[Ads-l] "Stay black and die"

[Wilson Gray]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 7:47 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "Be black and die."
>

I'm not familiar with that version at all, but that hardly means that you
haven't read it or that it doesn't exist. IAC, those old Negroes are a
caution! They may say anything!

Youneverknow.

FWIW, I prefer _break nasty_, _stay black and die_ to - or should that be
"over" - _break bad_, _be black and die_.

Google yields about 40 results, back to '04. GBooks has it back to '86:

Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of
Religion - Page 178
https://books.google.com/books?id=XpPXAAAAMAAJ
Charles H. Long - 1986 - ‎Snippet view
Augsburg Fortress Publishing Co., Minneapolis - 1986
Ain't but two things I got to do--Be black and die.

For some reason, GB also provides false hits back to 1903.

The Negro church: report of a social study made under the direction of
Atlanta University
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZR4iAQAAIAAJ
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois - Editor - 1903 - ‎Read
-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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