WHAT IS A NEGRO?
LEGAL DEFINITION OF NEGRO
“I had not been long engaged in the study of the race problem when I
found myself face to face with a curious and seemingly absurd question:
‘What is a Negro?’” said Mr. Baker.[8]
Absurd as the question apparently is, it is one of the most perplexing
and, at times, most embarrassing that has faced the legislators and
judges.
If race distinctions are to be recognized in the law, it is essential
that the races be clearly distinguished from one another. If a statute
provides that Negroes shall ride in separate coaches and attend separate
schools, it is necessary to decide first who are included under the term
“Negroes.” It would seem that physical indicia would be sufficient, and,
in most instances, this is true. It is never difficult to distinguish
the full-blooded Negro, Indian, or Mongolian one from the other or from
the Caucasian. But the difficulty arises in the blurring of the color
line by amalgamation. The amount of miscegenation between the Mongolian
and other races represented in the United States is negligible; but the
extent of intermixture between the Caucasian and the Negro, the Negro
and the Indian, and the Caucasian and the Indian is appreciable, and
problems arising from it are serious.
It is absolutely impossible to ascertain the number of mulattoes—that
is, persons having both Caucasian and Negro blood in their veins—in the
United States. Mr. Baker[9] says: “I saw plenty of men and women who
were unquestionably Negroes, Negroes in every physical characteristic,
black of countenance with thick lips and kinky hair, but I also met men
and women as white as I am, whose assertions that they were really
Negroes I accepted in defiance of the evidence of my own senses. I have
seen blue-eyed Negroes and golden-haired Negroes; one Negro girl I met
had an abundance of soft, straight, red hair. I have seen Negroes I
could not easily distinguish from the Jewish or French types; I once
talked with a man I took at first to be a Chinaman but who told me he
was a Negro. And I have met several people, passing everywhere for
white, who, I knew, had Negro blood.”
A separate enumeration of mulattoes has been made four times—in 1850,
1860, 1870, and 1890 respectively. The census authorities themselves
said that the figures were of little value, and any attempt to
distinguish Negroes from mulattoes was abandoned in the census of 1900.
If a person is apparently white, the census enumerator will feel a
delicacy in asking him if he has Negro blood in his veins. If the
enumerator does ask the question and if the other is honest in his
answer, it is often that the latter does not know his own ancestry. Dr.
Booker T. Washington, for instance, has said that he does not know who
his father was.[10] Marital relations among Negroes during slavery were
so irregular, and illicit intercourse between white men and slave women
was so common that the line of ancestry of many mulattoes is hopelessly
lost. But Mr. Baker makes the rough estimate, which doubtless is
substantially correct, that 3,000,000 of the 10,000,000 (_circa_)
Negroes are visibly mulattoes. This one third of the total Negro
population represents every degree of blood, of color, and of physical
demarcation from the fair complexion, light hair, blue eyes, thin lips,
and sharp nose of the octoroon, who betrays scarcely a trace of his
Negro blood, to the coal-black skin, kinky hair, brown eyes, thick lips,
and flat nose of the man who has scarcely a trace of Caucasian blood. It
is this gradual sloping off from one race into another which has made it
necessary for the law to set artificial lines.
The difficulty arising from the intermixture of the races was realized
while the Negro was still a slave. Throughout the statutes prior to
1860, one finds references to “persons of color,” a generic phrase
including all who were not wholly Caucasian or Indian. This antebellum
nomenclature has been brought over into modern statutes. It is
surprising to find how seldom the word “Negro” is used in the statutes
and judicial decisions.
Some States have fixed arbitrary definitions of “persons of color,”
“Negroes,” and “mulattoes”; others, having enacted race distinctions,
have then defined whom they intended to include in each race. This has
been done particularly in the laws prohibiting intermarriage. The
Constitution of Oklahoma[11] provides that “wherever in this
Constitution and laws of this State, the word or words, ‘colored,’ or
‘colored race,’ or ‘Negro,’ or ‘Negro race,’ are used, the same shall be
construed to mean, or apply to all persons of African descent. The term
‘white’ shall include all other persons.”
