By Julia Creson
A writer identifying themselves simply as “Though Black, A Man” submitted three articles addressed to the editor of the New York Globe in the months leading up to the fair, all of which criticize the creation of the Colored Department. His first piece, “Shall We Be Manly?: The Colored People and the Proposed World’s Fair at New Orleans,” was the most contentious, drawing response from a man named J.W. Cromwell. Here I analyze their exchange of views on the separation of exhibits by race. Their articles demonstrate a complex range of opinion within the Black community about the separation of departments during the decade before Jim Crow laws were officially passed. I also consider the gendered lens through which Though Black, A Man (TBAM) examines racial relations at the fair. Through his focus on “manliness,” TBAM further excludes Black women from discourse about racism and the fair, thus eliding these women’s focus on resisting not only racism, but also classism and sexism.
Although TBAM was not the only person who criticized the separation of departments, his was the most overt critique. His first article begins with somewhat cloaked language, referring to the creation of the Colored Department as a “[feature] connected with the proposed World’s Fair…that [presses itself] upon [his] mind in an unfavorable manner.” However, he soon moves into the attack:
I inquire, Why should the National Government…make invidious distinctions among its subjects; discriminate among them on account of color; make appropriations from the common fund to put one class of citizens apart from all the rest; to single them out; coop them up; stall them; brand them…put a mark upon them that an invidious comparison may be made with the disadvantages all against the branded and prescribed party?
(Globe, “Shall we be Manly?”)
The question is clear: why did the National Government choose to separate white exhibits from those created by Black folks by instituting a Colored Department? TBAM suggests the Colored Department is meant to mark Black Americans as “others,” to push them to the margins rather than recognize them as equal to white exhibitors. Using phrases like “coop them up; stall them; brand them” that are typically applied to animals, he expresses the extent to which the separation of departments, in his opinion, positions Black folks not as equal humans, but as animalistic others. Cromwell demurs, arguing that the Colored Department was created to answer demands from Black southerners “for an opportunity to show in tangible form the progress which their race had made since emancipation” (Cromwell Replies). From Cromwell’s point of view, the Colored Department was created so that Black folks’ progress could be recognized in its own right. His point fails to nullify TBAM’s criticisms, which focus on the implications of segregating Black exhibitors based on race at the New Orleans fair. He argues that choosing to create a separate department for Black exhibitors reflects “contempt for colored man . . . a contempt that will not allow his being associated with as an equal, as a fellow.” He writes,
If his presence is to be tolerated other than as an absolute inferior, a menial, a servant, he and the world must know the conditions; the arrangement says so–that it is not to be as a compeer, an equal fellow with the white man; that he is to be pointed to as a semi-pariah; a partial leper, a scorned party; a party merely tolerated. (Globe, “Shall We Be Manly?”)
While the Colored Department may have been established to answer demands from Black folks for a chance to display their progress since emancipation–an aim that ignores those who were free long before emancipation–it also reinforces a racial binary. TBAM’s use of words and phrases such as “inferior, menial, servant, semi-pariah, partial leper, a scorned party, a party merely tolerated” demonstrates the effect of creating a separate department based on race: a violent othering; a statement of superiority and inferiority. Rather than challenge previous constructions of Black folks as inferior, the separation of departments, to some Black folks like TBAM, reinforces the white supremacist system which places Black folks at the margins and white folks at its center.
Although it was confirmed that Black Americans agreed to the Colored Department, TBAM’s refusal to believe that Black folks were involved in the decision is due to his understanding of the segregationist effects of that separation. He asks if Black southerners were to be welcomed at the fair, why would they ask for the creation of a separate exhibit rather than prove the quality of Black creations while exhibiting alongside white folks? He raises this question “based upon an assumption inferable from Mr. Cromwell’s statement that the colored man would have been welcomed by the managers of the Fair … like other men, and have had full, equal respectful recognition without regard to his color.” TBAM does not understand the need for a separate department, whether Black southerners agreed to the decision or not.
