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Article: A closet Negro comes out. (Journal Entry) (Column)
- Article from:
- The Progressive
- Article date:
- January 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 The Progressive, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Back when Woodrow Wilson was President and I was in second grade, my elders told me that if any of the white kids at school called me a "nigger," I was to say, "I'm colored and proud of it." Now, some four-score years and fourteen Presidents later, that answer and several other later designations for my people are no longer deemed proper. This year, I am supposed to say I am an African American. Next year, who knows?
As a teenager in the 1920s, I decided to be a "Negro," responding to what was called the New Negro Movement among a notable group of writers, artists, and musicians, mostly based in Harlem, who felt that the term "colored" was much too colorless and did ...