The crisis : $b A record of the darker races, Vol. I, No. 3, January 1911Various
History
The crisis : $b A record of the darker races, Vol. I, No. 3, January 1911
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
How much the South loses by this policy is shown by a Northerner’s
experience in the office of one of the philanthropic societies. Two
probation officers, volunteers, were going out to their work. The
secretary of the society addressed the first, a white woman, as Mrs.
Brown: the second, a little middle-aged black woman, he called Mary.
When they had left the Northerner questioned the difference in address.
“I couldn’t call a nigger Mrs. or Miss.,” the secretary expostulated.
“It would be impossible.” “But here in your own city,” the Northerner
answered, “I happen to know a number of educated colored girls, some of
them college graduates, who have a desire for social service. Under you
they might learn the best methods of charitable work, but they would not
care to be called ‘Annie’ or ‘Jane’ by a young white man. Can you afford
to lose such helpers as these?”
He had but one answer. “It would never do for me to say Mrs. or Miss to
a nigger. It would be impossible.”
* * * * *
Throughout the country there are a number of colored postal clerks.
These men, with others in the service, belong to the Mutual Benefit
Association. At a recent meeting in Chicago the delegates to this Mutual
Benefit Association voted in the future to admit only clerks of the
Caucasian race. According to one of the colored clerks, the meeting that
passed this vote was “packed,” colored members receiving no notice to
elect delegates to it.
* * * * *
The black servant is more acceptable to some people than the educated
colored man. As an instance of this is Mr. U. of Washington, a highly
cultivated Negro of some means. As owner of a cottage and a few acres of
land in a small Virginia town, he good-naturedly allowed an old black
woman to live rent-free upon his place. On her death he went down to
claim the property, but found the woman’s daughter had put in a counter
claim. The case went to court, and in his plea before the jury the
woman’s lawyer said: “Are you going to take property away from this
black mammy’s daughter to give it to a smart nigger from Washington?”
And despite Mr. U.’s former yearly payment of taxes, despite the deed
which he himself held, he lost his suit.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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