To demonstrate how segregation is used against Black Americans, TBAM writes, “I do not feel willing to credit [Cromwell…] with the unreasonable belief, that the management of the Exposition at New Orleans will exhibit any amount of respectful treatment of colored men beyond what has been the custom and policy of the white citizens…of Louisiana in their treatment of colored men.” In the recent past, it has been custom for southern white Louisianians to discriminate against Black folks, which makes TBAM unwilling to trust that treatment will be different at the New Orleans fair. For example, a little over two weeks after TBAM published his final article, the Washington Bee published an article titled “Murder and Assassination” that discusses the murder and imprisonment of Black Americans in Louisiana motivated to prevent them from voting. While the article refers to the assailants only as “Democrats,” it is certain these perpetrators were white based on the history of lynchings and imprisonments related to suppressing the Black vote in the South. This example supports TBAM’s claims as it depicts the very real dangers that segregation and racism foster, a reality that the mere creation of a separate department does not solve.
TBAM further demonstrates how segregation is used against Black Americans through the railroads, which were many Black Americans’ only way to access the New Orleans fair. At this point in history, trains were already segregated by Jim Crow laws. He asserts,
It is affirmed that the government has no power to protect a colored person on the common carriers necessary to be used. You and your wife and your cultured, refined and sensitive daughters are forced in a Jim Crow car, into the smoking car amidst filth and dirt and still more filthy and dirty insulting blackguards, white ruffians, and left subjects of their will and mercilessness…Let a would be exhibitor…or one of its State colored commissioners, go as a gentleman is justified in going to an inn and ask one in New Orleans for needful accommodations; let his demeanor be most dignified, his attire costly…his moral character most exemplary; his purse be borne down with gold…simply because he is one of those the government has proscribed, he will be made to blush, hang his head and skulk away as though he had attempted to steal manhood or else become the subject of a bloody onslaught.
TBAM depicts the danger of railroads for Black families under Jim Crow, forced into the specific car for Black folks with no protection from “white ruffians” or any other assailants. He uses words like “cultured, refined, and sensitive” and “dignified, costly, moral” when describing the hypothetical daughters and commissioner to suggest that even Black folks with means to pay for the best inns and railway tickets will face discrimination and rejection. He explains the rampant segregation and violence on railways and in the South to reinforce the lackluster effort put into Black folks exhibiting at the fair. A Colored Department not only reinforces segregation by separating by race, but guarantees no protection from racial violence outside of the fairgrounds. Where TBAM asserts an inherent mistrust of white organizers to offer solutions, other newspapers such as the Huntsville Gazette raise the question of accommodations and receive answers that this is being taken care of, although specific accommodations are not described.
While TBAM presents compelling evidence of the segregationist effects of a separate Colored Department, Cromwell asserts that the Colored Department itself is a move towards integration. He quotes Director General E.H. Burke, who stated during an address that “the Exposition was to be open ‘without regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude’ both as to exhibits and premiums to be awarded and distributed.” In response to TBAM’s question as to why the Colored Department was created, Cromwell again quotes Chief Director Burke:
The colored people of Mississippi, Louisiana and some other southern localities had asked for an opportunity to show in tangible form the progress which their race had made since emancipation, and the management in deference to this demand created this special department, without however, depriving any colored citizen who desires to from entering his exhibits upon the same conditions as others, by paying for his space and paying all expenses of transportation.
In Cromwell’s understanding, the Colored Department was created to honor Black southerners’ wishes rather than as a move towards segregation at the fair. Even when considering the issues with the fair such as travel and finding a place to stay, Cromwell asserts, “[TBAM’s] zeal and indignation have closed his eyes to the fact…that despite obstacles in his way the Negro has such capacities as a worker in mechanism and in art as when displayed to cause to be extended to him the hand that will fairly place him upon the same level as the other races in our American public.” In other words, he argues the very act of exhibiting goods made by Black folks will prove Black Americans are equal to white Americans in their ability to produce.
