When some of the white passengers went into the
baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him:
"I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this
manner," Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon
which he was sitting, and replied: "They cannot degrade Frederick
Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not
the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but
those who are inflicting it upon me."
In one part of the country, where the law demands the separation
of the races on the railroad trains, I saw at one time a rather
amusing instance which showed how difficult it sometimes is to
know where the black begins and the white ends.
There was a man who was well known in his community as a Negro,
but who was so white that even an expert would have hard work to
classify him as a black man. This man was riding in the part of
the train set aside for the coloured passengers. When the train
conductor reached him, he showed at once that he was perplexed.
If the man was a Negro, the conductor did not want to send him to
the white people's coach; at the same time, if he was a white
man, the conductor did not want to insult him by asking him if he
was a Negro. The official looked him over carefully, examining
his hair, eyes, nose, and hands, but still seemed puzzled.
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