[Detail] African American baseball players from Morris Brown College
As some things appear on the Plains and among the Rockies in mid-summer.
Kenneth M. Young, an African-American from South Carolina, describes a trip he took to the West in 1891.
On June 5, 91, I boarded the 5:30 a.m., train for Atlanta. There I arrived on time, and after spending a few hours in the hauhts of my school days I took the E.T.V. G. road for Chattanooga. I was inclined to stop over one day to meet a former schoolmate and recall associations of the past, but being angered at the espionage under which I moved (which I afterwards learned was characteristic of the "good darkie" of that place) I hastily procured my supper and a ticket and caught the 8 o'clock train for Cincinnati, where I breakfasted the next morning. There I spent several hours in search for a friend whom I failed to find and being anxious for new scenes I left on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton road for Indianapolis I like that greatest inland railroad centre and there spent two days, two hours of which time I used at the Freeman office endeavoring to photograph the impressions of the editor and the manager of that great, Negro journal. They are non-similarities, contra-exponents in business affairs and social intercourse. The one is of a nervous temperament, small, shrewd, piercing, deep-set eyes, features that would be round were they not hewn down with the edge of sarcasm and the research of a student. Small of statue and lithe of limb, his editorials are the epigrammatic embodiment of ideas born of a bigger brain and supported by a more corpulent body. The other is of a lymphatic temperament, large, inviting eyes, quiet manners, guarded in language broad minded and candid in opinion. Leaving Indianapolis by the Vandalia about 12m. I, on the same evening, arrived at St. Louis. Aside from the great attraction offered by the most splendid car-shed I had before or since seen; the impressions gathered at the great negro journal office; the wonderment of the blind negro caricaturist of Indianapolis; St.Louis is the starting point where the emotions of my soul are aroused, the living fire of my spirit begins to kindle and double assurance swells the breast "a man's a man for a' that." The first acquaintance I had formed after leaving home, the scraping up of which is not accredited to me, was that of a white gentleman. Well, of course I did not first approach him and introduce myself, for that is audacious presumption on the part of a negro, but here while waiting for the train for Denver to be made up, a gentleman of Kansas City noticed my solitary surroundings came up and entertained me. After talking for some considerable time he presented his card and I made myself better known. For the first time since I have had knowledge of the outside world, for the first time since I have been old enough to know that the color of skin alters one's surroundings, circumser bes locomotion and abbreviates privileges, I felt like a man neither ashamed nor afraid to speak. To his surprise, I told him the negro of the South was progressing financially and intellectually, and that, I also thought, with less obstruction and fewer enticements held out to the hand of poverty, would progress morally; and that the blacks and whites were on amicable terms; and, aside from politics, no friction existed. I opened the bright side of the picture to his view and reserved all that was dark, dismal, dreary. When his train pulled out, which was one hour before mine, he grasped me by the hand with a warm pulsation of friendly feeling and asked me to call on him should I make a stop in his city. On inquiry I learned that he was a leading physician, well supplied with this world's goods, with an humble claim on the next, living in palatial style, who prescribes to the poor gratis and with whom consultation is sought in other cities.
Full text (Library of Congress/Daniel A.P. Murray Pamphlet Collection)
