So he left Richmond, giving the people to understand that he was gone to get a place to labor to support his wife.  The people thought it strange that he did not tell where he was going and what he was to do.  Speculation was rife.  Many thought that it was an attempt at deserting his wife, whom he seemed unable to support.  He arranged to visit his wife twice a month.

He went to New York and completely disguised himself.  He bought a wig representing the hair on the head of a colored woman.  He had this wig made especially to his order.  He bought an outfit of well fitting dresses and other garments worn by women.  He clad himself and reappeared in Richmond.  His wife and most intimate friends failed to recognize him.  He of course revealed his identity to his wife but to no one else.

He now had the appearance of a healthy, handsome, robust colored girl, with features rather large for a woman but attractive just the same.  In this guise Belton applied for a position as nurse and was successful in securing a place in the family of a leading white man.  He loitered near the family circle as much as he could.  His ear was constantly at the key holes, listening.  Sometimes he would engage in conversation for the purpose of drawing them out on the question of the Negro.

He found out that the white man was utterly ignorant of the nature of the Negro of to-day with whom he has to deal.  And more than that, he was not bothering his brain thinking about the Negro.  He felt that the Negro was easily ruled and was not an object for serious thought.  The barbers, the nurses, cooks and washerwomen, the police column of the newspapers, comic stories and minstrels were the sources through which the white people gained their conception of the Negro.  But the real controling power of the race that was shaping its life and thought and preparing the race for action, was unnoticed and in fact unseen by them.

The element most bitterly antagonistic to the whites avoided them, through intense hatred; and the whites never dreamed of this powerful inner circle that was gradually but persistently working its way in every direction, solidifying the race for the momentous conflict of securing all the rights due them according to the will of their heavenly Father.

Belton also stumbled upon another misconception, which caused him eventually to lose his job as nurse.  The young men in the families in which Belton worked seemed to have a poor opinion of the virtue of colored women.  Time and again they tried to kiss Belton, and he would sometimes have to exert his full strength to keep them at a distance.  He thought that while he was a nurse, he would do what he could to exalt the character of the colored women.  So, at every chance he got, he talked to the men who approached him, of virtue and integrity.  He soon got the name of being a “virtuous prude” and the white men decided to corrupt him at all hazards.