Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 16

2. Frank G. Ruffin, The Negro as a Political and Social Factor (Richmond, VA: J. W. Randolph & English, 1888). (32 p.)

White supremacist assault on the Republican Party for its endorsement of civil rights for the African American. “Surely these facts demonstrate that the American-African race has not learned from us, its only teachers, how to conduct a society. It could not have learned; for, as is proved by the above facts, which might be indefinitely multiplied, the negro is by nature a vine; incapable, therefore, of transmutation into a tree; a parasite, which must rise by climbing on something outside of and higher than itself, or—must trail upon the ground; just as we see it every day and all around us, in one condition or another.” Rebuffed by both The Forum and The Century magazines, the author paid to have the essay published.