When I was about two years old a family moved into the village bringing with them an old colored nurse. She was too old to work, and my childish remembrance is that she always sat in the corner near the fireplace with a pipe in her mouth. I did not know that the Negro could do anything else.
When I was about five years old a Negro came to the village and opened a barber shop. I remember my father telling mother about the Negro and how he took the three small children down to see "Snowball" as a matter of curiosity. My reaction was that the Negro was not a person such as I was accustomed to seeing, although there was no feeling of classing him as an animal.
The third contact came when I was half-grown. My father was prominent in politics and on election day the table was kept set so that anyone sent from the polls could have a meal. By some chance a Negro was sent and ate. After he had gone I remember seeing my mother take the plate and other dishes out in the yard and scour them with brick dust, evidently with an idea that something had rubbed off.
My information is largely taken from the books of Booker T. Washington. I admired Dunbar's poems when they were current in the newspapers and magazines. I have not seen any of them for many years but remember vividly, "When the Bread Won't Raise." I was naturally familiar with Uncle Tom's Cabin, both as a book and a play in Civil War days. I do not consciously seek for information on the subject of Negroes and do not personally know any Negroes. Outside of the names which appear in the press I do not know of any Negro leaders and could not be sure of correct information as to those who are well known.
I have never seen a Negro periodical and have so rarely heard Negroes discussed that no conclusions can be given. The Negro is rarely a topic of conversation in my circle.
As a solution they might be nationalized if possible, somewhere and somehow, like the Japs. Liberia is a failure largely because of white leadership and policy. Some portion of the earth should be set aside where the Negroes can be a nation, perhaps in Africa. They have a right to work out their own problems in their own ways.
All Negroes should be educated as highly as possible. They have a right to it because they are Americans. If demands follow this education, it is right they should be granted.
There is no personal fear of Negroes as a basis of my prejudice.
I agree with the third proposition as to isolation.
Majority's injustice to minority is always true in politics, religion, everyday dealings. Is not peculiar to relations between white and colored.