part, I believe the memory of these facts should be preserved in our name and traditions as it is preserved in the color of our faces. I do not think my people should be ashamed of their history, nor of any name that people choose in good faith to give them."[35]
Representative Sims's objection to the phrase "of the colored race" precipitated a discussion throughout the country. The New York Tribune[36] made a canvass of a great many prominent Negroes and white persons to ascertain what they thought the Negro should be called. The result of its inquiry is this: An average of eleven Negroes out of twenty desired to be spoken of as Negroes. The other nine spurned the word as "insulting," "contemptuous," "degrading," "vulgar." Two argued for "Afro-American," two for "Negro-American," one for "black man," and one was indifferent so long as he was not called "Nigger." Of the white men interviewed, ten out of thirteen, on an average, preferred the word "Negro." The Negroes made a specially strong plea for capitalizing the word "Negro," saying that it was not fair to accord that distinction to their dwarfish cousins, the Negritos in the Philippines, and to the many savage tribes in Africa and deny it to the black man in America. They were also strongly opposed to the word "Negress" as applied to the women of their race. This, they asserted, is objectionable because of its historical significance. For in times of slavery, "Negress" was the term applied to to a woman slave at an auction, in contradistinction to "buck," which referred to a male slave.
E. A. Johnson, Professor of Law in Shaw University, North Carolina, said: "The term 'Afro-American' is