Taking up these definitions in the various States—many of them included
within broader statutes—one finds that Alabama,[12] Kentucky,[13]
Maryland,[14] Mississippi,[15] North Carolina,[16] Tennessee,[17] and
Texas[18] define as a person of color one who is descended from a Negro
to the third generation inclusive, though one ancestor in each
generation may have been white. The Code Committee of Alabama of 1903
substituted “fifth” for “third,” so that at present in that State one is
a person of color who has had any Negro blood in his ancestry in five
generations.[19] The laws of Florida,[20] Georgia,[21] Indiana,[22]
Missouri,[23] and South Carolina[24] declare that one is a person of
color who has as much as one-eighth Negro blood: the laws of
Nebraska[25] and Oregon[26] say that one must have as much as one-fourth
Negro blood in order to be classed with that race. Virginia[27] and
Michigan apparently draw the line in a similar way. In Virginia, a
marriage between a white man and a woman who is of less than one-fourth
Negro blood, “if it be but one drop less,” is legal. A woman whose
father was white, and whose mother’s father was white, and whose
great-grandmother was of a brown complexion, is not a Negro in the sense
of the statute.[28] In 1866, the court of Michigan, under a law limiting
the suffrage to “white male citizens,” held that all persons should be
considered white who had less than one-fourth of African blood.[29] That
State gave the right to vote also to male inhabitants of Indian descent,
but its court held that a person having one-eighth Indian blood,
one-fourth or three-eighths African, and the rest white was not included
in that class.[30] Ohio limited the suffrage to white male citizens and
made it the duty of judges of election to challenge any one with a
“distinct and visible admixture of African blood,” but the latter
requirement was held unconstitutional in 1867,[31] the court saying
that, where the white blood in a person predominated, he was to be
considered white. This definition is interesting because it is the only
instance found of a court’s saying that a person with more than half
white blood and the rest Negro should be considered white. In contrast
with this is the following sweeping definition laid down in the
Tennessee statute: “All Negroes, Mulattoes, Mestizoes,[32] and their
descendants, having any African blood in their veins, shall be known in
this State as ‘Persons of Color.’”[33] Arkansas also, in its statute
separating the races in trains, includes among persons of color all who
have “a visible and distinct admixture of African blood.”[34]
In everyday language, a mulatto is any person having both Caucasian and
Negro blood. But several States have defined “mulatto” specifically. The
Supreme Court of Alabama[35] held, in 1850, that a mulatto is the
offspring of a Negro and a white person, that the offspring of a white
person and a mulatto is not a mulatto; but this definition was enlarged
in 1867[36] to include anyone descended from Negro ancestors to the
third generation inclusive, though one ancestor in each generation be
white. It has been seen already that this was recently extended to the
fifth generation. The law of Missouri[37] defines a mulatto thus: “Every
person other than a Negro, any one of whose grandfathers or grandmothers
is or shall have been a Negro, although his or her other progenitors,
except those descending from the Negro, may have been white persons,
shall be deemed a mulatto, and every such person who shall have
one-fourth or more Negro blood shall in like manner be deemed a
mulatto.”
Some States have allowed facts other than physical characteristics to be
presumptive of race. Thus, it has been held in North Carolina[38] that,
if one was a slave in 1865, it is to be presumed that he was a Negro.
The fact that one usually associates with Negroes has been held in the
same State proper evidence to go to the jury tending to show that he is
a Negro.[39] If a woman’s first husband was a white man, that fact, in
Texas,[40] is admissible evidence tending to show that she is a white
woman.
One may ascertain how some of the States define the other races from
their laws against miscegenation. Thus, Mississippi, in prohibiting
intermarriage between Caucasians and Mongolians, includes one having as
much as one-eighth Mongolian blood. Oregon makes its similar law
applicable to those having one-fourth or more Chinese or Kanakan[41]
blood, or more than one-half Indian blood. Thus, three-eighths of Indian
blood would not be sufficient to bar a man from intermarriage with a
Caucasian, but one-fourth Negro, Chinese, or Kanakan blood would.
