schools, he is attempting to found a new school in Atlanta and
unnecessarily duplicate this work. Soon he will appear in New York
asking funds, and without investigation or thought many will give. When
they find their efforts wasted the deserving schools will suffer.
There is crying need of an impartial, thoroughly reliable directory of
educational and philanthropic effort among Negroes, a central
information bureau on broad lines, with maps and figures at command
which could furnish unbiased facts. The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People is ready to undertake such a work
immediately on a small scale, and to expand it whenever it can get the
necessary support.
THE OLD STORY.
There is without doubt a large criminal and semi-criminal class among
colored people. This is but another way of saying that the social uplift
of a group of freedmen is a serious task. But it is also true, and
painfully true, that the crime imputed carelessly and recklessly against
colored people gives an impression of far greater criminality than the
facts warrant.
Take, for instance, a typical case: A little innocent schoolgirl is
brutally murdered in New Jersey. A Negro vagabond is arrested.
Immediately the news is heralded from East to West, from North to South,
in Europe and Asia, of the crime of this black murderer. Immediately a
frenzied, hysterical mob gathers and attempts to lynch the poor wretch.
He is spirited away and the public is almost sorry that he has escaped
summary justice. Without counsel or friends, the man is shut up in
prison and tortured to make him confess. “They did pretty near
everything to me except kill me,” whispered the wretched man to the
first friend he saw.
Finally, after the whole black race in America had suffered aspersion
for several weeks, sense begins to dawn in Jersey. After all, what proof
was there against this man? He was lazy, he had been in jail for alleged
theft from gypsies, he was good natured, and he drank whiskey. That was
all. Yet he stayed in jail under no charge and under universal censure.
The coroner’s jury found no evidence to indict him. Still he lay in
jail. Finally the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People stepped in and said, “What are you holding this man for?” The
Public Prosecutor got red in the face and vociferated. Then he went
downtown, and when the _habeas corpus_ proceedings came and the judge
asked again: “Why are you holding this man?” the prosecutor said
chirpily, “For violating election laws,” and brought a mass of
testimony. Then the judge discharged the prisoner from the murder charge
and congratulated the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People—but the man is still in jail.
Such justice is outrageous and such methods disgraceful. Black folk are
willing to shoulder their own sins, but the difference between a
vagabond and a murderer is too tremendous to be lightly ignored.
“SOCIAL EQUALITY.”
At last we have a definition of the very elusive phrase “Social
Equality” as applied to the Negro problem. In stating their grievances
colored people have recently specified these points:
1. Disfranchisement, even of educated Negroes.
2. Curtailment of common school training.
3. Confinement to “Ghettos.”
4. Discrimination in wages.
5. Confinement to menial employment.
6. Systematic insult of their women.
7. Lynching and miscarriage of justice.
8. Refusal to recognize fitness “in political or industrial life.”
9. Personal discourtesy.
Southern papers in Charlotte, Richmond, New Orleans and Nashville have
with singular unanimity hastened to call this complaint an unequivocal
demand for “social equality,” and as such absolutely inadmissible. We
are glad to have a frank definition, because we have always suspected
this smooth phrase. We recommend on this showing that hereafter colored
men who hasten to disavow any desire for “social equality” should
carefully read the above list of disabilities which social inequality
would seem to prescribe.
ASHAMED.
Any colored man who complains of the treatment he receives in America is
apt to be faced sooner or later by the statement that he is ashamed of
his race.
The statement usually strikes him as a most astounding piece of
illogical reasoning, to which a hot reply is appropriate.
And yet notice the curious logic of the persons who say such things.
They argue:
White men alone are men. This Negro wants to be a man. _Ergo_ he wants
to be a white man.
Their attention is drawn to the efforts of colored people to be treated
decently. This minor premise therefore attracts them. But the major
premise—the question as to treating black men like white men—never
enters their heads, nor can they conceive it entering the black man’s
head. If he wants to be a man he must want to be white, and therefore it
is with peculiar complacency that a Tennessee paper says of a dark
champion of Negro equality: “He bitterly resents his Negro blood.”
Not so, O Blind Man. He bitterly resents your treatment of Negro blood.
The prouder he is, or has a right to be, of the blood of his black
fathers, the more doggedly he resists the attempt to load men of that
blood with ignominy and chains. It is race pride that fights for
freedom; it is the man ashamed of his blood who weakly submits and
smiles.
JESUS CHRIST IN BALTIMORE.
It seems that it is not only Property that is screaming with fright at
the Black Spectre in Baltimore, but Religion also. Two churches founded
in the name of Him who “put down the mighty from their seats and exalted
them of low degree” are compelled to move. Their palatial edifices
filled with marble memorials and Tiffany windows are quite useless for
the purposes of their religion since black folk settled next door.
