But such cases as these are rare. In the great majority of intermarriages the white women belong to the lower walks of life. They are German, Irish, or other foreign women, respectable, but ignorant. As far as I can see from investigating a number of such cases, the home life is as happy as that of other people in the same stratum of life. But the white woman who thus marries a Negro is speedily declassed: she is ostracised by the white people, and while she finds a certain place among the Negroes, she is not even readily accepted as a Negro. In short, she is cut off from both races. When I was at Xenia, O., I was told of a case of a white man who was arrested for living with a Negro woman. The magistrate compelled him to marry the Negro woman as the worst punishment he could invent!
For this reason, although there are no laws in most Northern states against mixed marriages, and although the Negro population has been increasing, the number of intermarriages is not only not increasing, but in many cities, as in Boston, it is decreasing. It is an unpopular institution!
No one phase of the race question has aroused more acrimonious discussion than that of the Mulatto, especially as to the comparative physical strength and intelligence of the black Negro and the mulatto, a subject which cannot be here entered into.
Most Leaders of the Negro Race are Mulattoes
This much I know from my own observation: most of the leading men of the race to-day in every line of activity are mulattoes. Both Booker T. Washington and Dr. DuBois are mulattoes. Frederick Douglass was a mulatto. The foremost literary men, Charles W. Chesnutt and William Stanley Braithwaite, are mulattoes; the foremost painter of the race, H. O. Tanner, whose pictures have been in the Luxembourg, and who has been an honour to American art, is a mulatto. Both Judge Terrell and his wife, Mary Church Terrell, who is a member of the School Board of Washington, are mulattoes. On the other hand, there are notable exceptions to the rule. W. T. Vernon, Register of the United States Treasury, and Professor Kelly Miller of Washington, D. C., one of the ablest men of his race, both have the appearance of being full-blooded Negroes. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the poet, was an undoubted Negro; so was J. C. Price, a brilliant orator; so is M. C. B. Mason, secretary of the Southern Aid Society of the Methodist Church.
Full-blooded Negroes often make brilliant school and college records, even in comparison with white boys. It is the judgment of Hampton Institute, after years of careful observation, that there is no difference in ability between light and dark Negroes. I quote from the Southern Workman, published at Hampton:
The question as to the comparative intelligence of light and dark Negroes is one that is not easily settled. After long years of observation Hampton’s records show that about an equal number of mulattoes and pure blacks have made advancement in their studies and at their work. While it is probable that the lighter students are possessed of a certain quickness which does not belong to the darker, there is a power of endurance among the blacks that does not belong to their lighter brethren.
As to the comparative accomplishment of light and dark Negroes after leaving school, the evidence is so confusing that I would not dare to enter upon a generalisation: that question must be left to the great scientific sociologist who will devote a lifetime to this most interesting problem in human life.