The above are the laws which define the races. The interpretation of
them is a different question. Some statutes say that one is a person of
color—in effect, a Negro—if he is descended from a Negro to the third
generation inclusive, though one ancestor in each generation may have
been white; others define as a person of color a man who has as much as
one-eighth Negro blood; and still others, one who has as much as
one-fourth Negro blood.
The following diagram will probably clarify these definitions:
[Illustration]
G.G.F. G.G.M. G.G.F. G.G.M. G.G.F. G.G.M. G.G.F. G.G.M.
III A B C D E F G H
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\/ \/ \/ \/
G.F. G.M. G.F. G.M.
II I J K L
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
I F M
M\ /N
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
X
Suppose it is desired to ascertain whether the son X is a white person
or a Negro. The first generation above him is that of his parents, M and
N. If either of them is white and the other a Negro, X has one-half
Negro blood and would be considered a Negro everywhere. The second
generation is that of his grandparents, I, J, K, and L. If any one of
them is a Negro and the other three white, X has one-fourth Negro blood,
and would be considered a Negro in every State except possibly Ohio. The
third generation is that of his great-grandparents, A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
and H. If any one of these eight great-grandparents is a Negro, X has
one-eighth Negro blood and would be considered a Negro in every State
which defines a person of color as one who has one-eighth Negro blood or
is descended from a Negro to the third generation inclusive. Suppose,
for instance, the great-grandfather A was a Negro and all the rest of
the great-grandparents were white. The grandfather I would be half
Negro; the father M would be one-fourth Negro; and X would be one-eighth
Negro. Thus, though of the fourteen progenitors of X only three had
Negro blood, X would nevertheless be considered a Negro.
In the above illustrations only one of the progenitors has been a Negro
and his blood has been the only Negro blood introduced into the line.
Suppose, however, that there is Negro blood in both branches of the
family, as where a mulatto marries a mulatto or a mulatto marries a
Negro. One with a mathematical turn of mind may take these three
generations and work out the various other combinations which would give
X one-half, one-fourth, one-eighth, or any other fraction of Negro
blood.
It is safe to say that in practice one is a Negro or is classed with
that race if he has the least visible trace of Negro blood in his veins,
or even if it is known that there was Negro blood in any one of his
progenitors. Miscegenation has never been a bridge upon which one might
cross from the Negro race to the Caucasian, though it has been a
thoroughfare from the Caucasian to the Negro. Judges and legislators
have gone the length of saying that one drop of Negro blood makes a man
a Negro, but to be a Caucasian one must be all Caucasian. This shows
very clearly that they have not considered Negro blood on a par with
Caucasian; else, race affiliation would be determined by predominance of
blood. By the latter test, if one had more Negro blood than white, he
would be considered a Negro; if more white than Negro, a Caucasian.
Therefore, at the very threshold of this subject, even in the
definitions of terms, one discovers a race distinction. Whether it is a
discrimination depends upon what one considers the relative desirability
of Caucasian and Negro ancestry.
PROPER NAME FOR BLACK MEN IN AMERICA
Having considered how the law defines that heterogeneous group of people
called Negroes, one is brought face to face with the question: What, in
actual practice, is the proper name for the black man in America? Is it
“Negro?” Is it “colored person?” Is it “Afro-American?” If not one of
these, what is it? Among the members of that group, the matter of
nomenclature is of more than academic interest. Thus, Rev. J. W. E.
Bowen, Professor of Historical Theology at Gamman Seminary, Atlanta, and
editor of _The Voice of the Negro_, in 1906, published an article in
that paper with the pertinent title, “Who are We?”
