Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 48

5. George Henry, An Address to the Hon. General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, of 1880, and to the Editor of the Providence Journal, On the Repeal of the Law Prohibiting the Intermarriage of Whites and Blacks (Providence, RI: J. A. & R . A. Reid, 1881). (12 p.)

Letter by an African American to the editor urging repeal of Rhode Island’s anti-miscegenation law. “You have filled your columns with regard to color. Let us discuss that a little, as we have an opportunity now that we never had before. Mr. Editor, I will ask you one question, so that I may be satisfied, and also the entire public. I know, sir, from your great and masterly power, that you are able to do it: What was the color of Adam? Was he a red man? Was he a brown man? Or was he a yellow man? I demand an answer, because I always thought that he was a brown-skinned man, because he was taken from the earth, though I may be wrong in my ideas. Therefore I ask for light on that subject. I know he was not white, because he was taken from the ground; and there is nothing white under the sun but the drifting snow, every other white substance has a shade when compared to it.” A brief preface on the back side of the title page indicates that the law was repealed on March 17, 1881.