Incontinently they have dropped their Bibles and gathered up their
priestly robes and fled, after selling their property to colored people
for $125,000 in good, cold cash.
Where are they going? Uptown. Up to the wealthy and exclusive and
socially select. There they will establish their little gods again, and
learned prelates with sonorous voices will ask the echoing pews: “How
can the Church reach the working man?”
Why not ask the working man? Why not ask black people, and yellow
people, and poor people, and all the people from whom such congregations
flee in holy terror? The church that does not run from the lowly finds
the lowly at its doors, and there are some such churches in the land,
but we fear that their number in Baltimore is not as great as should be.
“EXCEPT SERVANTS.”
The noticeable reservation in all attempts, North and South, to separate
black folk and white is the saving phrase, “Except servants.”
Are not servants colored? Is the objection, then, to colored people or
to colored people who are not servants? In other words, is this race
prejudice inborn antipathy or a social and economic caste?
SOCIAL CONTROL
By JANE ADDAMS, of Hull House
I always find it very difficult to write upon the great race problem
which we have in America. I think, on the whole, that the most
satisfactory books on the subject are written by people outside of
America. This is certainly true of two books, “White Capital and Black
Labor,” by the Governor of Jamaica, and William Archer’s book entitled
“Afro-America.” Although the latter is inconclusive, it at least gives
one the impression that the man who has written it has seen clearly into
the situation, and that, I suppose, is what it is very difficult for any
American to do.
One thing, however, is clear to all of us, that not only in the South,
but everywhere in America, a strong race antagonism is asserting itself,
which has various modes of lawless and insolent expression. The
contemptuous attitude of the so-called superior race toward the inferior
results in a social segregation of each race, and puts the one race
group thus segregated quite outside the influences of social control
represented by the other. Those inherited resources of the race embodied
in custom and kindly intercourse which make much more for social
restraint than does legal enactment itself are thus made operative only
upon the group which has inherited them, and the newer group which needs
them most is practically left without. Thus in every large city we have
a colony of colored people who have not been brought under social
control, and a majority of the white people in the same community are
tacitly endeavoring to keep from them those restraints which can be
communicated only through social intercourse. One could easily
illustrate this lack of inherited control by comparing the experiences
of a group of colored girls with those of a group representing the
daughters of Italian immigrants, or of any other South European peoples.
The Italian girls very much enjoy the novelty of factory work, the
opportunity to earn money and to dress as Americans do, but this new
freedom of theirs is carefully guarded. Their mothers seldom give them
permission to go to a party in the evening, and never without
chaperonage. Their fathers consider it a point of honor that their
daughters shall not be alone on the streets after dark. The daughter of
the humblest Italian receives this care because her parents are but
carrying out social traditions. A group of colored girls, on the other
hand, are quite without this protection. If they yield more easily to
the temptations of a city than any other girls, who shall say how far
the lack of social restraint is responsible for their downfall? The
Italian parents represent the social traditions which have been worked
out during centuries of civilization, and which often become a deterrent
to progress through the very bigotry with which they cling to them;
nevertheless, it is largely through these customs and manners that new
groups are assimilated into civilization.
Added to this is the fact that a decent colored family, if it is also
poor, often finds it difficult to rent a house save one that is
undesirable, because situated near a red-light district, and the family
in the community least equipped with social tradition is forced to
expose its daughters to the most flagrantly immoral conditions the
community permits. This is but one of the many examples of the harmful
effects of race segregation which might be instanced.
Another result of race antagonism is the readiness to irritation which
in time characterizes the intercourse of the two races. We stupidly
force one race to demand as a right from the other those things which
should be accorded as a courtesy, and every meeting between
representatives of the two races is easily characterized by insolence
and arrogance. To the friction of city life, and the complications of
modern intercourse, is added this primitive race animosity which should
long since have been outgrown. When the white people in a city are
tacitly leagued against the colored people within its borders, the
result is sure to be disastrous, but there are still graver dangers in
permitting the primitive instinct to survive and to become
self-assertive. When race antagonism manifests itself through lynching,
it defiantly insists that it is superior to all those laws which have
been gradually evolved during thousands of years, and which form at once
the record and the instrument of civilization. The fact that this race
antagonism enables the men acting under its impulsion to justify
themselves in their lawlessness constitutes the great danger of the
situation. The men claim that they are executing a primitive retribution
which precedes all law, and in this belief they put themselves in a
position where they cannot be reasoned with, although this dangerous
manifestation must constantly be reckoned with as a deterrent to
progress and a menace to orderly living. Moreover, this race antagonism
is very close to the one thing in human relations which is uglier than
itself, namely, sex antagonism, and in every defense made in its behalf
an appeal to the latter antagonism is closely interwoven. Many men in
every community justify violence when it is committed under the
impulsion of these two antagonisms, and others carelessly assert that
great laws of human intercourse, first and foremost founded upon justice
and right relations between man and man, should thus be disregarded and
destroyed.
