The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1893-06-27
THE soUTHERN NEGRO.
"A Northern Teacher Denoupces I'll,
Race for Ingratitude and Immor

A Northern Teacher Denoupces the
Race D tnRratitude and Immor-
ality.
Ella Evalyn Conner, an educated
colOred girl, went 70 Chattanooga last
year to teach in the public schools,
and encountered very strong prejudice
against Northern negroes among her
own race. They disliked her very
much, and charged her with improper
relations with the school commissioner
q white man of family, for which she
was tried and acquitted. On returning
to her. home in Ohio, she wrote the
following scorching letter to the Chat
tanooga Times:
SELMA, o., June 10.
l heartily agree with the Northern
man on the negro" whose comment
in your columns of a few weeks since
was taken from q Memphis paper. |
was reared in a pure, Quaker CON-
munity, and have been surrounded by
good Christian influences from child
hood and had known very few colored
people before / went South. /, too,
went South prejudiced against the
whites for the cruel treatment imposed
upon the cOlored people by them. I
could not see why the color of a mans
skin would subject him to the treat
ment ne received. / taught in your
community three successive q and
OF course came in contact with the
negro as he is. l can see o why he
is treated as he is, and am almost ready
to add he is treated too we'll.
tits useless for the average negro
(of course we have some noble excep-
tiOns) to talk of emigrating North or
any other place until he learns to APP
preciate the pure and the good, and it
will be no better in the North than in
the South, for wherever the negro is
found in large numbers he is treated
badly, n in most cases he deserves to
be treated SO. l have lived North
and East and have taught South, three
years, and l shall quit bowling about
negro suffrage" for the average negro
Is morally so low that no intelligent,
upright, sensible colored person can
censure O well-equipped, refined class
OF people for ostracising such cattle.
We know we have some of our race
who will compare with those of any
other race in education, culture and re-
inement, whose characters are as
good as gold; but comparatively
speaking, how few, and the few suffer
for what the masses do.
Since l have @ Q so much of the ne
groes in the past six weeks, 1 can see
why the children in the schools are sc
warlike, dishonest and treacherous
1t is wholly impossible to get the truth
from them in any form. They vii
steal anything they can get their hands
on, and sad part of it all is, when they
are caught in a wrong they are no
sorry that they have committed the
wrong, but that they have beer
caught.
AS a class the negroes are so vilt
and degraded that they put the wrong
construction on everything thei1
leaders do, and see only the bad sid,
of things. The "negro problem" t,
me is n o longer why the whites impos,
such treatment on them, but why the,
are cast in such u mold.
l heartily endorse the sentiment 0
the Northern man on the negro"
believe he told the exact truth. an
often asked when 1 come North b,
both white and colored what 1 thinl
of the way in which the negro i
treated, 1 shall answer them hence
forth that he is treated too we'll, for
have found that when u colored person
tries to do right the white people viii
give him a helping hand fifty-yea,
hundred-times where members of hi
own rae will try to pull him down
They need not expect to prosper, TO
they make their W way hard.
l have no ace pride. l lost it il
Chattanooga.
Now, of coul Sc, the colored 'peopl,
who do not do these things will talk,
this letter to heart. Let him who tn,
shoe fits, put it on.
ELLA EVALYN CONNER.