The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1870-06-02
CoIorphobia in Mobile.

oning on the same subject Indeed
some of the papers there have worked
themselves into quite fury on the sub
ject. The street railway companies do
not altogether like to yield the comfort
able speck of revenue which would come
from colored peoples pockets, if they
were treated with any sort of decency
Hence they have divided the cars into
sections, cutting off the negro section
from the whites by an open iron railing.
This, as the Cincinnati Gazette remarks,
is Constructive division of a horse
car, a dividing mark which cuts off
neither sight, smell, manners nor prox-
unity" and upon this slender matter the
veal OF woe of Mobile society appears
now to hang in greatest peril. The
Gazette counsels the Mobilians to mod
Grafton and patience, and cites the ex-
perience of Cincinnati as follows:
"Not more than eight years ago the
Cincinnati public we're contending
about the same thing. The street rail-
road companies feared to permit the
blacks to ride, because they thought it
would hurt their business. There were
not few coarse and i'll hammered whites
who thought it necessary to demand
that the conductor should put out any
one suspected Of an admixture of negro
blood. These are the self. delusions
which are generated by the power to
oppress. But in time, the Courts broke
down this distinction, and in a short
time black passengers ceased to be no
ticed. We have seen in this, as we'll
as in the late elections, that equal rights
have wonderful influence in ameIiora-
ting the supposed prejudice of race
1t is not necessary that any one shall
introduce into Congress a bill to recon
struct the State ofAlabama on account
of this Mobile offense. The whites will
soon come to their senses. The absurd
ity of such a division will soon break it
down. And it is very unwise in the
Register to propose to make the issue
against further negro encroachments in
the direction of social equality, on the
exclusion of colored citizens from the
use of the public highway. For horse
car can acquire no right to use a street
save as a facility in its use as a public
highway 1t has the right to use a cer-
tain track, but it does this subject to all
the public rights in the highway. 1t
can exclude no one who has the right
to travel in the highway, and the money
to pay his fare.
1t will add materially to the right de-
cision of this momentous question of
color if rejecting men and women will
consider that the prejudice of color has
no foundation in reason or in fact 1t
is the prejudice against condition-the
ancient, cruel, wicked prejudice against
the poor and oppressed classes of socie-
ty. 1t is the dislike of wealth to power
ty; of pretentious refinement to vulgar
ity of the powerful against the victims
of their own injustice and selfshness.
A large part of the prescription we wit
ness arises from sheer cowardice on the
part of white people to avow their con-
tempt and disregard for sentiment
they know to be cruel and unjust
There are many who are silly enough
to think that display of contempt for
an oppressed race or class identifies
them more fully with the favored and
pretentious classes. But for this we
should have next to none of this con-
temptible prejudice to contend with,
north or south. In the palmy days of
slave.holding supremacy, colored peo-
pie, as walters, were the constant COM
panions of their white masters and mis-
treSses. They journeyed with them on
steamboats,, stage coaches, canal boats,
railway and street cars, and in private
carriages. An insult offered TO such
servant in waiting was resented as an
insultoffered to tie person or family, to
which they were attached, Nobody
then compelled them to take separate
cars on account of color. Instead of
this, Northern funkies were often found
making gracious condecensions to such
servants, as the best means in their
reach of getting smile from their mas
ters or mistresses whose attendants they
were. A black man or woman work.
ing for himself, looks, acts and smells
no worse in street car, than he did
when all his or her earnings went to
pay the expenses Of their white fellow
travellers 1t was always inexplicable
to us how, to some people. a black man
smelt so sweetly when a slave, and so
badly when he happened to be free.
Having no foundation in nature, in
reason, or in truth, as the newly eman-
cipated and enfranchised race rises in
wealth, education and political influence,
this wretched form ofpublic insult must
cease its manifestations, The Ethiop-
ian can not change his skin, but he can,
by the diligent use of the means now i'll
his reach, change his condition, and so
live down and conquer the unreasoning
and cowardly malignity which unwOr-
thy men, of a professedly superiorrace,
have too often manifested against them.
Let the Jim Grow pew be put out of all
our churches--let white and black be
no longer made the mark of division in
either political, religious or educational
institutions. Reforms and beneficial
changes work slowly, but they work
surely, and this, with every other
wrong must surely die and be number
I :1l, .lo o,;ls ,uhioh tho world has