Position to a Lawful Celebration

Position to a Lawful Celebration

African Americans, celebrations, race relations, violence

In 1865 David B. White, a former colonel of the New York 81st Infantry Volunteers, established the True Southerner in Hampton (later moved to Norfolk). Operating with the motto "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal," he advocated the interests of Virginia's freedpeople. In this editorial, White responded to inaccurate accounts of a riot in Norfolk in which whites attacked a parade of African Americans celebrating the recent passage of a national civil rights act. He placed the blame on whites who "attacked the negroes without provocation," and posed the question whether loyal Virginians were to abandon celebrations "in our own country, lest we offend the enemy?"

David B. White

Norfolk True Southerner, April 19, 1866

April 1868

Library of Virginia

CC BY-SA

JPG

Newspaper

True Southerner_04-19-1866

Norfolk, Virginia