File:Shadow and light; an autobiography with reminiscences of the last and present century (1902) (14786790423).jpg

Identifier: shadowlightautob00gibb_0 (find matches)
Title: Shadow and light; an autobiography with reminiscences of the last and present century
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar
Subjects: African Americans
Publisher: Washington, D. C.
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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te churches oftheir faith, they met exclusion by cohesion;ignorance by effort for culture, and pov-erty by unflinching self-denial; justice andright harnessed to such a movement, whoshall declare its ultimatum. Out from that blacksmitli shop went aninspiration lifting its votaries to a self-reliance founded on God, a harbinger ofhope to the enslaved. From Allen to Payne, and on and onalong lines of Christian fame, its mission-aries going from triumph to triumph inAmerica, and finally planting its standardon the isles of the sea. A distinct line is ever observable betweencivilization and barbarism, in the regardand reverence for the dead, the increase ofsolicitude is evidence of a peoples advance-ment. Until the year 1848 the colored peo-ple of Philadelphia used the grounds, al-ways limited, in the rear of their churchesfor burial. They necessarily became crowd-ed, with sanitary conditions threatening,without opportunity to fittingly mark andadorn the la^st resting place of their dead.
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SHADOW AND LIGHT. 9. lu the above year G. W. Gaines, J. P.Humphries, and the writer j)urchasecl atar<ct of land on the north side of Lancasterturnpike, in A\est Pliiladelpliia, and wereincorporated under the following act by theLegislature of the State of Pennsylvania:^^An Act to incorporate the Olive CemeteryCompany/ folloAved by the usual reserva-tions and conditions in such cases provided.Among reasons inducing me to refer to thisare, first, to give an idea of the proprietyand progress of the race fifty years ago, andsecondly, for the further and greater rea-sons, as the following will show, that theresult of the project was not only a palla-dium for blessed memor)^ of the dead, butwas the nucleus of a benefaction thnt stillblesses the living. The land was surveyed and laid out inlots and avenues, plans of gothic designwere made for chapel and superintendentsresidence, and contract for constructionwas awarded the writer. The project wasnot entirely an unselfish one, but profitwa

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