Were African visitors treated well in the South?

[Lamia]

@Frogurt

I’ve heard that Southerners would treat foreign visitors, even blacks, with great respect even though they kept slaves and discriminated against African-Americans. There’s also this quote from Invisible Man:

“I recalled a report of a shoe-shine boy who had encountered the best treatment in the South simply by wearing a white turban instead of his usual Dobbs or Stetson.”

Is there any truth to this?

I have read a few non-fiction anecdotes about similar things happening in the Jim Crow era US, although I’m not sure all of them happened in the South. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he describes meeting an African dignitary who was visiting the US. This man was treated with respect by whites when he wore traditional clothing, but like an inferior when he wore a Western suit. In Assata: An Autobiography, Assata Shakur tells a story about how when she was a child her mother got them into a whites-only amusement park by speaking Spanish. In Angela Davis: An Autobiography she tells a story about going to a shoe store with a friend and pretending to be French-speaking Caribbeans, which resulted in their being treated like exotic princesses.

[TV_time]

My father was involved with the Bureau of Reclamation and building dams. I remember in in the late '50s, he was giving an African engineer a tour of a variety of dams throughout the U.S. I recall the two men discussing the situation in the South at our dinner table and the need for the “visiting fireman” to wear some sort of indication of his African status to be able to dine and stay in certain locations. I was amazed at this. I was rather young and unfamiliar with race relations in the South. When they returned, comments indicated he was accepted well…

It should be remembered that a.) I was young so I may not remember this 100 percent correctly. b.) being treated “well” is a relative term. c.) I’ve got nothing…Hi Opal!

[griffin1977]

@John_Mace

I’d need to see a cite for that. If it was really a reason, it had to be waaaaaay down on the list.

Well specifically it was the USSR making propaganda wins from the state of affairs that was the problem (in addtion being subject to Jim Crow laws probably did not do much to convince African diplomats to the take the America’s side during the cold war):

A second area that should be considered is the international context in which these struggles are played out. In the sixties, civil rights legislation was signed into law in good part because of cold war pressure . The USSR was scoring propaganda points in the newly decolonizing world by calling attention to Jim Crow. Furthermore, African diplomats, who the U.S. hoped to win over, could not freely travel in the Washington DC metro area. Thus, much of the national security establishment decided that Jim Crow needed to be ended.

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