The Denver star., 1915-09-18
RACIAL ORIGIN OF AEsoP.
Learned Critics Disagree With Du Beis
That Great Novelist Was Black.


That Great Novelist Was Black.
Dy JOHN E. BRUCE GRIT"
The learned critics and book review
ers on some Of the metropolitan papers.
who know a good many things that are
not exactly so, have strenuously OBJ
jected to DR.. W. E. B. Du Bois' char
acterization of Aesop in his book The
| Negro" as an African. There are some
books about Africa and the Africans
which a good many Of these ready re-
viewers and critics have not read and
which, If they would read them In
some leisure moment, would enable
them to speak and write more conyinc-
ingly about Africa and its people.
These same critics and book review
ers go up in the air whenever any one
asserts that Alexander Hamilton,
Washington's secretary Of the treas
ury. was a man with large strain OF
Negro blood-the son of quadroon
mother and a white father. None OF
his biographers, for obvious reasons
have gone into this phase Of his his
tory. But in the island of Nevis
,, B. w. l., where Hamilton was born
the tradition will not down.
All Of the early writer's contempo-
raneous with Aesop who have written
about him describe him either as
dark" or "black' man and repulsive
In his personal appearance, with
woolly hair and pendent lips etc.
One of the Arabian poets. who must
have seen him at some time or other
or got pretty good description of him
from some one who had met him.
speaks Of him thus, 'Brimful of wis
dom; black as night"
Now, whoever saw a white man
"black as night" except he was
member of the burnt cork fraternity.
coal miner or a fireman. where soft
coal is used? In the thirty first chap
ter of the Koran, which is entitled
LoQman. says the learned DR.. E. w.
Blyden. Rodwell supposes that Log
man is the same person whom the
Greeks. not knowing his real name.
have called Aesop. or Aethiops. He is
celebrated in secular Arabian poetry.
Dean Stanley in his Jewish Church"
pays striking tribute to the character
of Loqman.
The mandates of LoQman," The
wise maxims of LoQman,' are frequent
phrases in classic Arabic literature to
indicate the wisdom and judgment Of
the great African. Dr. Du Bois is on
safe ground in claiming Aesop as an
African. and he is supported in this
by writers and historians, some Of
them cOntemporaneous with the
mighty black. who knew what they
were talking about.
The testimony of these earlier wit
nesses lis more dependable and valua
BILE than that of moderns, who have
acquired the very bad habit Of read
ing history with their prejudices and
interpreting it to meet the popular
lrejudices Of their day and generation.
How these critics are able to say with
so much positiveness that Aesop was
not an African. 'black as night" doth
not appear in the testimony they have
adduced Until it does we must con-
tinue to believe the testimony Of the
writer's and historians, some of whom
saw Aesop face to face.
His blackness and ugliness made
such an awful impression upon them
that they were impelled to describe
him in terms which cannot be twisted
or distorted to mean other than what
| they intended. e.. that he was an
ugly. repulsive black. with splay feet.
pendent lips. a large abdomen and all
the physical characteristics Of the Al
rfcan. He certainly was