another "Negro" in quotes

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Mon Oct 25 16:36:24 UTC 2010


At 10/25/2010 04:35 AM, Margaret Lee wrote:
>Also, back in the day (before the '60's), the
>newspaper in my hometown of Lynchburg, VA
>identified as "Negro" any black person who had
>been arrested or had committed a crime, This
>was probably the same for most newspapers at the
>time, especially in the South.

This kind of practice has a long history.  The
18th century American colonial papers (the first
continuing North American paper was published  in
1704) regularly identified criminals as "Irish"
or "Negro" but whites only by name.  Similarly for run-aways.

Joel

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