Dr. Barringer and the Negro
March 3, 1900
Summary
The Planet responds to a white professor who claims that black people are "relapsing into barbarism."
Transcription
Dr. P.B. Barringer of the University of Virginia delivered an address at Charleston, S.C., February 21st before the Tri-State Medical Association and a usual took as his subject, “The Southern Negro.”
He had the audacity to speak of the “ages of degradation under which the Negro was formed and the 50 centuries of historically recorded savagery with which he came to America “and he declared that this condition could not be permanently influenced by one or two centuries of enforced correction.”
We pause to ask the questions, who historically recorded that savagery,—the Negro or the white man?
What savagery upon the part of the black man can surpass that practiced in Britain in its beginning down to the 19th Century? What savagery can surpass the treatment of the slaves for two hundred and fifty years and the torturing and the annihilation of the Indians for a like space of time?
What savagery can surpass that as practiced in Texas and Georgia, and Tennessee and Virginia and Kentucky where human beings were burned at the stakes and thousands, and tens of thousands turned out as upon a holiday? Young men and young women, boys and girls gazed upon the naked body of a human being writhing in the agony of death and being subjected to all of the horrors of death by fire?
Does it not seem to you Dr. Barringer that the white man and not the Negro is relapsing into barbarism?
We will not stop here, Dr. Barringer; go with us to the Philippine Islands where the boasted civilization holds away. Here it is authoritatively stated that native women have been raped by white men of your race. Two were condemned to die as a result of being adjudged guilty, and their sentences have been commuted to life imprisonment. Is this a case Dr. Barringer of white men relapsing into barbarism or the Negroes?
…
He had the audacity to speak of the “ages of degradation under which the Negro was formed and the 50 centuries of historically recorded savagery with which he came to America “and he declared that this condition could not be permanently influenced by one or two centuries of enforced correction.”
We pause to ask the questions, who historically recorded that savagery,—the Negro or the white man?
What savagery upon the part of the black man can surpass that practiced in Britain in its beginning down to the 19th Century? What savagery can surpass the treatment of the slaves for two hundred and fifty years and the torturing and the annihilation of the Indians for a like space of time?
What savagery can surpass that as practiced in Texas and Georgia, and Tennessee and Virginia and Kentucky where human beings were burned at the stakes and thousands, and tens of thousands turned out as upon a holiday? Young men and young women, boys and girls gazed upon the naked body of a human being writhing in the agony of death and being subjected to all of the horrors of death by fire?
Does it not seem to you Dr. Barringer that the white man and not the Negro is relapsing into barbarism?
We will not stop here, Dr. Barringer; go with us to the Philippine Islands where the boasted civilization holds away. Here it is authoritatively stated that native women have been raped by white men of your race. Two were condemned to die as a result of being adjudged guilty, and their sentences have been commuted to life imprisonment. Is this a case Dr. Barringer of white men relapsing into barbarism or the Negroes?
…
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Elizabeth Lopez-Lopez
Citation
“Dr. Barringer and the Negro,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1086.