History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as CitizensWilliams, George Washington
History
History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens
Williams, George Washington
African Americans -- History; Liberia; Sierra Leone
_Virginia_--Sally Hacker, Richard and John Johnson, Thomas
Stewart, Anthony Paine, Mary Burk, William Hacker, Polly Losours,
Betsy Guin, Lucy Brown.
_Africa_--Nancy Doras.[57]
The constitutions of nearly all the States, statutes, or public
sentiment drove the Negro from the ballot-box, excused him from the
militia, and excluded him from the courts. Although born on the soil,
a soldier in two wars, an industrious, law-abiding _person_, the
Negro, nevertheless, was not regarded as a member of political
society. He was taxed, but enjoyed no representation; was governed by
laws, and yet, had no voice in making the laws.
The doors of nearly all the schools of the entire North were shut in
his face; and the few separate schools accorded him were given
grudgingly. They were usually held in the lecture-room of some Colored
church edifice, or thrust off to one side in a portion of the city or
town toward which aristocratic ambition would never turn. These
schools were generally poorly equipped; and the teachers were either
Colored persons whose opportunities of securing an education had been
poor, or white persons whose mental qualifications would not encourage
them to make an honest living among their own race; there were noble
exceptions.
A deeply rooted prejudice shut the Negro out from the trades. He could
not acquire the art of setting type, civil engineering, building
machinery, house carpentering, or any of the trades. The schools of
medicine, law, and theology were not open to him; and even if he
secured admission into some gentleman's office, or instruction from
some divine, the future gave him no promise. The white wings of hope
were broken in an ineffectual attempt to move against the bitter winds
of persecution, under the dark sky of hate and proscription.
Corporations, churches, theatres, and political parties made the Negro
a subject of official action. If a Negro travelled by stage coach, it
was among the baggage in the "boot," or on top with the driver. If he
were favored with a ride on a street car, it was in a separate car
marked, "_This car for Colored people_." If he journeyed any distance
by rail, he was assigned to the "Jim Crow" car, or "smoker," where
himself and family were subjected to inconvenience, insult, and the
society of the lowest class of white rowdies. If he were hungry and
weary at the end of the journey, there was "no room for him in the
inn," and, like his Master, was assigned a place among the cattle. If
he were so fortunate as to get into a hotel as a servant, bearing the
baggage of his master, he slept in the garret, and took his meals in
the kitchen. It mattered not who the Colored man was--whether it was
Langston, the lawyer, McCune Smith, the physician, or Douglass, the
orator--he found no hotel that would give him accommodations. And
forsooth, if some host had the temerity to admit a Negro to his
dining-room, a dozen white guests would leave the hotel rather than
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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