The Tribune makes this reparation spontaneously and as a simple act of justice.
There is not the slightest mystery about Miss Johnson. Her life has been an open book. She has won distinction at high school, and university, and her career appears to have been free from any blemish that should lessen the love of her intimate friends or the respect in which she is held by her acquaintances.
Some mulattoes I know of, one a prominent Wall Street broker, have “crossed the line” by declaring that they are Mexicans, Brazilians, Spanish or French; one says he is an Armenian. Under a foreign name they are readily accepted among white people where, as Negroes, they would be instantly rejected. No one, of course, can estimate the number of men and women with Negro blood who have thus “gone over to white”; but it must be large.
Does Race Amalgamation Still Continue?
One of the first questions that always arises concerning the mulatto is whether or not the mixture of blood still continues and whether it is increasing or decreasing. In other words, is the amalgamation of the races still going on and to what extent?
Intermarriage between the races is forbidden by law in all the Southern states and also in the following Northern and Western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah. In all other Northern and Western states marriage between the races is lawful.
And yet, the marriage laws, so far as they affect the actual problem of amalgamation, mean next to nothing at all. No legal marriage existed between the races in slavery times and yet there was a widespread mixture of blood. Concubinage was a common practice: a mulatto was worth more in cash than a black man. The great body of mulattoes now in the country trace their origin to such relationships.
And such practice of slavery days no more ceased instantly with a paper Emancipation Proclamation than many other customs and habits which had grown up out of centuries of slave relationships. It is a slow process, working out of slavery, both for white men and black.
I made inquiries widely in every part of the South among both white and coloured people and I found a strong and rapidly growing sentiment against what the South calls “miscegenation.” For years white men in many communities, often prominent judges, governors, wealthy planters, made little or no secret of the fact that they had a Negro family as well as a white family.
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| A TYPE OF NEGRO GIRL | MULATTO GIRL STUDENT | MISS CECELIA JOHNSON |
| Typesetter in Atlanta. Many Negro girls are entering stenography, bookkeeping, dressmaking, millinery and other occupations. | At Clark University, Atlanta. At the completion of her studies this young woman will take up missionary work in Africa. | A mulatto who could be easily taken for a white person. She was a leader in her class in Chicago University. |