Not Wanted There
May 8, 1897
Summary
The Planet responds a local park being opened to the “public,” while still refusing admittance to black people.
Transcription
he Richmond Va., Dispatch local columns of Sunday, 2d inst., are the authority for the statement that Major Lewis Ginter has decided to open Lakeside Park to the public with the one restriction that only white people shall be admitted.
We read the article again and again, and hesitated to believe that a gentleman of Major Ginter’s years and experience just before he is about to take a long journey should have yielded to the coaxing of the prejudiced, and have excluded from the park in question one of the kindliest races of people on the face of the globe.
No, Lakeside Park is not open to the public. It cannot be if citizens of color are to be excluded. Servant can enter, but those owning their homes, engaged in business are not to be allowed to come into the park, even upon the payment of the fee. This is prejudice with a vengeance. It is a long step backwards.
White folks from the jails and penitentiaries can enjoy privileges of Lakeside Park. White sots from the bar-rooms of the city, white folks from the dives and houses of prostitution, white folks of the lowest type can enjoy themselves in Lakeside Park.
And Major Lewis Ginter is made to share the responsibility. Why not the discrimination be made upon the ground of respectability? Why not the line be drawn between the vicious and the well-behaved.
But, it is Major Ginter’s property and he has the right to say whom he will admit and whom he will not. For our part, the place has had no charm for us. The public parks in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Richmond are good enough for us. We are content. But it is the principle for which we contend and the race prejudice, so manifest that we condemn.
Let there be no trouble about it. Mr. Ginter and his coterie of friends do not want us and we are self-respecting enough not to want them.
We note that this gentleman, who has done so much to advance the interests of “white” Richmond, and thereby necessarily assisted the interests of “colored” Richmond is feeling the weight of years, and has abandoned active interest in the American Tobaccos CO. We are sorry and shall pray for him, trusting that our God will remove him from his eyes the scales of prejudice, and bring him to realize sense that the better class of Richmond’s citizens have not insisted or demanded such radical discriminations. Good evening, Mr. Ginter.
We read the article again and again, and hesitated to believe that a gentleman of Major Ginter’s years and experience just before he is about to take a long journey should have yielded to the coaxing of the prejudiced, and have excluded from the park in question one of the kindliest races of people on the face of the globe.
No, Lakeside Park is not open to the public. It cannot be if citizens of color are to be excluded. Servant can enter, but those owning their homes, engaged in business are not to be allowed to come into the park, even upon the payment of the fee. This is prejudice with a vengeance. It is a long step backwards.
White folks from the jails and penitentiaries can enjoy privileges of Lakeside Park. White sots from the bar-rooms of the city, white folks from the dives and houses of prostitution, white folks of the lowest type can enjoy themselves in Lakeside Park.
And Major Lewis Ginter is made to share the responsibility. Why not the discrimination be made upon the ground of respectability? Why not the line be drawn between the vicious and the well-behaved.
But, it is Major Ginter’s property and he has the right to say whom he will admit and whom he will not. For our part, the place has had no charm for us. The public parks in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Richmond are good enough for us. We are content. But it is the principle for which we contend and the race prejudice, so manifest that we condemn.
Let there be no trouble about it. Mr. Ginter and his coterie of friends do not want us and we are self-respecting enough not to want them.
We note that this gentleman, who has done so much to advance the interests of “white” Richmond, and thereby necessarily assisted the interests of “colored” Richmond is feeling the weight of years, and has abandoned active interest in the American Tobaccos CO. We are sorry and shall pray for him, trusting that our God will remove him from his eyes the scales of prejudice, and bring him to realize sense that the better class of Richmond’s citizens have not insisted or demanded such radical discriminations. Good evening, Mr. Ginter.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Contributed By
Brian Schrott
Citation
“Not Wanted There,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed December 7, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1161.