Byline: Ray Sprigle; 1948-08-12; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; pages 1
Report: "I Was a Negro in the South for 30 Days" - Ray Sprigle - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tags: african american, posed as, racism, Sprigle, undercover
Article LinksWe’re at breakfast in this pleasant, comfortable, Negro home. One of the daughters is home on a visit from Tennessee where she and her husband are university instructors. The conversation drifts, as it inevitably will wherever and whenever Negroes gather, to the all-overshadowing race problem. Her 5-year-old son is at the table too. Whenever she uses the word "white," she spells it out w-h-i-t-e. She spells N-e-g-r-o too. So far, she hopes, her youngster doesn’t know the difference between Negro and white. He probably doesn’t because some of his relatives are as white in color as any white man and others range all the way to deep black. Those spelled-out words highlight another and vitally important problem of the intelligent Negro. When do you begin teaching your child how he is to live as a Negro? When do you begin teaching him the difference between black and white -- not as colors but as races? When do you begin teaching him how to live under the iron rule of a master race that regards him as an inferior breed? When do you begin teaching him that for him, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are scraps of paper?
Description:Sprigle learns about the everyday rules one's required to know when in the south and Black
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