Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/41

 *ger" is confined largely to the South; "Coon," to the rest of the country. Again, one occasionally finds "Blacks" and "Black Men" in contradistinction to "Whites" and "White Men."

The question of the proper name for persons of African descent was brought into prominence in 1906. In that year a bill was laid before Congress relative to the schools of the City of Washington, which provided that the Board of Education should consist of nine persons, three of whom should be "of the colored race." Representative Thetus W. Sims, of Tennessee, objected to the phrase on the ground that it would include "Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, Sandwich Islanders, or any persons of the colored race," and insisted that "Negroes" or "persons of the Negro race" should be substituted in its place. He wrote to Dr. Booker T. Washington, as one of the leaders of the Negro race, asking his views as to the proper word. The following is part of his reply: " It has been my custom to write and speak of the members of my race as Negroes, and when using the term 'Negro' as a race designation to employ the capital 'N.' To the majority of the people among whom we live I believe this is customary and what is termed in the rhetorics 'good usage.' Rightly or wrongly, all classes have called us Negroes. We cannot escape that if we would. To cast it off would be to separate us, to a certain extent, from our history, and deprive us of much of the inspiration we now have to struggle on and upward. It is to our credit, not to our shame, that we have risen so rapidly, more rapidly than most other peoples, from savage ancestors through slavery to civilization. For my