University of Virginia Library

In introducing Jesse Kelley I bring
upon the stage the most extreme specimen
I ever knew, of a type I did not find very
common in the part of Virginia where I
was located — I mean the Jim Crow
type of negro. Jesse was a caricature
upon his race; with the blackest and
coarsest of skins, the thickest and reddest
of lips, the whitest of teeth, and the
kinkiest of hair; as mischievous as
a monkey, though in a harmless way,
and quite as imitative. He kept his
schoolmates amused in their play
time, with his impersonations. His
favorite game was the holding of a
mock slave auction, and with his
chattel on the block beside him, he
would expatiate eloquently upon the
sterling qualities of the human
article he was selling.

Jesse had a sister Betty, also a pupil
in our school, who was of the same

though a somewhat modified type. A
real black full blooded negro was not
very common with us there, but surely
there could not have been the fraction
of a drop of white blood in the veins of
these children. I do not remember of
having ever seen their parents, but they
must have been of pure African blood.
Jesse and his sister were not with us after
my first year in Charlottesville. I think
the family moved to some other place
but before they left school Jesse had
experienced religion, and given
up his game of selling slaves, and
all the other "sinful" amusements
to which he had been addicted. I
never heard what became of the family