ong the west coast of
Africa. Such was the influence the imperial Crummell wielded.

There you have the historic Alexander Crummell, the finished scholar, the
magnetic preacher, the brave, uncompromising idealist, who was dreaded by
imposters and fakirs and time-servers and flunkies. He was one of those
rugged, adamantine spirits, who could stand against the world for a
principle, but he was gracious, courteous, tender and sympathetic withal.
Tall, slender, symmetrical, erect in bearing, with a graceful and elastic
walk, with a refined and aristocratic face that was lighted up by keen
penetrating but kindly eyes, and surrounded by the gray hair and beard
which gave him a venerable appearance, with a rich, ringing, resonant
baritone voice, which had not lost its power even in old age, with an air
of unmistakable good breeding and a conversation that flavored of books
and literature and art, Dr. Crummell was a man that you could never
forget, once you met him or heard him preach. He frequently said that what
the race needed was an educated gentry, and he was himself one of the
finest specimens of that rugged strength, tempered with Christian culture
and a refined benevolence, which was his ideal, that the race has yet
produced. Sprung from the fierce Timene Tribes, who on the west coast of
Africa cut to pieces a British regiment near Sierre Leone several years
ago, he possessed the tireless energy, the untamed spirit and the fearless
daring that made his warrior ancestors dreaded. But like the apostle Paul,
his native strength was mellowed by the Christian religion.

There was an ineffable charm in his conversation. He was a delightful
companion, ever ready in wit and repartee, versatile and resourceful in
debate, with the wide knowledge that is gained by travel and garnered from
many fields of study. He reminded me of Wendell Phillips as an orator,
with the impression of having an immense reserve power behind him; he
could fill a large hall by speaking in his natural conversational voice.
He possessed the same keen Damascus blade of sarcasm when aroused.
Undoubtedly he was the Sir Philip Sidney of the Negro race.

In my chapter upon "The American Negro's Contribution to literature," I
tell how beautifully DuBois in his "Souls of Black Folk" has drawn the
figure of a man, whom I regard in some respects the grandest character of
the Negro race. Read the chapter and read Crummell's book upon "Africa and
America," and then