A Place Called Oakwood

Letters

1—All It Should Be

Date: August 1, 1903
Location: St. Helena, California
Source: Letter 304, 1903
Status: Previously unpublished

Context: Mrs. White writes to nearly discouraged Oakwood workers Brother and Sister C.B. Hughes. Brother Hughes served as a teacher and business manager at Oakwood. The two had quite an influence on the direction the school took, as seen in the contents of this letter.

Dear Brother and Sister Hughes,

I have some things to write to the Huntsville School. PCO 87.1

I am hoping, Brother and Sister Hughes, that you will not become discouraged, but let your persevering, patient efforts continue, line upon line. Now, this school in Huntsville is to be a school that shall have special advantages which it does not have now. Everything must be taken up with a determination to bring in with the studies practical lessons of refinement. There must be colored schools that shall be in buildings a representation of what can be done for the colored people-plain, solid, convenient buildings. PCO 87.2

As far as advantages and surroundings are concerned, every effort should be put forth to make all the advance possible in true, straightforward lines. I felt very much pleased that you could take up a work in a school for the colored and not leave the impression on minds that anything will do for the colored race. This is not the mind and will of God. Let the work be marked with a determination that the whole class of the colored race shall be cared for, particularly to redeem the past as much as possible, leading them to work not in a loose, coarse, slovenly way. PCO 87.3

Now, I would say to all in that school, as managers [and] teachers, reach upward in expectation. While you must do nothing to spoil the colored students and helpers with too much indulgence, but let the white teachers be sure you have them learn to be cleanly and to have good, wholesome, durable clothing. How pleased I was at Vicksburg to see those assembled on the Sabbath dressed in neat, cleanly apparel. Let the Huntsville School be a sample of how all colored schools should be. There are many of the colored race that can and will be gaining an education in preparation to enter the field as teachers. If they see their teachers have encouragement in them, being able to teach them [so] that they may become young men and women who will fill their place in God's plan to become teachers, a great work is done for this depressed race, and their degradation is not of their own creating. God designed no such thing. PCO 87.4

Then let all labor to come back to God's design, and while schools for the white class are having superior advantages, I have a message to bear that a decided influence shall be constantly going forth in Huntsville. As presented to me [it] will make its mark under correct [guidance], kindly but forcibly. I have a message to bear that our white teachers shall encourage the black students in every way possible to have hope of themselves in making this place all it should be, and that it is not the color of the skin that will spoil their record [or] that the Lord will make a special heaven for the whites and another for the blacks. All will receive their reward according to their cleanness of heart. PCO 88.1

If Christ makes the colored race clean and white in the blood of the Lamb, if He clothes them with the garments of His righteousness, they will be honored in the heavenly kingdom as verily as the white, and when the Lord Jesus’ face shall shine upon the righteous black they will shine forth in the very same complexion that Christ has. PCO 88.2

But now, Brother and Sister Hughes, hold fast your courage. We all shall have to be tried to see what material we are of. But I speak to you: Keep your eye single to the glory of God. You are to have a cleanly, uplifting, ennobling faculty to teach the colored people, and they will be what you will make them. There must be no neglect of human beings because of color line. Teach these [that] their souls can be made all white and clean in the blood of the Lamb. PCO 88.3

I have had this matter so presented to me that I would not venture to show that I despised one of these little ones. They need good, wholesome food such as white people have. They may not have been accustomed to it but it will have all the advantages upon brain, bone, and muscles as upon those of the human family whose skin is white. I tell you it is a white, clean heart that is of value with God. Well now, I have said all I will say at this time on this point. PCO 88.4

There are to be schools established in the South for the whites and blacks-separate schools in the South because of the particular prejudice. I will say to every church member, be careful how you keep human minds in a species of slavery because they have a black skin. Will any of you despise the workmanship of God, and depress and trample down those you should try to help up and prepare them through education to have clean, pure souls? We are to call upon all who love God and keep His commandments to unite in Christian Endeavor Societies (even a few in different localities) to see what may be accomplished for the blacks, as a special work God requires to be done. PCO 88.5

The Lord would have His people who love Him to know [that] the converted colored men and women who love God and try to do His will are His property, of as much value in His sight as the white who have not endured the same embarrassments that the colored race have, however educated and talented they may be. Let the white people who ignore the color of the skin be sure to show their appreciation of the same by making their own peace [and] gratitude offerings to God, and by teaching those who are not so highly favored that they will help, that they will restore to them as far as they can what has been lost through the years of privation and slavery. PCO 88.6

