[Ads-l] More on Major Antedating of "Segregationist"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I should add that the citations below are the earliest I have found for the racial sense of "segregationist."  Newspapers.com has non-racial usages of the word back to 1867 (Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel, 9 November).

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2025 8:19 AM
To: American Dialect Society <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>
Subject: Major Antedating of "Segregationist"

The OED's first use for the term "segregationist" is surprisingly late (1954).  Here is the earliest citation I have found:

1903 Arkansas Gazette 18 Aug. 4/1 (Newspapers.com)  When the segregation question was before the last session of the Arkansas general assembly ... the segregationists seemed close to victory.

The 1903 usage was probably written by a white person.  The earliest usage I have found that was written by an African American is the following:

1904 The Appeal 27 Aug. 2/1 (Newspapers.com)  The Atlanta News, edited by John Temple Graves, the race segregationist, refers rather unfeelingly to the horrible burning of two human beings in Georgia as the "Statesboro incident."

Fred Shapiro


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