EDWARD SEABROOK, SAVANNAH, GA.
Steamship pilot, Atlantic Coast
RACE NAME—WHAT SHALL IT BE?
OPINION OF H. C. C. ASTWOOD, CAMBRIDGEPORT, MASS.
The controversy going on regarding the particular term by which to designate the race is important and of general interest. After reading all that has been said upon the subject up to date, I must conclude that the logic and the facts are with the "Colored American."
The word "Afro-American" is simply an individual fad of recent construction, which has been generally used by some to designate the race without stopping to think that it is really out of place and can have no significance at all as far as the race is concerned in this country. The word "African" or "Negro" may be applied in a general way to the native-born African and his descendants or to the Negro of Africa, because of the intense blackness of color, but the "Afro-American" race does not now nor ever did exist. It is argued that the German-American, the Irish-American, and the Anglo-American are distinctly racial lines, and for that reason the "Afro-American" must be applied to the race of African descent in America.
The conditions are not the same and the facts are against the argument. Let us analyze the different thousands of German, Irish, French, Dutch, and Italian nationalities who come to our shores annually. They form a distinct nationality within themselves, and as long as they retain their nationality they are German, French, and so on; but as soon as they become naturalized they become German-American, French-American, and so on; but their descendants born here are not German-Americans or French-Americans or Dutch-Americans; they are simply Americans, and nothing more. This is not the condition of the colored race in this country. I am of the opinion that it would be difficult to find a hundred native-born Africans in the United States; hence nationality is extinct. The ten millions of colored people in this country are native-born Americans, who never have had any other nationality, and cannot, therefore, be classed as anything else but Americans. If you wish to designate them because of their color, you cannot use a false term. They are not Africans nor Negroes, and there is no such a race as the Afro-American race known in the world. The particular race cannot be known otherwise than the "colored race," or, if you apply the nationality, the "Colored American." I don't think that the matter admits of argument, and the intelligent gathering of colored women who assembled in Washington knew exactly what they were doing and applied the correct term to themselves.
The editor of the "Colored American" is correct in the stand taken, and is supported by the well-thinking colored people of the entire country. The word "Afro-American" grew out of a freak at Chicago, and is only generally used by the "Age" and a few others; and as far as its application is concerned, it can never be acceptable, and will die a natural death, without even a struggle to smother. I am sure that this will elicit a storm of ridicule; but be this as it may, the word "Afro" and the word "Negro" can never be forced upon an American, regardless of his color, without his consent, and I stand ready to maintain my position in the premises based upon sound reason and common sense.