The Forged Note. Micheaux Oscar

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      The speaker looked very tired and worn, and Wyeth felt a pang at his heart when he saw him. His years of service were beginning to tell upon him. He had returned recently from the west, where he had gone for the purpose of raising $150,000 for his school, and had, as he did in everything else, succeeded beyond requirements. He was not only an educator, but a practical business man as well. To one who sat near him, Sidney Wyeth said that evening: "And no one of these odd ten millions is competent, in the public's favor, to take that old man's place, when eventually he will be called." The other sighed as he made reply: "There are many, though, who feel that they and not he should be in the confidence of the world, and have wasted themselves in uselessness and inactivity, as a result of their imagination." The speaker's eyes, at the distance Wyeth saw them, seemed dazed, and his voice was strained; but he did not soon forget the words he spoke to those black people, in dedication of an instant that had been inspired by his work. B.J. Dickson came in for a worthy praise, which Wyeth knew he justly deserved.

      It was some two weeks afterwards, that a convention was held, which brought together a class of men, who were largely leaders of this race. They were the doctors, the dentists, the pharmacists, and all men connected with physical and surgical dispensation; and they came from two adjoining states also. Sidney Wyeth had, therefore, opportunity to see his own people from a professional point of view, and was cheered to observe the most refined set of men of his own kin, that he had ever seen. Dickson thought so too, and wrote as much in The Independent, the following week; but he wrote of something else connected with the same men, and served to show Sidney Wyeth something he did not know, could not have believed; but Dickson made it plain to the thousands of readers of The Independent, of which Wyeth was a constant reader.

      In the building, conspicuously located on the best corner, was a drug store, acknowledged to be the finest drug store operated by black people in the south. The new building included a street front on another side street, the drug store and many other trades on the ground space, with a row of offices to the number of about twenty-five, especially fitted for physicians and dentists. All these encircled the auditorium, and were regarded as the most artistic arrangement in the building. Moreover, this was advantageous in many ways. At all events, it happened to be convenient for the men gathered on the occasion referred to. In addition to being used as a gathering place, this auditorium could be conveniently cleared for the purpose of dancing, and was employed for that purpose, on the night the convention closed. And this was what B.J. Dickson wrote in the following week's issue of The Independent:

      "COLOR LINE DRAWN AT THE PHYSICIAN'S BALL

      "Last week there was held in Attalia, the annual convention of the Tri-State Medical Association, as was stated in last week's issue of The Independent. Never before has this city been graced by a more refined, and obviously intelligent class of colored men. From all over the state, and the two states adjoining, which are members of the league, came physicians, surgeons, dentists and pharmacists, representing the highest body of men in the Negro race. They were entertained in sumptuous splendor, by the same profession of men in Attalia. This was facilitated by the fact, that the new buildings and the auditorium were employed for the occasion, and the members were not compelled, as they had been in the past, to house their social function in some old deserted hall, in a deserted part of the city.

      "It is, therefore, with deep regret, that we are called, by the bond of common sense and race appreciation, to mention a narrowness that pervaded this great occasion.

      "It may be recalled, when the leader of our race spoke at the dedication, a few weeks past, that, on the committee were numerous doctors, some of them successful leaders, and some who were not. Yet it is and always has been the custom of our people, to honor these men in the best way we can, for we have long since come to appreciate that they are a part, and an important part of this new dispensation. Surely it is in order and keeping with the uplift of black people, to help men whose training has fitted them for such an important place. That, perhaps, is why their conduct of last week has constrained us to make this mention.

      "They drew the color line. Plainly, and irrevocably. At the ball, at the stag party, and during the entire proceedings of the convention. Not a black person save one—the wife of one of the local physicians who married her for money—was invited. Such an example shocks us, so to speak. It seems incredible, in view of the condition of our race, both morally and mentally. And still, though we have forced our pen to ignore it, it has been, and is shown, right along. At the ball, not only was the color line drawn, but a white orchestra gave the music. Imagine such a spectacle! In the bourbon and always democratic south, our people hiring a white orchestra, at a fabulous sum; for, since long before we were free, Negroes have made music for the richest white people to dance by.

      "Surely the old order changeth!

      "Negro doctors live by the patronage of their race, positively; the white people would not hire one to doctor a dog. In the dark ages, when it was felt that a Negro was incompetent for anything else but to act as a slave, some excuse could be given for Negroes to hire white doctors. But today, all race loving people give their practice to their own, except those who are nearly white, and wish they were. But more than half of those at the ball have white doctors, and wouldn't hire one of those with whom they danced. But Negro doctors expect Negro practice, and deplore it terribly when Negroes hire white physicians! On the heels of this, too, they say "Shoo fly!" to Negro musicians who are competent to play for the whites, but not for Negro doctors. Like everything else that relates to our people—except their money—our professionals wrinkle their faces, and conclude without trial, that no Negro orchestra is properly trained to play for their balls; and Negroes who conduct newspapers do not know enough to write a part of what they read; books of Negro authors are not read by them, because they don't know enough—in the minds of these hypocrites—and so it goes in everything. They could not have held their convention in the white auditorium, even if permitted to, because that would have cost more than they were able to pay.

      "Now, if Negro orchestras are incompetent as musicians and are, therefore, relegated to the rear, and a white orchestra is hired to give music, and if Negroes as authors and editors, do not know enough to write a part of what they should read, and, moreover, if Negroes who happen not to be the scion of some white man, and, therefore, possessed of a yellow face, are not good enough to mingle and associate with them, then the Negro doctors are not fit to 'kill' us. Why not let the white man do this? Admitting that the white orchestra and the white editor and author have more advantages than do the Negroes in the same vocation, is it not credible that the same applies in regard to the doctors? Is it not to be appreciated that, while the white man, often and mostly the son of a rich parent, is taking a post-graduate course abroad, the poor Negro boy is slinging hash in a cheap hotel—most of the best ones hire white help now—to get the wherewith to go back and finish school?

      "Oh, we have thought this brave in our people these many years, and our very hearts and souls and sympathies have been with them in this great effort!

      "And we are repaid in these terms!

      "The black-skinned people who pay them their hard-earned money, that we might have a representative set of men as our leaders, have been scorned for their pains!

      "They, the doctors, set up what they silently look upon as society, "blue-veined people." How they must deplore that they are colored, in a literal sense! "We are the best people!" they cry. The insurance companies, started and led to their present position of success by black men, use every means, subtle and otherwise, to throw business to these men. Likewise do the lodges. And with all that, not more than a dozen or so are making a decent living in Attalia. We are still very poor people. Yet when society comes before us, the black ones are not good enough to play for. We must close. It makes us sick!"

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