THE RACE PROBLEM.[1]
AS DISCUSSED BY NEGRO WOMEN.
It was my good fortune to attend the meetings of the Michigan State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. There were perhaps two or three hundred colored women present—colored ladies, I would say, for these women were ladies in every sense of the word. They had the faces of ladies—strong, sweet, thoroughly refined faces. It has sometimes been said that all negroes look alike, but among the same number of white women it would be difficult to find more types than in this audience. They were of all shades. Some of them were very black. Some might have been mistaken for white women. An unusual number of them were pretty—even beautiful. I heard one white woman remark that she had never seen so many pretty women together before. It was especially noticeable that those who took prominent parts were generally remarkable for their physical development. They gave the impression of strength of every kind—physical strength, as well as mental and moral. They would have been leaders in any race.
They had the voices of ladies. Further, they were able to make themselves heard without their voices becoming harsh or strained. They had the manners of ladies, sweet and dignified. Dignified, not pompous. There was that absence of pretense about them which marks well-bred men and women of the world. They had the mellow courtesy—the tactfulness which, it seems to me, is a distinguishing mark of the race. They were dressed like ladies—scrupulously neat and clean, in good taste. There was very little of the tendency toward gaudy or inharmonious colors which has been supposed to characterize the race.
From personal knowledge I can testify that many of these women came from homes as clean, as attractive nay, even as artistic as can be found among the whites in a similar financial
- ↑ The writer of this paper has no negro blood. She is a graduate of Wellesley and has done two years of graduate work in Oxford, England.—Eds.
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