If the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will
soberly take up every flagrant case of lawbreaking, and if it allow no
withdrawal of constitutional rights to pass unchallenged, it will
perform a most useful service to America and for the advancement of all
its citizens. Many other opportunities may be open in time to such an
association, but is not this its first and most obvious obligation?
[Illustration: Books]
THE TEACHER.
BY LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL.
Lord, who am I to teach the way
To little children day by day,
So prone myself to go astray?
I teach them _Knowledge_, but I know
How faint they flicker, and how low
The candles of my knowledge glow.
I teach them _Power_ to will and do,
But only now to learn anew
My own great weakness through and through.
I teach them _Love_ for all mankind
And all God’s creatures; but I find
My love comes lagging still behind.
Lord, if their guide I still must be,
O let the little children see
The teacher leaning hard on thee!
Employment of Colored Women in Chicago
From a Study Made by the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy
In considering the field of employment for colored women, the
professional women must be discussed separately. They admit fewer
difficulties and put a brave face on the matter, but in any case their
present position was gained only after a long struggle. The education is
the less difficult part. The great effort is to get the work after
having prepared themselves for it. The Negro woman, like her white
sister, is constantly forced to choose between a lower wage or no work.
The pity is that her own people do not know the colored girl needs their
help nor realize how much they could do for her.
Two of the musicians found the struggle too hard and were compelled to
leave Chicago. One girl of twenty-three, a graduate of the Chicago
Conservatory of Music, is playing in a low concert hall in one of the
worst sections of the city, from 8 in the evening till 4 in the morning.
Her wages are $18 a week, and with this she supports a father and mother
and younger sister.
There are from fifteen to twenty colored teachers in the public schools
of Chicago. This information was obtained from the office of the
superintendent, where it was said no record was kept of the number of
colored teachers. When they are given such a place they are always
warned that they are likely to have difficulty. As a rule they are in
schools where the majority of the children are Negroes. They are all in
the grades, but they say that their opportunities for promotion are
equal to those of white women. Indeed, they say that there are two
places where they are not discriminated against because of their color.
One is in the public schools, the other is under the Civil Service
Commission.
However, the professional women do not have the greatest difficulty. The
real barriers are met by the women who have had only an average
education—girls who have finished high school, or perhaps only the
eighth grade. These girls, if they were white, would find employment at
clerical and office work in Chicago’s department stores, mail order
houses and wholesale stores. But these positions are absolutely closed
to the Negro girl. She has no choice but housework.
When the object of the inquiry was explained to one woman she said:
“Why, no one wants a Negro to work for him. I’ll show you—look in the
newspaper.” And she produced a paper with its columns of advertisements
for help wanted. “See, not one person in this whole city has asked for a
Negro to work for him.”
A great many of the colored women find what they call “day work” most
satisfactory. This means from eight to nine hours a day at some kind of
housework, cleaning, washing, ironing or dusting. This the Negro women
prefer to regular positions as maids, because it allows them to go at
night to their families. The majority of the women who do this work
receive $1.50, with 10 cents extra for carfare. There was a higher grade
of day work for which the pay was $2 a day besides the carfare. This
included the packing of trunks, washing of fine linen and lace curtains,
and even some mending.
The records of the South Side Free Employment Agency showed that the
wages of colored women were uniformly lower than those of white women.
Of course, there is no way of judging of ability by records, but where
the white cooks received $8 per week the Negro cooks were paid $7, and
where the white maids received $6, sometimes, but not as frequently as
in the case of the cooks, the Negro maid received less. One dollar and a
half was paid for “day work.” At the colored employment agency which is
run in connection with the Frederic Douglas Centre they have many more
requests for maids than they have girls to fill the places. Good places
with high wages are sometimes offered, but the girls are more and more
demanding “day work” and refusing to work by the week. At the South Side
Free Employment Agency during the months of January, February and March
of this year forty-two positions for colored women were found.[2] These
forty-two positions were filled by thirty-six women, some of them coming
back to the office two or three times during the three months. The
superintendent said it was difficult to find places for the colored
women who applied, and they probably succeeded in placing only about 25
per cent. of them. In the opinion of those finding the work for the
girls in this office, the reason for the difficulties they encounter are
the fact that they do not remain long in one place and have a general
reputation for dishonesty. The fundamental cause of the discrimination
by employers against them is racial prejudice either in the employer
himself or in his customers.