But let no Bible-believer think they are doing God service by treating with contempt one who has a colored skin given them of God. They are not responsible for their colored skin. You reproach God. They cannot change or alter their color [even] if they would. The irreligious are prejudiced against color, and they show their ignorance of God's mind and His work by showing contempt to the human race because [of] color. PCO 88.7

Now, I have other words to say. It is not a proper thing to do to be in defense that the white and black shall intermarry, entailing upon their offspring difficulties their children should not be obliged to carry. Be decided on this subject. And let not, considering the prejudice that exists in the Southern field and with many in the Northern field, the colored field [feel] that the color line shall be obliterated. Should this be managed indiscreetly, it would make the work exceedingly hard to manage, and close the door whereby the help should come to the colored race. PCO 89.1

While this is the case existing, we must treat the case judiciously. We need to deal with both parties, white and black, as it is, and act intelligently, with great consideration. We must guard any premature movements, and there should be commencing work where there is the least prejudice, lest that work shall be rudely and abruptly blocked and so treated that there cannot be work done in the places where the white people have created in their own minds and hearts a most decided prejudice against the colored race, and have made their lot so exceedingly hard that oppression and reckless cruelty is the result. And these places, such as Vicksburg and all like unto it, can be worked only by the greatest precautions. Nashville will be a more favorable field (and outpost localities), and yet it is plenty hard enough to get hold. PCO 89.2

The truth should have been proclaimed years ago in the Southern States, from city to city. Health institutions should be arranged in a way that it [the South] will not be so distressingly barren of facilities as in Huntsville. Our people who have a knowledge of how meager were the preparations in some places ought to have done the very things in that locality to raise means to place them in a much more favorable, encouraging situation to work. Why has this not been done? Because of lack of means which they should have had. The Lord has graciously sent Brother and Sister Hughes to that locality, and the softening influence of these workers will put their mold on the work, as it should be in every locality if they have help where work is taken hold of in the South. PCO 89.3

It [Huntsville] is to be an object lesson, and the hope and courage is not to be taken out of the hearts of an abandoned people, but hope is to be inspired by those who have not been educated to consider [that] the colored race will not appreciate the refining, uplifting efforts made in their behalf. It requires patient, earnest, persevering, God-given energy to carry the work forward, step by step, here a little and there a little, and lifting at every step this people to consider that they are not to be treated as if shut up in themselves with no hope of a change in their condition. PCO 89.4

Those who believe Bible truth for this time will consider that there are men to be educated to work for their own colored people as missionaries, and they are not to feel that their sphere of labor must be for the whites, for they are to be educated and trained [to] become missionaries in their own borders. And the very difficulties these people have to contend with, to many of them will seem insurmountable. Yet many will not give up. All who will conscientiously, in the fear of God, set about the work of education of the colored are to be encouraged and helped. PCO 89.5

I mean to devote any book in the future, that will be the most suitable for the school purposes, to sustain the school for colored people. I am to act my part, and I call upon those who have a sense of duty to act your part and show by your works a faith in God and His promises to go forward and lift the banner high and encourage-but not one discouraging word where the work is the most discouraging. Let the workers who have a mind to work be sustained and built up and helped in every way possible. If the white people who have sympathetic hearts will undertake this kind of [work], many will frame excuses why they should not do the work. If others will not [work], do not ease your own conscience by complaints that should never be heard from sanctified lips and from pure hearts who are dependent upon the very same Redeemer that every white and colored soul is dependent upon in order to be saved. PCO 89.6

There is talent in the colored race that will be developed where least expected. [There should be] a softening, subduing influence brought into the school by teachers in all their habits of dress, to be neat and tidy always, because the colored people need this example before them and they are great imitators. PCO 90.1

I am instructed of the Lord that ministers, colored laborers, often are in need of Bible education, to be kind in their own family, and never to practice slavery customs used by slavery masters in harsh speech and their own disorderly habits. Do your best to expect you are to change your own ideas, colored fathers and mothers, if you expect the white to treat you with compassion and sympathy and affection. Put away, ministering colored brethren who have wife and children, your harsh, authoritative practices, for the Lord will not accept your work; but consider “I am now a member of the Lord's family and I am to sample His family in this world in having my lips [and] manners sanctified, my speech without passion. I am not authorized to be a tyrant because I have witnessed so much tyranny in those masters who have considered the slaves were [their] own flesh, heart, mind, soul and body, when God is their Owner.” PCO 90.2

