After the Colored Brother.
August 20, 1898
Summary
John Mitchell, Jr. has it out with the Richmond Dispatch who claimed "The Negro race is diseased."
Transcription
The Richmond, Va., Dispatch in referring to the discussion at the annual Negro Conference at Hampton says:
“The Negro race is diseased to an astonishing extent; a fact that we do not give sufficient attention to considering that they make our bread, wash our clothes, and nurse our children.”
This information is supplemented by a sinister motive when it remarks:
“There are hundreds of Negroes employed as house-servants who would be instantly dismissed if their employers only knew how badly diseased they are.”
Mark, you, this warfare is upon the industrious members of our race and not upon the loafers.
If disease is to be the cause for discharge and not dishonesty, the sooner the public is informed as to what disposition is to be made of the unfortunate the better.
It says:
“Colored ministers, teachers, and physicians, and all others who have the ear of these people would do them a good service, and benefit the general public, by warning them to take good care of themselves and to keep clean.”
You advocate that they should take better care of themselves and then advice the taking away from them their means of subsistence. Strange reasoning this. Able-bodied persons, male and female, are working in the service places here for salaries ranging from $2.50 to $8 per month.
Is this a sufficient amount to enable them to keep clean and take care of themselves?
These servants work from six o’clock in the morning until nine at night.
We are at a loss to understand this lack of humanity. You make us poor and blame us for being so. You take all of our time and abuse us for not having more of it for ourselves.
If the Dispatch’s proposition is to be accepted; then these people are to become the wards of the community in which they live.
Certain it is that they must either support themselves or the public must support them. Let us alone, please.
“The Negro race is diseased to an astonishing extent; a fact that we do not give sufficient attention to considering that they make our bread, wash our clothes, and nurse our children.”
This information is supplemented by a sinister motive when it remarks:
“There are hundreds of Negroes employed as house-servants who would be instantly dismissed if their employers only knew how badly diseased they are.”
Mark, you, this warfare is upon the industrious members of our race and not upon the loafers.
If disease is to be the cause for discharge and not dishonesty, the sooner the public is informed as to what disposition is to be made of the unfortunate the better.
It says:
“Colored ministers, teachers, and physicians, and all others who have the ear of these people would do them a good service, and benefit the general public, by warning them to take good care of themselves and to keep clean.”
You advocate that they should take better care of themselves and then advice the taking away from them their means of subsistence. Strange reasoning this. Able-bodied persons, male and female, are working in the service places here for salaries ranging from $2.50 to $8 per month.
Is this a sufficient amount to enable them to keep clean and take care of themselves?
These servants work from six o’clock in the morning until nine at night.
We are at a loss to understand this lack of humanity. You make us poor and blame us for being so. You take all of our time and abuse us for not having more of it for ourselves.
If the Dispatch’s proposition is to be accepted; then these people are to become the wards of the community in which they live.
Certain it is that they must either support themselves or the public must support them. Let us alone, please.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Cali Hughes
Citation
“After the Colored Brother.,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed December 7, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1562.