Footnote 2:
454 white women in the same time.
One girl who has only a trace of colored blood was able to secure a
position as salesgirl in a store. After she had been there a long time
she asked for an increase in wages, such as had been allowed the white
girls, but the request was refused and she was told that she ought to be
thankful that they kept her at all.
In many cases, especially when the women were living alone, the
earnings, plus the income from the lodgers, barely covered the rent.
When they work by the day they rarely work more than four days a week.
Sometimes the amount they gave as their weekly wage fell short of even
paying the rent, but more often the rent was covered and a very small
margin left to live on.
Such treatment has discouraged the Negro woman. She has accepted the
conditions and seldom makes any real effort to get into other sorts of
work. The twelfth question on the schedule, “What attempts have you made
to secure other kinds of work in Chicago or elsewhere?” was usually
answered by a question: “What’s the use of trying to get work when you
know you can’t get it?”
The colored women are like white women in the same grade of life. They
do not realize the need of careful training, and they do not appreciate
the advantages of specialization in their work. But the Negro woman is
especially handicapped, for she not only lacks training but must
overcome the prejudice against her color. Of the 270 women interviewed,
43 per cent. were doing some form of housework for wages, yet all
evidence of conscious training was entirely lacking. This need must be
brought home to them before they can expect any real advancement.
A peculiar problem presents itself in connection with the housework.
Practically this is the only occupation open to Negro women, and it is
also the only occupation where one is not expected to go home at night.
This the Negroes insist on doing. They are accused of having no family
feeling, yet the fact remains that they will accept a lower wage and
live under far less advantageous conditions for the sake of being free
at night. That is why the “day work” is so popular. Rather than live in
some other person’s home and get good wages for continued service, the
colored woman prefers to live in this way. She will have a tiny room, go
out as many days a week as she can get places, and pay for her room and
part of her board out of her earnings, which sometimes amount to only $3
or $4.50 per week.
Occasionally laundry, sewing or hair work is done in their homes, but
the day work is almost universally preferred.
Many of the Negroes are so nearly white that they can be mistaken for
white girls, in which case they are able to secure very good positions
and keep them as long as their color is not known.
One girl worked for a fellowship at the Art Institute. Her work was good
and the place was promised her. In making out the papers she said Negro,
when asked her nationality, to the great astonishment of the man in
charge. He said he would have to look into the matter, but the girl did
not get the fellowship.
A young man, son of a colored minister in the city, had a position in a
business man’s office, kept the books, collected rents, etc. He had a
peculiar name, and one of the tenants remembered it in connection with
the boy’s father, who had all the physical characteristics of the Negro.
The tenant made inquiries and reported the matter to the landlord,
threatening to leave the building if he had to pay rent to a Negro. The
boy was discharged.
A colored girl, who was very light colored, said that more than once she
secured a place and the colored people themselves had told the employer
he had a “Negro” working for him. The woman with whom she was living
said: “It’s true every time. The Negroes are their own worst enemies.”
To summarize, the isolation which is forced upon the Negro, both in his
social and his business life, constitutes one of the principal
difficulties which he encounters. As far as the colored woman is
concerned, as we have shown, the principal occupations which are open to
her are domestic service and school teaching. This leaves a large number
of women whose education has given them ambitions beyond housework, who
are not fitted to compete with northern teachers and yet cannot obtain
clerical work because they are Negroes. Certain fields in which there is
apparently an opportunity for the colored women are little tried. For
example, sewing is profitable and there is little feeling against the
employment of Negro seamstresses, and yet few follow the dressmaking
profession.
Without doubt one fundamental reason for the difficulties the colored
woman meets in seeking employment is her lack of industrial training.
The white woman suffers from this also, but the colored woman doubly so.
The most hopeful sign is the growing conviction on the part of the
leading Negro women of the city that there is need of co-operation
between them and the uneducated and unskilled, and that they are trying
to find some practical means to give to these women the much-needed
training for industrial life.
[Illustration: Books]
THE BURDEN
_If blood be the price of liberty,
If blood be the price of liberty,
If blood be the price of liberty,
Lord God, we have paid in full._
COLORED MEN LYNCHED WITHOUT TRIAL.
1885 78
1886 71
1887 80
1888 95
1889 95
1890 90
1891 121
1892 155
1893 154
1894 134
1895 112
1896 80
1897 122
1898 102
1899 84
1900 107
1901 107
1902 86
1903 86
1904 83
1905[3] 60
1906[3] 60
1907[3] 60
1908[3] 80
1909 73
1910[4] 50
—————
Total 2,425
Footnote 3:
Estimated.
Footnote 4:
Estimated to date.
* * * * *