The Color Question Like Banquo’s Ghost |
The Color Question Like Banquo’s Ghost
The Indianapolis Recorder: A Weekly Newspaper Devoted the to Best Interest of the Negroes
Saturday, 1910-05-07
page 1, column 3
Source: Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis: University Library: Program of Digital Scholarship
There Is Virtue In Being a Full Blood Negro—Louisiana Supreme Court Makes Important Ruling.
According to a decision handed down by the Louisiana supreme court on Monday, April 25, when the law says “Negroes” it designates people of full African descent and does not include “persons of color”—octoroons, quadroons or even mulattoes. In holding thus the court puts an end to several prosecutions of men accused of violating state laws, passed after a long educational campaign, for the purpose of preventing miscegenation and the consequent deterioration of the white race. The decision will therefore be regarded as of great importance as well as of great interest not only in Louisiana, but all through the south, in every part of which the disastrous results of racial mingling, in and out of marriage, have of late been the subject of much and serious attention.
The decision of the court is, of course, a practical repeal or making void of such legislation as has already been passed with a view to keeping the white and black races apart, and equally, of course. It is in direct contradiction of the long established theory that any recognizable fraction of Negro blood fixes the status of the person in whose veins it flows. This was the invariable rule in slavery days, and it has survived emancipation in the drawing of social lines no less in the north than in the south. It is indeed a little humiliating to Caucasian pride that an eighth, a quarter or a half of black blood should count for more than a half, three-quarters or seven-eighths of white blood.
Tags: Indianapolis Recorder, The Indianapolis Recorder