High yellow, occasionally simply yellow (dialect: yaller, yeller), is a (sometimes derogatory) term for persons classified as black who also have a high proportion of white ancestry. It is a reference to the golden yellow skin tone of some mixed-race people. The term was in common use in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century. It is reflected in such popular songs of the era as "The Yellow Rose of Texas".
Read more about High Yellow: Etymology, Skin Color, Use As Social Class Distinction, Applied To Individuals, Art and Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words high and/or yellow:
“The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature, and at last taxes her beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality!”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)