African Americans; United States -- Race relations
From him I learned first that the Negro had not access to the Carnegie
libraries in the South. I was surprised. Up at Baltimore, in the North,
I was talking to a librarian, and he averred that the Negroes used the
public library much more than white people, and that there were so many
darkies that Whites did not care to go. But I travel such a very short
distance South, and I find no Negro admitted at all.
“Surely that is contrary to the spirit of the Carnegie grants,” said I.
“Yes, for Carnegie was a good friend to the Negro. But so it is,” said
Dr. R——. “And I do not think Negroes should agitate about it. It
would be better for Negroes to build their own libraries. We shall have
to do so. But we don’t want to intrude where we’re not wanted.”
He told me what he considered the most thrilling moment of his life.
He was out with a friend at midnight watching the posting of election
results, when suddenly a “lewd woman” came out of a house door,
screaming and waving her arms. She made right for them, and they were
in terror lest she should fall down at their feet or start reviling
them. Fortunately, they had the presence of mind not to run away from
her, or they might have been lynched by the crowd.
The worthy doctor took us out and drove us all over the city, heartily
apologizing that he could not ask me to have any meal with his wife and
himself. “For, although you may have no prejudice, it would not be safe
for either of us if it were known.” Which was indeed so. Throughout the
whole of the South it is impossible to eat or drink with a colored man
or woman.
My chief way of finding people to whom I had introductions was by
reference to the city directory. Here I found that all colored people
were marked with a star—as much as to say, “Watch out; this party’s
colored.” White women were indicated as “Mrs.” or “Miss,” but colored
women always as plain “Sarah Jones” or “Betty Thompson,” or whatever
the name might be, without any prefix. This I discovered to be one of
many small grievances of the Negro population, akin to that of not
having their roads mended though they pay taxes, and being obliged to
take back seats behind a straw screen in the trolley cars.
It was a novel impression in the Negro church on Sunday morning. I came
rather early, and found an adult Bible class discussing theology in
groups. One man near me exclaimed, “It says ‘He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved,’ doesn’t it, brother? Well, then, I believe,
so why argufy? I an’t a-goin’ to take no chances. No, sir, I an’t
a-goin’ to do it”—a serene black child of forty years or so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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