The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily the Nation Got into an Uproar. — John Shaqi
The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily the Nation Got into an Uproar.Allen, William G., active 1849-1853
History
The American Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily the Nation Got into an Uproar.
Allen, William G., active 1849-1853
Allen, William G., active 1849-1853; Miscegenation -- United States; United States -- Race relations
Knowing the brutal character of prejudice against color, and knowing
also that I was supposed to be about to commit the unpardonable sin, I
confess, that though surprised to learn that the mob intended murder,
yet I was not surprised to learn many of the details which this friend
so kindly gave us.
Mr. Porter suggested that after supper, he and I should retire to a
neighbour's house, he supposing that if the mob should be foiled in
their attempt to get us into their hands, they would, after all, pass
away, and thus the matter blow quietly over. The suggestion, however,
was not carried into effect; for we had scarcely finished tea ere they
(the mob) were down upon us like wild beasts out of a den.
We first observed some twenty men turning a corner in the direction of
the house; then about thirty or forty more, and soon the streets were
filled with men--some four or five hundred. In the rear of this
multitude there was driven a sleigh in which, we rightly conjectured,
Miss King was to be taken home.
From the statements of the leader of the mob--statements afterwards
given to the public--it seems that a Committee, composed of members of
the mob, and constituted by the mob, suggested before reaching the house
that if we were still unmarried there should be no violence done, as
they intended to carry off the lady. A portion of this Committee also
made it their duty to gain access to the apartment where our company
were sitting, and to inform us of the intentions of the assembled
multitude below, while the remainder of the Committee endeavoured by
speeches and reasoning to quiet the mob spirit, which soon after the
assembling, began to reach its climax.
This Committee was composed of some of the most "respectable" men of
Fulton--lawyers, merchants, and others of like position. The reader will
doubtless think it strange that such men should be members of a mob; and
so it would be, if prejudice against color were not the saddest of all
comments upon the meanness of human depravity. In this, more than in
anything else did the malignant character of this American feeling
evince itself--that to drive me off or kill me, if need be, the
"respectable" and the base were commingled, like--
"Kindred elements into one."
Men who, under other circumstances, would have been regarded as beneath
contempt, the vulgar minded and vulgar hearted--with these, even
Christians (so called) did not hesitate to affiliate themselves in order
to crush a man who was guilty of no crime save that, having a colored
skin, he was supposed to be about to marry a lady a few shades lighter
than himself. O, the length and breadth, the height and depth, the
cruelty and the irony of a prejudice which can so belittle human nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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