Even with Cromwell’s assertions that the Colored Department will provide a chance for Black folks’ to combat negative images of them, TBAM maintains, “I am not ready to credit the prime movers of the Fair with any very friendly and respectful feeling toward the colored man Were they moved by such feeling, it would not manifest itself by proscribing the party it regards. It would say come, join me as a friend, as an equal, unproscribed and an every way welcome exhibitor.” TBAM emphasizes the effects of the separation by presenting the alternate option: Black folks exhibiting alongside white Americans in a display of equal talent and skill. Presupposing his argument that the fair should have been integrated, TBAM asserts, “The projects of the Fair felt that the whole thing as a Southern exhibit with the colored man left out would be like the play of ‘Hamlet’ with the character of Hamlet left out.” The fair was originally titled “The World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial,” meant to celebrate a century of cotton production and trade. Enslaved Black folks were the forced backbone of the cotton industry in the South, which explicates how the fair would be “Hamlet” without its main character.
TBAM explains the history of agricultural and mechanical work in the North and South as it grew out of enslavement to demonstrate why full integration should have been the approach to the fair. He writes, “I assert pretty confidently that nearly three fourths of the creditable exhibits of the South will be indebted to the efforts of the colored people of the section; it will be the product of the soil wrought and brought forth by them.” TBAM suggests the organizers of the fair were aware of Black folks’ major contributions to southern industry, which he asserts is why they created the separate Colored Department. In his line of thinking, perhaps white southerners did not want to be out-performed by Black southerners. TBAM explains this theory through a historical account: “During the days of slavery all mechanics and the like, all agriculturalists and cultivators of the soil who were not slaves, were banished and excluded from the South as a dangerous element to be among its slaves. The masters’ interest was to encourage their slaves in these attainments.” As a result, free Black folks who were once enslaved, or whose parents were once enslaved, became the skilled mechanics and agriculturalists in the South, which would be proven at the New Orleans fair. TBAM compares the historical position of Black southerners to that of Black northerners: “A prejudice against the colored man in the North[…]closed the door of the mechanic’s shop, and of the artisan, and of the manufactories in the face of the nominally free colored man. He had but little chance as an agriculturalist.” In effect, TBAM argues, “the colored man of the North occupies no enviable relation to that of the colored man of the South.” TBAM includes this comparison because he believes “his not too warm friends [, white folks,] will assert that slavery has been best for the colored man” because Black southerners may be more skilled in agriculture and mechanics than those in the North who were refused as employees. His analysis of northern Black laborers in contrast to southern Black laborers demonstrates the spirit of competition between the North and the South, which excluded the West, and the specific societal conditions which contribute to Black works displayed at the fair. Majorly, his aim seems to be to stress the importance of Black southerners to southern industry to then reinforce his argument that the fair should have been integrated rather than segregated by department.
J.W. Cromwell’s reply to TBAM created national controversy around the topic, a controversy which TBAM cites in his final reply in hopes it brings enough attention to the separation of departments that the same mistake is not made in the future. Cromwell contends that TBAM should “at least know that the grievance complained of actually exists,” likely referring to TBAM’s assertion that Black folks were not consulted in the establishment of a Colored Department. Far less compelling, Cromwell then criticizes TBAM’s anonymity, arguing that “before accusing men who dare to assume certain responsibilities with ‘voluntary servility’ and with being ‘agents of self-abasement,’ he should at least possess himself with such essential facts as to be able to establish his position” (Cromwell Replies). Cromwell suggests “that [TBAM] would have exhibited that moral courage, of which he claims to such a large degree, to better advantage” had he signed his real name. Cromwell’s judgments about TBAM’s anonymity seem to be more concerned with Cromwell’s own ability to criticize TBAM directly than with a criticism of his opinions. This tension is in response to what Cromwell seems to have taken as insults made towards him as someone who supports Black participation in the fair. His critique does not consider the danger TBAM may face if he were to include his name. He is one of the first to publicly criticize the separation of exhibits, so he would be unable to predict whether there would be violent lashback from white folks, which TBAM explains in his first reply to Cromwell. Moving into issues concerning the fair, Cromwell then criticizes TBAM’s specific accusation posed at the National Government because it is the organizers of the fair who created the Colored Department, not the National Government. However, both because TBAM uses anonymity for safety reasons and cites organizers and commissioners later in his first article, Cromwell’s first criticisms read as his own anger towards TBAM for asserting the “unmanliness” of those who do mean to participate at the fair rather than as reasons the Colored Department is not an act of segregation. Cromwell’s most pertinent replies are those which concern the Colored Department directly.