The ways of speaking of members of the Negro race are various. In the
laws, as has been shown, they are called “Negroes,” “Persons of Color,”
“Colored Persons,” “Africans,” and “Persons of African Descent”—more
often “Persons of Color.” By those who would speak dispassionately and
scientifically they are called Negroes and Afro-Americans. Those who are
anxious not to wound the feelings of that race speak of them as “Colored
People” or “Darkies”; while those who would speak contemptuously of them
say “Nigger” or “Coon.” “Nigger” is confined largely to the South;
“Coon,” to the rest of the country. Again, one occasionally finds
“Blacks” and “Black Men” in contradistinction to “Whites” and “White
Men.”
The question of the proper name for persons of African descent was
brought into prominence in 1906. In that year a bill was laid before
Congress relative to the schools of the City of Washington, which
provided that the Board of Education should consist of nine persons,
three of whom should be “of the colored race.” Representative Thetus W.
Sims, of Tennessee, objected to the phrase on the ground that it would
include “Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, Sandwich Islanders, or any
persons of the colored race,” and insisted that “Negroes” or “persons of
the Negro race” should be substituted in its place. He wrote to Dr.
Booker T. Washington, as one of the leaders of the Negro race, asking
his views as to the proper word. The following is part of his reply:
“... It has been my custom to write and speak of the members of my race
as Negroes, and when using the term ‘Negro’ as a race designation to
employ the capital ‘N.’ To the majority of the people among whom we live
I believe this is customary and what is termed in the rhetorics ‘good
usage.’... Rightly or wrongly, all classes have called us Negroes. We
cannot escape that if we would. To cast it off would be to separate us,
to a certain extent, from our history, and deprive us of much of the
inspiration we now have to struggle on and upward. It is to our credit,
not to our shame, that we have risen so rapidly, more rapidly than most
other peoples, from savage ancestors through slavery to civilization.
For my part, I believe the memory of these facts should be preserved in
our name and traditions as it is preserved in the color of our faces. I
do not think my people should be ashamed of their history, nor of any
name that people choose in good faith to give them.”[42]
Representative Sims’s objection to the phrase “of the colored race”
precipitated a discussion throughout the country. The New York
_Tribune_[43] made a canvass of a great many prominent Negroes and white
persons to ascertain what they thought the Negro should be called. The
result of its inquiry is this: An average of eleven Negroes out of
twenty desired to be spoken of as Negroes. The other nine spurned the
word as “insulting,” “contemptuous,” “degrading,” “vulgar.” Two argued
for “Afro-American,” two for “Negro-American,” one for “black man,” and
one was indifferent so long as he was not called “Nigger.” Of the white
men interviewed, ten out of thirteen, on an average, preferred the word
“Negro.” The Negroes made a specially strong plea for capitalizing the
word “Negro,” saying that it was not fair to accord that distinction to
their dwarfish cousins, the Negritos in the Philippines, and to the many
savage tribes in Africa and deny it to the black man in America. They
were also strongly opposed to the word “Negress” as applied to the women
of their race. This, they asserted, is objectionable because of its
historical significance. For in times of slavery, “Negress” was the term
applied to a woman slave at an auction, in contradistinction to “buck,”
which referred to a male slave.
E. A. Johnson, Professor of Law in Shaw University, North Carolina,
said: “The term ‘Afro-American’ is suggestive of an attempt to disclaim
as far as possible our Negro descent, and casts a slur upon it. It
fosters the idea of the inferiority of the race, which is an incorrect
notion to instill into the Negro youth, whom we are trying to imbue with
self-esteem and self-respect.”
Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, to whom reference has already been made, said: “Let
the Negroes, instead of bemourning their lot and fretting because they
are Negroes and trying to escape themselves, rise up and wipe away the
stain from this word by glorious and resplendent achievements. Good
names are not given; they are made.”
Rev. H. H. Proctor, pastor of the First Congregational Church, Atlanta,
said: “What is needed is not to change the name of the people, but the
people of the name. Make the term so honorable that men will consider it
an honor to be called a Negro.”
Rev. Walter H. Brooks, pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church,
Washington, wrote: “The black people of America have but to augment
their efforts in lives of self-elevation and culture, and men will cease
to reproach us by any name whatever.”
