To my personal knowledge one of the prominent surgeons of New York City who has an elaborately furnished suite of offices in an exclusive neighborhood, whose fees run often into four figures, who moves with his family in society of such standing that the names of its members appear frequently in the society columns of the metropolitan press, is a colored man from a Southern city. There he grew tired of the proscribed life he was forced to lead, decided to move North and forget he was a colored man. He met w ith success, married well and he and his wife and their children form as happy a family circle as one could hope to see. O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings to the contrary, his wife loves him but the more for his courage in telling her of his race when first they met and loved. This doctor's case is not an exception.
Colored people know many of their own who have done likewise.
In New York there is at least one man high in the field of journalism, a certain famous singer, several prominent figures of the stage, in fact, in almost any field that could be mentioned there are those who are colored but who have left their race for wider opportunity and for freedom from race prejudice. Just a few days before this article is being written I received a note from a woman whose name is far from being obscure in the world of the arts. The night before, she wrote me, there had been a party at her studio. Among the guests were three Southern whites who, in a confidential mood, had told her of a plan the Ku lilux Klan was devising for capitalizing in New York prejudice against the Negro. Some of these do so for business reasons, others when they go out to dine or to the theatre.