In his second article, TBAM uses the essentializing notion that “black” signifies moral corruption in a subverted critique of the government and its part in the fair. He asserts, “This Government is too black, too criminally, murderously black in its crime of insulting the black man. The outrage is seen on all sides; on almost every occasion.” Ostensibly, his use of “black” to describe the creation of the Colored Department would perpetuate essentializing notions about Black folks. However, as a Black man himself, he assigns the term to white folks’ morally corrupt creation of the Colored Department. Effectively, he demonstrates that “black” has been given a meaning which does not necessarily describe Black folks themselves. Rather, believing he is writing about and possibly to a racist white audience, he uses “black” to describe white folks’ actions because white folks at the time likely associated “blackness” with “moral corruption” based on racist ideologies.
While demonstrating an in-depth knowledge of the contours of racial relations between men, TBAM fails to consider Black women in his criticisms of the fair through the suggestion that participation in the fair would be “unmanly.” Only using “he/him” pronouns and arguing for “manliness” in resisting what is from his perspective a racist separation, TBAM aligns antiracism with masculinity. He excludes from discourse about racial exclusion Black women who also exhibited at the fair and were excluded from exhibiting with the all-white Women’s Department. He writes, “Every colored person connecting himself in any manner with the movement must, if he has proper manly instincts[…] have this thought upon him all the time…that I am unnecessarily undervaluing myself.” Again, here he aligns “manliness” with resisting white American attempts to mark Black folks (men) as other or inferior. Moreover, in his aforementioned discussion of the railways and inns in New Orleans, TBAM demonstrates his understanding of masculinity or manhood through the hypothetical commissioner who will “hang his head and skulk away as though he had attempted to steal manhood or else become the subject of a bloody onslaught” when asking for a place to stay. For TBAM and other Black men in the late nineteenth century, white men aligned masculinity with whiteness through enslavement, which only ended twenty years prior to the fair. He argues that white men’s racism centers around the idea that Black men have “attempted to steal manhood” by expecting equal treatment on railroads, at places to stay in New Orleans, and otherwise by exhibiting at the fair. His definition of “manliness” then is Black men’s resistance to unequal treatment at the fair, on the railroads, and in finding a place to stay. To accept anything less than equal treatment, TBAM suggests, is unmanly; effectively, to accept segregationist and thus racist logic is unmanly. In doing so, he does deconstruct masculinity as white, realigning masculinity with Blackness. Simultaneously, TBAM aligns a lack of manliness to exhibiting with the Colored Department; in a binary of opposition, a lack of manliness would equate to femininity. His critique fails to consider the ways Black women who exhibited in the Colored Department used femininity to challenge not only racial, but also gendered and classed discrimination. While Black women like Sarah Shimm and in some instances Fannie Barrier Williams worked from an intersectional framework, considering race, gender, and class, TBAM only criticizes the separation at the fair to benefit Black men, unconcerned with gender or class.
Though Black, A Man’s three articles and Cromwell’s discourse with him demonstrate the spectrum of opinions Black folks had about the Colored Department being established at the New Orleans World’s Fair of 1884. This fair was extremely important to Black Americans as a scene of hope for the future of Black civil rights, equal treatment, and integration into the United States economy. As Cromwell demonstrates, many Black Americans felt that even with the separate department, Black exhibitors could resist racist stereotypes through their talents. In a letter from Ohio commissioner Reverend James Poindexter, he states that “Many like myself […] do not relish anything which draws the line between white and colored citizens, but whether it pleases us or not a separate department for colored exhibits has been set apart.” Like Cromwell, Poindexter calls upon Black folks to submit well-made exhibits to the best of their abilities, even though travel and the separation of departments are not satisfactory. Equality was on the line, and TBAM felt that the Colored Department proved that white fair organizers and contributors did not aim to position Black folks as equals to white folks. Even as he deconstructs “manliness” as a white ideal, realigning it with Blackness, TBAM contributed to the exclusion of Black women from racial discourse about the fair, and effectively, from the fair itself. Perhaps if he had focused on Black women contributors as well as men, we would have more historical record on Black women who did or did not exhibit at the fair, and their opinions on racial separation of departments.
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