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
I heard innumerable stories from both white people and Negroes of
encounters in the street cars. Dr. W. F. Penn, one of the foremost Negro
physicians of the city, himself partly white, a graduate of Yale College,
told me of one occasion in which he entered a car and found there Mrs.
Crogman, wife of the coloured president of Clark University. Mrs. Crogman
is a mulatto so light of complexion as to be practically undistinguishable
from white people. Dr. Penn, who knew her well, sat down beside her and
began talking. A white man who occupied a seat in front with his wife
turned and said:
"Here, you nigger, get out of that seat. What do you mean by sitting down
with a white woman?"
Dr. Penn replied somewhat angrily:
"It's come to a pretty pass when a coloured man cannot sit with a woman of
his own race in his own part of the car."
The white man turned to his wife and said:
"Here, take these bundles. I'm going to thrash that nigger."
In half a minute the car was in an uproar, the two men struggling.
Fortunately the conductor and motorman were quickly at hand, and Dr. Penn
slipped off the car.
Conditions on the railroad trains, while not resulting so often in
personal encounters, are also the cause of constant irritation. When I
came South, I took particular pains to observe the arrangement on the
trains. In some cases Negroes are given entire cars at the front of the
train, at other times they occupy the rear end of a combination coach and
baggage car, which is used in the North as a smoking compartment. The
complaint here is that, while the Negro is required to pay first-class
fare, he is provided with second-class accommodations. Well-to-do Negroes
who can afford to travel, also complain that they are not permitted to
engage sleeping-car berths. Booker T. Washington usually takes a
compartment where he is entirely cut off from the white passengers. Some
other Negroes do the same thing, although they are often refused even this
expensive privilege. Railroad officials with whom I talked, and it is
important to hear what they say, said that it was not only a question of
public opinion--which was absolutely opposed to any intermingling of the
races in the cars--but that Negro travel in most places was small compared
with white travel, that the ordinary Negro was unclean and careless, and
that it was impractical to furnish them the same accommodations, even
though it did come hard on a few educated Negroes. They said that when
there was a delegation of Negroes, enough to fill an entire sleeping car,
they could always get accommodations. All of which gives a glimpse of the
enormous difficulties accompanying the separation of the races in the
South.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account