Café Conversation # ENG
IIA
Buffalo Express -August 26,
1869
ONLY A NIGGER by Mark Twain
A dispatch from Memphis mentions that, of two Negro's
lately sentenced to death for murder in that vicinity, on
named woods has just confessed to having ravished a
young lady during the war, for which deed another Negro
was hung at the time by an avenging mob, the evidence
that doomed the guiltless wretch being a hat which Woods
now relates that he stole from its owner and left behind,
for the purpose of misleading. Ah , well! Too bad to be
sure! A little blunder in the administration of justice by
Southern mob-law, but nothing to speak of.
Only "a nigger" killed by mistake-- that is all. Of course,
every high toned gentleman whose chivalric impulses
were so unfortunately misled in this affair, by the cunning
the miscreant. Woods, is as sorry about it as a high toned
gentleman can be expected to be about the unlucky fate
"a nigger." But mistakes will happen, even in the best
regulated and most high toned mobs, and surely there is
good reason why southern gentlemen should worry
themselves with useless regrets, so long as only an
innocent "nigger" is hanged, or toasted or knonted [sic] to
death, now and then. What if the blunder of lynching the
wrong man does happen once in four or five cases! Is that
any fair argument against the cultivation and indulgence
those fine chivalric passions and that noble Southern spirit
which will not brook the slow and cold formalities of
regular law, when outraged white womanhood appeals for
vengeance! perish the thought so unworthy of a Southern
soul! Leave it to the sentimentalism and humanitarianism
cold-blooded Yankee civilization! What are the lives of a
few "niggers" in comparison with the preservation of the
impetuous instincts of a proud and fiery race! Keep ready
the halter, therefore, oh chivalry of Memphis! Keep the
lash knotted; keep the brand and the faggots in waiting,
for prompt work with the next "nigger" who may be
suspected of any damnable crime! Wreak a swift
vengeance upon him, for the satisfaction of noble
impulses that inimate knightly hearts, and then have time
and accidentally to discover, if they will, whether he was
guilty or no.
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kmh- RCSHS
Unit 2: Warrior’s Don’t Cry
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Café Conversation # ENG
IIA
“Only a Nigger” is important within Mark Twain’s writings as an early protest against lynching, a subject he
addressed most powerfully in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and “The United States of Lyncherdom” (1901),
and for its self-conscious use of the word “nigger.” Objections to the repeated use of that word in Huckleberry Finn
are commonly raised by those who would like to see the book removed from school reading lists today. In this essay,
written seven years before he began work on Huckleberry Finn, Twain clearly uses the word to signify the racist
dehumanization of African Americans by Southern whites. Twain’s satirical use of the word here provides a
background for understanding his similar use of the word in chapter 32 of Huckleberry Finn. When Aunt Sally asks if
anyone was hurt in a steamboat accident, Huck replies, “No’m. Killed a nigger.” In the novel, Mark Twain let Huck
speak as a young boy raised in a slaveholding community. In “Only a Nigger,” he uses the words negroes and negro,
and consistently puts “nigger” in quotes to indicate that it is the dehumanizing word used by the Southerners whose
mob law he is criticizing in the essay.
Response:
1) What is racism? Is it a belief? Is it an action?
2) What causes racism? What beliefs do people invoke to try to justify racism? In what kinds of situations do we see
or find racism?
3) When did you first recognize your own racial, ethnic, religious (or other) identity? What does it mean to you to
identify yourself in this way? What do you like most and least about being a member of your group?
4) How has racism affected you or people you know?*
5) Do you think most minorities have a positive or negative image of whites? Do you think most whites have a
positive or negative image of other races?*
6) What's the biggest misconception blacks have about whites? Whites about blacks?*
2
kmh- RCSHS
Unit 2: Warrior’s Don’t Cry