Are You Positively Sure That You Are Not Part Negro? Read This. |
Are You Positively Sure That You Are Not Part Negro? Read This.
The discovery recently, that a presumably white soldier was part Negro, brought forth the following comment, as to the facts portrayed in this little volume, from Mr. John D. Barry, in a recent article of the San Francisco News:—
“The case of the army officer whose death has been the means of apparently revealing him as legally a Negro wasn’t wholly astonishing. It astonished only those unfamiliar with the extent of the blood mixture in this country. The book published a few years ago by Louis Fremont Baldwin. “From Negro to Caucassian.” showed that the mixture had been going on for a long time and that a good many people who passed as white were Negroes. According to our law anyone who has any Negro blood is a Negro.
Most Negroes understand the situation. Among them the word “passing” is commonly used. It refers to those who have succeeded in crossing the color line without detection. Though they don’t admire the resorters to “passing,” though they consider “passing” a repudiation of sacred ties, a denial of loyalty, they know only too well the motive behind it, the natural longing to escape from discriminations and penalties. Louis Fremont Baldwin says there are thousands in this country who are accepted as white and know they are Negroes. He also says there are still more thousands who are Negroes and believe themselves to be white.
As black blood is absorbed into the white stream he claims that it tends to disappear.”
Louis Fremont Baldwin, From Negro to Caucasian: or, How the Ethiopian is Changing His Skin, (San Francisco: Pilot Publishing Company, 1929): i.
Tags: John D. Barry, Louis Fremont Baldwin