All who shall feel at liberty to practice their ingenuity of torture of the body upon those they call their property [must remember that] the one God who created them will deal with the master as He would with the ignorant slave, for they are through education better able to comprehend God's justice and mercy for all His created subjects. PCO 90.3

The Lord, He is God, and those who shall look on and see families of the colored race exercising taste in dress and refinement of manners should never feel that this is to be rudely dealt with. Never, never, for this shows that the black world of human beings may be cultivated, improved, elevated, ennobled, by change of treatment and change of diet, and everything is to be carried forward with decency and in order. PCO 90.4

Missionaries will be able in the fear of God to help both classes, the colored as well as the Whites that are themselves degraded to a level with the colored race. What injury will it do a White sister to sit in church beside a colored woman? Is her heart washed and made White in the blood of the Lamb? Then why should your hereditary tendencies be cherished after you are sanctified and cleansed, and your colored sister [is] sanctified and cleansed? PCO 90.5

The judgment is so near, when every case will be decided for life and for death, and I will say to the Lord's missionary workers, make up your minds [that] if you are criticized because you will be laborers together with Jesus Christ to educate and train the very ones who need this work done for them, [you will] not let the criticism that shall work be at all trying. PCO 90.6

When men and women will attend to their own soul's salvation, and greatly fear lest a promise being left them any should seem to come short of this great reward, there will be more praying, more watching unto prayer. There will be more sincere, earnest, medical missionary work done than now bears the name. PCO 91.1

How shall we labor? If some of these are preparing to be medical missionaries to conduct, after thorough training, the sanitariums for colored people, give every advantage possible to those who are capable of expressing talents of living carefully, [being] instructed [and] encouraged. If these institutions shall be established and a good work accomplished, talent will tell in this work. PCO 91.2

The assistance of white medical missionaries will be needed in many cases, but the Lord God of Israel will be exalted. White teachers in schools are often essential, and why? Because many of the colored have been accustomed to see the cruelty practiced upon the colored. They have it printed in their own minds [that] they must act as they have seen white masters act, with greatest severity. Can you be surprised at this showing? Does it seem that with all the training they have had in brute force exercised upon them that the class of education of brute force will be entirely eradicated? They will manifest something of the same in church membership. The whole mind will have to be changed by the working, molding influence of the Holy Spirit. And the human mind of a colored person is not particularly different from a white person, and according to their advantages the enemy will work upon human minds to carry out his work of confusion in the minds of the ones who have the best opportunities and do not improve them to the glory of God. PCO 91.3

[In] all the education given in any line to the black class [it] should be ever kept before them by the teacher that they [are] seeking to act their part as the Lord's missionaries to prepare them for a place in the Lord's family above, and the Lord would have them act properly according to His ways, and politely because they are to be the members of the royal family and children of the Lord Jesus Christ, their heavenly King. Keep this before the students every day in your schools, and when you do this you cannot speak harshly to them, neither can you be coarse and rough, because you could not harmonize your actions with the Bible principles. PCO 91.4

Brother and Sister Hughes, I have more, much more, written which I will try to look up and send you, for you need all you can get along this line if you [are to] keep heaven and Christ, who has purchased them with His own blood. I am sure you will impress upon the students to do their very best, for God's eye is upon them. Work as the Lord has specified. They are required to glorify their Redeemer. This you may class [as] a branch of higher education as you advance. I think candidly [that] the [black] leaders are truly determined to do the will of God if they see the meaning of this exemplified in the life and in the character of their teachers. We shall see an excellent work done in the future, after [a] Christlike order. All the time keep before them the neatness and order which is specially to be cultivated by all who shall come into the Lord's heavenly kingdom. Keep [their] minds hopeful that they can be Christians in words, in deportment, and in all service, and you will gain souls. Tell them, oh, tell them, of the love of Jesus, that He taketh away all their sins. PCO 91.5

May the Lord help you, my missionary brother and sister, is my prayer. PCO 91.6

Unabridged