Collection: African American Newspapers
Publication: THE NORTH STAR
Date: June 13, 1850
Title: Prejudice against Color. Let no one imagine that we are about
Location: Rochester, New York
Prejudice against Color.
Let no one imagine that we are about to give undue prominence to this subject. Regarding, as we do, the feeling named above to be the greatest of all obstacles in the
way of the anti-slavery cause, we think there is little danger of making the subject of it too prominent. The heartless apathy which prevails in this community on the
subject of slavery – the cold-blooded indifference with which the wrongs of the perishing and heart-broken slave are regarded – the contemptuous, slanderous, and
malicious manner in which the names and characters of Abolitionists are handled by the American pulpit and press generally, may be traced mainly to the maligni feeling
which passes under the name of prejudice against color. Every step in our experience in this country since we commenced our anti-slavery labors, has been marked by
facts demonstrative of what we have just said. The day that we started on our first anti-slavery journey to Nantucket, now nine years ago, the steamer was detained at
the wharf in New Bedford two hours later than the usual time of starting, in an attempt on the part of the captain to compel the colored passengers to separate from
the white passengers, and to go on the forward deck of that steamer; and during this time, the most savage feelings were evinced towards every colored man who asserted
his right to enjoy equal privileges with other passengers. – Aside from the twenty months which we spent in England, (where color is no crime, and where a man’s
fitness for respectable society is measured by his moral and intellectual worth,) we do not remember to have made a single anti-slavery tour in any direction in this
country, when we have not been assailed by this mean spirit of caste. A feeling so universal and so powerful for evil, cannot well be too much commented upon. We have
used the term prejudice against color to designate the feeling to which we allude, not because it expresses correctly what that feeling is, but simply because that
innocent term is usually employed for that purpose.
Properly speaking, prejudice against color does not exist in this country. The feeling (or whatever it is) which we call prejudice, is no less than a murderous, hell-
born hatred of every virtue which may adorn the character of a black man . It is not the black man’s color which makes him the object of brutal treatment. When he is
drunken, idle, ignorant and vicious, ” Black Bill” is a source of amusement: he is called a good-natured fellow: he is the first to touch his hat to the stranger
approaching the hotel, and offer his service in holding his horse, or blacking his boots. The white gentleman tells the landlord to give “Bill” ” something to drink,”
and actually drinks with “Bill” himself! – While poor black “Bill” will minister to the pride, vanity and laziness of white American gentlemen – while he consents to
play the buffoon for their sport, he will share their regard. But let him cease to be what we have described him to be – let him shake off the filthy rags that cover
him – let him abandon drunkenness for sobriety, industry for indolence, ignorance for intelligence, and give up his menial occupation for respectable employment – let
him quite the hotel and go to the church, and assume there the rights and privileges of one for whom the Son of God died, and he will be pursued with the fiercest
hatred. His name will be cast out as evil; and his life will be embittered with all the venom which hate and malice can generate. Thousands of colored men can bear
witness to the truth of this representation. While we are servants , we are never offensive to the whites , or marks of popular displeasure . We have been often
dragged or driven from the tables of hotels where colored men were officiating acceptably as waiters; and from steamboat cabins where twenty or thirty colored men in
light jackets and white aprons were frisking about as servants among the whites in every direction. On the very day we were brutally assaulted in New York for riding
down Broadway in company with ladies, we saw several white ladies riding with black servants . These servants were well-dressed, proud looking men, evidently living on
the fat of the land – yet they were servants . They rode not for their own, but for the pleasure and convenience of white persons. They were not in those carriages as
friends or equals. – They were there as appendages; they constituted a part of the magnificent equipages. – They were there as the fine black horses which they drove
were there – to minister to the pride and splendor of their employers. As they passed down Broadway, they were observed with admiration by the multitude; and even the
poor wretches who assaulted us might have said in their hearts, as they looked upon such splendor, “We would do so too if we could.” We repeat, then, that color is not
the cause of our persecution; that is, it is not our color which makes our proximity to white men disagreeable. The evil lies deeper than prejudice against color. It
is, as we have said, an intense hatred of the colored man when he is distinguished for any ennobling qualities of head or heat. If the feeling which persecutes us were
prejudice against color, the colored servant would be as obnoxious as the colored gentleman, for the color is the same in both cases; and being the same in both cases,
it would produce the same result in both cases.
We are then a persecuted people; not because we are colored , but simply because that color has for a series of years been coupled in the public mind with the
degradation of slavery and servitude. In these conditions, we are thought to be in our place; and to aspire to anything above them, is to contradict the established
views of the community – to get out of our sphere, and commit the provoking sin of impudence . Just here is our sin: we have been a slave; we have passed through all
the grades of servitude, and have, under God, secured our freedom; and if we have become the special object of attack, it is because we speak and act among our
fellow-men without the slightest regard to their or our own complexion; – and further, because we claim and exercise the right to associate with just such persons as
are willing to associate with us, and who are agreeable to our tastes, and suited to our moral and intellectual tendencies, without reference to the color of their
skin, and without giving ourselves the slightest trouble to inquire whether the world are pleased or displeased by our conduct. We believe in human equality; that
character, not color, should be the criterion by which to choose associates; and we pity the pride of the poor pale dust and ashes which would erect any other standard
of social fellowship.
This doctrine of human equality is the bitterest yet taught by the abolitionists. It is swallowed with more difficulty than all the other points of the anti-slavery
creed put together. “What makes a negro equal to a white man!’ No, we will never consent to that! No, that wont do!” But stop a moment; don’t [ ] a passion, keep cool.
What is a white man that you do so revolt at the idea of making a negro equal with him? Who made him? Is he an angel or a man? “A man.” Very well, he is a man, and
nothing but a man – possessing the same weaknesses, liable to the same disease, and under the same necessities to which a black man is subject. Wherein does the white
man differ from the black? Why, one is white and the other is black. Well, what of that? Does the sun shine more brilliantly upon the one than it does upon the other?
Is nature more lavish with her gifts toward the one than toward the other? Do earth, sea and air yield their united treasures to the one more readily than to the
other? In a word, “have we not all one Father?” Why then do you revolt at that equality which God and nature instituted?
The very apprehension which the American people betray on this point, is proof of the fitness of treating all men equally. The fact that they fear an acknowledgment of
our equality, shows that they see a fitness in such an acknowledgment. Why are they not apprehensive lest the horse should be placed on an equality with man? Simply
because the horse is not a man; and no amount of reasoning can convince the world, against its common sense, that the horse is anything else than a horse. So here all
can repose without fear. But not so with the negro. He stands erect. Upon his brow he bears the seal of manhood, from the hand of the living God. Adopt any mode of
reasoning you please with respect to him, he is a man, possessing an immortal soul, illuminated by intellect, capable of heavenly aspirations, and in all things
pertaining to manhood, he is at once self-evidently a man, and therefore entitled to all the rights and privileges which belong to human nature. – F.D.
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