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Brown Paper Bag Test

The Brown Paper Bag Test in African-American oral history was a form of racial discrimination practiced within
the African-American community in the 20th century, by comparing an individual's skin tone to the color of a
brown paper bag. The test was allegedly used as a way to determine whether or not an individual could have
certain privileges; only those with a skin color that matched or was lighter than a brown paper bag were allowed
admission or membership privileges. The test was believed by many to be used in the 20th century by many
African-American social institutions such as sororities, fraternities, and churches.[1] The term is also used in
reference to larger issues of class and social stratification within the African American population.

Contents
Color discrimination
Colorism through the centuries
See also An individual darker than a brown
paper bag was denied privileges
References
Further reading
External links

Color discrimination
Privilege has long been associated with skin tone in the African-American community, dating back to slave times.
Mixed-race children of white fathers were sometimes given privileges ranging from more desirable work,
apprenticeships or formal education, allocation of property, or even freedom from enslavement. African Americans
"contributed to colorism because they have benefited from the privilege of having a skin color closer to that of
Whites and have embraced the notion that privilege comes with having light skin in America".[2] Lighter-skinned
people of color were afforded certain social and economic advantages over darker-skinned people of color, even
while suffering discrimination. According to Gordon, "light-skinned blacks formed exclusive clubs" after slavery
was abolished in the United States.[3] Some clubs were called "Blue Vein Societies", suggesting that if an
individual's skin was light enough to show the blue cast of veins, they had more European ancestry (and, therefore,
higher social standing.)[3] Such discrimination was resented by African Americans with darker complexions.
According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., in his book The Future of the Race (1996), the practice of the brown paper bag
test may have originated in New Orleans, Louisiana, where there was a substantial third class of free people of
color dating from the French colonial era.[4] The test was related to ideas of beauty, in which some people believed
that lighter skin and more European features, in general, were more attractive.
Athletes with various skin tones
From 1900 until about 1950, "paper bag parties" are said to have taken place in neighborhoods of major American
cities with a high concentration of African Americans. Many churches, fraternities, and nightclubs used the "brown
paper bag" principle as a test for entrance. People at these organizations would take a brown paper bag and hold it against a person's skin. If a person was
lighter than the bag, they were admitted. People whose skin was not lighter than a brown paper bag were denied entry.[5]

There is, too, a curious color dynamic that persists in our culture. In fact, New Orleans invented the brown paper bag party — usually at a
gathering in a home — where anyone darker than the bag attached to the door was denied entrance. The brown bag criterion survives as a
metaphor for how the black cultural elite quite literally establishes caste along color lines within black life. On my many trips to New
Orleans, whether to lecture at one of its universities or colleges, to preach from one of its pulpits, or to speak at an empowerment seminar
during the annual Essence Music Festival, I have observed color politics at work among black folk. The cruel color code has to be defeated by
our love for one another. —Michael Eric Dyson, excerpt from Come Hell or High Water.[6]

Some historically black colleges and universities used the brown paper bag test as a way to critique candidates for admission.[7] A person's skin tone could
affect whether they were admitted to a top school. For instance, Audrey Elisa Kerr refers to colleges requiring applicants to send personal photos.[8] Kerr
mentioned how this practice took place at a popular HBCU, Howard University.[8] Dr. Arnold relayed to Kerr a story concerning young women at
Howard. Dr. Arnold had heard colorism was a factor when it came to admission to Howard.[8] Discrimination was also practiced by fraternities and
sororities, whose members self-selected others like themselves, generally those reflecting partial European ancestry.[9] Multi-racial people who had been
free before the American Civil War attempted to distinguish themselves from the mass of freedmen after the war, who appeared to be mostly of African
descent and had been confined to slavery.

Colorism through the centuries

The offspring of African men and white women were often born into freedom because of their mothers' legal status of slave vs. free, regardless of color.
[10][11] A law established in Virginia and other colonies in the 17th century dictated that the legal status of these children would be determined by that of

their mothers, rather than by their fathers, in opposition to the tradition of English common law.[10][11] These free descendants became well-established,
with descendants moving to frontier regions of Virginia, North Carolina and west as areas opened up. Some prominent Americans were descendants of
these early free families, for instance, Ralph Bunche, who served as ambassador to the United Nations.[12]

As early as the 18th century, travelers remarked on the variety of color and features seen in slaves in Virginia, as European ancestry was obvious. Light-
skinned slaves, some of whom were descendants of masters and their sons, were sometimes given better treatment on plantations, with domestic jobs

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inside the master's house, including as companions or maids to his legal children.[13] Some of them were educated,
or at least allowed to learn to read. Occasionally the master may have arranged for an apprenticeship for a mixed-
race son and freed him upon its completion, especially in the first two decades after the American Revolution,
when numerous slaves were freed in the Upper South. In this region, from the Revolution to 1810, the percentage
of people of color who were free increased from 1 to more than 10 percent. By 1810, 75% of blacks in Delaware
were free.[14]

Newly imported Africans and African Americans with less visible European ancestry were used in hard field labor,
and abuse was more frequent in the fields. As tensions concerning slave uprisings rose in the 19th century, slave
states imposed more restrictions, including prohibitions on educating slaves and on slaves' movements. These
slaves could be punished for trying to learn to read and write.

