The colored American., 1903-01-24
Negro Financiers

Continued from first page
strengthen the white man. He knows
it; but we do not seem to have found
it out yet. We have all got our own
white family physician, lawyer, grocer,
shoe man, butcher, etc, ETC., to the end
of the chapter. They all call us Mr.,
say yes sir, and no sir, very politely,
yet would be positively shocked if we
insisted on any one of them giving a
black man or woman a chance to make
some of the money we pay into their
hands for necessities which black men
can furnish us. All we have got to
do as a race, is to create a demand
for the necessities of life and there will
be plenty of competent Negroes who
will be ready and willing to supply it
for cash. But we are making fortunes
for thousands of white men every year
by giving them our trade. We do not
seem to have sense enough to do any
kind of business successfully. There
must be something wrong with our
headpieces. Some of us will walk ten
blocks to spend a dollar with a white
man when we know that a black man
in the same business would treat us
just as well and give us just as much
for our dollar.
l think some of us may like to show
white people how important we have
gotten to be since the war tween the
States Some of us like to walk into
a white mans store, when we've got
our monies on us, and swell up like a
cushion-fish while we are giving him a
81 or So order and then flash our roll
in his face while stripping off the bill
we want before telling him to send
the goods up to the house. | have
been in big grocery stores at times
when some fat old fool niggah with
more cash than Trains, would be giving
an order and trying to put on the airs
of his former master. The coffee or
the tea, or the butter sent with the
last monthly order were not up to the
standard, and the merchant would be
told not to consider price, that quality
was a desideratum. This would be
said in a loud tone, particularly if
there was any one of his own race
in the store. 1t is these old fool
niggahs who discourage the efforts of
ambitious and progressive Negroes who
try to lift themselves and their race
above their former condition. These
old Negroes-old family servants for
the most part-deify the white man.
They have lived so long and seen so
much of the white man, that, like
him, they absolutely refuse to believe
that the Negro can do anything as
good as d white man. They are allud-
ed to by the merchants with whom
they deal as "old darkies'' knew
one New York avenue grocer who came
from my state, who dubbed his colored
customers as Mr.. or Mrs Smoke Old
Doctor Garnett, jeff Davis former
physician used to call 'em ''blankety
blank niggers" to their faces, when
they sent for him-give them prescrip-
tions and sometimes money to buy the
medicine, but he would never take a
cent from any of them for his services
Some colored people imagine they'll
get we'll quicker when they are sick
if white doctor 'zamines EN-
Wen, God made us and He knows
us. l know that we are a strange i
combination, a composite race into
whose veins courses the blood OF near
ly every race on earth. The man who
succeeds in getting order out of it will
be third Daniel and l want to be
on the committee to welcome him.
A few days ago in the course of an
address before the Joint Session of