"'So is you a ol' woman,' I says."
is you or is you ain't?
"Den we jaw aroun' about it for a long time. Yestiddy I say, 'Emily you all hab done been widout a husband fo' nigh onto 22 yeah.' She don't say nothin'. I talks 'bout it some mo', then I says, 'Emily, is you gwine to be my wife or is you ain't?' She says 'Yes' and den we get de license. Now we hab done got de ministah and it am all ready. I'se feelin' kinda sprightly like tonight and unless my misery comes on me thar sho'ly am agwine to be some 'spicious carryings-ons in dis abode tomorrow night" [Chicago Tribune, January 11, 1916].
During the war Negroes were as seriously engaged in battle and as freely sacrificing their lives as other soldiers. When deeds of heroism were cabled back to the United States, Negroes at home expected serious reports of the activities of the sons, husbands, and brothers whom they had given up to fight for their country. Exception was taken by them to newspaper treatment of a serious feat as merely ludicrous. For example:
Black Yank Bags Hun; Major Wears Captain's Monocle
Paris, Sept. 7 (Delayed). During the recent American advance out of Château Thierry, a Red Cross captain was looking about for suitable hospital sites, when he met an American Negro soldier marching along toward Château Thierry, following close behind a German major. The Negro had transferred his pack from his own back to the back of the German officer, and had also transferred the German major's monocle to his own eye. Thus equipped the black warrior was parading triumphantly down the road. As he passed the Red Cross captain he called out, "I say, look here what dis Niggah done got" [Chicago Evening Post].
The following is a news report, with dialect, which was supposed to have been cabled from Paris:
Negro Stevedore Coming Back "By Way of New Ohleens"
August 17 (Delayed). George Washington Henry Clay Smith, Negro stevedore at one of the American base ports, expressed the feeling of a large part of the expeditionary force about ocean travel. "When dis heah wah is ovah," he said, "you-all will nevah see me goin' back across dat ole ocean. Ahm not goin' back to United States that away. Ahm goin' back by way of New Ohleens" [Chicago Evening Post, September 9, 1918].
"Crap shooting" is ordinarily regarded as the peculiar pastime and passion of Negroes. Popular expectation is fed by newspaper stories of these games, made even more humorous by dialect, and the frequent implications of levity in religious matters. Such stories would probably be enjoyed by Negroes if they did not have the effect of picturing this trait as an exclusively Negro form of gambling.