In Louisiana especially, Creoles of color had long comprised a third class during the years of slavery. They had
achieved a high level of literacy and sophistication under the French and Spanish rule, becoming educated, taking
the names of white fathers or lovers, and often receiving property from the white men involved with their families.
Many became artisans, property owners, and sometimes slaveholders themselves. Unlike in the Upper South,
where free African Americans varied widely in appearance, free people of color in New Orleans and the Deep
South tended to be light-skinned due to generations of intermarriage with people of European ancestry. After the Creole person in 1902
United States negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, more Americans settled in New Orleans, bringing with them their
binary approach to society, in which each person was classified only as black or white. They began to curtail the
privileges of Creoles of color.[15]

See also
Black is beautiful Octoroon
Colorism One-drop rule
Good hair (phrase) Passing (racial identity)
High yellow Pencil test (South Africa)
Louisiana Creole people Quadroon
Mulatto School Daze

References
8. Kerri, Audrey Elisa (2006). The Paper Bag Principle: Class,
1. Pilgram, David (February 2014). "Brown Paper Bag Test" (https://
Colorism, and Rumor and the Case of Black Washington, Part 3.
www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2014/february.ht
University of Tennessee Press. p. 93.
m). Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Ferris State
University. Retrieved 3 January 2019. 9. "Paper Bag Test: Letter From 1928 Addresses Black Fraternity
And Sorority Colorism At Howard University" (http://www.watchth
2. "African Americans Still Victims of Colorism" (http://www.racismre
eyard.com/history/brown-paper-bag/). watchtheyard.
view.com/blog/2011/03/26/african-americans-still-victims-of-colori
WatchTheYard. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
sm/). Racism Review. Wordpress. 2011-03-26. Retrieved
20 November 2015. 10. Williams, Heather. "How Slavery Affected African American
Families" (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/160
3. "Skin-Deep Discrimination" (https://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveM
9-1865/essays/aafamilies.htm). National Humanities Center.
eABreak/story?id=548303&page=1). ABC News. ABC News.
National Humanities Center. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
Retrieved 23 October 2015.
11. "Slavery and Indentured Servants" (https://memory.loc.gov/amme
4. Maxwell, Bill. "The paper bag test" (http://www.sptimes.com/2003
m/awhhtml/awlaw3/slavery.html). Law Library of Congress.
/08/31/Columns/The_paper_bag_test.shtml). St. Petersburg
Library of Congress. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
Times. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
12. Heinegg, Paul. "Free African Americans of Virginia, North
5. "Did Hurricane Katrina reveal a historic reality?" Excerpt from (htt
Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware" (http://www.fr
ps://web.archive.org/web/20070902233155/http://www.msnbc.ms
eeafricanamericans.com/). Retrieved 15 Feb 2008.
n.com/id/10995079/page/4/)Michael Eric Dyson's (2006) Come
Hell or High Water 13. "Household Slavery" (https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/text
books/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/slavery-and-reform-1820-1
6. Dyson, Michael Eric (2007). Come hell or high water : Hurricane
840-16/slavery-in-the-u-s-122/household-slavery-656-1313/).
Katrina and the color of disaster (Pbk. ed.). New York: Basic
boundless. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
Civitas. ISBN 978-0465017720.
14. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877, New York: Hill and
7. Carter, Jarrett (2013-04-11). "Bringing Back the Brown Paper Bag
Wang, 1994 Pbk, pp.78 and 81
Test to HBCUs" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrett-l-carter/bri
nging-back-the-brown-p_b_3059700.html). HuffPost Black 15. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877, New York: Hill and
Voices. Huffington Post. Retrieved 29 October 2015. Wang, 1994 Pbk, p. 83

Further reading
Russell, Kathy; Wilson, Midge; Hall, Ronald (1993-10-01). The Color Complex (https://archive.org/details/colorcomplexpoli0000russ/page
/208). New York: Anchor. p. 208 (https://archive.org/details/colorcomplexpoli0000russ/page/208). ISBN 978-0-385-47161-9.
Williams, Lena (1992-11-22). "The Many Shades of Bigotry" (https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6DA133DF931A157
52C1A964958260). New York Times.

External links
THE PAPER BAG TEST (http://www.sptimes.com/2003/08/31/Columns/The_paper_bag_test.shtml), an editorial by Bill Maxwell about
blacks discriminating against blacks, St. Petersburg Times, August 31, 2003, discusses the history of the test.
Skin-Deep Discrimination, ABC News, March 4, 2005 (https://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/Story?id=548303&page=1)
Classypac (http://www.classypac.fr/)

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