XIVA VISIT TO LOUISIANA
Theinevitable always happens. On February 3, 1898, I was called to Shreveport, La., to the bedside of my son, who was very ill. He was traveling with Nickens and Company, with “The Lion’s Bride,” when he fell ill, and had been ill two weeks when they sent to me. I tried to have him brought home to Boston, but they could not send him, as he was not able to sit and ride this long distance; so on the sixth of February I left Boston to go to him. I reached Cincinnati on the eighth, where I took the train for the south. I asked a white man standing near (before I got my train) what car I should take. “Take that one,” he said, pointing to one. “But that is a smoking car!” “Well,” he replied, “that is the car for colored people.” I went to this car, and on entering it all my courage failed me. I have ridden in many coaches, but I was never in such as these. I wanted to return home again, but when I thought of my sick boy I said, “Well, others ride in these cars and I must do likewise,” and tried to be resigned, for I wanted to reach my boy, as I did not know whether I should findhim alive. I arrived in Chattanooga at eight o’clock in the evening, where the porter took my baggage to the train which was to leave for Marion, Miss. Soon after I was seated, just before the train pulled out, two tall men with slouch hats on walked through the car, and on through the train. Finally they came back to our car and stopping at my seat said, “Where are those men who were with you?” I did not know to whom they were speaking, as there was another woman in the car, so I made no reply. Again they asked me, standing directly in front of my seat, “Where are those men who came in with you?” “Are you speaking to me?” I said. “Yes!” they said. “I have not seen any men,” I replied. They looked at me a moment, and one of them asked where I was from. I told him Boston; he hesitated a minute and walked out of our car to the other car.
When the conductor came around I told him what these men had said, and asked him if they allowed persons to enter the car and insult passengers. He only smiled. Later, when the porter came in, I mentioned it to him. He said, “Lady, I see you do not belong here; where are you from?” I told him. He said, “I have often heard of Massachusetts. I want to see that place.” “Yes!” I said, “you can ride there on the cars, and no person would be allowed to speak to you as those men did to me.” He explained that thosemen were constables, who were in search of a man who had eloped with another man’s wife. “That is the way they do here. Each morning you can hear of some negro being lynched;” and on seeing my surprise, he said, “Oh, that is nothing; it is done all the time. We have no rights here. I have been on this road for fifteen years and have seen some terrible things.” He wanted to know what I was doing down there, and I told him it was only the illness of my son that brought me there.
I was a little surprised at the way the poor whites were made to ride on this road. They put them all together by themselves in a car, between the colored people’s coach and the first-class coach, and it looked like the “laborers’ car” used in Boston to carry the different day laborers to and from their work.
I got to Marion, Miss., at two o’clock in the morning, arrived at Vicksburg at noon, and at Shreveport about eight o’clock in the evening, and found my son just recovering from a severe hemorrhage. He was very anxious to come home, and I tried to secure a berth for him on a sleeper, but they would not sell me one, and he was not strong enough to travel otherwise. If I could only have gotten him to Cincinnati, I might have brought him home, but as I could not I was forced to let him remain where he was. It seemed very hard, when his father fought to protect the Unionand our flag, and yet his boy was denied, under this same flag, a berth to carry him home to die, because he was a negro.
Shreveport is a little town, made up largely of Jews and Germans and a few Southerners, the negroes being in the majority. Its sidewalks are sand except on the main street. Almost all the stores are kept either by the Jews or Germans. They know a stranger in a minute, as the town is small and the citizens know each other; if not personally, their faces are familiar.
I went into a jewelry store one day to have a crystal put in my watch, and the attendant remarked, “You are a stranger.” I asked him how he knew that. He said he had watched me for a week or so. I told him yes, I was a stranger and from Boston. “Oh! I have heard of Boston,” he said. “You will not find this place like it is there. How do you like this town?” “Not very well,” I replied.
I found that the people who had lived in Massachusetts and were settled in Shreveport were very cordial to me and glad to see me. There was a man murdered in cold blood for nothing. He was a colored man and a “porter” in a store in this town. A clerk had left his umbrella at home. It had begun to rain when he started for home, and on looking for the umbrella he could not, of course, find it. He asked the porter if he had seen it. He said no, he had not. “Youanswer very saucy,” said the clerk, and drawing his revolver, he shot the colored man dead. He was taken up the street to an office where he was placed under one thousand dollars bond for his appearance and released, and that was the end of the case. I was surprised at this, but I was told by several white and colored persons that this was a common occurrence, and the persons were never punished if they were white, but no mercy was shown to negroes.
I met several comrades, white and colored, there, and noticed that the colored comrades did not wear their buttons. I asked one of them why this was, and was told, should they wear it, they could not get work. Still some would wear their buttons in spite of the feeling against it. I met a newsman from New York on the train. He was a veteran, and said that Sherman ought to come back and go into that part of the country.
Shreveport is a horrid place when it rains. The earth is red and sticks to your shoes, and it is impossible to keep rubbers on, for the mud pulls them off. Going across the Mississippi River, I was amazed to see how the houses were built, so close to the shore, or else on low land; and when the river rises, it flows into these houses and must make it very disagreeable and unhealthy for the inmates.
After the death of my son, while on my way back to Boston, I came to Clarksdale, one of thestations on the road from Vicksburg. In this town a Mr. Hancock, of New York, had a large cotton plantation, and the Chinese intermarry with the blacks.
At Clarksdale, I saw a man hanged. It was a terrible sight, and I felt alarmed for my own safety down there. When I reached Memphis I found conditions of travel much better. The people were mostly Western and Northern here; the cars were nice, but separate for colored persons until we reached the Ohio River, when the door was opened and the porter passed through, saying, “The Ohio River! change to the other car.” I thought, “What does he mean? We have been riding all this distance in separate cars, and now we are all to sit together.” It certainly seemed a peculiar arrangement. Why not let the negroes, if their appearance and respectability warrant it, be allowed to ride as they do in the North, East, or West?
There are others beside the blacks, in the South and North, that should be put in separate cars while traveling, just as they put my race. Many black people in the South do not wish to be thrown into a car because all are colored, as there are many of their race very objectionable to them, being of an entirely different class; but they have to adapt themselves to the circumstances and ride with them, because they are all negroes. There is no such division with the whites. Exceptin one place I saw, the workingman and the millionaire ride in the same coaches together. Why not allow the respectable, law-abiding classes of the blacks the same privilege? We hope for better conditions in the future, and feel sure they will come in time, surely if slowly.
While in Shreveport, I visited ex-Senator Harper’s house. He is a colored man and owns a large business block, besides a fine residence on Cado Street and several good building lots. Another family, the Pages, living on the same street, were quite wealthy, and a large number of colored families owned their homes, and were industrious, refined people; and if they were only allowed justice, the South would be the only place for our people to live.
We are similar to the children of Israel, who, after many weary years in bondage, were led into that land of promise, there to thrive and be forever free from persecution; and I don’t despair, for the Book which is our guide through life declares, “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand.”
What a wonderful revolution! In 1861 the Southern papers were full of advertisements for “slaves,” but now, despite all the hindrances and “race problems,” my people are striving to attain the full standard of all other races born free in the sight of God, and in a number of instances have succeeded. Justice we ask,—to becitizens of these United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be polluted.