The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-09-26
THE NKGRo NORTH AND SOUTH

Tne Editor Of n COlored MANS News
paper NJ the North Visits WiIming,
t0n-What He ices Here-vBle con-
duet Of b sOcailed Friends Of she
b Negro n the North
Wilmington. n. c.. Sept. q. 1899.
Editor Wilmington Messenger:
Sir: The editorial in The Messenger
Of this date, referring to the treatmen,
anoroeo the negro miners n Illinois is
timely h writer OF this. conducting
a journal published in the north in the
Interest or his race, has frequently
criticiseG the cowardly conduct of those
frebrands n mischief-makers. who az
long range would indulge In the Ind,s-
criminate abuse OF the white people OF
the south. and has urged their
sion. The respectable and observant
negroes OF the north do not subscribe
10 the doctrines Of those black Johann
Mosts and O'Donova Rossas. That race
preJuolce obtains in the north. and is
sometimes demonstrated in such out
breaks as that referred TO, Is the ex-
perfence OF h u~nprejudiced observer.
The heterogeneous elements presented
In the industrial fields of h north form
a very formidable antagonism to the
negro iaborer Of that section. True,
- IAAO SOolA d IldThSU absence
of those hypocrftical professions Of fra
ternIty toward the negro, but, in the
dndustrlal world, he holds an indisputed
sway-in other words, he is not
slaughtered because he desires to work.
It was with some trepidation hal a
few lays g 1 landed in your much
misrepresented city. The impression
created in the north and which is
very perseveringly maintained by your
VllIf1GTS would C0ano ~ tnI;1a%o H.
for the negro Wilmington is the most
dangerous place on earth-that it's coll
ored citizens dare not hold up their
heads; that they move in fear and
trembling. I found him as free from
insult and assault as he is any where,
During a stay of five days (and after
I had got over the first spasm of fear)
/ have moved freely about unmolested.
l have moi encountered one insult. I
must pear witness to h gentIemanly
and courteous treatment of the conduc-
tors on your street car service, a treat-
ment decidedly at variance with what
the average colored man or woman re-
ceives at the hands of the same class in
some OF our best northern cities, not
even excepting the metropolis of the
empire state. The ruffianly treatment
of h negro in Wilmington has GER
tainly not been in evidence during my
stay here, n it shall be a pleasure as
we'll as a duty to recount these expert
ences to the people on my return north.
I have innumerable and valuable data
w~herewith to help counterfeit the cruel
misrepresentation, and the bad opin-
ion which at present obtains toward
a place which, whatever it's past may
have been, is today certainly as good
a place for the orderly, respectable and
iaw-abiding black citizen as is any
where I have visited in the United
States; and as for the vicious elements
the firebrands and the meters of out
breaks and the revilers of women
they are as undesirable north as south,
and those nampy-pampy and hysteri-
cal friends in h north who welcome
the latter classes with open arms, in
variably come to despise and loathe
them as soon as they know them. Lead
ers of the type of Professor Washing
ton, Dancy and, alas, too few others
are unostentatiously, but surely and
most effectively, solving whatever
there is Of a race problem, and not
those irresponsible w~indbags, Whose
main stock in trade is cowardly vitupe.
ration and Misrepresentation.
Respectfully yours,
f. q. S. PEREGRINO.