The Colored Girl Beautiful
By E. Azalia Hackley
If each thought out a different plan for race advancement, there would always be followers. Some would be attracted in one way, and others would reach in another way, carrying lines of thought. The gardener aims toward better vegetation. Scrubs and dwarfs are totally sacrificed to produce a more perfect plant. The horse breeder, any animal breeder, and the bird fancier aim to get a better stock breed in each generation.
The cry of the hour is “A better breed of babies.” As it takes several generations to breed a prize winner, it is time for the coloured race to look into these things and prepare for the future coloured child, handicapped as it will be. Nature needs assistance in this. Attractiveness in appearance is a vital factor in success. A pleasing, even, charming personal appearance may be cultivated. The mind—the grey matter—either fills the body with life or beauty or destroys life and beauty, according to the concentration of thought and resulting habits.
If one were to ask, “Can a leopard change its spots,” the reply must always be, “No.” But if one were to ask if the Negro could change his appearance through himself, his willpower, the answer would be “Yes,” because the Negro has a thinking brain. He may become as attractive as he wants to become. As his taste and ideas of beauty conform to the accepted, so will he grow like these ideals and standards.
Read or download Book
E. Azalia Hackley
Born Emma Azalia Smith on June 29, 1867, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she was the daughter of Henry B. and Corilla (Carrilla) Smith.
Biography
Her mother, formerly Corilla Beard, lived in Detroit, and her father was from Murfreesboro. They moved south after their marriage. The daughter of an escaped enslaved person, Corilla founded a school in Murfreesboro for former enslaved people and their children. She gave voice lessons at night. In 1870, the school was threatened and attacked by the Ku Klux Klan and other hostile groups during evening singing lessons. Concerned for the safety of their family, the Smiths moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1870 or the 1870s. Her father was a blacksmith.
Corilla was a teacher and supported herself and the girls after the Smiths separated. Hackley had a younger sister named Marietta. Hackley learned to play the piano at age three and took voice and violin lessons as a child. She was the first African-American student to attend public school there. She sang and played piano at high school dances, contributing to the Smith family’s income. She simultaneously completed her education at Capital High School and a regular school, graduating with honours from the Washington Normal School in 1886. She received a teaching certificate in 1887 and taught at Clinton Elementary School in Detroit from 1894. She continued her voice and violin lessons and took French lessons.
She sang for the Detroit Musical Society. She paid for her lessons by giving piano lessons. Hackley also gave voice recitals. Due to her light skin colour and brown hair, many people suggested she try to pass for white to further her musical career. She refused to deny her heritage and remained intensely proud of her roots.
E. Azalia Hackley
