The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of AmericaDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
History
The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
African Americans -- History; United States -- Race relations
There is scarcely an American, certainly none of the South and no Negro
American, who does not know in his personal experience of Americans
of Negro descent who either do not know or do not acknowledge their
African ancestry. This is their right, if they do know, and a matter
of but passing importance if they do not. But without doubt the
spiritual legacy of Africa has been spread through this mingling of
blood. First, of course, we may think of those more celebrated cases
where the mixed blood is fairly well known but nevertheless the man has
worked and passed as a white man. One of the earliest examples was that
of Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton was a case in point of the
much disputed “Creole” blood. Theoretically the Creole was a person of
European descent on both sides born in the West Indies or America; but
as there were naturally few such persons in earlier times because of the
small number of European women who came to America, those descendants of
European fathers and mulatto mothers were in practice called “Creole”
and consequently it soon began to be _prima facie_ evidence, in the
West Indies, that an illegitimate child of a white father was of Negro
descent. Alexander Hamilton was such an illegitimate child. He had
colored relatives whose descendants still live in America and he was
currently reported to be colored in the island of Nevis. Further than
this, of course, proof is impossible. But to those who have given careful
attention to the subject, little further proof is needed.
To this can be added a long list of American notables,—bishops, generals
and members of Congress. Many writers and artists have found hidden
inspiration in their Negro blood and from the first importation in the
fifteenth century down to today there has been a continual mingling
of white and Negro blood in the United States both within and without
the bonds of wedlock that neither law nor slavery nor cruel insult and
contempt has been able to stop.
Besides these influences in economics and the home there has come the
work of Negro women in revolt which cannot be forgotten. We mention two
cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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