It is very likely that the Negroes of the United States have a fairly
correct idea of what the white people of the country think of
them, for that opinion has for a long time been and is still being
constantly stated; but they are themselves more or less a sphinx to
the whites. It is curiously interesting and even vitally important
to know what are the thoughts of ten millions of them concerning the
people among whom they live. In these pages it is as though a veil had
been drawn aside: the reader is given a view of the inner life of the
Negro in America, is initiated into the "freemasonry," as it were, of
the race.

These pages also reveal the unsuspected fact that prejudice against
the Negro is exerting a pressure which, in New York and other large
cities where the opportunity is open, is actually and constantly
forcing an unascertainable number of fair-complexioned colored people
over into the white race.

In this book the reader is given a glimpse behind the scenes of this
race-drama which is being here enacted,--he is taken upon an elevation
where he can catch a bird's-eye view of the conflict which is being
waged.

The Publishers




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