“Both in a way,” said I, as I thought of what the concert was going to accomplish for me.
“I am in a position to give a concert of negro melodies for the benefit of your home. I control—in a measure—two colored persons who have fine voices, and it occurred to me that the villagers and perhaps the summer people would attend a concert given in your church.”
“Yes, they would,” said he, rubbing his hands. “And we could provide some attractions out of our own ranks. There’s a male quartette in the Sunday School—”
“White?” said I.
“Why, certainly,” said he.
“Well, I’m a person entirely devoid of race prejudice, but you must remember that this is New England, Massachusetts in fact, and if we wish to make a success of this concert we must not mix the two races. I see no reason personally why your white quartette should not sing on the same stage with our colored singers, if they sing as well, but I am quite sure that the public would not patronize the concert if we advertised it as a mixed affair.”
The good deacon rose from his seat and said, “Why, my dear sir, I consider that a colored man has just as white a soul as a white man.”
I also rose and told him that I could not swear as to the color of any soul; that souls might be a delicate pink for all I personally knew to the contrary. I also told him that I would not object to attending a concert of beautiful voices that came out of white and black throats (I was not flippant enough to say that all throats were red) but that I knew my fellow Yankees too well to think that they would care to come to a concert where whites and blacks sang on the same stage.
“It might go in the South,” said I, “where their ideas about such things are different from ours, but up here if you want our colored concert to be a success you must let all the singing be done by colored folks and all the hearing be done by white.”
At this point the talk drifted to the negro question and what a problem it was getting to be and I found that we thought alike on most points, and I finally made him understand that I was acting from diplomatic motives entirely, and because I understood the temper of the New Englanders so well.