A Word From “The Genteel Negro”
January 20, 1900
Summary
The Planet celebrates black accomplishment while denying any desire to mingle with white people.
Transcription
A Word From “The Genteel Negro”
The Richmond, Va., Times must certainly have more than one editor dealing with the “Jim Crow Car Bill,” now pending before the lower branch of the legislature of Virginia.
The writer of the article in its issue of the 14th inst., under the caption of “A word to the Genteel Negro” seems to be a “white man whom God made.” He must be in some way connected with the ex-slave owners, with whose support and influences we expect to defeat that prejudiced measure. How else could that journal have used the following language?
“We have word this morning for the genteel Negro, for the Negro with ambition, for the Negro who honestly desires to improve his mind and morals and better his condition. In what we have said in previous articles we have not meant to discourage him, not to take away his aspirations. We would rather bid him God speed in his endeavors, and aid him in lifting himself up to a higher level.”
Oh, if the writer of these lines only meant what he has said, we could indeed take hope. And again:
“There is always room at the top. There is a future for the genteel Negro but it is necessarily a thing of his own making. Booker Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and such other Negroes whom we might name, have attained national distinction, and enjoy the respect and good will of the nation. One of the most conspicuous articles in the current issue of Harper’s Weekly, and we must say one of the most interesting articles is from the pen of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. In the city of Richmond there are Negro lawyers, Negro doctors, Negro bankers, Negro merchants, Negro teachers, Negro real estate owners, all of whom are making a place for themselves at the top. This simple statement should be enough to stimulate every ambitious Negro to greater exertion.” The Times says further:
“We said in a recent article that the Negro could not, in the nature of the case secure the benefit and the elevating influences of what the white man calls his ‘society.’ That door is closed to the black man, and will always be closed.
Will the Times’ editor never see? Will he never understand? The doors to white society may remain barred forever, so far as we are concerned.
We do not seek admission there. It is our civil and political rights, for which we are contending. The hearth-stone has no place in the controversy. The railroads of this country do not open the doors to the society of the white man. If they did, you would necessarily be required to explain why white jail-birds, penitentiary convicts, dive keepers, white women of questionable character are permitted to associate on the railway trains with the best white people in the land from the “hind part” of the baggage car to the tail-end of the sleeper.
These privileges constitute civil and not social rights.
As to the elevating influences of the white man’s society, the colored man of the South is constantly securing it, not as an equal, but as a servant.
The effect is far-reaching, nevertheless for the father as a butler and a coachman, and the mother as the nurse and chambermaid become acquainted with all of the rules of polite society and the “black Chesterfield” is but little behind the white one in observing the rules of decorum and performing those requirements of etiquette which have made southerners famous and their black servants the best in the world.
More than this too, these same colored employees are educating their children on the outside and the instructions given embrace a practical teaching along the lines, which their employers have marked out.
By this method, the colored teacher learns from her “nurse mother” and the colored physician learns from his “butler father” the rules and requirements of polite white society, and becomes transformed into what the Times’ editor is pleased to term “The Genteel Negro,” there is no clamor on the part of this upper class of white men for “Jim Crow” car legislation.
They are in favor of enforcing order on the railroads, but when it comes to making color the basis, they remember that in years past and gone, anyone who would attempt to separate them from their black mammies would have had their trouble for the pains.
…
The Richmond, Va., Times must certainly have more than one editor dealing with the “Jim Crow Car Bill,” now pending before the lower branch of the legislature of Virginia.
The writer of the article in its issue of the 14th inst., under the caption of “A word to the Genteel Negro” seems to be a “white man whom God made.” He must be in some way connected with the ex-slave owners, with whose support and influences we expect to defeat that prejudiced measure. How else could that journal have used the following language?
“We have word this morning for the genteel Negro, for the Negro with ambition, for the Negro who honestly desires to improve his mind and morals and better his condition. In what we have said in previous articles we have not meant to discourage him, not to take away his aspirations. We would rather bid him God speed in his endeavors, and aid him in lifting himself up to a higher level.”
Oh, if the writer of these lines only meant what he has said, we could indeed take hope. And again:
“There is always room at the top. There is a future for the genteel Negro but it is necessarily a thing of his own making. Booker Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and such other Negroes whom we might name, have attained national distinction, and enjoy the respect and good will of the nation. One of the most conspicuous articles in the current issue of Harper’s Weekly, and we must say one of the most interesting articles is from the pen of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. In the city of Richmond there are Negro lawyers, Negro doctors, Negro bankers, Negro merchants, Negro teachers, Negro real estate owners, all of whom are making a place for themselves at the top. This simple statement should be enough to stimulate every ambitious Negro to greater exertion.” The Times says further:
“We said in a recent article that the Negro could not, in the nature of the case secure the benefit and the elevating influences of what the white man calls his ‘society.’ That door is closed to the black man, and will always be closed.
Will the Times’ editor never see? Will he never understand? The doors to white society may remain barred forever, so far as we are concerned.
We do not seek admission there. It is our civil and political rights, for which we are contending. The hearth-stone has no place in the controversy. The railroads of this country do not open the doors to the society of the white man. If they did, you would necessarily be required to explain why white jail-birds, penitentiary convicts, dive keepers, white women of questionable character are permitted to associate on the railway trains with the best white people in the land from the “hind part” of the baggage car to the tail-end of the sleeper.
These privileges constitute civil and not social rights.
As to the elevating influences of the white man’s society, the colored man of the South is constantly securing it, not as an equal, but as a servant.
The effect is far-reaching, nevertheless for the father as a butler and a coachman, and the mother as the nurse and chambermaid become acquainted with all of the rules of polite society and the “black Chesterfield” is but little behind the white one in observing the rules of decorum and performing those requirements of etiquette which have made southerners famous and their black servants the best in the world.
More than this too, these same colored employees are educating their children on the outside and the instructions given embrace a practical teaching along the lines, which their employers have marked out.
By this method, the colored teacher learns from her “nurse mother” and the colored physician learns from his “butler father” the rules and requirements of polite white society, and becomes transformed into what the Times’ editor is pleased to term “The Genteel Negro,” there is no clamor on the part of this upper class of white men for “Jim Crow” car legislation.
They are in favor of enforcing order on the railroads, but when it comes to making color the basis, they remember that in years past and gone, anyone who would attempt to separate them from their black mammies would have had their trouble for the pains.
…
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Elizabeth Lopez-Lopez
Citation
“A Word From “The Genteel Negro”,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed October 9, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/112.