The white man was a secondary consideration in the development of the human race, within the scope of God’s plan, according to the belief of Rev. T.B. Harwood, pastor of the African Methodist Espicopal Church, in a remarkable sermon delivered last evening, before a large congregation.
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation – Acts, XVII:26.
I would not attempt to express my idea of the origin of any race, the speaker said, were it not for the oft-repeated declaration that the white people are and always have been the original superior race, and that they alone have the God-given right to rule. They claim an inherent superiority of moral, social, intellectual and physical development and propensity, and the majority of their able writers do not ascribe their origin to be the work of God, but the outcome of evolution or the result of natural forces.
Convicted by the Bible.
Now, I believe in proving certain things by the aid of biblical testimony. The Bible as we now have it is largely the results of the white man’s literary and historical research and therefore we ought to be willing to allow it to decide this matter, the more so as he has persistently taught the American Negro for years that his color and servitude were accounted for by the curse of Noah upon Caanan: “Thus a servant of servants shall be into his brethren,” as an explanation why the curse lasted so long.
I claim, first, that races, the same as individuals or families, have their day of infancy in ignorance, then power and renown, after which they decline into weakness and eventually pass into oblivion, leaving naught behind but a perishable history of past achievement. But, nevertheless, throughout the whole course of their existence they retain certain characteristics which mark or approve the peculiar individuality of each race. I claim, second, that from the beginning of race history there were no white men prior to the flood, nor perhaps for 1.700 years after it. I shall prove this by physical characteristics. I claim, thirdly, that the record of II. Kings, fifth chapter, 20th to the 27th verses, is historically correct, relative to the entrance of the white people as a race into the history of the world.
The five races.
We have five distinct races of mankind: the white or Caucasian, the red or Indian, the black or Negro, the brown or Malay, and the yellow or Mongolian, of which the text declares according to biblical testimony that of one blood God had made them, and then gives a clear, definite account of the origin of each.
We depend upon the current interpretation of the names Adam and Ham. It is commonly reported that Adam signifies “red earth” and that Ham meant “blacky”, or “darky”. We presume that Adam was of a yellowish complexion, or at least of a very light brown color.
The red man sprang from the brown race and married into the black race, as the black race sprang from the yellow, and both had the brown man for their brother. So the text is true, without straining a brace, that of one blood God hath made all the nations that dwell upon the earth.
Each has its day.
“The yellow race had its day from Adam to the flood. The blacks had their day from the building of Babel to the fall of Nineveh and Babylon. The red man has had his day from Esau’s migration until his acquaintance with the white race. The white race is now having its day. Next will come the brown man’s turn, and the prophecy of unity and harmony in racial religion and social life by Noah will be fulfilled.” (see Gen. 9:26, 27)
Shem was the last of Noah’s children, and Christianity is the last of all revealed religion, and Christ is of the brown race, being a Jew, a descendant of Abraham. I pause to note a significant fact that the red and white races are minor offshoots, designed by God to act as a balance wheel and pivot to his designs for the well being of the original of three races.
We now proceed to determine the origin of the white race. We will first read Leviticus 13:10-13, 20, 30, 37, 42, where we have the actual description of the white man as he exists today. The physical characteristics are first, skin darkish white, reddish white and white, with hair yellow, black or white. These peculiarities of hair are the white man’s greatest proof of unmixed blood in the race. In fact, no other race of people are reddish-white or darkish-white with yellow, golden or auburn hair, except the Caucasian race, and none but they ever have a pure white face and black hair. I thus claim that the original races were not white men in the Caucasian sense of the word. For proof, read Exodus 4:6, 7, then Numbers 12:10 and Leviticus 13:46.
White skin not desirable.
This brings us to the origin of the white race as found in 2 Kings 5. We notice first that a white skin was not a badge of honor, neither was it a condition to be desired in those days, and nobody in the Bible boasts of being white. It is true that Salomon in his songs, 5:10, says “My beloved is white and ruddy;” and David, when a youth, was described as being ruddy and fair. But the word “ruddy” does not mean pure white. And Salomon declares, Songs 1:5, that he himself was black, and as his most notable wife was a black king’s daughter, we presume he knew what he was taking about.
In 2 Kings 5:20, we notice what Gehazi, servant of Elisha said: “As the Lord liveth, I will run after Him and take somewhat of Him.” We introduce Elisha’s curse, which had an immediate effect, and upon Gehazi’s seed, present and future, forever. And he, Gehazi, went out a leper, white as snow.
A race of lepers.
We remark here that this condition now became constitutional or transmissible from parent to child, with the accompanying physical characteristics of hair, found in Leviticus, 1:13-20-30-37. But it was not contagious by mere personal contact, as heretofore.
We pass to II Kings, 7:3, where we gain the first historical account of the white race as a community. Upon examination we discover, Verses 4, 5, 8 and 10, that their actions and conversations tally exactly with Gehazi’s, in reasoning, secrecy and description. We ascertain in 7:1-5, that seven years later Gehazi was accounted an honorable man and a trustworthy historian, sailing under the title of a servant of the man of God. We are naturally to suppose that his progeny increased and became more or less common to the inhabitants of the outlying countries. They were not called white men, but lepers. And the New Testament says Christ healed 10 lepers at one time. This is a second historical account of a white community. Notice that they were always with the people, but not of the people. (See Leviticus 13:3) We read also that Christ in St. Mark, 14:3, once visited and ate and lodged in the home of Simon. That Simon, tradition avers, was the husband of Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus, whom Jesus loved. If this be true it is another link in the chain of evidence as to the white man’s origin and destiny.
The preacher concluded: We sump up one fact thus: That Gehazi was the progenitor of the Caucasian or white race.