Finally, Charles W. Anderson, Collector of Internal Revenue, New York,
said: “I am, therefore, inclined to favor the use of ‘Negro,’ partly
because to drop it would expose me to the charge of being ashamed of my
race (and I hate any man who is ashamed of the race from which he
sprung), and partly because I know that no name or term can confer or
withhold relative rank in this life. All races and men must win equality
of rating and status for themselves.”
One is safe in concluding that the word “Negro” (with the capital “N”)
will eventually be applied to the black man in America. White people are
distinctly in favor of it: what Negroes now object to it do so because
of its corrupt form, “Nigger.” As the Negro shows his ability to develop
into a respectable and useful citizen, contemptuous epithets will be
dropped by all save the thoughtless and vicious, and “Negro” will be
recognized as the race name.
NOTES
Footnote 8:
“Following the Colour Line,” p. 151.
Footnote 9:
_Ibid._, p. 151.
Footnote 10:
“Up From Slavery,” p. 2.
Footnote 11:
Art. XIII, sec. 11.
Footnote 12:
Code, 1867, p. 94; Code, 1876, p. 187, sec. 2; Code, 1886, I, p. 56,
sec. 2; Code, 1896, I, p. 112, sec. 2.
Footnote 13:
Laws of Ky., 1865–66, p. 37.
Footnote 14:
Pub. Gen. Laws of Md., I, art. 27, sec. 305, p. 878.
Footnote 15:
Laws of Miss., 1865, p. 82.
Footnote 16:
Pell’s Revisal of 1908, II, sec. 3369.
Footnote 17:
Code, 1884, sec. 3291.
Footnote 18:
Laws of Tex., special session, 1884, p. 40.
Footnote 19:
Code, 1907, I, p. 218, sec. 2.
Footnote 20:
Laws of Fla., 1865, p. 30; Code, 1892, pp. 111 and 681; Gen. Stat.,
1906, p. 165, sec. 1.
Footnote 21:
Laws of Ga., 1865–66, p. 239.
Footnote 22:
Annotated Stat., 1908, III, sec. 8360.
Footnote 23:
Annotated Stat, 1906, II, sec. 2174.
Footnote 24:
Laws of S. C, 1864–65, p. 271.
Footnote 25:
Compiled Stat., 1895, sec. 3644.
Footnote 26:
Bellinger and Cotton’s Code and Stat., II, sec. 5217.
Footnote 27:
Laws of Va., 1865–66, p. 84.
Footnote 28:
McPherson’s Case, 1877, 28 Grat. 939.
Footnote 29:
People v. Dean, 1866, 14 Mich. 406.
Footnote 30:
Walker v. Brockway, 1869, I Mich. N. P. (Brown) 57.
Footnote 31:
Monroe v. Collins, 1867, 17 O. S. 665.
Footnote 32:
A mestizo is a person of mixed blood, specially a person of mixed
Spanish and American Indian parentage.—Century Dictionary, V, p. 3728.
Footnote 33:
Laws of Tenn., 1865–66, p. 63.
Footnote 34:
Kirby’s Digest, 1904, sec. 6632, p. 1378.
Footnote 35:
Thurman v. State, 1850, 18 Ala. 276.
Footnote 36:
Code, 1867, p. 94.
Footnote 37:
Laws of Mo., 1864, p. 67.
Footnote 38:
McMillan v. School Com., 1890, 12 S. E. 330; 107 N. C. 609.
Footnote 39:
Hopkins v. Bowers, 1892, 16 S. E. 1; 111 N. C. 175.
Footnote 40:
Bell v. State, 1894, 33 Tex. Cr. R. 163.
Footnote 41:
A Kanakan is a Hawaiian or Sandwich Islander.—Century Dictionary, IV,
p. 3264.
Footnote 42:
The Norfolk, Va., _Landmark_, June 13, 1906.
Footnote 43:
The New York _Daily Tribune_, June 10, 1906, part IV, p. 2.