Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
History
Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
The chief, and at present almost the only, newspaper exponent of the
radical Negro point of view is the Boston _Guardian_, published by William
Monroe Trotter. Mr. Trotter is a mulatto who was graduated a few years ago
with high honours from Harvard. His wife, who is active with him in his
work, has so little Negro blood that she would ordinarily pass for white.
Mr. Trotter's father fought in the Civil War and rose to be a lieutenant
in Colonel Hallowell's Massachusetts regiment. He was one of the leaders
of the Negro soldiers who refused to accept $8 a month as servants when
white soldiers received $13. He argued that if a Negro soldier stood up
and stopped a bullet, he was as valuable to the country as the white
soldier. Though his family suffered, he served without pay rather than
accept the money. It was the uncompromising spirit of Garrison and
Phillips.
_A Negro Newspaper of Agitation_
The _Guardian_ is as violent and bitter in some of its denunciations as
the most reactionary white paper in the South. It would have the North
take up arms again and punish the South for its position on the Negro
question! It breathes the spirit of prejudice. Reading it sometimes, I am
reminded of Senator Tillman's speeches. It answers the white publicity
given in the South to black crime against white women by long accounts of
similar crimes of white men. One of its chief points of conflict is the
position of President Roosevelt regarding the Brownsville riot and the
discharge of Negro soldiers; the attack on Roosevelt is unceasing, and in
this viewpoint, at least, it is supported undoubtedly by no small
proportion of the Negroes of the country. Another leading activity is its
fight on Booker T. Washington and his work. Denouncing Washington as a
"notorious and incorrigible Jim Crowist," it says that he "dares to assert
that the best way to get rights is not to oppose their being taken away,
but to get money." Two or three years ago, when Mr. Washington went to
Boston to address a coloured audience in Zion Church, Mr. Trotter and his
friends scattered cayenne pepper on the rostrum and created a disturbance
which broke up the meeting. Mr. Trotter went to jail for the offence. From
the _Guardian_ of September 2d I cut part of the leading editorial which
will show its attitude:
PROPHET OF SLAVERY AND TRAITOR TO RACE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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