limb of the law encased in colored skin, to him was monstrous; and I am not sure that there are not more in this region, of the same opinion; nay, not very certain that it's not in consonance with "the feelings" of many, the growing fashionable idea of the day, among us, however singular it may seem when on paper.

Confidence, my dear sir, in our own capacities, is one of the ingredients needed in our composition for the moulding of us into the proper shape for progress; and Ethiop's opinion is, (all things considered,) that it will be the proper time for white men to preach to, and teach the blacks, when black men can be permitted to preach to, and teach the whites. Till then, the matter is exceedingly lopsided, resembling very much the handle of a jug, and fraught with much evil. * * * * But to return to St. Philips's. The Rev. Peter Williams was not there. Neither the shrill Tenor, fine Alto, nor the rich, full round Bass, mingling in harmony with the pealing notes of the well-played organ, came to my ear as was their wont in days that are passed; nor yet the sharp voice, leading in prayer, or ringing out in response high above the [roof.] A-A-m-e-n, as the little old man, with intelligent face and [illegible], would look up, and his fine countenance gleam out through his huge glasses—he, (counterpart of him of the goose-quilled shoes,) he was not there. My eyes ran around the pews for others I once knew, but I saw them not; and then came the thought that they were gone! all gone! and then stole the silent tear down my face. I looked for some relief of the past, and could find but the old hanging chandeliers. I lingered long in the aisle for some one to show me a [illegible]; but none came. I was but an indifferent looking stranger. True, one of the present dignitaries, who ought to have

recognized me much better than I did the old hanging chandeliers, cast on me an inquiring, but hurried glance, and passed on. As my eyes ran round the wall, I discovered on either side of the pulpit projected a tablet of marble. From the remote seat into which I had groped my way, I could make out only that one was in memory of the lamented Isaiah G. DeGrasse, and the other, a medallion of the once beloved and faithful pastor, Peter Williams, whose mild face, when on earth, beamed so much of heaven, seemed still to beam out from the cold marble, rebuking the teachings that now emanate from his once-beloved desk. My feet long lingered after the stately congregation had passed out. Finding my way at length to the street, with a sigh I looked back upon poor old St. Philip's,

And then again the silent tear
Stole stealthily down my rigid cheek
First one by one, and then they came
Both thick and fast, though silent still.

'Twas here, in old St. Philip's, I heard my first sermon when first I came to Gotham. 'Twas here I first saw one whose shadow ever walketh by my side; and from hence, with a heavy heart, I now wended my way to my quiet home.

Yours truly,

EthiopWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. .

Brooklyn Heights, May 1st, 1852.