The Political Question

The Planet answers questions they receive as to whether or not they support the Democratic or Republican Party, and which they believe is less discriminatory.

We are sometimes asked as to our position relative to the present political contest. We confess that we feel uncomfortable, when we contemplate either phase of the situation. When we read the platforms of the political parties unaffected by outside innuendos and assertions, the Republican Party platform alone holds out definite pledges to the colored people of the nation. If we look no further and if we believed all that its representatives in the doubtful states say to us, we would go no further. There would be no cause for further meditation. Every colored man in the unites States would necessarily be a Republican and would loyally support the ticket named at Chicago. But then here comes the Independents, the “kicking” contingent of the colored race with their lurid pictures of Brownsville, Texas, the discharge of the 167 members of Companies B, C, and D of the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry and the refusal of a Republican President who at one time lunched with Dr. Booker T. Washington, the most prominent citizen of color in the United States, to do justice to the innocent men of the battalion and a feeling of resentment takes the place of conservative consideration. In the meantime, his political prototype and supporter appears upon the scene of the controversy vainly attempting to assert an individuality of his own, which is being constantly overshadowed by the trumpeting messages from the White House, declaring that “my policies” are paramount, and asserting that “if ye believe in me, ye must believe also in him,” and vice versa. In the meantime colored people are being forced to the rear in all of the Southern States and the many Negro-haters, who at one time held high carnival in the Democratic Party are now assigned to duty in the councils of the Roosevelt Republican Party of the Southland. The colored man is not only made to understand that he is not wanted save as a “hewer of wood and a drawer of water,” but he is frequently told to make himself scarce at the meetings of the Republican Party. In the doubtful states, the attitude of the Republican managers is entirely different. Colored men are not only welcomed to the mass-meeting of the party, but their leaders are allowed money to defray the legitimate expenses of the campaign. Race journals are mustered into service along with the daily newspapers owned and controlled by white Republicans. Official patronage is also promised and if the color line is in evidence, it is no observable. These then are the methods in vogue in the country. The desire of the Republican managers was to have some colored men support the Democratic candidates and to be affiliated with the Democratic Party in order to relieve the Republican Party of the Southland of the odium of being characterized as the Negro Party in the Southland. These same Republicans did not wish though for the colored men in the North to follow suit and vote the Democratic ticket in the doubtful Northern and Western States. To speak plainly, the intention is to treat the Negroes of the South so badly that they will vote the Democratic ticket, where his vote is of no consequence and to treat him so fairly in the North that he will swear allegiance and remain faithful to the Republican Party. They hoped that the disaffection of the colored people in the South would be more than off-set by the entrance of the dissatisfied Democratic elements of the South, who remained outside of the Republican Party limits because of the predominance in party affair of the colored people and the old time white Republican elements that have grown gray in the service of the party. As an extra inducement too, the best political offices in the Southland have been promised and given to this revolting Democratic, Negro-hating contingent, who came over so quickly that they have not had time to change their uniform or to discard their old-time weapons and methods of warfare....

“The Political Question,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/727.