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 best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple lover of truth, especially if on very high grounds, as a religious or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Visions of half the world burned black
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)