Minnie's Sacrifice by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
page 57 of 117 (48%)
page 57 of 117 (48%)
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"I know that, mother; but, mother, it must be hard to be forced to ride
in smoking cars; to be insulted in the different thoroughfares of travel; to be denied access to public resorts in some places,--such as lectures, theatres, concerts, and even have a particular seat assigned in the churches, and sometimes feel you were an object of pity even to your best friends. I know that Mrs. Heston felt so when she was telling her story, for when Mrs. Hickman said, 'Well, Sarah, I really pity you,' I saw her dark eyes flash, and she has really beautiful eyes, as she said, 'it is not pity we want, it is justice.'" "In the first place, mother, she is a widow, with five children. She had six. One died in the army,--and she had some business in Washington connected with him. She says she was born in Virginia, and had one little girl there, but as she could not bear the idea of her child growing up in ignorance, she left the South and went to Albany. Her husband was a barber, and was doing a good business there. She was living in a very good neighborhood, and sent her child to the nearest district school. "After her little girl had been there awhile, her teacher told her she must go home and not come there any more, and sent her mother a note; the child did not know what she had done; she had been attentive to her lessons, and had not behaved amiss, and she was puzzled to know why she was turned out of school. "'Oh! I hated to tell Mrs. Heston,' said the teacher; 'but the child insisted, and I knew that it must come sooner or later. And so, said she, I told her it was because she was colored.' "'Is that all.' Poor child, she didn't know, that, in that fact lay |
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